Tag: Economic Recovery

Are You Better Off?

Remember when that is asked almost every election when a candidate is trying to make the voter think about their situation (like the voter ever thinks about any thing important)…..

Pollsters are still asking that question every election and sometimes the answers surprise me and maybe you as well.

Apparently Repubs think that we are better off since the election of Trump…….

A huge majority of Republicans think the United States is in better shape now than it was four years ago. This view stands in stark contrast to the opinion of voters at large.
A CBS News poll found that 75% of self-identifying Republican voters think the country is better off than it was in 2016, while 25% disagreed with the premise.

“For most Republicans, America is a nation where the economy is still fairly good, where the effort to handle the coronavirus is going at least somewhat well and the president is doing a very good job on it,” CBS News notes.

75% of Republicans Believe the Country Is Better Off Than It Was Four Years Ago

Did I miss something?

Over 20 million people are unemployed……are all them Dems….apparently no Repubs are unemployed if they think that they are better off than four years ago.

But not to worry….even the Dems have turned their backs on the unemployed……

Three weeks after the US Congress went on vacation and allowed federal supplemental unemployment benefits to expire for 20 million workers, cutting their benefits by $600 a week, the House of Representatives stabbed the unemployed in the back a second time.

The Democratic Party-controlled House reconvened in the midst of its August recess, passed emergency legislation on the US Postal Service, and then adjourned without taking any action on the plight of those thrown out of work by the coronavirus crisis.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to act on the appeal by nearly 100 members of her own caucus, who sent a letter asking that the reconvened House take up legislation to restore federal extended benefits for tens of millions of workers.

The refusal of Pelosi and other leading Democrats to take action on the unemployment crisis shows that the Democratic Party’s claim to uphold the interests of working people is a political fraud. The Democrats jump to attention when Wall Street demands a bailout, but they have no time for workers facing poverty, hunger, eviction and homelessness

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/24/unem-a24.html

I have always heard that Americans vote with their wallets….if they are well off then they will rewarded the candidate that is n the Big Chair…..but I am questioning just how accurate that BS is……if a country that is massively unemployed can think they are better off….delusion can accomplish a lot, huh?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Time For Another Marshall Plan?

At the end of World War 2 there was a plan, the Marshall Plan, to help rebuild the countries devastated by war in Europe….

The Marshall Plan was a massive program of aid from the United States to sixteen western and southern European countries, aimed at helping economic renewal and strengthening democracy after the devastation of World War II. It was started in 1948 and was officially known as the European Recovery Program, or ERP, but is more commonly known as the Marshall Plan, after the man who announced it, US Secretary of State George Marshall.

WW2 severely damaged the economies of Europe, leaving many in a parlous state: cities and factories had been bombed, transport links had been severed and agricultural production disrupted. Populations had been moved, or destroyed, and a tremendous amount of capital had been spent on weapons and related products. It’s not an exaggeration to say the continent was a wreck. 1946 Britain, a former world power, was close to bankruptcy and had to pull out of international agreements while in France and Italy there was inflation and unrest and the fear of starvation.

I bring up this bit of history because of the Middle East wars…..and something I read.

Throughout the most recent US war in Iraq, the massive damage done in the course of heavily bombing major cities and destroying bridges was seen as just another bill the US would be stuck with afterwards. The Trump Administration doesn’t see it that way, however.

So while Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will be in attendance at next week’s reconstruction conference, officials say he is not expected to offer up any American contribution to the estimated $100 billion in reconstruction Iraqi officials say they need.

Rather, US officials say they expect Iraq’s neighbors to “pour in money” as a way to improve relations over the long term, and to try to limit Iran’s substantial influence inside Iraq.

Yet Iraq doesn’t have that many non-Iran neighbors, and while Saudi Arabia is likely to contribute to fix damage in the Sunni part of Iraq, it’s probably not going to approach $100 billion. With Iraq’s own budget stretched thin, repairing the parts of Iraq the US destroyed over the past two years is likely to be a very slow effort indeed.

