What's Best For The Consumer, Is Best For The Economy, Is Best For The Country

With the presidential election just around the corner and all the crap going on with the economy, banks, mortgages, etc. I've been reflecting on our choices of candidates and who is better to lead our country through this rough patch our country is in. I find it amazing that both parties are trying to blame wall street greed for putting us in this mess. Ultimately it boils down to us, the individuals, that got us into the trouble we're in. When a bank offers a loan that is easily out of ones means to afford the monthly payments, is that wall streets fault that the individual didn't take a step back and calculate what they could truly afford? Is it the banks fault for offering adjustable rate mortgages when rates were at an all time low? Is it really that hard to calculate what the monthly payments will be if the interest rates go up? I understand the dream of owning a home and when we bought our house we spent more than we probably should've. However, with that being said, we spent a lot less than we were approved for. And now that we had twins we're living in a two bedroom house with 3 kids. Our house is worth 20k less then what we owe on it so we're going to be living here a while...wait maybe we should just walk away and let the government deal with it. Yeah, no. So why doesn't either candidate say something to the effect that we need more discipline in the consumer market and not just oversite of wall street and the banks? Well that would be unpopular and certainly lead to defeat come November.

So back to the topic of our presidential options. Neither party has really hit on what I feel is the most important issue and that is balancing the budget and paying down the national debt. The interest on our debt was 400 billion in 2006. That's half the buyout of the banks. Imagine if we didn't have to pay this interest year in and year out. Just think, about 20-25% of your taxes every year go to pay interest on the debt. Just think of what our future holds, if our government tanks, all our savings will be worthless. And who's to blame for this mess, well the voters that votes these guys in office and then don't demand a balanced budget. I could keep beating this drum but that's enough said.

As for the title of this blog post, we live in a consumer driven economy. If there's not a customer to buy a companies product they go under. Our auto industry in the US is not competitive and therefore countless jobs have been lost because of it. It has nothing to do with NAFTA, the consumers are choosing what companies stay alive. Companies need to be able to reach as many consumers as possible and they need to stay competitive. The population of the US is just over 300 million, the population of the world is 6.6 billion. So it really doesn't make sense that raising taxes and restricting trade on the richest corporations and businesses is going to somehow fix the situation that we're in. The last thing we need as a nation is the government trying to dictate which companies are evil and greedy, and then taxing them for being successful. The richest people and companies will move where it makes the most sense to do business. It happened in California and it'll happen to the country. We are the richest country in the world because companies can reap the biggest reward here as opposed to any other country in world. If that incentive goes away so will the rest of our jobs. And just remember, the rich already pay a huge percentage of our taxes already and they are consumers as well and we need them buying things to keep our economy strong.

So who do you think I'm voting for??