Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
Conservatives still have their money. Government and taxpayers do not. On Jan 15, 1:30 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: if Obama ignores the conservative naysayers it will work just fine . On Jan 14, 5:18 pm, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: All I can say is you'd have made one hell of a test pilot.. Absolutely fearless! What's to fear? Planes have flown and landed intact in the past On Jan 14, 3:07 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: history tells me it will work just as it worked in the past . On Jan 14, 3:01 pm, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Again with the blind faith. Roosevelt's New Deal and what Obama is proposing are very different. The US and the World in the early 30's was very different from the US and the World today. The global economy, which influences every country, including the US, is very different from the one that existed back in the early 30's. You seem to argue every point the same way.. you repeat your belief or some uselessly high level concept as evidence of your point, never taking the time to drill down or defend it. If you believe it will work, you must have some concept on exactly how that will be achieved. On Jan 14, 2:51 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: it worked very well when Roosevelt did it and it will work very well again . On Jan 14, 11:02 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, You are, of course, free to think and do whatever you please but I do suggest that a little more than blind faith be applied. Just because you have this hate/love relationship with Bush/Obama, respectively, doesn't mean that doing the same thing will result in vastly different outcomes just because it's Obama's administration. I've questioned twice now how government funded jobs will be sustained and all you've been able to do is say you believe it will work. That and a $1.50 at a Starbucks might get you a small, regular coffee, but not much else. In the short term, if it puts people to work, that is great. But from my untrained perspective it has the very real chance of simply making things worse, not better. I keep hearing catch phrases such as kick start the economy but the economy is not a motorcycle. I wish someone could put into layman's terms exactly how spending hundreds of billions of dollars on unsustainable government jobs will help the situation we are in. On Jan 14, 3:35 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: from what i understand the money isn't going to be used the way bush used the first half . On Jan 14, 1:43 am, \Lone Wolf\ phoeni...@gmail.com wrote: Obama, Bush team up behind another $350 billion for the banks 14 January 2009 First things first. Even before President Bush makes his farewell address on Thursday and Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president next Tuesday, the outgoing and incoming administrations are engaged in a concerted drive to release the second $350 billion installment of taxpayer funds to bail out the banks. Obama telephoned Bush Monday morning and asked that he formally request the second half of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) windfall for Wall Street approved by Congress on October 3. Bush complied almost immediately, starting the clock on a 15-day period during which Congress can block the Treasury Department from transferring additional billions to financial institutions only if both houses reject the president's request. Even in that highly unlikely event, the president can vacate the congressional action by issuing a veto, which would require a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override—virtually a political impossibility given overwhelming Democratic support for the bailout and Democratic control of both congressional chambers. Such is the priority given to the bailout money for the banks that Obama and his top economic aides are devoting themselves nearly full- time to meeting with leading Democrats and Republicans and lobbying Congress for support. Obama's $800 billion economic stimulus package, itself tailored to the demands of big business, can wait until mid- February, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pledged to hold a vote on the TARP money by this Friday at the latest. The joint Bush-Obama push for the second half of the TARP money
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
from what i understand the money isn't going to be used the way bush used the first half . On Jan 14, 1:43 am, \Lone Wolf\ phoeni...@gmail.com wrote: Obama, Bush team up behind another $350 billion for the banks 14 January 2009 First things first. Even before President Bush makes his farewell address on Thursday and Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president next Tuesday, the outgoing and incoming administrations are engaged in a concerted drive to release the second $350 billion installment of taxpayer funds to bail out the banks. Obama telephoned Bush Monday morning and asked that he formally request the second half of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) windfall for Wall Street approved by Congress on October 3. Bush complied almost immediately, starting the clock on a 15-day period during which Congress can block the Treasury Department from transferring additional billions to financial institutions only if both houses reject the president's request. Even in that highly unlikely event, the president can vacate the congressional action by issuing a veto, which would require a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override—virtually a political impossibility given overwhelming Democratic support for the bailout and Democratic control of both congressional chambers. Such is the priority given to the bailout money for the banks that Obama and his top economic aides are devoting themselves nearly full- time to meeting with leading Democrats and Republicans and lobbying Congress for support. Obama's $800 billion economic stimulus package, itself tailored to the demands of big business, can wait until mid- February, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pledged to hold a vote on the TARP money by this Friday at the latest. The joint Bush-Obama push for the second half of the TARP money has occasioned a flurry of complaints from both sides of the congressional aisle over the refusal of the banks to use the billions they received in the first installment to increase their lending and protests from Democrats over the failure to provide relief for homeowners facing foreclosure—the ostensible purposes of the program. There is also much bluster over the lack of any restrictions on how the banks used the money, the absence of serious limits on executive pay and the fact that the banks were not even required to inform Congress or the public what they did with the government funds they received. Of the $350 billion already distributed, $250 billion went to banks and financial institutions, including $125 billion to the nine biggest banks. Another $40 billion was added to the $100 billion previously paid out to rescue the insurance giant American International Group, $19 billion went for emergency loans to General Motors and Chrysler, $20 billion went to other firms, and $25 billion was injected into Citigroup as part of a bailout involving over $300 billion in government loans and guarantees. It is well established that the banks used the money to shore up their reserves and, in the case of some of the biggest firms, to buy up smaller institutions with the aid of a tax break unilaterally enacted by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, formerly the CEO of Goldman Sachs, to facilitate a further concentration of financial power on Wall Street. Obama himself on Monday noted the absence of clarity, the lack of transparency, the failure to track how the money's been spent and the failure to take bold action with respect to areas like housing, saying he was disappointed. He promised to fundamentally change some of the practices in using this next phase of the program. This, and similar statements from leading Democrats in Congress, are little more than window dressing designed to placate public anger over the handover of federal funds to shore up the balance sheets of the very institutions whose pursuit of super-profits and financial Ponzi schemes precipitated the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Some political cover is needed to continue placing the assets of the American people at the disposal of this discredited financial elite. But such demagogy and associated political maneuvering cannot disguise the total subordination of the government and both parties to the most powerful sections of the ruling class. The indecent haste with which both the outgoing and incoming administrations are rushing to satisfy the demands of Wall Street for a new infusion of cash provides an object lesson on the class relations that underlie American democracy. One day before Obama requested $350 billion more for the banks, he explicitly affirmed that his administration would seek to impose major funding cuts and structural reforms on the bedrock social programs— Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—upon which tens of millions of workers and retirees depend. In an interview on
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
