Debt is the problem. Federal, State, Local, etc When you get a car loan do you think the bank pulls the money out of the vault? They borrow the money and lend it to you, that is how money is created. Our whole economic growth depends upon us increasing debt.
congress said it best " We do not have a debt crisis. We have a job crisis". If you think increasing debt with out a working class income is going to solve problems, you might want to travel back in history and say hello to the soviet union
Complete opposite. If you get people working, that dramatically increases your tax base as well as reduces the number of people receiving things like unemployment benefits. The largest increase in the past year has come from the growth of things like food stamps, unemployment benefits, etc.. That reverses itself in a healthy economy and on top of that you get more tax payers. The focus shouldn't be on austerity. Short term austerity is largely meaningless in the status quo. In fact you can't find a historical example of countries pushing through austerity programs in bad economic times where it worked out just fine. The focus has to be on jobs. Now you can choose the Republican approach - deregulate everything and give more meaningless tax cuts to the rich or you can actually try and do something like investing in research and development and infrastructure. Both of which act as a direct stimulus and also pave the way for future growth since stronger infrastructure improves economic efficiency and investment spending paves the way for new technology that boosts productivity and innovation. Dont get me wrong we need to address social security, medicare and defense spending. None of those are sustainable and painful cuts are necessary. But those aren't the reasons why our economy is in the doldrums and solving those won't create the types of jobs we need. We were producing surpluses in the 90s in large part due to a massive jump in worker productivity. That type of productivity will only come from proper investment spending. And unfortunately most corporations don't take the time to invest in technologies that require such long term development (like the technology that created the internet) so its up to governments to properly fund research in new areas.
debt on this scale is irresponsible, it's unpatriotic, or, thus saith Robobama: Spoiler <iframe width="640" height="510" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1kuTG19Cu_Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics There are right now 139 million Americans employed 22 million are on govt. payroll 25 million are unemployed 47 million on food stamps (incl children) 65 million retirees/ SS and that's out of a total population of 312 million The total interest being paid for govt. debt, corporate debt and personal debt in 2011 YTD is over 3 trillion $$$ The current total US debt right at this moment according to the Federal Reserve including fed, state, local and personal debt is $54 trillion. Total personal debt is 16 trillion Fed debt well over 14 trillion Right now averaged out each American family in the US has liability approaching 1 million $$$ on the debt, every single family The annual interest just on the Federal debt is close to 1 trillion dollars, yes that's one trillion, just paying the interest on the Fed debt. Total Federal Tax revenue including business, gas, income, everything is 2.2 trillion. So you are paying 1/2 on interest on the debt and you are increasing the debt annually. According to the Federal Reserve the current unfunded liabilities for social security, prescription drugs and medicare is 115 trillion $$$ According to the Bank of International Settlements the current derivative exposure globally for CDS and currency is 613 trillion $$$ Forget taxes, austerity, job creation, business growth etc... it is too late. The size of our debt ... expect things to get alot worse before they get alot better. What is happening globally is now going to happen here... we have the currency that still is somewhat trusted, debt people still want to purchase and that is the only reason we are sinking somewhat slowly.
Because global CDS and other derivatives correlates to how much financial institutions here are still hedging toxic debt- Bear Stern, Lehman Brothers, AIG, were heavily hit by CDS exposure and 2008 didn't leave the rest of the financials free of derivative exposure. The exposure to derivatives globally is the measure of how much 'bad' debt is still in the system. 2008 cleared up some toxic subprime mortgage loans, but that isn't all thats out there or there wouldn't be so much derivative exposure. Instruments like the CDS are designed to mitigate risk each time a loan is packaged and sold. 613 Trillion is alot of leveraged debt and to think the US isn't highly leveraged is to repeat the mistakes which lead to all those wonderful bailouts.
more bad news for basso from Politico: Poll: 51% still blame George W. Bush for economy While Republicans have pushed to cast the sputtering economy as Obama's fault, Americans place their blame elsewhere. Fifty-one percent say that George W. Bush is most to blame for the down economy, while 31 percent say it's Obama. At the same time, 44 percent of Americans say that "a lot" or "most" of the blame should be put on the shoulders of congressional Republicans, while 36 percent say the same of congressional Democrats.
So the 22 million government workers aren't really employed? Lazy no-good teachers, cops, firefighters, hazmat workers, air traffic controllers, food inspectors, meteorologists, Coast Guard rescuers, park rangers, geologists, biologists, hydrologists, anthropologists, botanists, engineers, nuclear scientists, environmental scientists, economists, lawyers (OK, you got me on that one), researchers, financial investigators, intelligence analysts, accountants, foreign affairs specialists, computer specialists, archivists, librarians, patent specialists, trademark specialists, agronomists, writers, sewer plant operators, consumer safety officers, veterinarians, foresters, toxicologists, cartographers, medical specialists, land surveyors, statisticians, architects, astronomers, border patrol agents, soil scientists, social workers, outdoor recreation planners, public health worker, paralegals, nurses, oceanographers, mine inspectors, lock and dam operators, foreign language interpreters, geographers, entomologists, electricians, offshore oil rig inspectors, ferry operators, dentists, prison guards, and aviation safety inspectors just to name a few. God forbid these people think they might be contributing to the betterment of their society while being paid a decent wage to do it. Screw their fancy book learning and specialized training. Who cares if they tell us about hurricanes or predict an earthquake or keep a fire from burning down some little town in Idaho or keep us from eating E.coli? Screw them. They suck and they are obviously not productive members of society because they are not working for private industry where they would have to cower in fear because they might be fired at any moment or have a medical emergency they can't handle financially. Also, just think about what kind of profits private industry is prevented from making just because of what some of these people do in their conspiracy to make America better. They deserve to be grouped with the cripples and the gray-hairs who are sucking the life out of the economy. They always say they pay taxes too (as well as SS and local and state taxes) but that can't be true because my gut says it is not.
Clearly this is a piece of <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3011.html">liberal bias</a>
These people are not a problem, the problem is debt. If most of those jobs were private sector jobs then they would increase the service sector. You and I must pay for every govt. job. That means the money you earn must support you and some fraction of the pay for govt. jobs. But since you cannot possibly do that we borrrow the money to increase the size of govt. which drains the size of the private sector as far as employment. If people realized that they pay for every increase in govt. services and projects there would be far less. How would you like it if we balanced our spending by docking your pay a % for every increase in govt spending at every level? No, instead we just borrow the money and expect our children to pay it back or bear the burden of being much poorer, I would call that political child abuse. We don't need to fire any park rangers or meat inspectors. We need to stop borrowing money. A fifth grader could figure the math. It is impossible to borrow your way out of debt.
