Where is the US economy headed?

I think, maporsche, that while the financial infrastructure of the country may have been stabilized and may be poised for a bit of a rebound, the individual states are still in a world of hurt. Hence the rest of the money will probably be sent to the states to, ideally, create some jobs and get some folks off of unemployment and back to being taxpayers.
I did hear a story the other day about a local government office (that supposedly helps poor people) using some of the money to buy new computers and expand their office space and... Nothing about helping their clients. That ticked me off.

And my perception about how the money will be spent will not always agree with our idea of what is right or wrong. I think it's a matter of degree, because we know we will disagree with many of the spending done by any government.

The local government in Santa Clara County still pays our safety officers six figure salaries, and retire with six figure salaries after 30 years of service.

Many retire at about 50 to 55 years old and collect their pensions for longer than their work years at higher rates while they cut services for the general public like libraries and other social services. Not only that, but San Jose has one of the highest rates on retirement disability so they don't pay any taxes on their pensions.

When I served on the County Grand Jury, we warned these government agencies about the potential high cost of these benefits, but they just ignored us.

I stand by my original claim. The point is clear and it is obvious. To deny the Laffer Curve is to deny that any burden upon business affects business or economic output. We have just seen that disproven. It doesn't matter what kind of burden it is, whether it be tax rates or labor, or something else. If any of those things are impacted greatly, an effect is observed. And if you hold all other business burdens static, pick one, be it tax rates or something else, adjusting one of them greatly will yield a curve of some kind. Common sense.


No, it does not at all predict a reduction of revenue. It does predict an impact, but it depends upon which side of the peak of the curve you reside. You can increase tax rates and increase revenues to a point where revenue will peak and begin to decline. At the peak, it is safe to predict a decline of revenues.

To explain further, I believe increasing tax rates will always negatively impact economic output, however on the left side of the curve, the increase in tax rate will result in more tax revenues even though the economic activity may have been impacted ever so slightly. To illustrate this with a math example, 5% of 90 is alot more than 1% of 100. So is 20% of 70 more than 5% of 90, as is 30% of 50 more than 20% of 70. Tax revenues increase even though output decreases. However, 50% of 30 is not more than 30% of 50, thus increasing the rate from 30% to 50% yielded no increased value, and if you increase the rate to 70% of say - 20%, you have suffered a decline.

The Laffer Curve does not assert where the peak tax revenue point is, it merely asserts a general shape of a curve, and it merely points out that at some point, further increases of tax rates will so dampen the economy that tax revenues will actually decrease. The exact shape of the curve is also probably not static, it may shift along the scale with time, depending upon other factors including the overall economy.

Another oft overlooked point in this scenario that even if you can increase tax revenues by increasing tax rates, you may still increase government expenses so much more due to economic output decreasing and thus causing more unemployment and other entitlement demands. It creates a domino effect. Finding the point at which maximum tax revenues is still not sound policy because by that time you have so damaged the economy that government expenses will also have risen precipitously. None of this is a zero sum game or happens in a vacuum, and the Democrats or liberals act as if it does. That is a huge problem, and the press is a total failure in reporting the realities of the economy.

Sorry, I should have said "People that deny the Laffer Curve are essentially denying that economic burdens placed upon businesses have any effect upon those businesses."

Why? That happening was totally predictable. That is typical liberal policy. You voted for Obama. What should you expect?

okie looks at one incident, and denigrates the whole $767 billion dollar program. It's obvious okie has never understood how any government spends taxpayer money. If he wants to get down to the smallest dollars spent, and decide all of the program is bad, he has never dealt with government budgets. Nor does okie understand "any" budget.

Typical okie.

I understand it totally. I understand that the more local the government can be to do certain things, the more efficient it will be spent. And the government can never do anything more efficiently or for less money than a citizen can do themselves, if it is something the citizen can do at all. That is precisely why the constitution is about limiting government in what it can do and what it cannot do. The Bill of Rights protects people from government. More havoc, suffering, and death and destruction have been wreaked by out of control governments than any other thing in the history of man.

For our national government, national defense is probably the most important function that it is meant to do. Everything not specifically assigned to the federal government was to be left to the states and local government.

The federal government has so overstepped its bounds and has already gotten so much bigger and more powerful and arrogant than it was ever designed to be, that we are dangerously close to losing our country. That is why Obama is to be opposed vigorously at every turn because he has turned up the heat in an attempt to grow the federal government to never before size and proportion. His spending and proposed spending is unheard of in the history of man.

And everyone

okie wrote:

Not true: please provide evidence of this. I want source links, not your opinion.

As always, you make statements that can be proven wrong.
Q: Do you think national defense should be handled by each state or private enterprise?
Q: Do all school districts spend money wisely?
Q: What should government handle and not handle?
Q: Where did you learn about government budgeting at all levels including a) federal, b) state, and c) local?
Q: Which government departments should be taken over by private industry? This includes all levels of government.