(antiwar.com)

Sorry but since we decided to invade then occupy then totally destroy the country of Iraq it should be on our heads to assist in the reconstruction of the country’s economy.  And yes I know we need that cash here in this country…..but if we broke it we need to fix it.

AS part of any contract to fight a war these industries should be made to contribute to the reconstruction also.  A new Marshall Plan would be the best idea.

Another GOP Tax Plan (YAWN)

Can you believe it?  The most interesting thing of the week is a tax plan…..sad state of news……

It is the silly season….that is election season…..and there is a wealth of people on the GOP side that want to be the nominee for the party come next November…….and each one of them has some sort of tax plan…..and all are about the same…….. tax cuts……but there are a couple that have plans that stand out…..Romney, the perceived nominee by many pundits, has a plan that has about the same amount of pages as War and Peace and then there is the famous Cain/Koch plan….the 999…..and now the bully of the pulpit, Rick Perry has released his long awaited plan that he will bump on with Cain’s plan.

Perry has a name for his plan….not as catchy as Plan 999….but a name anyway….it is called the “cut, balance and grow” plan……not to be confused with another plan that had a similar name…..this one is a flat tax….if you recall when Forbes ran for president about a century  ago (not really but it seems like that long)….it was a bust then and guess what?  It is a bust now!

“Cut, Balance and Grow strikes a major blow against the Washington-knows-best mindset. It takes money from spendthrift bureaucrats and returns it to families. It puts fewer job-killing regulations on employers and more restrictions on politicians. It gives more freedom to Americans to control their own destiny. And just as importantly, the Cut, Balance and Grow plan paves the way for the job creation, balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility we need to get America working again,” Perry writes.

The major points are…..It would reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent, eliminate taxes on dividends and many capital gains and essentially cap individual tax rates at 20 percent. Perry argues these tax cuts will spur economic growth by creating a more favorable environment for wealthy individuals and corporations to start or expand their businesses.

LOL…that means Laugh out Loud!  Just like all flat taxes it will benefit NO one but the wealthy….no matter the rhetoric….and the poor will get a f*cking that they shall never recovery from anytime soon.

TAX CUTS!  Wealthy get all the benefits!  The GOP has NO idea what to do about the economy other than throwing more money at the very people that caused the economic meltdown…..maybe we should starting looking for real economists to run the economy since there are very few economists in Congress….I think we could do better than the wimps we have now….

You know if the wealthy kicked in a buck every time the GOP used the term “Tax Cuts” we could be well on our way to solving the deficit.

The Little Engine That Could

Today is one of my days of Zen, but I feel that I must for go those days because of the events in the past week demands that I stay on topic…….hopefully I can return to my whimsical posts on the weekends that have very little to do with the politic doings of the week…….bear with me for I am a sick puppy…….

We have heard both sides of the jobs debate calling the engine of the recovery will be small businesses….that any taxes will harm the recovery and kill those small businesses……and we cannot have that….now can we?  And then there was Obama’s new proposal to give tax cuts to small businesses that hire new employees…….

When you hear Obama or his opponents, the Repubs, mention the small businesses….what do you think of?  (pause here for a moment or two for thought)………I would bet that you think of that Mom and Pop grocery store on the corner of Main and 5th…..or maybe it is that cute little bakery in the walking mall……or how about that liquor store on the way home that you get relief from the day’s hassles…..am I close?

All in all you would be close but unfortunately….NO CIGAR!  Yes Mom and Pop would be a small business….but then according to the SBA so would a cigarette maker that employs 1000 people……I know…..huh?

The SBA Act also states: “…a small business concern is one that is independently owned and operated and which is not dominant in its field of operation.” Size standards vary by classification. The average standards, by occurrence in the SBA table, are 500 employees or $7 million a year in sales. A very general rule-of-thumb is the size of most manufacturers and wholesalers is determined by the number of employees while the size of the remaining businesses are determined by yearly receipts.

