Stimulate the People with individual checks in the amount of 50k- 100k. THAT will fix the economy. Do not give anymore money to corporate raiders and financial crooks.
Yes It’s a good idea. Most people have been laid off due to companies closing not because they didn’t work. For some like people like me. I would love to be able to work. I am disabled now because I could not afford insurance and was hit by a car walking across a street. If I had insurance at the time I would have gotten proper care and some rehabilitation and maybe be back to work now. Not sitting here in pain. I live on 700. A month–Paying out 425-rent, electric, phone/internet, toiletries, dog food etc. and I spend a little on something every month to furnish my apartment. So ya I would love a little extra to go spend. Maybe I can buy a sofa to be able to sit…
The government should reward the “winners” (the successful businesses, working people of this country and savers) by passing a 5-year Federal tax moratorium and using an axe on the waste in Washington.
Then they should eliminate the Fed (private banks and fractional banking) and back our money with something of real value (gold?) and not just the “full faith and credit” in our government. (I have no more faith, and they have no more credit.)
This way, our economy would have “capital,” AKA real savings to invest instead of their “capital,” AKA toilet paper. Then I’d bet our economy would take off like a rocket.
Why would they think a healthy economy should be built on spending and debt instead of production and savings? How dumb is that?
The way we’re going, we’re headed for Weimer hyperinflation revisited… Begs the question: “Is this what is planned, or are they all just plain stupid?”
Someone called the bailout the “Generational Theft Act of 2009.” Sounds about right to me…which generation though? The boomers or X? Seems like they get a 2 ‘fer 1: Boomers get no Social Security (Washington spent it already) and no IRA (the Fed’s bubble popped and the IRA blew up), and “X” and everyone after gets a life of misery paying forever so the bankers (and all of the other losers) can be rewarded with a bailout for their greed and outrageous risk taking…
We live in the expensive North East and have found that living within our family means is a useful way to live by. Our family lives in an older smaller home with a modest mortgage, we drive cars we paid cash for, and have no credit card debt. Our vacations usually amount to day trips in our region. We shop at Costco and invest in our children’s education rather than their worldy items. Not so long ago, we were called stingy, some maybe even called us cheap. We call it living conservatively. Now if only our government would do the same and be a little more conservative.
I think they have already done enough. The economy needs to make its own “adjustment.” Right now, the government is digging us a deeper hole.
What got us into this mess? Spending money we didn’t have. I’m not just talking about the government itself. I’m talking about the people. Americans maxed out their credit. When we finally couldn’t afford to keep this economy propped up by spending money we didn’t have on stuff we might not have needed, the whole system began to collapse.
People took out loans on houses and cars that they simply could not afford. Something as simple as “How much in monthly payments can I really afford” went out the window. We blindly accepted whatever the banks told us we could afford. Too bad that we are held accountable for our actions, unlike the businesses.
I say let the chips fall where they may. Let the strong car companies, banks and other businesses survive if they can. If not, another entrepreneur will start a better business in the end.
However, people have to be in for the rough ride. For some, it will be penalty for their nonsensical spending and lack of saving for a rainy day. For others, it will be a hard lesson in “Life isn’t fair.”
But we all learned that when we were kids.
Yes! More economic stimulus packages! All we need is for our government to give more money they don’t have to people who don’t/barely work, so that those of us who do work can pay off the debt over the next twenty years! I’m all for it! Oh, and thanks for voting in a President who has vowed to bankrupt the oil/natural gas industry and put my husband out of a job–I really appreciate it!
More stimulus is needed. But the only stimulus that will do any good is the kind that puts more money (not credit) in most American Taxpayers pockets. If most American Taxpayers receive enough money or get to keep more of the money they have earned, then they will spend more money which will revitalize the economy. Sqandering taxpayer dollars on failing banks, failing investment banks, and AIG did not help the economy because it did not put more money in MOST American Taxpayer’s pockets. In order to help the economy, President Obama and Congress will have to make sure that 100% of the taxpayer money they use for stimulus will benefit MOST American Taxpayers.
The President and Congress need to stop wasting taxpayer dollars and only spend taxpayer dollars wisely. Wasteful government spending will continue to hurt the economy.
In order to put confidence back into the American People, the American People need to see accountability. Accountability is not “investigating” a crime, it is inflicting pushishment on the perpatrators like how MOST Americans are held accountable. Policemen that kill American Citizens should face the same punishment (going to prison) just like most Americans would have to do. Teachers, firemen, clergymen, social workers, counselors, coaches, and other workers who are entrusted with the care of our children who rape them should face the same punishment (going to prison) just like most Americans would have to do. Judges who bankrupt American Citizens should go to prison for not ordering REASONABLE attorney fees, etc. regarding a court case. Judges and lawyers should go to prison whenever they commit any crime including perjury during trials because they took an oath to uphold the law and should be held accountable for it. White collar criminals who bilk millions or billions of dollars from American People should be sent to prison. Elected officials who commit crimes should face the same penalties for those crimes (like going to prison) that most Americans would face for commiting those crimes. Elected officials who commit any act which would adversely affect those constituants who they took an oath to serve should face prison time. That is accountability. That is what the American People need to see to restore confidence. Also, they should serve their prison time in the same prisons where MOST Americans have to serve prison time, not the lavish accommodations where they currently serve time (for the VERY few that actually have to serve time).
The USA should be a country for Liberty and Justice for All.
To: Jeff Gray, Margate, England:
Hmm, too bad your not part of our nation’s discussion 
But I say Welcome to the Libertarian party! Hope you can begin a chapter across the pond….
It is time to get Big Governemnt off the people’s back, and bring freedom and liberty to the world.
LONG LIVE THE RECESSION, who is this bad for?? the rich. I say stop sending our money abroad and on the wall street execs. So what if Macys closes, their merchandise will be in a DOLLAR STORE near you in no time. Is it our fault that there is too many malls and not enough people??
It is the American greed and way of thinking that causes credit card debt. It’s considered bad debt when anyone cannot pay back the credit they owe, although that is the American way of living – buy what you want, when you want, not matter what your financial stability. Banks obviously encourage individuals to spend although to keep up with the everlasting, ever incresing overfinanced lending quotas the banks have no other choice but to approve loans towards home equity and the over inflated housing market.
Economic stimulis packages are great for the banks and wall street. We, the American people and congress gave the banks and wall street some 700 billion dollars. And they did what, let’s see they had an immiediate $400,000 party in California from it. Ohh, they gave the main stockholders and executives some new bonuses. Bonuses for what. Did they write or rewrite mortgages to give 10 % of the homeowners whom are behind in the payments a break, why no ! Did they make car loans available to people whom need a car and are having difficult times in this economy, why no ! Did they suddenly make loans to middle class people with this windfall from congress, why no ! Well I guess the purpose was to give the executives some new bonuses for bankrupting the companies. We are all, including congress and the media very much concerned about the evergrowing jobless report. Why then does vertually no one, with the exception fo Lou Dobbs in CNN the only person whom speaks the truth about the economy. In the last 10 years we have closed down 5 million factory jobs and sent the American workers packing and the factories to China. In the last 5-6 years we have sent 5 hundred thousand technical jobs to India and the American workers packing. Why then does no one state the obvious that the president, congress, the biggest companies and the media have been part of the package of pulling the wool over the American publics eyes that Globolization and outsourcing means we bankrupt this country and make China and India rich. Oh, we should not forget to state that Corporate executes are very pleased to get bonuses for firing Americans. One in fact at a large Insurance company in Massachusettes whom I worked for, for 6 years when they fired 80 percent of the technical staff and sent the jobs to India, stated to me, why should I care, my family is protected. I have done work as a consultant for such Banks as Chase, whom have stated openly they will send all possible American jobs to India, and if possible raise the credit card interest rate to 35 % to prevent the middle class from every paying the money back. Is everyone in our government stupid or just getting paid off ? Well I guess we know the answer. When we have sent spme 20 million jobs overseas, and this country is a third world country, don’t forget to say but we were part of global community and we had to do this to stay competative. We did !! Now, tell me why. Hopefully before we burn the books written by such writers as George Orwell, and before we have no jobs at all to speak of.
Crash, what crash, no crash! I have a theory that all the intervention, well intentioned as it was, has halted the natural process. In 1929 there was a crash, it was very bad but at least everyone knew where the bottom was and from then on the only way was up. Today everyone is in limbo fearful of investing because they do not know how much further it is to the bottom. Recovery can only begin when the bottom is reached and not before and anything that delays reaching the bottom delays the recovery.
NO MORE MONEY FOR THE BIG SHOTS ie THE BANKS, AUTO INDUSTRY, etc. All HAVE LIED TO OR RIPPED OFF THE CONSUMER. THEY DON’T DESERVE ANOTHER DIME. PUT CONSUMERS BACK TO WORK AND EVENTUALLY THE ECONOMY WILL RIGHT ITSELF. KNEE-JERK BAILOUTS MAY MAKE THE POLITICIANS LOOK GO IN THE SHORT TERM BUT IN THE LONG RUN THEY WILL BANKRUPT THE NATION AS THEY’VE ALREADY DONE TO SOCIAL SECURITY. CONGRESS AND THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH JUST DON’T KNOW HOW TO THINK OR ACT LONG TERM WHEN THEIR POLITICAL CAREERS ARE AT STAKE.
The comments here range from hysterically funny to insightful.
I can’t believe someone would propose that we move to the metric system as a way of creating stimulus! That would take decades and makes no sense!! MPH vs. KPH – who cares? Someone else said something about going to the moon – yet another rediculous statement. We live here and going there is just flat out wasteful. Let China blow all its money going to the moon. Who cares.
My favorite suggestion is to not make us regular folks pay income taxes for a year. My husband and I are responsible for paying the government over 20k in income taxes each year. If we had the $1700+ each month it would make an enormous difference – even if it was just one year. We would pay down the rest of my school debt and then be nearly debt free since we live far below our current income level.
The answer I thought of before reading many of the previous posters was to let things go. No stimulus. People are starting to save and becomming less materialistic. Reality is creeping back into the American psyche. Saving raises the cash in banks. When banks have more cash they can lend more. Granted, my saving $100 more per month won’t make a big dent, but if half of the country could do it the banks would be more solvent. Becoming more prudent should spill over to the choices we make in our elected officials and how we run corporations.
One more thing – let China, India, etc. do what they are best at so we can pay less for those goods. We need to take responsibility for ourselves and get educated so we can also provide a product or service that we are best at. This is called personal responsibility and we have lost this quality as a country. If you didn’t get educated – make sure your kids and grandkids do. Hard work is how we got to the top – that is why we won’t stay there. We don’t deserve to be at the top as a country. Long term handouts create laziness and here we are…
Last statement – what works in our personal lives will work for the government. “Living within your means” works every time.
This is what our (Big Brother) Government needs to do, instead of increasing our debt; they should be looking at radical spending cuts. But that would hurt all of Governments buddies, like special interest groups, corporate campaign contributors, and the best friend the lobbyist.
We were promised by the Congress in November of 2008, that the Wall Street bailout was needed to protect Main Street. I see no protection of Main Street, what I do see is homelessness and hunger. I see increased violence on the streets, I see more political corruption being exposed, and I only see one arrest for the Wall Street collapse for one small 50 Billion scheme? And he is sitting in his penthouse? He’s not even in jail? Over 8 trillion dollars was stolen from the American economy in 2008 where are the rest of the arrests for these crimes?
brian westbury was one of the biggest cheerleaders on wall street
he told us the subprime was contained
in january 08 he wrote an article for the wsj called the economy is fine-really
ignore all that he says
Sure lets just keep printing money until we’re sneaking over the border to Mexico for a better life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You hear it again and again. 70% of the economy is driven by CONSUMER spending. Yet Washington has been focused on the producer side of the picture throughout all of 2008. There are only two ways to increase consumer spending in an economy that is contracting. Create more jobs with government spending. This puts sidelined consumers back in the game. Second, provide tax cuts or rebates. This puts additional money in the hands of consumers to either spend in the economy, which creates demand for goods and services or it allows consumers to pay off debt, which is exactly what the banks need to shore up their balance sheets so that they again have money to lend to those who are credit worthy and financially responsible. By the way, consumer spending also helps out State budgets with more sales tax revenues. Lastly, Congress should repeal TARP and put the second $350 Billion into a consumer stimulus package. The should also recover as much of the first $350 Billion from those banks who have not used it as originally intended and redirect this also to the consumer. Is this too logical for Washington to understand ?
WHO CARES OBAMA /BUSH ALL THEY ARE TRYING TO DO IS MAKE THE RICHER GET RICHER IF THEY WANT TO HELP WHY NOT GIVE THE MONEY TO THE ONES THAT WILL PUT IT BACK INTO THE USA.LIKE I SAID BEFOR GIVE THE MONEY TO US THE POOR ONE THAT NEED IT & YOU WILL START TO SEE THE ECONOMY GOING UP WE THE POOR ONES MAKE UP 70% OF THE SPENDING & I DONT HAVE IT TO SPEND IT ALL I CAN DO IS PAY MY BILLS & HOPE FOR THE BEST TO HAPPEN. WHEN YOU GIVE MONEY TO THE RICH ALL THEY WANT TO DO IS POCKETED IT SO I DONT CARE WHAT THEY DO IF YOU DONT GIVE TO THE RIGHT ONES SO SIT BACK AND TAKE THIS RIDE IT WILL BE A LONG HARD ONE.
