A rough outline from Obama's speech on Jan 8

The bill as it currently exists in Congress (H.R. 1)

The simplest explanation: it's a plan to grow the size of government exponentially and guarantee Democrat control for the next century.

A real economic stimulus plan would slash taxes, curtail government spending and freeze all new government spending until the economy roared back to life.

>> ^quantumushroom:
The simplest explanation: it's a plan to grow the size of government exponentially and guarantee Democrat control for the next century.
A real economic stimulus plan would slash taxes, curtail government spending and freeze all new government spending until the economy roared back to life.

GREAT IDEA! First to go, the wastes of sperm at the DEA.

hahaha $14 million to make sure everybody is held accountable and that there is transparency

>> ^quantumushroom:
A real economic stimulus plan would slash taxes, curtail government spending and freeze all new government spending until the economy roared back to life.


Yes, because when the problem is too few people spending money, government should amplify the problem by following suit.

"Stimulus" requires countercyclical behavior: cutting taxes and increasing spending. Otherwise it's just shuffling the deck chairs around to match your political fancy under the guise of it being "stimulus".

rottenseed, the idea here is that we want to break out of the cycle that goes:

1. People get laid off
2. Fewer people buy things (because now they're unemployed)
3. Businesses see lower demand, and lay people off
4. Goto #1.

The idea is to use government to help get people spending again by:

1. Funding state & national infrastructure projects that were stalled due to lack of funds ("shovel ready" projects). These would all increase demand on their various industries, and get them to hire people -- and then those people would start spending the money they earn from that job. Also, these things would add value to the economy once complete.
2. Tax cuts, which help only people who still have their jobs, and don't necessarily create more spending (I'd save every penny of a tax cut I got right now, for example)

The whole package is filled with variations on those two themes: attempts to spend money on tangible public assets or projects that will have a lasting effect, and putting money directly into the hands of citizens. The trick with both is to make it focused on things that will have a real effect on the economy, and not make it look like payoffs to your election campaign donor list (what QM believes the entire thing is).

There's a lot of bitching circling the liberal media outlets about Obama removing the $200 million for family planning from the plan. Personally, I think that was a good move on Obama's part. There's not a lot of argument to be made that such a thing has anything to do with the economic problems (though I've heard proponents try), and it's fodder for the demagogues in the opposite party to grandstand on.

I think Republicans should be providing help like that, and help keep this bill clean, I just wish they'd be doing it in good faith. However, judging from the rhetoric, it seems more like political opportunism than true attempts to help this succeed.

In the end, the goal here is to try to use taxpayer money to turn the economic cycle back to the one we like:

1. Companies hire more people
2. More people buy things (because they have a job now)
3. Businesses see increased demand, and hire more people
4. Goto #1.

Then, once things are looking good, we raise taxes and cut spending, and try to pay off the debt we incurred to pull out of the slump.

The hope from the Demorcatic side is that we'll not only resolve the crisis, but implement lasting programs that help the American people, and bring our budgets back into surplus to start paying down the debt.

Or, as QM would call it, secure Democratic rule for centuries to come via the most nefarious method possible: governing well.

Now we just need to actually do it, even over the screaming and moaning of the minority party who hopes we go down in flames.

Here's a simpler cycle, when the American consumer has a larger wallet (or at least a perceived one). They spend and stimulate the economy.

When Banks horde capital to stave off fallout and Automakers with failed business models get free money they sit on it.

Solution: Give me back even 10% of the 50% the government takes from me and I'll find a place in the economy to put it in.

Regan already proved this when faced with a financial fallout, had the audacity to CUT TAXES and use the TAXPAYER to stimulate the economy. Imagine that cutting taxes working instead of increasing them.

P.S. everyone should have listed to me and blankfist and voted for Bob Barr.

1. This is not 1980.

2. Tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 show that they don't work as conservative republicans want you to believe, it didn't expand the economy or reduce the hit of the current recession.

3. If you give a wide tax cut right now to the US consumers they will not go out and spend it, they will end up saving it.

4. Previous tax cuts or incentives sent out by Bush only shown that consumers would either repay debt or go further into debt.

5. Tax cuts do not work when the majority of large lenders which are banks are seeking to minimize risk and are slashing lending.

6. Obama's plan is good and bad. Yes infrastructure is a good Keynesian stimulus but not when you don't control how you are applying this investment. Current programs will just have increased spending without increased overwatch in application. However officials will need to sign off on it. But I see good initiatives in health care, education and green programs which will pay off in the long run.

7. The Obama plan does not go far enough.

8. The US economy is fucked either way. Expect 2 to 3 years of global recession.

Obama will ruin this country economically.