Common sense and history. Central planning does not work. That is why communism eventually collapses, example Soviet Union. The longer the canal, the more water it wastes just getting to the destination. The further from the target, the more shots it takes to hit the target. Also read Thomas Sowell's book "Basic Economics."

To answer all of your questions, it would take a doctoral thesis to do it. Simplified, national defense is the primary job of the federal government, and it doesn't need to do much else, a few things, but nothing as huge as national defense. Education belongs locally. People need to step up to the plate. We are not helpless without Washington. We became the greatest and most educated nation on earth by having the locals run education.

Common sense doesn't answer the question. Please answer all the questions posed. Otherwise, you're just smoking something I'm not familiar with. Is this how you graduated at the top of your class?

Why must you compare communism to our capitalistic society? What portion of commercial enterprise is owned by our government? Do they manage and run the day to day operations? Do you know the difference between communism and capitalism?

In case you missed it, I said:

Quit demanding. Read history. The Soviet Union collapsed. Did you miss that? Central Planning doesn't work? If you haven't learned that, I can't help you by spending hours looking up links, which you would not accept anyway. I tried that, and nothing works with you. If I said 2 + 2 = 4, you would demand a link. Your only hope is to suddenly have the light come on in your head one day. I keep telling you to read Thomas Sowell's book. You haven't, have you? Seriously, go read it, then come back here and ask more questions if you want to. Until then, I can't help you.

Why are you comparing Russian history to the US? There is absolutely no relationship in terms of our economy.

When do you suspect the US economy will "collapse?" When will the US come under "central planning?" Give us evidence for this? Not your opinion.

Surely, having graduated in the top of your class, you should be able to defend your claims/statements.

Read Thomas Sowell's "Basic Economics." That would be a good place for you to start in an effort to educate yourself.

Thomas Sowell is a cuke! Many of his opinions have been questioned and found to be without basis - such as yours. My reading includes many other writers who I can depend on to be more accurate in their perceptions of reality and life.

That you and several others on able2know depend on Thomas Sowell for your education and trust, you have essentially sacrificed understanding the real world. Some of Sowell's examples belong on the laffer curve, and in academia.

What is a cuke? We raise cucumbers here and call them cukes. Are you using some kind of derogatory term for the honorable Mr. Sowell, who so far exceeds your smarts that you should be embarrassed, much less call him a "cuke," whatever your intent is there.

I suppose you brilliant Dems agree with Biden, we have to spend even more money to get ourselves out of debt? No wonder your state has gone broke, if all the Dems out there think like you. What a bunch of losers you are among, ci.

He only exceeds in smarts in your eyes only. Do you know what I think about cucumbers? Sowell = cuke.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124753066246235811.html

Not an encouraging article, and whats worse, there may be evidence the government may have made false assumptions about jobs in June, in other words possibly lying? I only quote the first part of the article, but it doesn't get better. At the end, I quote the conclusion that Obama's stimulus plan was not stimulus but instead a liberal wish list.

The Economy Is Even Worse Than You Think
The average length of unemployment is higher than it's been since government began tracking the data in 1948.

The recent unemployment numbers have undermined confidence that we might be nearing the bottom of the recession. What we can see on the surface is disconcerting enough, but the inside numbers are just as bad.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary estimate for job losses for June is 467,000, which means 7.2 million people have lost their jobs since the start of the recession. The cumulative job losses over the last six months have been greater than for any other half year period since World War II, including the military demobilization after the war. The job losses are also now equal to the net job gains over the previous nine years, making this the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all job growth from the previous expansion.

Here are 10 reasons we are in even more trouble than the 9.5% unemployment rate indicates:

David Klein
.- June's total assumed 185,000 people at work who probably were not. The government could not identify them; it made an assumption about trends. But many of the mythical jobs are in industries that have absolutely no job creation, e.g., finance. When the official numbers are adjusted over the next several months, June will look worse.
....
....
"No wonder poll after poll shows a steady erosion of confidence in the stimulus. So what kind of second-act stimulus should we look for? Something that might have a real multiplier effect, not a congressional wish list of pet programs."

okie, How can you fight your arguments from both poles of this issue? You say tax cuts will create jobs, then complain that Bush's tax cuts have resulted in all this unemployment.

Where exactly do you stand? This recession started in 2007, and job losses have dropped a little since Obama took over the white house. Since he's a socialist, how can a socialist help with reducing unemployment from over 600,000 to less than 500,000?

Good trick, because his tax plan still hasn't taken effect.

The only reason people have lost confidence in the stimulus plan is simply because they fail to read or listen to the media; it's been repeated that the stimulus plan starts to take effect the second half of this year - in other words from July on, and will continue on into next year.

There's no cure for stupid.

Where were all your complaints when job losses started to exceed 600,000 under Bush?

Here's my rebuttal to your savior Thomas Sowell's article:


Record Versus Rhetoric
Thomas Sowell
Friday, October 17, 2008
Apparently there is something about Sarah Palin that causes some people to think of her as either the best of candidates or the worst of candidates. She draws enthusiastic crowds and provokes visceral hostility in the media.
The issue that is raised most often is her relative lack of experience and the fact that she would be "a heartbeat away from the presidency" if Senator John McCain were elected. But Barack Obama has even less experience-- none in an executive capacity-- and his would itself be the heartbeat of the presidency if he were elected.

