Economic Stimulus

[moreluck]

Subject: Fwd: Economic stimulus




Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the US



economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:
This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus
Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will
explain using the Q and A format:




"Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?


"A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.


"Q. Where will the government get this money?



"A. From taxpayers.


"Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?


"A. Only a smidgen.





"Q. What is the purpose of this payment?



"A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.





"Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China?



"A. Shut up! "





If you spend that money at Wal-Mart , all the money will go to China .


If you spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs.


If you purchase a computer it will go to India .



If you purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico , Honduras,


and Guatemala (unless you buy organic).


If you buy a car it will go to Japan .


If you purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan .


And none of it will help the American economy.


We need to keep that money here in America.


You can keep the money in America by spending it at yard sales, going to a



baseball game, or spend it on prostitutes, beer (domestic ONLY), or tattoos,


since those are the only businesses still in the US.




BE AMERICAN - BUY AMERICAN MADE

 

[tieguy]

Make sure you check the birth certificate of the prositute since many of them may have been foriegn made.

 

[wkmac]

Dear Mr. President,

The answer to the economic nightmare can literally be found in picking berries!

http://www.mises.org/story/672

 

[Babagounj]

All this $$$$$$$$$$$$ is going to be used to fund every stupid program that the democrats have asked for in the last 40 yrs.
What a waste of your children's future. Their grand kids will be paying off this stupid debt.
Let the market cycle work.
Good managers who run good business will survive.
Bad managers will fail, as they should. Anyone who would reward bad managers is totally NUTS.

 

[The Other Side]

All this $$$$$$$$$$$$ is going to be used to fund every stupid program that the democrats have asked for in the last 40 yrs.
What a waste of your children's future. Their grand kids will be paying off this stupid debt.
Let the market cycle work.
Good managers who run good business will survive.
Bad managers will fail, as they should. Anyone who would reward bad managers is totally NUTS.[/quote]


Yet, you supported GW BUSHED for 8 years?

The man BK'd every business he was ever involved in during his career prior to becoming president!

And now you make this statement?

All I can say is WOW.

 

[wkmac]

I think President Obama and the democrats are missing a golden opportunity in some sense to build on democrat Congressional numbers in the 2010' mid term elections. Here's how.

Just looking from afar, the federal budget will come in at around $1 trillion dollar mark not including the current stimlus answer to our economic problems. It would appear that the nearly and most likely $1 trillion price for the stimlus will be completely borrowed monies. That being the case and if they want to stimulate the consumer economy as well as help people paydown debt which is sitting on the bank books as toxic, why not say a worker working a 40 hour week only pays tax on the first 20 hours and the 2nd 20 is completely tax free, social security, the works. Employers also are off the hook for the equally matching excise taxes. Also all OT hours are also completely tax free as well. Now I'm for ending all taxes at the federal level but in this age of compromise and bi-partisanship, this is my effort to reach across 2 isles at the same time although most of the time it looks to me like there's only one isle to begin with.


I don't know the exact numbers mind you but the difference in either the Bush corp. welfare plan and the current plan on the hill, don't be fooled as President Obama's plan is also loaded with lots of corp. welfare to boot is in the end not that much as it relates to the cost of giving the American workers and American employers as break on their taxes. My guess is the actual cost would equal and if you take both the Bsuh TARP and the current Obama plan, my proposal I do believe would be cheaper.

With some employers like say a UPS, the saving could be used for capital investment or at worst (if you tend to see it that way) a dividend payout to shareholders who in turn re-invest or maybe spend that money to pay down debt or buy a new car or whatever.

I guess my point is why is it that gov't can take from me or any of us for that matter and say give it to Bank of America for a new plush office, or to a cable company in federal dollars so they can build a large broadband network and infrastructure that benefits their bottomline and investors. Why does the gov't determine who gets our money when it's possible we could put it to just as good if not better use? Why does our gov't insist on taking money from productive segments of our economy and whether corp or public welfare, transfer that producutive money to unproductive segments of society?

Intervention is the reason why and here's something so-called Republican conservatives need to let sink in. Gov't is brute force, it defies reason and logic and is like a bull set loose in a china shop. When you defend and justify intervention in one area, gov't sees this as a green light to intervene in all areas. Same is true for you of liberal democrat belief. You guys (both sides) want to pick and choose your intervention but the history of gov't doesn't and never has worked this way. It's all or nothing.

It just boils down to the simple fact that you can never have your cake and eat it too when it comes to gov't!

