I don't trust the eggheads that Obama has alongside him advising him I see better than I hear -- and he has NOT produced results. and your point about staving off a depression? Is that your bar? You need to raise your standards. Obama has been a DISASTER, to put it mildly. He needs TO GO
I think we'll default on our payments to the federal reserve. **** them though. They're the one's printing the cash that our government officials, without our consent, are spending. If people can walk away from their homes with just a ding on the credit score, we could walk away from the PRIVATELY HELD Federal Reserve. It's funny when you stop and think about it, we don't really owe other countries THAT much money, we owe it to the private banksters who create debt out of absolutely nothing and then just tack it onto a tracker. I think it all starts with downsizing the military & increasing taxes significantly on people who make their money through finance.
Apparently you are disregarding the increase in the number of federal employees. Most of Obama's proposals have been smoke and mirrors ... nothing borne out of reality or even actual intent. However, that said, I believe we need to reduce the government, reduce spending, eliminate subsidies, stimulate manufacturing and services within the United States and implement a flat tax that would increase tax revenues.
Gross Domestic Product in your chart is not as charming as it looks simply because the 1929 crash and the Dust Bowl years took the economy so far down. If I start with $100 worth of business and my production increases to $1,000, I am showing a product rise of about 1,000%. If I start with $1 billion worth of business and my increase is $1,000, I am showing a product rise that is barely measureable. In other words, charts and graphs can be misleading. Roosevelt's Lend-Lease program made us a lot of money, but, when we started manufacturing aircraft, ships, vehicles from jeeps to tanks, arms, clothing, etc. etc., employment really boomed.
This is from May. The numbers have continued since then. Private Sector jobs have gone up and govt. jobs have gone down. http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2011/05/us_private_sector_jobs_increas.html
Thank you for this, great example. Ireland was running budget surpluses before the credit crunch. thumbs sez: If only they'd been fiscally responsible and running budget surpluses before the credit crunch, they woudn't be in this mess! Seriously brah, do you think it's good for somebody with the kind of obvious ignorance that you have going into a ballot box and pulling a lever? it's borderline criminal IMO. You shoud amputate a limb to save us all from yourself.
That would fit right in under discretionary spending since it's ... discretionary. Out of curiosity, do you even know Obama's proposals? Please share, in your own words, how his proposed changes to Medicare and SS are smoke and mirrors.
Could you clarify how this applies to the graph I posted? GDP decreased from 1929 to 1931 and then increased as the New Deal program was rolled out. I agree that WWII helped the economy boom as well. But if it wasn't the New Deal that turned the economy around from 1932 to 1938 as most economists agree, what do you think did?
It's not what I think. It's what history shows. I never said the New Deal programs didn't work, they just were as effective as the onset/outbreak of WWII.
Surpluses are not necessary all the time, but they surely help. Deficits year after year don't help because they tend to eat up the surpluses of the prosperous years. Is that easy enough for your miniscule brain? And, BTW, I am happy ... relieved even ... that I am not your "brah" (whatever that is).
Obama's proposed changes are "smoke and mirrors" because he knows they can never be passed. Even some of his fellow Democrats in the House and Senate are backing away from his "proposals." His $4T in SS cuts, for instance, "alarm his fellow Democrats," according to the Washington Post. The proposals are merely campaign fodder.
You have to spend money to make money. After the big stock market crash in 2008 a lot of people rushed to the government to invest their money. The U.S. government pays interest on borrowed money or whatever, and has never defaulted on a debt so it is a very safe bet.
Honestly I think it will take a reasonable conservative candidate, who is not in the pockets of big business. This conservative candidate will not cater to the rich and realize that taxes need to go up for the rich/business and down for the middle class. This candidate will also realize that we can no longer afford war. Despite our military might we just cannot afford it. He will cut military spending. All of the current field has shown they are not in touch with the realities of the problem. Huntsman is the closest to this, but of course he isn't even considered.
Amusingly enough, all but the bolded bit above might describe Obama's politics, although he has shown himself utterly unwilling to fight for them.
I think nobody knows. Paul Krugman had a piece on NYT saying that the louder a politician says he knows how to solve the debt problem, the less likely he knows what the debt problem means. Well, one thing for sure, in the shadow of the mounting debt that is not getting smaller, there ought to be cuts. This is just logic. I think both parties are in agreement on that general direction. But, the debate about what to be cut and whose interests should be cut is bringing the ugliest politics one can imagine in this country. Sometime the country needs a leader with strong character like Rosevelt or Nixson to cut through the democratic exchanges hijacked by too many interests for different purposes.
The lack of genuine dialog on what the goals are, and what the solutions might actually be, is really doing the American people an injustice. It's like clapping with one hand. What is it? Caught in a mosh. Calling his proposals "smoke and mirrors" because you say he knows they won't get passed is obtuse at best, considering the current congressional climate and the reasons much of it is seen as "not passable." We are now watching a scramble to find a way to oppose his effort to reduce the size of government, one of the supposed main goals of his adversaries... just the latest example. That fruit hangs low for someone painting an opponent into a corner. Mission #1 for the GOP has clearly been stated as "Make him a one term president." I understand why, but I think the list of priorities should have a few entries above that if they care about the country like they say they do. Unfortunately, while the rhetoric ramping up to this election year has changed more to policy on the surface, it's clear that mission 1 is still the main goal, and everything else to them is secondary. Everything. It's hard to watch, really, and if it weren't for the koolaid addiction, I'd think soon this is going to boil into a "Mission 1 is now to not lose to Democrats in 2016." I don't know who's "truthier" and who has a "real solution" to these problems yet, but I think the disingenuous strategy that the GOP seems to employ is headed for more backlash unless someone changes tune and gets serious about trying to bring the able and willing together for real solutions to real problems. I think a GOP candidate who could do that would have more of a chance It's a popular trend with politicians, especially these days.... they seem think that persuasion from a weak point of contention is achieved by presenting ignorance with authority.
