Stimulus Is for Suckers
All those billions don't add up to much. How Obama can get us on track to a real recovery.
president barack obama (how sweet those words) has already transformed American politics. The gop is in crack-up. Obama's coattails in Congress give him leverage, and his vast public support gives him power. There is an economic crisis and a demand for action to deal with it. More than at any time since Ronald Reagan in 1981, what the president wants, he will get.
So, what should he ask for? How big and far reaching should changes to the economy be? Nearly everyone in Obama's circle agrees that more public spending and tax cuts are needed: a "stimulus package." The cautious say $150 billion (about 1 percent of gdp), while the bold and the worried say $500 billion (or just more than 3 percent of gdp). Both focus attention on what is needed in 2009—as if the economic problem can be solved in a year.
That is almost certainly wrong.
When the free fall began, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke argued that the problem with the economy was frozen credit. Banks were unable to lend, they said, because they could not get the funds. This was not true, as we discovered when Treasury gave the banks the funds, only to realize that banks had no wish to lend them out. Instead they used the money to build capital and on dividends and executive pay. (Goldman Sachs, which received $10 billion as part of the bailout, got good press when it announced its top seven execs would forgo their year-end bonuses. But a government ban on bonuses was likely coming, and by limiting the sacrifice to top managers, the company retains leeway to spend the estimated $6.9 billion set aside for bonuses on slightly lesser employees.)
In any case, banks did not wish to lend, and ordinary Americans, desperately cutting costs, did not wish to borrow, and with their homes underwater many had little collateral to borrow against.
What began as a housing collapse will not go away soon. Empty houses wreck home values for their neighbors. The ratings agencies are discredited, the investment banks are gone, and high finance is in debt deflation. Foreign investors won't soon trust the market for US private debt, even for blue chip corporations, so long as they remain saddled with toxic health care costs. Regulation will have to be rebuilt. In short, the money wells have been poisoned, and it will take time and patient effort to clean them up.
The historical role of a stimulus is to kick things off, to grease the wheels of credit, to get things "moving again." But the effect ends when the stimulus does, when the sugar shock wears off. Compulsive budget balancers who prescribe a "targeted and temporary" policy followed by long-term cuts to entitlements don't understand the patient. This is a chronic illness. Swift action is definitely needed. But we also need recovery policies that will continue for years.
First, we must fix housing. We need, as in the 1930s, a Home Owners' Loan Corporation to restructure failed mortgages on sustainable terms. The basic objective should be to keep people in their homes by all necessary means, except where borrowers committed willful fraud, so as to stop the spread of blight and decay. Government can use its power over banks to make this happen, as it has with IndyMac, the California bank that is now, as a federally owned company, revising unsustainable mortgages. But this is no small endeavor: The fdr-era holc operated for almost two decades and at its peak employed 20,000 people.
Second, we must backstop state and local governments with federal funds. Otherwise falling property (and other) tax revenues will implode their budgets, forcing destructive cuts in public services and layoffs for teachers, firefighters, and police. And when these public servants are laid off, guess what? They have trouble paying their mortgages. General revenue sharing—unrestricted federal grants to states and towns, a program invented by Richard Nixon and killed by Ronald Reagan—is required. Luckily it can be reintroduced quickly on a large scale.
Third, we should support the incomes of the elderly, whose nest eggs have been hit hard by the stock market collapse. We can't erase those losses case by case (nor should we), but we can sustain the purchasing power of the group. The best way is to increase Social Security benefits. Useful steps would include boosting the formula for widowed spouses, ensuring a minimum benefit for retirees who worked their whole lives in low-wage jobs, and allowing college students to receive survivors' benefits up until the age of 22. But let's go further and raise benefits across the board, which has not been done for a generation. I'd say raise them 30 percent, and let the federal government make the contributions for five years. This would be good for the elderly, who could retire; good for working-age people, who would replace the retiring; and good for the economy, since people who need money spend it when they get it.
Fourth, we should cut taxes on working Americans. Obama proposes to effectively offset the first $500 of Social Security taxes with a refundable credit. It's a good idea, but can be expanded. If the economy continues to spiral downward and a really large fiscal boost is needed, let's declare a payroll tax holiday, funding Social Security and Medicare directly from the treasury, until the economy gets back on track. Workers would get an immediate 8.3 percent raise to help meet their mortgages; employers would have the same amount to spend on wages, job creation, or investment. (Not all efforts to jump-start the economy deliver so much bang for the buck. See chart below.)
