Friday, July 3, 2009

Time Magazine Wades In

The July 6th issue of Time Magazine is chock full of friendly advice for Barrack Obama: "What Barraack Obama Can Learn From FDR." The article begins with a pretty frank admission that FDR was a flop when it came to engineering a recovery to the Great Depression. Time seems to agree with the growning consensus that FDR only made matters worse. Here, Obama seems to be following FDR pretty closely and should achieve similar results.

But, Time argues, FDR was a great war leader and provided economic "security" to the nation. The Federal Housing Authority, godfather of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was cited as one of FDR's accomplishments. Don't we all feel more secure with Fannie and Freddie. Social Security was another great "accomplishment."

Social Security is a ponzi scheme. If you like Madoff investment strategies, you will love Social Security. There will definitely be winners. There were winners in the Madoff scheme. Madoff himself, for years, was a big winner. But, there were plenty of others. Sooner or later, all ponzi schemes come to a bad end. Social Security is no different.

So, I suppose that Time Magazine is right. Obama is on the FDR trail. Look for economic recovery and single digit unemployment in about fourteen years. That was FDR's timetable.