Sell the horses. Sell the cows. Sell 'em all. Sell 'em now.

[wombat_socho]

This morning-after political crap is worse than crack, I tell you, and there doesn't seem to be any escaping it in the blogosphere or on LJ. (I know, I'm not helping.)

There are a lot of people out there echoing what Congressman Mike Pence is saying - the Democrats didn't win this race, the GOP lost it by not doing its damn job, what people elected us to do. Economist John Seater goes into specifics over at Donald Luskin's blog, and David Strom of the Taxpayers' League puts a local spin on the national failure of the GOP. Some good people got thrown out along with the bums, but as the proverb says, lie down with dogs, get up with fleas...and as we all know from history, some fleas do more than just suck your blood.

Comments

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

a) letting Iraq distract us from the original goal of catching Bin Laden and stabilizing Afghanistan, b) letting the economy go wonky, and c) having MANY of their members turn up in scandals of every color.

.333's a respectable batting average, and most of us Republicans would agree with you on C. A - a lot of folks don't think we've done ENOUGH in Iraq. As for B - what kind of statistics are you looking at that tell you the economy stinks? The unemployment rate is at 4%, inflation is effectively zero, and on Wall Street, the bulls are running again.

No, the GOP majority in Congress was elected to cut the Federal government, fight the war on terror (which included rebuilding the military), and fix taxes and Social Security. They completely failed on the first, did an okay job on the second (to the point where it really wasn't an issue for most folks this year) and did a half-ass job on the last one. I think Mike Pence is absolutely right - Congress lost its way and deserved to get spanked.

[chebutykin.livejournal.com]

a lot of folks don't think we've done ENOUGH in Iraq

And I agree with them. We need an exit strategy that includes getting that country back on its feet, and I think that the new Dems have that in mind. What I was getting at is that we were still in the midst of things in Afghanistan (and still are, and are still struggling with it) when we went and invaded a second country. Isn't there some old chestnut about not fighting on two fronts?

On the economy: http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8079134

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

We've always had an exit strategy in Iraq. It's called victory, defined as having a democratically-elected government (check) with an economy that can support the ongoing police war against die-hard Saddamists, foreign jihadis, and sectarian assholes (almost there) and a security forces that can conduct that war without the current large American presence. What we did in Germany, Japan, and Korea, basically, even if it's taken the ROKs almost fifty years to get the democracy thing right.

The Economist article is talking about the long-term, and they hedge more than a mutual fund adviser. Show me some bad statistics about now or the near-term.

[chebutykin.livejournal.com]

What, the housing bubble isn't here-and-now enough for you? If prices fall and intrest rates go up even small amounts, the market could wipe out nearly everyone who bought within the last several years, especially if they're on those ubiquitous flexible-rate mortgages:

http://patrick.net/housing/crash.html
http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/08/26/weekinreview/27leon_graph2.large.gif

(will comment more later... gotta go to work)

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Well, now that W and the Democrats are going to amnesty every illegal alien that doesn't show up with a bomb or a gun, I think the housing market's going to reinflate, but that's just my opinion. As far as it being a bubble now, don't make me laugh. The Dot-Bomb bubble, now that was a bubble. Millions of dollars vaporized, thousands thrown out of work, companies collapsing like houses of cards because there was really nothing holding them up but hype. Houses may drop in value, and a lot of people who are overextended may take it in the shorts, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for those people - if you were dumb enough to buy a house with an ARM because you thought interest rates were going to be flat forever, you deserve the rewards of your stupidity. (I admit to refinancing my old house with an ARM, but I knew I was going to sell it before the initial rate expired. Different story.) The houses will still be there, they'll still be worth something, and people will probably buy them at the lower price. It won't be like pets.com and their orphaned sock puppet.