Hello folks. I'm back, at least for a little while.

So... since I have been gone, the President and Congress have passed the $800 billion stimulous package designed to get the economy going. The idea is that if enough money is spent by government, it will result in more jobs.

Let's leave the question of whether the government really has the power to "spend the country out of depression" aside for the moment.

The way the stimulous bill is set up, (and yes, I have read most of it), much of the money will be going to administrative costs, including salaries, office supplies, inspectors-general, etc. Billions of dollars used for something other than stimulating the economy.

If we took that same $800 billion and split it evenly among the roughly 300 million people currently in the USA, each person will receive roughly $2,700.

Under the current stimulus package, average Americans will receive roughly $676 for the year.

Seems to me that we get a better bang for the buck if we simply give the money that the government would be spending inefficiently to the people who would spend it the ways that they deem best. $800 billion dumped directly into the economy (as opposed to being spent by the government) would be quite stimulating to the economy. A family of 4 would suddenly see their income increase by $10,600. That's enough gelt to keep a family in their home for a while, pay for groceries and clothes for the family, make some house repairs, and perhaps save or invest a bit for the future.

And this assumes that everyone gets some money... regardless of whether they pay taxes or not. If we limit it to only those who actually pay taxes (there were 138 million individual tax returns filed in 2006), we could double the amount paid out per taxpayer and still spend less than the stimulous bill, with a more immediate effect than the stimulous bill.

This is simple math. So why don't the bigwigs in DC propose something similar?

The only thing I can come up with is the idea that they want to control us and they are using the economic downturn as an excuse to do that. They want to control where and how we spend our money. They want to control what we buy and sell, how much we pay for it, and what we use it for. That is why the stimulus bill is stuffed with garbage about greenhouse emmissions, global warming research, cap-in-trade, alternative fuels, and any other piece of legislation they feel is in the "best interest of society". The stimulus bill has nothing to do with stimulating anything. It is there to forward a political agenda, not an economic/financial/fiscal/ monetary agenda.

Comments are welcome as always.

Most of the so called stimulus was a bucket list of back logged pork pet projects . Here is what I posted would be legitimate stimulus when we debated the bill here :



Stimulus would be reducing taxes both individual and business . Reduce Cap Gains taxes to liberal-socialist European levels or lower. Stimulus would be refunds of taxes to individuals .

The Congressional Budget Office told it the way it is . According to the CBO review of the package, 82% of the stimulus in 2009 and nearly 70% in 2010 come from tax cuts and direct spending to individuals. In contrast, most of the $365 billion in new discretionary spending won't kick in until after 2010 and will have no stimulus effect at all. Why didn't Congress listen to it's own office's report ?

https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/current-events/so-whats-so-stimulating-about-package-310234.html

But if the goal is grab wealth from the private sector and reinvent the economy into a statist model then what the Dems are doing is putting the plan on the fast track. As Rhambo said [paraphrase] a crisis is a terrible thing to waste .

Hello Mr. ET Wolverine, Banker:

I don't think we can spend our way out. But, if we DON'T spend, it'll be worse.

So, we're going to get hit on the head 7 times by Obama's stim. But, we'd get hit on the head 12 times if we did nothing.

This is a classic lose/lose situation.

What brought us to this precipice? 30 years of deregulation, championed by Ronnie Raygun, and finally exploited by the dufus in chief.

Oh, by the way, the country has spoken on the antics of the dufus and his enablers in congress, or didn't you notice?

excon

Yep, Obama makes no secret of the fact that he wants to "remake" America, and personally I think that should scare the crap out of everyone. At least now we know how he's going to "create or save" all those jobs, he'll have to add possibly a quarter million new federal employees (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/02/AR2009030202935.html).

Please tell me that this isn't true; I am hearing rumors that Obama and Rham are seriously considering either cutting the mortgage and equity loan tax benefits in half or doing away with them altogether?

If this is true, isn't that another negative for home ownership? What an outrage... Along with punishing small businesses that have over $200,000 or is it $250,000 in sales with an additional tax (by the way, that is not what most of these people bring home after payroll, taxes, expenses and putting money back into their businesses.. but will still pay this additional tax... ) we now are losing one of the major incentives for owning your home...

If I am wrong I would love to hear 'the truth.'

Yes it's true. He has already proposed it in his sock-it-to-the-rich rhetoric . And not only that ,it is in his plans to limit charitable deductions.

Now if this was part of a gradual ending of the home mortgage deduction that coincided with a flat tax plan ,I would have to consider it.
But that is not case.
Trillions of additional spending ,according to his own populist pablum ,will be the burden of the rich to pay .