I’m in favor stimulus that spurs consumer spending. What did we find out from last year’s tax cut? There was a slight bump, but most people were too smart to spend it, choosing rather to save it or pay of debt. I am a 28-year old and I had enough sense to do that.
I feel like we haven’t heard enough about tax rebates or incentives to 1) Buy or Renovate a home, or 2) Buy a fuel-efficient car. Its the latter that I am more interested in, personally. I NEED a new car, but I work for a small business and fear that I’m either going to lose my job or take a 10-25% pay cut. My wife and I have enough saved to make it on one salary for about 6 months. However, I am scared to death to add a $300-400 monthly car payment to our balance sheet, when doomsday could be around the corner. I love Hyundai’s new incentive program, unfortunately I don’t want to buy a Hyundai.
Passing legislation that could incentify consumers to buy a house, or a new car particularly, could really do well to stimulate the economy. That’s going to be the issue over the next 6-12 months – consumer confidence. I AM NOT GOING TO BUY A NEW CAR IF I’M SCARED THAT MY JOB COULD DISAPPEAR TOMORROW. Doesn’t incentifying consumers to buy through rebates and stimulus do more to accomplish the goal of growing the economy far more than just sending us another $600-$1,200 check to bank?
President-elect, congress, lobbyists, consumers… do something that will help us, and make a difference in the economy – PLEASE!
The case for doing nothing has always been here–we are just too stupid to see it or accept it.
We need jobs more than anything else, but BUYING jobs with federal tax dollars isn’t the way to do it. It must be a personal, individual endeavor, just like everything else in this world.
You out of work and want a job? MAKE ONE! If you still have a job, but live in constant fear of losing it, make yourself INDISPENSABLE! Can’t make your own job or make yourself indispensable? Marry someone who CAN!
Government SHOULD be doing nothing here–YOU are the one who should be doing something!
Anyone who relies on government to do anything else for them besides what’s laid out in the Constitution is an irresponsible, immature buffoon.
Uncle Sam is NOT your savior, even though you might put money in his collection plate!
Do we need economic stimulus? Maybe. Do we need a massive revamp of our infrastructure, and in particular how we produce and consume energy? ABSOLUTELY. As long as we continue to export hard earned dollars to the Oil Producing Nations, we will hear that unwelcome economic Giant Sucking Sound!
Let’s be thoughtful here for a moment. The United States is broke in financial terms. It has run a trade deficit for too long. It has wasted trillions in Iraq and other foreign adventures. This has only been allowed to happen because the U.S. could print money without sanction. All of these problems can be traced to one event – when Nixon took the gold backing off the dollar in 1971. This action removed any restraint on politicians to control spending and deficits. This was like issuing a Visa card to deadbeats with an unlimited credit limit. I encourage the reader to go and look at any chart depicting the rise in debt in the U.S. and across the world and you will see 1971 as the defining year of departure from financial responsibility. The American people now see, and are living, the results of what their politicians have done.
You simply cannot build a sustained prosperity without a corresponding flow of real savings to fund capital investment. This is a basic tenet of capitalism. To get out of the current mess, there must be a return to this basic logic no matter how painful. Continuing with the present strategy of just printing more money and running larger fiscal deficits and trade deficits will not work. It will be a disaster. The dollar indeed will be driven down further. There was a time when poor people in the third world strived to put their savings into a fistful of greenbacks. They too have learned the ruse that has been played and now strive to buy gold as they know this is the one money that politicians cannot eventually devalue.
All of these bailouts are, and will be, a disaster unless there is a control mechanism in place to prevent the spending from being wasteful. Last year’s stimulus package; last year’s $700B bailout of Wall Street; the incredible accounting deceit of the FED and the Treasury in what instruments they have bought and what they have guaranteed; none of this has worked. In fact it has amounted to the largest looting of a national Treasury in history. I’m not sure who has benefited but I am sure it is not the general population who should be furious at this ongoing corruption. It makes Madoff’s $50 billion rip-off look like chump change and the politicians are gleeful that the focus is on Madoff while they execute their own looting.
I had high hopes for Obama, but it seems he too has fallen for failed logic and is now using terms such as “dire emergency” to push for what appears to be a $1.2 Trillion package. Don’t be fooled for a minute. This is no way out of the morass we are in.
What there is is a complete lack of understanding that the root cause of the mess is a monetary confidence issue. If you reduce interest rates to zero in a capitalistic economy where the Fed is printing money and monetizing debt as fast as it can, it sends a message that savings are worthless and the value of your money is being destroyed by the minute. The Fed is pursuing the exact opposite of what the policy should be.
The Fed should immediately raise interest rates and send a signal to the world that they are not going to continue to devalue the dollar. The savings rate must exceed the inflation rate in the long run. There are just as many people out there who have saved their money and led a responsible life as there are deadbeats who have gorged on the credit feast. The Fed is punishing the very people who are needed to restore the economy. If savers perceive that their money is going to earn a return they will have confidence to spend some of it. Right now most responsible savers around the world are heading for the hills and buying gold and investing in other currencies as they understand the current policy will lead only to one ending – a deafening and final crash.
Despite Obama’s dire prediction, I am not so pessimistic if appropriate steps are taken to restore confidence. Indeed America is still surprisingly in a position to do so. The Fed still holds ¼ (or about 8,000 metric tons) of the world’s central bank gold reserves. It is possible to create a new international settlements mechanism and return to a gold backed dollar. This would enable us to control spending by politicians again. Persistent trade deficits would be controlled. Countries would be encouraged to run balanced budgets and access to the printing press solution would be curbed.
There is perhaps a short window of opportunity for America to do this now and return to a “sound” monetary policy. If they do not, and they propose to run trillion dollar deficits into the future, the dollar is simply doomed. More and more responsible people who understand the consequences of hyper-inflation will abandon the dollar and head for gold themselves.
There is one American politician that really understands the solution and for too long, he has been ignored by the mainstream media. Congressman Ron Paul is one of the few voices of reason and the American people should take note of what he says. The problem is monetary. It is all about responsible spending and saving. There is enormous government waste that must be ended. Foreign exploits that provide no real return to the American economy must be stopped. Savings must be encouraged and most importantly rewarded and not punished as is the present case.
I encourage the readers to inform themselves about Austrian economics and the
Work of Mises, Hayek and Murray Rothbard. (www.mises.org) accepted the conventional wisdom of the interventionist approach by government (Keynesian) into the economy to the extent that the American economy is no longer a free market economy. And now it appears we are on the verge of authorizing even larger expenditures to further enlarge government’s intervention in the market. The solution to our ills is letting free markets work and do their job. The logic that a company is too big to fail is completely flawed. Let GM and Chrysler go under. The great strength of America is that it was always able to adapt and change more quickly than others. The recent bailouts fly in the face of free market operations and in fact impede the market from re-allocating resources and re-employing labor. .
Get out of the way and let the market work. It is going to be a far different world.
A person who just lost his job and his home needs direct help not this trickle down crap. Start making the people who caused this problem, in the first place, pay for it. The sub-prime scam started it all. Those greedy bastards can come up with the money.
First of all the situation started with everyone trying to play monopoly from the top down.We are all taking and no one wants to give back. One way to help the economic situation, now and for the future- would be to immediately start construction on 200 New high tech PBR Nuclear plants- not only will it create jobs now, providing tax revenue but it will also generate vast ammounts of cheap energy without impact to the environment. Many are afraid of Nuke’s However: The Navy has been using 100’s of Nuclear powered subs/ships all over the world without major incidence for years, and will continue to do so.
The problem ism that wioth any spending bill put out by politicians you end up with a disaster. Especially when they feel that it needs to be done quickley. Just look no further than TARP. Wait and see what disater comes out of Congress when this thing gets shredded by both the Repulblicans and Democrats. I already read where there is a bill being introduced (will probably be part of it) to allow bankruptcy judges to relieve people’s mortgages. The lobbyists and special interests are salivating right now at what will be in it for them. When is comes to politicians. Doing nothing is always the better option.
We have spent billions to bail out Wall Street, which has been corrupt for years, The auto industry, which has been warned for years to make better gas mileage cars, and banks, which have been allowed to increase credit card interest rates for any reason and charge fees for taking our own money out. How about the tax payer. Where is our bailout. Why should we struggle to put monies in 401k, which lost on average 30% in FY 08 and social security, which we will not see when we retire. Help the citizens of the United States. The ones who have been paying taxes the entire working careers, the ones who struggle everyday to make ends meet. A $500.00 tax credit won’t help anyone. Its a farce. $15 billion dollars to Bank of America, 300+ billion dollars to Citi Group. 17 billion dollars to the Auto Industry. AIG and their lavish lifestyle. There are two kinds of people in America. The Joes who work and pay taxes and then all of these corrupt Wall Street firms and their cozy friends in Washington. Everyday, politicians are caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Throw them in jail for at least 20 years. That will give future politicians a second thought on being corrupt. How about execs for these great companies. When their businesses fail, take the CEOs, COOs, and all other of the management teams assests back and sell them to help pay the bills. If they are corrupt, sent them to jail for 20 years. Life is hard. Make it hard for someone to steal. Not a slap on the wrist. Stop throwing Americas money, the taxpayers money away or someday we may be called the United States of China or whoever else bails this country out. The government wants to help. Give every tax paying citizen a check for $50,000.00. This should be for anyone who has less than a million in assets. Break it out over a year. This will stimulate the economy and put the other monies into Hydrogen cars, repairing roads, schools, and other buildings. Invest in education for our children so they don’t have to resort to crime or drugs. Spending money for pet projects, dumb wars, sending monies to other countries that hates us. Who makes these decisions. Its not rocket science, its common sense. Get America right first, and then worry about the rest of the world. No one rushes to our aid when we need it. We have to rely on ourselves. Be American proud and we will be great again.
I want to remind everyone that the mess we are in is created by a small group of white collar crooks, called themselves the financial experts or investment bankers. They like zero regulation so they can do what ever they want to make more money off the main street folks back.
The stimulus package is not just about more spending. It is also a means to return order, trust and fairness to the broken system.
We as a society of over spending consumers have spent way too much selfishly for our own sake in the last 20 years. What’s wrong about government investing for ours and our children’s and grand children’s future? I support the idea of job creation and long term economic growth by spending for our nation’s infrastructure and renewable energy.
Be it AIG, Fannie Mae, GM, if you mis-manage it, we – the taxpayers thru our brilliantly managed government, will bail you out! Does this mean that if I mis-manage my household finances by running up too much credit card debt at incredibly high interest rates, along w/buying a house I can’t afford (which some genious decided I should still have), etc., that our federal government will now give me a loan that I can’t afford to pay back? I think not. Here’s a thought…make these overpaid CEO’s w/their golden parachutes accountable for their mis-management! Fire them, take back all the bonuses, deny the golden parachute, and find someone who truly understands financial responsibility to run these companies. On a related topic….have Exxon take it’s $3 billion of cash their worried about what to do with and bail out the auto industry (instead of the taxpayers) since they have a vested interest in their gas-guzzling survival! If only the auto industry had invested their research $$ into fuel efficiency instead of GPS navigation systems, Sirius radios, and glitzy interiors w/more bells & whistles we don’t need, we’d be a little better off. Oh well, what do I know.
One Man’s opinion!
Just give every taxpayer a $1000000 and the economy will be jump- started with people spending and this is a lot cheaper.
With respect to a bailout of the auto makers, bring the labor costs in line with foreign competitors and have the oil companies participate with some of their huge profits since they are the real beneficaiaries of the auto sales and use. The, unions, are the real fat in the auto equation. Let’s go on a diet and trim the fat.
The American people should get whatever it needs to ride this wave;after all a lot of undeserving businesses got a piece of a pie when they rained on everyones party. President Obama should take back all the money that was given to banks, money brokers and auto makers. How on earth any of us can justify giving our tax dollars to these inept and corrupt companies. What is the matter with Americans that we cannot stand up and say NO WAY JOSE and mean it. If this would have happened anywhere else in the world we would have had riots. Enough is enough, the republicans pursued scortched earth tactics before they left power.They took the kity with all the money in it and they left us naked in the middle of the street. Before Bank of America, or Chrysler, or another speculator gets any of my money I want some of my hard earned money to take care of my kids and my communtity.
Is anyone admitting that we have pretty much lost the trade war with China? Well you say, you didn’t know we were fighting a trade war? While we slept and espoused the fool hardy benefits of free trade, America has, like a junkie addicted to heroin, borrowed more and more from the Chinese which kept us awash in cheap money to spend; and spend where? of course, with the Chinese. Just like the junkie, the more we bought, the more we wanted and the Chinese kept lending us the money to buy more. We keep buying, they keep lending, and we buy more. And never, so we have thought, would the bill come due. And now the Chinese are the largest holder of American debt.
And now what is Obama’s plan? Borrow Trillions more from the Chinese so that we can buy more Chinese goods. The only economy that’s going to help is the Chinese’. What happens when they have their fill and just stop lending us more money? Interest rates will go through the roof. And when that happens, how will the government fund entitlement programs, defense, and pay the interest on the debt which is already a third of the annual US budget?
The answer is we can’t and we won’t. But we will try. How? By printing more paper money. That is a recipe for not just inflation, but hyper-inflation and will devastate what’s left of the middle class and the whole econony. The free traders have overseen the de-industrialization of America and the only thing we still produce that anyone wants is food. Stop buying Chinese, how? Say no to their toxic toothpaste? Not much longer we won’t. Just like a 19th century colony, we will send them food and become a dumping ground for their inferior products, because the “good stuff” will stay home.