So you see about 90% or more of the companies in this country can be considered small business, as per the SBA definition……so when the Repubs talk about helping small business they are really talking about the larger companies…..you see….they are lying!  And when Obama talks about the tax cuts and incentives to get small business to create jobs…..he is talking about larger companies…..for they both know that a true small business doing its part even in this recession…..what they need is to help the larger companies enhance their profits with the hope that if they do that that they will hire a few people……

In closing…..it is a play on words…..it is a scam!  They are only helping those that can help them.  Mom and Pop are just the hook to get you to side with the larger companies…….it helps them sound like they are on your side…..but that is a lie!  It is ALL a lie and the sooner you realize that, the sooner we can start doing something about all the BS from Washington…..

If I Can Do It….Why Not Them?

Daily Agitator

As consumer of the news we hear all the rhetoric about the budget….all the stuff like….If I can balance my budget, so can the government……if family work with a balanced budget then so should the government….and I am sure there is other comparisons that I am missing….but these are the most notable ones and the reader gets the drift….The Tea Party seems to be the ones with the most to say about the 2 budgets, family’s and government’s…..but all that bluster is all so much CRAP!

That is right!  CRAP!  Say it with me….CRAP!

But why is it crap?

A very good explanation was written by Randall Wray on the website, New Deal 2.0……..

1. The US federal government is 221 years old, if we date its birth to the adoption of the Constitution. Arguably, that is about as good a date as we can find, since the Constitution established a common market in the US, forbade states from interfering with interstate trade (for example, through taxation), gave to the federal government the power to levy and collect taxes, and reserved for the federal government the power to create money, to regulate its value, and to fix standards of weight and measurement-from whence our money of account, the dollar, comes. I don’t know any head of household with such an apparently indefinitely long lifespan. This might appear irrelevant, but it is not. When you die, your debts and assets need to be assumed and resolved. There is no “day of reckoning”, no final piper-paying date for the sovereign government. Nor do I know any household with the power to levy taxes, to give a name to — and issue — the currency we use, and to demand that those taxes are paid in the currency it issues.

2. With one brief exception, the federal government has been in debt every year since 1776. In January 1835, for the first and only time in U.S. history, the public debt was retired, and a budget surplus was maintained for the next two years in order to accumulate what Treasury Secretary Levi Woodbury called “a fund to meet future deficits.” In 1837 the economy collapsed into a deep depression that drove the budget into deficit, and the federal government has been in debt ever since. Since 1776 there have been exactly seven periods of substantial budget surpluses and significant reduction of the debt. From 1817 to 1821 the national debt fell by 29 percent; from 1823 to 1836 it was eliminated (Jackson’s efforts); from 1852 to 1857 it fell by 59 percent, from 1867 to 1873 by 27 percent, from 1880 to 1893 by more than 50 percent, and from 1920 to 1930 by about a third. Of course, the last time we ran a budget surplus was during the Clinton years. I do not know any household that has been able to run budget deficits for approximately 190 out of the past 230-odd years, and to accumulate debt virtually nonstop since 1837.

3. The United States has also experienced six periods of depression. The depressions began in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, and 1929. (Do you see any pattern? Take a look at the dates listed above.) With the exception of the Clinton surpluses, every significant reduction of the outstanding debt has been followed by a depression, and every depression has been preceded by significant debt reduction. The Clinton surplus was followed by the Bush recession, a speculative euphoria, and then the collapse in which we now find ourselves. The jury is still out on whether we might manage to work this up to yet another great depression. While we cannot rule out coincidences, seven surpluses followed by six and a half depressions (with some possibility for making it the perfect seven) should raise some eyebrows. And, by the way, our less serious downturns have almost always been preceded by reductions of federal budget deficits. I don’t know of any case of a national depression caused by a household budget surplus.