*quality

Awarding rottenseed with one star point for this contribution to Sift Talk - declared quality by BillOreilly.

>> ^BillOreilly:
Obama will ruin this country economically.

You can't ruin something that's already broken.

It was big government that caused these crises and more big government meddling won't fix anything. If you want to damage the economy, keep letting these dickheads in DC take more and more power from the people.

It's not a partisan thing because a government agency consisting of all Republicans will be equally inept, bureaucrats accountable to no one are the real ones running DC. The best you can hope for is to keep the power out of the hands of bureaucrats.

Liberals believe the Iraq War was all a scheme for Bush to enrich his cronies in warmongering corporations, yet Obama is judged by the media as a saint with pure motives who only wants to "help" the poor. Even if that's his real agenda, he's doing it in the worst possible way.

For all of those who think the feds failed to respond to Katrina fast enough, do you really think these incompetent thieving dopes are racing to 'save' you any faster?

I was against the Bush bailouts and his acting like a socialist. If you think socialism/big gummint saves anything, look at bankrupt California, run by another RINO.

Obama's War on Prosperity is more of the same, only amplified and on steroids.

Of course a stimulus package is exactly like a unilateral military invasion of another sovereign country!

Of course a stimulus package is exactly like a unilateral military invasion of another sovereign country!

Apparently not, the porkapalooza stimulus costs TWICE as much as Iraq but liberates no one. It pays off Big Labor and the government school teachers' union. Oh, and 50 million for "the arts" and Ninny Pelosi's 335 million dollar condom scheme.

Per Netrunner's comment, I don't think Democrats do a good job governing, and the Republicans that do the worst jobs were usually emulating Democrats & expanding the size of government (Bush)!

Today's Democrat is a nanny-state socialist; if you're a socialist that's a good thing. I am not a socialist. I do not trust the government with excessive power, just as the Founding Fathers did not.

I say again, if you want a sneak preview of what liberal policies will do to America, look to the disaster that is California, which is solely run by majority Democrats (with a sissy RINO as governor) and has very high taxation and crime, illegal aliens running amok and can't pay its bills. The State of California has the 6th largest economy in the world yet is bankrupt.

Obama's baking cakes with salt instead of sugar. They look good, but tastewise....

QM never complained about Bush giving us the biggest government of all time.

QM never complained about Bush during FISA/NSA.

QM never complained about Bush stealing from the Social Security cookie jar.

QM never complained about Bush raping our treasury.


QM complains about California, which is run BY A FUCKING REPUBLICAN who was never fairly elected, and only got 20% of the vote after running a Dem out of office for wanting to raise DMV taxes. All backed by Enron and Cheney's energy task force.


QM should sincerely shut the fuck up and get his pussy ass over to Iraq. But he never will, because he's a chicken-hawk who loves the smell of dead Iraqi kids in the morning.


QM will always call a Republican he doesn't like, a "Democrat emulator" yet every fucking Repub in this country is responsible for the FUBAR mess we're in.



And you know what QM? Fuck you and your "335 million dollar condom scheme." Either you're a fucking idiot and believe that shit, or you're evil and you're lying and obfuscating. Any thinking person knows that that 200mil was for FAMILY PLANNING, of which, a measly less than one percent is for free condoms.

But QM never has to worry about condoms, since no woman in her right mind would let his slimy little pecker anywhere near her.

QM never complained about Bush giving us the biggest government of all time.

QM never complained about Bush during FISA/NSA.

QM never complained about Bush stealing from the Social Security cookie jar.

QM never complained about Bush raping our treasury.

Actually, wrong on all counts. But your first language is French so WTF, foo, you can't be everywhere!

QM complains about California, which is run BY A FUCKING REPUBLICAN who was never fairly elected, and only got 20% of the vote after running a Dem out of office for wanting to raise DMV taxes. All backed by Enron and Cheney's energy task force.

Yes, yes, it's only a conspiracy/voter fraud when people elect Republicans. Gray Davis wasn't a corrupt piece of crap, it was all lies. And since Schwarzy acts like a FUCKING DEMOCRAT who cares what his voter card reads? Democrats should proudly stand for what they've done to California! California government schools are some of the worst in the nation, and Democrats get reelected there again and again. Coincidence?

QM should sincerely shut the fuck up and get his pussy ass over to Iraq. But he never will, because he's a chicken-hawk who loves the smell of dead Iraqi kids in the morning.

QM will always call a Republican he doesn't like, a "Democrat emulator" yet every fucking Repub in this country is responsible for the FUBAR mess we're in.