There are probably ways to turn all this around, but spreading cash around to the masses with stimulus packages is not only the wrong answer, it’s just plain foolish. We need to balance the budget and begin paying off the debt and eliminate our trade deficit. Hard enough to do in good times, it would take far more tenacity in times like these.
Just a few suggestions from a lowly citizen taxpayer:
1) Put a $50 a barrel import fee on crude oil. Domestic production would increase and alternatives would benefit, while imports would be reduced. We import 10M barrels of oil a day and that’s $200B a year in new revenue. Invest that in renewable energy to eliminate oil imports in 10 years. Sure gasoline will go back up, but it means jobs, reduction of green house gasses, and helps with the trade imbalance.
2) Charge a fee on everyone and everything entering the country, say $25 person, $50 per automobile, $500 per tractor trailer or container, $1000 per rail car or airplane, and $5000 per bulk cargo ship. Use this money to hire tens of thousands inspectors to truly secure our ports and borders. That’s jobs and security. Yes this would raise prices of imports, but that helps domestic producers and that means more jobs here at home.
3) Restructure business income and capital gains taxes to favor domestic production and penalize out-sourcing. Sorry to take another swing at the free trade crowd, but American workers will never be able to compete against some underage worker, working 12 hour days for $1 an hour and living in an unsanitary hut.
4) Stop posturing about entitlement programs and start doing something. How often have we heard politicians say they are going to cut the waste and fraud? Even if that happened, the government has to control the out of control spending and increase revenues to pay for these programs. But we fixed Social Security you say. Oh remember the Social Security Trust fund? Guess what. It’s all invested for our future. Invested? Sure, in US government bonds. With the huge retirement demographic over the next 20-50 years, there is no way the fund can remain solvent past 2020. The only way to handle entitlements is to tackle them head on. Eliminate early retirement at age 62 and raise the full retirement age to 70. Eliminate the cap on Medicare deductions so the tax is paid on all payroll. Eliminate the indexing of payments. (OK I’m a member of AARP, or at least I was until they read this)
5) Reduce military spending by closing oversees bases especially in Europe, but worldwide. We need a lean and mean military that concentrates on the war on terror, not billion dollar planes and ships that we can’t afford to buy fuel for.
6) And finally taxes. Cut taxes? Are you insane? If anything taxes need to go up or at least remain revenue neutral. Institute a real graduated flat tax on individuals. NO DEDUCTIONS -0- Nada, None. Say the first $25K tax free, the next at 5%, the next $50K at 10%, and so on. So what if the guy getting the $1M wall street bonus has to pay 40% of it in taxes?
Enough said. Can we? Will we? Well these are other drastic actions are necessary, or we better make sure our kids learn several dialects of Chinese.
I feel this is a good idea. City and State around the world is hurting and families are losing jobs. We need the stimulus bad. Don’t be selfish people, think of those that don’t have.
Focus on small businesses in America getting credit; improve our electric grid & existing bridges and highways. No more bail outs for financial entities and large corporations (including Detroit!).
Fixing roads and bridges is not an economy! The present world trade order needs to be redesigned. The Developed countries such as United States, Canada, Germany, France, England etc. will never be able to compete on the world market with Developing countries such as China, India , Mexico etc. The fact is that the developed countries will always have a higher cost base due to their social standards and government programs. Furthermore China trade their finished goods for US dollars or Euro currency, meanwhile their currency RMB does not trade on the open market. The result is China does not return the liquidity in the system or at least not in the developed countries;therefore we the developed countries will continue to be on the decline and the developing will continue to grow their economic power on our backs. Free trade only benefits the developing countries, its a one way street. The solution is trade only amongst the developed countries with the same social values and “cost base” and let the developing countries fend for themselves amongst themselves at their expense. We should exclusively trade on an even playing field.
We should do nothing and let the markets and ecomony work itself out! We need to go back to basics in our country and regain accountability for our own actions and stop turning to the Government to bail us out!
A stimulus to a degree would be helpful. He should “Junk” the notion of Infrastructure spending immediately. Given the character and ethics of MOST Politicians and crooked contractors, unsavory acts like Fraud, Bid rigging, collusion, etc. would be rampant. I realize he is appointing an “over Sight” but they will not be able to really be functional, and it will just be another government agency which is a waste.
The idea of taxing the middle and lower classes to correct the financial ruin created intentionally by our socialist form of government is ludicrous. They crafted this planned financial ruin to further entrench the people of the world in a slave labor state. It can only serve to create a police state in which those in power can maintain their goal of insuring they remain immensely wealthy at the expense of those blind and dumb enough to continue serving their needs. They know that controlling (through brutal force if necessary) the private sector is the key to maintaining their slave owner labor position. We are all nothing more than pawns to them. The sooner we recognize this the sooner we get our country on track. The founders of America experienced the same type of faldyrall in Britain. We don’t need those who created the problem to fix it. The governments rapacious appetite needs to be curbed. Obamas idea to create additional jobs through increasing government is classic socialism, a form of government we need to do away with. A free, untaxed private sector is our only hope for survival and until that happens you can tuck your head between your knees and kiss yout butt goodbye.
I studied economics back in the 90’s. Much has changed since then. Keynesian economics was just one school of thought. It was not universally accepted as the answer to fix a broken economy. Government stimulus is one way to get money back into an economy, but seeing this as a magic pill to fix all that is broken is absurd. In addition to pushing government stimulus, Keynes also clearly stated “that at there is no more effective method of destroying a society than through currency debasement.” At the current level of debt we (every man woman and child) are paying $1400/yr. in interest alone. This is before spending $8 Trillion more dollars and at a time when the US can borrow for next to nothing (some of the latest auctions allowed us to borrow for nothing). This is all short-term. Long tern as interest goes up and other nations realize that 400% of annual GDP may be too much debt even for the United States, interest will rise and make everything worse, much worse. This debt will cripple all future economies and be the end to the last of the super powers.
The Un-regulation of Mortgage/banking etc. caused this mess and until people have regained equity, and/ or 401k & IRA stability, then the economy will be bad. If consumers have no disposable income, they are not consumers- but welfare recipients. If the people are rich- the country is rich; but government does make a difference, look at what Mugabe did to Zimbabwe, Bush did to U.S.- Think about it; Paulson, Bernanke–
The nexus of all of U.S.’ monetary evils is the criminal collusion between the Privately controlled Federal Reserve System and the rump Congress of the United States.
Abolish the FED and the IRS, rename the Defense Dept., for what it truly is, the War Department, now sell that budget. Repeal the 17th Amendment to restore the appointment of Senators to their States; restoring States Rights per Article X of the First 10 Amendments. Honor & enforce the Money clauses requiring gold and silver Coin as legal tender; not emergency federal scrip; first issued under FDR, an American Marxist-fascist-Keynesian, also amoral and a charismatic liar. Sound familiar?
Why don’t we do something for the American people. We have bailed out the auto industry, and the banks. And what do the banks do to us They raise our interest rates even though we gave them our money. Do you think the banks that took the loans are going to pay us back on time. Probably not. Maybe we should raise the interest rate on them
An economic recession is far more than just business fundamentals. It’s also psychological. (aka: if everyone decides to stop spending because they read nerve wrecking news somewhere, the economy is nuked.) The government acting by doing something positive is pretty much like a comforter. If the government does nothing, then someone (organizations) needs to do something to stimulate spending. In almost whatever case, the rich will become richer, and the poor & middle class will become poorer. A balance may be possible, but it will be difficult, if not impossible. News organizations can help or make things worse. Distributing truth can be both good or bad and so can distributing exaggerations.
It seems to me that both the complaints about the stimulus not working, and how another is needed or we’re doomed – both ideas are premature. It is wiser to wait and see how this year shakes out before committing ourselves to a course of action we will be unable to reverse.
Since something approaching one hundred percent of the products sold at Wal-Mart, for example, are produced in China and other Far-Eastern countries, to the extent that a tax rebate is actually spent in making purchases, (an unknown but limited percentage),we would be stimulating those Far Eastern economies, not our own.
First of all the situation started with everyone trying to play monopoly from the top down.We are all taking and no one wants to give back. One way to help the economic situation, now and for the future- would be to immediately start construction on 200 New high tech PBR Nuclear plants- not only will it create jobs now, providing tax revenue but it will also generate vast ammounts of cheap energy without impact to the environment.
I’m an Economist and a Conservative Lawyer from Detroit. I have watched the “Great Reversion” of the U.S. back to an agrarian-servitude economy firsthand. Free Trade has been just a Holocaust of American jobs, and it is not free; Somebody has to pay for it. Unfortunately, it will be all of America who pays. I am for Obama’s Stimulus(less pork), but we need Smart-Trade import-duties, or all of the Stimulus will leak out of the U.S., and we will be in the same place in a year or two, but without any Federal Cash Reserves, and no confidence in our Dollar. I got mine already; how are you and your kids going to exist in a Free-Trade Bankrupted Third-World America?
Yes I think we need a middle class stimulas. We(the middle class helped out every bad business judgement(Bank, Auto Industry) The middle class has been squeezed for so long we are at the breaking point! Hello we do need the middle class spending power which is totally stifled right now(and has been building up for many years). It is been getting to only the rich and the poor and when the mid class goes(where is our economy now) Were SCREWED! And all the white coller crooks have all the money thats been stolen ETC Madoff and Forte! CROOKS ROBBING
Printing more money will complicate the situation, will turn the US into South America… How about living within one’s means?
The problems are many-
1.) NAFTA
2.) WTO
3.) Federal Reserve
4.) Outsourcing, to the lowest bidder
5.) Offshore Accouts
6.) Corporate Fascism
7.) Unsound monetary policy
8.) Council on Foreign Relations
9.) Fiat Currency, not backed by Gold
10.) Politicians, bought and paid for, through political contributions.
Need I say more?
Our country needs to build an ultra modern system of super fast trains. This will create huge amount of job opportunities, new infrastructure and a new social movement.
As an urbanist, my major interest is in the social interaction opportunity these commuting systems can create. American CAR created an unparallel culture of being in a BOX. For decades, we stepped out of our homes and cocooned ourselves in our private boxes. This has created a very unique social culture of limited interaction, which began to partially change by the advent of Internet and online society. As we have seen through this new media of bloggs and culturally transcending cyber-space savvy society, we people love interaction. We love to exchange ideas, make comments, convey messages, wish greetings and condemn jointly, we truly are HUMAN BEINGS that need to interact.
Our society of the future needs to be able to do this not just through cyber-space but also on their way to work as well or on their way to daily lives. Lets put back human beings into social networking systems – namely buses, trains and public spaces like urban plazas. Lets give back to the society their social spaces so that they can talk to each other as human beings – face to face.
Creating these trains will create a much needed infrastructure for commuting; it will save millions of gallons of gas; it will save billions of hours of wasted time; it can create completely new industries – job opportunities, products and design opportunities; it can create new social spaces namely train stations and metro connections; it can create new routes to un traveled destinations and new opportunities for old destinations and much more.
Today we have the opportunity to either pay $1000 tax rebates or create a $300 billion fund to create this new future for our generations to come. We have this unique opportunity to credit $3000 to employ meaningless labor, or redirect a $300 billion fund under consideration for tax rebates and re-direct to a social phenomenon for generations to enjoy. Can ANYONE stand for this?
Let’s see now – during the past several years, it has been proven that borrowing against equity is a very bad idea for millions of homeowners and investors, some of whom have lost their will and capacity to live. So, let’s just throw out the equity part and keep on borrowing from ourselves. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
It doesn’t matter – as long as people we don’t know are encouraged by personal greed, power and esteem to do what they please with the money not one single American ever had the choice NOT to pay in the first place, we will continue to sink into the already neck-high quick sand from which there is no hope of escape if we continue playing this game of who can gamble away the most money trying to revive a State that is on life-support.
Frankly, I’ll cheer for every ridiculous Trillion “they” spend. Although people would undoubtedly do very different things with a Trillion dollars, that dispensation is now in the hands of a very small set of people, but not so small to have just enough weak links in its human structure to ensure the current SNAFU not only continues, but worsens. I’ll cheer because it will hasten the day when it is finally obvious to everyone that a Central Government, historically and presently, has never been able to sustain itself.
Congress doesn’t get it. We need jobs, not a short-term stimulus that will only add to the deficit, and stimulate overseas economies! We need to be working on securing jobs HERE in America. People will spend money if the have JOBS. Why is that so hard to understand? We need to pay off our debts, not add to them! So far, Obama hasn’t made a move to even consider tackling the deficit, and now is not the time to add to it.
What about seniors on fixed Social Security incomes? We only got $300.00 on the last rebate while younger workers got $600.00 and we are not included on the tax cut of middle class workers. Our savings accounts are gets zero monthly now. When is all the punishment of the poor going to stop?
We don’t need to throw more money on the fire just let it burn out and we will recover it will take time but we will be better off.
Instead of bailing out the bandits in Wall St. and Detroit for $750 billion or more, let the govt. mail a check for $10,000 US to every working and/or laid off American citizen. A large percentage of them will buy new cars, new appliances, TVs, etc. and many other products, or use it to pay down their bloated mortgages, and save their home. Wall St. and Detroit are bottomless money pits run by money addicts.