Mike, You are, of course, free to think and do whatever you please but I do suggest that a little more than blind faith be applied. Just because you have this hate/love relationship with Bush/Obama, respectively, doesn't mean that doing the same thing will result in vastly different outcomes just because it's Obama's administration. I've questioned twice now how government funded jobs will be sustained and all you've been able to do is say you believe it will work. That and a $1.50 at a Starbucks might get you a small, regular coffee, but not much else. In the short term, if it puts people to work, that is great. But from my untrained perspective it has the very real chance of simply making things worse, not better. I keep hearing catch phrases such as kick start the economy but the economy is not a motorcycle. I wish someone could put into layman's terms exactly how spending hundreds of billions of dollars on unsustainable government jobs will help the situation we are in. On Jan 14, 3:35 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: from what i understand the money isn't going to be used the way bush used the first half . On Jan 14, 1:43 am, \Lone Wolf\ phoeni...@gmail.com wrote: Obama, Bush team up behind another $350 billion for the banks 14 January 2009 First things first. Even before President Bush makes his farewell address on Thursday and Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president next Tuesday, the outgoing and incoming administrations are engaged in a concerted drive to release the second $350 billion installment of taxpayer funds to bail out the banks. Obama telephoned Bush Monday morning and asked that he formally request the second half of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) windfall for Wall Street approved by Congress on October 3. Bush complied almost immediately, starting the clock on a 15-day period during which Congress can block the Treasury Department from transferring additional billions to financial institutions only if both houses reject the president's request. Even in that highly unlikely event, the president can vacate the congressional action by issuing a veto, which would require a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override—virtually a political impossibility given overwhelming Democratic support for the bailout and Democratic control of both congressional chambers. Such is the priority given to the bailout money for the banks that Obama and his top economic aides are devoting themselves nearly full- time to meeting with leading Democrats and Republicans and lobbying Congress for support. Obama's $800 billion economic stimulus package, itself tailored to the demands of big business, can wait until mid- February, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pledged to hold a vote on the TARP money by this Friday at the latest. The joint Bush-Obama push for the second half of the TARP money has occasioned a flurry of complaints from both sides of the congressional aisle over the refusal of the banks to use the billions they received in the first installment to increase their lending and protests from Democrats over the failure to provide relief for homeowners facing foreclosure—the ostensible purposes of the program. There is also much bluster over the lack of any restrictions on how the banks used the money, the absence of serious limits on executive pay and the fact that the banks were not even required to inform Congress or the public what they did with the government funds they received. Of the $350 billion already distributed, $250 billion went to banks and financial institutions, including $125 billion to the nine biggest banks. Another $40 billion was added to the $100 billion previously paid out to rescue the insurance giant American International Group, $19 billion went for emergency loans to General Motors and Chrysler, $20 billion went to other firms, and $25 billion was injected into Citigroup as part of a bailout involving over $300 billion in government loans and guarantees. It is well established that the banks used the money to shore up their reserves and, in the case of some of the biggest firms, to buy up smaller institutions with the aid of a tax break unilaterally enacted by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, formerly the CEO of Goldman Sachs, to facilitate a further concentration of financial power on Wall Street. Obama himself on Monday noted the absence of clarity, the lack of transparency, the failure to track how the money's been spent and the failure to take bold action with respect to areas like housing, saying he was disappointed. He promised to fundamentally change some of the practices in using this next phase of the program. This, and similar statements from leading Democrats in Congress, are little more than window dressing designed to placate public anger
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
it worked very well when Roosevelt did it and it will work very well again . On Jan 14, 11:02 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, You are, of course, free to think and do whatever you please but I do suggest that a little more than blind faith be applied. Just because you have this hate/love relationship with Bush/Obama, respectively, doesn't mean that doing the same thing will result in vastly different outcomes just because it's Obama's administration. I've questioned twice now how government funded jobs will be sustained and all you've been able to do is say you believe it will work. That and a $1.50 at a Starbucks might get you a small, regular coffee, but not much else. In the short term, if it puts people to work, that is great. But from my untrained perspective it has the very real chance of simply making things worse, not better. I keep hearing catch phrases such as kick start the economy but the economy is not a motorcycle. I wish someone could put into layman's terms exactly how spending hundreds of billions of dollars on unsustainable government jobs will help the situation we are in. On Jan 14, 3:35 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: from what i understand the money isn't going to be used the way bush used the first half . On Jan 14, 1:43 am, \Lone Wolf\ phoeni...@gmail.com wrote: Obama, Bush team up behind another $350 billion for the banks 14 January 2009 First things first. Even before President Bush makes his farewell address on Thursday and Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president next Tuesday, the outgoing and incoming administrations are engaged in a concerted drive to release the second $350 billion installment of taxpayer funds to bail out the banks. Obama telephoned Bush Monday morning and asked that he formally request the second half of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) windfall for Wall Street approved by Congress on October 3. Bush complied almost immediately, starting the clock on a 15-day period during which Congress can block the Treasury Department from transferring additional billions to financial institutions only if both houses reject the president's request. Even in that highly unlikely event, the president can vacate the congressional action by issuing a veto, which would require a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override—virtually a political impossibility given overwhelming Democratic support for the bailout and Democratic control of both congressional chambers. Such is the priority given to the bailout money for the banks that Obama and his top economic aides are devoting themselves nearly full- time to meeting with leading Democrats and Republicans and lobbying Congress for support. Obama's $800 billion economic stimulus package, itself tailored to the demands of big business, can wait until mid- February, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pledged to hold a vote on the TARP money by this Friday at the latest. The joint Bush-Obama push for the second half of the TARP money has occasioned a flurry of complaints from both sides of the congressional aisle over the refusal of the banks to use the billions they received in the first installment to increase their lending and protests from Democrats over the failure to provide relief for homeowners facing foreclosure—the ostensible purposes of the program. There is also much bluster over the lack of any restrictions on how the banks used the money, the absence of serious limits on executive pay and the fact that the banks were not even required to inform Congress or the public what they did with the government funds they received. Of the $350 billion already distributed, $250 billion went to banks and financial institutions, including $125 billion to the nine biggest banks. Another $40 billion was added to the $100 billion previously paid out to rescue the insurance giant American International Group, $19 billion went for emergency loans to General Motors and Chrysler, $20 billion went to other firms, and $25 billion was injected into Citigroup as part of a bailout involving over $300 billion in government loans and guarantees. It is well established that the banks used the money to shore up their reserves and, in the case of some of the biggest firms, to buy up smaller institutions with the aid of a tax break unilaterally enacted by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, formerly the CEO of Goldman Sachs, to facilitate a further concentration of financial power on Wall Street. Obama himself on Monday noted the absence of clarity, the lack of transparency, the failure to track how the money's been spent and the failure to take bold action with respect to areas like housing, saying he was disappointed. He promised to fundamentally
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
Again with the blind faith. Roosevelt's New Deal and what Obama is proposing are very different. The US and the World in the early 30's was very different from the US and the World today. The global economy, which influences every country, including the US, is very different from the one that existed back in the early 30's. You seem to argue every point the same way.. you repeat your belief or some uselessly high level concept as evidence of your point, never taking the time to drill down or defend it. If you believe it will work, you must have some concept on exactly how that will be achieved. On Jan 14, 2:51 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: it worked very well when Roosevelt did it and it will work very well again . On Jan 14, 11:02 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, You are, of course, free to think and do whatever you please but I do suggest that a little more than blind faith be applied. Just because you have this hate/love relationship with Bush/Obama, respectively, doesn't mean that doing the same thing will result in vastly different outcomes just because it's Obama's administration. I've questioned twice now how government funded jobs will be sustained and all you've been able to do is say you believe it will work. That and a $1.50 at a Starbucks might get you a small, regular coffee, but not much else. In the short term, if it puts people to work, that is great. But from my untrained perspective it has the very real chance of simply making things worse, not better. I keep hearing catch phrases such as kick start the economy but the economy is not a motorcycle. I wish someone could put into layman's terms exactly how spending hundreds of billions of dollars on unsustainable government jobs will help the situation we are in. On Jan 14, 3:35 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: from what i understand the money isn't going to be used the way bush used the first half . On Jan 14, 1:43 am, \Lone Wolf\ phoeni...