Clearly the Central Planners' stimulus plan is not working

The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that Housing Starts dropped a whopping 10.6 percent in the one month period October 2009 versus September 2009, and fell 30.7 percennt below an already awful number last October 2008. This is in spite of the $8,000 first time home buyers credit the Central Planners decided was a key stimulus tactic. New Building Permits fell 24.3 percent from last year's lousy October number. Mortgage Applications fell 2.5 percent last week.

Clearly the Central Planners' stimulus plan is not working. The reason is simple, they have targeted a small minority to get the trillions of dollars of government spending, and have failed miserably in conducting a strategy that would get cash into the hands of all American Households. If you have a clunker and are willing to buy a tiny car with a certain gas mileage performance, if you are buying a new home for the first time, or if you are one of the largest financial companies on earth, you get the money, and for the rest of you, go borrow money from lenders who won't lend. This is essentially their plan. This is a formula for catastrophic wave (C) down to come.

The economy as a whole does not need riskier loans, and the American Household does not need more debt. The Central Planner policy has been to goose the largest financial firms and hope that everything else works out. Nonsense. This is not a policy to create jobs. This is not a policy that gets cash into the hands of Americns so they can live, payoff debts, and restore savings. There needs to be an across the board grassroots massive income tax rebate, and a repeal of the wealth-destroying property tax. That is the only solution that will fix this worsening mess. The latest housing numbers and unempolyment numbers tell us things are getting worse on Main Street, not better, and a major policy change is necessary if this economy is to avoid a double dip downturn, the next dip having the potential to be far worse than the 2007 to 2009 decline.

Both a Democrat, John Kennedy, and a Republican, Ronald Reagan, pulled this economy out of recessions with major tax cuts and rebates. It has worked before and will work again. Consumers need cash from non-debt acquisition sources.

It is that simple.

Robert McHugh, Ph.D.

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