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If you read this blog, you know that I have really been annoyed with the way the “fixes” to the credit crisis are headed. A mortgage rate freeze that will have us back to this point later, Fed rate cuts that encourage inflation and now a liquidity plan that further aims to put an inadequate band-aid on a gaping hole gushing with blood.
I personally think that some sort of nationalized standard of lending should be developed. You know, one that requires that someone be able to make payments on a mortgage — even after the rate resets. And I certainly don’t approve of all these efforts to “build confidence” rather than actually fix the underlying problem. Nobody bailed out the dotcommers when the tech bubble burst. Why should we bail out those who invested in risky subprime debt?
In order to fix the economy, we have to change the way we view it on a fundamental level. We are all too comfortable with debt, using it as investment vehicles and using easy credit as a way to get things we can’t really afford. Until our society changes its view of debt and makes the appropriate changes, and until we stop relying on debt to drive our economy, anything we do is just a temporary fix, leading us back to this point in the future.
What would YOU do to fix the economy? Comment. Please.
Hi, I have done a little research upon this topic and I found some great stuff…. Our national debt is 11,609,756, 172, 496.00 dollars. There are 306,981,385 people currently citizens of the U.S. so therefore if each of us paid 37,819.00 dollars each we would demolish our national dept. however a better plan would be to take all that money that the federal government is giving away for virtually free and put it back into the bank and change taxes to a flat rate system like 4% for how much you make this would pay back the dept quite fast and we should also invest in solar powered technology to run our government like trafic lights and buildings and such that could run on the sun. Another idea would be bring our troops back to America and take them off duty so we dont have to pay them anymore and stop giving tax breaks to families with lots of kids–they decided to have that many kids so they should deal with their own problems–. Too many posibilities for things to do, and also the terminators idea of cutting off government jobs for a couple days each month is a good start but instead maybe he should cut his pay? And that goes for all senators and governors and government officials.
Furthermore, and you can take this to the courthouse and have it inked if you like. Just wait till 6 months from now, we will hit the depression, and shortly after Obama will have a plan to get us back out of it, he had the plans all along but was waiting. Now the new plan will take 3 months and we will be booming again! The american people will pray and cheer that Obama is the great leader we needed, he will do like Chavez in either Brazil or Columbia (i forget which country he is from) and ask the people if he can make the presidency a nominated seat not an elected seat, and ask for the people to allow a president to spend more than 2 terms in the whitehouse. Since he got us out, and since everyone is zombified by his win, will allow for this to happen, then we move into a new age in our government and our history! A new age of Socialism! We will be the new Russia/China and we will no longer have our own comments/say so in anything! We will live in fear as the book 1984 that was written by Orson Wells (if you haven’t read it please do, great book about BIG BROTHER, in which our government is heading into). Big Brother is the term we use to describe our government now, however the true “Big Brother” is a socialist government, were opinions no longer matter, were freedom was a thing of the past and an excuse to get away with things, the checks and balances of our government is a thing of the past, and Obama will not have to ask the american people, he will just ask congress/senate if it is justifiable, they will in turn look at how well our government has shifted in 3 short months and will pass the bill! Amazing, I was born into a democracy but I died in a socialist government!
want to know why Reps give the rich tax breaks?!! To lessen the prices of goods!