4. The federal government is the issuer of our currency. Its IOUs are always accepted in payment. Government actually spends by crediting bank deposits (and credits the reserves of those banks); if you don’t want a bank deposit, government will give you cash; if you don’t want cash it will give you a treasury bond. People will work, sell, panhandle, lie, cheat, steal, and even kill to obtain the government’s dollars. I wish my IOUs were so desirable. I don’t know any household that is able to spend by crediting bank deposits and reserves, or by issuing currency. OK, some counterfeiters try, but they go to jail.

5. Some claim that if the government continues to run deficits, some day the dollar’s value will fall due to inflation; or its value will depreciate relative to foreign currencies. But only a moron would refuse to accept dollars today on the belief that at some unknown date in the hypothetical and distant future their value might be less than today’s value. If you have dollars you don’t want, please send them to me. Note that even if we accept that budget deficits can lead to currency devaluation, that is another obvious distinguishing characteristic: my household’s spending in excess of income won’t reduce the purchasing power of the dollar by any measurable amount.

The next time someone uses that tired old analogy between the family budget and the federal budget, remember the writings of Prof. Wray ….throw the facts in their face and then ask them to explain why they say what they say….if you are armed with facts…they will mostly likely backpedal and then run for the hills…..which as we know is the coward’s way of handling confrontation……or go to FOX for a sympathetic shoulder to lean on…..

Three Cheers For The Recovery

From the VOMITORIUM

Who will be claiming responsibility for the slowdown in the economy, slowed to 1.8%, below the expectations of all the economic wiz kids in Washington….but it is still growth, just at a slower pace….we will hear the experts say on the tube….look, the will say, inflation is down or holding steady……good one….that is because they do NOT figure in gas prices of food….if you throw that in then our inflation is about to run wild….every quarter we hear how well the economy is doing….then explain to the millions at are unemployed…..we hear that the markets are doing well,  so good that we have not seen growth like that since 2008….then explain it to the people who have lost their homes in the last month…..go ahead I will pause here for your explanation………(waiting…..waiting……)

Wait!  They have an answer!

The first-quarter increase reflected growth in personal consumption expenditures, private inventory investment, exports and nonresidential fixed investment. Federal, state and local government spending fell. Imports, which negatively affect the calculation of GDP, increased.

See told you there was good news (sarcasm, in case you missed it)……

But there are few questions that need to be asked of Bernanke or Geithner or whatever Wall St. insider is at the helm of our economy…… American labor has issued a couple of questions they would like to be answered….and I think they have some excellent questions….

1. Where are the jobs and why are the implications of the Fed’s actions so far not leading to sufficient job creation?2. How is the Fed going to respond to continuing weak economic growth?

3. How is the Fed taking into account in its decisions the powerful headwinds facing the economy, including falling housing prices, rising energy prices and large-scale layoffs and wage freezes for public employees?

4. How will the Fed’s policies address the inadequate public investment in the United States?

5. What is the Fed’s plan for closing the gap between economic growth and job creation? Between productivity growth and wage stagnation?

6. Can we have a healthy economy until we deal with rising inequality?

7. Is there anything the Fed can do to revive our economy if government at every level persists in irresponsible, job-destroying budget cuts at a time of economic weakness?

We will know just how f*cked we are…these questions will Not be asked by anyone in the media….and there will be NO answered offered up by the government….so we will continue to be subjects of the elaborate con job that is economic recovery……

And the disconnect does not stop there…..a recent poll shows that majority of the people feel that the economy is going badly…..the disconnect is that the media reports on macro-economics and Main street lives with micro-economics….and Main Street could give 2 shakes in Hell about the debt…..their personal debt concerns them…food prices concerns them…..being unemployed concerns them…..macro-economics concerns them not…they do not care that Samuelson basically invented the study of the macro field…they do not care…their only concern is their family and their livelihood……