Kevin Duffy rates modern day presidents and Hoover

Hoover - Inherited the Roaring '20s bubble, made it 10x worse when the bubble burst with all kinds of big government solutions. He also added fuel to a global trade war... not good. 

Reagan - Talk about luck. Debt levels had fallen from 100% of GDP after WWII to 25%. Fed chairman Paul Volcker had already started to rein in inflation with has high interest rate policy. Carter had begun the deregulation wave. The Soviet Union was falling apart. If anything, Reagan squandered much of this bounty and set the nation on a course of debt (he was the first president to see the national debt go over $1 trillion). Overrated. 

Clinton - Another lucky president. He inherited the peace dividend as Soviet socialism unraveled. That was largely squandered. The Greenspan Fed would later blow a dot-com bubble on his watch. This fattened the government's coffers with capital gains tax receipts, leading to a surplus. The economic numbers were an illusion, not nearly as good as they appear. 

Bush II - Inherited a bursting tech bubble. Made things worse with his aggressive military response to 9/11. Then he allowed the Greenspan/Bernanke Fed to blow another bubble, this time in housing and credit. Bush II was a typical big government RINO who admired the big government FDR. He wanted to be a war president: mission accomplished. 

Obama - Good timing, coming in AFTER the Bush II housing bubble burst. He reacted with big government "stimulus" and an aggressive Fed, blowing the current everything bubble. 

Trump - Inherited the everything bubble, allowed the Yellen/Powell Fed to blow it even bigger. The Bush II/Obama bailouts/stimulus paled next the those in 2020 to fight state government lockdowns in the face of a bad case of the flu. Trump was a big spender, but pretty good on regulations. 

Biden - Inherits the mother of all messes. Debt/GDP is over 100%. Boomers are now tapping into entitlements. For 40 years, politicians kicked the can down the road on debt, deficits and social security. Now the bills are coming due and they're landing right in Biden's lap. Of course he was in DC nearly all of those 40 years. All he can do is prove, again, the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Biden could very well go down as Hoover II. 

~ Kevin Duffy, Facebook post, November 8, 2020

Alex Trebek on intellectual curiosity

I'm curious about everything - even things that don't interest me.

~ Alex Trebek

Alex Trebek
1941-2020

Kevin Duffy on the unofficial choice of Biden as president and Trump's appeal

The problem is the political swamp and we just put a 47 year veteran of the swamp in charge.  I was critical of Trump, especially on economic policy (grading him a D), but his appeal was that he was not a career politician.  His other appeal was that all the right people hated him: Hollywood, academia, and especially the mainstream media.

~ Kevin Duffy, Facebook post, November 8, 2020

Kevin Duffy on political realignment in the U.S.

Political coalitions are never etched in stone. In fact, the U.S. appears to be at an inflection point where they are splitting apart. The GOP is no longer the party of the rich. It is becoming the party of small business, the middle class and working class. The Democrats are becoming the party of the corporate elites, welfare dependents and cultural Marxists. Politically, the country seems to be realigning into two sides: the productive host vs. political parasite. Only time will tell. 

This must happen soon, before the parasite destroys the host.

~ Kevin Duffy, "2020 Election: Trump the Disruptor," The Coffee Can Portfolio, November 2, 2020

Napoleon on voting

I care not who casts the votes of a nation, provided I can count them.

~ Napoleon, New York Times editorial, May 26, 1880

David Stockman on the effect of trillion dollar deficits on interest costs

[H]ere’s the thing.  Under any circumstance, these now guaranteed double-digit annual deficits (i.e. $2 trillion plus at current GDP levels) aren’t sustainable because compounding interest expense eventually sends the ship-of-state into the fiscal drink.

~ David Stockman, "Gridlock is Good - Except in the Jaws of Massive Public Debts," LewRockwell.com, November 6, 2020

Mitch McConnell on the need for CARES Act, round 2

The Senate goes back in session next Monday.  Hopefully the partisan passions that prevented us from doing another rescue package will subside with the election.  I think we need to do it and we need to do it before the end of the year.

~ Mitch McConnell, Republican Senate Majority Leader, "Fiscal stimulus chances may be rising despite dashed Democrat hopes for U.S. Senate control," MarketWatch.com, November 4, 2020

(McConnell expressed some openness about including aid for struggling state and local governments in a new package, calling it “a possibility.” Senate Republicans had previously balked at more aid on top of $150 billion in March’s CARES Act, while House Democrats wanted more than $400 billion in new money.)