Look the fact of the matter with all of this is one word, this word sums it all up! Ready for it? Greed, GOP and DEMS both have their agenda’s. However Dems state they are for the poor, yet they increase taxes on things the poor needs to survive, and yet those who were taxed now increase prices to regain their losses, which in return makes it harder on the poor! If Mr. Obama wants to get this straightened out before hell breaks loose, i would suggest both dems and reps get together and not leave till something is established, this whole thing where the dems walk out on the reps cause the reps want a better solution is bullshit in the least! You can defend them all you like, but the fact of the matter is, Dems are spoiled little kids, if they can’t get their way then its the highway. At least the Reps have tried, again I state, TRIED to work on a better solution, however its the dems who wont budge on their ideas and force them onto us! We are not a social society/government, so they need to get those ideas out of governments thoughts. We are a democracy and we the american people should have the right to say yay or nay with our tax dollars not the government! I didn’t elect Obama cause of what he stands for, increasing taxes on the rich so they in turn raise their prices on goods so that both can make more money! At least McCain had a better future for us (the poor/hardworking class), “alternative energy plans” that could have started the upward trend in our economy once again! However Obama doesn’t agree with wind/solar/or nuclear energy in hopes of lessening the prices at the pumps (where it needs to start) in order for us to start spending again! My demeanor is not towards the americans but towards our government, I am a vet of two wars, and I can tell you, the Bush’s administration was more for our people than Obama acts! There are things I have read that can prove this however those things are not for everyones eyes (if you catch my drift). There are things happening behind the camera’s we do not see, and the Socialist network aka CNN and other Dem media giants, all point the fingers, and never ever want to accept blame! Whenver a rep does something the media blows it out of proportion, yet when a dem does something, you only hear of it once maybe twice and thats it! The socialist networks need to burn for biased reports while a true news network (which doesn’t exist in the US) would have non-biased reports. The media is tearing our country apart, they are making this sound to be worse than the great depression without taking into consideration amount of information that is hardly ever mentioned… First GD was during a time right after WWI and inclination towards more Populace was on the verge with no jobs, however we now have over 10x the amount of people we did before the first GD. So yes you will see the numbers of unemployment get way out of hand, and yet greed sets in and now everyone wants to follow CNN and Czar Obama!
Unstable and unsustainable growth that led up to this mess. Growth based on debt-fueled consumer spending that you malign. Indeed, BOTH Dems and GOP, and ALL administrations since Reagan have been a fan of this type of economy that works to eliminate natural downcycles for political reasons and encourage deficit spending. The growth is phenomenal for a time, and then it crashes. And as we keep with this cycle — and we will no matter who’s in charge — the growth will get more explosive, and the downturns will be more severe until it finally comes crashing down.
And correct me if i’m wrong Miranda, but wasn’t our highest economic growth during Bush’s Administration?
You will get the same outcome with this Stimulus package as the last one! Save save save, and use credit credit credit! Credit sounds nice, buy now pay later! Thats the clutches of evil, I’m going to let you take this home today, and you can put it on credit! You can not, again CAN NOT, get anything without credit! Try to buy a car with poor credit, I have! Its a nogo, try buying a house with poor credit, yeah you can do it, but you will fall into the same trap that got us here in the first place, an adjustable rate! Who allowed the adjustable rates? Bill Clinton, so this Recession is 12 years in the making! Bill asked the banks to lower their tolerance of credit to allow homes, they took it and ran with it with an adjustable rate! Now to anyone who knows english knows that Adjustable means it slides both ways, therefor it creates confusion. However adjustable rates only go up, and they never come down! Hence the confusion! I do believe as I work in the “Oil and Natural Gas” business, they are mostly to blame, people didn’t want to spend anything with the idea of 5 dollars a gallon on the brink, everything went up due to this, groceries (which is a need), energy (again, a need unless a mountain man), water (need the plants to purify the water which uses energy), and everything non-essential, the “wants”, i.e. tobacco, soda’s, entertainment, etc. Now, that gas has gone down, so should the prices of everything else, but have they? NO! Why? They are now preparing for the worse that the oil and natural gas companies created fear! Every company out there is now, lets take even more from the poor so that we may still operate! Yet the only companies that are able to do this are your groceries companies, i.e. produce, cereals, drinks, and more! The reason they can do this is the fact of Needs! The wants wont benefit as much as it isn’t needed, and majority of people are only concentrating on the needs vs the wants now! The wants is what drives our economy up! But we can’t get our wants if our needs are over priced and unattainable! O wait, they are attainable through CREDIT! Which is where the curroption takes foot! If Barrack sends out that stimulus check, kiss your lifestyle goodbye, instead of fixing the issue it will create a much bigger issue! Cause again, people will go to save the stimulus check instead of spending it, and 800 billion dollars was a waste! Barracks administration has stated they wanted people to go out and spend this money, but do you think the american people will listen? Absolutely not! We have our families to think about, we dont want to end up homeless so the stimulus check will go for the rainey day which is right around the corner!
You are right that greed is a big part of the problem. And, switching our economy around so that sound financial principles were followed would also go a long way. But let’s not just blame the Dems. The GOP has played a role in this as well — and $800 billion is just the tip of the “economic stimulus” spending iceberg. Truth to tell, the most recent package is more likely (though by no means guaranteed) to accomplish more in terms of the economy than the trillions the Bush Administration spent prior.