Is this the standard "liberal line"—borrow and spend? No. It is the situation, not the philosophy, that demands this action both grand and sustained. Economic recovery in an existential crisis like this means actually building a new economy. For that, we need investment—to restore our roads, rails, transit, broadband, and water systems, to build parks and museums and libraries, to protect the environment. Right now, states and localities can't borrow for these things. Creating a National Infrastructure Fund, using Uncle Sam's borrowing power to put money where it's needed, is one way forward. Federal capital spending should be bond financed and exempt from budget rules, especially pay-as-you-go. It makes no sense to finance projects whose benefits will last for 50 years solely from tax revenues of today.
Finally, we must change how we produce energy, how we consume it, and above all how much greenhouse gas we emit. That's a long-term proposition that will require research and reconstruction on a grand scale: support for universities, for national labs, for federal and state planning agencies, a new Department of Energy and Climate. It's the project around which the economy of the next generation must be designed. It's the key to future employment and future growth—and to our physical survival.
Energy transformation is key for another reason. Even during this crisis, the world has supported the dollar. Why? Because no alternative safe haven exists. Despite our faults, we have a well-designed economic system, the enduring fruit of the New Deal and Great Society. Thus Uncle Sam can borrow, at very low cost, whatever he needs—a terrific advantage over the competition. But in the long run, the world will support us only if we give something back. Ushering in new technologies that the rest of the world can adopt in order to save the planet is the right sort of gift. By helping to save the physical world, we may be able to save our currency, our credit, and our economy as well.
BANG FOR THE BUCK
What a dollar of stimulus puts back into the economy when spent on...
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Tax the rich, go after monies stashed overseas, and slash the military. Unfortunately, the latter will put more people out of work, the kind of people who if let down by the government, would become a huge political liability.
Blah, more borrowing. Borrow, borrow, and borrow some more.
We must develop a different model for how our economy will work. Just rebuilding the current one is like building a house of cards in a wind storm. President Obama should work on stabilizing the current free fall and he should also be looking to make radical changes in the way our country does business.
Thanks for the helpful summary of practical as well as sophisticated proposals. Please keep up your good work MJ and Galbraith.
Not to mention that a mercenary...er.."volunteer" army will bite the hand that previously fed it, if it feels betrayed or stifled in it's ambitions by the government. Don't think that the pols aren't aware of this, as well. The goons that run Blackwater can mobilize more hardcore, well-trained and equipped fighters then the US government can, at this point, and their Neanderthal, fundamentalist, and Manichean view of the World has a sympathetic audience in the 'full-time' Army. Most of the people I know in the National Guard joined because it was a relatively painless (or so they thought, at the time)to accumulate college tuition funds, or part-time income; and those who gave any thought to the implicit liabilities of being in a military organization,believed that they were joining a militia (in the classical sense -defending their homes and families) from what would be mostly 'natural' disasters. They joined anticipating Civil Defense, and did not expect to be overseas cannon fodder in an expeditionary military.
Had Congress distributed those $700 billion from the bottom up instead of from the top down, the economy would probably be growing by now. But no, they're giving the money to the very bozos who got us into this mess in the first place, without even changing the rules of the game. No accountability continues to rule the day.
What a bunch of worthless idiots.
Who's going to buy the cars from
the bailed out auto companies?
I consider myself a fairly typical American, and I gave up driving
altogether in 2005 when I donated my Chrysler Seibring to the VOA in
a effort to localize my lifestyle. Now I own two bicycles which I use
for various things. And I have absolutely no plans to purchase a car
now or at anytime in the future. Neither do any of my friends and
acquaintences. And, I suspect that with so many more unemployed of
late or the one in ten households that are behind in their mortgage
payments, no one amongst them is seriously considering buying a car
either. So, where are all of the customers for these mass produced
cars coming from? Sounds to me like the most profitable approach for
the big three is to simply pocket the bailout money and wait for the
next bailout opportunity. Maybe we can give them a whole string of
bailouts over the next few years until the American consumer re-
identifies him/her self with power purchasing?
Yes, a different economic model that is not debtbased! Oh, and that 700 billion bailout is just more debtmoney created out of thin air debasing the value of your dollar. Not bad huh, they fooled you again. Americans are owned by the big banks. Do you want to be slaves forever or are you going to do something about it? You have to understand the monetary system that control your government/country and change it. The federal reserve is not a government institution anymore than federal express is and they have the power of moneymaking, lending new fraudulent money to the government at interest. Why doesn't your government make it's own interestfree currency? Wake up America it's time to take to the streets and fight for your constitution like your forefathers did. Or are you mere serfs?
