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He repeatedly tells us what needs to be done to stimulate the economy. He provides a lot of historical data to support his suppositions.
Kend - As usual you have put your foot in your mouth, much like global has done today. Take a short trip to Southern California and you will see the shopping malls packed with people that are actually spending money! Perhaps it is the snow and bad weather you brought with you from Canada, that frozen land of the North, that is keeping people in. Our economy is picking up and people here are celebrating life and the Holidays. My brother lives in Avondale Az., why I still cannot figure out, but he says the stores and malls are packed in Phoenix! So maybe it is the older people in Scottsdale that are not up to getting out and around. I have had a great day today with great news about my new expected grandson, so I am not in the mood for challenging you or that other Republican puppet Global!
Palindromedary - Thanks for setting Kend and Global straight on the narrow minded comments they have made today. Boehner and the Republicans are trying their damndest not to acknowledge the fact that taxing those making over $250,000 a year or more is a good idea with merit. They have come up with a figure of a $1,000,000 or more for taxing the wealthiest and it will not fly with the American people who see what they are really trying to protect, it is their own political asses. I just hope Obama has the guts to hold out and demand what is right for the American economy. And the lame attempt of the Republicans to cut out any tax deductions for the middle class is only going to sink their pitiful attempt to claim they are for cutting taxes on everyone. Everyone, meaning the wealthiest Americans, who can afford to pay their fair share of the tax burden. And the lie that the wealthy will create jobs if they could only keep their taxes low, so they can generate all the jobs needed to recover, no longer holds any credibility with the citizens that have seen the wealth of the rich grow while the rest of the nation stagnates. I just hope the Republicans are not so stupid as to let the economy fail while they bargain for tax breaks for their masters...
Our "big government" is not your "big government"! Our big government builds bridges, schools, and protects us from the capitalist wolves who would devour us in an instant.
Your big government does just the opposite...in addition to wasting lots of money on the Pentagon...on killing people...on spying on people..even, and especially, on it's own citizens.
Your big government specializes in supporting and encouraging corruption...our big government fights corruption and puts corrupt bullies into prison.
Those who generate propaganda to manipulate people into acting against the people's best interests have skillfully manipulated the language and meanings of words...like "government".
Just as now, some people are trying to manipulate the meaning of "we the earners". And how does one really "earn" over $250,000/year? They don't "earn" it...they "steal" it by manipulating other people out of their hard-EARNED money. Workers EARN their money. Manipulators STEAL their money.
Reagan was nothing but just another idiot actor who was taken advantage of by ruthless manipulators. I doubt he even knew what the heck he was saying most of the time...just acting...reading lines he was given to read...by the manipulators. "Speed it up!" Donald Regan demanded of Reagan during a speech. Yeah, we know who the real manipulators were. And Reagan wasn't the last of the idiots who were manipulated in that office of the President. We are about to see the latest one, who will sell us out, manipulated by ruthless criminals...just as other Presidents were....even Bush2. You don't think Bush2 was smart enough to be behind 911 do you? But, I guess if you think OBL was you couldn't even suspect that it was way bigger than OBL or Bush2.
Obama needs to take another look at the spending pie chart and think hard about that big military wedge. He also needs to hold a press conference and make clear to the public that it's the teapublicans demanding cuts to their social programs in favor of giving tax breaks to the very rich. I know it's hard to believe, but many out there think Obama has sole ownership of cuts to the social programs. The Democrats are woefully terrible on offense, thanks in part to corp. media.
Haven't you forgotten the previous 8 years of the Bush Administration that preceded the Obama Administration? Have you forgotten about the massive waste of money that went down the Pentagon rabbit hole during the Bush regime's reign? All of that was quite unnecessary; and, we had a surplus during the Clinton Presidency that was squandered on wasteful warfare.
It was the bastions of Lassez Faire Capitalism that stole from the well being of most Americans when they manufactured the new Pearl Harbor attacks on 911 and lied us into illegal invasions of the Middle East where they massacred hundreds of thousands of civilians including thousands of children.
Obama is merely an extension of the Bush Administration so don't single him out. He's just part of the problem and a Republican in his place would have been much worse. The real problem is that both the Democrat and Republicans are on the same side of the crooked nickel. And trying to blame Obama, while ignoring what the Republicans did during the Bush years, is just obfuscating the truth.
It looks to me that the plan is to quietly murder everyone who can't afford the price of staying alive (by just letting some people die of treatable and preventable diseases)...mostly old people on Social Security and Medicare or those who do not yet qualify for those yet but are unemployed and can't afford the healthScare premiums...so they have to pay cash. And they usually bill you for way more than they would bill an insurance company. But, I believe that unless you are "covered" under a healthScare plan, and you have to pay cash, you will not get the healthcare you are paying for anyway.
