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...since the economy "seems" to be recovering without it.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/economic_stimulus_package/45_say_cancel_rest_of_stimulus_spending Rasmussen did a poll. 45% believe the stimulus spending needs to stop now. only 35% opposed and 20% were unsure. Accorrding to the article only 36 billion of the stimulus has been spent as of late may. so much for shovel ready. seems the problem with infrastructure jobs is that there is a lengthy process in order to start the projects. funny how that works. opinion: the economy is showing broad signs of recovery (signs, not concrete evidence that we're in the clear. I think more is coming down the road but that's another topic) and only 5% of the money has been spent. So much for we need this or we will slip into a depression. You call Dubya's war efforts fear-mongering (though true enough) but O has been doing the same thing here. |
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Looking over the article a little more I'm not that unhappy about what they are complaining about. Tax cuts tend to favor those that need it the least. Traditionally that's been a very poor method of putting money into the economy. So if there are a few less than what the president wanted I'm not bothered. Directly, yes... but really, much of the poor (actually anyone below the poverty line) do not pay federal income taxes anyway. It's only basic logic that those paying the most save the most. However, trickle down is real. Whether anyone likes to admit it or not, helping the wealthy helps everyone. helping the poor at the expense of the rich just hurts the middle who has to put up with the added costs placed on them from those from above while not being eligible to receive what those on the bottom are getting. I'm disappointed greatly. Not only by the fact we even have this crap stimulus package, but the fact that they've still only sent out a very small, still single-digit percentage of the package. We are starting to hit a plateau... I think all this spending is just going to push us back off the edge. |
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*snip* OK during the Bush year House Republicans hated PAYGO in favor of tax cuts that was supposed to the grow the economy which would then in grow government revenue. ??????? FAIL! Now Republicans are whining about Obama and his plans for PAYGO. The problem is the same in both cases. The republicans hated paygo because they wanted the tax cuts. If they had been real fiscal conservatives it would have been no large matter. Unfortunately, Between the tax cuts and the extra spending the wars required, it was only half the total debt we fell into. The congress spent like madmen and it's getting no better now. Obama is the last person to speak of fiscal responsibility. I admit, the republicans were leading when we went largely into debt, but now the democrats are leading and almost single-handedly putting us even further into debt. I mean, even if you take out the bank bailout drafted mostly by democrats and signed by bush and the 2009 budget, Obama will still break the deficit record set for 2008. I'm sure their definition of zero in all this is at the least last year's deficit of half a trillion. We need pay as you go from true zero. That means no sticking your grubby little hands into the medicare/social security trusts and no borrowing and actually balance a budget both internally and externally. Nobody has done it since Andrew Jackson. If Obama has the cajones to actually do that and not achieve it by taxing the snot out of everyone, he will have my utmost respect. As for now... Pot, meet kettle. |
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We don't buy into anything. Company policy dictates that all employees in good standing get a share of stock for every $190 of income. People that have worked for a decade and bought stock along with what they got free tend to make thousands every year in addition to pay. Frankly I wished I worked for them 3 years ago when the stock split 5 ways.  Missed out on that jackpot. Still getting payed in stock AND money isn't 1/2 bad, no risk of layoffs ether. 
