I could only stomach a few short minutes of the idiot-in-chief last night on the radio in what had to have been the most watered down State of the Union address in history. I think President Bush was possessed by Rodney King, with all his, Can't we all get along? crap. Where was the "political capital" he planned on spending or the arrogance of power he already threw at everyone?
Well, maybe it is best to get out on the mild side. It is just too bad he didn't just run his presidency that way in the first place, as a uniter not a divider, or as a compassionate conservative, the way he campaigned into office. We all would not have had to go through these very difficult seven-plus years.
I do, however, have to say some things about this silly stimulus package though and I will probably get pilloried for my comments. But, whatever. Politizine is getting about 100 hits a day now, which is great. I certainly hope that folks will read a bit more into this post than the others because I really think it is relevant.
First, $150 billion handed out in very small amounts [$300 to $1,600] to ordinary folks is not going to turn the economy around. It may help you for a week but it will be a blip on the screen. You may be able to pay some bills or fill up the oil tank, if you live in an area that is cold right now, but it is not going to fix the economy long-term. It will, however, keep you from taking up arms to overthrow the bastards who put us in this fix. It will arrive just in time to pacify the masses before the election. But it won't fix the economy.
Essentially, the federal government is just borrowing this money and putting it on the deficit for our children to pay down many, many years later. It is essentially going to the foreign bankers who are loaning us the money and they will collect interest on it for years and years to come. And, if you go out and use the money to buy a big screen TV, like some of the editorial cartoons have suggested, the money is going straight to China or wherever the TV was made. The foreigners win twice: They get more guaranteed debt and its interest, and they get the cash from the biggest consumer nation in the world. It is all a fraud created by both political parties to keep the American public from looking at the mess these people have perpetrated upon us [As an aside, you would be stupid to spend this money on a new TV. The two big companies selling these TVs will give you free interest for years and years to buy one. So long as you make the payments, it is the same as cash. So, if you really want that new TV, go get it. But don't use this "windfall" money on a new TV].
Granted, if I get the stimulus money, I'm going to take it. Don't get me wrong: I'm no fool. It is already my money and they are giving me a bit back. But, if you're smart, you'll do what we're going to do - you'll pay bills with this money or put this money in your kid's college fund or put it in your own retirement fund and earn some interest on it because we are all going to pay for this later. Better to earn some interest on it now before the bill comes due later. Again, interest on savings is free money.
But if the government really wanted to fix the economy, there are tons of things they could do.
First, they should give everyone $10,000 back, not a $1,000. Why, you ask? Well, that kind of money would actually fix some things in the economy. Car sales are down? Give everyone enough to buy a new or used car! No one has the bloated sub-prime mortgage payment available? Give them some mortgage payments! All those repossessed properties at a bargain basement price need buyers? Give folks the down payment to buy the properties back at a fire sale price.
Sidebar: I saw a pretty skewed "60 Minutes" report Sunday by Steve Kroft about the sub-prime mortgage mess. While he delved into the Wall Street swindlers and the loan officers who were ripping people off and giving them mortgages they never should have received, he seemed to spend way too much time on a few people who reportedly borrowed more than the house was worth to spend the equity. I seriously wonder how many people actually did that compared to the millions of people who were cheated and swindled or did not read the fine print. It is an outrage that anyone was able to do this to the most basic American Dream: Owning your own home.
Now granted, buyer beware. If you didn't read the fine print, you were stupid not to have read the fine print. You really should have. But for the others who were swindled, it is so, so sad.
In the report, Kroft stated that homes were selling for 70 percent below the original asking price in this one town in California, where the houses were totally built on speculation, not unlike Miami, Atlantic, and other places. This means, essentially, that the rich folks will win again. They are the only ones with the money to gobble up all these homes at basement prices. They'll sit on them for a bit and when the economy turns around - and it will - they'll sell them again and make a killing and we'll be on the rollercoaster again.
Well, I have a better idea: with so many homeless folks out there - as we know, there are 200,000 military veterans sleeping under bridges and on grates, according to veterans activists - why aren't these homes being used to help others? If the taxpayers are going to have to bail these folks out - and we will, we always do - shouldn't we be solving problems with the bailouts and not just shuffling money to more folks who will get a cut? Empty condo skyscrapers in Miami? No more, there is an instant public housing unit for the government at pennies on the dollar! Empty homes everywhere? Instant new G.I. Bill. We have vets coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan and many of them need or want homes. Let's give the homes to them at pennies on the dollar [Why am I the only one who seems to think of these things?]
Back to the rant: Instead of this little stimulus refund or an even bigger one, how about a target spending stimulus package?
Expand that hybrid tax credit so that people will buy hybrids. Give people the difference between a Honda Civic - about $17k if you pay full price - and a Prius or Civic hybrid, about $22k to $24k. If they need a bigger car, give them the difference between a Ford Escape and a Ford Escape hybrid. Instant energy consumption savings, instant gas savings for the taxpayer's pocketbook, instant carbon emissions curbing, and the money was spent in the economy, creating jobs, helping those auto companies who have been thinking about the future and not wasting money building Hummers.