First of all, Allen, the American government needs to spend money that they don’t have to stimulate growth and reinstate trust within financial institutions around the country. The reason that the banks received such a large significant proportion of the TARP funds was because the government wanted them to start to loan funds out. The economy is at a standstill where not only will more jobs be lost but sadly to say more homes as well. You can literally find homes around the US for one thousand dollars. Whittney, America has gotten to a point of greed and capitalism that there will be no possibility for everyone to ‘unite’. Obama isn’t striving to build more roads for the sole purpose of travelling to work, he is focusing on infrastructure building as did many other presidents in the past ie. Roosevelt on building more fundamental municipal buildings and airports. By throwing money into the infrastructure workforce will produce many new construction jobs to already struggeling independent and unionized individuals. Obama won’t be focusing on roads, he will invest money in new technology that will promote less carbon emissions and more cars off the road. China did this years ago when they built a speed-train into main financial districts to take more effect off global warming. He plans to invest in a future America has never heard of or seen that is why so much critisism is coming his way.
Capitalism in our modern day should be the way of business function although recently the government has stepped in and taken control, lended our money out becuase of the incresing job scrutiny. They let Lehman Bros. fail and that had dire aftermaths on Americans. Obama doesnt want to see that happen to any other company becuase of how unaware the administrations were of a horrific collapse of Lehman. America cant afford losing three million more jobs due to a unhealthy economy. Obama needs time, and that is exactly what he is most likely using to his advantage when the Bush administration ends their term.
One of the largest problems in the U.S. is negative media. There is a lot of good in America that goes without notice. That said, the economy is going through a re-adjustment on all aspects. First off, a lot of credit companies loaned funds to individuals that have proven they cannot pay bills on time. Loans should be given, like when my parents mortgaged a home, to people to have proven to be responsible on paying down debt. If people did not live beyond their means, we would not be carrying a load of debt that our future children will be paying off in taxes in years to come. Americans are brash, bold, and do not think about countries in which people stick an straw into the ground to get a few drops of water. If the U.S. gave honest taxpayers 30K each it would be far less than what is being spent to bailout companies who have taken advantage of the middle class, allowing them to pay off debt, which would allow them to finance cars, homes, and businesses they may want to start, allowing for more jobs being created in the long run. Do the math, if you take 300 million people in the U.S., most likely about 180 million americans paying taxes, 30K to each person would be better than giving it to companies in which fly CEO’s to the Senate to beg while spending 20K each way on corporate jets….I better stop now while I am ahead. We look at the short term, not the long term, and we are going to be in a larger hole than we are now. Stop the bailouts, give the money to citizens, pay off debts, and everyone will be in a better place. Open more free trade, work on exports as opposed to imports, Wallmart will need to raise prices of goods and will help us all.
Please listen:
Everytime the Federal Goverment gives the Taxpayer a break the State and local taxing bodies are right there to pick out pockets. The States must be more productive in cutting costs and putting the money back into the hands of the consumer where it can be spent.
The President must not give out any funds to a State that has it’s budget out of control, like Illinois with the higest sales tax at 10%, the higest property tax and 2.5% and one of the highest income tax, or we will never get out of this mess. Illinois is also $106 Billion in the red and has not presented a balanced budget in years.
State Goverments gone Wild!!!!
We need to produce our way out of this recession, not spend our way out. If Washington must inject money it doesn’t actually have into the economy, then do it by subsidizing production and productive labor rather than by paying workers to be unemployed. Protect and expand jobs by paying people to work. And increase government spending on infrastructure projects that will use US labor and products produced in the US.
The federal resurve has been the problem since 1913. We will go the way of Rome and all other nations of history with our fiat paper currancy.
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The last time I heard, “We need to do this in a hurry, or the financial system will totally collapse”, the government slapped another 700 billion of debt onto future generations, with no guarantee of return on investment. The end result: taxpayers got hosed.
I guess we’re doing it again…sigh.
We should not be throwing borrowed money to solve this problem. Let the market correct itself. The people trying to stimulate the economy are some of the same prinipals that contributed to this mess along with the myriad of politicians who sat back and let it happen. This is an absolute farce that we must ride out.
Government Stimulus? Duhhhhh!!!! Government has nothing to give!!!! Government has no money! They have to take it from the populace before they can give anything. It is called taxation. Can’t we look at our history and the founders of this country and why they came here to avoid tax burdens? However the majority of public seems ignorant to this fact!
Only need to do two things. Drive mortgage rates to 3.75% and hold for 18 months. Second eliminate capital gains taxes for 18 months. Then watch the money come out of the woodwork.
What we need is a thinning of the herd. Let idiots who can’t control their own finances end up on the street. Let moronic CEO’s and their corporations crumble to the ground. It’s survival of the fittest people…those of us who live within our means, have zero dollars in credit card debt, and ample savings will survive and breed, while the rest of you cretins fall into the dustbin of society. Good riddance!!!
Sorry, I forgot two important things.
10. Have banks finally start lending money to people. It is extremely difficult to get loan for house even if you are putting 50% down payment. I know that from my neighbor experience. If they don’t to lend money to people they should return TARP money back to Federal Reserve.
11. This is connected to my comment #4 in previous comment block. TV News, news papers and other media should show more responsibility in creating public opinion, informing people what is going on as well as carefully choosing what people to call on TV for opinion about new recovery plan and curent situation. Come down and don’t make panic. This is a great country and it will pull back, it is just matter of time.
So now there are “experts” on how to govern a country. I don’t about all of you but the only “experts” who think think there is nothing is wrong and the economy is doing well, are those who have targeted the poor for along time. The reason why these so called “experts” say the country doesn’t need any help is because they will be the only ones who won’t gain anything from an stimulus package put forward. Thats why these so called “experts” are saying adding more stimulus package would be bad for the economy. Why is that the rich who have a few $$$, are “experts”. CNN really needs to go to areas where people have lost jobs and hold those who have control CEO’s or Governments accountable. Please remove the so called “experts” they control the top wealthy peoples portfolios. Not 2.4 Million jobs.
Nobody can say for sure whether prior bailouts and stimulus legislation helped our economy… Nobody. Perhaps some confidence was restored, but at what long term cost? Perhaps a more principled treatment (without massive, inconsistent gov’t intervention) of our once capitalist system would have restored that confidence. There are endless speculative points to make here, but consider the following: the government may be causing much of the market uncertainty as it has spent the last year churning out extraordinary ideas for “fixing” the economy. It has been inconsistent (Lehman, TARP use), and it has become a wildcard with its unprecedented plans for market intervention (making valuations nearly impossible) – housing, stocks, debt, autos, etc. I think that large scale intervention in markets will create inefficiencies that will make us less competitive and hurt our economy in the long run. For those that would argue that it’s only temporary, the sheer size of the proposals will, by nature, have long term consequences.
1. Doing nothing and having market work this out is stupid. We saw how those people devastated economy.
2. Yes, big bill will take long time to return, so the money we spent in Iraq. Instead to support our economy and manufacturing we were playing war games in Iraq
3. First, Obama’s plan was made by his team. Those people are not prophets. They are people. That plan needs to go through open discussion. It needs positive critique from experts, senators, congressmens, small business owners, proven CEOs, which will show good and bad sides of the plan. Some new ideas will pop-up and bad ideas should be disregarded. It is important to have this variety of people involved in order to look the recovery plan from different perspectives and address all the possible issues that could go wrong. Always think, what could go wrong, but not to blame someone for bad plan, then to help him to improve it.
4. Stop critiques in news papers that don’t have this positive attitude. Many people want to go in news just because of popularity and don’t have overall picture of the current situation. This drives market down for no reason. We should look positively in future and see ligth on the end of tunel.
5. President should stop moving businesses outside of US (I guess they are going to stop doing that by their self, at least for now). Or at least companies that have business out should pay greater customs fees.
6. Invest our tax dollars exclusively in US companies (which I think is intended to do).
7. Do analysis what manufacturing businesses have great potential. Maybe return some of them from oversees back to US. For example, we don’t have anymore shoes industry. It is moved out 1980’s-1990’s. We MUST HAVE and MUST reinforce manufacturing in our country. We can not live on services.
8. Pray to God, be better people, respect neighbor, love country, be diligent and responsible on our jobs. Each of us should start from himself.
9. Put economic mafia that brought us here in jail.
Every economic market always had its side effect, such as laid-off and bankruptcy for every people who play capitalism. Doesn’t matter is in good time or bad time. And I don’t see a point that save some failing companies can do good things. People become lazy and waiting for government to save them. Capitalism is about Competition and Learned to change.
If a labor knew this place is no longer a good place, then he or she will learn new skill to find a new job. Learn to change. A boss who loss a worker will re-think what I do wrong if a worker left. That stimulus package shouldn’t spend wildly, it might looks save this generation of people, But doesn’t looks so good for our next generation who have to carry our stimulus loan for long time.
You ask a loan that you can pay for it. Don’t always blame other countries for our problem. We need control our spending and budgeting for everything.
1.mandate the rollback of all interest charges for two years. providing the opertunity to buy down directly all debt for one and all
2.mandate the elimination of primary residence real property tax payments for all for also a period of two years.
3.ship all illegal aliens home/ no more social services available to illegals within our borders.
4.Provide direct aid and miltary support to the country of Mexico in trade for cooperation and partnership in the takedown of the mexican/american drug cartel.
5. Opt out of the war in Iraq
further aid and support must only be provided as purchased from IRAQ.
External Debt by country:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt
See something wrong. The so called “Rich Countries” in the list is an illusion. The have been able to sustain their luxury by borrowing. The so called “Poor Countries” are “richer”. Going further into debt is the end to ones sovereignity.
For the first time in history, we have a party that hates America and it is led by Obama. A year or so ago, Obama stated in a speech that we have to stand down and cease to be a world power. It was time,he stated, that America share the wealth so that other nations would respect us. Meanwhile he steals from the working white middle class to give tax breaks to illegals and others who dont contribute. Mark my words! We will cease to be a world power under Obama rule. He and other liberals hate America so much that they actually want the US to fail. By the time these idiots realize the freedoms that they gave away it will be too late. Obama will bankrupt the nation and disarm the military.
Obama’s plan is to make the US weak and ripe for attack. But don’t worry he will fight for sodomites right to be in the military.
1. mandate 2 years of freedom from interest expenses for all/
2. 2 years freedom from realestate taxes from property owners
3. Of urgent concern return not only all mexican illegals to their country, but together lets help Mexico using aid from our government to wipe out that country’s drug trafic. Use confiscated money’s from drug lords to pay for the process.
Bush spent 60 billion? I think it you’re about 740 bilion off. And let’s not forget the 120 billion that was handed out to AIG for them to have a 450k trip to a private golf course and train. I wonder when Bush’s family gets on board with them. Oh.. that’s right he’s already set up with Exxon for the next 18 generations of Bush.
Do nothing and let those who brought us to this situation perish.
We are stealing from our future generation. Why is it that no one seems to care about our children ?!? Our legacy has to be remembered for taking the correct action, not perpertuate a mistake $1 billion at a time.
We are down the path of no return, but we can atleast try and take the responsible course of action, which is stop going into deeper debt.
Giving a tax brake to people isn’t going to help the unemployed. The people who get the tax brake will probably spend it on goods made in China. This country does have a deteriorating infra structure which needs to be fixed. That money will create jobs. Tax brakes should be given to manufacturing companies which keep jobs in this country. Our problem and problems in the future are caused by our jobs going overseas. Where this lines the pockets of the CEO’s it does nothing for the working class. Currently, far too many people work for the government and retail. This is not a sustainable economic model.
DO NOTHING?? I GOT SOME BAD NEWS PEOPLE TOOOOO LATE!! Do people even pay attention to what’s going on? There have been how many bailouts AIG, TARP,L.B., AUTO(800 bill) I lost count. I was always for doing nothing in our capitalistic society, but who am I? The funds go out too fast with no strings and what do we get? We get theses 350 mil a year CEO’s ear marking 50 bil for bonuses. And.. When it’s caught, they call it key employee retention funds. Wait aren’t those the same key employees the ones that BK’ed the business? YES!! Not to mention the same CEO’s made their money off WAY OVER VALUED SECURITIES that they pumped up and sold falsley. Thanks SEC and you regulate WHAT? IT’s a joke. The problem is these CEO’s and big business employee too many of our politicians and there families after the terms. Politicians get board jobs free health care, big money pensions, and than land a job in a “non for profit org. making 120k a year that was all worked out before they left office while looking the other way for the same company they now serve. How many Americans are without insurance? They do not care about us!!! DO NOTHING PLEASE. CEO”S with a salary are there becasue of who they know not what. They have no incentive in making the business successful year after year with that kind of money being paid to them regardless of performance. They should be foreced to put their own money in and pay back their salary should the grossly fail. Politicains should not be allowed private employment after reaching a certain level of office in politics. They are paid enough with benefits. But.. you’re asking the liars and the thieves to pass laws that would prohibit thier less than honest ways. OH YEAH, again TO LATE TO DO NOTHING, you should have wrote this article a couple months ago.
Instead of spending too much money on stimulus package, which people are gonna put in their bank accounts and not spend anyway, the Govt should do something that injects confidence among the investors to invest money in the markets. This could be something that doesn’t cost the Govt as much as $800B and it still works!
GO Metric!
American should invest in going metric and catching up to the rest of the world.
It is a necessary investment for the future
It is a about moving forward not just spending money to keep alive a floundering economy
It will create huge job creation
It will be real change, visible, practical, economical and politically smart to build this country and get ready for the next generation to take over!
