Where is the US economy headed?

"In World War II the US government pumped huge resources into war production and in return took equity, held by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. After the war these holdings were simply sold. After the savings-and-loan debacle the Resolution Trust Corporation was set up in 1989 to bail out bankrupt S&Ls, which it then sold off--with the proceeds disappearing into the budget deficit. These are highly flawed models. The RTC bailouts subsidized the banking sector in an opaque way and without needed re-regulation (as Joseph Stiglitz and Bruce Greenwald point out in Towards a New Paradigm in Monetary Economics).

In the twenty-first century, social funds should be built up, not run down, and they should be obliged to operate in a transparent and accountable way. Future funds can help finance badly needed programs while also furnishing a democratic lever over big business. The credit crunch and recession will bring many problems--but something will have been gained if this opportunity to reinvent progressive economic policy is recognized and acted upon. "
---------------------Robin Blackburn

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Rama, I've always been against government bailouts of commercial enterprises. If management screws up, they should go broke - not rewarded for their incompetence. We no longer have capitalism; it's a socialist system where the government pays for "everything" that goes wrong with capitalism. Not only that, but these CEOs walk off with obscene stock options worth millions of dollars for all their failures.

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C I
I know your decent views sir.
Let us not get depressed because of our critical views.

"The world has changed. The market fundamentalism that has dominated our economics over last three decades has been unmasked as a sham, deemed useless by the guardian of the integrity of finance itself, the Federal Reserve.

Without a vote of the Congress or a public debate, the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve have made government the guarantor of the shadow banking system – the unregulated, unhinged hedge funds and investment houses whose compulsive excesses now threaten the global economy
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/10-days-changed-capitalism

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Ramafuchs, the master of rhyme,
He wants it to be for a reason,
But give him a chance and maybe with time,
He'll awake ere the end of life's season
Will it take him that long?
Rama, please man, work it out
where you won't sing that sad song
of a wasted life to envy and pout
Instead I long the light will come on,
so you don't have to feel like a lout
when you realize you were totally wrong.
Can you ponder the day you can fess up and say
my economics was wrong and then salvage the day.

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Okie
Ok ( a simple response)
Rama fuchs
56 Josef str
51143 Köln
Germany

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Here's a good indication of where our coutry is headed - economy-wise.

From NYT:

Food Stamp Use at Record Pace as Jobs Vanish

By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: March 31, 2008
Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s.

That's almost 10 percent of the US population.

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Only allowed $1.05 per person per meal
Along with the problem of the rising numbers now on Food Stamps ... and FAR more tragic (as 1/3 of those on foodstamps are children) is the following:

"... each year, the federal food stamp program ?- the bulwark against hunger for 26 million Americans ?- does less to help. In large part, that is because a key component of the formula for computing most families' food stamps has not been adjusted for inflation since 1996. Over all, food stamps now average a meager $1.05 per person per meal. "

Hunger and Food Stamps

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/opinion/13sun1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Furthermore:

"Congress should also repeal the provision that imposes a five-year residency requirement on otherwise eligible adult legal immigrants. (Illegal immigrants are not eligible for food stamps.) The children of such immigrants ?- 80 percent of whom are United States citizens ?- can receive food stamps without waiting. But confusion over the rules keeps many of them out of the program. The Department of Agriculture reports that of the children of immigrant parents who are citizens and eligible for food stamps, only 52 percent got them in 2004, compared with 82 percent of eligible children over all. "

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Even more striking is the large number of babies born out of wedlock never knowing what quality family life is like.

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huh? feed them first!
How is being born out of wedlock more striking than babies going hungry?
As tragic as that is, there'll be babies born out of wedlock for centuries to come, but in USA there is no good reason why they should go hungry as we ship food all over the world that could be feeding our own citizens.

My interpretation of this thread is that it's about economic state of USA..not about morality/ethics of children being born out of wedlock.

Let's feed them first!

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Re: huh? feed them first!

Ragman wrote:

How is being born out of wedlock more striking than babies going hungry?

Wake up junior...It's the babies born out of wedlock, in the inner cities that are going hungry.

Visit the ghetto some day, on your day off from white suburbia.

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You clearly have misinterpreted what I'm saying. Nowhere in my reply did I say a thing to the contrary. The point I make is that this is far larger than just babies born out of wedlock or where they are born.

And, having been born already, food stamps are one way to feed them.

It is not ONLY babies born out of wedlock in inner cities...and also it's in rural areas and everywhere else. Inner cities don't have the monopoly on illegitimacy or poverty. Perhaps you should venture out of the urban areas, too.

First, if you can't take someone being critical of your viewpoint, then shouldn't bother responding. I was critical of your viewpoint, but you have resorted to an ad hominem attack - demonstrating that lack of civility and invalidating your discussion.