We are seeing proof again that both warfare and welfare are the health of the State!

 

[Babagounj]

All this $$$$$$$$$$$$ is going to be used to fund every stupid program that the democrats have asked for in the last 40 yrs.
What a waste of your children's future. Their grand kids will be paying off this stupid debt.
Let the market cycle work.
Good managers who run good business will survive.
Bad managers will fail, as they should. Anyone who would reward bad managers is totally NUTS.[/quote]


Yet, you supported GW BUSHED for 8 years?

The man BK'd every business he was ever involved in during his career prior to becoming president!

And now you make this statement?

All I can say is WOW.

I never stated that I supported anyone . Those are your words.
My statement concerns today's economic reality.
Why would anyone REWARD a bad manager with a bailout ? It makes no sense. But then again I'm not a liberal, who sees the world as a place where taxpayers dollars can solve every crisis, real or not.

 

[chev]

I never stated that I supported anyone . Those are your words.
My statement concerns today's economic reality.
Why would anyone REWARD a bad manager with a bailout ? It makes no sense. But then again I'm not a liberal, who sees the world as a place where taxpayers dollars can solve every crisis, real or not.

The Bush basher just can't get it out of her head. What else would she have to complain about?
The "stimulus" package is full of democratic pork, just admit it. 150 mil for honey bee insurance? Only 10% to infrastructure? It's just another spending bill. Way to go. Now who in the hell is gonna pay for it?
There is only one thing being stimulated here. O's "wood".

 

[wkmac]

I find this proposal interesting on many levels:

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Hey Feds, here’s a free policy recommendation to help fix the economy: enact a three to four year program permitting people to prepay their debts with pretax dollars that would otherwise be used to make their tax-exempt 401(k) contributions. Current annual 401(k) contribution limits are $16,500 per person age 49 and under, and $22,000 per person age 50 and older ($33,000 and $44,000 total, for a husband and wife). On a national scale, the potential amount of debt that can be eliminated is enormous, particularly if the program continues for several years. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Here’s why this is a good idea:[/FONT]

• [FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]There’s essentially no loss to the Treasury, because those amounts aren’t currently taxable anyway. While the funds are ultimately taxed when taken out after retirement (presumably at lower rates because the retiree isn’t working any more and is in a lower tax bracket), and this represents some loss to the Treasury on a time value basis, the benefits to the economy from a quicker recovery will mean greater overall tax revenues and savings in government programs. [/FONT]
• [FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Stocks overall aren’t going to appreciate in value for the near future and there aren’t many real "growth" opportunities in this market available to the typical American participant in a 401(k). Americans in the know are pulling funds out of stocks, which are just going down or oscillating in the same sickening range of depressed values, and putting their 401(k) moneys in bonds or money market funds, which are generating returns only slightly better than the CPI at best. At worst, the huge amounts of cash being shifted into Treasuries and bonds is creating an unsustainable bubble in Treasuries and bonds that will also soon burst. On the other hand, using pretax dollars to prepay debts will save all of the future interest costs on the prepaid debt – e.g., 18% on credit card debt, 8% or 10% on a car loan over 3 years, or 6% or 7% on a mortgage with a remaining term of 24 years. This is in effect a better "return" than is available to almost anyone in this economy. These avoided costs or "savings" translate into much more discretionary income – and more for saving and investment when the economy again begins to grow – down the road.[/FONT]
• [FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The prepaid debt will bring necessary cash into the banks and other consumer financial institutions. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]It is difficult to obtain current information regarding cumulative annual 401(k) contributions. However, a 2005 fact sheet from the Employee Benefit Research Institute indicates that, at the end of 2003, there were approximately 42 million participants in 401(k) plans. The cumulative amount of personal indebtedness that could be eliminated through temporary authorization to use pretax dollars otherwise slated for 401(k) plans is enormous. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Americans need to shed debt, not begin borrowing even more. Instead of "stimulating" us to keep borrowing to buy buy buy, how about "stimulating" us to improve our personal balance sheets by eliminating debt so we have a future in which we can live live live? [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]January 30, 2009 [/FONT]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/snyder/snyder17.html

 

[wkmac]

We are seeing proof again that both warfare and welfare are the health of the State!

http://reason.com/news/show/131332.html

 

[chev]

