- Jun 6, 2007
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The economic recovery from the 2007/2009 Great Recession is going to stall unless Congress starts doing their job and if this happens a lot of Americans will be left in real hardship and the blame will lie squarely on the shoulders of both the Republicans and Democrats in the Federal government in Washington. Today, the DOW, S&P 500 and the NASDAQ stock market dropped by huge margins, the highest percentage drop in ten months for the first two markets and the highest in four months for the latter; weak economic data has been piling up for weeks now housing prices still falling, new home construction extremely low, job growth poor, business and consumer spending at lackluster levels. The problem for the American people is that Congress is full of ideologue representatives whether left or right who can't get past their ideology to pass legislation that will fix the economy and getting it working right; these politicians can't get past their ideology commitments and support common sense legislation that will make things better - this is an utter disgrace, a tragedy and an outcome that is going to generate repercussions that will be bad, one can't have all the people hurting that are hurting from the Federal government's failure to run the economy and think that there isn't going to be major ramifications from this. Most ordinary Americans aren't looking for these officials to walk on water or be superman/superwoman just do the basic common sense compromises that reasonable people of whatever political persuasion would do!
A pillar of the vast majority of economic recoveries over the past seventy-five years has been housing, new home construction is a jobs engine; for this economic recovery nothing can be done in this area because of the large inventory of homes for sale (foreclosures, short sales, unaffordable homes, etc.) and those in the pipeline which compete against new home sales - this inventory backlog has to run its course experts say and it will take until the end of 2013 at the earliest. However, Washington could offer valuable help to expedite the recovery process somewhat by giving the banking and financial industry an ultimatum do the deal the Attorney Generals across the nation and the Federal regulators want on your home mortgage issues or Congress will solve this problem without your cooperation specifically by enacting an added tax (which would come out of your profits that is only profitable businesses would pay) on your income to pay for refinancing home mortgages underwater and/or in trouble so they can be refinanced into FHA loans that are not underwater and are affordable. America needs to save as many mortgage troubled home owners that can economically be timely saved and run the remainder through the foreclosure, short sale and normal sale process as quickly as possible so that home prices can be stabilized and people needing to buy a home will need to go to new home builders and thus that industry will be revived; the above added tax legislation scheme will achieve these ends!
Another important pillar of an economic recovery is consumer confidence, when consumers are confident in the economy they spend more money on goods and services which creates jobs providing those added goods and services and also increases business income. These $4.00 a gallon gasoline prices are killing consumer confidence, its blowing family budgets to hell and its scaring the daylights out of ordinary Americans; Goldman Sachs just days ago predicted gasoline would be selling for $5.00/gallon before the year ends - is there any surprise to anyone that consumer confidence is in the toilet with predictions like this. Congress has got to solve this high unstable oil prices problem, America's economic engine will never run well if it doesn't! Congress absolutely must pass legislation that provides the common sense help that is obvious for this problem which is price fix the sale price of domestically produced oil, require it to be sold and used within the United States and that the savings from world oil prices be passed on to American end users. Critics will say that America tried price controls on petroleum in the 1980's and it was a complete failure; but this proposed price control is different than the 1980's price control which was on the end product gasoline the proposed price control will be on the raw material of domestically produced oil so refiners and retail sellers can still charge what they want that is they can still make their normal profit; moreover, the Secretary of Energy or the Federal Reserve Chairman whoever the enabling legislation gives authority to set the price of domestically produced oil can also be charged with setting a price high enough to give a fair profit to producers and maintain strong incentives for oil exploration and development within the U.S.. It is understood that this would require big compromise on Republican members of Congress's part, that is why the Democrats should make a like kind compromise in the legislation. The Democrats can agree to increased oil production initiatives like a variation of the legislation Republicans recently tried to pass. The Democrats could agree in the legislation that if a oil well developer doesn't get a needed permit within thirty days or is denied a needed permit the developer can appeal to a master who will be selected by the Federal Judiciary who will hear an appeal on the permit request and the federal agency will have to justify their actions and it will be a de novo appeal and the master will have to render a decision within sixty days from the appeal filing and the master will have the power to grant permits even if the respective federal agency is opposed to or has denied the permit request. In addition, the Democrats will agree to open up ANWAR in Alaska and all areas in the Gulf of Mexico for oil development and of course the Republicans will agree that a condition of all new leases in these areas is that the purchasers of the leases have to fully explore and develop the leases in a timely manner or forfeit the leases (there will be no hoarding or stock piling of leases for the future waiting for oil price increases) and the government cut from the sale of oil and gas removed from these leased lands after the developer recovers his cost will be at least a "great" deal for the American public!