The government, YOUR government first said that we need a bailout of the banks so that there is money to lend out. Then they say that the consumer (us) aren’t spending enough to support businesses which in turn keeps jobs in place. In the meantime, people are losing their homes at an alarming rate. So the government solution is to make more credit available to the consumer (us again) so that we can spend more money we don’t have and can’t pay back. You don’t have to be an economist to understand that this is totally backwards. Obama is sending the same fear message as Paulson. If you (the Congress) don’t pass this BS stimulus bill, that the recession will be horrible. Scare tactics… nothing more. Our nation is on the ropes and everyone is doing exactly what the government wants us to do: Sit at home and watch American Idol like braindead idiots. America, you better be ready to fight.
What father buys his teenage son a Porsche for getting caught robbing someone at gunpoint? An idiot father! That’s what it feels like were doing with all these bailouts. No matter how much we give these greedy Corps. they will never learn their lesson. They deserve a good ole fashioned a** whipping. I’m tired of my tax dollars going to these spoiled children.
I am fearful that the stimuli in place already will cause inflation to come back with a vengeance. True, commodities prices are on the lamb, and so is residential real estate. However we have to recognize that government economic policies, once started, have a huge amount of inertia: You can’t stop them “on a dime”
TARP already looks like we’re throwing money at something: Huge amounts of money are disappearing into the maws of troubled institutions with nothing to show
for it.
I would advocate taking a careful look at the performance of existing government “stimulus” policies before I started throwing more money at the problem.
Let’s not forget: $700 billion is what we already have. Now Obama wants to give it another $800 Billion “chaser”.
Bush May 2008 personal rebate checks(more borrowered money)-did not help
Recent Wall Street TRILLIONS DOLLAR bailouts-did not work
Big 3 auto bailouts-sales are way down, plants are still closing
Previous handouts to airlines-they are still hurting big time.
What is helping me personally is gas prices are down over $2 from 6 months ago. I can finally buy a cheeseburger with fries at McDonalds. Now I understand the feds want to raise the gas tax .50 more. That makes sense. I guess I won’t be able to buy fries anymore.
Trotsky and Lennin would be proud let have the government run everything banks, factories and our lives. Let’s get our collective heads out of the doomsday scenario and start working towards someone. Goverment is great Rosevelt set up our largest looming disaster social security which is going to bankrupt us. Let continue new deal mk II and see what happens. Thanks chairman Mao oops I meant Obama
What, hunker in the bunker! Thats like droping a match in dry grass and hoping the wind blows out the fire. This is it, our elected officials are going to have to work together,and forget their party affiliations.God help us if they don’t. WE CAN DO THIS!
Greed and stupidity, This will end up collapsing our Constitution. We are now the same country our forefathers fought against.
President Elect Obama lets go to the Moon. Capture the hearts and minds of young americans again and give people something to work towards that is truly unifying and magnificent such as colonizing the moon.People have gotten bored with their lives driving around 2 and 3 cars and emitting all the carbon messing up our environment. The demand for cars is not what it once was. Everyone has one already. And why just give away money to build more roads, where would we go? Certainly not to work, everyone is getting laid off. I think a single unifying goal such as colonizing or putting a reasearch lab on the moon is an ambition that all Americans would be proud and strive to work towards. Teachers would certainly have to go back to work, doctors too, current engineers as well as future, and supply and demand for things will just follow. I would not like this stimulus plan to pass, for one it is not specific and it does not bring the country together, it keeps us going in our own seperate ways such as all the seperate bailouts that taxpayers our paying for. If you simply wanted people to spend more, why not just give taxpayers back their money and even more money. It that simple. We must change our way of living and reinvent ourselves and work towards some common goals, things we can be proud of that future generations can be proud of!
I agree with investor Jim Rogers. We should do nothing. We should let the markets work themselves out. For many years throughout history companies and markets have failed. It’s a natural progression of history and the way markets work. When GM fails there will be another auto maker to come along and pick up where they left off. When Lehman failed there will be another to take its place. There are consequences to be paid when companies makes bad decisions. Companies fail and people lose jobs. We cannot save these companies and we cannot save the jobs unfortunately. It will be bad for awhile but we will get through it. Bailing out companies only lets the people who don’t know how to run a company continue to waste our resources and hurt our progression as a country. By the way were at 12 trillion on the national debt due to the fed buying up mortgages. The new president elect is proposing a 2 trillion “shot” in the arm. It will only be a “shot” in the arm. Lets face the consequences, rebuild and move on to be a better country and economy. It is the only long-term solution.
The alternative to a major stimulus package is the next Great Depression. Congress needs to pass legislation for economic recovery a.s.a.p., but it also needs to include provisions to have the taxpayers’ money spent in the U.S. in order to create American jobs.
Why does it have to be the entire stimulus or nothing? What a silly dichotomy!! You say that stimulus so far has done nothing. Try sending half of the banking business down the tubes if you really believe such nonsense. The result? A depression.
Now that the banks are solvent, try not helping tax payers and American businesses. Yes, the banks have a very large “tank of gas,” but they need stronger consumers and businesses to give them a better shot when they lend that money.
Stimulus WILL deliver results, a soft landing rather than a crippling blow followed by a decade-long recession. Will stimulus create other problems? Yes, absolutely. Inflation will return with a vengeance, so the Fed will continue to have a tough regulatory chore trying to combat it.
But regulating inflation beats climbing out of depression or intractable recession.
Finally, we need stimulus to diversify the types of energy resources we employ. If we deleverage our interests from Peruvian and Mideastern oil, the whole game changes. When the energy can be green, it needs to be, for the betterment of the planet’s ecology.
If the naysayers were to prevail at this juncture, the first tentative signs of improvement will again head south.
They keep saying that the economy is in a recession, good, fuel prices have gone down because this administration already spread the wealth to wall street and the energy Co.’s we all know this planet has enough oil to produce a billion barrels a day for 1000 years. The speculators drove up the price and everyone benefited, then they sold short knowing the price was going to fall due to severe over speculation to a degree that the SEC had to ban short selling to save the market and they all profited again. the Gov. replaced the corporate paper wealth with actual taxpayer currency, Now Obama wants to spend 775 billion to Bush’s 60 billion? I say gl to the taxpayer. P.S. Try decriminalizing canabis, regulate it like liquor, and tax the hell out of it like property, I’ll bet they can collect 10 trillion in tax dollars, permits, and the thining out of the prison population of convicts who would otherwise be law abiding citizens, in his first 4 years
The government should slash its wasteful spending, do its job of regulating, give everyone a tax cut and the economy will take care of itself.
Government poking its nose into education, housing, airlines, insurance, autos will only make things worse.
Cut taxes to small business owners. Give them low interest rate loans. Let the free market system decide the winners and losers. The government can not create future wealth by giving people money to spend on stuff in the short term.
The government getting involved is analogous to someone giving you fish to eat instead of teaching you how to fish.
The creation and bursting of bubbles is a healthy part of the free market economic system.
No more stimulus. Let the market correct itself. I was not even in agreement with the first stimulus. Stop the craziness and fear. This cycle happens EVERY few decades no matter what the government does.
All of the bailout money should have been given back to the taxpayers. We paid it in not the big corporations. They can build all the cars they want, but if the taxpayer doesn’t have the money to buy them, the cars will sit there and then where will we be. This is not a case of “Build it and they will come.”
All that stimulous money would do is let the consumer keep buying “Made In China” at places like walmart, kmart, target,
So in essence we will just be giving the money back to china.
Obama is part of the problem. He was a senator and never did anything, there are no jobs here, but plenty in China doing what Americans used to do
Can someone do this board a favor and point to a case in history where “government stimulus” in the form of growing the government actually worked?
forgive or pay half of every american citizens mortgage and credit card debt
and the problem will be solved …the recession will be over and we can start borrowing again.
The government needs to implement a stimulus plan that will allow the economy to recover to the point that the unemployment rates return to the median for the past 10 years. That would allow a tnagible goal to be set for what could be considered a successful recovery. Also, all money spent needs to be spent in the USA.
What U.S. needs to be competitive in world trade
U.S. International trade for the month of October:
Imports: $208,9 billion (down 1.3% from September)
Exports: $151.7 billion (down 2.2% from September)
Trade deficit: $57.2 billion (up 1.1% from September)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/12/business/12econ.php
American protectionists blame globalization, unfair trade practice of other countries and Walmart for the high unemployment at home but they fail to address the main causes of their incompetence in world trade and their high cost of living which contributes to high manufacturing cost, high prices at home and high prices in exporting goods.
While citizens in many under-developed countries earn less than $2 per day, U.S. citizens earn at least 32 times more. Average Chinese worker earns US$0.57 per hour or US$104 per month in 2006, with the continuous economic boom, the average monthly wage has been on the rise and was at about US$250 in late 2007. But that is only 18% of what Americans earn at minimum wage.
The sharp reduction in exports in the past few months is partly due to the strong upward surge in U.S. dollar against the world currencies and partly due to slowing global economic growth in the environment of global stagflation. It is further aggravated by the global recession triggered by the U.S. sub-prime crisis.
http://stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc?s=$USD&p=W&yr=2&mn=6&dy=0&i=p22128747775&r=1410
The global economic slump has caused commodity prices to decline back down to the “comfortable” 2003 level. The U.S. dollar has topped out and is resuming its down trend. It is time to dissolve the credit crunch and resume economic growth. But high U.S. wage in many economic sectors remains a big obstacle in encouraging Americans and oversea comsumers to buy expensive American goods. In this hard economic time should auto workers still demand such high wage and benefits while the country is facing economic crisis, budget deficit crisis while the government is drowning in a national debt of some 12 trillion dollars?
May be its time for Americans to lower their standard of living, let the dollar fall to a level competitive with the rest of the world in trade. May be the day will come that China will export manufacturing jobs to U.S. because the production cost in U.S. is much cheaper than that at home.
May be its time for the Americans to put on their running shoes and work diligently and perseverently to achieve 100% employment rate so that poverty and crime will be eliminated.
With innovative products, low production cost and currency devaluation, may be U.S. will be on the way to be a debt free country in a decade or two and will retain its status of world super power, both financially and militarily.
You can blame Freddie and Fannie but you must admit there are some stupid home buyers out there. Now someone who has a $1500 mortgage and making $150000 a year just walks away because they are buried. I thought you had an obligation to pay your mortgage. Go after these people that can afford the mortgage but choose to leave because the made poor decisions. Garnish their wages! My house isn’nt worth what it use to be but I still pay my mortgage. For God sake the people that walk away make them pay the next time. Not 20% down but 40% down. Don’t blame the mortgage companie totally you have people that are borrowing money that don’t have a clue!
Why not place a moratorium on all debt including mortgages for 90 days. reset account aging. Allow families to gain some ground financially and if need be, with proper documentation provide (limited) negative amortitation to financial institutions for administation.
Let Congress continue to play Politics and see how much crime will happen. You think you have a gated community think again. How would you like to live in the suburbs and have to put bars on your doors and windows. If Congress does nothing like in the past buy a gun because you will need it!
The case for doing nothing is quite simple; If you think the Great Depression was fun and would like to give it another go, DO NOTHING…
I agree we need to bailout mainstreet not wall street, not corporate America. We’ve seen the hording and greed. Providing substantial amounts to families would allow them to bring mortgages current, pay existing debts and purchase goods/services-generating jobs. $1000 for a family is just a dro in the bucket….and I am hering to expect higher fuel costs…just where the last rebates went.
The housing market will not recover until the economic recovery begins and unemployment rate is on the decline. As foreclosure and downward price pressure is still occurring, the recovery in thre housing market may still be one or two years away. For the time being longer the economic grid lock caused by the credit crunch and economic inactivity continues, more companies will be dragged into cash crunch problem leading to a vicious cycle of accelerating business failure.
The credit crunch problem is being resolved by the government’s intervention through the status as a preferred shareholder and through the injection of billions of dollar in the banking system to create liquidity in lending. Now the market needs the initiation of business, investors and consumers to jumpstart the economy by spending, borrowing and investing.
The human emotion of fear is one of the most negative and destructive element in the stability of the financial system. Fear of recession, fear of continuous falling prices and fear of uncertain economic outlook caused rich investors and bankers to hide their cash under their mattress and holding of undervalued toxic assets caused reluctance in bankers to lend. Trillions of dollars of investment funds sitting idle will not do the economy any good.
The most powerful stimulus is the initiation of an euphoric ecstasy among rising prices and rising demand. The declining U.S. dollar will soon cause commodity prices to rise, government stimulus plans as well as continuous modernization and economic boom in China will initiate the demand for raw materials. Rising prices and rising demand will entice investment in the Resources Sector. Fear of rising inflation and fear of erosion of purchasing power of their money will drive them to take every penny out under their mattress and invest to hedge against rising inflation. The injection of such huge among of funds in the financial community and increasing transaction between banks and the financial community will break the deadlock of credit crunch and stimulate lending and borrowing. Increasing activities will stimulate business in all sectors of the economy resulting in rising employment which in turn will lead to increasing consumer spending and borrowing which will has the snow effect in creating more employment. The housing market will not be revived until new jobs are created and employment rises. Subsequent revival of the housing market will sustain the economic recovery.
As happiness is initiated by a spark of emotional stimulation and a wide spreaded forest fire begins with a spark of light, a global economic boom will be triggered by the stimulus of rising prices and rising demands.
Bailouts of key components of our financial and manufacturing infrastructure are one thing. But stimulating spending, the very thing that has caused the mess we’re in is another. I have no problem with a roads and bridges project that employs people who will pay taxes. All stimulus does is prolong the inevitable.