I find this proposal interesting on many levels:



http://www.lewrockwell.com/snyder/snyder17.html

As do I. But you and I both know this would never fly with Congress unless there was a ton of pork at the end of the rainbow. The O administration promised change. Well bend over America so you can take that change right up the old pooper. Nazi Pelosi and her band of lunatics preached a good lie about a bipartisan Congress and then thoroughly cut the Republicans out of the creation of their PORK bill. This is supposed to be an "emergency" stimulus. How can it be an emergency stimulus when the stimulus payments would not even go out for 2 years? How is it going to help when 1/5th of the jobs created are Government jobs, thereby creating BIGGER government? Yeah, this is just what we need. A great big spending spree paid by you, me, our children and grandchildren.This piece of crap legislation needs to be trimmed down to stimulus ONLY. I'm happy every Republican and 11 democrats, with good heads on thieir shoulders, voted against it.
How can we possibly expect the same Govt that bankrupted social security to fix this?

 

[wkmac]

How can we possibly expect the same Govt that bankrupted social security to fix this?

They've proven themsleves beyond trust with welfare and you are correct above but you've only made half the journey.

Welfare and Warfare are the health of State so if they screw up one half of the job why should I or any of us trust them and in some cases blindly on the other half? Time to realize the truth and drop the other shoe!

 

[Babagounj]

Saw a headline today where the mighty O states that its going to take years not months for this economic mess to clear.
I wonder how it would be if he kept his nose out of it ?

 

[wkmac]

I just read this piece at CNN concerning proposals by gov't to help people buys cars. http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/23/autos/government_car_incentives/index.htm

On the surface it might be tempting on many fronts to accept the ideas but then I think about the real estate boom and then bust and it doesn't take much thinking to realize that at first it would seem to work for the auto industry but at some point down the road as the auto industry expanded to meet buyer capacity needs, a market saturation would be met and passed and then the bubble would bust and then where would we be?

Baba, you are correct in that even though it's painful, allowing this problem to wash itself out of the market and the market price itself accordingly is the better approach longterm. And none of this is without pain but IMO it's quicker and longterm better. The current answer of both republicans (one "NO" vote this past week doesn't IMO make a trend) and democrats is to in effect give asprin for a severe case of cancer and try and convince the patient because he feels a little better, he's cured and can return to a normal life.

Starting with the Bush adminstration and republican led Congress and continuing with the current monarchy and democrat domination, we are using debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren as a means out of this and the coming problem will be massive inflation pressures that will come to pass. I believe even now inflation concerns are showing in the commodities markets as prices have stablized and even showing signs of upwards pressures in the near future. Even well known establishment economists like say a Paul Krugman have publically stated our answer is inflation. Go back and look through various threads here and you'll find where I posted such articles, even some written by Krugman himself.

In 2006' the total of all taxes Fed, State, local are as follows:



We're talking nearly $5 trillions dollars out of the private economy for public use in various ways. In 2006' the GDP value of the US economy was $13 trillion plus per the Bureau of Economic Analysis for said year.
Moreover, according to a letter dated May 2007' from the Congressional Budget Office to Senator Kent Conrad http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/81xx/doc8116/05-18-TaxRevenues.pdf from 2003' to 2006' under republican control, our gov't realized a growth in tax revenue increase up 35% or growth of $625 billion increase in additional tax revenues. Had tax revenues only matched the actual growth of the economy as measured by GDP, tax revenues would have only grown by $373 billion.

Now some here would extoll this as great news and parade the economic policies of the republicans as working but let's look at it another way. Look at the below comparing Deficit to Debt Increases from 2001' to 2008':



To place real dollar numbers on the 2003' to 2006' period:


2003 $589.0 billion 5.5% of GDP
2004 $605.0 billion 5.3% of GDP
2005 $523.0 billion 4.3% of GDP
2006 $536.5 billion 4.1% of GDP

These numbers are actual increases in the debt itself and then the % of GDP this represents. This is in addition on top of already existing Federal debt. So in a 4 years period, gov't revenues when up $625 billion but under republican leadership the gov't borrowed an additional $2 plus trillion dollars. Now some here will be quick to say that the cost was to protect us because of terrorism and such war efforts but "Houston, we have a problem!" According to the Congressional Research Office report dated October 2008', http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf from FY 2001' to FY 2009' all appropiations in supplementals, regular appropiations and continuing resolutions as it realtes to Afghanistan, Iraq and all other efforts to the Global war on terror equal up to a grand total of $864 billion. Now just in the 4 years of 2003' to 2006' the $625 billion in revenue growth should have been enough to pay for 3/4ths of this total cost and we haven't factored in revenues fro 01' and 02' along with 07' and 08'. You can't tell me $200 plus billion couldn't be found to make the total cost of this war a paid out of petty cash proposition? Instead we find ourselves saddled by the party of fiscal conservatism with an extra $2 trillion in debt so to say the debt paid for the war cost is just plain factual

