News Flash

clipped from online.barrons.com What is your assessment of the federal government's $787 billion stimulus package? They are trying to restart consumption and lending, but I have a news flash: It was excessive consumption and excessive debt creation that got us into this mess. The government is trying to act as the consumer of last resort. Rather than giving an $8,000 credit to buy homes, we should be reinvesting this money to change part of the industrial dynamic of the U.S. economy. Over the next 10 to 15 years, exports as a percentage of GDP are going to have to go up. We are going to be in a donnybrook. If we do not increase exports to replace the contraction of consumption, we go to the government to be the consumer of last resort. And then GDP growth will be worse off.