@gmail.com wrote: Obama, Bush team up behind another $350 billion for the banks 14 January 2009 First things first. Even before President Bush makes his farewell address on Thursday and Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president next Tuesday, the outgoing and incoming administrations are engaged in a concerted drive to release the second $350 billion installment of taxpayer funds to bail out the banks. Obama telephoned Bush Monday morning and asked that he formally request the second half of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) windfall for Wall Street approved by Congress on October 3. Bush complied almost immediately, starting the clock on a 15-day period during which Congress can block the Treasury Department from transferring additional billions to financial institutions only if both houses reject the president's request. Even in that highly unlikely event, the president can vacate the congressional action by issuing a veto, which would require a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override—virtually a political impossibility given overwhelming Democratic support for the bailout and Democratic control of both congressional chambers. Such is the priority given to the bailout money for the banks that Obama and his top economic aides are devoting themselves nearly full- time to meeting with leading Democrats and Republicans and lobbying Congress for support. Obama's $800 billion economic stimulus package, itself tailored to the demands of big business, can wait until mid- February, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pledged to hold a vote on the TARP money by this Friday at the latest. The joint Bush-Obama push for the second half of the TARP money has occasioned a flurry of complaints from both sides of the congressional aisle over the refusal of the banks to use the billions they received in the first installment to increase their lending and protests from Democrats over the failure to provide relief for homeowners facing foreclosure—the ostensible purposes of the program. There is also much bluster over the lack of any restrictions on how the banks used the money, the absence of serious limits on executive pay and the fact that the banks were not even required to inform Congress or the public what they did with the government funds they received. Of the $350 billion already distributed, $250 billion went to banks and financial institutions, including $125 billion to the nine biggest banks. Another $40 billion was added to the $100 billion previously paid out to rescue the insurance giant American International Group, $19 billion went for emergency loans to General Motors and Chrysler, $20 billion went to other firms, and $25 billion was injected into
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
history tells me it will work just as it worked in the past . On Jan 14, 3:01 pm, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Again with the blind faith. Roosevelt's New Deal and what Obama is proposing are very different. The US and the World in the early 30's was very different from the US and the World today. The global economy, which influences every country, including the US, is very different from the one that existed back in the early 30's. You seem to argue every point the same way.. you repeat your belief or some uselessly high level concept as evidence of your point, never taking the time to drill down or defend it. If you believe it will work, you must have some concept on exactly how that will be achieved. On Jan 14, 2:51 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: it worked very well when Roosevelt did it and it will work very well again . On Jan 14, 11:02 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, You are, of course, free to think and do whatever you please but I do suggest that a little more than blind faith be applied. Just because you have this hate/love relationship with Bush/Obama, respectively, doesn't mean that doing the same thing will result in vastly different outcomes just because it's Obama's administration. I've questioned twice now how government funded jobs will be sustained and all you've been able to do is say you believe it will work. That and a $1.50 at a Starbucks might get you a small, regular coffee, but not much else. In the short term, if it puts people to work, that is great. But from my untrained perspective it has the very real chance of simply making things worse, not better. I keep hearing catch phrases such as kick start the economy but the economy is not a motorcycle. I wish someone could put into layman's terms exactly how spending hundreds of billions of dollars on unsustainable government jobs will help the situation we are in. On Jan 14, 3:35 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: from what i understand the money isn't going to be used the way bush used the first half . On Jan 14, 1:43 am, \Lone Wolf\ phoeni...@gmail.com wrote: Obama, Bush team up behind another $350 billion for the banks 14 January 2009 First things first. Even before President Bush makes his farewell address on Thursday and Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president next Tuesday, the outgoing and incoming administrations are engaged in a concerted drive to release the second $350 billion installment of taxpayer funds to bail out the banks. Obama telephoned Bush Monday morning and asked that he formally request the second half of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) windfall for Wall Street approved by Congress on October 3. Bush complied almost immediately, starting the clock on a 15-day period during which Congress can block the Treasury Department from transferring additional billions to financial institutions only if both houses reject the president's request. Even in that highly unlikely event, the president can vacate the congressional action by issuing a veto, which would require a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override—virtually a political impossibility given overwhelming Democratic support for the bailout and Democratic control of both congressional chambers. Such is the priority given to the bailout money for the banks that Obama and his top economic aides are devoting themselves nearly full- time to meeting with leading Democrats and Republicans and lobbying Congress for support. Obama's $800 billion economic stimulus package, itself tailored to the demands of big business, can wait until mid- February, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pledged to hold a vote on the TARP money by this Friday at the latest. The joint Bush-Obama push for the second half of the TARP money has occasioned a flurry of complaints from both sides of the congressional aisle over the refusal of the banks to use the billions they received in the first installment to increase their lending and protests from Democrats over the failure to provide relief for homeowners facing foreclosure—the ostensible purposes of the program. There is also much bluster over the lack of any restrictions on how the banks used the money, the absence of serious limits on executive pay and the fact that the banks were not even required to inform Congress or the public what they did with the government funds they received. Of the $350 billion already distributed, $250 billion went to banks and financial institutions, including $125 billion to the nine biggest banks. Another $40 billion was added to the $100 billion previously paid out to rescue the insurance
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
All I can say is you'd have made one hell of a test pilot.. Absolutely fearless! What's to fear? Planes have flown and landed intact in the past On Jan 14, 3:07 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: history tells me it will work just as it worked in the past . On Jan 14, 3:01 pm, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Again with the blind faith. Roosevelt's New Deal and what Obama is proposing are very different. The US and the World in the early 30's was very different from the US and the World today. The global economy, which influences every country, including the US, is very different from the one that existed back in the early 30's. You seem to argue every point the same way.. you repeat your belief or some uselessly high level concept as evidence of your point, never taking the time to drill down or defend it. If you believe it will work, you must have some concept on exactly how that will be achieved. On Jan 14, 2:51 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: it worked very well when Roosevelt did it and it will work very well again . On Jan 14, 11:02 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, You are, of course, free to think and do whatever you please but I do suggest that a little more than blind faith be applied. Just because you have this hate/love relationship with Bush/Obama, respectively, doesn't mean that doing the same thing will result in vastly different outcomes just because it's Obama's administration. I've questioned twice now how government funded jobs will be sustained and all you've been able to do is say you believe it will work. That and a $1.50 at a Starbucks might get you a small, regular coffee, but not much else. In the short term, if it puts people to work, that is great. But from my untrained perspective it has the very real chance of simply making things worse, not better. I keep hearing catch phrases such as kick start the economy but the economy is not a motorcycle. I wish someone could put into layman's terms exactly how spending hundreds of billions of dollars on unsustainable government jobs will help the situation we are in. On Jan 14, 3:35 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: from what i understand the money isn't going to be used the way bush used the first half . On Jan 14, 1:43 am, \Lone Wolf\ phoeni...@gmail.com wrote: Obama, Bush team up behind another $350 billion for the banks 14 January 2009 First things first. Even before President Bush makes his farewell address on Thursday and Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president next Tuesday, the outgoing and incoming administrations are engaged in a concerted drive to release the second $350 billion installment of taxpayer funds to bail out the banks. Obama telephoned Bush Monday morning and asked that he formally request the second half of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) windfall for Wall Street approved by Congress on October 3. Bush complied almost immediately, starting the clock on a 15-day period during which Congress can block the Treasury Department from transferring additional billions to financial institutions only if both houses reject the president's request. Even in that highly unlikely event, the president can vacate the congressional action by issuing a veto, which would require a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override—virtually a political impossibility given overwhelming Democratic support for the bailout and Democratic control of both congressional chambers. Such is the priority given to the bailout money for the banks that Obama and his top economic aides are devoting themselves nearly full- time to meeting with leading Democrats and Republicans and lobbying Congress for support. Obama's $800 billion economic stimulus package, itself tailored to the demands of big business, can wait until mid- February, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pledged to hold a vote on the TARP money by this Friday at the latest. The joint Bush-Obama push for the second half of the TARP money has occasioned a flurry of complaints from both sides of the congressional aisle over the refusal of the banks to use the billions they received in the first installment to increase their lending and protests from Democrats over the failure to provide relief for homeowners facing foreclosure—the ostensible purposes of the program. There is also much bluster over the lack of any restrictions on how the banks used the money, the absence of serious limits on executive pay and the fact that the banks were not
