While it has that objectiveness that comes from the outside man is refreshingly real, I find it strange that Stockman hits on Wall Street twice..
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a false signal to Congress that sovereign debt is virtually free and a message to Wall Street that says, 'Go back to reckless speculation.
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The market has gone nowhere in the past 12 months. It reflects a MUCH healthier evaluation of "real worth" in that the P/E ratios have shaken out to more realistic values. In fact, the entire economy including Wall Street has been held hostage by indecision on tax issues, energy issues, healthcare issues, war resolutions, and general lack of definition in the 1st 2 years of an all Democrat show.. No "reckless speculation" to be found.
And -- this is ill-considered..
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If we have a Tobin tax - a small tax on every transaction in this casino we used to call the stock market - we can easily generate $100 billion in revenue. We have a massive high-frequency churning in these markets today, and they're not accomplishing anything that's productive for the rejuvenation of the private economy.
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After all the class-warfare rhetoric about wall street/banker bonuses, salaries, that was implied as "stealing" from the 401Ks and investments of the "common investor" -- somehow having the FEDS suck off this same teat to the tune of $100B a year or so is just peachy. I might lose a couple bucks a year in fees to the Wall Street maggot crowd, but once the govt gets a hand in the till, I'm sure I'll feel that even more..
"Churning" in the market is NOT non-productive. Although there's a casino aspect to how the market behaves, the volume of trades aids in defining the correct price for every asset. A market that doesn't churn, isn't as predictive. It's in the process of over or under estimating the assets..
Other than that, when you look at the balance between outlays and revenues, there is a natural balance rate of about 18% of GDP all the way from the 50s thru the 90s.
http://nationalpriorities.org/resour...2015-perc-gdp/
That last bit of the graph shows the unmitigated irresponsibility that lost the Dems the House and created the Tea Party. I've kinda decided that I would actually support tax increases if they were done across the board. I do that KNOWING it's gonna kick the shit out of this drifting economy. Kinda like chemotherapy.. You poison the whole system to TRY and defeat the cancer. It will also leave the Dems and MSNBC with virtually NOTHING to offer -- so the whining will stop..
But I'm not ready for that sacrifice if the critters in Congress won't return the remaining stimulus to the Treasury, end our wars abroad, and sell off their "investments" that were made in cars, banks and insurance companies.