Economics 101 and The Songwriters Festival
www.waltonsun.com
1/22/2011
We closed the 2011 30A Songwriters Festival with The Shadowboxers at Pandoras. Chronic Jester was just a little too late for us. Friday night Mike Whitty played Shorty?s Upstairs. Later, he swapped guitars and got on stage with Pale Blue Dot at Pandora?s, but that?s another story. He was number three on the totem pole and had to follow Katie Rogers and Roy Schneider. It amazes me how performing songwriters can follow an act that blew the audience away. Composers of the written word catch a break. John Steinbeck never had to go on stage after Dr. Hunter Thompson.
Just a few hours earlier my fingers were hovering over the keyboard trying to get something down since deadline was looming. I got lucky ? Shorty?s oozed creativity and a little bit stuck on me.
Mike?s right. We are living in a house of cards ... a credit card. We put both the Bush and Obama tax cuts on a credit card. Old folks vote, so Medicare Part D goes on the credit card. Remember Axis of Evil? So we invade Iraq, again on a credit card. Just kick the can down the road, let someone else pay for it.
The drumbeat in Washington involves reducing the nation?s deficit ? generally by eliminating waste and abuse. We need leadership not talking points. Our country must have a sustainable budget, but ?waste and abuse? is nothing more than a red herring. Reducing spending will solve the deficit but your pet programs ? whatever they may be ? will have to be drastically cut. If we want to grow the economy we should fund, not cut, education and infrastructure.
Long-time tax cut advocate Alan Greenspan finally admits the harsh truth. In numerous interviews, but most recently in the staunchly conservative Wall Street Journal, Greenspan warns the risk of a bond market crisis is so great he reverses himself and favors raising taxes immediately. (Wall Street Journal, Jan. 8, 2011). Raising taxes appeases no one, including yours truly, but President Reagan raised taxes. Yes, he did and he did it often. Reagan raised business taxes in 1982, payroll taxes in 1983 and increased energy taxes in 1984 (Forbes, Feb. 3, 2010).
Reuters found that more than 70 percent of Americans do not favor raising the nation?s debt limit. In a complete denial of arithmetic most of the same Americans did not want to reduce spending either. Cutting the budgets of financial regulation does gain modest support (53 percent). Remember financial chicanery aided and abetted the 2008 fiscal crisis. Reducing oversight will be little more than penny-wise and pound-foolish. The 700-pound gorilla is Medicare spending and hardly anyone (23 percent) wants to reduce the popular program?s costs. Failure to raise the debt ceiling, as unpopular as it may be, could shock the economy much like Lehman Brothers? collapse in 2008.
Thanks again for the help, Mike. My friends, Dread Clampitt, speak the truth, ?We are in this together?. Thanks to the Cultural Arts Association, the organizers and especially the volunteers. The Songwriters Festival is the best thing on 30A.
Buz Livingston is a certified financial planner. He operates Livingston Financial Planning Inc. focusing on hourly financial planning and investment management. Contact him directly at 850-267-1068 or at buz@LivingstonFinancial.net.
www.waltonsun.com
1/22/2011
We closed the 2011 30A Songwriters Festival with The Shadowboxers at Pandoras. Chronic Jester was just a little too late for us. Friday night Mike Whitty played Shorty?s Upstairs. Later, he swapped guitars and got on stage with Pale Blue Dot at Pandora?s, but that?s another story. He was number three on the totem pole and had to follow Katie Rogers and Roy Schneider. It amazes me how performing songwriters can follow an act that blew the audience away. Composers of the written word catch a break. John Steinbeck never had to go on stage after Dr. Hunter Thompson.
Just a few hours earlier my fingers were hovering over the keyboard trying to get something down since deadline was looming. I got lucky ? Shorty?s oozed creativity and a little bit stuck on me.
Mike?s right. We are living in a house of cards ... a credit card. We put both the Bush and Obama tax cuts on a credit card. Old folks vote, so Medicare Part D goes on the credit card. Remember Axis of Evil? So we invade Iraq, again on a credit card. Just kick the can down the road, let someone else pay for it.
The drumbeat in Washington involves reducing the nation?s deficit ? generally by eliminating waste and abuse. We need leadership not talking points. Our country must have a sustainable budget, but ?waste and abuse? is nothing more than a red herring. Reducing spending will solve the deficit but your pet programs ? whatever they may be ? will have to be drastically cut. If we want to grow the economy we should fund, not cut, education and infrastructure.
Long-time tax cut advocate Alan Greenspan finally admits the harsh truth. In numerous interviews, but most recently in the staunchly conservative Wall Street Journal, Greenspan warns the risk of a bond market crisis is so great he reverses himself and favors raising taxes immediately. (Wall Street Journal, Jan. 8, 2011). Raising taxes appeases no one, including yours truly, but President Reagan raised taxes. Yes, he did and he did it often. Reagan raised business taxes in 1982, payroll taxes in 1983 and increased energy taxes in 1984 (Forbes, Feb. 3, 2010).
Reuters found that more than 70 percent of Americans do not favor raising the nation?s debt limit. In a complete denial of arithmetic most of the same Americans did not want to reduce spending either. Cutting the budgets of financial regulation does gain modest support (53 percent). Remember financial chicanery aided and abetted the 2008 fiscal crisis. Reducing oversight will be little more than penny-wise and pound-foolish. The 700-pound gorilla is Medicare spending and hardly anyone (23 percent) wants to reduce the popular program?s costs. Failure to raise the debt ceiling, as unpopular as it may be, could shock the economy much like Lehman Brothers? collapse in 2008.
Thanks again for the help, Mike. My friends, Dread Clampitt, speak the truth, ?We are in this together?. Thanks to the Cultural Arts Association, the organizers and especially the volunteers. The Songwriters Festival is the best thing on 30A.
Buz Livingston is a certified financial planner. He operates Livingston Financial Planning Inc. focusing on hourly financial planning and investment management. Contact him directly at 850-267-1068 or at buz@LivingstonFinancial.net.