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
if Obama ignores the conservative naysayers it will work just fine . On Jan 14, 5:18 pm, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: All I can say is you'd have made one hell of a test pilot.. Absolutely fearless! What's to fear? Planes have flown and landed intact in the past On Jan 14, 3:07 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: history tells me it will work just as it worked in the past . On Jan 14, 3:01 pm, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Again with the blind faith. Roosevelt's New Deal and what Obama is proposing are very different. The US and the World in the early 30's was very different from the US and the World today. The global economy, which influences every country, including the US, is very different from the one that existed back in the early 30's. You seem to argue every point the same way.. you repeat your belief or some uselessly high level concept as evidence of your point, never taking the time to drill down or defend it. If you believe it will work, you must have some concept on exactly how that will be achieved. On Jan 14, 2:51 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: it worked very well when Roosevelt did it and it will work very well again . On Jan 14, 11:02 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, You are, of course, free to think and do whatever you please but I do suggest that a little more than blind faith be applied. Just because you have this hate/love relationship with Bush/Obama, respectively, doesn't mean that doing the same thing will result in vastly different outcomes just because it's Obama's administration. I've questioned twice now how government funded jobs will be sustained and all you've been able to do is say you believe it will work. That and a $1.50 at a Starbucks might get you a small, regular coffee, but not much else. In the short term, if it puts people to work, that is great. But from my untrained perspective it has the very real chance of simply making things worse, not better. I keep hearing catch phrases such as kick start the economy but the economy is not a motorcycle. I wish someone could put into layman's terms exactly how spending hundreds of billions of dollars on unsustainable government jobs will help the situation we are in. On Jan 14, 3:35 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: from what i understand the money isn't going to be used the way bush used the first half . On Jan 14, 1:43 am, \Lone Wolf\ phoeni...@gmail.com wrote: Obama, Bush team up behind another $350 billion for the banks 14 January 2009 First things first. Even before President Bush makes his farewell address on Thursday and Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president next Tuesday, the outgoing and incoming administrations are engaged in a concerted drive to release the second $350 billion installment of taxpayer funds to bail out the banks. Obama telephoned Bush Monday morning and asked that he formally request the second half of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) windfall for Wall Street approved by Congress on October 3. Bush complied almost immediately, starting the clock on a 15-day period during which Congress can block the Treasury Department from transferring additional billions to financial institutions only if both houses reject the president's request. Even in that highly unlikely event, the president can vacate the congressional action by issuing a veto, which would require a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override—virtually a political impossibility given overwhelming Democratic support for the bailout and Democratic control of both congressional chambers. Such is the priority given to the bailout money for the banks that Obama and his top economic aides are devoting themselves nearly full- time to meeting with leading Democrats and Republicans and lobbying Congress for support. Obama's $800 billion economic stimulus package, itself tailored to the demands of big business, can wait until mid- February, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pledged to hold a vote on the TARP money by this Friday at the latest. The joint Bush-Obama push for the second half of the TARP money has occasioned a flurry of complaints from both sides of the congressional aisle over the refusal of the banks to use the billions they received in the first installment to increase their lending and protests from Democrats over the failure to provide relief for homeowners
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
i think Obama just like Roosevelt will make this new deal work as well or better than the first one . i just hope he doesn't fall victim to the republican rhetoric and try to balance the budget to soon during the process . On Jan 13, 12:30 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: True, but the jobs are not sustainable. The Federal Government - the most corrupt, ineffectual, wasteful and inept organization in the history of mankind - to this you entrust nearly three quarters of a billion dollars to 'create' jobs. That in itself makes this a bad idea. But beyond that, those jobs are being bankrolled by the very businesses that can provide sustainable employment if given a chance. As government raises the tax burden on these businesses to fund its operation, the ability of these businesses to fund their own payrolls and invest in growth diminishes. And as these companies diminish, so to does the funding the government relies on to run its operation. As I said, eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 3:08 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: in this case the government will be creating jobs for americans by hiring contractors to rebuild our bridges and roads among other things . On Jan 12, 10:51 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, It's not mythbusting, it's simply presenting a different opinion. This argument is based on the limited view that wealth is mainly generated by loaning or borrowing at interest - a common enough assumption among financial people over the past 30 years. A more progressive view is that real wealth is generated by labor, combined with access to resources required for production. Putting people to work creates wealth. Businesses have always invested their capital to create more capital. The best parts of Obama's proposal involve getting the government to do the same thing. Conservatives are resisting this because don't believe that there's such a thing as the common wealth The idea that government, by putting people to work, will infuse the economy is troubling because the government doesn't create anything. A business creates goods and services, and consumers spend money on these goods and services. This generates capital, which can then fund jobs or be reinvested back into the business for growth. But government doesn't do this. Government doesn't create it's own capital. Government relies on business to fund it's operation, and so as it increases it's spending it must draw more capital from business, making it harder for business to reinvest or maintain a payroll. It's like suggesting we use a battery to drive a motor to turn a generator to create electricity to charge the battery. This doesn't work and eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 9:42 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package http://www.truthout.org:80/011109E The self-serving myths about President-elect Barack Obama's economic recovery plan are starting to fly so thick and fast that we have been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's what you need to know to fire back. Here it is: our moment of economic truth. We're standing at that historic fork in the road where the nation decides, now and for the foreseeable future, whether it's going to hang on to the catastrophic assumptions of the free-market fundamentalists and rely once more on the nostrums that have so far failed to fix the mess, or take a bold step down a new, more progressive path that will finally re-empower the American people to build an economy that works for us all. As usual, the conservatives have absolutely no conscience about what they did to create this mess. If they did, they'd all be holed up in their gated communities or on their private islands, embarrassed into silence at best and terrified of peasant uprisings at worst. Instead, they're jetting into D.C. en masse in a last-ditch attempt to head the country off - or at least make sure that any money that does get spent ends up, as it always has, in their pockets. To that end, the self-serving myths are starting to fly so thick and fast that the staff here at CAF has been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's some of what they're flinging in this latest B.S. storm - and what you need to know to fire back. 1. The proposed recovery package is too big. False. Most progressive economists agree (and Paul Krugman is downright emphatic) that it's going to take a minimum of a trillion dollars of well-placed investment to pull our economy out of this ditch. This is no time for half-measures, blue-ribbon committees, pilot projects, or trial balloons: this is a life-or-death crisis that requires immediate and massive intervention.
