Tag: Economic Plans

We Need An Economic Bill Of Rights

This election cycle there seems to be a call from the Left for a new idea they call the “Economic Bill of Rights”…….Bernie, Warren, Harris et al will call for this to be the law of the land….

I agree…there needs to be some sort of economic reset so that poverty does not become the “law of the land”….

The problem with this idea is that it is old hat…..this idea was floated by FDR back in 1944 just before he died….and the idea apparently died with him for Truman made no mention of it…..there were some of the same ideas being floated by Dems for 2020…..

Among these are:

  • The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
  • The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
  • The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
  • The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
  • The right of every family to a decent home;
  • The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
  • The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
  • The right to a good education.

http://www.ushistory.org/documents/economic_bill_of_rights.htm

What was old is new again!

It’s time to think big. The rules that govern our economy are working best for far too few, at the expense of far too many. While Republicans have sought to dismantle the New Deal and the regulatory apparatus that was developed to protect Americans from an unfettered private sector, Democrats in recent decade have mustered no more than incremental changes to an increasingly unequal and unfair economy. The rise of Donald Trump provides a political lesson for both Democrats and Republicans: People are looking outside the box. Despite the vast gulf between the two major political parties on many issues, on fundamentals both have adhered to a neoliberal agenda of deregulation, reliance on market-based solutions to our social problems, and a devolution of the role of government in ensuring and enforcing Americans’ right to a decent standard of living, economic dignity and economic mobility. 

Direct government intervention for full employment, a cornerstone of the Democratic Party Platform for almost half a century, has been all but forgotten, replaced by a commitment to market liberalization or tax incentives and other subsidies for corporate America to cajole them into hiring more workers. Policies put forth by Hillary Clinton in 2016, which included raising the minimum wage and promoting equal pay for equal work for women, would have improvde the lives of many working Americans – but they do not go nearly far enough.  They do not address the fundamental problem of increasing risk and vulnerability—employment “precarity”—confronting the American workforce.

Let us be clear: Our economic reality is not mere circumstance; these are the result of policy choices.

https://prospect.org/article/economic-bill-rights-21st-century

Ask yourself why the Dem Party forgot this plan until recently.  In an age when Dems were extremely popular why did they abandon such a great program?

I know why…..do you?

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

Now take what you ahe learned and….VOTE!

That “Marshall Plan”

As usual the old professor is about to drop some history on you….was that an eye roll?

Whenever some economic plan comes about it is compared to the Marshall Plan of the 1940s….but since the nation is so damn young now how many actually knows what the Plan was about?

Well I can help with that lack of knowledge……

The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent. The brainchild of U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, for whom it was named, it was crafted as a four-year plan to reconstruct cities, industries and infrastructure heavily damaged during the war and to remove trade barriers between European neighbors – as well as foster commerce between those countries and the United States.

In addition to economic redevelopment, one of the stated goals of the Marshall Plan was to halt the spread communism on the European continent.

Implementation of the Marshall Plan has been cited as the beginning of the Cold War between the United States and its European allies and the Soviet Union, which had effectively taken control of much of central and eastern Europe and established its satellite republics as communist nations.

The Marshall Plan is also considered a key catalyst for the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance between North American and European countries established in 1949.

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/marshall-plan-1

But with this gesture of goodwill was not without a bunch of myths…..was not all rainbows and unicorns……

Perhaps the most persistent and enduring myth in modern British history is that the country did badly, in comparison with its European neighbours, out of the Marshall Plan, the scheme of American largesse that funded the reconstruction of war-ravaged western Europe. But it is simply not true.

West Germany received $1.7 billion of postwar aid from the United States, which it invested primarily in capital and infrastructure, paving the way for the Wirtschaftswunder, the postwar economic miracle that turned the country into a manufacturing powerhouse, which, even after the considerable cost of reunification in 1990, it remains.

Britain, as victor, had an understandable sense of entitlement – and let us not forget the nature of the regime that it and its Empire had helped defeat – but, as an indication of the sacrifice it had made, it ended the conflict with an economy more like that of a defeated or occupied nation.