I read a interesting article address the economy and the governments ability to simply create more money instead of borrow it. It had some compelling arguments. You should check it out. I don't remember the name but it's by Stephen Zarlenga of the American Monetary Institute.
The "Revolution" should not just be about "Re-Distribution". The Elites boast they are immune to it. That even if we have a "Popular Revolt" and make the Haves become Have-Nots and vice-versa they'll end up on top again because while the good people just live their lives the 'elites' will go back to clawing and stealing and hoarding their way back to the top. I propose a new way, which is rather an old way. Rebel against the definition of "Wealth" and "Society". Make it so 'wealth' is an obscenity. That people work to survive and prosper a little bit, but also focus on helping others, their family/clan, society, nature, others in need. And let any true accomplishment be profound thought, an invention that helps rather than hurt, a lasting but noble achievement. The "Rich" hoarding their money, cars, mansions will be mocked and pitied at best, treated far worse than any 'degenerate deviant' at worst. That will be the true revolution.
Whatever the merits of Galbraith's suggestions, we know that an Obama economic team headed by people like Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers is never going to offer any such plan. So IF Obama supporters are right and he is embracing the "team of rivals" model, then Obama himself is going to have to offer the liberal alternative to the centrist (or even center-right) plans his cabinet and advisors will put forth. However smart he is, Obama shows no evidence of being a great economist. Indeed, Obama shows ever indication of buying into the Reaganista trickle-down delusion that has plagued this country for nearly 30 years.
We conclude that, under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation. Of course, the U.S. government is not going to print money and distribute it willy-nilly -Ben Bernanke
Yeh, riiiiiiiiight.
clay is your classic communist. take from the productive elements of society and give it to the dregs who already receive thousands of dollars of benefits, which they do not deserve at taxpayer expense. that makes a lot of sense...build an economy from the bottom up?...like the lower class ever started a business or wrote a paycheck. people of clays intelligence, or lack thereof is what has gotten us into the current situation we find ourselves.
I think you must be out of your mind, as a serious economist. Raise Social Security 30%, with the "government" paying for all of it for 5 years! Along with the other quack proposals in the article, this will surely lead us down the road to sure bankruptcy quicker than ever. Our country must accept the fact that there has been too much debt, too much accumulation of goods (including homes) on that debt, and that there must be a painful, et healthy, readjustment of the economy to more sustainable levels. The Federal Government is getting perilously close already to losing its AAA credit rating, even before the coming tsunami of the retiring baby boomers. Our government, just like private consumers, cannot endlessly live far beyond it's means or it will fact bankruptcy.
Welcome to the Looting Of America. It will not be long before we are just Mexico with a bomb.
"This is a chronic illness. Swift action is definitely needed".
Then the author proceeds to point out a number of cosmetic changes that won n´t solve the problem. Pilleril is right. Only a change in the system of "money creation" will save America and the world from a series of crisis. This crisis may well last for years, after a hyperinflation (caused by bailouts and extra spending) follows. The present m onopoly by the Fed and its allies has enslaved American in debt. The artcile by Galbraith is quite useless - incredible, after so many writers explaining about the present situation!
Clay, you are saying what I said all along. TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS DOESN'T WORK. Too bad the GOP is still following Ronald Reagan even though he is dead.
What I don't get, if I understood anything for the past 8 years, is how so many members of Congress are calling for accountability in the auto industry bailout, but have made an "insider" joke of accountability in the financial sector. It seems to me that there has been criminal activity in the top management of the financial and housing markets that should be investigated.
bb is your classic elitist, who thinks that those with the cash or pull to start their own business should get the fruits of everyone's labor. Products manufactured or services rendered are a product of the efforts of many people, not just management. Executive salaries and perks in this country have gotten completely out of hand, including golden parachutes for top management who failed to run the company efficiently. Dubious accounting practices, little oversight, jobs outsourced to other countries, money stashed in offshore or European (or Dubai?) banks have allowed our modern-day robber barons a free ride on our backs. The "bailout" in the financial sector is nothing less than theft from the US taxpayer. When times get hard, management walks away with all the cash and leaves the workers with worthless 401k's and pensions, if they get anything at all. People of bb's questionable morality have gotten us into the mess we're in.
