Reminds me of the Roman emperors doling out money to the masses to keep them in their place. Be happy, plebes!
We need to invest in technologies and industries that will grow and create more jobs, not throw money at people for doing nothing. I am fine with investing in energy, infrastructure, technology, education, and maybe other areas. There are plenty of ways jobs can be created, but as I said before, I have no confidence in the government to spend the money wisely or well. The bottom line on the recession is that we lived large on borrowed money for years and it caught up with us. Demand is down? Of course it is! The home equity loans and credit cards that powered the consumer spending bonanza of the last decade or so have vanished in a cloud of smoke. Dumping money into people's hands will cover up the mess to some extent, but it will not solve the underlying problem. The funny part of this whole mess is that for years the chattering classes have been calling on gluttonous U.S. consumers to scale back, live within their means, and boost the savings rate. Now that people are actually scaling back (and pushing GDP lower, of course), the chattering classes are hell bent on boosting demand. Demand is going to have to recover naturally as people save up and feel more secure about their futures. When homes go low enough and banks feel better about their balance sheets and start lending, the housing spiral will come to an end and the economy will recover. It isn't going to be robust for awhile- we spent a long time creating the bubble, it will take some time to unwind from it. On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 9:41 AM, Gruss wrote: > > Solution? Issue vouchers to individuals or families that can be used > to buy goods and services and that expire after a set period of time, > say, a year, meaning they can't be saved. That guarantees the > increased deficit spending and 100 percent of the $275 billion will be > devoted to boosting demand -- the object of the stimulus program. > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:287146 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