Of course you know that is just the latest version of vodoo economics . He can't pay for the spending he proposed with taxes unless he cracks the back of the middle class... or inflates the currency to worthlessness.

http://patriotpost.us/images/broadcasts/humor/images/honk-mortgage.jpg (http://link.patriotpost.us/?136-400-400-38939-2818)

Hello Mr. ET Wolverine, Banker:

I don't think we can spend our way out. But, if we DON'T spend, it'll be worse.

So, we're gonna get hit on the head 7 times by Obama's stim. But, we'd get hit on the head 12 times if we did nothing.

This is a classic lose/lose situation.

What brought us to this precipice? 30 years of deregulation, championed by Ronnie Raygun, and finally exploited by the dufus in chief.

Oh, by the way, the country has spoken on the antics of the dufus and his enablers in congress, or didn't you notice?

excon

It wasn't deregulation that caused these problems. It was OVERREGULATION that caused them. There should never have been a Fannie Mae and a Freddie Mac. There should never have been a Community Reinvestment Act. There should never have been a deliberate push to create a market for a product that didn't develop naturally. All of this was a result of the government regulating these things into existence. Did the financial gurus get selfish in the creation of sub-prime mortgage derivatives? Of course. But none of that would have been possible if the government hadn't regulated sub-prime mortgages into existence.

Certainly no lender in their right mind (and I speak as a lender who is NOT in their right mind) would be so foolish as to risk lending money to people who demonstrably cannot pay them back. It takes fifteen or twenty good loans to make up for the losses generated by one bad loan. In terms of risk and reward, it's a poor percentage play. There are only two reasons that a banker would make a loan of that type. 1) If they knew that the loan was guaranteed, or 2) they were forced to do so by the government. In our case, BOTH of these conditions existed... the loans were guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie. The bankers knew they could lay off any bad loans on the government and be repaid in full, as long as they filed the right paperwork. And there was the mandate of the Community Reinvestment Act that REQUIRED banks to make at least 40% of their loans to sub-prime borrowers.

In short, if Fannie and Freddie didn't exist, and if there had never been a CRA law, there never would have been a mortgage crisis. It was government regulation that created Fannie, Freddie and CRA, and thus created the problem.

I have heard a number of people blame the "deregulation" of the financial industry that allowed brokers and investment banks to become savings & loan banks for the problems we now face. Exactly how does that work? Let's assume that the laws sepparating brokers and investment banks from savings and loan banks had never been changed. If CRA still exists and if Fannie and Freddie still exist, there is still a market for bundled sub-prime mortgages, and there is still a market to "insure" those mortgages in the form of derivatives. That form of "deregulation" didn't change the market forces created by the government's intervention in the housing market.

It wasn't deregulation that caused the problem. It was overregulation... typical government involvement in free markets where they should never have been in the first place. The law of unintended consequences: they tried to right what they perceived as unfairness in housing, and it resulted in the biggest housing market crash in history.

Elliot

Did I say the "O" wants to remake America? He also wants to re-brand the country. His new emblem for recovery...

http://blogs.abcnews.com/photos/uncategorized/2009/03/03/aara_logo_2.jpg

The old red, white and blue has gone green, and encased by the "O"

Steve... where is the hammer and sickle ? How did he forget that ?

The logo President(fake Presidential emblem... Greek temple backdrops) had this to say about the new symbol :

“We're also making it easier for Americans to see what projects are being funded with their money as part of our recovery. So in the weeks to come, the signs denoting these projects are going to bear the new emblem of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” Obama said. “These emblems are symbols of our commitment to you, the American people — a commitment to investing your tax dollars wisely, to put Americans to work doing the work that needs to be done. So when you see them on projects that your tax dollars made possible, let it be a reminder that our government — your government — is doing its part to put the economy back on the road of recovery.”

In other words ;the Commisars will make sure these logos are plastered in every village to city in America to make us rubes believe the gvt. Is bringing Federal jobs to our small town .No doubt this logo will replace all corporate logos from now on.