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/editor/marshall-myths

You now know more than you did before reading…..

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

Modern Monetary Policy

Yep I am about to bore the crap out of my reader…..when it comes to economics the average person glazes over and goes to that “happy place” in the mind until the talk is finished.

But I feel I need to drop some info on my readers……there has been much in the MSM about the Green New Deal and the proposals by a couple of candidates about taxing the rich……

I want to give my reader a look into the policies and the economics of them…..

First the call to “Tax The Rich”……

I don’t consider myself an MMTer, but there is a basic Keynesian concept which has been associated with MMT, which is both true and important. For the federal government, taxes are not about raising revenue, taxes are about reducing consumption to prevent inflation.

The point is that the federal government does not need taxes for revenue, since it can just print money. It instead taxes to create the room in the economy for government spending. This view is sometimes wrongly taken as a “get of jail free” card, where the government can spend whatever it wants without worrying about raising revenue.

That could be true in a deep downturn. However, if the economy is near its full employment level of output, where additional demand will lead to rising inflation, we are pretty much back in the world where we need taxes to offset spending. Any major increase in government spending will lead to higher inflation, unless we have higher taxes or have some other mechanism to reduce demand in the economy.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/20/modern-monetary-theory-and-taxing-the-rich/

Next how about that Green New Deal that is getting the conservs lathered up to the point that they resurrect a fear from the 1950s……

Much of the Democratic Party, including almost the entire pack of contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, has embraced the concept of a Green New Deal (GND). This is an ambitious plan for slashing greenhouse gas emissions, while at the same time creating good-paying jobs, improving education, and reducing inequality.

At this point, the specific policies entailed by these ambitious goals are largely up for grabs, as is the question of how to pay for this agenda. One way of paying for it, borrowing from the economic doctrine know as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), is that we don’t have to.

Modern Monetary Theory argues that a government that prints its own currency is not constrained in its spending by its tax revenue. Some on the left have argued that we can just print whatever money we need to finance a GND. This claim does not make sense.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/03/18/paying-green-new-deal-modern-monetary-theory
 
All this is possible…it will NEVER fly with conservs who live and die on tax cuts……a real shame….for this countries needs big ideas once again…..the Repubs are NOT those people.

Those Inevitable Sanctions

Sanctions seems to be the word of the Trump administration…..we have imposed sanctions on Iran, China, Russia, Venezuela and several others…..sanctions are the only diplomatic tactic the president and his band of slow thinking slugs have in their book of “things to do”…..

Recently the Trump admin has issued more sanctions against Venezuela….because they are subverting democracy (at least that is the excuse….this time)……

Personally I do not believe that these sanctions will work without covert action by one of our shadowy groups…sanctions do not work as a sole penalty…..they are basically a feel good attempt to control another nation.

Economic sanctions are the penalties of choice for the start of hostilities with any given nation…..the US uses this penalty liberally (that is with a small “L”)……in recent history sanctions have been imposed in Iraq, Iran, Venezuela (most recently) and in all that time what has it accomplished?

Good question, right?

But what is included in “sanctions”?

The Council on Foreign Relations defines sanctions as “a lower-cost, lower-risk, middle course of action between diplomacy and war.” Money is that middle course, and economic sanctions are the means. Some of the most common punitive financial measures include:

  • Tariffs: Surcharges on imported goods, often imposed to aid domestic industries and markets.
  • Quotas: Limits on the number of goods that may be imported or exported. 
  • Embargoes: Restrictions on or cessation of trading with a nation or bloc of nations. These can include limiting or banning travel by individuals to and from nations.
  • Non-tariff barriers: These are designed to make foreign goods more expensive by complying with onerous regulatory requirements.
  • Asset seizure/freeze: Capturing or holding the financial assets of nations, citizens, or preventing the sale or moving of those assets. 

If the US is honest then they would also state that sanctions only work about 30% of the time…..that is not a good chance for success.

If the reader would like more info on what sanctions are about………https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-are-economic-sanctions

I am opposed to these types of punitive action because they seldom have the intended result of punishing the elites and leadership of any given nation instead the average person suffers far more than the intended targets.

