The U.S. Economy and the Stuck Boat

Last autumn, almost everyone at the lake made preparations for the winter.  Most people move their boats from the small inlets and personal dock areas into the main marina, or they take the boats out of the lake and store them out of water for the winter.  Most people make these preparations, not all of them. 

Two of my neighbors purchased a sweet little boat last fall.  It was beautiful, and shiny, and new.  I believe they took it out of their dock two or three times for a joy ride.  And then the weather turned and it got colder and the rain stopped.  And the water level dropped substantially, probably close to eight feet.  And the neighbors boat got stuck in the mud.  And when a boat gets stuck in the mud, there is not much you can do but wait until the water level comes back up and hope that the boat doesn't get damaged too much.

But not my neighbors.  They decided to fix the problem.  They decided to buy two hoses and run the hoses from the water spicket to the lake near the front of the boat.  Their intent was to fill the lake up with a hose, therefore lifting their boat, and solving the problem.  My neighbors ran the water 24/7 for over one month, and guess what?  The 300-acre lake didn't rise;  not one inch let alone the eight feet needed to get the boat out.  It is painfully obvious to me that you can't fill a 300-acre lake with a hose from a water spicket.  But the real kicker is that the water from the spicket came from the lake! They were taking water from one place in the lake and putting in another place in the lake, hoping to get the water to rise.

If you think about it, this is the same thing that is happening right now with our economy.  The difference is that it is with trillions of dollars that are yours and mine.  Still, you can't take money from one area of society, put it in another area, and claim economic growth.  You can't take money from the middle class and give it to others and claim that you are growing the economy.  You can't take money from "producers" and give it to "takers" and claim that you are helping society.

So when Obama joked this week about "shovel-ready" jobs not being as ready as he thought they were, it wasn't funny, it was tragic.  In truth, the trillions of dollars that were taken from us were not for 'shovel-ready" jobs, those dollars were intended for the state and local union employees all along.

And really, if you think about it, Obama's policies seem just about as logical as my neighbors who tried to fill a 300-acre lake from a water hose with water supplied from the lake.