I liked The Economist's treatment of last night's address by President Barack Obama, especially this paragraph.
A theme that permeated the speech was rapidly rising national debt, following the budget-busting $787 billion stimulus that Mr Obama just signed. "Everyone in this chamber-Democrats and Republicans-will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars. And that includes me," Mr Obama said. But he has yet to say what he is prepared to sacrifice. He still plans to expand publicly financed health care, make permanent tax credits to the majority of workers, expand college assistance and invest in alternative energy.Hmmm, what is the huge part of the federal budget missing from that list of expansion projects? Let me think ... I know!
on February 25, 2009 8:45 PM | Reply
Well it not really all that surprising... the defense budget has been on an upswing for years. With the economy they way it is, and with two wars siphoning off resources, everyone knew it was coming. We've been spending well beyond our means for quite sometime, and now the bill has come due. Frankly, the priority for the vast majority of the people of this country (8-9/10) is not defense- it's always things closer to home i.e. jobs, pension funds, education, and healthcare- and frankly I don't blame them. Sure they care care about defense, but not at the expense of those things which actually directly impact them on a day to day basis. The only people who are really going to object are the hardcore ultra-right wing Republican fringe elements.
on August 18, 2009 5:16 AM | Reply
The longer the tenure of investment , higher the risk ,hence the returns are directly proportion to it .