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25 Sep 08 - 03:06 PM (#2450118) Subject: BS: A better way to save the economy From: chazkratz Friends and fellow truth-seekers This morning when I got up to take my dogs to the back yard at 5:30, I checked my email and found a message from MoveOn about demonstrations today against the Bush/Paulson plan to reward corporations for their greed and incompetence by giving them another seven hundred billion dollars to dump down the drain, and decided to join the demonstration. That's when this idea of an alternate way of using the $700,000,000,000 came to me, and I forwarded the MoveOn message to a bunch of my music friends suggesting they join the demonstration and explaining to them my idea for an alternative use of all the big bucks. The idea was still demanding further action, so I called the offices of Ellen Tauscher, my representative in Congress; Barbara Lee (whom I wish were my member of Congress), Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Barbara Boxer. This took the edge off my compulsion, so I went back to bed for another couple of hours of sleep, but woke up with the compulsion demanding more action, so I wrote the following description of my alternative and sent it to Senator Obama's campaign office. I hope it makes sense to you, and that you will forward it to as many people as you can. Arm Barack Obama with the best alternative for saving the economy: The best way to fight the Bush/Paulson giveaway is an obviously better, more sensible, more compassionate alternative. If we can afford to invest seven hundred billion dollars to save the economy, we should do so in a way that will actually bring that about, by investing the money in things which will actually help the economy and even save the stock market: Spend the money on A. rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, the highways and bridges and mass transit systems B. on green projects such as wind and solar power generation and retooling the American auto industry for manufacturing electric cars or helping existing electric car manufacturers to expand exponentially C. on instituting the reforms called for in the new veterans' bill of rights and on other compassionate projects such as assistance for the handicapped and subsidizing Habitat for Humanity Adopting this counter proposal and linking it to a rapid conclusion of the war in Iraq to stop that drain on the economy would not only save the economy but dramatically demonstrate the Democratic Party's superiority to the Grand Old Poop-heads. If Senator Obama should introduce this alternative proposal--and challenge McCain to debate the relative virtues of the two approaches on Friday night, imagine the consequences. I am not proposing this merely as a campaign gesture, of course, but as an obviously, transparently superior way of healing the economy. Charles Kratz |
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25 Sep 08 - 03:18 PM (#2450132) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: GUEST,hg hi bseed....how are you? |
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25 Sep 08 - 05:32 PM (#2450269) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: CarolC Right Arm!!! |
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25 Sep 08 - 06:05 PM (#2450312) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: Amos Wonderful scheme, Chas. I doubt it would penetrate the panic-frozen icewalls around the fiscal mongers, but, it sure is a better plan. A |
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25 Sep 08 - 06:20 PM (#2450324) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: Bobert Well, I'm for it... Maybe seein' as we're about to make make the biggest finacial screw-up ever that the Dems could at the very least make this a dollar-for-dollar deal... One dollar for the banks and one for infastructure... Tell you what, if they did that then Wall Street would say, "Hey, we we're fine... Keep yer money..." But the best way to deal with this economy is to tax the rich for the sahre of the wealth they have created... (But, Boberdz... The upper 5% pays 61% of the taxes now!!!) So??? The upper 5% controls 82% of the wealth... That means they would have to pay another 21% in taxes to be paying their fair share... That amount alone would make the US Governemnt so solvent that it could throw $700B at Wall Street and another $700B at infastructure and another $700B to home owners and still have money left over for a Big Meal at MickeyD's.... B~ |
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25 Sep 08 - 06:36 PM (#2450332) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: Bill D Sure...that plan has elements similar to various programs Roosevelt's administration put in during 1933-1937 see here...scroll down to bottom for a list We could use some 'public works' to both recover AND get stuff done on infrastructure. |
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25 Sep 08 - 06:59 PM (#2450347) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: Peace Stop sending jobs out of the counrty. Penalize businesses that do. No tax breaks. The Neocon hopes and aspirations have to be shot down. NOW. "Begone you filthy Neocons, And take your billionaires I've watched you from the moment of my birth It's time to take the riches From the corporate sons of bitches Who stole it from the people of this Earth." |
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25 Sep 08 - 11:15 PM (#2450533) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: Don Firth In addition to the regulations he intruduced to prevent that sort of thing from happening again (which the Republicans have been working hard since then to strip away), that's essentially the same method FDR used to successfully end the Great Depression. The New Deal. Funny thing. It really, really worked!! Then came Reagan and the regulations gradually got peeled away like the layers of an onion and/or the personnel of the regulatory agencies were gradually replaced with corporate sycophants, much to the delight of the conservatives. And, lo! Here we are again! It is said that those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But since what FDR instituted actually did succeed in ending the Depression and kept the pigs from eating everything in the trough for several decades, it would seem reasonable to do it again, no? And this time, keep the regulatory agencies awake, alert, and complete with teeth. Don Firth |
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26 Sep 08 - 10:42 AM (#2450853) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: Donuel Don We are trying to avert. FDR had to rebuild and used the Fed Reserve and the dbt standard to do it. THE THING IS we have now reached the ultimate end of the debt standard. What every the best soulution is it better happen fast. as I see it here ... http://usera.imagecave.com/donuel/banks1.jpg |
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26 Sep 08 - 12:06 PM (#2450918) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: GUEST,Sawzaw Barney Frank at a hearing September 2003 on an administration proposal to alter the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. " I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two government sponsored enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury. I must say we have an interesting example of self-fulfilling prophecy. Some of the critics of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say that the problem is that the Federal Government is obligated to bail out people who might lose money in connection with them. I do not believe that we have any such obligation. And as I said, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy by some people. So let me make it clear, I am a strong supporter of the role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play in housing, but nobody who invests in them should come looking to me for a nickel--nor anybody else in the Federal Government. And if investors take some comfort and want to lend them a little money and less interest rates, because they like this set of affiliations, good, because housing will benefit. But there is no guarantee, there is no explicit guarantee, there is no implicit guarantee, there is no wink-and-nod guarantee. Invest, and you are on your own. Now, we have got a system that I think has worked very well to help housing. The high cost of housing is one of the great social bombs of this country. I would rank it second to the inadequacy of our health delivery system as a problem that afflicts many, many Americans. We have gotten recent reports about the difficulty here. