By David Woolley
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, – go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!”
-Samuel Adams
Comment from The Institutional Risk Analyst:
In this issue of The Institutional Risk Analyst, we feature a summary of a paper by David E. Woolley, a California Licensed Land Surveyor and Certified Fraud Examiner, who is a principal of Harbinger Analytics Group in Tustin, CA. Thanks to David and Lisa Herzog, who edited the study and performed research, for summarizing the paper (click here to see full copy). But first a rant on the furious inaction of the past week.
The announcement of a “compromise” deal by Congress that will allow the US to continue growing the public debt pile represents little or no real progress on fiscal issues. Politicians are once again seen to be spineless weasels, confirming the view of Mark Twain and his followers that the inhabitants of Washington contitute a permanent criminal class. But there is the question of whether the average American politician even understands the current economic circumstance well enough to judge right from wrong. We see Elizabeth Drew, for example, whining in the New York Review of Books about “Debt Limit Craziness.” She writes:
“Lawrence Summers, Obama’s recently resigned chief economic adviser, said on The Charlie Rose Show in July that he found it “dispiriting” that “all of the energy is on the projected deficits… when the problem right now is that the economy is in danger of stagnating from lack of demand.” The Republicans had made it clear for months that they would use the need to raise the debt ceiling as an instrument for extracting concessions from the Democratic President in the form of more cuts in federal programs. And the President assented to their premise, but only if there should also be some additional revenues. Were they all insane? That’s not a far-fetched question.”