Where is the US economy headed?

@okie,

I see your creative imagination is again at work. LOL

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This is all a sick joke.

@spendius,

spendius wrote:

This is all a sick joke.

Obama's "stimulus" package is THE sick joke. The contradictory president, in so many ways, He is going to end pork, then starts out by proposing the biggest bundle of pure pork in American history. The man is a joke, he does not have a clue.

Transparency and honesty, he appoints a tax cheater to oversee the IRS!

1 Reply

@okie,

okie wrote:

Quote:

"...biggest bundle of pure pork in American history..."

Okay, explain how and why?

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@cicerone imposter,

Put the joint on the table ci. and they will carve it up. They know nothing else.

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@spendius,

Your problem, spendi, is explained by your profile:

Quote:

I am a really,really well evolved microbe.

You're still a microbe.

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It is interesting to note that two top conservative economists, Martin Feldstein and Larry Lindsey, have essentially come out for O's plan.

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@Advocate,

That's because Americans wanted change with Obama. If conservatives continues to insist on tax cuts over the spending, we all lose. I just disagree with how Obama's team has created their budget with too much emphasis on insurance, bailouts without accountability, benefits for the unemployed, and social programs. The major portion of the money being spent should go to create jobs. Most of the other things will take care of themselves when the tax base increases to pay for them.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

That's because Americans wanted change with Obama.

But how long will all the lemmings follow a novice over the cliff?

Quote:

If conservatives continues to insist on tax cuts over the spending, we all lose. I just disagree with how Obama's team has created their budget with too much emphasis on insurance, bailouts without accountability, benefits for the unemployed, and social programs. The major portion of the money being spent should go to create jobs. Most of the other things will take care of themselves when the tax base increases to pay for them.

You are returning to reason.

To fix this economy, we must again out perform foreign manufacturing and produce more of our own energy in an economic fashion. This calls for reforming our tax system completely to get rid of burdensome business taxes, hello the national retail sales tax to replace the income tax, drastically changing our educational system by injecting competition into education and wresting control of schools from the teachers union, again give schools to complete local control, de-fanging the unions nationwide, and reducing over burdensome regulations nationwide and returning local matters to local jurisdiction. Quit funding local projects with federal money. This will call for real change, change that Obama has not even dreamed of, nor will he ever do, in order to fix our economy. Another biggee is reforming the medical industry by injecting more competition and instituting new ways to treat minor problems with less cost, etc. We need big tort reform, not for example, signing bills allowing people to sue companies for back pay going back decades, which is another stupid bill being pushed by Obama. Stupid stupid stupid. Obama's change will make things worse, not better.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

That's because Americans wanted change with Obama.

But how long will all the lemmings follow a novice over the cliff?

Lemmings don't actually jump off of cliffs. That's an urban myth. Like much of what you claim about Americans, inaccurate.

Quote:

Quote:
If conservatives continues to insist on tax cuts over the spending, we all lose. I just disagree with how Obama's team has created their budget with too much emphasis on insurance, bailouts without accountability, benefits for the unemployed, and social programs. The major portion of the money being spent should go to create jobs. Most of the other things will take care of themselves when the tax base increases to pay for them.

You are returning to reason.

To fix this economy, we must again out perform foreign manufacturing and produce more of our own energy in an economic fashion. This calls for reforming our tax system completely to get rid of burdensome business taxes

Bullshit, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Quote:

hello the national retail sales tax to replace the income tax

AKA, the 'make the rich, richer' proposal, for that is exactly what your plan will do.

Quote:

drastically changing our educational system by injecting competition into education and wresting control of schools from the teachers union

Competition? Are we going to have students fighting each other for the top spot? What happens to those who don't make it?

Quote:

again give schools to complete local control, de-fanging the unions nationwide

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and reducing over burdensome regulations nationwide and returning local matters to local jurisdiction.

Over-burdensome business regulations? Like what? Do you even realize that it was the repeal of regulation which led to our current crisis, Okie?

Quote:

Quit funding local projects with federal money. This will call for real change, change that Obama has not even dreamed of, nor will he ever do, in order to fix our economy.

Let's start with Oklahoma, who gets back far more money from the Feds then they put in. In fact, we here in CA pretty much pay for half of every project that helps your state, with Federal money. You in OK pay for practically none of ours. I'm sure you will see 'real change' as your state slowly collapses due to lack of funds to maintain it.