I guess we’ll have to wait to see this “budget” or “stimulus” come out and assess how much more the taxpayers of this country (especially the younger generation and future generation) have been hosed for. There is so much “bail out” and “stimulus” nonsense floating the world over that it makes me sick. For the most part, most of these programs will simply delay the inevitable and make it much worse in 2010-2013. The core issue remains extreme/excessive debt levels at all levels of society with much of that used for malinvestment (how many Home Depots / Ronas / Home Hardware / and now Lowe’s stores are within a 2-3 KM area of where you live if you’re in any other major centre?) and consumption. When you combine the massive amount of debt that is mostly fraudulent to begin with – thanks to the biggest disaster the world has known called fractional reserve lending, and add in an ongoing policy of gradual and consistent devaluation of our money, you can see the reason behind trying to keep the system afloat with more and more credit. The solution to our crisis is not (and will not be – regardless of the garbage that is being advised to the public and our politicians) more credit or spending. That is what got us here in the first place. The system is now in the stage where it inevitably was destined to reach. All debt based, fiat money, fractional reserve lending monetary systems fail. They are designed to keep as many people possible in debt and consuming as much as possible. The war on savers and other prudent people, which began to falter in 2007 thanks to the inevitable deflation, has now ended – for a while only.
A simple math calculation for the average working person should help in understanding the horrific consequences of combining an interventionist government that is too large combined with the even more ominous central bank that controls the money supply and permits fractional reserve lending.
From your gross income, subtract 4-5 % / year for the drop in the value of your money (called inflation for this example – headline figures), then subtract federal and provincial/state income taxes as well as municipal taxes including property taxes. Then from this amount, you are somehow expected to pay for groceries, insurances, loans and mortgages/rent, education, etc. and yet somehow find a way to save enough for a comfortable retirement ?
There is no such thing as a comfortable retirement, true free markets, or democracy in a debt based, fiat money, fractional reserve lending system that is by design in the hands of the large commercial banks and senior government officials. The end will be a powerful deflation, after which a high inflation will clean out any remaining money. This process has begun and the world we live in will be totally different by 2013, +/- 2 yrs.
All of this bailout money is going to have to be repaid and that is going to drive up interest rates again just to fill the pockets of the bankers and their foreign investors. When rates go up again, more Americans with adjustable mortgages will lose their houses. When Congress and the new President really want to solve the problem, they will require banks to convert adjustable mortages to fixed rates without additional cost to the borrowers.
“The truth is that the only way out of this mess is less government, more savings, and increased production,”
This is the same “magical thinking” by economists that got us into this mess in the first place. We need more regulation, not less. Economists say regulation stifles “market innovation.” Well the bankers and mortgage brokers damn near “market innovated” the world economy into the ground. Frankly, MBA’s are too stupid to be allowed to make they’re own decisions.
Furthermore, income tax brackets need to be raised back to the level they were during America’s most properous time: the 1950’s. During this time, the highest bracket was 50%, more than fair for CEO’s making $50 million a year for stealing from us and ruining their firms.
Think what 700 billion to 2 trillion dollars back to the tax payers would do, it would put more money back into there pockets so they could spend and help the economy, after all it is our money. Don’t want to hand it to them, them pay off all U.S. citizens credit card debt that make under 55,000.00 a year, and pay of all there school loans up to Dec 31 of 2008. It helps the individual citizen and the credit card agencies and the lenders who lent the school loans. Make it so that large companies have to bring back our jobs to The U.S. Put some hard restrictions on large companies, watchdog them per say, put restrictions on there CEO’s pay. The same with our Senators and Govenerment officials,and Lawyers and doctors charging outrageous fees, and the pharmaceutical, its like, do I use my money to try to cure myself or go the doctor and have no money to buy any medicine, stop the greed.
The economic stimulus that will fix the problem should start from the bottom up.
Not the top down we have already spent billions of dollars that din’ fix anything.And the plan is to do it again from the top down.
If the federal government would give each American One million dollars tax free we would have very little debt left.
The foreclosures would be paid and the car companies could sell cars. All the national store closing would come to a halt as people would be buying again.
It would cost the federal Government less then 400 million,Not billions of dollars. It would give the President time to set up his economic policy without the economy collapsing.
The housing market will not recover until the economic recovery begins and unemployment rate is on the decline. As foreclosure and downward price pressure is still occurring, the recovery in thre housing market may still be one or two years away. For the time being longer the economic grid lock caused by the credit crunch and economic inactivity continues, more companies will be dragged into cash crunch problem leading to a vicious cycle of accelerating business failure.
The credit crunch problem is being resolved by the government’s intervention through the status as a preferred shareholder and through the injection of billions of dollar in the banking system to create liquidity in lending. Now the market needs the initiation of business, investors and consumers to jumpstart the economy by spending, borrowing and investing.
The human emotion of fear is one of the most negative and destructive element in the stability of the financial system. Fear of recession, fear of continuous falling prices and fear of uncertain economic outlook caused rich investors and bankers to hide their cash under their mattress and holding of undervalued toxic assets caused reluctance in bankers to lend. Trillions of dollars of investment funds sitting idle will not do the economy any good.
The most powerful stimulus is the initiation of an euphoric ecstasy among rising prices and rising demand. The declining U.S. dollar will soon cause commodity prices to rise, government stimulus plans as well as continuous modernization and economic boom in China will initiate the demand for raw materials. Rising prices and rising demand will entice investment in the Resources Sector. Fear of rising inflation and fear of erosion of purchasing power of their money will drive them to take every penny out under their mattress and invest to hedge against rising inflation. The injection of such huge among of funds in the financial community and increasing transaction between banks and the financial community will break the deadlock of credit crunch and stimulate lending and borrowing. Increasing activities will stimulate business in all sectors of the economy resulting in rising employment which in turn will lead to increasing consumer spending and borrowing which will has the snow effect in creating more employment. The housing market will not be revived until new jobs are created and employment rises. Subsequent revival of the housing market will sustain the economic recovery.
As happiness is initiated by a spark of emotional stimulation and a wide spread forest fire begins with a spark of light, a global economic boom will be triggered by the stimulus of rising prices and rising demands.
Where is my bailout?? 50,000 would be great!! I have lived within my means and I struggle. If the government can afford to bailout these big auto makers, then surely they can afford to give me something!
Our economy is where it is because of decades of Un-American behavior. We purchase just about every consumer good from abroad, socks, underwear, shirts, shoes, slacks, pants, toys, etc., etc. Some say Jack Welch was one of the smartest American CEO’s. Frankly, Welch created the culture of buy cheap, as long as the stockholders and corporate CEO’s prosper, fair game. Well the game is over. The one thing Mr. Bush did well during his Presidency was saving US Steel. He created tariffs, (I think in 2002-3) to curtain the Chinese from taking over that market. Well, we the American Consumer can easily save our own hides if we make a decision. Buy American. We cannot continue to have an economy based on service or have our Colleges and Universities train the best minds for the creation of products that are made by people who live in tin shacks and live in squalor. When the American people finally realize you cannot have it both ways, our economy will prosper. Until then, throwing money at schools, roads and bridges is great, but if you cannot put people to work to drive on those roads to get to a JOB, your simply continuing the path to nowhere. We the American People have to take stock in ourselves. Until our manufacturing economy begins anew, the Industrial Northeast and the rest of the Country will continue to flounder. If your not willing to pay a premium to have things made by Americans that enable workers to afford rent, a car and food, you have only yourselves to blame. This is a decision of the American Conscious and co-incides with a bumper sticker that people of all walks of life used to wear with pride, “Buy American, the Job you lose might be your own.” We are now here -Officially.
No Economic Stimilus needed, Let the free market correct itself and GET THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND POLITICIANS OUT OF THE WAY! Why support the 700 Billion Bailout of the rich? The middle class needs the money! Let the stagflation to depression run its course! Majority of our government bureaucrats think we should spend a lot of money! Money America doesnt have and cannot afford the cost of paying it back. Next you will see Social Security and all Retirement programs sized and all property rights sized! Government Action is always the wrong answer! Cut back on majority of Government workers. We absolutely do not need another stimulus package. The government, just like us “joe” blow needs to learn to live within their means, as we all do, and stop borrrowing more money to go deaper into debt as we all do. Our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be paying for these bailouts for decades to come. The will of the people must be followed!
If we can give those fat cats on Wall Street 700B to keep their company solvent, why can’t we give middle American the same. Wall Street CEO’s run their companies into the ground by mismanagemnet. We the people deserve the stimulus to keep our houses and families finances afloat. Middle class America are the true United States economy.
There is no simple approach to solving a problem. Sometimes knowing the cause is helpful, sometimes just having a fix; that works, is the best approach.
In this case my opinion is that there is justification for a bailout, I also think the people who caused the problem should get the justice they diserve. That will lead you directly to the US senate who repealed the banking regulations which then allowed “sub-prime” lending.
Final thought: “If congress awarded a $5,000 tax rebate to anyone US tax payer who purchased a new “American made vehicle in 2008″ do you think the automakers would be in the state there in? Yes they need reform but they need a busines strong enough to survive the reforms.
In a recession as occured numerous times in the past, incompetent companies are dissolved and absorbed by the competent ones. Financially insecured home owners will sell their home GRADUALLY to other financially secured buyers. The transactions pass smoothly without a hitch. Nature’s cruel trick always prevails: Survival of the fittest….the incompetent and the unfit must perish that others can survive.
The current crisis is totally different from the past occurrences. Greed seduced financially insecured citizens into owning homes they cannot afford. The outcome was obviously clearly predictable and anticipated: Massive default in mortgage payment resulting in banks holding undervalued assets valued at far below the mortgage amount owning. Also massive failure in the insurance industry and companies whose business is involved in mortgage backed securities. The holding of massive “toxic assets” has caused reluctance of lending by the banks to business and consumers causing a deadlock in the financial system throughout the country. The credit crunch is having a domino effect in accelerating business failure causing double digit unemployment around the world as companies around the world are dragged into financial crisis of their own. Consequently a global economic Great Depression will result and will last for years. Government revenue will grind to zero and the government cannot function. There will be escalating financial, political and social unrest and great suffering for all 4 billions people on this planet. Imminent surging inflation will be controlled by surging interest rate and a mild recession but perhaps only World War III will pull the world out from the global Great Depression but there will be survivors to rebuild the world.
Since the problem was caused by deflationary policies, only global inflationary policies will reverse the current deflationary trend and pull the world away from the gravitational pull of the subprime Black Hole.
Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac should never have been bailed out. The homeowners duped into mortgages they could not afford are the ones that needed the help, not big business.
cut american auto workers pay to an all inclusion $30.00 per hr.– Gov. give a ck(letdealerwriteck.—for $5000 for buying any american made car.All rebates etc.still apply so the buyer really gets $5000 to spend on other things. win-win for everybody.
I really don’t think any economist get it. Not one of them seen this coming. I did. You got republicans who are willing to fight for free markets to control our destiny when it was the greed in an uncontrolled free market that got us in this mess. I will give you a warning; if you republicans stop this economic stimulus package, I promise two things will happen; A Great Depression of the likes you’ve never seen that will bring an upheaval in the country you’ve haven’t seen since the civil war and the republican party will never gain back power in this country. You might as well tear the republican ticket up, because the blame which has been put on you from the beginning will only ferment with hatred against you. So be extremely careful about your approach to our economic problems. It was your President and your republican party that did this to this country. No other to blame! “And the wrath of God will be upon the world” you’re fools to think you can stop that which Barack Obama is trying to right. You were wrong then what makes you think you’re right now?
Agreed, recall the bailout money. Then, carefully assemble _qualified_ surgical teams to go back and attempt to fix everything possible and ignored over the past 30 years.
If Obama and Congress thinks they have spend $800 billion, give to the lower and middle class. It seems the stimulus package last spring was spent well as least better than the TARP money. My vote — curb the spending.
Japan tried massive “infrastructure” spending and zero interest rates after their real estate bubble burst. Result: a lost decade with no growth. The government is now a major owner of assets (real estate, car companies, banks) and to get our money back the value of assets needs to rise (not inflate). That requires cuts in marginal rates and 0% capital gains tax rate for the next 5 years. People need incentives to take risks and make thing happen! Not 600,000 new federal bureaucrats as Obama proposes.
All I’ve heard from the beginning of this mess is that we must restore consumer confidence and get them spending. So what do you do,you give money to the big companies that went broke, rewarding bad decisions. My plan is simple…Let the free market system shed the worthless companies, leaving the strong companies to survive and prosper. Then if you want the consumer to consume ( who is broke and in debt) give him the billions or trillions you are rewarding to the knucklehead CEO’s. The consumer has proven that he already knows how to spend, he just ran out of money. Give him $50,000 and I’m sure he will figure what to do with it….or better yet, just let the free market system take care of it’s self…it always has or are to stupid to figure that out. Then at the bottom when it’s done correcting, our country won’t be broke and we might have enough money or credit to stimulate the next bull market.
The Fed lowered interest rates, and little happened: strike one. The Bushies rammed the TARP through Congress, and the fat cats ran off with $350 billion with little new lending; strike two. We are now facing a two-strike pitch; we need to make contact with the ball and hit it.
Cancel the rest of the TARP and recall the money that has already gone out. People need jobs, not more debt and borrowing. Stimulate the economy directly with state aid, repair roads and bridges, energy and education projects, and other useful contracts. Each $1 billion should produce 20,000 new jobs for a year. Require that supplies and materials be manufactured in the USA. Close the bad banks (with all of the junk mortgages) and set up new banks (unfettered by bad mortgages) to provide lending. Beef up MediCare and Social Security. This will grow the economy and tax revenues.
