Shoppers Vote No-Confidence

The AP and the Washington Post report stores are hoping for a post-holiday bump. Good luck with that.

Every shopper who spends less this year is a no confidence vote in the Adminsration's handling of the economy and a potential vote against the current regime and a vote for someone more economicly liberal, either a Democrat or a Republican populist (a.k.a. Mike Huckabee).

The supply side argument has had its day (yet again) and has been found wanting. The latest Christmas sales figures have bourne that out. It is not that shoppers didn't want to spend more. They just felt that they couldn't. You can only borrow so much from China. There is only one way out of the sea of red ink we are now in, and that is to tax the income strata which received the tax cut most responsible for our current deficit. They are also currently making a killing by investing in Chinese factories (which have a higher rate of return than Federal bonds). It is time to tax some of these windfalls, through a tarrif and/or the expiration of the Bush tax cuts on the highest brackets.

Nothing less will restore the willingness and ability of shoppers to spend during a future holiday.