Economic sanctions have long been used as a foreign policy tool, sometimes perceived as the tool of choice for nations where diplomacy has failed to yield desired results. Yet as widely used as they are, and despite the fact that some sanctions may remain in place for years, they generally fail to achieve their objectives. One of the most definitive studies on the effectiveness of sanctions — covering the period from 1915 to 2006 — has shown that comprehensive sanctions are effective at best 30 percent of the time, and that the more comprehensive the level of sanctions, the lower their degree of success. In spite of this, sanctions remain one of the few internationally accepted means (short of military conflict) of attempting to change the behavior of national leaders.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-wagner/do-sanctions-work_b_7191464.html

Again the people of the targeted nation suffer far more than the elites…..so the conclusion is that economic sanctions have a dismal record of success…….of course the establishment will point to the success of sanctions against South Africa in the 1980s…..they will ignore the failures like Iraq in the 1990s, Iran since 1979……

In short economic sanctions, in my opinion, are a worthless exercise that punish NO one but the people to the targeted nation……diplomacy is more effective (at least it was prior to the Trump presidency)……

Closing Thought–25Jun18

The past week the screaming and yelling on the news and in most so-called conserv blogs has been about the border situation….if I need to catch you up then try Google I will not waste my time…..but the news that the corporate Americans would be watching have very little to do with the border…..

Following tariffs recently imposed on steel and aluminum, U.S. businesses have been forced to pay more than $110 million in tariffs in just 13 days according to the Customs and Border Patrol. The U.S. took in $82.2 million in steel tariffs and $28.3 million in aluminum tariffs between June 1-14.

The unintended consequences of tariffs are vast, and have a harmful ripple effect throughout our economy. In just two weeks, U.S. businesses could have spent $110 million in a much different way. Consider the following:

$110 million is enough to hire 2,000 out of work Americans at $55k salaries for an entire year.

$110 million is enough to purchase 4,000 brand new, American made, Jeep Wranglers using the MSRP of $27,495.

https://freedompartners.org/press/report-tariffs-cost-u-s-businesses-more-than-100-million-in-just-two-weeks/

Apparently “Freedom Partners” is not here to cover the horrible policies to this man we call “president”….

I realize that economics is not something most conservs can get a grip on…but all the yelling about the border has done nothing to strengthen our economy and neither has the policies of the dude in the White House.  (Please do not taunt the stock market as proof….there is more to an economy than the markets….if you need a quick refresher course on economics…..https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/economics)

Time for a change…..period!

Trumponomics

I recently read a fellow blogger and friend’s post about the Pres. Trump and the MSM on economics…..and it got me to thinking….but before I throw my couple of pennies into the fray…here is his post….

Source: Lame Stream Ignores Record-Breaking Stock Market Performance Under Trump | The More Than Unlikely Kingdom Of An Imaginary Billionaire Named John

I have said many times that Trump needs to hype the excellent market figures and the unemployment stats when he makes his on-the-road speeches.

There will be some that will say that the good economic news is just hold overs from Obama….but Trump is doing what every president, nay every leader has done….if you are the sitting leader then take credit for the good news…nothing wrong there.

After I read my fellow blogger’s post I got to looking into the thing some will call “Trumponomics”.

I found an interview that was posted on the pro-Libertarian site, The Unz Review……

SHARMINI PERIES: It’s the Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore. The rise of stock prices in the US stock market could be an indication of economic growth and prosperity, but it could also be an indication of the concentration of wealth of the rich and powerful. Which is it? To answer that question, we need to look at other economic indicators. In the press conference that President Trump had just a few days ago announcing his new chief of staff, General John Kelly, Trump took the opportunity to give himself credit for the rising stock prices. Let’s listen.

Source: Trumponomics and the Stock Market – The Unz Review

I found another op-ed that covers the phenon called “Trumponomics”

It has been six months since US President Donald Trump took office.

Amid a slow and disorderly White House transition – including a string of prominent departures – and an ongoing investigation into his Russia ties, Trump is trying to divert the world’s attention to the US economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average just hit the 22,000 mark for the first time in its 121-year history. Stocks headed higher even as Wall Street lost confidence that Trump’s election proposals like tax cuts and infrastructure spending will be pushed through Congress.

