It's the end of another year and we are assailed by the usual year-end summaries and hoopla over New Year resolutions. I have never broken a New Year resolution. It's because I have never made one.
Life is complicated enough - no use cluttering it up with resolutions made to be broken. If you want to lose weight, eat fewer sweets, exercise more, save more money, forget about resolving it - just go ahead and do it.
But then, making resolutions is a rather harmless exercise in futility.
Take saving and investing, for instance. I just received a multi-page ad for a financial newsletter. This suede shoe artist claims to have predicted every major economic event for the last half century. With this sterling record behind him, he's now predicting deflation. He suggests selling your assets and converting to cash and, of course, subscribing to his newsletter to follow his sage advice through the financial wilderness.
While this peddler of economic snake oil is predicting deflation, other charlatans are predicting hyperinflation, brought on by the Fed's expansionary monetary policy. Both sides can't be right.
A more likely scenario is a slowly recovering economy with mild inflation in the near term. OK, so we economists can't predict the future. But neither can anyone else.
Speaking of the economy, observers appear to be "baffled" by its slow recovery. There isn't much to be baffled about. America's middle class has been shrinking for several decades. The vast bulk of the wealth produced over the last several decades has accrued to a very few at the top of the income pyramid. There is increasing distance between the super-wealthy and the middle class. And many who once were comfortably middle class are now working poor or unemployed.
Unless or until more wealth of America accrues to those who help produce it, that is, to its working middle class, there will not be enough income and spending power to take potential production off the market. The economy will continue to operate far below its full employment capacity. The remedy will involve political decisions about which I am not optimistic.
And speaking of politics, there is an old saw that says, "No good deed goes unpunished." Much of America's remaining middle class, virtually all of its upper middle class, all of its super-rich, its chattering class, and top politicians have good health insurance. It's the working poor, blue-collar workers whose jobs have been outsourced and offshore, working moms at low wage jobs, the unemployed, and those in poverty who don't have it.
President Obama is rightly trying to do something about it - a tough proposition when opposed by those whose major objective is to see him fail. For his efforts, he is being severely punished by Republicans, the Tea Party, and the mainstream media, including National Public Radio (NPR).
I'm not asking the mainstream media or NPR to carry the President's freight for him. But how about hammering as hard on the inefficiency and inequity of the current health insurance system as they are hammering on the President for trying to correct it?
But of course the easy and safe route is to follow the herd and to beat up on the President when he's down, this especially when it's mainly the politically unconnected and disenfranchised he's trying to help.
This entire imbroglio is demonstrating to politicians that there is not only no political gain, but they will be punished for trying to do anything for the politically unconnected. If those politicians opposed to the Affordable Care Act really wanted to solve the problem, they would work with the President instead of simply trying to "make him fail."
The above is doubtlessly is an unpopular point of view. But however unpopular the opinion, a columnist owes to his readers more than repeating the mindless clichés of the sheep in the national media. The malfeasance of the mainstream media can be frustrating.
Speaking of frustration, readers may recall that I opined that the Packers are not going anywhere this season, with or without Rodgers. But it was indeed a heartwarming, spectacular comeback against the Cowboys a couple weeks ago. Great, but it was against a defense rated even weaker than that of the Packers. And against the Steelers, the Pack's special teams demonstrated once again that they must be the league's worst.
Thanks to the recent collapse of Chicago and Detroit, the Pack still has a chance for the playoffs, if they can beat da Bears this Sunday. If they don't, we're used to heartbreak football in this neck of the woods.
Once the Packers are out of it, I like the Seahawks, with former Badger Russell Wilson. He's a class guy, on and off the field - the guy that the media nitwits said was "too short" to make it in the NFL. Besides, his victories at Wisconsin were against the Big 10 Little Sisters of the Poor, and hence didn't prove anything, according to the media numb nuts, that is.
And speaking of the Badgers, there's the forthcoming New Year's bash against the South Carolina Gamecocks, who are rated six notches above the Badgers. As a UW grad, I'm sure hoping the Badgers can bring some respect back to the Big 10.
They have had some past success against high profile teams. But the media sycophants never mention that several years ago the under-rated Badgers beat Auburn and Arkansas in successive bowl games. I recall that Auburn players were bitching because they wanted to play a higher profile team than the unsung Badgers. Serves 'em right that the Badgers beat them. But still no respect from the media nitwits.