A pillar of the vast majority of economic recoveries over the past seventy-five years has been housing, new home construction is a jobs engine; for this economic recovery nothing can be done in this area because of the large inventory of homes for sale (foreclosures, short sales, unaffordable homes, etc.) and those in the pipeline which compete against new home sales - this inventory backlog has to run its course experts say and it will take until the end of 2013 at the earliest. However, Washington could offer valuable help to expedite the recovery process somewhat by giving the banking and financial industry an ultimatum do the deal the Attorney Generals across the nation and the Federal regulators want on your home mortgage issues or Congress will solve this problem without your cooperation specifically by enacting an added tax (which would come out of your profits that is only profitable businesses would pay) on your income to pay for refinancing home mortgages underwater and/or in trouble so they can be refinanced into FHA loans that are not underwater and are affordable. America needs to save as many mortgage troubled home owners that can economically be timely saved and run the remainder through the foreclosure, short sale and normal sale process as quickly as possible so that home prices can be stabilized and people needing to buy a home will need to go to new home builders and thus that industry will be revived; the above added tax legislation scheme will achieve these ends!
Another important pillar of an economic recovery is consumer confidence, when consumers are confident in the economy they spend more money on goods and services which creates jobs providing those added goods and services and also increases business income. These $4.00 a gallon gasoline prices are killing consumer confidence, its blowing family budgets to hell and its scaring the daylights out of ordinary Americans; Goldman Sachs just days ago predicted gasoline would be selling for $5.00/gallon before the year ends - is there any surprise to anyone that consumer confidence is in the toilet with predictions like this. Congress has got to solve this high unstable oil prices problem, America's economic engine will never run well if it doesn't! Congress absolutely must pass legislation that provides the common sense help that is obvious for this problem which is price fix the sale price of domestically produced oil, require it to be sold and used within the United States and that the savings from world oil prices be passed on to American end users. Critics will say that America tried price controls on petroleum in the 1980's and it was a complete failure; but this proposed price control is different than the 1980's price control which was on the end product gasoline the proposed price control will be on the raw material of domestically produced oil so refiners and retail sellers can still charge what they want that is they can still make their normal profit; moreover, the Secretary of Energy or the Federal Reserve Chairman whoever the enabling legislation gives authority to set the price of domestically produced oil can also be charged with setting a price high enough to give a fair profit to producers and maintain strong incentives for oil exploration and development within the U.S.. It is understood that this would require big compromise on Republican members of Congress's part, that is why the Democrats should make a like kind compromise in the legislation. The Democrats can agree to increased oil production initiatives like a variation of the legislation Republicans recently tried to pass. The Democrats could agree in the legislation that if a oil well developer doesn't get a needed permit within thirty days or is denied a needed permit the developer can appeal to a master who will be selected by the Federal Judiciary who will hear an appeal on the permit request and the federal agency will have to justify their actions and it will be a de novo appeal and the master will have to render a decision within sixty days from the appeal filing and the master will have the power to grant permits even if the respective federal agency is opposed to or has denied the permit request. In addition, the Democrats will agree to open up ANWAR in Alaska and all areas in the Gulf of Mexico for oil development and of course the Republicans will agree that a condition of all new leases in these areas is that the purchasers of the leases have to fully explore and develop the leases in a timely manner or forfeit the leases (there will be no hoarding or stock piling of leases for the future waiting for oil price increases) and the government cut from the sale of oil and gas removed from these leased lands after the developer recovers his cost will be at least a "great" deal for the American public!