I believe there is a concerted effort, on behalf of doctors (bullied by the insurance companies) to take the money but avoid any actual preventative actions...like writing necessary prescriptions...like doing the necessary testing...scans..or operations..that it would take to prevent serious fatal medical conditions later on. They will keep "milking" you for any cash they can get but they won't treat you. Like they are punishing you for not participating in their very costly healthScare scams.
So, if they manage to knock off millions of old people, they don't have to worry about making good on Social Security or Medicare. But, the problem is that they would still have massive Pentagon spending and still have the massive economic problems we have today...only those in the Military Industrial Complex will be a whole lot richer. They'd still have massive banking and Wall Street corruption in Casino Capitalism and they will still have a ruinous economy as these criminals continue to hold their hands out to the Government for bailouts.
Maybe what we need is another Monica Lewinski-like scandal that saved us from trashing Social Security to Casino Capitalism during Bill Clinton's Presidency.
You are a Keynesian fool if you think government spending is the way to prosperity. We have been doing that for four years --- it does not work. Don't you understand the simple laws of economics, if you keep and have your own money to invest, and spend that will also create demand and job creation. Try getting out of the liberal echo chamber and learn from Milton Friedman, Austrian economics, free market capitalism etc... But of you are a confirmed socialist nun of that maters because your whole philosophy is for the collective and the almighty big government as your savior. The sovergnty if the individual is not important.
The new Speaker of the House.......Eric Cantor..... lazily whined about the so called Obama Welfare State today. Let's be clear about the definition of welfare state.....a state in which the welfare of its citizens, with regard to employment, medical care, SOCIAL SECURITY, etc. is considered to be the responsibility of collectively, "We the People," and this is achieved by electing a smaller group made up of, the same, "We the People." This smaller group is trusted with the responsiblity to carry out these mandates....... 99.9% are happy!
As one of, "We the People," I believe Cantor's PLAN BILLIONAIRE STATE.....a state in which the exploitation of a powerless and frightened citizenry by an empowered few leads to a concentration of wealth so extreme that collapse of the state becomes inevitable. Violent anarchy becomes the result and no one is able to pursue happiness. "PLAN B" fits such a scenario even though its not extreme enough for Cantor.
Until we get money out of politics, we can expect more of the same despicable behavior from our elected politicians, who will strip every cent out of programs the poor and middle class have paid into. And then these same bought off politicians will pay back their benefactors with what they've stolen from hard-working Americans.
Who are "we the earners"? From most everything you have ever said it looks like you don't really mean anyone making less than $250,000/year...the majority of workers in America. I believe that you have always taken the position of arguing in favor of those who make more than $250,000/year..the richest people in America...business owners and corporate execs and others who manage to manipulate deals (ie: cheat other people).
And how has that worked out this past 30 years since Reagan...and especially since Bush2? And now, Obama is not much better.
The trend by businesses has been to lay people off and export their jobs overseas and squeeze them out of wages and benefits. They are not job creators...except for the low paying jobs overseas. In America, they are job destroyers. And they have spent the last 30 years with favored tax status full of loop holes so that many corporations don't even pay any taxes at all...and it wasn't because they created jobs in America.
It's time we stopped the hemorrhaging of jobs and money out of the pockets of the people who can least afford it. It is high time we return to taxing the most wealthy people in this country and stopping the outsourcing of our jobs.
All that money going to the wealthy, who can well afford the extra taxation, is just a total waste and is resulting in a total wrecking of our economy and overall well being of the majority of Americans.
i think this is one of those things in life that is simply hard to let go. For what ever reason (usually for lack of reason) some things are just hard to give up on and you would have to have a strong background in mental; shall we say understanding, to able to get a good feeling about this question.
I am in Scottdale AZ for Christmas, oh sorry "the holidays" and it is scary how empty the malls are this close to Christmas. I think Global is right if we payed less taxes we would have more money left for presents etc. wouldn't we. Leave the money in the people hands and they will spend it. When they spend it companies hire.
Talking to my American freinds I can't seem to find anyone who can tell me what the plan is for jump starting the economy. Can anyone here?
That's the absurd logic of the Republicans, the party of owners of business as opposed to those who work for someone else. "We're going to help the working people by letting them keep more of their money." ignoring that working people don't HAVE any money that doesn't come from those owners of business, or their employers. A tax cut for wage earners is rarely enough to stimulate the economy in a recession, economic insecurity doesn't inspire self idulgent spending but a cheapness, an inclination to sit on any extra money in anticipation of a rainy day that seems ever more iminent.
