What would you have done to save the economy?

[johnrocks]

If I could rewind the clock a few years and RAISE interest rates so that the bubbles would not have happened in the first place but barring that, probably as little as possible besides maybe suspending the income tax withholding and income tax altogether in 08,09 and this year;if needed; which would have put more money into the hands of consumers to actually stimulate all sectors of the economy as opposed to just the ones that the politicians supported or saw as politically popular.

 

[shintao]

What I would I have done, is take a trillion dollars and turn it into script money. I would have divided it between our 300 million people equally to spend.

As identifiable script, it would have the following conditions put on it's use.

1.It must be spent in America and only on American made goods or services. Businesses would send the script into the federal treasury to be exchanged for USDs.
2.It could not be put in a bank or draw interest.
3.It could not be used for stocks or gambling, or federal taxes, etc.
4.It would have to spent in 365 days.

This would have had the affect of deliverying the stimulus into every local area of America, creating new jobs and new businesses.

Equally? Isn't that redistribution of wealth?

Unless equally means: equal to the percentage of taxes you paid into the system...

No, it means equally. 1T/3M It is a redistribution of wealth to local businesses.

 

[kyzr]

I would have stopped the mass-migration of US factories over-seas. The best way to create wealth is to manufacture goods. Wall Street would rather make China a super-power than work with the unions. The problem is that consumers w/o jobs don't buy anything. So the Feds need to manage job creation better, instead of giving tax breaks to move jobs over-seas (see "American Jobs Creation Act"). They should give tax breaks to make jobs here in the US.

 

[skookerasbil]

Big tax cuts and bigger spending cuts


Imagine where this country would be if Reagan had implemented supply side AND did spending cuts as well!!!!! But he had to play ball with The Dums, of course.

The Dums know there are lots and lots of votes when you have lots and lots of handouts!!!

 

[Sinatra]

Big tax cuts and bigger spending cuts


Imagine where this country would be if Reagan had implemented supply side AND did spending cuts as well!!!!! But he had to play ball with The Dums, of course.

The Dums know there are lots and lots of votes when you have lots and lots of handouts!!!

The Reagan plan would have worked brilliantly - though it already managed to work quite well.

One need only look at the Clinton years to glimpse what was the vast potential of "Reaganomics".

Clinton had basically the tax rates implimented by Reagan (somewhat higher but far lower than before Reagan took office) - as well as then combining those rates with the cost cutting of the Republican Congress, and the less is more regulatory mood that resulted in the innovation and wealth of the tech boom. Add yet more to this was the military savings "peace dividend" that was also a direct link to the Reagan era, and you had a United States poised to create even more wealth, with balanced budgets and a very strong economic outlook.

Sadly, we messed it up.

And yes, the spending of Bush II was a major part of that messup. So too was this Democrat Congress that dominated following the 2006 elections. And now we have the combination of this Democrat Congress and the Obama White House and well...things are looking quite bleak indeed.

 

[Ame®icano]

What I would I have done, is take a trillion dollars and turn it into script money. I would have divided it between our 300 million people equally to spend.

As identifiable script, it would have the following conditions put on it's use.

1.It must be spent in America and only on American made goods or services. Businesses would send the script into the federal treasury to be exchanged for USDs.
2.It could not be put in a bank or draw interest.
3.It could not be used for stocks or gambling, or federal taxes, etc.
4.It would have to spent in 365 days.

This would have had the affect of deliverying the stimulus into every local area of America, creating new jobs and new businesses.

Equally? Isn't that redistribution of wealth?

Unless equally means: equal to the percentage of taxes you paid into the system...

No, it means equally. 1T/3M It is a redistribution of wealth to local businesses.

Redistribution of wealth brought us here.

Btw, since you're promoting equality in this case, you probably wouldn't mind if we have equal flat tax rate, would ya?

 

[Mr Natural]

Equally? Isn't that redistribution of wealth?

Unless equally means: equal to the percentage of taxes you paid into the system...