Sarah Palin's record is on the record, while whole years of Barack Obama's life are engulfed in fog, and he has had to explain away one after another of the astounding and vile people he has not merely "associated" with but has had political alliances with, and to whom he has directed the taxpayers' money and other money.

Yes, Sarah Palin is on the record. Sam Stein of Huffington Post had this to say:
Sarah Palin had a few memorable moments during her campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday. But the most eye-opening of them all came, it would appear, when the Alaska Governor somehow drew a connection between Barack Obama’s tax policy and an encroaching, nightmarish, communist government. The Illinois Democrat, she hysterically suggested, would, through his proposals, create a country “where the people are not free.”

okie, Seems you almost took this quote verbatim for your position on Obama.

Sarah Palin has had executive experience-- and the White House is the executive branch of government. We don't have to judge her by her rhetoric because she has a record.

Yeah, she's a quitter.



We don't know what Barack Obama will actually do because he has actually done very little for which he was personally accountable. Even as a state legislator, he voted "present" innumerable times instead of taking a stand one way or the other on tough issues.

"Clean up the mess in Washington"? He was part of the mess in Chicago and lined up with the Daley machine against reformers.

If he was “part of the mess in Chicago,” why didn't Sowell list them? Most conservatives blame Obama for Chicago's high crime rate, but how do they come to this ridiculous conclusion? Does any one person affect crimes rates in a big city? I would like to see evidence for this.


He is also part of the mess in Washington, not only with numerous earmarks, but also as the Senate's second largest recipient of money from Fannie Mae, and someone whose campaign has this year sought the advice of disgraced former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, who was at the heart of the subprime crisis.
Why then the enthusiasm for Obama and the hostility to Sarah Palin in the media?
One reason of course is that Senator Obama is ideologically much closer to the views of the media than is Governor Palin. But there is more than that. There are other conservative politicians who do not evoke such anger, spite and hate.

Now, why is that? Has Sowell yet figured out that Obama holds a more realistic and popular view? Is this America or what?

Sarah Palin is the one real outsider among the four candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency on the Republican and Democratic tickets.

What if she is? Many from previous government positions - even governors run for federal office. Is this supposed to be a point of issue?

Her whole career has been spent outside the Washington Beltway.
On the one hand, Sarah Palin has more experience, but she's an outsider? How did Mr Sowell come to this conclusion and contradiction?

More than that, her whole life has been outside the realm familiar to the intelligentsia of the media. She didn't go to the big-name colleges and imbibe the heady atmosphere that leaves so many feeling that they are special folks. She doesn't talk the way they talk or think the way they think.
Worse yet, from the media's perspective, Sarah Palin does not seek their Good Housekeeping seal of approval.
Much is made of Senator Joe Biden's "experience." But Frederick the Great said that experience matters only when valid conclusions are drawn from it.

Now, why would Mr Sowell want to compare Biden with Frederick the Great? What is Mr Sowell trying to prove with this comparison? What is the conclusion Mr Sowell derived from this comparison?


Senator Biden's "experience" has been a long history of being on the wrong side of issue after issue in foreign policy. He was one of those Senators who voted to pull the plug on financial aid to South Vietnam, which was still defending itself from Communist invaders after the pullout of American troops.

The Vietnam war was started on false justifications. We shouldn't have been in Vietnam to begin with. We are not the world protector; we can't afford to be the world protector. That's a responsibility for the world community.

Biden opposed Ronald Reagan's military buildup that helped win the Cold War. He opposed the surge in Iraq last year.

Reagan's military buildup was not the cause to the end of the Cold War.


Quote:





Sarah Palin will not be ready to become President of the United States on the first day that she and John McCain take office. Nobody is.

Nobody is ready on the first day, but they must have the exposure and overall intelligence to answer questions asked by the media and others concerning the Constitution and the federal government.
Sarah Palin is way over her head when she answered a third grader's question.
Sarah Palin, in response to a question sent to a local NBC TV affiliate in Colorado by a third grader at a local elementary school, answered that the Vice President is “in charge of the United States Senate”.

But being Vice President is a job that can allow a lot of time for studying, and everything about Governor Palin's career says that she is a bright gal with her head on straight. The country needs that far more than it needs people with glib answers to media "gotcha" questions.

If she claims that she has foreign experience because she can see Russia and Canada from her state, that's her level of “intelligence.”

Whatever the shortcomings of John McCain and Sarah Palin, they are people whose values are the values of this nation, whose loyalty and dedication to this country's fundamental institutions are beyond question because they have not spent decades working with people who hate America. Nor are they people whose judgments have been proved wrong consistently during decades of Beltway "experience."

Funny how the American People voted for Obama, because as Mr Sowell claimed, “John McCain and Sarah Palin, they are people whose values are the values of this nation, ...”

Where did Mr Sowell earn his PhD? FOX news?