Ok, so basically on hiring you attain stock based on your salary and then on the end of employment, it goes back to the company? That makes a lot of sense. Personal responsibility for the success of the company you work for and the received divident is an amazing incentive. |
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Meh, my employer has the right idea. Make the company employee owned and the stock privately traded. The employer can't screw over the employees w/o screwing over the stock holders (who ARE the employees) and the employees (who are the stock holders) can't milk their employer for all it's worth if they want a good dividend. All with no chance of an outside buyout. As it is, sales are up, number of locations is up, number of employees is up and not 1 employee has EVER been laid off in the 80+ years the company has existed. The only 2 things that can be said have gone wrong are the stock prices dropping (duh) and profits dropping off a bit (which corresponds with a drop in prices, we're still in the black and debt free). Unions don't work. Direct ownership by the workers does. doesn't that require a buy-in though? or is it just that the business pays out equal dividends as if the employees owned the appropriate amount of stock? |
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I am not the first to point out that capitalism, having defeated communism, now seems about to do the same to democracy. How is capitalism defeating democracy? Capitalism would have allowed GM and Crysler to fail because of poor management. The government steping in and bailing them out with billions of our taxpayer money to eventually file bancruptcy and know our money is gone and will never be paid back. That is the total oposte of capitalism. I saw no reference to party affiliation anywhere in the statement. He is right. With capitalism, we would have never done the financial bailout. We would never have done the stimulus pork bill. we would never have bailed out chrysler and GM to the tune of almost $60B that will likely not be repaid anywhere in the next decade or so. And I love how the oil price thing was all Bush's fault... what about now? Why did prices just jump so far so fast? I'm paying $3 a gallon again and I just filled up my tank at $2.30 a couple weeks back. How is that anyone in the government's fault? You try to blame Bush for his oil ties and previous high prices, then it must be perfectly ok for me to blame this last jump on Obama for his desire to be more green and reduce usage by increasing the cost of gas. ------ As for capitalism, it, like any other economic system cannot exist in its pure form. There are always dissenters that will cheat the system. In the real-world implementation of capitalism, the ideal is whoever can do the job most efficiently should be the one to do the job. That is the core principle of economics. there are cases where the government is more efficient (better service at minimal cost) and some where they are necessary (like law enforcement and the court system). If the government is more efficient, let them have the work. Private companies cannot build and maintain roads for less. They cannot provide better fire service (on a small scale, yes, but when you have the density in a large city of the fire department, competition will not allow the necessary proximity for the required number of stations). These are cases where government should perform the work. You also point out the promotion of greed as a bad thing. Greed is a product of rational self interest - the ideal that we will not willingly and knowingly make a decision that will put us worse off. Greed is necessary for a thriving society. Greed is drive. No drive means no production. Madison, you must be delusional. This is how the world works. Greed pushes everyone, from the CEO wanting another million to the worker at the bottom asking for a raise. Everyone is looking out for #1. That is greed. |
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I don't think the employees are notorious for voting down unions. The employees I know say that they are told they will lose their jobs if they vote for a union. I guess it just comes down to feeding your family. I try to avoid Walmart if I can. But when push comes to shove, it might be the only company that doesn't want bail out money. I thought it was illegal now for companies to fire you for talking about unionization it is. but once a union is formed and negotiations are held for higher pay. The entire workforce can be laid off in one fell swoop. Basically, it a renounce the union and you can keep your job thing. I didn't read all the responses, but I'm sure everyone knows how I feel about unions. Either way, any retailer unionizing would be catastrophic for the poor and hurt everyone. The UAW only boosts costs on cars. A union at a major retailer like Wally world or Target would raise costs on EVERYTHING in the store. If the wages are negotiated for even a $2 raise, that's still an almost 25% increase in labor costs at minimum wage in california. Over that in most of the country. Imagine if everything you bought in the store went up 10, 15, or even 20 percent overnight? How would that change your budget? What the hell are you babbling about? I am saying nothing about the costs of labor and cars other than that the UAW is limited to one industry and Wal-mart is not. you should try reading before you start going off. let's go with this... I've read the average non-management (who would not unionize anyway) wage at Wal-Mart is around $11 an hour. So, figure a $2 raise negotiated. That's still barely enough to put that employee at the poverty line for a family of four and it's already raised labor costs 18% and that only puts you at the poverty line. There are no other increses there. Imagine if they started demanding a "livable" wage and health benefits. In that case, Wally World is not going to absorb the costs... it will be passed directly onto consumers and being that the average Wal-Mart shopper is not exactly living in the hills, it's going to hurt more than it will help. |
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Well everyone seems to think we need to have this done immidiately. I stated in a dif thread that it scares me they want to push this through so fast. I wish they would take their time on it and get it right. I really dont see any bitartisanship happening in congress. any time you hear any thing about it the dems have a meeting locking out the repubs. And out of the mouth of Madam Speaker, I didn't get into politics to be bipartisan. Exactly. Rushed the Patriout Act = clusterf*ck. Rushed the Bank Bailout = clusterf*ck. Rushed the Stimulus Bill = clusterf*ck. apparently, Washington is still quick to forget. |