Source: ‘Trumponomics’: Making America great again? | USA | Al Jazeera

Trump needs to focus on these small successes and less on who said what about him…..make the case for Trumponomics…..it will force the MSM to cover and comment.

What To Expect From The Economy

I am spending Trump’s first full week writing about the situations that he will be facing and even predicting a few things to come…..

Just how are most Americans coping these days with the economy and their finances?

Minor emergencies like a busted pipe, flat tire or a root canal happen all the time. But for the majority of Americans, such inconveniences are potential recipes for financial ruin, according to a new survey by finance site Bankrate.com.

In the survey released on Wednesday, Bankrate found that 63 percent of Americans don’t have enough saved to cover even a $500 financial setback. And just half of higher income respondents (defined as $75,000 or more in annual earnings) said they have enough cash to handle such an emergency.

Source: Most Americans Lack Reserve Cash to Cover $500 Emergency: Survey – NBC News

Now there will be those on the Right that will have lots to say about these findings….none of which will be accurate…..

Let’s move on…….what can we expect in the economy in Trump’s first 100 days?

For President-elect Trump, boosting economic growth and creating more good-paying jobs recovery will not prove easy. George W. Bush campaigned on — and delivered — lower taxes and more limited government, but his economic expansion was no more robust than Barack Obama’s and ended with the 2007/08 financial crisis.

Mr. Trump has promised a lot that will be difficult to accomplish, because federal resources are limited. Without any new tax or spending initiatives, the federal deficit will grow as more baby boomers retire, and congress will not always cooperate.

Still public confidence is as important as government policies for inspiring growth, and he can still spell out a robust agenda during his first 100 days. Here are five things to look for in the new president’s first days.

Source: What to expect from the economy in Trump’s first 100 days | Fox News

FOX News, huh?

Not always the most accurate source for actual news but this one is something to consider when dealing with the economy….Morici is a respected economist so his opinions are worth considering…..

The last factor he, Morici, covers is that of trade…….and then word has come out about one of Trump’s first EOs….(more on EOs later today)…….

President Donald Trump on Monday will unravel the behemoth trade deal he inherited from his predecessor, as two sources familiar with the matter told CNN he plans to sign an executive order to withdraw from the negotiating process of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

That executive order will send signals to Democrats and leaders in foreign capitals around the world that Trump’s rhetoric on trade during the campaign is turning into action. Trump vowed during the campaign to withdraw the US from the Pacific trade deal, commonly known as TPP, which he argued was harmful to American workers and manufacturing.
The executive order is expected to be the first Trump will issue Monday, a senior White House official said, and will amount to the administration’s first major action on foreign policy.
(cnn.com)
The economy will be one of the indicators to tell whether the Trump plans are working or not.

Only thing that is obvious is the Goldman-Sachs will have a good couple of years…..

Trump’s Economic Plan

To say that I have been disappointed in the results of Trump’s search for a cabinet would be an understatement…..so far his picks have been nothing more that the same vermin that has always been in the swamp.

And then there is his much taunted economic plan for the country…..to make the “country great again”…..personally I do not like what I see….does not appear to benefit any of us peasants that he tried to champion…..

But let’s look……

Trump’s economic plan can be broken into three parts: Tax cuts, deregulation and fiscal stimulus.

As far as tax cuts, there are three main subsets:

1–The corporate tax rate, which Trump wants to drop from 35 percent to 15 percent.

2–A tax cut on the so-called “repatriation of funds”– which lowers the rate on roughly $2 trillion of cash that’s currently stashed overseas by uber-rich US businesses that have been evading US corporate taxes for years. Trump wants to give these tax dodgers a one-time “holiday” with a 10% penalty for companies that agree to bring their cash back to the US. Trump believes that the one-time tax break will increase business investment and employment in the US. Critics say the scheme will not work unless the economy strengthens and demand grows.