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
FDR accomplished little until WWII. Afterall, I guess the mortgage crisis started this recession and who bought these homes they couldn't afford, racked up enormous credit debt to emulate celebrities (now, they appear on Oprah or are scolded by Suzie Ormand)- the people who voted for Obama to bail them out. On Jan 13, 2:11�am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: i think Obama just like Roosevelt will make this new deal work as well or better than the first one . i just hope he doesn't fall victim to the republican rhetoric and try to balance the budget to soon during the process . On Jan 13, 12:30�am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: True, but the jobs are not sustainable. The Federal Government - the most corrupt, ineffectual, wasteful and inept organization in the history of mankind - to this you entrust nearly three quarters of a billion dollars to 'create' jobs. That in itself makes this a bad idea. But beyond that, those jobs are being bankrolled by the very businesses that can provide sustainable employment if given a chance. As government raises the tax burden on these businesses to fund its operation, the ability of these businesses to fund their own payrolls and invest in growth diminishes. And as these companies diminish, so to does the funding the government relies on to run its operation. As I said, eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 3:08�pm, florida mike �! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: in this case the government will be creating jobs for americans by hiring contractors to rebuild our bridges and roads among other things . On Jan 12, 10:51�am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, It's not mythbusting, it's simply presenting a different opinion. This argument is based on the limited view that wealth is mainly generated by loaning or borrowing at interest - a common enough assumption among financial people over the past 30 years. A more progressive view is that real wealth is generated by labor, combined with access to resources required for production. Putting people to work creates wealth. Businesses have always invested their capital to create more capital. The best parts of Obama's proposal involve getting the government to do the same thing. Conservatives are resisting this because don't believe that there's such a thing as the common wealth The idea that government, by putting people to work, will infuse the economy is troubling because the government doesn't create anything. A business creates goods and services, and consumers spend money on these goods and services. This generates capital, which can then fund jobs or be reinvested back into the business for growth. But government doesn't do this. Government doesn't create it's own capital. Government relies on business to fund it's operation, and so as it increases it's spending it must draw more capital from business, making it harder for business to reinvest or maintain a payroll. It's like suggesting we use a battery to drive a motor to turn a generator to create electricity to charge the battery. This doesn't work and eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 9:42�am, florida mike �! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package �http://www.truthout.org:80/011109E The self-serving myths about President-elect Barack Obama's economic recovery plan are starting to fly so thick and fast that we have been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's what you need to know to fire back. � � Here it is: our moment of economic truth. We're standing at that historic fork in the road where the nation decides, now and for the foreseeable future, whether it's going to hang on to the catastrophic assumptions of the free-market fundamentalists and rely once more on the nostrums that have so far failed to fix the mess, or take a bold step down a new, more progressive path that will finally re-empower the American people to build an economy that works for us all. � � As usual, the conservatives have absolutely no conscience about what they did to create this mess. If they did, they'd all be holed up in their gated communities or on their private islands, embarrassed into silence at best and terrified of peasant uprisings at worst. Instead, they're jetting into D.C. en masse in a last-ditch attempt to head the country off - or at least make sure that any money that does get spent ends up, as it always has, in their pockets. � � To that end, the self-serving myths are starting to fly so thick and fast that the staff here at CAF has been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's some of what they're flinging in this latest B.S. storm - and what you need to know to fire back. � � 1. The
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
FDR accomplished little until WWII. you don't consider saving the country as doing very much ? On Jan 13, 4:14 am, rigsy03 rigs...@yahoo.com wrote: FDR accomplished little until WWII. Afterall, I guess the mortgage crisis started this recession and who bought these homes they couldn't afford, racked up enormous credit debt to emulate celebrities (now, they appear on Oprah or are scolded by Suzie Ormand)- the people who voted for Obama to bail them out. On Jan 13, 2:11 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: i think Obama just like Roosevelt will make this new deal work as well or better than the first one . i just hope he doesn't fall victim to the republican rhetoric and try to balance the budget to soon during the process . On Jan 13, 12:30 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: True, but the jobs are not sustainable. The Federal Government - the most corrupt, ineffectual, wasteful and inept organization in the history of mankind - to this you entrust nearly three quarters of a billion dollars to 'create' jobs. That in itself makes this a bad idea. But beyond that, those jobs are being bankrolled by the very businesses that can provide sustainable employment if given a chance. As government raises the tax burden on these businesses to fund its operation, the ability of these businesses to fund their own payrolls and invest in growth diminishes. And as these companies diminish, so to does the funding the government relies on to run its operation. As I said, eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 3:08 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: in this case the government will be creating jobs for americans by hiring contractors to rebuild our bridges and roads among other things . On Jan 12, 10:51 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, It's not mythbusting, it's simply presenting a different opinion. This argument is based on the limited view that wealth is mainly generated by loaning or borrowing at interest - a common enough assumption among financial people over the past 30 years. A more progressive view is that real wealth is generated by labor, combined with access to resources required for production. Putting people to work creates wealth. Businesses have always invested their capital to create more capital. The best parts of Obama's proposal involve getting the government to do the same thing. Conservatives are resisting this because don't believe that there's such a thing as the common wealth The idea that government, by putting people to work, will infuse the economy is troubling because the government doesn't create anything. A business creates goods and services, and consumers spend money on these goods and services. This generates capital, which can then fund jobs or be reinvested back into the business for growth. But government doesn't do this. Government doesn't create it's own capital. Government relies on business to fund it's operation, and so as it increases it's spending it must draw more capital from business, making it harder for business to reinvest or maintain a payroll. It's like suggesting we use a battery to drive a motor to turn a generator to create electricity to charge the battery. This doesn't work and eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 9:42 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package http://www.truthout.org:80/011109E The self-serving myths about President-elect Barack Obama's economic recovery plan are starting to fly so thick and fast that we have been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's what you need to know to fire back. Here it is: our moment of economic truth. We're standing at that historic fork in the road where the nation decides, now and for the foreseeable future, whether it's going to hang on to the catastrophic assumptions of the free-market fundamentalists and rely once more on the nostrums that have so far failed to fix the mess, or take a bold step down a new, more progressive path that will finally re-empower the American people to build an economy that works for us all. As usual, the conservatives have absolutely no conscience about what they did to create this mess. If they did, they'd all be holed up in their gated communities or on their private islands, embarrassed into silence at best and terrified of peasant uprisings at worst. Instead, they're jetting into D.C. en masse in a last-ditch attempt to head the country off - or at least make sure that any money that does get spent ends up, as it always has, in their pockets. To that end, the self-serving myths are starting to fly so
