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Thursday, June 8, 2006
Leftovers from a businessman’s lunch
Or, what people with money talk about late at night, in the kitchen, while balancing their checkbooks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Steve Forbes, in town for that Casey Cagle fund-raiser, likes to talk. Fortunately, he likes to talk about more than politics.
Some non-political highlights from his Thursday speech:
Too much is made of consumer debt, Forbes said. “When you look at the American consumer, and add up what they own in stocks, bonds, banks CDs, market funds, and life insurance policies, and take out what people owe on credit cars, take out what they owe on mortgages — American consumers today are plus $26 trillion. American consumers are the biggest suppliers of capital in the global credit market.�
Not enough has been made of inflation. “Over the last two years, to be blunt, the Federal Reserve has been printing, inadvertently, much too much money,� Forbes said. “We have a new federal reserve chairman. Never complain again about what it costs to educate your kids and grandkids in colleges. The tuition we’re paying for Ben Bernanke’s education will vastly exceed anything you pay for your kids. He’s a smart guy, eventually he’ll learn it.�
On immigration, Forbes said no one’s talking about the core reason for the uproar among Americans. Mexico’s economy is a basket-case. Fix Mexico’s job-engine — he cited Ireland’s transformation as an example — and the border problem disappears.
No such thing as bad publicity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The timing for Sadie Fields, chairman of the Georgia Christian Coalition, couldn’t have been better. This is the week that the Right’s blond bad girl, Ann Coulter, began taking heat for her comment about the widows who pushed for a federal commission to investigate the 9/11 attacks.
“I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much,� she wrote in the book she’s now peddling — “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.�
It just so happens that this is the week that Fields let it be known that Coulter will headline the Coalition’s annual fund-raiser on Sept. 16 — the one that will pay for voter guides in the November elections. Tickets are $65.
