Stimulate this.

I cannot believe this so-called "stimulus" package (that's what she said) actually passed the House. A more appropriate name would be spending package. Actually, that doesn't even do it justice--I'd call it the stealing package.

This legislation is just another way to arbitrarily print money. Need a new TV? Uncle Sam will print you one out of thin air! Late on your mortgage in lieu of your new Escalade? Uncle Sam will print you cash to pay your bills! Is your nostalgia being threatened because the auto-makers might not be able to pay their workers $70 an hour to build crappy cars? It's OK!--As long as the CEO's sell 2 of their 7 private jets, I'm sure they can work something out!

After WW2, Germany started printing money to counter their post-war recession. Inflation went up so much (about 1000% per month) people were actually burning money to warm their homes.


The chart at the left shows how much money is in US circulation in billions of dollars, beginning in 1929 with the stock market crash. Notice it stays almost totally flat up until Nixon's genius idea to get rid of the Gold Standard (which meant the government could now print money just for fun), with a slight bump in 1941 in light of WW2. It continues to curve upward (C'mon, could you have resisted?) until the September 11 attacks, where it takes a pretty dramatic spike upward on account of everybody buying patriotic shoes that apparently countered terrorism.

Then there's that HUGE spike in October of 2008 to present. This is the auto/corporate bailouts. I can't even imagine what kind of damage another $800+ billion would do.

This thing is oozing with the concern for special-interest, NOT the people's. In fact, earlier this week Al Gore took his turn injecting his bit in the bill to fund global warming research. (Yeah, that's at the top of my prority list.) And only something like 20% of the money in this bill is going to be used for "stimulation" in 2009, if passed by the senate.

ugh. --Jesse