Was Sarah Palin right?

The Red Ranger: I know that putting her name in the subject line will immediately get your blood pressure up and you will be rifling through your card catalogue of trite remarks about her.  However, it appears that she may have been right when discussing death panels, as witnessed by some recent remarks by one of your favorite economists. While I do not have the audio of the session, I have to believe that what they are saying he said is actually what he said.

Just remember you turn 65 before me.

Nattering Naybob: As you know, Paul Krugman is, if not at the top, very near it, on my list of favorite news / opinion columnists. This is actually something that he has been saying as far back as 2010 and earlier. In one of his New York Times blogs from November of 2010, he himself acknowledges an almost identical comment he made on the previous week’s “This Week” program. He also links to EARLIER references he made to the “death panel” remarks, within the below blog posting. So I don’t know why it took the Breitbart website til now to come up with this. Typical sloppy “journalism”, if it can be dignified with that descriptor, by one of your Right-wing extremist gossip mongering websites.

And to answer your question, it is NOT possible for Sarah Palin to be correct about anything. You are taking the two references to death panels out of context. Sarah Palin claimed that President Obama would be including “death panels” in the Affordable Care Act bill (which was a typically Palinesque misunderstanding of reality), while Krugman chose to use it as a kind of short-hand, tongue-in-cheek label for what he thought was a necessary re-examination of how much we should spend on terminally ill patients with no chance of recovery. There is no scientific way that Sarah Palin could be correct on any issue, just like it is not possible for 2 plus 2 to equal 5. By the way, how is Palin’s career as a FOX News analyst going? Oh, I forgot, they did not renew her contract.

The Red Ranger: Yup, now that Sarah is out of a job she is just going to sit home and collect her unemployment checks, food stamps (oops, sorry Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and sign up for her Obama phone.

Actually, she is probably out hunting a moose now to put food on her family’s table.

By the way, seen any drones lately?

Nattering Naybob: I predict that Sarah Palin will be named host of a Doomsday Prepper reality show on the Nashville Network within the year. That seems to be her niche. Then as they go to commercial, there could be a thirty-second “Sarah Palin Talkin’ Plain” segment where she is sitting in her living room (festooned with wall-mounted mooseheads) and speaks directly to the camera about how “Liberty-lovin’, gun-totin’, wolf-shootin’, momma and poppa grizzlies must band together and stop the Socialist agenda from President Barack Hussein Obama and the Harry Reid Senate, who are propped up by the lame-stream media”. She could have Christine (“I’m not a Witch… I’m You”) O’Donnell on as special guest co-host from time to time.

The only drones I see are the ones from the Republican House of Representatives, when they go on and on with their Right-Wing offal. Do you know what “offal” means, Red Ranger? It was probably on one of our SAT prep guide tests in high school, I’ll bet.

Oops…

The Red Ranger: So last week came news that the GDP shrank in the 4th Qtr. by -0.1%.  We are halfway to a recession.  Although these numbers will probably be revised to show a 0.1% increase so that Obama can avoid a recession at least for the time being.  I am glad he is being laser focused on the economy and job creation, has he mentioned anything about that recently.  I guess he is too busy trying to get 11 million illegal aliens to be citizens and taking away people’s constitutional rights to own guns.

One interesting tidbit is that some of the decline seems to be due to lower government spending mainly military related.  If that trend holds true then that is a long-term positive for the economy.  Also, consumer spending was up about 2% but that will probably be wiped out in Q1 2013 with the increase in payroll taxes.

Overall, we continue to muddle along with the only thing really keeping us afloat is the Fed continually pumping dollars into the economy.  However, that is going to have to end soon.

Nattering Naybob: Meanwhile the stock market is nearing an all-time high. Not to mention corporate profits setting records the past calendar year. Perhaps this is evidence that what’s good for Wall Street is not necessarily good door for Main Street, a cliché’ to which The Red Ranger has subscribed in the past.

The metrics that you cited were only a few of the many that trended upward in the recent economic reporting. The bottom line is that the severe cuts that have been mandated by Republicans, and the Republicans’ threat to shut down the government if their extortionist threats are not met, are the main causes for the shrinking of the GDP. Quit fear-mongering this issue, my good man.

The Red Ranger: You are correct in your analysis that what is currently good for Wall Street may not necessarily be good for Main Street.  The underlying reason for this is due to the fact that the Fed is artificially reducing interest rates and pumping dollars into the economy to mask the fact that there is no job creation under Obama.

Can you provide proof of other metrics ticking upwards.  I believe that consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in a number of years.  Rather than calling the cuts mandated by Republicans severe I would call them necessary to offset the reckless spending and additional debt accumulation that has occurred under Obama’s drunken sailor-like spending ways.

Nattering Naybob: The Consumer Metrics Institute, which has been one of favorite websites since the advent of the Internet, lays out many positive economic indicators. Only in this era of Republican obstructionism can there actually be a substantial decrease in government spending (which is what your gang of ruffians has been clamoring about for decades) yet Obama gets blamed for its resulting perceived temporary adverse impact on the economy.

The Red Ranger: Interesting website.  I briefly perused it and noted that they were seeming to imply that the Obama administration pushed DOD expenditures into the third quarter to show an inflated view of the GDP growth in Q3 prior to the election.  Of course we all know that that could not of possibly happened since the Obama administration is the first administration in US history to be completely open, honest and free of any ulterior motives.

Also, I believe that the President has again managed to miss the deadline for submitting a budget.  Of well it is only a law that he submit a budget by the first Monday in February.

Nattering Naybob: Funny how I don’t ever hear you complaining about the Republican practice of Gerrymandering to garner electoral advantage, the same way I hear you complaining about some mis-understanding regarding the submission of a budget or some such trivia.

The Red Ranger: I believe that both parties engage equally in gerrymandering which I am not sure is illegal.  Whereas not submitting a budget in a timely fashion is a crime.