US Tax Rebate
The US congress and president are on the same page for one thing: help every American buy an iPod (a.k.a. the tax rebate thing). For me while I am glad to get some of my tax dollor back (rather than been blew away in Iraq, or paying a Carribean trip for some congress members…). I think the mantra of quick fix is so prevelant in this country. Sometimes yours truely also fall into this. For instance:
*Got a headache? Take an Tylenol.
*Need some stimulus for work? Got a coffee. I did this every morning.
But will the stimuls work as desired? Let me quote US presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, “this stimuls package is NOT going to stimulate the US economy, it will stimulate the China economy instead…”. And quote Cramer “people will get this 600 bucks and buy iPod…”
We are indeed living in an insane world. I can understand President Bush’s ignorance on economy, but Henry Pauson should know better, after all he was the CEO of Goldman Sachs before taking the treasury secretary position.
President Hu
Last night (Feb 4 Beijing time) we saw the big jump in Chinese stock market. One reason, is President Hu says “we need a more scientific approach regarding economy tightening policy”. Or in Chinese, “科学把握宏观调控的节奏和力度”. This is read as, the Chinese goverment is going to lift some tightening measures put in place amid this US credit crisis, and recent China stock market meltdown.
It appears to me President Hu (and his associates) are smarter than President Bush (and his associates) on economy and stock market…
Work around
In software world, there are bugs. And some time the vendor can not push out a fix quickly, they will try to find some kind of work around to make the anxious customer happy. Work around is not meant to replace the root cause analysis and the real bug fix. This tax rebate is a workaround at best, whether it will work or not is still questionable. My take is if the US does not change its sole reliance on consumer spending for economy, the tough days are still ahead…
So go fix the root cause, not the sympotom, Mr. Huckabee, McCain, Obama, Romney, or Ms. Clintion 🙂