Wednesday, October 20, 2010

THIS is worth your read...Tom did a fabulous job writing about the economy.

19 comments:

cube said...

Thanks for the post. It was a sobering read.

Re: November, I so hope my misgivings are wrong and we pull off a huge win.

WomanHonorThyself said...

hey Z..I'm trying to be optimistic but its getting harder all the time..hugs!

FrogBurger said...

it's deja vu all over again for me. 80s's socialism in France ruined everything.

But I am going to sound a bit alarming but I think the mix of socialist ideology with a political system dominated by lobbies like in the US will actually be a lot worse.

Hopefully November will revert things and the GOP will get his act together and stop behaving like statists.

Statism is the enemy whether it's socialism or religious-based statism.

Joe said...

That was a good post! Tom is one of my regular reads.

FB: "Statism is the enemy..." That is the truest of truisms!

Opus #6 said...

Statism: what our forefathers warned us about.

By the way, I smiled about the cocktail dress thing. Only ladies I know in cocktail dresses at 6am are the ones who never made it home the night before to get changed.

Z said...

Opus, you know I almost said "wearing that kind of clothes at 6:30 AM is silly unless you're coming HOME in them!" (great minds!)

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

And so the "Hope" is that Democrats will retain control of Congress after Bush's tax cuts expire (on December 31st, 2010) and the "Change" is spending more to make Reagan era deficit spending seem minor and stingy, so the government can claim it needs more money from taxes so it can subsidize your totalitarianism pills in red or blue or neon stupid.

That's the hope and change they're pitching.

The Republican victory in November needs to be bittersweet. They must live in fear and awe that we can vote their asses out too.

Z said...

Beamish, while I thought DeMint's timing was some of the worst I'd ever seen, he just fired the first shot warnings to RINO's on FOX....

Ducky's here said...

I'm waiting for one of these write wingers to tell me how the necessary 4% minimum growth rate that would be needed to lower unemployment can be achieved.

It's nice to toss around the bromides and get the back slaps from the right wing fringe but I hear nothing about how it's going to be achieved except little "supply side" silliness.

Well, we got trouble. That much you have right.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

I'm waiting for one of these write wingers to tell me how the necessary 4% minimum growth rate that would be needed to lower unemployment can be achieved.

It's nice to toss around the bromides and get the back slaps from the right wing fringe but I hear nothing about how it's going to be achieved except little "supply side" silliness.


Well obviously we need to tax the shit out of all growth industries and spend six times more than we're taking in. Steady on with the Messiah's miracle.

Golly. Republicans should just sit down and be quiet for that obviously superior leftist path to stupid.

Bloviating Zeppelin said...

Then as now I wrote:

"Tom, you’ve made an excellent post here. More people should read it. Level-headed and truthful analysis about what we’ve done and what we’re doing — and apparently, unless stopped, what we’re going to CONTINUE to do.

Things will come crashing down . . .

BZ

The Vegas Art Guy said...

Ducking it's simple...

Lower taxes and remove the uncertainy and the economy will improve. If you do the unthinkable and remove some of the asinine regulations it will grow faster.

If you add more regulations and taxes the economy will not recover.

Even my 8th grade daughter knows that...

But you just keep on thinking that us 'write' (PS it's "right" as in I'm right and you're not) wingers are a bunch of inbred morons who bitterly cling to our religion and guns. I like it when people misunderestimate me...

Z said...

Vegas, I"m hearing a lot of worry about that 'uncertainty'..companies feeling like they'd like to hire people but scared witless of the tax situation and the health care abomination........They don't want to have to hire and then fire.
Also, I was so disheartened to hear my private ins. agent tell me my premiums will go so high I won't be able to afford it and will have to go on the gov't plan (remember when I said Obama was either dumb or lying about 'You can keep your insurance if you like it?'..well, here it is, the truth). ALl his clients are sitting tight and worried.

THere's no optimism; people know we've borrowed way too much, are spending too much, and heck, even if they agree with the spending, nobody knows exactly WHERE IT IS!
Obama was 'shovel ready' and only the Right knew what he was REALLY shoveling.

Ducky's here said...

Sure Vegas , just lower taxes, it's simple.

So you create more public debt in return for lowering private debt. Oh wait, if people pay down debt it isn't going to generate growth.

This might be more complicated than you think, if you do.

Z said...

Ducky, do you REALLY think that we're simple minded as that?
"Lower taxes and the problem's gone?"
There will be other actions necessary, a LOT of VERY unpleasant belt tightening and some of us are ready for that.
SOMETHING has to be done..heck, maybe we can even give BACK some of that ridiculous sum of money we've borrowed; nobody seems to know where the biggest part of it's gone, anyway!

The Vegas Art Guy said...

Is that really the best you can do Duckling?

If you lower taxes both people and corporations will have more money to spend and invest. When they do that the economy picks up and more people go from unemployment where they add to the deficit to working where they begin to pay into the system. In addition they can also begin to spend more money which means that business make more money and pay more in -gasp- taxes. In addition they begin to hire more employees and the cycle continues.

The opposite also applies. If you raise taxes there is less money for people and corporations to spend and invest and the unemployed stay that way. In addition to that the people who invest in start up companies are not investing right now because the federal government is so hostile to business that they don't see any upside to spending their money so those small companies that usually lead recoveries never get off the ground.

I guess I also need to state the obvious that the government has to spend far less money than it does now.

I'd love to give you a beamish length reply but I have grading I need to catch up on.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

I'd love to give you a beamish length reply...

Heh!

Feeding the swine some pearls isn't necessary. Ducky already choked...

"So you create more public debt in return for lowering private debt. Oh wait, if people pay down debt it isn't going to generate growth."

Don't tell us, tell your fellow leftist Obama who told us his stimulus plan would stop unemployment from rising over 8% and decrease it to less than 7% by the beginning of 2011.

The world economy was saved from absolute collapse by Obama and we'll never see unemployment hit 8%, remember?

Sit down and shut up, you idiot.

Dave Miller said...

But Vegas, the largest single percentage of the stimulus was for tax cuts and tax breaks to individuals.

If it isn't working, perhaps it is because as many economists noted, it was not big enough.

But let's be honest here, how many conservatives are pushing for the extension of the tax cuts, tax breaks, and tax relief measures that President Obama signed into law as part of that stimulus?

Very few. And I guess we should be asking, if conservatives want lower lower taxes, why not?

Here's the link...

http://www.propublica.org/special/stimulus-plan-taxcut-list

The Vegas Art Guy said...

If it had just been tax cuts you might see a difference but it's everything else that, like weeds, choke everything else out. Look what happened when Reagan and Bush cut taxes. And do you think it's fair that the lowest tax bracket is going to take a 50% hit when their rate goes from 10 to 15%? How about that estate tax that goes from 0% to 55%?
How about the increase in the capital gains tax? Who the flizz is going to invest their money when the IRS gets a 28% cut?

Why is it OK to punish success? I want people to work hard at something they love and make money. Hell I want Ducky to make lots of money, as long as he earns it with his own labor. But this is nonsense... Do we really want to become France and/or Greece? Seriously?