The BEST part was the vets. The majority of the Repubs looked around to try and see if it was okay to stand, even though Obama mentioned the Vets. They finally did stand though, after a few Repubs who don't hold that strong of a bias stood up without thinking.
the markets crashed on european news just like most times they've crashed in the previous year and a half. but don't let facts get in your way. also, you libertarians should be happy on the dollar getting stronger
I do this for a living so I usually try to stay out of these debates, but I'll bite this time. Let me introduce you to a few basic economic concepts. The way to evaluate a policy is to compare it to the counterfactual: The Right likes to point to the 9.1 unemployment rate and say that the 2009 stimulus failed. The proper way to evaluate the stimulus is to examine what would have happened in the absence of the stimulus (this is known as the counterfactual and is the basis of all empirical economics). The CBO has estimated that without the 2009 stimulus, the unemployment rate would have been higher than 10%. My quibble and most independent economists (i.e. not paid by some industry lobby or ideological think tank) would say that the stimulus was not big enough. This brings me to the second concept: Aggregate demand, fear, and the government as the spender of last resort: Assuming that you believe that supply and demand determine the level of economic activity and prices, consider the concept of aggregate demand, which is the demand for all goods and services in an economy. Where does aggregate demand come from? The basic answer is from what people believe they need/want and what businesses believe they need to maximize profits and minimize risk. Now recall Sept 2008 when we had the risk of a second great depression--remember two of the largest investment banks in the world (Lehman and Bear Stearns) had just folded (an unthinkable thought), the largest insurer in the world (AIG) was about to go under and bring the likes of Goldman, Citibank, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and others down with it. Washington Mutual is plumetting, while housing prices and the stock markets are in freefall and unemployment was about to spike. Now try to remember how you or your family members were feeling. I'm pretty sure, just like the rest of the world, they were scared. The logical thing to do for a household is to tighten up the purse strings in case you get lose your job. Well, if businesses and people are afraid and cutting back, aggregate demand will go down. And, if you believe in supply and demand determining output and prices, you should have a recession coupled with an easing of inflation and possibly a deflationary spiral. In a climate of pervasive fear driving down agg. demand and therefore output (GDP), the private sector (i.e. firms and households) cannot be counted on to make up the gap in aggregate demand since they are afraid, which can become a vicious cycle of shrinking GDP. So, the only actor in town that can fill the gap in agg. demand is the government who becomes the spender of last resort. The facile argument that the right (and regretably Obama, luckily he made up for this in yesterday's speech) has deployed is the analogy that if households are tightening their belts, the government can too. This only deepens the recession and increases unemployment, which brings me to the last point. Recessions, short-term deficits, and long-term fiscal balance What is the relationship between recessions and deficits? If the govt had a balanced budget in the fall of 2008 (which it didn't because of the Bush tax cuts, the wars, and the unpaid for prescription benefit) and a deep recession hit, you will automatically increase the deficit since revenues will go down and unemployment insurance and Medicare expenditures will go up. That's what will happen. But, if you believe in supply and demand and the effect of fear on aggregate demand during a crisis, the government should spend more, driving deficits up even more. This is actually desirable if you care about driving down unemployment and mopping up the fear that drags down the economy. Deficits aren't sustainable, so this should only be a short-run deficit. That's ok as long as you have a credible plan to get back into surplus later on to pay down the debt. So, we need to deal with the long-term deficit, which would happen if we do a combination of not extending the Bush tax cuts and if we adjust the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare (which is necessary with the baby boomers about to retire and high costs of medical care). For people who believe in supply and demand, the plan that Obama proposed yesterday is reasonable both in dealing with the gap in agg. demand and the long-run deficit. For others, you can go back to reading Fountain Head and move to the libertarian utopia of Somalia.
The libertarians have gotten awfully quiet. That tends to happen when dogma is confronted with evidence. On another note, I find the response of the punditocracy on the speech pretty shallow. They all seem surprised by how aggressive Obama's speech was in contrast with how timid he was during the debt debate. The narrative attributes this to an emotional shift after he dug deep to reclaim his progressive roots rather than the simpler and more plausible explanation that the structure of the jobs negotiation is a lot more favorable than the debt negotiation. Why is it surprising that he was a lot more defensive as a sitting president trying to keep the country from defaulting against hostage taking Tea Partiers who were crazy enough to credibly threaten to force a default on our debt? With the hostage free and with a way to credibly punish the GOP, it's no surprise that he came out a lot more aggressive. I'm a lot more optimistic that he'll be able to get something done since he can more credibly threaten the GOP for inaction and reframe the debate on his terms--plus, he has something the GOP wants--entitlement reform. The key to the negotiations will be whether he can bundle the debt committee debate together with the jobs bill in one big negotiation. If the Republicans can manage to break it down into separate bills, then it'll get watered down. That's why the deficit package is key to this whole jobs bill. And hopefully, the Dems will realize this is the strategy and stick together on this one.