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Continuing on about foodstamps issue:

"Bolstering food stamps must be Congress's top priority in this year's farm bill, the mammoth legislation that covers the food stamp program.

Most important, lawmakers must stop the erosion in the purchasing power of food stamps, either by pegging the benefit formula to inflation or by making a big increase in the formula's standard deduction. In 2002, when the last farm bill was passed, Congress improved the benefit formula for households with four or more people. But nearly 80 percent of all food stamp households have three or fewer members. It is unacceptable that their food stamps buy less food each year. "

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Re: huh? feed them first!

Ragman wrote:

How is being born out of wedlock more striking than babies going hungry?
As tragic as that is, there'll be babies born out of wedlock for centuries to come, but in USA there is no good reason why they should go hungry as we ship food all over the world that could be feeding our own citizens.

My interpretation of this thread is that it's about economic state of USA..not about morality/ethics of children being born out of wedlock.

Let's feed them first!

Perhaps you don't agree, but I think morality / ethics plays a monstrous role in the state of the economy of the U.S.

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Re: huh? feed them first!

okie wrote:

Ragman wrote:
How is being born out of wedlock more striking than babies going hungry?
As tragic as that is, there'll be babies born out of wedlock for centuries to come, but in USA there is no good reason why they should go hungry as we ship food all over the world that could be feeding our own citizens.

My interpretation of this thread is that it's about economic state of USA..not about morality/ethics of children being born out of wedlock.

Let's feed them first!

Perhaps you don't agree, but I think morality / ethics plays a monstrous role in the state of the economy of the U.S.

Yes ..true and the brunt of the morality issue is with our gov't...making sure that those who deserve foodstamps get them and get enough $$$ so that they can feed those hungry children. We can't and shouldn't legislate morality of people having children out of wedlock.

Are you saying that children born out of wedlock don't deserve foodstamps?

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If our country can afford to spend 2.7 billion every week in Iraq, we should be able to feed everyone living in this country - whether they are born legit or not. Food for humans should be more important than bombs and bullets - which doesn't discriminate whether they are innocent or not.

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amen
Amen to that, CI!

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Re: huh? feed them first!

Ragman wrote:

okie wrote:
Ragman wrote:
How is being born out of wedlock more striking than babies going hungry?
As tragic as that is, there'll be babies born out of wedlock for centuries to come, but in USA there is no good reason why they should go hungry as we ship food all over the world that could be feeding our own citizens.

My interpretation of this thread is that it's about economic state of USA..not about morality/ethics of children being born out of wedlock.

Let's feed them first!

Perhaps you don't agree, but I think morality / ethics plays a monstrous role in the state of the economy of the U.S.

Yes ..true and the brunt of the morality issue is with our gov't...making sure that those who deserve foodstamps get them and get enough $$$ so that they can feed those hungry children. We can't and shouldn't legislate morality of people having children out of wedlock.

Are you saying that children born out of wedlock don't deserve foodstamps?

I never said that at all. I am simply pointing out the parents are the first ones responsible, and that the government is not 100% responsible for everyone's children. Do you think so?

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Re: huh? feed them first!

okie wrote:

Ragman wrote:
okie wrote:
Ragman wrote:
How is being born out of wedlock more striking than babies going hungry?
As tragic as that is, there'll be babies born out of wedlock for centuries to come, but in USA there is no good reason why they should go hungry as we ship food all over the world that could be feeding our own citizens.

My interpretation of this thread is that it's about economic state of USA..not about morality/ethics of children being born out of wedlock.

Let's feed them first!

Perhaps you don't agree, but I think morality / ethics plays a monstrous role in the state of the economy of the U.S.

Yes ..true and the brunt of the morality issue is with our gov't...making sure that those who deserve foodstamps get them and get enough $$$ so that they can feed those hungry children. We can't and shouldn't legislate morality of people having children out of wedlock.

Are you saying that children born out of wedlock don't deserve foodstamps?

I never said that at all. I am simply pointing out the parents are the first ones responsible, and that the government is not 100% responsible for everyone's children. Do you think so?

Certainly not Iraqi children.

I agree with the above posters, that it's a damn shame, when we let people starve to death here in America, while spending billions per week on a useless war in far-off Iraq.

Cycloptichorn

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So you don't care about children in Iraq, or I suppose in Africa or anywhere else either I don't suppose. Based on that, why should you care about children in another state, or another county, or for that matter, in somebody else's house?

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okie wrote:

So you don't care about children in Iraq, or I suppose in Africa or anywhere else either I don't suppose. Based on that, why should you care about children in another state, or another county, or for that matter, in somebody else's house?

Patriotism, of course. Why can't you be more patriotic? Laughing

Cycloptichorn

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Where is the US economy headed?

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