Things are starting to get wierd. The stock market continues to dive, and Obama offers nothing to stem the flow. When people's IRAs and 401Ks drop in value, they need to save more money, not spend. The mortgage problem grows and more banks fail, and Tim Geitner wants to talk about Global warming. Geitner also predicts that the "rich" people who make up 28% of charitable giving won't stop giving because it's no longer a tax deduction. Can someone please get this Geitner fellow a basic economics book?
Obama could help the nation out tremendously by just throwing a few scraps to small business. Lower the cap gains tax rate to 10%. It would show he will at least give businesses a few scraps. Repeal Sarbanes Oxley and free up some of that money for investment for the bigger companies, or God forbid, profits so the stock market can bounce back a little.
Does anyone think any of these bailouts or stimulus plans are going to work? Does anyone at this point doubt we would have been better of doing nothing? Had Bush and Obama let the markets work this out, we would at least have found the bottom, and some investment may have returned. Instead we've spent all of our money bailing out AIG, GM and countless banks.
When it gets worse, and it will get much worse, where will the money come for unemployment you've been promised? The middle class has paid in to the social safety net for fifty years, only to have Bush and Obama give it to unsound banks, and poorly run businesses.
To see Obama and Geitner tell business to go to hell is not only bad policy, it's stupid. They have not offered a single policy or tax incentive to help business (other than GM and that is suspect to say the least) they are not even offering lip service.
Those Democrats who were elected to congress in 2006 and 2008, along with the governors should probably start packing their bags today.
My friends this is getting uglier by the hour. The social unrest this nation will experience when the middle class finds out that thier safety net has been spent, and the soup lines and Obamavilles are all that is left is going to be historic in nature.
If you think martial law will secure the cities think again. Russia couldn't get its Army to fire on the citizenry, what in the world would ever lead you to believe America's army will keep the peace? Do you really think a soldier is going to fire on his father, brother and uncles in the name of big government spending?
Here is what will happen, and this doesn't require a crytsal ball, we've seen it before across the globe.
1. When the FDIC runs out of money to insure your deposits there will be a massive run on the banks.
2. Geitner will fire up the printing presses to make good on the promise.
3. Mounds of cash will flood main street, wiping out the value of the deposits.
4. Citizens will start lining up at unemployment offices demanding their share of the safety net that they paid in to for decades.
5. The first riots will break out at government offices.
6. The elected officials will have no choice but to cut the food stamps and section eight payments, the medicaid and other social services.
7. The riots will spread like wildfire from the inner cities to the suburbs.
8. All hell will break loose.
9. Geitner, Pelosi and Frank will continue to fight global warming, while millions are fighting for food.
10. The elections in 2010 will be a massive bloodletting. Radicals will rise to power. The only question is will they come from the left or right.
The real danger is in the level of inflation. In the early days of hyper-inflation, the masses believe that we have turned the corner. The spending looks like it's working. If this times out properly for the Dems, they could pick up more control of the house and senate, the blue dogs could be thrown out with the Republicans and we could find ourselves in a full fledged Marxist revolution. There are two distinct right wings in this country. The fiscal conservatives, and the social conservatives. If the fiscal conservatives take over, we will experience a short severe downturn, followed by a return to real money (gold standard?) free markets, massive dergulation and a sound foundation for rebulding the economy. If the social conservatives take over, it's anyone's guess.
My best guess at this point is the United States will look like a South American banana Republic in the 1970s. Constant changes in government and laws. Breakdown in the rule of law. Rampant crime, chronic unemployment and chronic wars to divert the attention of the citizenry.
There is time (months not years), but a real leader needs to emerge. Someone who talks straight and in plain English. Nations do not survive by printing money, increasing the burdens on business and furhtering uncertainty in the capital markets.
We've tried the bailouts, we need to let this ship sail on its own for a few months and find the bottom. Yes, it will be rough for a few quarters, but the safety net will be maintained, and we will come out of it in a better position. We will know which banks and businesses are sound, we will know what the real price of housing is.
If you don't want a life of Hobbes (nasty, brutish and short), we need to act now.
Drill for oil everywhere (On Mt. Rushmore if it pays) Oil effects the price of every single product and service in the world.
Stop expanding credit. Hyper-inflation kills nations and governments.
Find the bottom. This means no more bailouts, period.
Deregulate deregulate deregulate. If a regulation is not tied to physical safety, can it.
Cut spending on everything. Even social security checks need to be cut by 10%, Take it now or lose it entirely in two or three years.
Get out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and everywhere else now. It's not an issue of anything but money. We tried, we declared victory, we're going home.
