Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > North Carolina > Charlotte
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 12-04-2010, 02:17 PM
 
171 posts, read 315,843 times
Reputation: 95

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by stlterp View Post
More 'prevented from getting worse' than fixed, IMO. The actions of the federal government, while far from perfect, did do some good. Kept the banking sector from collapse, saved hundreds of thousands of jobs at GM and related suppliers, prevented/delayed severe layoffs at the state and local levels, kept capital markets at least somewhat intact, etc.
In other words, the federal government protected "too big to fail". Nothing less. Yet, the workforce is still shrinking and as a result your taxes will have to be raised and they will take wealth from you by making the dollar even more worthless.

Charlotte's economy is a ward of the state.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 12-04-2010, 02:56 PM
 
830 posts, read 1,522,508 times
Reputation: 608
So the government should have done nothing and let the economy fall into a depression?

Again, my company is just a drop in the bucket...but we're aggressively hiring (incremental positions) and increasing capital spend on a whole variety of areas, which in turn helps other companies. We are hiring locally as well as re-locating people from outside the area. Of course, most of the hires are coming from other companies so we're not directly reducing the number of unemployed.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-04-2010, 04:13 PM
 
171 posts, read 315,843 times
Reputation: 95
Quote:
Originally Posted by stlterp View Post
So the government should have done nothing and let the economy fall into a depression?....
The real economy is in a depression. The fact that Charlotte's workforce is shrinking, in a count where an employed person is defined as a party who got paid for 1/hour a week is about as bad as it gets. It's especially bad since our population is growing.

By continuing to prop up the derelict finance industry, an industry that does not add real wealth to society, no money is available to invest in real income producing industry and jobs.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-04-2010, 05:24 PM
 
1,177 posts, read 2,230,537 times
Reputation: 1142
Quote:
Originally Posted by CherryTwist View Post
By continuing to prop up the derelict finance industry, an industry that does not add real wealth to society, no money is available to invest in real income producing industry and jobs.

Can you imagine how well the U.S. Economy would be doing right now if 1/4 of the bailout funds were given to R&D, product development, & manufacturing companies? Don't get me wrong, I don't advocate this type of policy. It's just interesting (and fun) to think of all the other things the bailouts could have been spent on and how much better off we'd be if they were spent more wisely.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-04-2010, 05:53 PM
 
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,809 posts, read 34,481,998 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by amploud View Post
Can you imagine how well the U.S. Economy would be doing right now if 1/4 of the bailout funds were given to R&D, product development, & manufacturing companies? Don't get me wrong, I don't advocate this type of policy. It's just interesting (and fun) to think of all the other things the bailouts could have been spent on and how much better off we'd be if they were spent more wisely.
Here's an example in NC, including towns in the Charlotte area where grants were given for various projects. According to what I read in The local paper, here, Gov. Perdue seeded existing funds with stimulus money. I think that the use in this state has been judicious, for the most part, with the 2 glaring exceptions of the weird project at UNC & the debacle in Charlotte.

There are multiple funds & I'm not going to hunt for them all. This is sufficient to show that, for the most part something good came from that money, including either making new jobs or keeping people in existing jobs employed.

Rural Center awards $28 million in grants for infrastructure, job-creation projects

Last edited by southbound_295; 12-04-2010 at 06:04 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-04-2010, 11:18 PM
 
4,692 posts, read 9,268,161 times
Reputation: 1330
I really don't understand the disgust with the stimulus. IMO, it's really a damned if you, damned if you don't action.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-05-2010, 06:01 AM
 
830 posts, read 1,522,508 times
Reputation: 608
I don't work in the finance industry, but without it, companies could not grow and expand. How many companies out there are debt free? At the height of the financial crisis, commercial lending virtually shut down - without gov't intervention, there would have been a lot more casualties outside of finance.

Yes, there are a lot of things that went on with various derivatives, swaps, mortgage-backed securities, etc...but the basic business of borrowing and lending is paramount to the economy far beyond 'finance'
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-05-2010, 07:59 AM
 
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,809 posts, read 34,481,998 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by adavi215 View Post
I really don't understand the disgust with the stimulus. IMO, it's really a damned if you, damned if you don't action.
I can't speak for the other states, but here in NC we had 2 instances where some stimulus money was spent inappropriately. The media got a hold of the stupid project at UNC & the general concensus was that it was an inappropriate way to spend that money. I'm not sure how well known it was that Charlotte frittered away a lump of money that would have been enough to do any number of things that would have resulted in some permanent jobs.

The media got a hold of inappropriate uses of the stimulus money & people assumed that it was all spent that way.

In my opinion, our governor has done just about everything right on this. The link that I showed illustrates where some of that money went. In that instance, it went to infrastucture improvements & either resulted in newly created jobs or work for people who have jobs. There is nothing inappropriate there.

In Kings Mountain, the best example that I can give is the Plonk building. It is over 100 years old & had functioned as a department store. It's been empty for years. Grants were procured from several of the funds. By mid year next year there will be 2 restaurants (Old Stone & Jax) & they are looking for a retail shop on the ground floor. On the upper floor, there will be 5 condos on one side & 5 offices on the other. There are already 2 businesses slated for the offfices. This project alone is giving work to construction people, while the building is gutted & repurposed.

It's that sort of thing that didn't make the news.

In my opinion, what the country needs is a 2nd, smaller, stimulus with strict conditions put on it, so that it would be used the way that NC is using it. Instead, we have a gang going to DC to kill what hasn't been spent.

Obviously, some of these posters are lacking in knowledge of what it took to get out of The Great Depression. It took massive federal spending & WWII to get the people back to work & that federal spending then was made back in wage taxes. This shouldn't be a right-wing, left-wing thing. This is common sense if you know history. I remember many years ago when my friends & I asked why we had to learn history & we were told "If you don't learn history, you're doomed to repeat it."

Last edited by southbound_295; 12-05-2010 at 09:21 AM.. Reason: typo
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-05-2010, 08:44 AM
 
161 posts, read 303,166 times
Reputation: 103
Stimulus should have never happened...but we keep "stimulating" and "printing". Things will not get better...only worse with all this spending money that we do not have. aLIf we could just get someone in office that would make the US more appealing to business so we could get things back on track and possibly attempt to salvage what is left.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-05-2010, 09:17 AM
 
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,809 posts, read 34,481,998 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robinlp View Post
Stimulus should have never happened...but we keep "stimulating" and "printing". Things will not get better...only worse with all this spending money that we do not have. aLIf we could just get someone in office that would make the US more appealing to business so we could get things back on track and possibly attempt to salvage what is left.
How do you tie this in to the Charlotte area?

For instance, a huge problem in the local economy is the collapse of the mills. Some were sold off to foreign concerns, some merely had the jobs shipped overseas, while others collapsed when the banks refused to advance operating expense loans. This is a reality in the Charlotte area. How does this apply to your theory?

Incentive money from the stimulus was used to get new businesses into this area. What's the problem with this? New businesses put people to work & their wage taxes pay it back. See my previous posts concerning how the country got out of The Great Depression.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:




Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > North Carolina > Charlotte
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top