How about solar panels or other energy conservation materials which are really expensive to buy? Poof, the government will give you a subsidy to lower your electric bill by installing a solar panel. Instant consumer savings, instant carbon emissions curbing, and money spent to grow the economy and create more green jobs.
Hell, go beyond that: Require every new home to have a solar panel built into it to heat your hot water. The cost is minimal, about $5,000, and will produce free hot water! Again, lowering consumer bills, energy consumption savings, creating jobs, and helping to sustain the home building market by building homes people want and need.
Why is it, that when it comes to consumer spending and war, there is an endless bucket in which to throw resources into but when it comes to anything that will actually fix the nation - either by creating these green jobs or lowering consumer spending, so they can actually deal with the free market economy - there is nothing?
In the end, the real causes of the economic problems are not credit problems or housing problems or even retail spending problems. The economic problems are earning and debt problems. Workers in the United States don't earn enough, we spend too much, and we have too much debt. On top of that, the cost of everything, based on the wars and fuel costs, have created the consumer problems. You can't allow the oil companies to jack up gas by a $1 a gallon over a year and then say, too bad. That sucked up a huge amount of money from the disposable economy which then filtered into the cost of everything, since everything is trucked around the country or shipped around the globe.
In addition, admittedly, most of the debt problems come back to the issue of earnings. Many Americans don't earn enough to sustain the lifestyles they want or have been tricked into believing they should have. So, they spend more and borrow against the future to sustain their lifestyles. I think it is safe to guess that a huge chunk of the population is doing this.
Now, some of this debt is OK. If you have to buy a new car and don't have the money, you pay it off in installments. If you need new equipment for your small business, you borrow money and get it, and pass the cost off to your customers. Sure, buy the new TV, but use the retail company's desperation to sell that TV to your benefit. Two years free financing, same as cash. But anyone who is charging a meal at a restaurant when they could go to the store and buy a few days worth of food with the same amount of money is a fool and that is part of the problem.
And let's be even more honest: There is a good chance that everyone is going to go out and buy a big screen TV when they get that cash. People are stupid like that. So, the money will just be a blip on the economic screen for a couple of weeks. None of the major problems - earnings, spending, and debt - are solved.
I'm in the minority but I think it is time for the nation to start discussing more regulation and more controls over things that are total necessities of life, like gas prices and utility costs, to start. We do this with milk because milk is a necessity to raise children. It is subsidized and regulated. Why don't we do this for gas? Why don't we have this for electricity?
So while you may think the stimulus package is a cure-all or a good idea, I think the opposite. It is foolish and, again, consensusitis between the two political parties to bring us a bunch of phoniness which will not work.
Well, maybe it is best to get out on the mild side. It is just too bad he didn't just run his presidency that way in the first place, as a uniter not a divider, or as a compassionate conservative, the way he campaigned into office. We all would not have had to go through these very difficult seven-plus years.
I do, however, have to say some things about this silly stimulus package though and I will probably get pilloried for my comments. But, whatever. Politizine is getting about 100 hits a day now, which is great. I certainly hope that folks will read a bit more into this post than the others because I really think it is relevant.
First, $150 billion handed out in very small amounts [$300 to $1,600] to ordinary folks is not going to turn the economy around. It may help you for a week but it will be a blip on the screen. You may be able to pay some bills or fill up the oil tank, if you live in an area that is cold right now, but it is not going to fix the economy long-term. It will, however, keep you from taking up arms to overthrow the bastards who put us in this fix. It will arrive just in time to pacify the masses before the election. But it won't fix the economy.
Essentially, the federal government is just borrowing this money and putting it on the deficit for our children to pay down many, many years later. It is essentially going to the foreign bankers who are loaning us the money and they will collect interest on it for years and years to come. And, if you go out and use the money to buy a big screen TV, like some of the editorial cartoons have suggested, the money is going straight to China or wherever the TV was made. The foreigners win twice: They get more guaranteed debt and its interest, and they get the cash from the biggest consumer nation in the world. It is all a fraud created by both political parties to keep the American public from looking at the mess these people have perpetrated upon us [As an aside, you would be stupid to spend this money on a new TV. The two big companies selling these TVs will give you free interest for years and years to buy one. So long as you make the payments, it is the same as cash. So, if you really want that new TV, go get it. But don't use this "windfall" money on a new TV].
Granted, if I get the stimulus money, I'm going to take it. Don't get me wrong: I'm no fool. It is already my money and they are giving me a bit back. But, if you're smart, you'll do what we're going to do - you'll pay bills with this money or put this money in your kid's college fund or put it in your own retirement fund and earn some interest on it because we are all going to pay for this later. Better to earn some interest on it now before the bill comes due later. Again, interest on savings is free money.
But if the government really wanted to fix the economy, there are tons of things they could do.
First, they should give everyone $10,000 back, not a $1,000. Why, you ask? Well, that kind of money would actually fix some things in the economy. Car sales are down? Give everyone enough to buy a new or used car! No one has the bloated sub-prime mortgage payment available? Give them some mortgage payments! All those repossessed properties at a bargain basement price need buyers? Give folks the down payment to buy the properties back at a fire sale price.