First off I would say, NO to the economic stimulus package! All the wall street analyst have screamed FOUL for the simple reason more spending is going to drive our economy further into this recession. The analysts have given their opinion to the Democratic 800 Billion Dollar bail out, and did anyone listen? NO! And are we still in a crisis? Yes! The supposed Bail out money would have pushed our economy back to where it needs to be, again supposedly. But yet the Reps were trying to go with another option as they know more spending would drive up more debt which would put us further into this recession. One option of mine would be, drive the price at the pump down, people were scared at the thought of $5 a gallon for gas. So people started saving more of their income and spending more on credit, which put us in more debt! Analyst and the richest man in the world (Warren Buffett) all said, economic stimulus plans would not help, and the 800 billion bail out would only put us further in debt! Now if the analyst who are trained and educated about this all scream foul, shouldn’t we?!! Instead of giving us the stimulus check, take that 880 billion and do something good for our country pay off the debts! The idea of the stimulus check is to get us to further increase our spending to get more products shipped out, to create more jobs, but they are forgetting the debt that is hurting our country! We are in the triple digits of a trillion dollar debt. Lets drive the debt back down, government create jobs from their own pocket (They did this back during the great depression), your CEO’s instead of cutting jobs, cut the payscale, instead of cutting the lower mans pay or laying him off, cut the pay of your managers/dept managers/and anyone else making 60+ dollars an hour (even if they are salary figure out a way to cut it to where its something reasonable so that everyone can still have jobs). Greed has ran America into the ground, lets drive down the amount that people are making a year, instead of laying others off! I will put it this way, I make 22.5 an hour or 47,700 a year before taxes, my manager makes 63 an hour or 136080 a year before taxes. Instead of laying me off, cut my pay to 19 an hour, and cut his to 45 an hour, this way it would allow for both of us to keep our jobs and both of us make a reasonable amount a year! This would greatly suffice for our country, and would make better sense of instead of cutting jobs cutting pay would work better! One school in our country has already started doing this, instead of cutting persons, they asked all teachers to cut 1 days pay of their choice, and the school actually saved more money, and others got to keep their jobs!
Jediman: I’m not national healthcare would fix everything, but it sure would help a lot. It would free up a great deal of spending money for households, and it would cost less than the trillions that they keep throwing at banks.
I have to agree with most opinions on here, and it is evident to me that the elimination of the need for health insurance would dramatically change our economy for the better. We desperately need a National Healthcare System.
Our businesses would then be better able to compete in the world. Outsourcesing would not be as attractive as it is now to the big companies. National Healthcare is how to fix the economy.
It would be definitely…unexpected ;)
One other thought around this idea. If George W. Bush could pull it off while he is still in office he may leave as the most popular president. Wouldn’t that be ironic?
Bruhar
Well Miranda one practical notion is that one million unemployed people would be able to eat for a while and maybe even get a jump start on a new career. Every dime spent feeds the economy in one way or another. The small business owner to the large corporation would bennefit from the spend. It would also sure inspire a lot non tax payers to get on board since they would miss out.
Bruhar
I agree that steady growth is more important than unsustainable growth. I also feel, though, that we should not be so quick to dismiss the value of occasional downcycles. Unfortunately, we have made small downcycles out to be wrong, and we fight them by introducing measures designed to promote growth at an unsustainable level.
At any rate, this is a rather old post (a year old), and so there are very few people indeed still adding comments to it. I’m not sure what you are running for…
VOTE FOR ME. THE I AM NOT A POLITICIAN PARTY.
DOES ANYONE READ THIS?
1st in recession= 1st out. INFRASTRUCTURE @ 40 hrs/wk. NO MORE BOOMS. STEADY MONITORABLE GROWTH, NO GREED (& other 7 deadly sins) OTHERWISE FOLLOW CHINA & NATIONALIZE BEFORE THEY OWN US ANYWAY.
Interesting thought, Bruhar! Give the $300 billion bailout to people rather than companies…Sort of trickle up, rather than trickle down. I don’t know how practicable it would be, but it would probably get a lot of people out of debt and provide leftover for spending…
Pay $100,000.00 taxable dollars to every tax payer with income $250,000.00 or less. This should equate to around three hundred billion dollars and result in instant stimulus to economy and housing and auto industry.