I know some people who had gotten laid-off. They are looking for work, but are looking for similar high paying jobs. They may no longer be available. I think the congress and president should make it so people can go back to school, get an (or another) education, internship/train and work in a new field. It may be the only choice some folks have.
There is much that government can do during this time of limited demand but too much inefficient growth in government in my opinion is not the answer. As the government employs over 2 million people, a company like Wal-mart alone employs around 1.4 million, so its truly business that has to be unleashed to turn this problem around. I think the payroll tax idea is great and think tax credits to hiring etc. are other good ideas. I just fear that new government bureaucracies will be created with the idea of stimulus and 20 years from now we still have these costing billions and billions of dollars and finding ways to grow itself like any organism or institution does. Allow companies to bring in funds from overseas, educational credits and such to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of Americans. Allow foreigners to enter to the US easier if they start a business and lower the amounts to do so. Allow foreigners to get green cards and citizen status if they buy and own homes as well in order to stabilize housing and bring in people with purchasing power. Reduce regulations to easier allow foreign companies to set up base here without the red-tape. Find ways to make individual responsibility and success integral to teaching to increase productivity in education and government and union type workers as people don't get promoted for merit so will only do the least possible to maintain their jobs.
The funniest thing about this is conservative opposition to an infrastructure bank. Right now our method of transportation spending is literally a page out of the Soviet Union. We draft transportation bills that directly determine where money goes. That's straight up central planning ala communism. Instead Obama is proposing an infrastructure bank that sets aside new infrastructure spending and governments can come to it and pitch ideas and justify why they deserve money. It takes the absurd central planning and political lobbying aspect out of it and hands it off to an independent infrastructure bank. Yet Republicans have already objected to it.
We need to spur the production of robots. If you want to undercut those workers who only make $2 a day, take their jobs with robots. You don't pay them anything and they never sleep. Middle class wages could be paid to the guys that design, produce and manage the robots. But, you can't sell your robots. It has to be like planes, you only sell the dumbed down versions with the out of date software; not the ones that can make a pair of blue jeans every 30 seconds 24/7. (that post follows johnstarks post, proudly)
This is funny. Kay Baily Hutchison doesn't support the Hutchison-Kerry infrastructure bank as the best way to create jobs any more. Kay goes against her own infrastructure projects. She thinks deregulation is the way to go. Obama presents your idea, now you don't promote it. LOL. http://youtu.be/V-fkMvrvAUQ
The Whitehouse website quotes Hutchison on the infrastructure bank in the American Jobs Factsheet and Overview. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/08/fact-sheet-and-overview It's so funny to see Obama forcing the GOP to reject their own ideas.
But if predictions about positive effects of the stimulus were not correct, why should speculation about a nonstimulus scenario be any more credible? Again with the "things would be worse, trust me I'm an expert" crap. I don't buy into the apocalypse scenario. Many of the people perpetuating it stood to gain from bailouts. We already did this stuff in 2009 and we now have the longest sustained levels of high unemployment since the Great Depression. CBO predicted 2009 stimulus would create 1.3 - 3.9 million jobs in 2010, we only created 950k. And the White House's own infamous chart: Spoiler At what point do your models lose credibility?
Obama has zero chance of getting this passed. Republicans will oppose 90% without wavering, and then take 10% of the bill which they want, and Obama will agree saying he made a fair compromise. He's such a pushover.
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REPORT: As Their States’ Bridges And Roads Crumble, GOP Leaders Remain Opposed To Infrastructure Investment Even as roads and bridges in their states fall apart, Republicans remain opposed to Obama’s efforts to invest in improvement projects. When progressives and Democrats pushed for more infrastructure spending in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Republicans demanded a bigger emphasis on tax cuts. When House Democrats passed a jobs bill geared toward infrastructure investment in February 2010, Republicans derailed it in the Senate. And unless the GOP undergoes a radical shift in priorities in the next few months, yet another plan that will help solve both America’s infrastructure and jobs crises will die at the hands of Congressional Republicans.