BULL*!
Democrats are for gov't medical care! Really? And what do you call Bush's Federal Drug prescription program, laissez fiare medicine! Democrats want to take over Education! What do you call "No Child Left Behind", chopped liver? Wanna know where this money for adventures in socialism came from? Our children and grand children and they'll have you to thanks for both the tax increases and excessive inflation that is to come to pay for all this Red State conservatism. God if that's conservative, hell I guess I am a liberal! 18th century classical type to be exact.


The truth is republicans had their own brand of welfare both corp. and public and the saddled debt was their means of wrecking the economy in order to buy votes to keep them in power. Problem was, their have no economic skills and knowledge, especially inthe business cycle and as Rev. Wright was so fond of saying, an in this case "the economic chickens have come home to roost!" Election 06' and then election 08' and "GAME OVER!"

Now I know democrats will now take their turn at the trough known as "ING THE PUBLIC" but this latest "We've come to Jesus" or "Deathbed Conversion" by the republicans is completely and totally bogus. What is happening in Washington with the democrats is no surprise at all and I see no reason for them to stop what Bush and the republicans started. Face the facts, this is the legacy of Bush and the republican congress and the worse part is they greenlighted the democrats to be who they are to begin with. Thanks again for nothing!

Scream about Obama and the democrats all you want becuase it just points out the truth of the hypocrits that you are!

 

[Babagounj]

I'm thinking this is just like 1945.
A country that is broke, financially that is , and looking at a large workforce that will soon be out of work.
Inflation runs up and house prices drop.
Tax rates will rise up to 30-40 %.
Ah, history is repeating itself.

 

[wkmac]

Yes Over, I did!

 

[wkmac]

http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson01302009.html

It Won't Save the Economy; It May Make the Crisis Worse

You know this corp. socialism of the democrats and republicans is really bad when even the so-called left/progressive websites are against it and in fact suggesting a similar approach of laissez faire purists!

 

[wkmac]

Another Bush/Republican legacy that Obama/Democrats are sure to make their own mark on!

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090131/D9627HU00.html

 

[Jagger]

The Reagan tax cuts reduced tax revenues and increased the deficit​

The [1981 Reagan] tax cut did not cause tax revenue to rise... tax revenue fell...

--N. Gregory Mankiw, a head of George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, in his 1998 book Principles of Economics (New York: Dryden. pp. 29-30, in the section "Thinking Like an Economist: Why Economists Disagree: Charlatans and Cranks")​

Silly Supply-side advocates claim that Reagan's tax cut increased federal tax revenues. Thus the tax cuts payed for themselves; they were, in economics lingo, "self-funding." Some Fact Denying Republicans in office today treat this assertion as an article of faith.

What do economic researchers say?

They deny that the Reagan tax cuts were self-funding. True, tax revenues per person did increase in the 1980s, but that was not unusual - in fact, it was sub-par. After adjusting for inflation and population growth, tax revenues per person increased far less in the 1980s (18%) than they had in the 1970s (25%) or would in the 1990s (40%).

 

[wkmac]

February 03, 2009

GOP Rises Above Principle Again

Posted by Mike Tennant at February 3, 2009 07:23 AM

Once again the Republicans come through for us, intervening in the economy even though they don't believe in intervention. "Senate Republicans circulated a plan to cut the cost of mortgages by expanding the government’s role in the industry. . . . Officials said the GOP was coalescing behind a proposal designed to give banks an incentive to make loans at rates currently estimated at 4 percent to 4.5 percent. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were seized by the federal government in September, would be required to purchase the mortgages once banks made them."
Why, you might ask, is the GOP doing this? The answer is that they want to be like the Messiah: "Republicans . . . said Monday that they were truer to Obama’s spirit than congressional Democrats were. . . ." Good thing we have the two-party system to present us with a real choice!
Finally, as noted at the outset, fear not that the GOP is doing any of this because they're believers in big government. The AP reporter dutifully notes: "Republicans generally dislike government intervention in the workings of the private marketplace, but their opposition has eroded in recent months as the crisis in the financial industry and economy has deepened."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/025112.html

As they say, pictures are worth a 1000 words.