Employ the use of massive violence against terrorists and their supporters. This is the regular course of history.
Embrace business and the wealthy as the antidote to a bad economy.
Tell the people the truth. California is broke, and cannot be bailed out. The voters must make some tough decisions. The nation is catching up to California, and we cannot afford to repeat her mistakes.
If we do exactly as I say, your future is bright, do it not and you will soon find the real definition of poverty, and hopeless.
Author is Eric Gurr
Founder of U4prez.com
egurr@intralinkinc.com
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Arjay, I would agree with you if only the government wasn't taking our money through taxes and giving it to charity for us.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who believes charity is a gift from the heart and is its own reward, not something given in the hope of a tax write-off. It makes the donor little more than a middle man, getting reimbursed by the government for good works. If we're going to do that, why not the government just give the money to that charity in the first place?
Friday, isn't "...raising taxes on charitable giving.." a little bit of a misrepresentation? The Obama proposal, set to begin in 2011, presumably when the economy begins heading north, would limit deductions (INCLUDING charitable donations) to 28% of incomes above $250,000. Most wealthy philanthropists fall into a 28% AMT structure (regardless of "deductions") anyways and it would not affect them. Furthermore, the motivation for charitable donations should not be, nor ever should have been, tax deductivity. Any tax increases are set to begin in 2011, and I believe that is a pretty good plan and could help stifle inflation.
I'm sure it's going to be a tough road when on one hand there is a legitimate need for fiscal restraint and on the other hand there is a need to fuel the economy. I suppose we need to rethink the federal reserve, the tax structure, trade policies, and energy policy. US companies have been punished by the lack of capital and the lack of customers. Until confidence is restored, and capital begins to flow, US companies will be in a tough spot. Exactly what would you do in this situation? I favor current policies and I hope they will adjust policy quickly to fit the situation. At this point, I actually favor democratic government control over monetary and economic policy over that of the squirrely and untrustworthy federal reserve.
Construction companies aren't the beneficiaries unless they are already set up to do government contracts. Obama himself has labeled these as reparative redistribution of wealth. And this was a recessionary cycle, but when you respond to a recessionary cycle by raising taxes on employers, raising taxes on charitable giving, wasting a couple trillion dollars of printed money and using the bully pulpit to punish US companies then it will be more than just a cycle.
Ummmmm. We're in a recessionary cycle. That's all. This isn't the end of America. This isn't the end of free enterprise. This isn't the beginning of a United Socialist States of America, this isn't the Great Depression, and this isn't the apocolypse. Does it help to label the stimulus spending as a "reparative redistribution." How utterly ridiculous. Who is the beneficiary of this "reparative redistribution?" Construction companies? Hard-pressed middle class Americans out of work? Home builders? And who is going to be fighting in the streets over food? If Americans were to behave half as civilized as our grandparents and great-grandparents did during the depression, I'll be proud. Times are tough. Americans are tightening their belts, and socking away money. Tough shit, it's not the end of the American way of life! Look at what the rest of the world is doing during this period - they are buying Dollars! Even now, the US Dollar is preferrable as a "safe haven" to Euros, or Yen, or even gold. It seems the rest of the world has more faith in our country than it's own citizens! One of the main paths back to prosperity is a return of confidence. That's going to be pretty hard to accomplish if Americans are going to become hysterical, en masse. Get a grip people! Have a little faith.
I'm sure it was probably what they had on the sandwich board that I was commenting on. But at any rate, yes, now I am doing the same. And it will remain unheeded.
you once attacked people for "wearing a sandwich board" now your doing the same
James, I have NEVER advocated reparative redistribution. What are you talking about?
dint you attack people for doing that friday, now you are on the bandwagon now that bush is no longer president
Gurr, we've both been walking up and down the U4prez streets with our end of the economy sandwich boards and I don't think it's getting any traction. Even the prominent socialists who admit socialism is a failed system bow down and worship at the ideology of reparative redistribution.
Idiot.
I agree. I despise most of the ignorant things that ignorant conservatives say, but I'd rather them say things I despise than them not be allowed to say those things. I believe in the dream of our founders, that America would be the freest country in the world. We aren't. But someday maybe.
posted by imagine89 on 03/06/2009 @ 7:52 PM
So Imagine in your opinion nobody who disagrees with you and yours matters? their opinions are void? yeah thats what I thought. Don't EVER invoke the constitution again in a debate with me.
