Financieel beleid Bush (was: Muziekindustrie in de vs)

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

"Mark Giebels" <mark at giebels.org> schreef:
> De corrupte muziekindustrie volgens Mark Morford (columnist SF Gate).
> directe link:
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2003/02/12/
> notes021203.DTL
> of via de site:
> http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/archive/
>
> Helaas woonde ik in 2000 nog niet in California, dus nu maar wachten tot
> Dubya me een check als voorschot op zijn belastingverlagingsplannen gaat
> opsturen. Ja, zo word je wel populair in de VS. Alhoewel die Greenspan
> wel begint te morren over het financiele beleid van 'ShrubCo'. Zou Bush

Iets meer dan 'morren' had het dus moeten zijn!
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/14/opinion/14KRUG.html
On the Second Day, Atlas Waffled

Dear Alan Greenspan:
After reading your recent testimony, I'd like to share some
Objectivist philosophy with you. As a disciple of Ayn Rand, you'll
undoubtedly appreciate it. Here it is, from John Galt's big speech in
"Atlas Shrugged": "A is A: non-contradiction."

John Galt wouldn't be very happy with you right now.

On Tuesday you went some distance toward repairing your reputation
and steering the country away from fiscal disaster. But the next day
you appeared to waffle.

In your initial remarks you more or less acknowledged the grim fiscal
outlook. As your discussion of "accrual" accounting made clear, you
know that if the federal budget took into account the future
liabilities of Social Security and Medicare — as it should — it
wouldn't show the "modest" deficits the White House talks about; it
would show a government deep in the red.

Yet here's what you said on Wednesday: "Actually, it turns out that
we do not really have a fiscal problem of moment until we get beyond
the end of this decade . . . deficits even under the president's
program beyond these next two years [will be] in areas where the rate
of debt to G.D.P. does not move up in any way which suggests we are
in an unstable system."

There's a strict interpretation in which that statement is true. But
it was widely read as a gesture of appeasement to the Bushies, as you
surely knew it would be. And neither you nor the country can afford
that kind of appeasement.

Surely you aren't going to let rosy budget projections snooker you,
yet again, into supporting irresponsible tax cuts? By now you know
that this administration always projects big budget improvement two
years ahead; but every six months it marks its projection down
another $140 billion or so, blaming outside events. Independent
analysts, who take into account the stuff the administration pretends
doesn't exist — the war, the alternative minimum tax, and so on —
think we're looking at deficits of 3 or 4 percent of G.D.P., maybe
more, for the next decade. And then it will get much worse.

Moreover, since you advocate accrual accounting, you obviously
realize that the ratio of debt to G.D.P. is a highly misleading
number. Properly measured, the U.S. fiscal system is already
"unstable" — and the new Bush proposals would quickly push it past
what you called the "point of no return."

Fed chairmen aren't allowed to speculate about disaster scenarios, so
let me do it for you. If the administration gets what it wants,
within a decade — or perhaps sooner — the United States will have
budget fundamentals comparable to Brazil's a year ago. The ratios of
debt and deficits to G.D.P. won't be all that high by historical
standards, but the bond market will look ahead and see that things
don't add up: the rich have been promised low tax rates, middle-class
baby boomers have been promised pensions and medical care, and the
government can't meet all those promises while paying interest on its
debt. Fears that the government will solve its problem by inflating
away its debt will drive up interest rates, worsening the deficit,
and things will spiral out of control.

So why are you still giving these people political cover?

No doubt you're under intense pressure to be a team player. But these
guys are users: they persuade other people to squander their hard-won
credibility on behalf of bad policies, then discard those people once
they are no longer useful. Think of John DiIulio, or your friend Paul
O'Neill. It's happening to Colin Powell right now. (A digression: The
U.S. media are soft-pedaling it as usual, but the business of the
Osama tape has destroyed Mr. Powell's credibility in much of the
world. The tape calls Saddam Hussein an "infidel" whose "jurisdiction
. . . has fallen," but says that it's still O.K. to fight the
"Crusaders" — and Mr. Powell claims that it ties Saddam to Al Qaeda.
Huh? All it shows is that Al Qaeda views a U.S. invasion of Iraq as
an excellent recruiting opportunity.)

Two years ago you acted as George W. Bush's enabler; you share part
of the blame for our plunge into deficit. But now the situation is
truly dire. If you waffle now, and take the easy way out, your
reputation — and the country's finances — will quickly pass the point
of no return.

Cees: Pijnlijke analyse van Powell's positie overigens (als een van
de 'used'). Voor wat betreft het commentaar van Krugman op
Greenspan's oordeel over het huidige financiele beleid van Bush geen
enkele ruimte voor twijfel :).

> het aandurven zelfs deze bijna goddelijke criticus unpatriotic te
> noemen?

Was dus niet nodig.

>
> Groetjes,
> Mark

Groet,

Cees

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