Couldn’t Help But Comment ….. (020609, Morning)
Tax Cheat Tim Geithner has looked at Japan’s zombie economy (HT Instapundit) of the 1990s, and concluded that their problem was that the country didn’t spend enough.
He would be in this camp (keep in mind that this is in the New York Times):
After years of heavy spending in the first half of the 1990s, economists say, Japan’s leaders grew concerned about growing budget deficits and cut back too soon, snuffing out the recovery in its infancy, much as Roosevelt did to the American economy in 1936.
Since the Times only quoted one economist, Jacob Weinstein, who buys into this blather, I’m concluding that the term “economists” refers to “Weinstein, Paul Krugman, and Paul Krugman.” While these guys talk of three- to five- to ten-year plans, the US economy recovered lickety-split from the 2000-2001 downturn and 2002’s relatively mediocre growth in 2003 once the investment-related Bush tax cuts passed.
___________________________________________
Related — Tax Cheat Tim holds himself as some kind of financial expert.
Trouble is …. (brace yourself) …. he apparently …. (I warned you) …. doesn’t like math. Additionally, echoing unnamed financial execs in a November New York Times article (unnamed because they fear what Geithner might do to them once in charge if they went on the record), “Some question his technical skills.”
___________________________________________
And the band plays on — “Obama names ‘most fined’ Washington State bureaucrat to (second in command at) HUD.”
___________________________________________
And the band plays on II — “Hilda Solis, Labor nominee, faces tax questions.”
They have to do with her husband’s business:
Public records show that since 1993, two state and 14 Los Angeles County tax liens totaling about $11,640 have been lodged against Sayyad and his business, Sam’s Foreign and Domestic Auto Center.
The documents indicate that $6,468 in county liens remained unresolved until Wednesday, when Sayyad paid off the balance, according to the Los Angeles County treasurer and tax collector’s office.
The supposedly awesome Obama vetting team “conceded it had not discovered (these public-record liens) on its own.”
___________________________________________
Troubling thought of the day: Is it possible that for every Obama administration problem being found, several are slipping by unnoticed?