If you want to see what the future looks like if we don’t do this, rent the movie “Grapes of Wrath”. After Roosevelt and the Democrats took over, the federal government saved millions of Americans from starvation, setting up job programs and camps where whole families could roll in on Ford flat-bed trucks and survive until the economy recovered. It could happen again. Let’s get going.
Are you kidding me! I have started 7 companies and have a BS in econmics. I am embarrased to say I am in the brotherhood of economists. I think my broitheren are just bought by one interest or another. My hope rides on Obama and his team to do the right thing.
Good points. I do think this is a good concern. But at this point the other view is more relevant. In order to undo the panic created by the Lehman bankruptcy, a stimulus plan is necessary. Because of Lehman bankrupcy, a lot of money is on the sidelines. A stimulus plan will show the commitment from government around the economic progress which will get the money currently in sidelines into investments.
Also, if handled appropriately stimulus will be able to create much more economic activity than the size of the plan itself.
Concern about inflation later on due to more money printing may be blown a little out of proportion since the money spent in bank equities is more like an investment and I would think it will result in at least a 20-30%positive return by 2012 – so all that is not a money badly spent.
Although I am not a big fan of stimulus plans, in this case it is more like a correction of past mistakes – if it doesn’t happen no on knows how bad the things can become…
Unless they give the money to the American people, there will not be any recovery. The money that is given would be used to pay off homes,buy cars, computers and many other things that are used. Do I think Obama will get us out of the recession we are in? No! I do not think he will,I believe the Democrats cause much of the problems we have, they are the ones with the purse strings!
We got into this mess by printing “paper” (fiat)money. Printing more “fiat” money will just make matters worse. Back the U.S.$ with gold and silver. The market will then take care of this financial mess.
There are some signs the economy/market has found a bottom, or is near a bottom. It may be worthwhile to to consider stimulus approaches for a month or two to see what additional data (jobless claims, manufacturing, sales) indicate. However, many economists project an anemic recovery (growth below 2%). So, some targeted stimulus, certainly tax relief, looks warrented. And modernization of the national power grid certainly looks necessary.
Does the word “Tariffs” on imports mean anything; Do as the founding Father said to do……….Steep tariffs on everything that comes into the country, Its not protectionism anymore, its survival; The US worker connot comptete with 3rd world country workers that live in tree huts……….The tree spirit does not charge rent to live in the tree nor does the tree spirit have a mortgage on the tree……………………………..If I hear another rich stuffy business man say the American worker makes to much money, I’m going to scream……………………………paaaaaaaalease shut up already……….
This depression is almost identical to the one the FED created in the 1930s; first the bubbles and then the credit shut down. There is no stopping THE NEW WORLD ORDER / ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT.The big difference this time is how fast the predators are moving and the size of their thefts.
What did the George w. Bush stimulus package do for the economy last year?
This one will do about the same.
A government of, by, and for the people. This congress would like to change it to of, by the people,, and for big business. Big business has taken my 401K and now the people get to bailout every slime bag in the U.S. that sends their contracts for parts overseas thanks to NAFTA. It’s time to let them sink or swim and stop NAFTA.
Cut spending in real terms to reduce the burden on the taxPAYER. The government is running the biggest ponzi scheme in the world called Social Security.
Doing nothing is definitely the best idea at this point.
What has been done so far hasn’t been so great, none of the checks to the ‘people’ over the last several years (it was done at the last downturn, too) didn’t really work.
The reality is that the govt needs to have market forces work. Tinkering only makes things worse.
AND – the biggest point is that we have spent our way into this – the way out is not to keep doing what we were doing – is it? The answer is for the govt to do exactly what everyone should be doing – paying your bills, not spending money you don’t have etc…
A true economy should not need stimulating. Are we going to bankrupt our government and ourselves? Where will the money come from after we run out?
We are about to see just how little experience Barack Obama has in the real world. He is setting up this country for a difficult future (debt payback) and zero short term gains the middle/lower class income people. Nice guy maybe but a 1/2 term senator has no business trying to run this country like a low income housing project in Chicago…. hey but I’m just paying the bill so what do I know.
Recessions are cyclical. The government printing more money will only add to this problem. The first bail out was supposed to make everything OK, and things just keep getting worse. The government created this problem by interfering with lenders and micromanaging loan approvals starting in the late 70’s. Now they think they can solve it? NEVER.
The whole economy needs to fall where it may and settle out. You can’t solve a wide-spread credit problem by throwing more money at the problem because it only deepens the financial problems in the end. Suffer some pain now as everything settles or suffer much, much more down the line. Truly, if those in charge had a wit of knowledge, ethics or morals, would we be in this mess today? So why trust their decisions to keep throwing money (in one form or another) at the problem? This country essentially is bankrupt. We need to get back to basics, re-prioritize (people first, not money) and re-build on a solid (not paper or plastic) foundation.
The bailout did not work because you helped the wrong group. Should have sent an equal amount to all tax payers earning less then 200,000.Image this send each tax payers the equal amount which could have been upwards of 400,000 each. What would they have done, they would have paid off mortgages and bills and guess what they do next. Buy that new car, TV washer,drier and etc. When will the billions get to were it suppose to go the people in trouble not the rich. This stimulus package needs to do that not the wall streeters.
The economic stimulus is a waste of money if it continues to be directed at the top of the economic piramid. Job one is keeping people in their homes paying property tax etc..
If we continue to throw good money after bad things will only get worse because more and more people will be forced out of the economy. This is not to suggest people should be given something for nothing, rather that if there was a manatory cap and reduction of interest rates across the board (usury laws) the crisis would be mitigated and many people would meet their obligation, profits would continue to flow, albeit not at the crazy levels once lusted after and there would be no need for more bail outs.
Where is this money ending up anyway? In Swiss bank accounts and other off-shore tax havens? This crisis can be cured or it can end up being a return to the barter system alot quicker than anyone seems to realize. Faith is eroding in value of currency as a tool for the exchange of goods and service.
Bush is an idiot – they sold out this country – our jobs with job outsourcing – and brought people from India to replace American workers.
Bush has killed this economy while he was in denial of these happenings and china importing huge numbers of products to this country.
Our Economic disaster we are seeing now is a direct result of this policy by bush!!
He should be hung by the nearest Tree for what he did to this country!!
Short answer: We need to throw everything we’ve got at this recession that can create jobs, short term jobs for now but long term jobs later on.
In California, our intellectually challenged governor doesn’t “get it”, and is busily laying off state workers. What is he thinking?
The Fed Gov’t can help a lot by giving the states, counties and cities cash on the barrelhead and then getting out of their way. They in turn will do the hiring that will employ people in the short term.
For the medium term, we need to fully fund infrastructure improvement.
For the long term, we need to train people up and we need to support new technology development. We need to rev up the intellectual engine.
And then, after we’ve gotten the economy back on track, we need to pay for it all by leveling the tax playing field such that the wealthy start paying their fair share of the taxes. If they’ve got almost all of the wealth, then they’d damn well better be paying almost all of the taxes!
Our government is insulting us. We give big business billions of dollars and they produced nothing. They want to give us a thousand or so and probably say they truly helped us.
There already is an example of “doing nothing” going on right now and look at what is happening with the economy.
For those who agrue that stimulus will spur jobs in other countries, did they argue that European or Asian Stimluls packages were going to stimulate jobs in the US?
This is a global economy in all countries that requires each doing their part. If the US does nothing, they may as well be benched from future economic discussions. It was the US that created a huge part of this mess. The US needs to do their part.
Why didn’t I get a bailout when I lost my job and was unemployed for six months? All I got was a crappy unemployment check… what a joke!!! We’re now giving away stimulus money to those who got us into this mess in the first place… greedy, not so bright Americans. That’s right. All those greedy people who wanted to get rich overnight are now getting our tax dollars. Why didn’t these people save money when they were raking it in? Seems like only the stupid, dumb, and greedy people get handouts these days. I saved during the good times. I guess that rules me out for a stimulus check. That’s America for you.
I agree with all of those people whom think that the stimulas package is bad economics. Giving the American people a few dollars in hopes that they will spend it to jump start the economy would be a great idea if it didn’t require dumping a larger burden onto the national debt which will never be paid off. A huge noose around the neck of future generations and an additional leverage to those countries holding the IOU’s. No to the stimulas programs.
Stop throwing money everywhere! Lower taxes on business (remember those guys who provide jobs when not taxed to death?)and let the economy run the course. Don’t tell me more regulation will help the financial markets, that means more government workers telling us all is well – Mr.Frank?
BALANCE THE BUDGET AND EVERYYHING ELSE WILL FAL INTO PLACE. TO DO THIS SIMPLY GET OUT OF ALL FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS,CUT THE MILITARY BUDGET DOWN TO THE FLOOR AND LAY OFF FEDERAL WORKERS DOWN TO THE LOWEST POSSIBLE LEVEL.
Something needs to be done—-well, at least if you believe in socialism and have absolutely no knowledge of history of basic economics.
The US is alot like the US auto companies. They will recover when they make a car people want to buy. The US economy will recover when we can build products the world wants to buy.
Goodness, one can only pray that the government will do nothing. It has already committed $8 trillion to the bailouts and look how well that worked. Government is not the solution, it is the PROBLEM. We would all be better off if the do-gooders in Washington just sat on their hands for once.
We should of not bailed out the finacial people, but since we did, I feel we should follow through on what has been started, and see if it will work. The american people certainly desever help more then the crinmals of these large finacial firms.I do not think anyone can say for sure, if anything will work at this stage. I do wonder why there has been nothing said about helping people get health insurance coverage. Which is needed as much as anything in this country.
The damage is done and the money is gone. Again the banks take the money and run. It upsets me to see, that as history shows, the banking system continues to get fixed/bailed out. Savings and Loans before and now Banks.
What should have been done was to help the consumers pay down the debt rather then giving the money to the banks again.
Yes, a stimulus package should be given out, but at this point the only thing left are the crumbs.
The TARP was mishandled and politicized from day 1. Henry Paulson is closer to the cause than he is to the cure, which logically would have been to funnel this huge amount of cash to the core problem. TARP funds should NOT have been used for bailing out every corporate entity that shows up hat in hand.
Now we are about to throw more money around and their is no assurance that this recession will be ameliorated one bit. What will happen is that we are assuring rampant inflation in the not too distant future as a result of the massive printing press runs of new money.
We’re screwed – we did it to ourselves – and we’re making it worse.
Although not a fan of heavy government spending, I beleive that the remaining three natural economic stimulants ( investment, consumption and net imports) are seriously stalled. Add rising unemployment and plummeting confidence and you have all the factors which support a downword spirel and dictate extraordinary action by the “spender of last resort”. Issue is not whether to spend, but “how much” and “How to channel and manage the investment for maximum benefit to the broadest economy.
Since the Chinese are funding our current folly, I think it’s appropriate to quote ancient Chinese wisdom in relation to current bailout mania.
Lao Tzu said, “No action is action.” Unless we want to “stimulate” a debt repudiation depression, that’s exactly the action that should be taken now.
The goverment can’t bail you out. They have no money, actually they are in debt 9 trillion dollars. What they will do is print it, causing devalue of the money that u alredy have. It will only cause inflation. Wait I have an idea CUT SPENDING.
I think any stimulus would not work. A stumulus takes more money out of our budget and causes more work and more cost. We should reduce amount of aid given to people who don’t deserve it.
We are heading towards Stagflation. The economy will take 5 years to comeback. Unemployment rate will be very rough @ about 23% in 3 years time.
Dow is likely to be under 5K. Cash is the King. Rich will become Richer.
Things will be available for Nickel a Dollar. Let us all hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
I would like to add to my earlier post. The “tax break” that Obama is proposing for taxpayers won’t do a thing. I would get an extra 12.00 a week in my paycheck, whoopee. My husband is laid off so how does that help us?
Many analysts(such as Jim Rogers and Bob Prechter to name 2)had been warning about the coming catastrophe for years before it occured. Msny laughed and argued that they were wrong as the markets charged higher. Well they were not wrong. On the other hand in July of 2007, 3 months before the peak, Henry Paulson went on record saying we were in the strongest economy he had seen in his professional life time. How could Paulson(and Bernanke for that matter) have gotten it so wrong? This said whay are we listening to their panic pleas for bailouts now, when they have already proven to us that they do not understand economics? Could they not see the trends over the past several years? Consumer savings was trending toward zero while debt was going through the roof. Did they sleep through 8th grade economics?
CNN’s own report today from Ben Rooney states the following:
The movement away from spending on credit and toward more savings has mixed implications for the overall economy.
“It’s a good thing for long-term credit quality of consumers,” said Maher. “Over the near term, it’s troubling because there’s a risk that the recession could be deeper and more protracted if consumers continue to cut back on spending.”
Ben’s article focuses on the consumer but I ask ‘why not the govt show restraint as well? So many of us have such comfortable lives compared to the hardships often faced by generations before us. We can afford to tone down the borrowing and spending and the lifestyles for some years to come if it means we reduce our overall personal and national debts in the process. Time to decouple ourselves from our need to have China and other foreign govt’s by our bills and notes and from our individual dependency on the next credit card or loan. The mood of this country would be much improved if the debt loads were removed in exchange for giving up some/many of the material crap we’ve been convinced ( by the exceptionally good marketing firms) we need to have inorder to be happy. We’re over our heads in debt, and it leaves a gnawing ugly feeling inside. More govt borrowing now, with amounts so large the numbers lose their meaning to the average Joe because the average Joe does not deal with billions or trillions, and you add to the gnawing ugly feeling from your personal debt, the govt adds a feeling of disconnection from reality and powerlessness to understand and digest what borrowing another trillion “for several years” means now or for our children. For our taxes, our national security and for the future. Let’s take the pain today knowingly, so it’s not entirely forced on us and our children in the future.
