10. The U.S. is not in a recession
9. The U.S. economy is sound
8. Hank Paulson has a handle on solving the credit crisis
7. The next president will fix this mess
6. When the credit crisis is fixed and the housing market turns around, we will be fine
5. Everything will be all right, we always get through these things in America
4.Government will set this right
3. We have bottomed out
2. Renewable energy will work
1. And the number one myth in 2008–don’t sell your equities, it’s absolutely the wrong thing to do. (hang in there until you have lost 75% or more, you could miss the turnaround and it will only take you 10 years to get back to even)
Ever get the idea that the powers to be are wrong about too many things today. In any situation you only get so many wrongs regardless of how big you are, how much history is on your side, and how deep your pockets reach. You have to get the big ones right. Or at least a few.
The United States was wrong about Iraq’s WMD. The U.S. has been wrong on energy for 30 years and we aren’t going to get it right for a few more. Social engineering brought about the housing problem. The idea that every American should own a house whether they could pay for it or not was big time wrong. ( Is the idea that every American should have health care equally wrong?) Global warming might be wrong. Put the cost of that on our train wreck of an economy and see how we absorb that. The idea that we must solve all the world’s problems might be very wrong. The world is getting bigger and we aren’t keeping pace. The premise that we can defer all the problems we are facing like social security and medicare is problematical. The thought that we have the right people in office to do the job must be an issue since they have a single digit approval rating.
If you do the right thing and work hard and invest you will be OK. Really? Where did the $8 trillion in retirement money go? What about loan swaps? Where did that money go? When will the hedge funds be gone and all the equities they had invested money in be settled? What will that do to the market and the economy? What will we use to make up the tax dollars that are going to be lost with zero capital gains, little, if any, dividend income, and fewer and fewer jobs? When will the current lower real estate reassessments hit ,and how will cities and schools cover expenses when they do?
Senator Obama you had better tax those rich people fast and hard since there will be fewer and fewer of them for you to tax next year.
Bad decision piled on bad decision compounded over years and years. The bills are coming in and we can only hope we can find the resources and will to fix this massive problem.
Worst of all neither candidate running for president has a clue. And, you wonder why it’s getting harder and harder to sell the public new myths.
I think you should go on Letterman and do your top 10 list. I would agree with all of your comments, but what seems to be different right now is the American public has finally gotten more involved with what is going on and are pretty mad and finally speaking out.
Assuming we all continue calling, sending letters and telling congress they need to take action will eventually get them to move forward with passing an energy bill that will get us off foreign oil. Here are my top ten things to do for getting our country moving in the right direction:
1. Elect John McCain and Sarah Palin
2. Get Congress to enact a comprehensive Energy Plan that requires us to take advantage of Oil, Tar Sands, Natural Gas, Clean Coal, Nuclear Power, Wind, Solar and anything else that will reduce our energy dependence from Foreign Oil
3. Restructure & Minimize Government agencies and employees and make them get a real job
4. Slash Government Spending, eliminate earmarks and make it illegal for Government employees to receive ANY contributions from any Lobbyist organization, including the environmentalist
5. Enact Term Limits for Federal & Local Government candidates and their staffs
6. Eliminate the IRS and enact the Fair Tax
7. Drastically reduce or eliminate Business Income Taxes, but require them to reinvest those saving into their businesses to create jobs
8. Enact Government Annual Budget approval by referendum vote by the voters and require Government to meet that budget
9. Eliminate and make it illegal for Government to bail out or have any financial interest or connection with publicly owned companies.
10. Cut all spending to foreign countries until we have paid off our financial debt and take our country back and put it back in the hands of the American people