Rays of Light: February 2009

The flushing sound of the American Economy

This afternoon, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the stimulus bill. The bill obligates the country to spend $786 billion dollars of money that it does not have. The actual amount of stimulus included in the bill is only somewhere between ten and thirty percent, which means that at least $550 billion of it is old fashion pork. Most economists do not think that this bill will do much good, and the stock market promptly dropped another 5%. Worse, in his remarks at the bill signing, President Obama indicated that there is more to come. It is likely that we will see at least one, if not two, additional stimulus bills this calendar year.

But there is a concern that is larger than the debt that we are saddling onto our children and grandchildren. There is a move brewing in Washington to nationalize the banks. President Obama suggested on Friday that the United States should "temporarily" nationalize its banks. Sen. Graham (R-SC) chimed in yesterday and said that this concept should be considered. This idea is beyond reckless. Right now, the State of California is unable to send tax refunds to people due to its financial incompetence. Can you imagine not being able to pay your rent because the "Bank of the United States" invested your money into Social Security Trust Fund IOU's?

The old adage is that people should have six months of expenses saved up in case of a rainy day. Given the hurricane brewing in Washington right now, I think that even a year's worth of expenses saved might be too conservative.

War on the economy?

Yesterday, in a speech given in Elkridge, Indiana, President Obama warned the nation of impending disaster if the country does not pass his stimulus plan immediately. In his speech, he said, "And our nation will sink into a crisis that at some point we may be unable to reverse." Excuse me? So if we don't incur an additional nine-hundred billion dollars in debt to use on pork-barrel spending, the United States economy will never recover? Whereas President Bush warned of terrorism every other sentence to justify his extravagant spending, President Obama seems to have latched onto the recession to justify his driving the US economy further into the ground. Perhaps we can call it the Global War on the Economy, since by the time he's done, there will be nothing left.

Visitor to the Tidal Basin

This afternoon, the weather was again absolutely beautiful. The temperature was in the mid-sixties, and there were beautiful blue skies. I took a walk with around the Tidal Basin, taking pictures along the way. A Bald Eagle was in the middle of the Tidal Basin, sitting on the ice. I waited around for a while, and managed to get this photo of the eagle in flight.

A Sunday bike ride

Earlier this week, the weather was downright lousy by Washington DC standards. The area received snow and freezing rain, and offices were half empty on Wednesday. Of course, back home in Michigan, everyone would have figured that kind of weather was normal for winter. However, this afternoon the weather was absolutely beautiful. The temperature climbed from the thirties in the morning, and hit a peak of sixty-one degrees around 3pm. People were outdoors without coats, runners were out in shorts and short-sleeve t-shirts, and everyone seemed to be outside enjoying the weather. It is good that people were enjoying the weather now, because the weather forecast is calling for snow again on Tuesday.

I took advantage of the nice weather to go for my first bike ride of the season. My route meandered across the District, down around Hains Point, over to Capitol Hill and Union Station, across to Georgetown, and then over the Key Bridge back to Virginia.