You have leapt over the line and are discounting peoples opinion for your own conviniance. I have not discounted Arjays opinion even though I don't agree I stand by the words of the document that made us free to disagree with equal value. You don't. You again lose before you begin. You respect nothing in our constitution
Yes we can! haha
Tomorrow never knows, Imagine. If you're going to dream, dream big.
I agree. I despise most of the ignorant things that ignorant conservatives say, but I'd rather them say things I despise than them not be allowed to say those things. I believe in the dream of our founders, that America would be the freest country in the world. We aren't. But someday maybe.
You have to laugh at it, or the reality of it will cripple you. Doesn't matter, really, if it's Dem or Rep in the White House. President Wilson signed the Sedition Act in 1917, specifically to silence socialists and to break up their meetings because they were critical of American intervention into World War I. That's the thing, as a democratic socialist (what other kind of socialist is there?), I would defend a capitalist's right to talk trash all day long, I would never support any policy which made it a crime to talk about a corrupt and broken economic system. That's because we believe in democracy. We don't put greed ahead of people, or corporate interests ahead of human dignity. I would much rather the Republicans here talk their garbage than them not be allowed to, because that's what America is about. Freedom of speech. It's a shame that leftists aren't afforded the same respect.
Thats really not a joke. At one time, communists were black listed in America, the country where you ahev the right to think for yourself. Once President Limbaugh gets elected, you and I may be getting sent to internment camps, Arjay. haha.
Seeing as how socialists have replaced terrorists as the Republican boogeyman, perhaps the watch lists will be updated, profiling will be different. Instead of looking for the Arabic-sounding names and keeping a suspicious eye on anyone talking Arabic on a plane, perhaps the new standard will be to watch for anybody sharing their peanuts and soda. Socialist profiling, the guy just gives his pillow to someone else instead of trying to make a buck, you know that guy's trying to destroy the economy, kick him off the plane!
My point was, they probably didn't listen in on your calls, but they made it so they COULD if they wanted. That's not right. But, yeah. I'm not used to Obama being in office yet. I still answer the phone, "Fuck George Bush. hello." Its kinda like how ya still write "2008" on your checks untill january is halfway over. I still have hundreds of extra copies of the constitution lying around. I used to mail one to myself everyday, and carry one on me incase they did happen to pick me out and read my mail or search me without a warrant.
Every so often, when someone would answer the phone, I would answer, Fuck George Bush, hello? The white van didn't pull up to my house, scoop me up, and speed away, I must not have been enough of a threat to them.
Did Bush listen in on MY conversation, or YOURS? I would almost say certainly not (but who knows for sure?). Did Bush rush legislation through congress that allowed people to be phone tapped and searched without a warrant? Damn right he did. Its not even debatable.
Thats right, BUsh was sitting in the white house reading your mail, he was listening to you talk to grandma about the weekend visit and if he did not apporve he would have you picked up and tortured........ You lefties are funnny people!
Grrr is correct. Under Obama's adminsitration fascism witll happen. The government will be able to read your mail, tap your phone and search you without a warrant; arrest you without charges, hold you without a trial, and torture you. Oh, wait. That was under the Bush administration. Nevermind.
It has become painfully obvious to even the very slow in thought that the present administration is doing everything in their power to ensure that capitolism fails,The constitution is destroyed, and a dictatorship stands in place of the presidency in this country. They are pulling every trigger they can to see that riots occur, and threats are the order of the day for the governments use against the states and those opposing the administration.
Obama should be proud he's spent more money in 10 weeks than Bush did in 8 yrs. I think we will collapse economicly because Obama will do exactly nothing to prevent it.
Well I think my point is that if they eliminate the program I think I should get my money back. And I think its time to re-examine the courts ruling on Social Security given the new courts make up.
It can also be tied to the article at the top of the home page. If the President doesn't want us looking at and 'worrying' about the stock market, which he thinks is just a quote: 'opinion poll', then someone should tell him that the unemployment rate and the stock market go the same direction. If no one is investing in the businesses, they don't have the capital to produce more and expand so they lay off the labor force. Of course that builds up his block of government dependents but at the same time shrinks the number of actual taxpayers supporting them.
Obama did give a speech today. It was one on healthcare and the news showed the dow as he spoke. While President Obama read his teleprompter, the stock market dropped by as much as 25 ponts. he speech only lasted about 15 minutes.
He didn't, but Geithner testified today in front of the Budget Committee. You'd think Obama and Geithner would learn from Bush and Paulson not to talk about the economy.
I see the markets were down over 250 points today. Did Obama give another speech?