So, maybe with the New Year, there's still some hope, for the economy, and for the President who tries against all odds to do what is right. And who knows, maybe even for the Pack, and the Badgers.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
Life is complicated enough - no use cluttering it up with resolutions made to be broken. If you want to lose weight, eat fewer sweets, exercise more, save more money, forget about resolving it - just go ahead and do it.
But then, making resolutions is a rather harmless exercise in futility.
Take saving and investing, for instance. I just received a multi-page ad for a financial newsletter. This suede shoe artist claims to have predicted every major economic event for the last half century. With this sterling record behind him, he's now predicting deflation. He suggests selling your assets and converting to cash and, of course, subscribing to his newsletter to follow his sage advice through the financial wilderness.
While this peddler of economic snake oil is predicting deflation, other charlatans are predicting hyperinflation, brought on by the Fed's expansionary monetary policy. Both sides can't be right.
A more likely scenario is a slowly recovering economy with mild inflation in the near term. OK, so we economists can't predict the future. But neither can anyone else.
Speaking of the economy, observers appear to be "baffled" by its slow recovery. There isn't much to be baffled about. America's middle class has been shrinking for several decades. The vast bulk of the wealth produced over the last several decades has accrued to a very few at the top of the income pyramid. There is increasing distance between the super-wealthy and the middle class. And many who once were comfortably middle class are now working poor or unemployed.
Unless or until more wealth of America accrues to those who help produce it, that is, to its working middle class, there will not be enough income and spending power to take potential production off the market. The economy will continue to operate far below its full employment capacity. The remedy will involve political decisions about which I am not optimistic.
And speaking of politics, there is an old saw that says, "No good deed goes unpunished." Much of America's remaining middle class, virtually all of its upper middle class, all of its super-rich, its chattering class, and top politicians have good health insurance. It's the working poor, blue-collar workers whose jobs have been outsourced and offshore, working moms at low wage jobs, the unemployed, and those in poverty who don't have it.
President Obama is rightly trying to do something about it - a tough proposition when opposed by those whose major objective is to see him fail. For his efforts, he is being severely punished by Republicans, the Tea Party, and the mainstream media, including National Public Radio (NPR).
I'm not asking the mainstream media or NPR to carry the President's freight for him. But how about hammering as hard on the inefficiency and inequity of the current health insurance system as they are hammering on the President for trying to correct it?
But of course the easy and safe route is to follow the herd and to beat up on the President when he's down, this especially when it's mainly the politically unconnected and disenfranchised he's trying to help.
This entire imbroglio is demonstrating to politicians that there is not only no political gain, but they will be punished for trying to do anything for the politically unconnected. If those politicians opposed to the Affordable Care Act really wanted to solve the problem, they would work with the President instead of simply trying to "make him fail."
The above is doubtlessly is an unpopular point of view. But however unpopular the opinion, a columnist owes to his readers more than repeating the mindless clichés of the sheep in the national media. The malfeasance of the mainstream media can be frustrating.
Speaking of frustration, readers may recall that I opined that the Packers are not going anywhere this season, with or without Rodgers. But it was indeed a heartwarming, spectacular comeback against the Cowboys a couple weeks ago. Great, but it was against a defense rated even weaker than that of the Packers. And against the Steelers, the Pack's special teams demonstrated once again that they must be the league's worst.
Thanks to the recent collapse of Chicago and Detroit, the Pack still has a chance for the playoffs, if they can beat da Bears this Sunday. If they don't, we're used to heartbreak football in this neck of the woods.
Once the Packers are out of it, I like the Seahawks, with former Badger Russell Wilson. He's a class guy, on and off the field - the guy that the media nitwits said was "too short" to make it in the NFL. Besides, his victories at Wisconsin were against the Big 10 Little Sisters of the Poor, and hence didn't prove anything, according to the media numb nuts, that is.
And speaking of the Badgers, there's the forthcoming New Year's bash against the South Carolina Gamecocks, who are rated six notches above the Badgers. As a UW grad, I'm sure hoping the Badgers can bring some respect back to the Big 10.
They have had some past success against high profile teams. But the media sycophants never mention that several years ago the under-rated Badgers beat Auburn and Arkansas in successive bowl games. I recall that Auburn players were bitching because they wanted to play a higher profile team than the unsung Badgers. Serves 'em right that the Badgers beat them. But still no respect from the media nitwits.
So, maybe with the New Year, there's still some hope, for the economy, and for the President who tries against all odds to do what is right. And who knows, maybe even for the Pack, and the Badgers.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