Here was Roosevelt's version... it was deemed unconstitutional because it attempted to regulate commerce that was not interstate in character, and that the codes represented a unacceptable delegation of power from the legislature to
the executive.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3b/NewDealNRA.jpg/180px-NewDealNRA.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NewDealNRA.jpg)

Businesses that supported the NRA put the symbol in their shop windows and on their packages. Though membership to the NRA was voluntary, businesses that did not display the eagle were very often boycotted--making it seem to many mandatory for survival.
National Recovery Administration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Recovery_Administration)

He later repackaged it into the WPA
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f4/Usa-wpa-graphic.jpg/180px-Usa-wpa-graphic.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Usa-wpa-graphic.jpg)

Here was Mao's version (agitprop):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Plakat_mayakowski_gross.jpg/180px-Plakat_mayakowski_gross.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plakat_mayakowski_gross.jpg)

When the bill comes due for all this we can dust off our old WIN buttons .
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/94/Win_button.jpg/180px-Win_button.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Win_button.jpg)

Allahpundit said it would be akin to Bush doing something like this:

Adidas took care of the hammer and sickle (http://conservativepunk.com/articles/2017/)...

http://www.conservativepunk.com/media/articles/Adidas.jpg

Interesting Tom,

When I was very young I remember my dad saying that the "WPA" program meant... "We Poke Along...."

Yes and the old Soviet workers had another saying that will apply when the bill comes due.

They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work

First David Brooks (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/opinion/03brooks.html?_r=2&ref=opinion), now Maureen Dowd (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/opinion/04dowd.html?_r=1). Buyer's remorse sets in.

I guess Brooks finally finished digesting the meal that was served up at George Will's house when Obama had all those conservative columnists swooning .

Roosevelt's Treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau confessed that New Deal policies failed. By 1939, he concluded that massive tax-and-spend programs hadn't made a dent in structural unemployment, which was at 20% 8 years into Roosevelt' Presidency .He is quoted as saying :

"We have tried spending money..We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. We have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot!"

Even more blooms coming off the rose... Chris "thrill up my leg" Matthews was actually critical (http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTAyYTk1NWVlOThhZDUyMGU1YTJhYTNjOTNlYzU2MTU=).

Doogie Howser, Treasury Secretary

LOLOLOLOLOL!! thanks I needed the laugh

Obama is going to silence Jim Cramer and Rick Santelli after he squashes Rush Limbaugh .

Eugeen Robinson is skating on thin ice too. Madame Michelle Defarge is knitting their names on the enemy list quilt.

Madame Michelle Defarge is knitting their names on the enemy list quilt.

I just had an image of Grace Hawkins in Keeping Mum (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0444653/usercomments?start=30)...

Haven't seen it but will look for it . I think Maggie Smith is fantastic.

If you like quirky British comedies you'll enjoy it.

Michelle Malkin has the new recovery logo...

http://michellemalkin.cachefly.net/michellemalkin.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/screw.jpg

She's also reporting that HUD spokesman Adam Glantz is telling entities that neither asked for or have a use for "stimulus" funding they're going to get that "we hope and encourage these new grantees to develop creative strategies (http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20090304/NEWS01/903040369)" to use their porkulus funds.

What the heck, just get creative and find a way to spend your grandchildren's money.

Here's another version

http://www.obamaapprovalblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/030409-pod3jpg.jpeg

It wasn't deregulation that caused these problems. It was OVERREGULATION that caused them. There should never have been a Fannie Mae and a Freddie Mac. There should never have been a Community Reinvestment Act. There should never have been a deliberate push to create a market for a product that didn't develop naturally...

In short, if Fannie and Freddie didn't exist, and if there had never been a CRA law, there never would have been a mortgage crisis. It was government regulation that created Fannie, Freddie and CRA, and thus created the problem.

If CRA still exists and if Fannie and Freddie still exist, there is still a market for bundled sub-prime mortgages, and there is still a market to "insure" those mortgages in the form of derivatives. That form of "deregulation" didn't change the market forces created by the government's intervention in the housing market.

It wasn't deregulation that caused the problem. It was overregulation...

Elliot
And this negative, destructive behavior is being bailed-out and our future as a free nation is being further imperiled. As I posted on another topic: In 2005, Greenspan said, "After his prepared testimony, in response to a question about the GSEs' portfolios, Greenspan noted, "We have found no reasonable basis for that portfolio above very minimum needs." He then proposed "a $100 billion, $200 billion--whatever the number might turn out to be--limit on the size of the aggregate portfolios of those institutions--and the reason I say that is there are certain purposes which I can see in the holding of mortgages which might be helpful in a number of different areas. But $900 billion for Fannie and somewhat less, obviously, for Freddie, I don't see the purpose of it." Greenspan then articulated his reasons for limiting the GSEs' portfolios: "If [Fannie and Freddie] continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road." He added, "Enabling these institutions to increase in size--and they will, once the crisis, in their judgment, passes--we are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk." AEI - Short Publications - Regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.22514/pub_detail.asp)

Have you read Jim Cramer's response (http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/news/cramer-my-response-white-house?page=6) to being on the White House enemy list? It's worth the read. It's too long for here but here's the close...


