The auto industry bailout saved two American
car manufacturers, as well as tons of jobs: http://prospect.org/article/unpopular-successful-auto-bailout
Rmoney said we should just let the auto companies go bankrupt and then let them rebuild. What that fellah failed to explain is where the money would come from to rebuild bankrupt GM and Chrysler. There wasn't enough dough available, outside of government dough, to do that. Rmoney's argument is moot anyhoo, as now, both GM and Chrysler have returned to profitability. We can debate why, but what's done is done.
And of course TARP saved the economy, even if most of us feel that it would have been "justice" for greedy bankers to have failed (which of course, would have cost jobs of regular working stiffs and hastened our economic collapse):http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704324304575307071188294124.html
To have allowed banks to simply fail would have cost us a fortune. You haven't seen economic collapse like you would if the US banking system ever totally cratered. We were on the verge of a total US financial collapse and I will defer to the large numbers of economists who feel that TARP was the right thing to do. Some economists argue that if TARP had been bigger, we'd have recovered faster than we are now. Be that as it may, TARP is a done deal.
The biggest goal we should have now is to enact stronger banking safeguards to prevent the greed that nearly killed the US economy, (even tho' members of a certain political party whose name I won't mention beyotche all the time about too many regulations on bidness) and work to create jobs.
Many argue that eliminating the restraints of regulation on bidnesses will create jobs. That's not exactly right. See, bidnesses don't need to create jobs unless there are customers lining up to buy more of their products than they can produce using existing employees. Until consumers are able to buy stuff, employers will not hire additional workers. Ask yourself, why would employers hire additional workers if they were not needed? The question is, how do you get consumers to spend on new stuff? Well, they need more dough. And they need to know they have secure jobs so they can spend that additional dough on new stuff without worrying that they'll need that dough to get themselves through a period of unemployment.
I've said for a long time that we need to have a consumer stimulus. Somehow we have to get more dough to consumers so they'll buy the stuff they have been putting off buying, which **should** cause employers to hire more workers to meet the increased demand. It is reported that American workers have maxed-out on productivity, so if employers want to make dough by meeting the increased demand of more peeps wanting to buy their stuff, then they'd pretty much have no choice but to hire more workers.
My idea of a consumer stimulus is to defer taxes on everyones' first $60K of income. Rich or not rich, all would get that tax break. Taxes would resume at current levels for income over $60K. This would be a temporary tax break, say a couple years. Unlike the Bush tax cut, which was weighted to the wealthy, this tax break would most greatly benefit the middle class, who are the real consumers in our society. And, unlike the Bush tax cut, I would recommend that this tax break be evaluated every 6 months to see if consumer spending and employment were actually going up. If it works, great. If it don't work, end the program after one year.
I doubt if Our Betters™ would like my plan, because they make out like bandits whether our economy is good or bad. They benefit with cheep labor under our current system. The rest of us suffer. And that's a real crock a shytte.
Rmoney said we should just let the auto companies go bankrupt and then let them rebuild. What that fellah failed to explain is where the money would come from to rebuild bankrupt GM and Chrysler. There wasn't enough dough available, outside of government dough, to do that. Rmoney's argument is moot anyhoo, as now, both GM and Chrysler have returned to profitability. We can debate why, but what's done is done.
And of course TARP saved the economy, even if most of us feel that it would have been "justice" for greedy bankers to have failed (which of course, would have cost jobs of regular working stiffs and hastened our economic collapse):http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704324304575307071188294124.html
To have allowed banks to simply fail would have cost us a fortune. You haven't seen economic collapse like you would if the US banking system ever totally cratered. We were on the verge of a total US financial collapse and I will defer to the large numbers of economists who feel that TARP was the right thing to do. Some economists argue that if TARP had been bigger, we'd have recovered faster than we are now. Be that as it may, TARP is a done deal.
The biggest goal we should have now is to enact stronger banking safeguards to prevent the greed that nearly killed the US economy, (even tho' members of a certain political party whose name I won't mention beyotche all the time about too many regulations on bidness) and work to create jobs.
Many argue that eliminating the restraints of regulation on bidnesses will create jobs. That's not exactly right. See, bidnesses don't need to create jobs unless there are customers lining up to buy more of their products than they can produce using existing employees. Until consumers are able to buy stuff, employers will not hire additional workers. Ask yourself, why would employers hire additional workers if they were not needed? The question is, how do you get consumers to spend on new stuff? Well, they need more dough. And they need to know they have secure jobs so they can spend that additional dough on new stuff without worrying that they'll need that dough to get themselves through a period of unemployment.
I've said for a long time that we need to have a consumer stimulus. Somehow we have to get more dough to consumers so they'll buy the stuff they have been putting off buying, which **should** cause employers to hire more workers to meet the increased demand. It is reported that American workers have maxed-out on productivity, so if employers want to make dough by meeting the increased demand of more peeps wanting to buy their stuff, then they'd pretty much have no choice but to hire more workers.
My idea of a consumer stimulus is to defer taxes on everyones' first $60K of income. Rich or not rich, all would get that tax break. Taxes would resume at current levels for income over $60K. This would be a temporary tax break, say a couple years. Unlike the Bush tax cut, which was weighted to the wealthy, this tax break would most greatly benefit the middle class, who are the real consumers in our society. And, unlike the Bush tax cut, I would recommend that this tax break be evaluated every 6 months to see if consumer spending and employment were actually going up. If it works, great. If it don't work, end the program after one year.
I doubt if Our Betters™ would like my plan, because they make out like bandits whether our economy is good or bad. They benefit with cheep labor under our current system. The rest of us suffer. And that's a real crock a shytte.