The stimulus America needs is lower costs, not higher spending on over priced goods.
Lowering the corporate income tax rate would stimulate the economy. So would permanently exempting capital from taxes. As would opening up as many free trade agreements as possible.
Bloated costs have to be cut. If that means the retirees of the UAW and other unions have to rejoin us commoners and get only ordinary retirement benefits, so be it. If it takes bankruptcy to cut the costs, so be it.
Housing will not ‘rebound’ naturally until the excess number of houses built in the past ten years is absorbed. The ‘natural’ rate of absorption is fixed by the number of families in America, not by artificial manipulation by the government.
To employ the workers who won’t be building houses in the next few years, we need alternative work for them, not temporary cuts in housing costs which would only cause more building. Let us build nuclear power plants instead — thereby cutting our oil import bill permanently — and bringing employment to all manner of heavy industry and thus creating all manner of well paid jobs.
The boondoggles that our President-elect is asking Congress for will not build a strong future for anyone except the privileged members of various unions. And even those will end when the political worm turns and they’re cut off from the feeding trough.
When you find yourself in a deep hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging. Unfortunately, Obama wants a bigger shovel.
The stimulus should create businesses with the largest tax returns in the future and create jobs for unemployeed. No rescue packages for bad management.
They didn’t thank it was a bad idea to bail out the auto makers even if they was not selling any auto’s so they said give me a loan i am not making any money to pay it back but give me a
loan anyway.Moving on to what could make a difference something to kick start us a stimulus for the tax payers
a big one or two or three plus a big tax cut will be the only way to boost the economy.The 700B bailout was to cover the loss of the rich and the auto bail out was just a scam doing nothing will just stick the tax payers with the goverments mess up.FIRE WALL STREET AND THE AUTO INDUSTRY IF THEY CAN’T DEAL WITH THERE STUFF ANY BETTER.
The government is going about this the wrong way. No bailouts. When you own a business if you don’t run it right you should go down. All these top execs. getting millions in bonuses is ridiculous. We need to work from the bottom up. Yes it’s going to hurt but we put ourselves in this mess by over borrowing and overspending. But the government helped by overtaxing. Get rid of the IRS, go to the FairTax. Our wages have not kept up with inflation especially in the last year or so when gas went up so much. Smaller government please. If you feel you must come up with a stimulus package give it to the Americans. It starts here with us. If we don’t have money to spend, i.e. no jobs, low wages, high taxes, we can’t bring the economy back period. Giving money to big business isn’t going to help.
Once we start printing money, inflation will kick in. Out of control wasteful government spending is largely responsible for the financial mess we are in. I know it’s asking too much for Congress to act in a fiscally responsible way and drastically cut spending. The administration & Congress have betrayed the American people and put us and future generations in great jepordy.
As proven by the banks who used the money for M&As instead of refinancing ARMs, the bailouts aren’t even going toward their intended purpose. More of that means more corporate payola at the expense of Joe Public.
Even worse, bailing out the Big Three is like forcing every American to buy a Ford/GM/Chrysler and then as we reach for the keys, the salesman yells “GOTCHA!” and takes off out the back door. Maybe if they hired Sally Struthers and sent me a photo of the car I was sponsoring, I’d be a bit more sympathetic…
I like the idea of a stimulus through investing in America. Building or repairing roads and bridges, updating the electrical grid, investing in infrastructure etc. will help the economy. Just giving Joe Sixpack $500 for doing nothing and telling hime to spend it to fix the economy will only harm it in the long run.
Well, Obama
I don’t want to hear about how bad the situation is . We are no morons. Seem like he is making already excuses in case he does not success. Talk about how are you going to do fix the economy and give more specific. That is what I would like to hear.
I agree with Diane P. from Virginia. The notion of borrowing more money to get out of debt is ludicrous. The politicians are too short sighted. While no one wants to endure more pain, the reality is that at some point we need to pay all this borrowed money back. Where’s the plan to do this? Where’s the plan to get the average American more education and job skills? Where’s the plan to create new industries with high paying jobs? Where’s the plan to change the culture and get people to live within their means? The government is simply putting a bandaid on the problem and buying a little more time. Let’s see what happens when America’s reputation as a good credit risk runs out and we can’t get access to the rest of the world’s money. You think things are bad now??
We need to be very cautious in any new spending. Sooner or later someone must pay the bill. We live in a society where businesses are supposed to succeed and fail. When one fails another prospers. Some (not I) are calling on the government to handle everything problem in our nation. What ever happened to personal responsibility. All politions are scared to point their finger at the real problem. Greed and our fellow citizens trying to live better than the Jone’s. People know what they can afford they let their ego’s get in the way.
Tax cuts and bailouts are not going to stimulate the economy at this point. Most folks will pay off some of their existing debit (which is smart for them to do) not add new debit. If we are going to spend our children’s money to stimulate the economy then we need to do something that they will benefit from like building roads, infrastructure, alternative fuels, bandwidth, and other things that will add to America’s future competiveness – not stimulate purchasing more goods from China.
The country needs Jobs, the fastest way is to create jobs in repairing the infrastucture, new technologies, and manufacturing to come home. Cut the loopholes for large corporations to export jobs off shore and reward corporations who keep their factories domestic. Trickle down economics only works for the trickler, sit at a table with a fat man waiting for the crumbs is noway to run an economic engine.
I stopped thinking and trying to figure our gov’t and business structure out after I retired with 300K stashed in my 401k and SIX months later had 200K. Lucky for me, I took an early retire and am working part time and hope to start a new full time job later, when all the powers that be get this economy back on tract. It seems to me that big business and our friendly corporate gov’t made this mess and hurt ONLY the little guy and taxpayer. Its sink or swim for us little guys and lord knows…. no one is going to help us out. PADDLE PADDLE PADDLE… and wear a life vest.
USA should not intervene in the back or anything else. Let the market correct it self. It is the only sane way of getting out of the mess. Jail all the Ponzis and let us create and get back in track.
The only Stimulus is let the Gov not to charge tax for 5 to 10 yrs so we all can have the cash to do what is needed.
The government should NOT attempt any further supposed stimulus at this point. The US economy needs to rebalance itself. For many years now the economy has suffered from an almost negligible savings rate. Consumers borrowed recklessly and spent far more than they earned, partially as a result of the Fed’s easy money policies and partially as the result of ridiculously lax underwriting standards at financial institutions. All of this easy money created both the debt crisis AND the enormous bubble in housing prices that we are now dealing with.
The governments’ stimulus efforts will do little if anything to truly boost the economy – more deficit spending, an explosion in the printing of dollars, and directing taxpayer funds to dubious “infrastructure” projects will only lead to much higher inflation and interest rates in the near future. For anyone to believe otherwise is pure delusion.
Consumers now seem to realize that they should be saving more and spending and borrowing less. After all, how much “stuff” do people need anyway? An increase in the rate of savings will stabalize the economy over time and the government should not wrecklessly be encouraging people to “spend spend spend” in hopes that the economy will suddenly stage a sudden turnaround.
Similarly, many financial institutions are grossly undercapitalized and should not be forced to lend money they need to recapitalize. Lax underwriting standards and too much lending got us to where we are today and the government won’t help the economy or these institutions by forcing them to lend.
Finally, housing prices need to be allowed to deflate back to sustainable levels that are more in line with incomes and comparable rents. For some reason many in Congress and the incoming administration believe that housing prices need to be artificially “stabilized” for the economy to turn around. It took many years for the housing bubble to build and it will take a significant amount of time for prices to reach realistic, market clearing levels again. There is nothing wrong with declines in housing prices. In fact, isn’t affordable housing one of the main policy objectives of Democrats? Or do they prefer expensive housing that can only be “afforded” through the use of the “liar loans” and 100% financing that helped create the housing bubble in the first place?
A stimulus package won’t address the root cause of any of these issue. Save our taxpayer dollars so that we citizens won’t end up paying exhorbitantly high taxes in the future to pay for all of this!
Why not just let everybody have a clean slate just like the new year and wipe out everybody’s credit history and let everybody start over to boost the economy in the right direction instead of worrying about some crappy bank that has gone down the dtrain with everybody’s money.
I’ve lived through 4 recessions. This is, by far, the worst of all 4. What makes this recession so bad is how it is hitting all areas of the economy simultaneously, from Wall Street, to high tech, to the corner pizza shop. Something has to be done because we are in grave danger of a deflationary spiral. The bailouts given so far have been to the rich; there has been nothing given to the average person. It’s at the average person’s level where deflation starts. The first $100 billion stimulus was so successful because it went, mostly, to the middle and lower classes.
The danger of a stimulus package is that the programs in it become a permanent fixture of the government. Any stimulus package has to be for programs over a fixed period and it has to be tied to balancing the budget and paying off government debt once the economy recovers. Paying off government debt in a good economy will free capital for the private sector and limit inflationary pressure much more positively than the Fed raising interest rates.
The tax policies in this country need to be fixed. There’s a reason, that’s all too obvious now, why you can’t have as great a divide between the rich and the poor, as there is now, in a modern industrial society. If the middle and lower classes don’t have money, they don’t buy products. You can only issue them credit for so long; that was the lesson of the 1920’s and the 2000’s.
John Maynard Keynes had this whole problem figured out 70 years ago. It’s time to pull out that old economics textbook and get a good stimulus package passed.
Recall the bailout money, give it to the middle class and lower class people and let them take care of getting the financial crisis back on track. The 700B bailout was to cover the loss of the rich only any way.
Any time a large majority of our government bureaucrats think we should spend a lot of money usually turns out to be a disaster. What concerns me is that most of the congress have never had to earn an honest living and have existed off the taxpayers. How would they know what is a good solution – government action is almost always the wrong answer.
THE PARTY IS OVER….THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA HAS BEEN LIVING HIGH WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY… IN ONLY OVER TWO HUNDRED YEARS THE U.S. HAS MANAGED TO TAKE MOST OF THE WORLDS MONEY.. GOOD FOR THEM UP UNTIL NOW.. BUT THE REST HAVE WISEN UP SINCE THE INTERNET REVOLUTION..
Giving everybody $500 or $1000 in a tax break is not going to stimulate anything, since, like me, most people will use the cash (if they actually see it) to pay a bit off loan balances. Considering how much we all owe the credit card companies, it will not even be noticed. Just like Bush’s tax rebate.
Hello:
You should be talking up alternative energy, solar, wind etc. get people excited. Stop being neg. the middle class purhase mutual funds and are told by their advisor that you must hold them for the long term. We drive up the markets and every time the markets go up, The nightly business rreview states, ” Profit taking drives the market down. ” Shame on the big shots. Mel
We absolutely do not need another stimulus package. The government, just like us “joe” blow needs to learn to live within their means, as we all do, and stop borrrowing more money to go deaper into debt as we all do. The attitude of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul is what’s gotten us into this mess to begin with. We must all tighten our belts no matter how painful that is, and learn to accept the consequences of our selfish, materialistic behavior. TARP should not have been approved either. We don’t need to bail out huge corporations who cannot manage a single dollar and spends billions every year to send their management teams on exotic “business trips”. Our country is morally bankrupt, and it’s time to pay the piper, or matters will only get worse for us all in the long run!!
The Bankers are having their bailout, GM, Ford, and Chrysler are having their bailout. Almost 8 trillion is being spent on stimulating the economy…but as we get closer to the Middle Class bailout(stimulus tax cuts),Congress is starting to get cold feet! Initially,the government should have given the Middle Class 10K each..then we would have demonstrated how fast the economy would have been stimulated!.. this is called the “Trickle-up” affect.
Doing nothing is rarely perceived as the right choice even though much of the time it truly is. Ignoring the laws of physics and mathematics only leads to greater distortions.
After all the focus is how to start making people spend?
How about distributing the ENTIRE stimulus money to the people of America?
If people will have money they will automatically shop for homes, cars and all other stuff.
Is there any real need to debate?
I will say I’m a bit worried. TARP is a complete joke! We were just looking for a quick fix….the story of America. Everyone wants it now. If we do decide to have some government invention we need to make sure it is the “right” decision. We only have one shot at this.
The option would be the ride it out and let normal economic cycle runs its course. A part of me thinks our society will come out better because of it long term. But I will say, I’m glad I’m not the one who has to pull the trigger because you will either be a HERO or a ZERO there is no in between. Good luck!
I think the stimulus will just prolong a true recovery. We need a true free market economy to recover. Leave the government out.
personally all these stimulus, rebate checks and money given to coporate organizations is worthless what the goverment should do it with the 7 trillion dollars they are spending give it to the people. That almost 30000 each person 1. we all will have help to get out of debt or be near gettin out of debt 2. we all will have money and spend which will make the economy in a very good position. 3. higher taxes so the goverment can get it back 4. They should be tighter with credit so people can unerstand how important it is to have a credit card or buy a home. that will definantly help the economy and everyone wil be happy.
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I do not think government leaders (either for, against or still deciding on stimulus) have conveyed to the American people the global severity of the downturn and the press is not doing any better. The closing of Circuit City is getting more press it seems than the collapse of Iceland’s coallition government as a direct result of the economic woes. I think including issues of just how wide-spread the problems are would be useful and could be done without instilling panic or dread (not talking about it certainly isn’t helping)