Meanwhile, businesses, at this time, have much more than enough money but, until recently, were not creating jobs and were cutting them. The reason for that was that having money doesn't cause somebody to create jobs. Business has plenty of money, what it doesn't have is customers. Nobody expands a business when there is no demand just like you wouldn't start an enterprise selling used tissue paper or something else you knew nobody wanted.
Only government will make the investment necessary to restart an economy in such recession. For this reason it's okay to operate on a deficit in such times and it's best to implement an infrastructure program like Obama tried to get passed last year that the Republicans refused to consider - quite possibly because they wanted to crash the economy in time for the election. Similarly, the stimulus package that many Republican governors refused, contained money for infrastructure projects.
Studies by economists have found that a dollar in direct spending is four times as effective as a dollar in tax cuts at creating jobs.
Does that answer your question?
Explain how cutting taxes and letting people keep and invest more of their own money would be absurd and anemic to our Economy. Unless you think all money we earn is the governments first and they will tell you how much you can keep. Your trust in government spending is absurd. Obamas trillion dollar deficits every year for his eight years is absurd. A projected 22 trillion dollar debt at the end of his 8 year term is absurd. Your trust in these temporary politicians to tweak and manipulate this economy is absurd. I think we the earners can do a better and more efficient job of growing this economy and creating jobs. Do you really think raising taxes on anyone is good for this anemic economy?
In the '80s the would be oligarchs of the U.S. implemented a few strategies they had hatched to regain the power and control they lost since the '30s and especially since the '60s. One of them was a disingenuous borrowing from the left the framing and language of victimization, i.e., they charecterized themselves, the rich and powerful, the dominators and masters of society, as victims of society.
Cutting more taxes would have been anything but pro growth, absurd on its face. It would've made the economy more anemic.
A slogan I recently saw on a placard about class warfare I liked was "THEY only call it CLASS WARFARE when WE FIGHT BACK!".
Program cuts ARE tax increases on working people. Boehner and Nordquist are All ABOUT raising taxes.
We all EARNED those programs with our hard work making 1 percenters and 2 perecenters rich. Those programs and much more are our due! The working people do, in fact, DESERVE them, and much more.
There is not an income or wealth distribution problem but a compensation disparity problem of injustice, a pay equity problem, if you would. It's similar to the unequal pay for women. People are not compensated according to how hard they work but according to how much power and leverage they have and are able and/or willing to exercise.
Hmm, it does make sense that the CPI would be based on total spending, but there's a limitation to that. If people would like to spend more but can't, the actual spending won't reflect that. So I think that's the ultimate problem with the Chained CPI, since allowances wouldn't be made to encourage expanding spending to get the economy going.
Did you know that in the last 30 years of mass murders about 62 of them, all but one of the shooters have been male and mostly white male. Maybe we are raising our white sons to be too macho and not to have empathy. Someone without empathy is a psychopath.
Oh mealworms. I wondered what mealworks were. (Typo in the daily post, which has been corrected. Thanks.)
Abortion and Newtown:
Some of the religious right have blamed the shooting in Newtown on Americans who embraced abortion. Using that kind of twisted logic ---or lack of logic--- you could say that those innocent 6 an 7 year-old children would still be alive if the spineless coward who shot them, had been aborted.
The Fiscal Cliff is really a wag-the-dog conspiracy to keep us all from thinking about the End-of-the-World that is about to commence very shortly...starting in Greenwich, England where it will be Dec 21, 2012 in just a few more hours...just 2 hours and 32 minutes from now. The world will start to disintegrate starting from the GMT zone and progress from east to west every hour on the hour until the very last segment has disintegrated. Good bye people...it has been fun while it lasted! ;-}
If I might paraphrase the caller's joke: Men are better in a fire fight because when they're in a dangerous situation in which bullets might penetrate them, their bodies have ways to try to shut that whole thing down.
Yep, Bohner is a bone head. What he should have done is voted to cut taxes on the three lower brackets and keep the same rates on the two higher brackets. That way he could have thrown this whole class warfare BS back in the face of ObAMA. All Americans would benefit and it would be a pro growth agenda.
Yeah, I was thinking the very same thing...not exactly poverty! A lot of other people only have social security..and nothing more. They are the ones who will really be hurt.
Maybe we can get Arthur Anderson , or Alan Greenspan, or Bernie Madoff to cost out our policies here in America ;-}
Why don't we just shut down the Pentagon spending and cut off all those MIC leeches that are stealing from the taxpayers? Try to "cost out" a black budget!
Thom, I expected you to point out to Charlotte Allen that Louise is a gun-toting liberal woman.
Also, you should be careful not to conflate schizophrenia with multiple personalities.