Economic Stimulus; Well, it sounds better than, Uh-Oh!
Imagine how bad the economy would have to be for the president of the
Now, imagine that you are a member of Congress and you are currently running for president and find that the people hold a little resentment for you also, due to you and most of your 539 cohorts being equally culpable for sitting on your posteriors and watching it all unfold without so much as a word.
Okay, quit imagining, its real, its here, its game time and it’s called a recession. As a member of Congress, saying that your oversight of the approaching recession was due to your having been in the restroom for the past eight years or so, probably wouldn’t fly. Or saying that your grandma died and you were at the funeral the day the economy went to crap probably won’t work either. So ya gotta hatch a plan.
And we certainly have plenty of plans to go around. There is the Bush plan, Hillary plan, Barrack plan, McCain plan, Edwards plan, and all have two things in common, one, none will work, and two, “let’s bribe the idiots until after election by giving them some of their own money and neglecting to tell them that they have to pay it back.” Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
Let’s see how many ways this plan will backfire. But before we do, shall we determine why we have a problem of this magnitude to begin with? The president and Congress seldom use the approach of identifying the real issue and elect instead to treat the symptoms until the patient dies. But not us, we want to treat the problem. And that problem is that
So how will giving $800 to the person who is in trouble due to being unemployed or underemployed solve any long term problem? It won’t. But then, November of “08” isn’t a long time, so a short term solution will do. It is that simple is it not?
I want to quote something from a little book that never leaves my desk. “The fact that it is extremely difficult to induce a business recovery by increasing the purchasing power of the individual consumers is being impressively demonstrated in this depression.” Leonard P. Ayres, in “The Chief Cause of This and Other Depressions,” 1935.
Your see Mr. Ayres of the Cleveland Trust Company had written the booklet by request of Congress some six years into the Great Depression and observed that giving the citizens money to spend had no positive effect on real job creation, and resulted only in having to continually give the citizens more money each and every month and putting that bill on the cuff.
Nothing has changed since that writing except the new faces in Congress who have failed us miserably, who do not read history, and who will repeat the errors of past politicians even in the face of evidence suggesting the unwanted outcome.
A one time infusion of cash will have little or no effect on job creation, and that is the problem; or am I missing something?
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Hey Mike! G.W.Bush! The buyout king! He has bought out Congress and the rest of this country for almost eight years now and he is going to try it one more time. Reagan wash the great communicator and Bush is the great manipulator. We can add lier, schemer, traitor, etc, etc. Bush has broken the government and expects to “save” us by spending even more money. How clever! Instead of payingoff the populace he/Congress should be slashing the budget by cutting foreign aid, reducing unnecessary grants, scrapping useless fences on borders, write legislation to control/penalize the predatory financial and investment industries, and encourage all industry to not only add jobs but to start bringing jobs sent overseas back home. I am sure there are other things that are needed badly but these are the ones I can think of now. We need to start putting as much pressure on all political candidates to openly address the economy and attack the current administration and it’s failures. Nice to see Ron Paul doing better, have a good one Mike!
I believe you already know what tens of millions of people are fixin’ to discover, Mike, including our elected officials. Our government operates pretty much they way the citizens want it to operate. We want, want,want, at all cost and our representatives oblige us ( and fill their pockets in the process). We have a choice as citizens to call and write our government and demand that they steer back to our constitutional roots which has been proven to be a rock sloid way to operate our government and our country. Our representatives don’t really have a choice but to keep growth booming (even if it invloves allowing shady lending, etc.) however, since none are willing to tell us the truth. The truth is that an ever increasing exponential growth system to promote our economy cannot continue indefinitely. Finite resources will begin to run out at which time costs go up at alarming rates. Jobs are then lost due to lack of demand. Loans will not be paid. And fighting among ourselves and with other nations insue over remaining resources and jobs. Looks kind of familiar right now, huh.
I tend to differ a little with your problem statement in your note above. I beleive the problem is that not only has our citizenship lost their desire to verify what the government is telling them is accurate (this becomes very evident watching the election process lately), either through laziness or ignorance. We prefer sound bites ans spin over a little effort put ointo honest research. Our political leaders, including the president, senate, congress also have lost their desire to lead on sound principals, their ability to understand how the economy is really supposed to work (according to our constituiton), and their willingness to tell the truth when they see a plan is not working out. We do not admire people with character anymore as a nation. This is a very disturbing and potentially fatal flaw in modern America. If we want to remain a free nation, we desparately need to move back to a direction of character, honesty, of doing the right thing even if it does not appear to be the popular thing. And today would not be too soon to start. -bb
We all know that the money won’t actually do any good other than give the retail sector a boost long enough to report some better numbers.
It’s jobs that we need and there are none in the pipeline. There are however a few more surprises that will further weaken consumer confidence. The four big bond insurers are in trouble.
Dominoes will be dominoes and knock the next one down. Credit cards, house payments, auto payments, retail renters, all defaulting at ever greater rates.
Spring will see a no-go on construction. I look for government to start some massive public works projects that will sink us further in debt.
It’s just not getting any better.