3–Trump also wants to reduce the top tax rate from 39.6% to 33%, while making modest reductions to the other brackets. Under the Trump plan, “a taxpayer who makes between $48,000 to $83,000 a year would save about $1,000 (while) people in the top 0.01%, making $3.7 million or more in a year, would receive $1 million in annual tax savings.”

Source: Trump’s Economic Plan: This Isn’t Going to Work – The Unz Review

I know that his diehard supporters think he will do some miraculous things….but I just cannot see it….

Even the GOP House is not on-board with Trump……..

Donald Trump isn’t going to have a honeymoon period with House Republicans, if the frosty response to his call for a 35% tariff on companies leaving the US is anything to go by. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was among those pushing back against the policies Trump called for in a series of tweets over the weekend, the AP reports. “I don’t want to get into some kind of trade war,” McCarthy said, arguing that lowering corporate tax rates would be a much better way to stop companies leaving the country. “We’ve got to have a level playing field, that companies in America can compete on a level playing field across the world, and right now we do not have one.” McCarthy said it was healthy for a president to get involved in saving American jobs—but he believes in the free market, not “picking winners and losers.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan also called for policies more in keeping with the traditional GOP position on free trade, reports the New York Times. “We can get at the goal here, which is to keep American businesses American, build things in America, and sell them overseas—that can be properly addressed with comprehensive tax reform,” he said. Trump’s tariff plan, which is likely to need congressional approval, may have more fans among Democrats. Trump “won in part by campaigning against the Republican establishment on many economic issues,” said Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, the next Senate minority leader. “If he wants to get something done for working families in this country, he’ll have to stand up to them when it comes time to govern, too.”

Will he, Trump, learn to work with his “buds” in the House?

He has promised an infrastructure boom, a huge military, tax reform, on and on and on….one question Mr. Trump……

Where you gonna get all this f*cking money?

Donald Trump’s Infrastructure Plan

I have been doing a mini series both pro and con on Trump’s big deal for the infrastructure…..it is an ambitious plan at that but I do not see it being viable without some sort of tax increase….

This piece is critical of his stated plan for the infrastructure…..it is the con side of the debate…..

The plan suffers from five fatal flaws:

  1. The plan would push state and local governments to use equity capital that can cost 300 percent to 500 percent more than capital raised through traditional municipal bonds.
  2. The plan would provide no support for thousands of critical maintenance and reconstruction projects.
  3. The plan would raise taxes on middle-class Americans in the form of high-cost tolls and other user fees necessary to satisfy the 10 percent to 14 percent annual returns demanded by equity investors.3
  4. The plan would leave behind rural communities and smaller cities and towns that are not large enough to generate sufficient toll or other user fee revenues to satisfy equity investors.
  5. The plan would not meaningfully increase total economic activity, employment, or real wages.

Source: How Donald Trump’s Infrastructure Plan Fails America – Center for American Progress

Our infrastructure is one small glitch from a disaster…..I am all for improving the system….but I do not believe this is the answer to the coming problem….

The problem as I see it……his plan will crap all over the GOP stable of “small government”….but then he would not be first….would he?…..

Pres. Trump’s Infrastructure Plan

During the 2016 campaign president-elect Trump offered his plan for getting America great again…..he has a plan to spend about $1 trillion on infrastructure over a 10 year period….putting America back to work and renovating our aging infrastructure…..

I read an op-ed about Trump’s idea…there are not many out there right now….but that could change…..

Donald Trump was an outsider who boldly stormed the citadel of Washington DC and won. He has promised real change, but his infrastructure plan appears to be just more of the same – privatizing public assets and delivering unearned profits to investors at the expense of the people. He needs to try something new; and for this he could look to Abraham Lincoln, whose bold solution was very similar to one now being considered in Europe: just print the money.

Source: Trump’s $1 Trillion Infrastructure Plan: Lincoln Had a Bolder Solution – LA Progressive

Ambitious to say the least….workable?  I am not so sure.  Why?  Can you imagine the US Congress approving the spending of that kind of scratch on anything other than the Pentagon?  I can’t!

There is no doubt that our infrastructure needs some help….but will the GOP see it that way….they have not in the past.

Will they, the GOP,  have a change of heart?