Sidebar: I saw a pretty skewed "60 Minutes" report Sunday by Steve Kroft about the sub-prime mortgage mess. While he delved into the Wall Street swindlers and the loan officers who were ripping people off and giving them mortgages they never should have received, he seemed to spend way too much time on a few people who reportedly borrowed more than the house was worth to spend the equity. I seriously wonder how many people actually did that compared to the millions of people who were cheated and swindled or did not read the fine print. It is an outrage that anyone was able to do this to the most basic American Dream: Owning your own home.
Now granted, buyer beware. If you didn't read the fine print, you were stupid not to have read the fine print. You really should have. But for the others who were swindled, it is so, so sad.
In the report, Kroft stated that homes were selling for 70 percent below the original asking price in this one town in California, where the houses were totally built on speculation, not unlike Miami, Atlantic, and other places. This means, essentially, that the rich folks will win again. They are the only ones with the money to gobble up all these homes at basement prices. They'll sit on them for a bit and when the economy turns around - and it will - they'll sell them again and make a killing and we'll be on the rollercoaster again.
Well, I have a better idea: with so many homeless folks out there - as we know, there are 200,000 military veterans sleeping under bridges and on grates, according to veterans activists - why aren't these homes being used to help others? If the taxpayers are going to have to bail these folks out - and we will, we always do - shouldn't we be solving problems with the bailouts and not just shuffling money to more folks who will get a cut? Empty condo skyscrapers in Miami? No more, there is an instant public housing unit for the government at pennies on the dollar! Empty homes everywhere? Instant new G.I. Bill. We have vets coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan and many of them need or want homes. Let's give the homes to them at pennies on the dollar [Why am I the only one who seems to think of these things?]
Back to the rant: Instead of this little stimulus refund or an even bigger one, how about a target spending stimulus package?
Expand that hybrid tax credit so that people will buy hybrids. Give people the difference between a Honda Civic - about $17k if you pay full price - and a Prius or Civic hybrid, about $22k to $24k. If they need a bigger car, give them the difference between a Ford Escape and a Ford Escape hybrid. Instant energy consumption savings, instant gas savings for the taxpayer's pocketbook, instant carbon emissions curbing, and the money was spent in the economy, creating jobs, helping those auto companies who have been thinking about the future and not wasting money building Hummers.
How about solar panels or other energy conservation materials which are really expensive to buy? Poof, the government will give you a subsidy to lower your electric bill by installing a solar panel. Instant consumer savings, instant carbon emissions curbing, and money spent to grow the economy and create more green jobs.
Hell, go beyond that: Require every new home to have a solar panel built into it to heat your hot water. The cost is minimal, about $5,000, and will produce free hot water! Again, lowering consumer bills, energy consumption savings, creating jobs, and helping to sustain the home building market by building homes people want and need.
Why is it, that when it comes to consumer spending and war, there is an endless bucket in which to throw resources into but when it comes to anything that will actually fix the nation - either by creating these green jobs or lowering consumer spending, so they can actually deal with the free market economy - there is nothing?
In the end, the real causes of the economic problems are not credit problems or housing problems or even retail spending problems. The economic problems are earning and debt problems. Workers in the United States don't earn enough, we spend too much, and we have too much debt. On top of that, the cost of everything, based on the wars and fuel costs, have created the consumer problems. You can't allow the oil companies to jack up gas by a $1 a gallon over a year and then say, too bad. That sucked up a huge amount of money from the disposable economy which then filtered into the cost of everything, since everything is trucked around the country or shipped around the globe.
In addition, admittedly, most of the debt problems come back to the issue of earnings. Many Americans don't earn enough to sustain the lifestyles they want or have been tricked into believing they should have. So, they spend more and borrow against the future to sustain their lifestyles. I think it is safe to guess that a huge chunk of the population is doing this.
Now, some of this debt is OK. If you have to buy a new car and don't have the money, you pay it off in installments. If you need new equipment for your small business, you borrow money and get it, and pass the cost off to your customers. Sure, buy the new TV, but use the retail company's desperation to sell that TV to your benefit. Two years free financing, same as cash. But anyone who is charging a meal at a restaurant when they could go to the store and buy a few days worth of food with the same amount of money is a fool and that is part of the problem.
And let's be even more honest: There is a good chance that everyone is going to go out and buy a big screen TV when they get that cash. People are stupid like that. So, the money will just be a blip on the economic screen for a couple of weeks. None of the major problems - earnings, spending, and debt - are solved.
I'm in the minority but I think it is time for the nation to start discussing more regulation and more controls over things that are total necessities of life, like gas prices and utility costs, to start. We do this with milk because milk is a necessity to raise children. It is subsidized and regulated. Why don't we do this for gas? Why don't we have this for electricity?
So while you may think the stimulus package is a cure-all or a good idea, I think the opposite. It is foolish and, again, consensusitis between the two political parties to bring us a bunch of phoniness which will not work.
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