Another problem for Obama if stocks keep falling: No capital gains taxes (because there will be no capital gains). Same deal with housing prices.
haha
"Thats what will probably happen" I was hoping you were referring to the second part of my post, but sadly you were referring to the first.
Thats what will probably happen as long as people are on opposite sides of this issues, like you and I are. I don't see enough people giving in from either side, so eventually your side will win. eventually we will have no Social Security, but the economy will be fucked. Then it wont matter to either of us. haha.
And in so doing, we let the problem continue until it completely implodes and takes the economy with it. That is why a sudden tornado ripping through the Capitol while Congress is actually in session and in its chambers would not be a bad thing.
We'll have to agree to disagree.
Reform it in three parts: --------- Part 1: those on the system get to keep current benefits to death. ----------- Part 2: those not yet on the system age 50 and over get to have the level of current benefits until death with no COLAs or other additions. ----------- Part 3: those not yet on the system and under age 50 get nothing ever.
That is why I propose that we create legislation that would ensure that the money put into social security could only be spent on social security, and that we lift the limit on the ammount of money taxable for social security. If we don't reform social security drastically, it will crumble.
The Supreme Court was quite clear in it's rulings that the Social Security tax is just a tax and entitles you to nothing anything more than income tax does. All the money goes into the same pot. There is no legal link between the money collected and the money paid out. There is no trust fund. What you paid into the system has been spent, maybe not on Social Security, but spend just the same. There is no money there. That is why we have a $10 trillion debt today and over $65 trillion in debt in promised entitlements.
Well then if your going to elminate it I would like my money back that I already put into the system I would think that would be a fair idea.
It is a small number compared to what it will be when a bunch of Baby Boomers with deflated 401Ks start diving onto it. Now is the time to start cutting it so that it can survive for those who are on it, assist near retirees and be eliminated for anyone under 50.
Its not a small number at all and remember seniors vote and they tend to vote against those who cut social security. now look I agree reforms need to happen Bush's idea to leave Seniors alone and give them what they are owed while staring to allow private investment for younger workers is a good idea. Something along those lines should be adopted. but this nation is not just going to end social security out right.
There is never a good time to kick people off the government tit. However, it is better to do it and deal with the smaller number of people who would be severely affected through a temporary measure time-limited to those people than to keep the charade of the program going until it is the majority who are dependent upon it and repair is impossible. Waiting is not an answer, it is a cop out.
I was talking about many seniors who for them it is their sole income. That is the real world you may not like it at all but thats the reality we live in. And to just call those Seniors idiots is well uncalled for. Private funds can get used up for medical reasons as we all know medical treatment these days is expensive. I have no problem with long term reform of social security but if you just cut benifits here and now you are dead in the water Bush got nowhere with his attempts to reform the system.
If your sole income is Social Security, you are an idiot. If we don't begin dismantling the program now, the number of idiots will just continue to rise. The idiots of today can be assisted also under the stupid welfare program, so they need not fear. The main issue is beginning the necessary reduction of that program now, before it collapses entirely and/or takes the government and economy down with it.
My only question about social security is what about the elderly whos sole income is social security? But other then that I do agree with you that we are headed in a bad direction if we keep this trend up. But I really do wonder if given that the US Army has had a history of using violance against our own people New York during the Civil war and again during the late early 1900s I think or late 1800s during the rail road strikes. And what is the danger that other nations might try to interven in the US if our nation where to totally fall apart? Right now MD is right if the GOP wins in 2010 it will just bring back the big government GOP neo-cons but not really change. But if the Libertrains could get a really party infrastructer up and running that would change the ball game.
It is always a joy to read the words of someone who understands the facts and cuts all the social cushioning away from them and deals with hard realities. The real unfortunate thing is that this is correct on too many levels. With the Republican Party in shambles and social conservatives aligned with neo-cons in helping continue failed policies, even a Congressional 'victory' in 2010 may ring hollow if it isn't the fiscal conservatives who rise to power, but rather the big government spendaholic social conservatives, neo-cons or McCainites.
Your defense of business is blasphemous . Do you not realize that the contemporary political atmosphere considers business the enemy. Many members of u4prez consider business the source of all that is wrong in America. They blame business for the economy, corruption in politics and even for wars.
And to add insult to injury you make matters worse by suggesting that domestic oil drilling should be expanded. It is astonishing how far you are willing to let corporate interests rape America.
I just thought I would jump the gun on the left and put out their garbage for them.
Now, as for me, with my Republican inclinations, I agree with your proposal. Personally, I could not and did not say it better myself. I particularly liked the line about a life of Hobbes being nasty, brutish and short.
Good job.
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