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
That isn;t what I said, mike. FDR's programs did not re-boot America but Lend-Lease and WWII did by updating American manufacturing/ production, providing jobs and jacking up expectations of consumers/ returning G.I.'s who were eager to spend/nest. Sentimental lyrics died, as a result- but that's another topic. Throwing money at the present problem is not a bright idea- and I don't care if Krugman won a Nobel Prize and advises differently. It's like enabling a prodigal child. What has the first bailout accomplished? Really nothing. It will get worse as China is feeling pinched. Not good. On Jan 13, 3:52�am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: FDR accomplished little until WWII. you don't consider saving the country as doing very much ? On Jan 13, 4:14�am, rigsy03 rigs...@yahoo.com wrote: FDR accomplished little until WWII. Afterall, I guess the mortgage crisis started this recession and who bought these homes they couldn't afford, racked up enormous credit debt to emulate celebrities (now, they appear on Oprah or are scolded by Suzie Ormand)- the people who voted for Obama to bail them out. On Jan 13, 2:11 am, florida mike �! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: i think Obama just like Roosevelt will make this new deal work as well or better than the first one . i just hope he doesn't fall victim to the republican rhetoric and try to balance the budget to soon during the process . On Jan 13, 12:30 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: True, but the jobs are not sustainable. The Federal Government - the most corrupt, ineffectual, wasteful and inept organization in the history of mankind - to this you entrust nearly three quarters of a billion dollars to 'create' jobs. That in itself makes this a bad idea. But beyond that, those jobs are being bankrolled by the very businesses that can provide sustainable employment if given a chance. As government raises the tax burden on these businesses to fund its operation, the ability of these businesses to fund their own payrolls and invest in growth diminishes. And as these companies diminish, so to does the funding the government relies on to run its operation. As I said, eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 3:08 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: in this case the government will be creating jobs for americans by hiring contractors to rebuild our bridges and roads among other things . On Jan 12, 10:51 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, It's not mythbusting, it's simply presenting a different opinion. This argument is based on the limited view that wealth is mainly generated by loaning or borrowing at interest - a common enough assumption among financial people over the past 30 years. A more progressive view is that real wealth is generated by labor, combined with access to resources required for production. Putting people to work creates wealth. Businesses have always invested their capital to create more capital. The best parts of Obama's proposal involve getting the government to do the same thing. Conservatives are resisting this because don't believe that there's such a thing as the common wealth The idea that government, by putting people to work, will infuse the economy is troubling because the government doesn't create anything. A business creates goods and services, and consumers spend money on these goods and services. This generates capital, which can then fund jobs or be reinvested back into the business for growth. But government doesn't do this. Government doesn't create it's own capital. Government relies on business to fund it's operation, and so as it increases it's spending it must draw more capital from business, making it harder for business to reinvest or maintain a payroll. It's like suggesting we use a battery to drive a motor to turn a generator to create electricity to charge the battery. This doesn't work and eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 9:42 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package http://www.truthout.org:80/011109E The self-serving myths about President-elect Barack Obama's economic recovery plan are starting to fly so thick and fast that we have been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's what you need to know to fire back. Here it is: our moment of economic truth. We're standing at that historic fork in the road where the nation decides, now and for the foreseeable future, whether it's going to hang on to the catastrophic assumptions of the free-market fundamentalists and rely once
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
the new deal saved America WW2 helped but it was the new deal that did it . On Jan 13, 5:06 am, rigsy03 rigs...@yahoo.com wrote: That isn;t what I said, mike. FDR's programs did not re-boot America but Lend-Lease and WWII did by updating American manufacturing/ production, providing jobs and jacking up expectations of consumers/ returning G.I.'s who were eager to spend/nest. Sentimental lyrics died, as a result- but that's another topic. Throwing money at the present problem is not a bright idea- and I don't care if Krugman won a Nobel Prize and advises differently. It's like enabling a prodigal child. What has the first bailout accomplished? Really nothing. It will get worse as China is feeling pinched. Not good. On Jan 13, 3:52 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: FDR accomplished little until WWII. you don't consider saving the country as doing very much ? On Jan 13, 4:14 am, rigsy03 rigs...@yahoo.com wrote: FDR accomplished little until WWII. Afterall, I guess the mortgage crisis started this recession and who bought these homes they couldn't afford, racked up enormous credit debt to emulate celebrities (now, they appear on Oprah or are scolded by Suzie Ormand)- the people who voted for Obama to bail them out. On Jan 13, 2:11 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: i think Obama just like Roosevelt will make this new deal work as well or better than the first one . i just hope he doesn't fall victim to the republican rhetoric and try to balance the budget to soon during the process . On Jan 13, 12:30 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: True, but the jobs are not sustainable. The Federal Government - the most corrupt, ineffectual, wasteful and inept organization in the history of mankind - to this you entrust nearly three quarters of a billion dollars to 'create' jobs. That in itself makes this a bad idea. But beyond that, those jobs are being bankrolled by the very businesses that can provide sustainable employment if given a chance. As government raises the tax burden on these businesses to fund its operation, the ability of these businesses to fund their own payrolls and invest in growth diminishes. And as these companies diminish, so to does the funding the government relies on to run its operation. As I said, eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 3:08 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: in this case the government will be creating jobs for americans by hiring contractors to rebuild our bridges and roads among other things . On Jan 12, 10:51 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, It's not mythbusting, it's simply presenting a different opinion. This argument is based on the limited view that wealth is mainly generated by loaning or borrowing at interest - a common enough assumption among financial people over the past 30 years. A more progressive view is that real wealth is generated by labor, combined with access to resources required for production. Putting people to work creates wealth. Businesses have always invested their capital to create more capital. The best parts of Obama's proposal involve getting the government to do the same thing. Conservatives are resisting this because don't believe that there's such a thing as the common wealth The idea that government, by putting people to work, will infuse the economy is troubling because the government doesn't create anything. A business creates goods and services, and consumers spend money on these goods and services. This generates capital, which can then fund jobs or be reinvested back into the business for growth. But government doesn't do this. Government doesn't create it's own capital. Government relies on business to fund it's operation, and so as it increases it's spending it must draw more capital from business, making it harder for business to reinvest or maintain a payroll. It's like suggesting we use a battery to drive a motor to turn a generator to create electricity to charge the battery. This doesn't work and eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 9:42 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package http://www.truthout.org:80/011109E The self-serving myths about President-elect Barack Obama's economic recovery plan are starting to fly so thick and fast that we have been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's what you need to know to fire back. Here it is: our moment of economic truth. We're standing at that