Quote:

Another biggee is reforming the medical industry by injecting more competition and instituting new ways to treat minor problems with less cost, etc.

Competition in the insurance industry? How do you propose we do this? I assert that you know very little about the insurance and medical care problem we face, based on this stupid statement. It's just repetition of the Bush policy. That isn't going to fly anymore here in America.

Quote:

We need big tort reform, not for example, signing bills allowing people to sue companies for back pay going back decades, which is another stupid bill being pushed by Obama. Stupid stupid stupid. Obama's change will make things worse, not better.

No, Okie. They will make things better. Better for women and minorities who were discriminated against, and better for our entire society. Just not better for sexist folks - such as yourself - who don't believe women deserve equal pay to men.

All in all, your complaints show a very sophomoric understanding of the issues in question, and your solutions even worse. You get a D- for this post.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@okie,

Re: cicerone imposter (Post 3553767)

Quote:

cicerone imposter wrote:
That's because Americans wanted change with Obama.

Quote:

okie wrote:
But how long will all the lemmings follow a novice over the cliff?

Of coarse you have no clue about the team he recruited from people with "real" experience and from acadamia. The only "lemming" here is you; you are clueless.

Quote:

If conservatives continues to insist on tax cuts over the spending, we all lose. I just disagree with how Obama's team has created their budget with too much emphasis on insurance, bailouts without accountability, benefits for the unemployed, and social programs. The major portion of the money being spent should go to create jobs. Most of the other things will take care of themselves when the tax base increases to pay for them.

You are returning to reason.

I neither seek nor ask for your approval on any of my posts.

To fix this economy, we must again out perform foreign manufacturing and produce more of our own energy in an economic fashion. This calls for reforming our tax system completely to get rid of burdensome business taxes, hello the national retail sales tax to replace the income tax, drastically changing our educational system by injecting competition into education and wresting control of schools from the teachers union, again give schools to complete local control, de-fanging the unions nationwide, and reducing over burdensome regulations nationwide and returning local matters to local jurisdiction. Quit funding local projects with federal money. This will call for real change, change that Obama has not even dreamed of, nor will he ever do, in order to fix our economy. Another biggee is reforming the medical industry by injecting more competition and instituting new ways to treat minor problems with less cost, etc. We need big tort reform, not for example, signing bills allowing people to sue companies for back pay going back decades, which is another stupid bill being pushed by Obama. Stupid stupid stupid. Obama's change will make things worse, not better.

a) Quit funding local projects with federal money?
You continue to show your ignorance; we pay federal taxes that funds local projects.
b) drastically changing our educational system by injecting competition into education
How do we "inject competition into education?

c) is reforming the medical industry by injecting more competition and instituting new ways to treat minor problems with less cost, etc.
Okay, how?
d) We need big tort reform, not for example, signing bills allowing people to sue companies for back pay going back decades, which is another stupid bill being pushed by Obama.
Why are you against equal pay for equal work?

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@Cycloptichorn,

ci and cyclops, do you agree that we must again become competitive with manufacturing and energy to compete? Continuing to buy more stuff made in China, importing more energy, etc., I think we can agree that doing more of that, plus not improving our education system and not making medical care more affordable will not lead us to prosperity? Relying upon a service industry is not going to lead to prosperity? In an attempt to tone down the partisan rhetoric here, can we agree on these basic points, even if we do not agree on how to do it?

1 Reply

It was the Bush admin. that gave a huge bailout to insurance (e.g., AIG) and, in general, bailouts without strings. Tax cuts have not produced many jobs, unless they are preconditioned on job creation. Even the latter will not work unless people are spending (and not just paying bills).

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@okie,

okie wrote:

ci and cyclops, do you agree that we must again become competitive with manufacturing and energy to compete? Continuing to buy more stuff made in China, importing more energy, etc., I think we can agree that doing more of that, plus not improving our education system and not making medical care more affordable will not lead us to prosperity? Relying upon a service industry is not going to lead to prosperity? In an attempt to tone down the partisan rhetoric here, can we agree on these basic points, even if we do not agree on how to do it?

Okay, good. I'm going to go line by line but only for the purposes of cleaning up what looks to be multiple topics.

Quote:

ci and cyclops, do you agree that we must again become competitive with manufacturing and energy to compete?

Sure. And in fact the solution is to try and go after both problems at once - an immediate and large program to update our energy sources and our energy grid.