Fix housing with a temporary tax deduction for the purchase of a house.
Jump-start the market, clear the inventory glut and get prices rising again to stop foreclosures.
Lord Keynes would approve.
Modifying mortgages has failed most of the time says the Comp of Currency.
Climate change? What a joke. But what can be expected from an argument that attributes our economic strength to the New Deal and Great Society. Increase Social Security benefits? This is the program that is set to break the federal budget in a few years, yes? What does Mr. Galbraith teach at UT-Austin? Certainly not economics. Well, maybe. Heck, Paul Krugman just won a Nobel Prize in economics and he's a big government demand sider too. Just move to Europe already and quit trying to make us them.
Only about $5 to $7 Trillion of national capital is left before lending to the US is cut off. "Investments" that don't increase GDP and productivity in a three to 5 year timeframe will extend the deep recession we're entering. NONE of Obama's programs produce a timely economic return on investment. None promote efficiency. Instead they will increase the cost of energy by 2 to 5 times and bloat government expenses. He doesn't even understand that Keynsian economics responds to only one facet of the problem. Failure to reposition our economy to be globally competitive is myopic and will have tragic consequences for all Americans.
Redistribution of money from people who create wealth to the parasite class will only accomplish more of what the last 40 years has: a permanent welfare class and welfare voting block that ensure one party welfare state rule. There is no real difference between Bush and LBJ and contrary to the communist’ gnashing of teeth, Bush has grown government, not reduced it. In doing so he didn’t even manage to make the trains run on time. Obama will be no different, though he will have to go to war in Pakistan instead of staying in Iraq to keep the tottering empire together. At least Obama has sense enough and intelligence enough to recognize and to be scared of what lies ahead, though the outcome will be the same if he doesn’t slash the size of government, military included.
Due to the infection that FDR started and virtually every administration has nurtured in order to get and stay elected, even the sainted Reagan, we have a welfare and warfare state that is out of control and about to consume itself, and you and me along with it. In less than a decade, assuming the currency doesn’t collapse before then, “social spending” and military spending will be unsustainable and if taxes are raised to 100% levels, there will not be enough money to pay for Obama’s wish list.
Socialism, whether packaged under a D or R label will not work and hasn’t worked anywhere on the globe. All that can be done now is wait for the rotting carcass to fall over and start over.
Obama is for suckers like you - some much for a real leftist in the White House
I think a currency collapse is imminent, They've already started to print the amero. Anytime soon they will tell you that the consequences of the economic crisis is so dire that you will have to make some painful changes. So buckle up people you're in for a bumpy ride!
I like the bang for the buck chart and hope it becomes widely known. Most of what you say makes good sense, but I don't see the sense in keeping people in homes they couldn't afford in the first place "by all necessary means." This will help sustain house prices at inflated levels, out of line with people's incomes. Allowing all the air out of the housing bubble will drop prices low enough that families will be able to afford them and qualify for traditional mortgages. Leasing houses in the interim at market rental rates can keep them from sitting empty.
welfare, so far the biggest welfare recipients are the upper classes, wake up and look around, it's you and not the needy who gets it, you are the parasites.
Why not include a universal single-payer health care plan (government funded, privately delivered) as part of the bailout? Fewer and fewer people have access to medical care because our employer-centered system is imploding; the insurers are in trouble and will probably be next in line for a bailout
(phase them out before we have to bail them out). This is like starting from scratch - a fine opportunity to make a real change for the better.
Galbraith makes a sensible argument, however his is hardly the last word. Some of these ideas, like raising social security benefits might help if combined with means testing and raising the income limit. He doesn't mention military spending. While I certainly don't want a lot of angry unpaid soldiers wandering around I can think of better uses for tax money than some of those boondoggle weapons contracts congress seems to love. So keep putting ideas on the table. Our economy needs restructuring, to be sure, and all of us could live more simply and frugally.
Oh, yes, lets spend even MORE money which is not the governments to spend. And were does that money come from? Well, the government can make it out of thin air (print it), it can beg for it (please Mr China, could you take this worthless paper for some money?) or it can steal it (from those evil, selfish rich).
Social inSecurity? Up it 30%! Never mind it will go bankrupt soon(er). Gotta give money to the geezers who should have had their retirement in government bonds anyway.
Revenue sharing with the states? Sure! Can't have those pesky states raising their own money for their own projects can we. Force the feds to steal (er um borrow/beg) it.