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
That is a myth. On Jan 13, 4:29�am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: the new deal saved America WW2 helped but it was the new deal that did it . On Jan 13, 5:06�am, rigsy03 rigs...@yahoo.com wrote: That isn;t what I said, mike. FDR's programs did not re-boot America but Lend-Lease and WWII did by updating American manufacturing/ production, providing jobs and jacking up expectations of consumers/ returning G.I.'s who were eager to spend/nest. Sentimental lyrics died, as a result- but that's another topic. Throwing money at the present problem is not a bright idea- and I don't care if Krugman won a Nobel Prize and advises differently. It's like enabling a prodigal child. What has the first bailout accomplished? Really nothing. It will get worse as China is feeling pinched. Not good. On Jan 13, 3:52 am, florida mike �! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: FDR accomplished little until WWII. you don't consider saving the country as doing very much ? On Jan 13, 4:14 am, rigsy03 rigs...@yahoo.com wrote: FDR accomplished little until WWII. Afterall, I guess the mortgage crisis started this recession and who bought these homes they couldn't afford, racked up enormous credit debt to emulate celebrities (now, they appear on Oprah or are scolded by Suzie Ormand)- the people who voted for Obama to bail them out. On Jan 13, 2:11 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: i think Obama just like Roosevelt will make this new deal work as well or better than the first one . i just hope he doesn't fall victim to the republican rhetoric and try to balance the budget to soon during the process . On Jan 13, 12:30 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: True, but the jobs are not sustainable. The Federal Government - the most corrupt, ineffectual, wasteful and inept organization in the history of mankind - to this you entrust nearly three quarters of a billion dollars to 'create' jobs. That in itself makes this a bad idea. But beyond that, those jobs are being bankrolled by the very businesses that can provide sustainable employment if given a chance. As government raises the tax burden on these businesses to fund its operation, the ability of these businesses to fund their own payrolls and invest in growth diminishes. And as these companies diminish, so to does the funding the government relies on to run its operation. As I said, eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 3:08 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: in this case the government will be creating jobs for americans by hiring contractors to rebuild our bridges and roads among other things . On Jan 12, 10:51 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, It's not mythbusting, it's simply presenting a different opinion. This argument is based on the limited view that wealth is mainly generated by loaning or borrowing at interest - a common enough assumption among financial people over the past 30 years. A more progressive view is that real wealth is generated by labor, combined with access to resources required for production. Putting people to work creates wealth. Businesses have always invested their capital to create more capital. The best parts of Obama's proposal involve getting the government to do the same thing. Conservatives are resisting this because don't believe that there's such a thing as the common wealth The idea that government, by putting people to work, will infuse the economy is troubling because the government doesn't create anything. A business creates goods and services, and consumers spend money on these goods and services. This generates capital, which can then fund jobs or be reinvested back into the business for growth. But government doesn't do this. Government doesn't create it's own capital. Government relies on business to fund it's operation, and so as it increases it's spending it must draw more capital from business, making it harder for business to reinvest or maintain a payroll. It's like suggesting we use a battery to drive a motor to turn a generator to create electricity to charge the battery. This doesn't work and eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 9:42 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package http://www.truthout.org:80/011109E The self-serving myths about President-elect Barack Obama's economic
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
Mike, It's not mythbusting, it's simply presenting a different opinion. This argument is based on the limited view that wealth is mainly generated by loaning or borrowing at interest - a common enough assumption among financial people over the past 30 years. A more progressive view is that real wealth is generated by labor, combined with access to resources required for production. Putting people to work creates wealth. Businesses have always invested their capital to create more capital. The best parts of Obama's proposal involve getting the government to do the same thing. Conservatives are resisting this because don't believe that there's such a thing as the common wealth The idea that government, by putting people to work, will infuse the economy is troubling because the government doesn't create anything. A business creates goods and services, and consumers spend money on these goods and services. This generates capital, which can then fund jobs or be reinvested back into the business for growth. But government doesn't do this. Government doesn't create it's own capital. Government relies on business to fund it's operation, and so as it increases it's spending it must draw more capital from business, making it harder for business to reinvest or maintain a payroll. It's like suggesting we use a battery to drive a motor to turn a generator to create electricity to charge the battery. This doesn't work and eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 9:42 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package http://www.truthout.org:80/011109E The self-serving myths about President-elect Barack Obama's economic recovery plan are starting to fly so thick and fast that we have been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's what you need to know to fire back. Here it is: our moment of economic truth. We're standing at that historic fork in the road where the nation decides, now and for the foreseeable future, whether it's going to hang on to the catastrophic assumptions of the free-market fundamentalists and rely once more on the nostrums that have so far failed to fix the mess, or take a bold step down a new, more progressive path that will finally re-empower the American people to build an economy that works for us all. As usual, the conservatives have absolutely no conscience about what they did to create this mess. If they did, they'd all be holed up in their gated communities or on their private islands, embarrassed into silence at best and terrified of peasant uprisings at worst. Instead, they're jetting into D.C. en masse in a last-ditch attempt to head the country off - or at least make sure that any money that does get spent ends up, as it always has, in their pockets. To that end, the self-serving myths are starting to fly so thick and fast that the staff here at CAF has been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's some of what they're flinging in this latest B.S. storm - and what you need to know to fire back. 1. The proposed recovery package is too big. False. Most progressive economists agree (and Paul Krugman is downright emphatic) that it's going to take a minimum of a trillion dollars of well-placed investment to pull our economy out of this ditch. This is no time for half-measures, blue-ribbon committees, pilot projects, or trial balloons: this is a life-or-death crisis that requires immediate and massive intervention. CAF Senior Fellow Bernie Horn puts it this way: The American economy is huge and it's at a standstill. It's like a motionless 100- car freight train - or one going backwards slowly. A small locomotive simply can't pull it forward. We need an engine large enough to work, one that can create millions of jobs. If anything, a $775 billion 2- year plan may be too small rather than too big. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research echoed this same thing on Rachel Maddow's show last Tuesday night. It's got to be big. And it's got to be now. Anything too small - or too late - and the American economy will be at serious risk of stagnating the same way Japan's did in the 1990s. 2. If we can't afford (insert pet project here), we certainly can't afford this. Yes, we can. What we really can't afford is a huge recession that undercuts the tax base. That's a vicious cycle that will make it increasingly harder to dig out the longer this goes on. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the current slowdown will cost the federal government $166 billion in lost tax revenues in 2009 - a number that could easily get even larger in coming years if we fall into a real depression. If we get on that trendline, we could lose a trillion dollars in government revenues by the end of Obama's first term. We need to invest what we have while we still have it if we hope to have a strong economy going forward.