No, it means equally. 1T/3M It is a redistribution of wealth to local businesses.

Redistribution of wealth brought us here.

Btw, since you're promoting equality in this case, you probably wouldn't mind if we have equal flat tax rate, would ya?

Yeah, redistribution of wealth in an upward direction.

 

[Toro]

And why are taxes going up? Lets take that backwards to the source. The fact is capitalism cannot compete in the WTO against other economies where wages and the living standards are so low.

That brings us to deregulation and paying Americans the Mexican wages and lowering our own living standards. Or do you see a way around that?

Of course it can. That's like saying New York cannot compete against Mississippi because the wages in Mississippi and the regulatory environment is less compared to New York.

Yes, it is like saying that. And that is why we see corporations flock to low tax states where low wages and low standards of living are accepted.

If that were the case then Mississippi and New Mexico would be the fastest growing economies in the union. But they aren't.

The highest tax states with the most restrictive regulations include California and Massachusetts, yet these are the two states that drive innovation the most in this country.

When have wages risen?? They have been stagnant for 12 years of so.

Yes they have, in aggregate. That is a function of the Financial Crisis as much as anything.

Over the past 40 years, however, wages have risen across the country for most demographics. Globalization and free trade did not start in 1999.

Wage inequality has risen over the past 40 years primarily because gains in the economy have accrued to those most able to adapt to and exploit technology, not because of globalization and free trade. If you're a white male without a high school education, your real wage has fallen during that time. However, for most everyone else, it has risen. And it has risen the most for those with the most education.

 

[Ame®icano]

No, it means equally. 1T/3M It is a redistribution of wealth to local businesses.

Redistribution of wealth brought us here.

Btw, since you're promoting equality in this case, you probably wouldn't mind if we have equal flat tax rate, would ya?

Yeah, redistribution of wealth in an upward direction.

Isn't being equal in every aspect fair thing?

 

[Micky G. Jagger]

Imagine where this country would be if Reagan had implemented supply side AND did spending cuts as well!!!!! But he had to play ball with The Dums, of course.

The House Appropriations Committee conducted a study that compared Reagan's concrete proposals to what Congress actually passed. And it found that Reagan asked for $29.4 billion more than Congress passed.

Reagan was a fool and the American people were even more foolish. Reagan was a big government socialist who foolishly cut taxes, ran deficits when he should have been running a surplus, piled debt on the next generation and set us on a course for financial disaster.

 

[shintao]

Equally? Isn't that redistribution of wealth?

Unless equally means: equal to the percentage of taxes you paid into the system...

No, it means equally. 1T/3M It is a redistribution of wealth to local businesses.

Redistribution of wealth brought us here.

Btw, since you're promoting equality in this case, you probably wouldn't mind if we have equal flat tax rate, would ya?

Not at all. Of course you wouldn't mind if I abolished the IRS, and took away congress & the presidential authority to fund legislation and government salaries or programs, and made you responsible for your own government, by you only paying whatever federal legislation you chose?

You would still have to pay state taxes to run your local governments, but states would no longer fund the federal government. It would be a complete voluntary federal government under the control of We The People.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Hoover's interventions were small, weak and not widely followed.
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Small and weak only compared to the monstrosity created later by Roosevelt.

Small and weak for the time, and small and weak compared to today.

Of course, this argument is lost when you compared it to the war economy, which was almost a command economy as the government set prices, determined output and rationed items. The war economy was far more interventionist than the "interventionist" economy of Hoover, yet it was the war that eventually led us out of the Depression.

With supporters of the free market like you, who needs interventionists?

I know, you mostly support free markets, key word mostly.

However, it wasn't the war that led us out of the depression, but the end of the war when the government mostly allowed the market to take over and relaxed their controls.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Small and weak only compared to the monstrosity created later by Roosevelt.

Small and weak for the time, and small and weak compared to today.