Fix the housing "problem"? Sure, lets keep people in the very houses they can't afford. Rewrite those contracts and ignore the incompetence, malfeasance and downright evil perpetuated on the country by a pair of liberal democrats who oversaw Freddie and Fannie.
Also, "...we should cut taxes on working Americans." And what other kind of American is there? Let's see, I know "non working Americans"! ie those who get "refundable tax credits." We used to call that welfare. But regardless of the current name, its still giving money to people who have little or nothing of worth to offer America or its economy. Just more deadwood.
So, lets keep the government fools, knaves, charlatans and frauds happily employed. Government is the ONLY thing which is guaranteed to grow during this recession.
Universal health care/insurance is a fools goal unless it is modeled upon the auto insurance industry.
I pay for the services I want. I am not forced to subsidize my neighbor.
Want collision? Buy it. Want uninsured motorist protection? Buy it. Your neighbor can't afford comprehensive coverage? Too bad, but you don't have to (nor should you) pay for his desired coverage.
According to "BANG FOR THE BUCK"
What a dollar of stimulus puts back into the economy when spent on...
We should turn our entire economy into a food stamp machine. Perpetual motion and to hell with the second law. Put a buck in and get almost twice that out.
Phooey!
Actually a lot of debt is rather easy to assimilate if one has a more than adequate income stream - like employment. So are higher taxes and higher prices. I've lived in high cost/high wages/taxes towns and low cost/low wages/taxes towns and the former is far preferable. But then again I choose to live simply and I don't lust after the "American Dream" carousel of consumerism.
As far as the phrase "parasite class" goes-- the people who scrub toilets, care for the elderly in nursing homes,bag groceries at Wal-mart and staff day care centers have subsidized the "oppressor" class for many years by doing valuable work for sub-standard wages. They deserve their food stamps. What does Goldman-Sachs do for humanity? When 400 individuals at the top of the economic pyramid hold more wealth than the bottom 150,000,000 citizens, something is radically wrong. To regard any person who is not a born-to-wealth exploiter of his fellow humans as a parasite is to make a very sad statement about oneself.
I'd rather have a sales tax holiday than boost Social Security benefits or cut FICA taxes. The holiday benefits everybody (the young are poorer than the old) and specifically helps people buy stuff. I.e., my focus is on getting the economy going more than on handing out money.
finally someone has some solutions all the others are just saying how bad things will get, the end of days without really giving any solutions by the way I agree in everthing you said.
Every one of Prof. Galbraith's proposals will harm the economy more than it helps. The financial meltdown was caused by the new "mark-to-market" accounting rules creating a vicious spiral in the interbank secondary market. When the market took a small drop because of bad loans, the new rules (effective Nov. 2007) forced all the banks to write down the value of their assets, which meant that under the existing capital adequacy regulations, they had to stop lending and sell assets. The fact that all the banks were selling at once meant that asset prices dropped quickly, forcing more write downs, and more selling, and more price drops, and more write downs, and more selling, and so on ad infinitum.
The TARP bailout is like giving a blood transfusion to a patient who is still bleeding severely. Until mark-to-market is repealed, the banks will continue to bleed money as fast as the government can give it to them. Once mark-to-market is repealed, the bailouts can begin to work and the economy can begin to recover as banks are allowed to lend again.
As far as fiscal policy goes, the worst thing that the government can do right now is borrow money (unless they use the borrowed money to bail out financial institutions). Government borrowing just drains more money out of the capital markets, making it harder for companies to raise the funds they need to grow their businesses and create jobs.
If you really want to stimulate the economy through fiscal policy, throw the rich and middle-class elderly off Social Security and Medicare and use the savings to pay down the national debt. The national debt is around $5 trillion dollars now - that is money that could be growing our economy if it were invested in the private sector instead of the government.
By the way, the bar graph reminds me of Mark Twain's famous saying: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Good work, but I would like to see wheree SBA loans fall on the Bang for the Buck table. I believe SBA Guaranteed loans are the lowest cost most effective way to stimulate job creation and economic growth. Mr Galbraith, you may recall my name form the Philomathean Society :>)
Metaphors matter a great deal in politics, and the metaphor here misses the real situation.
While it's fair to say we have some chronic social-economic illness in America, the current situation is rather more dramatic.
America has gone on an amazing drinking bender of credit/debt indulgence and economic transfers to the already rich, and then got behind the wheel of the national sportscar and swerved off the road at high speed.