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have played a very useful role in helping make housing more affordable, both in general through leveraging the mortgage market, and in particular, they have a mission that this Congress has given them in return for some of the arrangements which are of some benefit to them to focus on affordable housing, and that is what I am concerned about here. I believe that we, as the Federal Government, have probably done too little rather than too much to push them to meet the goals of affordable housing and to set reasonable goals. I worry frankly that there is a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disastrous scenarios. And even if there were a problem, the Federal Government doesn't bail them out. But the more pressure there is there, then the less I think we see in terms of affordable housing." |
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26 Sep 08 - 01:47 PM (#2451006) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: GUEST,az_skye Great Ideas!! "History records that Money Changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.â€쳌 President, James Madison He saw this coming almost 200 years ago!! Apparently, this is something that our great leaders have forgotten, or never learned. This will go down in history as big a blunder as the war in Iraq. What a completely f*cked up world we have given our children!! Plus ça change, et plus c'est la même chose. |
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26 Sep 08 - 02:01 PM (#2451023) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: Donuel The President who cried wolf Who wants to believe him now. In the actual parable the boy ends up being eaten by the wolf. cartoon House repubs on stage performing ... http://usera.imagecave.com/donuel/bail-in.jpg |
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26 Sep 08 - 02:03 PM (#2451024) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: Donuel Farmers are at harvest and can not afford fertilizer for next year Food shortages will be SEVERE. |
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27 Sep 08 - 03:20 PM (#2451726) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: Amos The drawback, of course, is that it does not address the meltdown of the many-times-abstracted complex credit markets without which the ordinary month to month of business becomes a madhouse of ad hoc solutions, like the startup of the fur trade in 1807 in Saint Louis. COmpanies got formed up by "subscription" and if they succeeded the subscribers got paid off, but the development of the startup capital was a slow and complex and risky process. Not that the risky part has changed, but I think you get my point. We absolutely SHOULD spend a bunch of trillions doing the things Charles suggests, and Obama has also incorporated them in his platform. But they won't make the financial collapse go away. Transport, heavy equipment, cyclical staging loans, etc., etc. -- transactions large and small with which the financial world is riddled -- will start to stink like dead plums in late summer. So much as I like the alternative strategy, I don;t see how it could fly. A |
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27 Sep 08 - 08:06 PM (#2451856) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: freda underhill ow! "Throughout the nation men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth… I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people. This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms" Franklin D Roosevelt "nearly all are agreed that private enterprise in times such as these cannot be left without assistance and without reasonable safeguards lest it destroy not only itself but also our process of civilization." Franklin D Roosevelt There is no choice presented to American business between intelligently planned and uncontrolled industrial operations and a return to the gold-plated anarchy that masqueraded as "rugged individualism."...Unless industry is sufficiently socialized by its private owners and managers so that great essential industries are operated under public obligation appropriate to the public interest in them, the advance of political control over private industry is inevitable. - Donald Richberg (head of Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration) |
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27 Sep 08 - 08:21 PM (#2451864) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: McGrath of Harlow All that talk about socialism as "failed" and "discredited" is starting to look a bit threadbare. Time for a serious rethink. |
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27 Sep 08 - 08:28 PM (#2451869) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: freda underhill Rather than punishing the poor, during the New Deal period, the federal government evolved into an arbitrator in the competition among elements and classes of society, acting as a force to help some groups and limit the power of others. This elevated and strengthened newer interest groups which allowed these to compete more effectively By the end of the 1930s, business found itself competing for influence with an increasingly powerful labor movement, with an organized agricultural economy, and occasionally with aroused consumers. This was accomplished by creating a series of government institutions that greatly and permanently expanded the role of the federal government. Thus, perhaps the strongest legacy of the New Deal was to make the federal government a protector of interest groups and a supervisor of competition among them. As a result of the New Deal, political and economic life became politically more competitive than before, with workers, farmers, consumers, and others now able to press their demands upon the government in ways that in the past had been available only to the corporate world. .. It was not until the 1970s and 1980s that most of the New Deal regulations were relaxed, and so here we go again.. |
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28 Sep 08 - 02:11 AM (#2451964) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: heric Did you know that there are more televisions in American homes than there are people? How about a rule that if you are delinquent on your mortgage payments, you aren't allowed to buy more televisions on your credit card until you bring your mortgage payments current. That would help. |
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28 Sep 08 - 02:16 AM (#2451965) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: akenaton It's just a different kind of failure, McGrath |
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28 Sep 08 - 02:27 AM (#2451966) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: akenaton Talk of saving the system through the re-introduction of regulation is utter stupidity. In Western society we no longer produce enough to keep ourselves or sustain our lifestyle,deregulation allowed us to continue the pretense of economic growth for over a decade. That pretense has now been made apparent to everyone, so we either live with jungle Capitalism, or start on "something completely different" |
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28 Sep 08 - 03:36 AM (#2451981) Subject: RE: BS: A better way to save the economy From: freda underhill I think regulation is the way to go. It worked after the Depression, and was never dismantled in Australia. because of regulation many sectors, including workers represented by unions, small business and farmers, get concessions out of the government and so are protected from being destroyed by out-of control business. touch wood. freda |