Rs get some of the blame, but no Republican ever woke up and said, "Let's force banks to give the poor houses they can't afford. It's the fair thing to do" (looking at all the taxocrat tax cheats and bribe-takers STILL in office, I guess that spirit of spreading the wealth doesn't apply to them).

You and your goofball Saul Alinksy-wannabe anarcho-whatever radicalist rascals...you're not interesting when you act this way, the ad hominem attacks cut-n-pasted from Daily Komatose's baboonery are tiresome; instead of dealing with the FACTS of the matter you're...just making a fool of yourself. Everyone deserves to go on a wild rant now and again--I don't fault you for it--but wear your seatbelt, airbags won't always save you.

And you know what QM? Fuck you and your "335 million dollar condom scheme." Either you're a fucking idiot and believe that shit, or you're evil and you're lying and obfuscating. Any thinking person knows that that 200mil was for FAMILY PLANNING, of which, a measly less than one percent is for free condoms.

No matter, this generational looting of the Treasury--the second time Congressional majority taxocrats will be voting for one--won't make it through in its present odious form.

I'm simply offering my opinion of what's going on with the scum in DC and the mechanics of their powergrab to rottenseed, who posted the question.

I knew this would happen to liberals when Bush left office. All that titanic machine-against-the-RAGE has to go SOMEwhere. Fox Derangement Syndrome won't absorb it all.

May I suggest picking up a copy of Ann Coulter's new bestseller?

>> ^quantumushroomRs get some of the blame, but no Republican ever woke up and said, "Let's force banks to give the poor houses they can't afford. It's the fair thing to do"

Still pushing that bullshit claim eh?

Former Housing CEOs: Poor People Did Not Cause The Current Financial Crisis»
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/09/myth-fannie-freddie/

Richard Syron, former Freddie CEO: “I would think that it wasn’t mostly trying to do things for poor people.”

Daniel Mudd, former Fannie CEO: “[W]hen the market goes down, it’s the folks who are the closest to the margin who — who get hurt first and longest every time.”

Leland Brendsel, former Freddie CEO: “I cannot recall ever being forced to make — or to purchase a mortgage loan that I didn’t feel, as a matter of policy at Freddie Mac, was a good mortgage loan, a sound mortgage loan, and an attractive mortgage loan for the homebuyer or the owner of an apartment building.”

Franklin Raines, former Fannie CEO: “I do not believe that poor people are the cause of the current financial crisis. … Most of the losses, as I read the record, have come on mortgages that were made to middle-class and upper-middle-class people, not to poor people.”

the ad hominem attacks cut-n-pasted from Daily Komatose's baboonery are tiresome; instead of dealing with the FACTS of the matter you're...just making a fool of yourself.

That's rich for someone whose entire thinking comes almost directly word for word from Rush Limbaugh, Red State, NRO and Powerline. I noticed you stopped reading littlegreenfootballs

No matter, this generational looting of the Treasury--the second time Congressional majority taxocrats will be voting for one--won't make it through in its present odious form.

Wait what was that Republicans pushed for when Bush was in office? Oh yeah a Wall Street bailout. What happened with that? Did anyone track the expenditures? Didn't Wall Street give out a huge bonus package out to people who essentially caused all this? Who was running the Fed and had majority control when the housing market entered this crisis? Wait wasn't it Republican controlled with a Republican President? Jeez but oh no its all the Democrats fault off a scheme written back in what the 1970s? What is the Republican plan for saving American jobs? Oh Tax cuts? How did that work out back in 2005 and 2006? Did it prevent this? Nope.

I knew this would happen to liberals when Bush left office. All that titanic machine-against-the-RAGE has to go SOMEwhere.

Oh that's so rich for someone who was a die hard Bushie for years and only claimed he was a demo-in-disguise once it was clear he fucked up a Republican majority control.

Your inability to even put a question mark on your own beliefs is staggering and amusing.

The only time I see QM's words are when someone quotes him.

Ignore list is my best friend.

I don't really like giving my views on these topics -- everyone is so biased by ideologies that it's almost impossible to sift through attacks and just bullshit.

Over the past six months I've spent many late nights trying to figure out what is happening to the US, and how it's going to affect my life in Australia. Our government seems to be following suit (create money, bail out failing industries, announce huge budget deficits).

Isn't it time to ask the question - is it worth 'stimulating' an economy that seems to be fundamentally flawed?

We, in western countries, have lived in probably the most leveraged state in history. Not just banks, the entire society. We used this leverage to purchase and consume goods made abroad, and to fund a service sector economy that is crashing now.

Now all this money that can't be paid back has to be written off. It can't be paid back. The leverage that existed because of this capital is gone.