We now are seeing the multiple injuries of a high speed crash.
And just like a patient in very serious condition, doctors actually have to take care as they administer painkillers since too much can depress breathing.
We can't eliminate every last bit of pain here. The injuries are too many.
But after we administer a safe dose of increased and improved food stamps, unemployment aid, state budget aid and those painkillers are working, we have to focus on the critical injuries.
And those are having too large an amount of our wealth going to oil producers, and also tax structures that concentrate wealth here at home.
Therefore the infrastructure that matters *more*, that matters *most* is a high quality new national power grid to bring the electric power from the massive new wind farms to the cities to charge the coming new electric autos, so that our oil imports can be cut in a big way.
Also, since our patient is a vital, strong one with serious injuries, we are repairing torn tissues and broken bones in a way that expects a full recovery to hale and vigourous strength.
So we need new national re-training Universities with support for students of all stages of life who want to learn how to repair the new electric cars, and coming cost-effective new home solar panels and electric systems, and to meet the growing demand for software engineers for startups here in the US, and robotics engineers, and electrical engineers, etc.
In other words investing for the *future*!!
Trish's suggestion for me to take over foreclosed properties and lease them back to those who couldn't afford them in the first place is a great idea! If my tenants qualify for traditional mortgages, then the option to buy will be forthcoming. Why didn't I think of that?
Well folks, what a nice
Well folks, what a nice graph and what a nice and long discussion. Mike at the the jump manual review and pit bike store guide.
We can't spend our way out of this.
This is the end of a 30 year party with Credit & Debt.
Bail out everyone who lacked any kind of personal responsibility or sense?
You're retired - What are you doing with much exposure to stocks?
You over borrowed on a house with a teaser ARM you KNEW was going to go UP - bail yourself out!
The ONLY sane spending for this mess is in infrastructure we need to repair / replace anyway.
This creates jobs, tax revenue and keeps people being able to pay bills; AND we get something for our billions $$$ this time!
This way no one has to try and pick winners or which company / sector to bail out.
We eventually have to get back to saving, using less credit and taking on less debt; and move away from the greed and growth is good at any cost base for an economy.
Everyone should watch Zeitgeist addendum.If only everyone would open their eyes.Unfortunately people don't care until they are homeless or starving then its to late.And if they complain people say its their own fault they put themselves in that position .What ever happened to compassion for fellow human beings
its simple, people with money think that the rules don't apply to them or that they can buy their way out of anything, and people without money think that they do and try to live at a level which many things, mainly media, make them think they need to be at. the whole stupid country is at fault. people need to understand two simple concepts. if you don't have the money for something, don't buy it. and if you have a lot of money, laws still apply to you. people need to start going to jail for a long time for this stupid corrupt upper 1% bull[deleted], and the rest of the country needs a wake up call. you won't get in debt, if you don't spend money that isn't there. its this whole country and the overall mentality. the grass is always greener. didn't we learn that in kindergarden. maybe if we spent more money on the school systems, people wouldn't be so dumb. make basic economics a high school requirement. but yes, be prepared for a bumpy ass ride, because at this point, there are no quick, easy, or painless solutions...
This is excellent--thank you. I wish Obama would think so--I dont see it..
One reason other countries' auto industries are still competitive , is that the govt pays for pensions, heatlh care, etc. Sure, taxes go up. But there is not one EU country that would choose to go back to our primitivistic system!
Milton F: Europe! Who the hell can afford to go there, with the housing mkt at the depths that Wall St put it in?
We are not "Mexico with a bomb"--Mexicans are barely coming here anymore. Dont put up the fenc e!!-~~We may need to get out!
Big Three do not have to make cars---make high speed train cars...
If the "communist" scare still works , even here, at MoJO, we are doomed...
Nothing could be better for the long term economy and working class ( the one's who really create all the wealth in this country) Maybe, as a nation we would begin creating real things again instead of just shadow wealth.
speaking of single payer national health insurance. We will never complete in the long run against other economies ( countries) that have it. Like all industrial nations
Abolish the Federal Reserve, a ten-year moratorium on immigration, drive out all illegal immigrants, end the temporary guest worker program, bring our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, shut down all military bases we have in foreign countries and tell other countries that have depended on us for handouts to get their act together and take care of themselves for once!
Not so hard, is it?
what about simply mandating all mortgages
be cut to 5 percent? This would quickly put money into the hands of all homeowners, and would result in a spending
spike and new confidence among the core
of the middle class.