Renewable energy creates jobs that can't be outsourced. There are a ton of power plants that can be built - including nuclear ones, which I support - which need a lot of labor. We need to be innovators when it comes to solar and wind technology, if for no other reason than the fact that the market exists to sell it! CA has a few solar panel plants, and they are booked solid with years of production orders.

We should use some of these billions of dollars we're throwing around to help Ford and GM transition to fully electric or non-pollutive vehicles. Once again this would create jobs right here in the USA and give us something worth exporting.

One thing I will say about trade, we should get rid of the trade restrictions which allow the US to import foreign goods but keep our goods out of their countries; that ****'s gotta go.

Quote:

Continuing to buy more stuff made in China, importing more energy, etc.,

Totally agree, but I wonder if you realize what that means?

It means more Buying American and buying local; less Walmart and less cheap chinese crap.

It means less oil and more alternative sources of fuel for our cars.

It means making nationalism less about defense and more about a shared identity; a presumption that there's something better, than being rich and having the most stuff possible.

Quote:

I think we can agree that doing more of that, plus not improving our education system and not making medical care more affordable will not lead us to prosperity?

I agree with that, but we disagree about the methods of doing so.

With both education and health care, you seem to envision a system where we pit people and businesses against each other, in a veritable frenzy of efficiency. I don't see that happening in any fashion, any good results coming out from this.

With respect to education, we need to start emphasizing community education - that is to say, teaching people how to maintain their communities, and how to have a sense of community in the suburbs, how to watch out for your kids' development. Early child development. More reading. Less 'teaching to the test,' do away with the stupid NCLB bullshit.

For health care, we need single-payer nationalized health care. How can anyone think that having the insurance industry, with it's 30-40% cost increases it adds, is anything but a parasite on the economy and the health care industry? So much time is spent filling out forms and stupid **** like that, it's inefficient as hell.

Quote:

Relying upon a service industry is not going to lead to prosperity? In an attempt to tone down the partisan rhetoric here, can we agree on these basic points, even if we do not agree on how to do it?

Sure, I agree with those basic points. But I think that we need to increase efficiency, not through relaxation of regulations or greater market freedom, but the opposite instead. The notion that maximum efficiency or freedom is achieved by minimum regulation or intervention has been proven to be unworkable in the real world.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

I note today that the Postmaster General indicated that the Postal Service is running something like a $2B deficit with mail volume down something like 9%. It is likely that they will ask for an increase from 42 to 44 cents for a 1st class letter come May (buy your "Forever" stamps soon and save almost 5%).
He is also floating a trial balloon asking Congress to reverse the rule that the PO provide mail delivery 6 days a week. He suggested eliminating Tuesday delivery (one of the slow mail days).
Technically the USPS is an independent agency but the Federal gov't does subsidize it. Is this the kind of reduction in spending you would support?
As an aside, he suggested eliminating, as I heard it, on another slow day. I think, from the junk mail I get, that might be Friday. Most of the junk mail comes Wed and Thurs.

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@realjohnboy,

postage rates in canada are being increased also .
we've had "5 delivery days" (mon to fri) for many , many years .
if we want to use any postal services on sat/sun - buying stamps , parcels , registered letters etc. - we have to go to a private postal outlet - usually in large drugstores .
cheapest stamps are to be had in canada at SHOPPER'S DRUGS . they often throw in 20 free stamps worth about $10 if you shop for $50 - perhaps they print their own .
good to hear from you rjb !
hbg

1 Reply

@hamburger,

The only problem I have with Tuesday is that we have a lot of holidays celebrated only by the banks and the PO (Washington's birthday, MLK day, Columbus Day) on Mondays. So that would mean no mail for Sun, Mon and Tues. No big deal as a lot of our invoices and payments now come via email.
I have been watching this thread, hbg, regularly, but there is a lot of sniping that merits no response.

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@realjohnboy,

rjb, Thanks for the head's up on stamp cost increase. I'll have to remind my wife to buy more of those Forever stamps.

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@cicerone imposter,

In my experience of women ci. there is no need to remind them of any bargains that are going. In fact it is usually best to prevent them finding out about as many of them as you can.

She could end up sending out hundreds of greetings cards in order to be saving more money.

1 Reply

@spendius,

spendi, Do you really have experience with women? LOL

1 Reply

Where is the US economy headed?

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