To be totally out of the closet, I actually embrace every part of Obama's agenda, right down to the increase on personal taxes and the mortgage deduction. I am a fierce environmentalist who has donated multiple acres to the state of New Jersey to keep forever wild. I believe in cap and trade. I favor playing hardball with drug companies that hold up the U.S. government with me-too products.

But these are issues that we have no time for now, on the verge of a second Great Depression. This is an agenda that must be held back for better times. It is an agenda that at this moment is radical vs. what is called for. I am proud to have voted for the Obama who I thought understood the need to get us on the right path, and create jobs and wealth before taxing it and making moves that hurt job creation -- certainly ones that will outweigh the meager number of jobs he's creating.

Most important, I believe his agenda is crushing nest eggs around the nation in loud ways, like the decline in the averages, and in soft but dangerous ways, like in the annuities that can't be paid and the insurance benefits that will be challenging to deliver on.

So I will fight the fight against that agenda. I will stand up for what I believe and for what I have always believed: Every person has a right to be rich in this country and I want to help them get there. And when they get there, if times are good, we can have them give back or pay higher taxes. Until they get there, I don't want them shackled or scared or paralyzed. That's what I see now.

If that makes me an enemy of the White House, then call me a general of an army that Obama may not even know exists -- tens of millions of people who live in fear of having no money saved when they need it and who get poorer by the day.

I appreciate Cramer's response: "To be totally out of the closet, I actually embrace every part of Obama's agenda, right down to the increase on personal taxes and the mortgage deduction. I am a fierce environmentalist who has donated multiple acres to the state of New Jersey to keep forever wild. I believe in cap and trade." But, I don't understand how he can look at himself in a mirror. Cramer reminds me of the story, The Gingerbread Man: The Gingerbread Man (http://www.topmarks.co.uk/stories/gingerbread1.htm)

Frankly, I don't think that Cramer qualifies as a general of anything. I disagree with the White House's criticism of him, but that he's wrong at least as often as he is right in his predictions. I could buy him as a Master Seargant or another military NCO, but he doesn't have the vision to be a general.

I am not a fan of Rush Limbaugh but what's up with this??

Your slogan on anti-Rush billboard : The Swamp (http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/03/your_slogan_on_antirush_billbo.html)

Chicago Tribune 3/7/09

I am not a fan of Rush Limbaugh but what's up with this ???

Your slogan on anti-Rush billboard : The Swamp (http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/03/your_slogan_on_antirush_billbo.html)

Chicago Tribune 3/7/09

Obama said in his inaugural address "that the time has come to set aside childish things." I guess he didn't really mean it. "Just words."

Obama said in his inaugural address "that the time has come to set aside childish things." I guess he didn't really mean it. "Just words."

All that and possibly a 'distraction.. ':confused:

Patterico notes a 2006 poll in which a full 51% of Democrats said they did not want Bush to succeed (http://patterico.com/2009/03/08/democrats-have-no-right-to-be-snooty-about-rush-not-wanting-the-president-to-succeed/). More Democrat hypocrisy... and I'm tired of them getting away with it.

The Obama administration is now pushing for a global stimulus plan (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123655587029066001.html). Meanwhile, the NY Times wonders if Geithner is in over his head (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/business/economy/09treasury.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all). But who cares? We got priorities, destroy Rush and all other enemies of the agenda.

[QUOTE=speechlesstx;1593804]The Obama administration is now pushing for a [U]global stimulus plan

Thanks for the cite: "By BOB DAVIS
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. will press world leaders to boost emergency government spending to lift the global economy, risking a rift with European nations more concerned with revamping financial regulation."

What a fallacy, stealing from Peter to pay Pam.

I seriously do not have any grudges against any particular group as a whole but tell me what you think of this?

New Islamic mortgages now available in Minnesota (http://www.aipnews.com/talk/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=2749&posts=2&start=1)

It's an outrage (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/current-events/connecticut-regulate-catholic-church-326891.html), just as Connecticut trying to regulate the Catholic church and the UN's appeasement of Muslims.

It's an outrage (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/current-events/connecticut-regulate-catholic-church-326891.html), just as Connecticut trying to regulate the Catholic church and the UN's appeasement of Muslims.

I swear, I have major concerns with both party's but lately it seems that you have to have a 'swivel neck' to keep up with all this craziness coming out of the woodwork...