1. Introduction
In ancient times, it was believed by some peoples that the King was wedded to the land. All that happened, good or bad, was the direct responsibility of the King. Good crops or bad crops, feast, or famine. Rain or shine.
In good times the King was treated like, well, a King. In bad times, his throat was ritualisticly slit and the body ceremonially dumped into a grave, volcano, or a peat bog (where from time to time, they still bob to the surface).
The Celts believed in this wedding of the land and the King. Elements of this marriage appear in the legends of King Arthur.
Modern politicians, while excusing themselves from the bit about the throat slitting, to this very day will take credit for all that is good, whether deserved or not.
Bill Clinton, of course, takes credit for what is loudly proclaimed to be a strong economy. But how much of that is real, and how much, like those ancient Celtic Kings, serves only to placate and reassure the people as they gaze knowingly at the peat moss?
What begs the imagination is why Americans do not take credit for their own success.
Americans make the economy work. Americans build the products. Americans start the companies. Americans invent the new technologies that keep our nation state-of-the-art.
The economy is a giant machine powered by the strength of the people.
All the government, and Clinton, do is decide just where the brakes of taxation are to be applied to that machine.
Clinton doesn't create the economy. It's the nature of all economies to rise and fall and our economy was on a rise before Clinton took office.
Clinton got lucky, but like the Celtic Kings, takes for himself the credit for what was accomplished by ordinary American citizens.
2. Is the economy really all that better?
That depends on who you ask. To the investors in the stock market, with the Dow Jones Industrial Averages so high that they need an oxygen mask, the economy is good (although even the most optimistic speculators agree that the market is overdo for a "correction").
What is actually measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Averages? That magic six thousand plus number is treated as the barometer of health for the entire stock market, but the reality is that it's the barometer of the health of just a few specific stock issues used as indicators. Someone with the cash and the will to do so can influence the Dow Jones number by purchasing blocks of a few key indicators. Trading programs that watch those indicators would then respond with automated b buy/sell orders. That creates a situation where the Dow Jones number doesn't reflect a trend, it IS the trend. That makes the reality of what it purports to represent suspect.
Retail sales are up, spurred on by a flood of cheap and easy credit which occurred several weeks ago. To some, this is a good sign. To me, an increased in personal indebtedness is a very bad warning sign.
But the reality is that it has become mandatory for both members of a family to work just to make ends meet, to make the payments on those credit lines, and to pay the ever increasing tax burden. What may look good in numbers translates as increasing hardships on the average citizen.
3. Wasn't Clinton good for the economy or Arkansas?
Careful study of the highly promoted claim that Arkansas prospered under Bill Clinton's governorship shows that the prosperity was focused into a very narrow cluster of companies, centered around the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, and the group of banks operated by the Stephens and Lippo group.
For them, business was GOOD!
For the rest of the state, there was virtually no change (except in the suicide statistics).
Worse, businesses and institutions not connected to the surplus cash flow from ADFA and unable to compete with those that were, were driven out of business.
4. What is the future for America's economy under Clinton?
In the heyday of the Clinton term as governor, cash from some source flowed out from ADFA and through the various institutions, and it's easy to look prosperous and successful with such cash infusions.
In the wake of Clinton's departure to Washington D.C. the financial institutions that formed the hub of his economic policy have all collapsed, saddling the taxpayers with yet another bailout. The collapse of that core of businesses has left Arkansas in worse shape than before Clinton's term as governor. His associates are in prison or awaiting trial, and they are still trying to get the fingernail scratches out of the door frame to the governor's office from Tucker's less than graceful exit.
Anyone who wants to know what 4 more years of Clinton's policies will do to the United States had better take a good look at Arkansas TODAY.