Paulson and Bernanke pulled off a deft maneuver with the original TARP package.

There would have been a complete collapse of the American economy if they didn't act. The elephant in the room is simple though - what actually is the American economy?

It's a consumer and service sector based economy. Very little real goods are actually produced. The US has run a trade deficit since 1975.

There isn't a viable economy to stimulate. Even the automotive industry, considered the pinnacle of American manufacturing, burns cash at rates that render it unable to compete in a global market.

I've only read 200 pages of the act so far, and it seems like (excluding the TARP packages) it is the biggest transference of wealth from taxpayers to whomever the government decides in all time. It's a quick fix that will keep the government in power thanks in part to keeping a lot of people employed... by the government. A new social contract will emerge as written by Rahm Emanuel in his book "The Plan".

The whole saga has shown the world -- or at least myself, just what I suspected about America all along. The 'values' that they proudly proselytize to the world don't mean a god damn thing when a real test shows up.

Sadly, the next two years will probably sound the death knell for capitalism in my life time.

Cliffs:

a) America's economy is fake and nothing can 'save' it, it needs to be reinvented
b) America is bankrupt and will eventually default on it's debt to the rest of the world
c) Primarily, the manipulation of the Fractional Reserve Banking system caused the problem

Thoughts?

PS. I apologize if this is a little all over the place, I'm writing it between meetings at work.

Jake, first great comment.

What the US economy has become is a fundamental symptom of globalization and liberalization of trade markets, historically nations shifted from primary (extraction of raw resources), to secondary (manufacturing) and into tertiary (services and R&D) economies. The UK is a classic example of this shift in economic structure, moving from coal extraction, to textile mills to now financial centers over a large time span.

You are correct in pointing out that the US economy is now mostly a services, consumer and I would add R&D based economy. Now this is not a bad thing from a economics viewpoint for two reasons comparative advantage and trade liberalization.

Nations cannot be self contained and produce everything for themselves, various nations around the world have tried this and failed. Inherently there will be some things, for example, America (entertainment) will be good at and some things that Cuba (cigars) will be good at, the best case scenario is then for both nations to trade between themselves. This is called comparative advantage and it can be in R&D, manufacturing and services and so on.

When the great depression hit, nations around the world imposed large tariffs and trade restrictions that essentially killed world trade, reduced comparative advantage trade. The last 80 years of General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs (GATT) and World Trade Organization (WTO) have been working at reducing the trade restrictions that didn't exist prior to the great depression.

Essentially at the very core, what the US economy has become is the consumer and services dynamo of the world, China has become a large manufacturer and both are dependent on one another for the continual economic growth of the world. Due to trade liberalization and comparative advantage. This is globalization at it's most simplified level.

This is why the bailout is essentially created to loosen the credit and allow consumer expenditure to increase through transmission of economic projects throughout the economy at a fiscal level. We are trying to increase consumer spending, and consumer confidence not to simply rebuild Detroit and let car manufacturers burn through credit.

Now there is alot of complexity and problems that arise at almost every sentence I wrote down, but this is the basic restructuring of the world economy that is taking place and its beneficial for the world as a whole, because interdependence on a trade and economic level would mean increased productive efficiency, use of scarce resources and security.

Yes it is possible it will emerge as a social contract, but what are the alternatives?

Protectionism will essentially undo everything the last 80 years have built, and there were moves for this in the bill which are now being stricken because of a fear of trade war.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7871219.stm

Drastic realignment and change in government structure or what I like to call the Ron Paul effect is not political viable in any way, it would necessitate the utter change in government structure and national security profile (since major components involves withdrawal and draw down).

I think the problem is more rooted in the malfeasance of the Federal reserve and its stance towards regulating derivatives and sub prime market mortgages, we had a massive repackaging of toxic debt that was then marked favorably by the very agencies that are supposed to mark out risky packages. There was further failure in the SEC when it came down to clamping down on illegal activities, especially when it came to catching the Maddoff scandal.

I don't believe we will have a massive devaluation in the US dollar as China holds the largest US foreign reserves at this moment, as well as foreign debt along with nations like Japan. They will not want to make America default and collapse as a economic power as the repercussions will directly and severely effect them as well, a key part of globalization.

What is needed is essential CPR to the US consumer sector, but tax cuts alone will not work if people don't have jobs. So consumer confidence and consumer spending must be stimulated through other means, like the federal bailout that is being discussed right now. However I don't think it goes far enough in increasing credit in the economy, you must allow banks to start giving out lines of credit and drive economic activity.

We will see how this situation develops, I think its a hard sell either way and the next few years will be hard not matter what plan is imposed.