The things you cite for 2000+ I see as a product of a debt-fueled bubble. Land development and construction was all funded by debt still outstanding. Absent easy money, would we have so many residential square feet per capita? Most of the wealth in financial products was the packaging and expansion of debt. The info tech produced is already obsolete, and was not paid for out of current production. It was financed.

The process improvements in goods production should lead to lower prices. They did not. Why is food more expensive if we’re better at growing it?

Regulation certainly distorts the price system. And it adds deadweight loss to economic transactions. But until the price of risk and the price of money are deregulated we will not know the true price of anything. And when the price of risk and money are set free, the financial world collapses. A Great Repricing of the assets supposedly securing all the debt in the economy is inevitable.

For any economy to be wealthy it must produce wealth. That means agriculture, manufacturing, exploitation of natural resources, etc. Our wealth production from 2000-2008 consisted mostly of developing real esate, constructing financial products for sale to the world, agriculture, and technological improvements to IT and communications. Our expenditures for the GWOT were driving government outlays faster than the growth of the economy because our economy was running in place due to being hobbled by the environmental restrictions. The Great Recession and Obama’s spending have exacerbated the problem. I maintain that it is not an insoluble problem, but if it goes on another four years it may become impossible to solve without a sovereign default. I may be wrong, but I’m not willing to give up the ship without a maximum effort to right things.

Take a look at purchasing power (without suspicious hedonic adjustments). The price of stuff you have to buy with your fat bankroll has risen faster than the account balance.

That era’s contribution to the total problem is minor, but that when the levering began. Debt-money inflates the price of everything. It works great until people start missing payments. Then the present value of all that debt collapses and your bank faces insolvency.

Golly gee whillickers, expat, that’s shore nice to hear. However, I’m afraid that if brains were gasoline, VDH would have tanker truck full and me a mere thimbleful.

I have heard those exact same words spoken by Jared Bernstein, Robert Reich, Peter Orszag, and other progressive advisors to Obama and Clinton. So, it must be true.

What they claim, though, is that Reagan’s deregulation of the economy is what caused the 2008 crisis. So, it must be true. Or is it? If it wasn’t the deregulation, it was the phony increase in the economy that was caused by…………what exactly? Too much economic activity?

Between the time Reagan was elected in 1980 and 2000, my retirement funds went from barely adequate to more than adequate. But it was all phony prosperity? Well, phony or not, the merchants are still accepting my pitiful offerings as legal tender. And that’s just fine with me.

Reagan’s policies didn’t bring anything back. They began the phony economy. Thirty years of borrowed prosperity. It was the start of the leveraging that will unwind on us all.

Urban riots and shortages of food and fuel even if temporary, will provide even the most conservative of presidents ample reasons to declare martial law. When I see people almost long for such a collapse, I question whether any real thought has been given to the consequences. Even if you have food, fuel, ammo, and money stored against such an eventuality, do you really want to see millions suffer?

I remember the same feelings during the Carter administration. The end of the wordl was coming. The country was bankrupt. Hyper inflation was stalking the streets. And yet, Reagan and some common sense policies brought us back from the brink. I’ll never forget how stunned I was to find that to be true.

This country is like many storied entrepeneurs. It is never down for the count as long as we have the ability to create welath. And that is what sets this country apart from most of the others. Magnificent resources, creative people, private property ownership backed by courts, and the ability to self correct through the ballot box. Do not sell it short. Be of good cheer and work for the self correction that will change things.

Bachmann has a record closer to following the Constitution. Cain has the biography of hardship and perseverance. Of the three, Gingrich is the weakest. Lectures do not calm riots. And in troubled times I think a reverent faith and humility before G-d is helps keep power restrained. Again Cain and Bachmann have the integrity Gingrich lacks.

ps– I forgot to say that Huntsman, too, is a non-factor.

So, if anyone has sympathy for my scenario, out of Bachmann, Cain and Gingrich, who can best preside over urban riots and temporary shortages of food and fuel? Which of those three is most likely to respect the Constitution and not make excuses for violating it?

Now that’s an interesting way to look at our choice, isn’t it? To answer your question, I’d say probably Bachmann.