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
in this case the government will be creating jobs for americans by hiring contractors to rebuild our bridges and roads among other things . On Jan 12, 10:51 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, It's not mythbusting, it's simply presenting a different opinion. This argument is based on the limited view that wealth is mainly generated by loaning or borrowing at interest - a common enough assumption among financial people over the past 30 years. A more progressive view is that real wealth is generated by labor, combined with access to resources required for production. Putting people to work creates wealth. Businesses have always invested their capital to create more capital. The best parts of Obama's proposal involve getting the government to do the same thing. Conservatives are resisting this because don't believe that there's such a thing as the common wealth The idea that government, by putting people to work, will infuse the economy is troubling because the government doesn't create anything. A business creates goods and services, and consumers spend money on these goods and services. This generates capital, which can then fund jobs or be reinvested back into the business for growth. But government doesn't do this. Government doesn't create it's own capital. Government relies on business to fund it's operation, and so as it increases it's spending it must draw more capital from business, making it harder for business to reinvest or maintain a payroll. It's like suggesting we use a battery to drive a motor to turn a generator to create electricity to charge the battery. This doesn't work and eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 9:42 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package http://www.truthout.org:80/011109E The self-serving myths about President-elect Barack Obama's economic recovery plan are starting to fly so thick and fast that we have been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's what you need to know to fire back. Here it is: our moment of economic truth. We're standing at that historic fork in the road where the nation decides, now and for the foreseeable future, whether it's going to hang on to the catastrophic assumptions of the free-market fundamentalists and rely once more on the nostrums that have so far failed to fix the mess, or take a bold step down a new, more progressive path that will finally re-empower the American people to build an economy that works for us all. As usual, the conservatives have absolutely no conscience about what they did to create this mess. If they did, they'd all be holed up in their gated communities or on their private islands, embarrassed into silence at best and terrified of peasant uprisings at worst. Instead, they're jetting into D.C. en masse in a last-ditch attempt to head the country off - or at least make sure that any money that does get spent ends up, as it always has, in their pockets. To that end, the self-serving myths are starting to fly so thick and fast that the staff here at CAF has been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's some of what they're flinging in this latest B.S. storm - and what you need to know to fire back. 1. The proposed recovery package is too big. False. Most progressive economists agree (and Paul Krugman is downright emphatic) that it's going to take a minimum of a trillion dollars of well-placed investment to pull our economy out of this ditch. This is no time for half-measures, blue-ribbon committees, pilot projects, or trial balloons: this is a life-or-death crisis that requires immediate and massive intervention. CAF Senior Fellow Bernie Horn puts it this way: The American economy is huge and it's at a standstill. It's like a motionless 100- car freight train - or one going backwards slowly. A small locomotive simply can't pull it forward. We need an engine large enough to work, one that can create millions of jobs. If anything, a $775 billion 2- year plan may be too small rather than too big. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research echoed this same thing on Rachel Maddow's show last Tuesday night. It's got to be big. And it's got to be now. Anything too small - or too late - and the American economy will be at serious risk of stagnating the same way Japan's did in the 1990s. 2. If we can't afford (insert pet project here), we certainly can't afford this. Yes, we can. What we really can't afford is a huge recession that undercuts the tax base. That's a vicious cycle that will make it increasingly harder to dig out the longer this goes on. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the current slowdown will cost the federal government $166 billion in lost tax revenues in 2009 - a number that could easily get even larger in coming
Re: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package
True, but the jobs are not sustainable. The Federal Government - the most corrupt, ineffectual, wasteful and inept organization in the history of mankind - to this you entrust nearly three quarters of a billion dollars to 'create' jobs. That in itself makes this a bad idea. But beyond that, those jobs are being bankrolled by the very businesses that can provide sustainable employment if given a chance. As government raises the tax burden on these businesses to fund its operation, the ability of these businesses to fund their own payrolls and invest in growth diminishes. And as these companies diminish, so to does the funding the government relies on to run its operation. As I said, eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 3:08 pm, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: in this case the government will be creating jobs for americans by hiring contractors to rebuild our bridges and roads among other things . On Jan 12, 10:51 am, frankg fran...@gmail.com wrote: Mike, It's not mythbusting, it's simply presenting a different opinion. This argument is based on the limited view that wealth is mainly generated by loaning or borrowing at interest - a common enough assumption among financial people over the past 30 years. A more progressive view is that real wealth is generated by labor, combined with access to resources required for production. Putting people to work creates wealth. Businesses have always invested their capital to create more capital. The best parts of Obama's proposal involve getting the government to do the same thing. Conservatives are resisting this because don't believe that there's such a thing as the common wealth The idea that government, by putting people to work, will infuse the economy is troubling because the government doesn't create anything. A business creates goods and services, and consumers spend money on these goods and services. This generates capital, which can then fund jobs or be reinvested back into the business for growth. But government doesn't do this. Government doesn't create it's own capital. Government relies on business to fund it's operation, and so as it increases it's spending it must draw more capital from business, making it harder for business to reinvest or maintain a payroll. It's like suggesting we use a battery to drive a motor to turn a generator to create electricity to charge the battery. This doesn't work and eventually the battery will die. On Jan 12, 9:42 am, florida mike ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: Mythbusting the Obama Recovery Package http://www.truthout.org:80/011109E The self-serving myths about President-elect Barack Obama's economic recovery plan are starting to fly so thick and fast that we have been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's what you need to know to fire back. Here it is: our moment of economic truth. We're standing at that historic fork in the road where the nation decides, now and for the foreseeable future, whether it's going to hang on to the catastrophic assumptions of the free-market fundamentalists and rely once more on the nostrums that have so far failed to fix the mess, or take a bold step down a new, more progressive path that will finally re-empower the American people to build an economy that works for us all. As usual, the conservatives have absolutely no conscience about what they did to create this mess. If they did, they'd all be holed up in their gated communities or on their private islands, embarrassed into silence at best and terrified of peasant uprisings at worst. Instead, they're jetting into D.C. en masse in a last-ditch attempt to head the country off - or at least make sure that any money that does get spent ends up, as it always has, in their pockets. To that end, the self-serving myths are starting to fly so thick and fast that the staff here at CAF has been working full-time to keep ahead of them. Here's some of what they're flinging in this latest B.S. storm - and what you need to know to fire back. 1. The proposed recovery package is too big. False. Most progressive economists agree (and Paul Krugman is downright emphatic) that it's going to take a minimum of a trillion dollars of well-placed investment to pull our economy out of this ditch. This is no time for half-measures, blue-ribbon committees, pilot projects, or trial balloons: this is a life-or-death crisis that requires immediate and massive intervention. CAF Senior Fellow Bernie Horn puts it this way: The American economy is huge and it's at a standstill. It's like a motionless 100- car freight train - or one going backwards slowly. A small locomotive simply can't pull it forward. We need an engine large enough to work, one that can create millions of jobs. If anything, a $775 billion 2-
