Comments on: Mint Goes to the White House

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:30:36 +0000

Excellent question! Unfortunately you received a classic politician answer: completey avoiding your point while raising a somehow more important problem. Congress and the White House refuse to consider the implications of their decisions.

Your post here is going to make me take a serious look at using mint.com for my budget. Excel may have outlived its usefulness.

By: Tommy M

Tommy M — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 05:36:15 +0000

This is great. I don’t know why this wasn’t publicized more. Keep it up. Any updates since your recent visit? Great question you asked by the way. When it comes to government, there’s normally a 1 trillion dollar gorilla in the room trying to be noticed– thanks for pointing it out.

By: SZ

SZ — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:18:32 +0000

I hope the White House listens to your strategies. I think you are right on. Have you ever thought of creating another entity to tackle EHRs? There are tremendous opportunities in this area, especially now that you have the ear of the Administration. With an IT background, I can envision a successful EHR product to market but lack the the resources to build it. Want to talk?

By: Campbell

Campbell — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:30:09 +0000

I’m with you 100% in your philosophy, but a good Austrian could have answered their arguments! Saving is just future spending and investment in capital. Why is that bad? What happens in the long run if government discourages capital investment and encourages spending on credit? Someone needs to offer them an alternative course of action: this recession is going to happen whether you throw $1T or $10T at convincing people to spend without creating value. We COULD use the recession to transition to a more solid economy, in which dollars relate to value actually created, and people only spend what value they create, where production is actually greater than consumption. That transition requires a recession and painful loss of government control anyways. This could be the perfect fiscal opportunity!

In personal finance terms, the government is telling us that it is borrowing and spending through the roof, because it’s afraid of saving. If an individual told you that, you would set them straight. Why not the government?

Also, why does no one point out to them, as you mention, that this fiscal tactic is what got us into this situation? Expecting to solve a problem with the same behavior that created it is the very definition of madness. We need to tell the administration to watch out for the advisors who did not see this coming and who offer more of the same as a solution. We should try asking the people who predicted the problem for their advice. That would be a big *ahem* for Hayek, von Mises, and a subset of teleconomists like Peter Schiff.

By: Paul Rosenfeld

Paul Rosenfeld — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:05:18 +0000

Aaron,

Thank you for taking the time to put down your visit on paper. It confirms much of my own belief that the administration is more interested in advancing it’s social agenda than fighting short/long term economic challenges. As Jeff notes, any one who says $1Tn isn’t alot of money never had to earn it. I hope they listen but am not optimistic they will.

I also agree with your core philosophies and have noted your more frequent tweeting. Keep up the transparency, it’s unique and insightful.

By: Jeff Pomeroy

Jeff Pomeroy — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:36:25 +0000

Thank you for the update. I was hoping that one or more of you would write something about the visit there to the White House.

I appreciate the insight into the visit. I find it hard to take any person seriously who implies that a “trillion dollars isn’t that much”

Please keep us up to date with any new communications that result.

Thanks.