Washington's Wake

Posts Tagged ‘Inflation’

Yes it’s time for yet another game of Name That Political Party. You know the rules. If the pol is a republican, never forget to name the party. If it’s a democrat pol, never name the party. Those are the groundrules. Now here’s today’s contestant, Gov Bill Ritter.

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter has awarded some of the state’s first stimulus money to his former employer in a no-bid contract.

Ritter hired his former law firm, the Washington-based Hogan & Hartson, in a no-bid contract to review stimulus spending, The Denver Post reported Friday. It said the firm was paid $40,000 in stimulus money through June.

Ah. Gotta love those no bid contracts. And to his former law firm. So quickly contestants, name that political party!

Bzzt. That’s right. He’s a democrat. But you wouldn’t know that by reading the AP story. You’d have to act like a real journalist and get the facts.

I know with all the gaffes that Joe Biden gives us, it seems he is capable of the truth every now and then. Well sort of…

“The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy,” Biden told me during our exclusive “This Week” interview in Iraq.

Biden acknowledged administration officials were too optimistic earlier this year when they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at 8 percent as part of their effort to sell the stimulus package. The national unemployment rate has ballooned to 9.5 percent in June — the worst in 26 years.

Sorry Joe, not everyone misread the economy. Only those suck up economists trying to get a job in the administration or were carrying water for you, right Paul Krugman? Anyways, there were many people saying things were going badly and this political deficit spending was nothing but a political payback that would not help the economy.

Of course that wasn’t what HRH The Sun King wanted to hear so he didn’t hear it and went ahead with his plan, damn the torpedoes. And things will go much worse if he continues with his orgy of spending now known as health care reform. When you’re in a hole, stop digging. As we’ve said before, it’s the spending stupid. So stop spending my money.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123793742263531857.html

Years of no-money-down car loans followed by sinking home values and rising unemployment has made many people desperate over car payments they can no longer afford. For some, the answer is to ditch the car, report it stolen and collect the insurance money to pay it off without hurting their credit.

I can’t help but wonder if they’re premature in ditching the vehicles? If we’re about to go into hyper-inflation, wouldn’t they be best to hold out another month or two and up the value of the car?

I guess if you’re about to be repo’d time isn’t on your side, but still…