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I am not the first to point out that capitalism, having defeated communism, now seems about to do the same to democracy. How is capitalism defeating democracy? Capitalism would have allowed GM and Crysler to fail because of poor management. The government steping in and bailing them out with billions of our taxpayer money to eventually file bancruptcy and know our money is gone and will never be paid back. That is the total oposte of capitalism. I saw no reference to party affiliation anywhere in the statement. He is right. With capitalism, we would have never done the financial bailout. We would never have done the stimulus pork bill. we would never have bailed out chrysler and GM to the tune of almost $60B that will likely not be repaid anywhere in the next decade or so. And I love how the oil price thing was all Bush's fault... what about now? Why did prices just jump so far so fast? I'm paying $3 a gallon again and I just filled up my tank at $2.30 a couple weeks back. How is that anyone in the government's fault? You try to blame Bush for his oil ties and previous high prices, then it must be perfectly ok for me to blame this last jump on Obama for his desire to be more green and reduce usage by increasing the cost of gas. ------ As for capitalism, it, like any other economic system cannot exist in its pure form. There are always dissenters that will cheat the system. In the real-world implementation of capitalism, the ideal is whoever can do the job most efficiently should be the one to do the job. That is the core principle of economics. there are cases where the government is more efficient (better service at minimal cost) and some where they are necessary (like law enforcement and the court system). If the government is more efficient, let them have the work. Private companies cannot build and maintain roads for less. They cannot provide better fire service (on a small scale, yes, but when you have the density in a large city of the fire department, competition will not allow the necessary proximity for the required number of stations). These are cases where government should perform the work. You also point out the promotion of greed as a bad thing. Greed is a product of rational self interest - the ideal that we will not willingly and knowingly make a decision that will put us worse off. Greed is necessary for a thriving society. Greed is drive. No drive means no production. |
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While I fully believe serious inflation is in our future, Zimbabwe is a different case and situation alltogether. If Zimbabwe happened here, the rest of the world that uses the USD for a base will fall as well. The world is too interdependent on us for that to happen.
But give it another year or so and inflation will start it's rise. |
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I don't think the employees are notorious for voting down unions. The employees I know say that they are told they will lose their jobs if they vote for a union. I guess it just comes down to feeding your family. I try to avoid Walmart if I can. But when push comes to shove, it might be the only company that doesn't want bail out money. I thought it was illegal now for companies to fire you for talking about unionization it is. but once a union is formed and negotiations are held for higher pay. The entire workforce can be laid off in one fell swoop. Basically, it a renounce the union and you can keep your job thing. I didn't read all the responses, but I'm sure everyone knows how I feel about unions. Either way, any retailer unionizing would be catastrophic for the poor and hurt everyone. The UAW only boosts costs on cars. A union at a major retailer like Wally world or Target would raise costs on EVERYTHING in the store. If the wages are negotiated for even a $2 raise, that's still an almost 25% increase in labor costs at minimum wage in california. Over that in most of the country. Imagine if everything you bought in the store went up 10, 15, or even 20 percent overnight? How would that change your budget? |
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Conservatives aren't mean, they just don't throw money at things and "hope" they go away. since when is our current administration any kind of conservative. Declaring conservatives are mean from the other side of the fence is an ignorant statement. Truth is, a chunk of every party and ideology are mean, ignorant, stubborn, and in many cases, just plain stupid. why must we always have these blanket threads anyway? |
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The message is simple, Abolish the FED, and put control and minting back into the hands of the Treasury Dept (where it can be printed intrest free) and taken away from the profiteering private banking cartel who now controls it. While I believe that taking the power from the banks is a good thing, this still allows the federal government to print money at will and places no safeguards against inflation in place. |
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Imagine my surprise upon learning that Mercantus, a conservative think tank decided that conservative states were more free. Not that I don't see how they came to that conclusion. Gun control laws are definitely going to be more strict in blue states than red states. Also there's more "redistribution" of wealth in blue states. It's not rocket science figuring out that liberals believe that there is merit in social programs like welfare and are in favor of universal health care and conservatives are not. Liberals are more likely to believe that one can't really be free unless they have access to acceptable health care, without your health how can one be free? Conservatives would view this more as the government is forcing me to pay for someone's medical bill I should be free from this and they should be free to just be sick. You could also say the South before the Civil War was more free, they were free to own slaves the government didn't tell them they couldn't have slaves...thus more free. Also conservatives tend to acquiesce to government intrusion in regards to wiretapping its own citizenry, spying on internet usage etc when it's for national security. If we simply define freedom as less government intervention, well that is a basic tenant of conservative ideology. I see freedom as being more complex. Regardless, I have never done anything in a red state that I could not do in a blue state. I'd rather smoke pot than buy a gun any day of the week. I'd rather go to a science conference than attend mass on Sunday. I prefer living in blue states (mostly on the coast) because of the large diversity and having such close access to all sorts of foods and cultures from all over the world. Anyone care to see quality of life index for countries around the world? How much do you wanna bet you'll see a lot of so called socialist countries on that list? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_index How bout lets look at GDP per capita by state http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_capita_(nominal) lots of blue states high on that list. Very well said, geek. Sounds good to me too. Government intervention is the core of the liberal economic principles. That's not new to anyone. However, government intervention is also the core principle of the social conservative. They wish to restrict marriage, abortion, etc. at a far larger rate than liberals in the sense of what can be done. If they were given the chance, liberals would also be socially restrictive, restricting people in terms of the environment, animal rights, gun control, etc. However, these issues are largely unpopular with the general public while conservative principles are also the principles of religion that a large majority of our country practices. Both want to remove freedoms, just in different means. Have we already forgotten the Patriot Act? The freeze imposed by Nixon in order to "curb" inflation? Both sides wish to remove our freedoms. These are conservative examples. There are at least as many cases for liberals as well. |
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America is plagued by a poor educational system, a corrupt and ineffective judicial system, a corrupt and ineffective congress, a greedy banking industry, a common sense deprived society without any work ethic,an over-taxed and over-regulated financial system regulated by under-regulated regulators, etc... I don't blame Russia at all for switching. I would switch too until I saw VAST improvments with America and their finances. I agree with geek. Our educational system is second to none. What has failed is the support system for those in it. There is no at-home support for primary education and we have many cities with over a 50% dropout rate. That is the failure. What matters in this situation is the corruption in the financial system and in washington. That, along with the ignorance of the people will be our ultimate downfall. |
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can't say I'm shocked. I'm just waiting until China starts to do the same. I know they have far too much in USD to do it all at once and the results would be psychotic inflation as the market was flooded with USD, but I fully expect them and maybe even japan to start offing them soon. We're hitting the no-return point soon. Once we do, we will be cut off
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Tax employee benefits? Once again, increase taxes on businesses and see what happens. employee healthcare will disappear as will jobs at those that do not rid of the plans.
All hurts the bottom line. When will the government realize that taxing the top hurts the bottom, not the top. |
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Does this mean I can get parts for my GM car cheaper!? When have you every known the government to do anything on the same scale as the private sector for cheaper lol |
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Topic:
In more news....
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That's one of the things that I don't like about American Idol. I wish it would be a true singing contest and not a popularity contest. well, it is a show designed to create a pop icon... kinda comes with the territory lol. we are americans! we have to go with what we like. little things like the bettter person never get in our way! |
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Edited by
AndrewAV
on
Thu 05/21/09 08:28 PM
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I personally think we are all being manipulated. We have had the technology to power homes with alternative sources. I remember many many years ago, Johnson Controls developed hydrogen fuel cells that were intended to power individual residential homes. This would take you completely off the grid and would leave utility companies scrambling for customers. What ever happened to that? All you ever hear about is they are trying to make them smaller to power cars. But, we already had them, although bigger, that would power homes. I tried to find a link on the web but it appears the military has secured the website. (navy) There is much out there that we are not being told. economics, my friend. simple cost vs benefit analysis. Do you realize the cost of a hydrogen fuel cell that can power an entire home? it is easily over the average value of a home even 3 years ago. They are far from cheap. There is a large difference from using hydrogen as fuel (cheaper) and creating hydrogen from a water molecule (not so cheap). Not to mention the environmental changes from all that water vapor output. I disagree about the costs. I see Japan is moving forward with a program on powering homes this way under an experimental program. They lease it to you for $9,500 for 10 year lease. I also see a home builder in Montana is trying it out as well on houses he is building in a development. Adds $40,000 to the cost of a home. I quoted prices off what I was told. you are correct in me being wrong, however, you are missing many other costs in your numbers as well... You also have to feed the beast hydrogen. a 3kwh cell costs around $15k. That will run on a kilo of hydrogen for 5 hours. the average household consumes 25 kwh per day, meaning you need 1.6 kg hydrogen per day (if i understand how kwh works correctly) at currently around $5 a kilo. that is far from more efficient. again, being green is a good idea at heart, but there's a reason the technologies are still in the shadows, they are simply not going to return better benefits for more cost. |
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