Of course, this argument is lost when you compared it to the war economy, which was almost a command economy as the government set prices, determined output and rationed items. The war economy was far more interventionist than the "interventionist" economy of Hoover, yet it was the war that eventually led us out of the Depression.

War is government spending on a massive scale.

Which is why war is never good for the economy.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

True enough, Hoover did not sit by and play the fidel, and neither did George W. Bush, btw. The question in the OP is, what would you do, and my answer is much more than Hoover, Bush II or Obama.
Everyone agrees that Job creation is issue number one. The Oddballs blame Obama for not creating jobs and in the same breath blame him for getting in the way. Presidents alone cannot create jobs, they need to work with Congress and that has been an impossible task. What I would do if I were Obama is propose major projects, as I suggested above. This will provide the business community the resolve they need to expand and hire. Knowing major construction projects lasting years have been approved in principle by the White House and Congress would do much to restore confidence in the economy and jump start growth.
Sadly that won't happen. The dishonorable opposition lead by Limbaugh, Palin, Gingrich, McConnell and Boehner don't give a shit about anything but their personal agendas. Country first my ass.

And both Hoover and Bush were wrong. Jobs can only be created by the market. It doesn't matter whether the President works with the Congress or not, governments can't create jobs.

Another talking point, and one I characterize as propaganda. The CETA program created jobs, a program developed because another Republcan Administration prosecuted a war of choice (Vietnam) without raising the revenue to pay for it.
The economy was stuck during the Ford Administration, inflation raged while the economy stalled. Jobs then were the issue and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act provided them.

And once again, we can define "talking points" as something you don't agree with.

The private sector is where wealth is created, therefore that is where real productive jobs are created. Yes, the government can technically create a job, but this requires taking resources out of the private sector thus destroying real productive jobs.

 

[Toro]

Small and weak only compared to the monstrosity created later by Roosevelt.

Small and weak for the time, and small and weak compared to today.

Of course, this argument is lost when you compared it to the war economy, which was almost a command economy as the government set prices, determined output and rationed items. The war economy was far more interventionist than the "interventionist" economy of Hoover, yet it was the war that eventually led us out of the Depression.

With supporters of the free market like you, who needs interventionists?

I know, you mostly support free markets, key word mostly.

However, it wasn't the war that led us out of the depression, but the end of the war when the government mostly allowed the market to take over and relaxed their controls.

War demand is what ultimately brought us out of the economy.

That spike in the early 1940s is because of war demand during a time of high government intervention in the economy.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Small and weak for the time, and small and weak compared to today.

Of course, this argument is lost when you compared it to the war economy, which was almost a command economy as the government set prices, determined output and rationed items. The war economy was far more interventionist than the "interventionist" economy of Hoover, yet it was the war that eventually led us out of the Depression.

With supporters of the free market like you, who needs interventionists?

I know, you mostly support free markets, key word mostly.

However, it wasn't the war that led us out of the depression, but the end of the war when the government mostly allowed the market to take over and relaxed their controls.

War demand is what ultimately brought us out of the economy.

That spike in the early 1940s is because of war demand during a time of high government intervention in the economy.

If that were true then all we need to do is break a few windows and we should be out of the recession in no time.

 

[Toro]

If that were true then all we need to do is break a few windows and we should be out of the recession in no time.

False analogy.

When you have massive excess capacity and low monetary velocity, breaking a few windows is a good way to kickstart the economy.

Look at what happened, not what should have happened.

 

[Oddball]

Zero-sum stimulates nothing.

All that does is create a false notion of velocity.

 

[rdean]

I hear the complaints about Obama, so it's a fair question to ask, if not Obamas way, what was your solution to boosting the economy??

The first thing I would have done is let the Republicans secede.

 

[Toro]

Zero-sum stimulates nothing.

All that does is create a false notion of velocity.

There's no such thing as "false velocity." It either is or it isn't.

Put aside the ideology. Massive government involvement pulled us out of the Depression. That doesn't mean it would now, but it did then.