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Old 10-07-2011, 10:37 AM
 
Location: West Orange, NJ
12,546 posts, read 21,366,438 times
Reputation: 3730

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Quote:
Originally Posted by NWJerseyGrl View Post
Umm, it was on the table during the Bush Administration but never approved at all, and was actually put on hold before Bush left office.
the program was in place, it's just the specific companies to receive the money was put on hold.
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Old 10-07-2011, 10:42 AM
 
Location: West Orange, NJ
12,546 posts, read 21,366,438 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NWJerseyGrl View Post
Are you seriously asking how Wall Street, Investors etc. add to the economy?
yes. if you want to define value-on-paper as adding to the economy, then I can see how you would say they add to the economy. but what's on paper and what's reality are two different things. see the tech boom of the late 90s, perpetuated by the irrational exuberance that exists on Wall Street.

the function of wall street, at it's core and most simplistic stage, allows for people to invest their money in the potential profits of a company, which then allows a company to invest those dollars in the advancement of the company. that does add to the economy. but when a company is making decisions specifically to drive up the price of the stock, because investors demand higher P/E and and more profits, it's the job of the executives to determine what's the best long term approach. The incentives, in this case, are driving short term profits to drive short term stock prices - which in the long rong is bad for the economy.

When wall street is working, it's a great vehicle for the economy. but when it's not, it can be a disaster. this is why proper, but efficient, regulations need to be in place. otherwise we have a boom and bust economy that goes through cycles, which can be seen throughout history if you look at a variety of examples.
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Old 10-07-2011, 10:45 AM
 
Location: West Orange, NJ
12,546 posts, read 21,366,438 times
Reputation: 3730
Quote:
Originally Posted by NWJerseyGrl View Post
From personal experience they most certainly are an incentive not to work. I have a few relatives who decided to kick back and not get a job until they were going to lose their benefits. I was talking to someone a few weeks ago who said his cousin just got a job when her benefits were ready to run out, he said she could've gotten a job easily a few years ago but decided to "chill".
i personally know someone who was recently laid of. odd circumstance at work, and knew it was coming. so this person decided to interview for jobs. well, a job was found, pretty close to the time the person was laid off, and some unemployment benefits were collected. this is one example, but i actually know dozens of people that have had this happen to them in the past 3-4 years. some were less fortunate, and were unemployed for 4 months, or 6 months. but none of them stopped trying to find a job, because living on 1/3, 1/4, or in this most recent example, 1/5 of their income was not an option.

in what case are unemployment benefits greater than a wage at a new job?

of course you know someone who knows someone...but does he really know her situation? i'm telling you not of people i know who knew someone, i'm speaking of people directly known by me. sorry, i disagree that making less money than you can make at a fulltime job is an incentive to not get a full time job.
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Old 10-07-2011, 11:07 AM
 
14,780 posts, read 43,582,793 times
Reputation: 14621
Quote:
Originally Posted by fay111 View Post
Excellent post. Some random thoughts on all of this. I don't think people cared that much in the past what bankers on wall street were making. The reason they care now is not class warfare, but the feeling that they had a big part in bringing down our economy, and they are back to business as usual, where so many in the country are still suffering from lack of jobs, hits to their 401K's, etc., all as a result of their actions.

Housing brought us into this mess, and it is far from being fixed. There are still significant numbers of foreclosures that have yet to hit the market. As prices continue to go down, more people are affected by it, and many of them did not buy above their means and had substantial down payments.

I also take issue with the idea that all wealthy people are "job creators"- I'm sure some are and some are not. Taxes on the wealthiest are quite low in comparison to what they have been in the past, so where are the jobs? We all know corporations are sitting on tons of money, and they're not hiring because the demand isn't there. To believe that if we lower their taxes, suddenly there will be tons of job creation is quite simplistic.

....

People today are frustrated because they see that politicians on both sides of the aisle are selling them out to special interests, they are either unemployed or working harder for less, that the people who created this economic crisis have not paid any price for it.
You raise some very good points as well. Two points I would like to mention...

1. People are not upset for no reason or because they are lazy and don't want a job. Many of the people protesting took days off from their corporate jobs to do it, though they are not the ones chosen to be shown on most news coverage.

People are upset because there was no sacrifice (and no I don't mean it the way others think I do) from the top. In the Great Depression 10,000 banks (roughly 40% of all banks) in the nation failed. People who were rich one day, were poor the next as the market collapsed, the Depression impacted EVERYONE. CEO's and bankers were hurling themselves out of windows for God's sake.

With the current financial mess, exactly 397 banks and financial institutions have failed, none of whom you would even know the name of and I assure you their CEO's didn't commit suicide over it as the vast majority were simply restructured into a new bank with the same management or merged with another institution, all on our dime.

In the Depression people gambled with money and they lost, when they lost THEY lost. In the current economy, the people who gambled with money lost, but THEY did NOT lose anything, they were bailed out. Their indescretions were swept away with trillions of tax payer dollars. The most "sacrifice" made by a bank or Wall St. CEO during this entire crisis was skipping the executive bonus, vacation and use of the corporate jet for a few months. Now, they are back to business as usual.

This is what people are angry about. The people who engineered the crisis in their pursuit of more money were not left to hold the bill, the nation as a whole was and it was borne on the backs of regular citizens. No one would be upset if the CEO's of the large banks and investment houses were now collecting unemployment or serving jail time, but they aren't. They're sitting in the same offices they occupied before the SHTF and making just as much money as ever.

Now, I'm not saying the bailouts were wrong or that they shouldn't have been done, just that there was ZERO accountability baked into it. This is what people want, they want people held accountable, because unlike the Great Depression people today have their entire lives tied up in the games (and yes anyone with even a passive understanding of investment banking knows it's a game) played on Wall St. via their investment accounts. The people who did everything right and were a couple years away from retirement have watched the equity in their home disappear and retirement accounts evaporate, while the CEO of Goldman is still taking the jet to meetings in the Caymans.

2. The rich are not against paying more taxes. Odd statement, but from Buffett to the CEO of BoA who mentioned thousands of his own customers as well, the rich are not against paying more in taxes. It's the pretend Tea Party rich wannabe's who are screaming the loudest about taxing the rich.

The only thing the "rich" are asking in return is accountability. They want to know what the money will be used for and how the government is going to fix this mess. Honest question that no one seems to have the answer to.

This again brings me back to my point that the country needs leadership. It doesn't even need to be effectual leadership, just leadership. Here's my closet confession...

I voted for Obama. I did it because when I heard him speak I thought he had the chance to do something no leader had done since Reagan and you would need to roll back to JFK and then FDR to find someone before that. I thought Obama had the ability to make people believe in America again. I didn't agree with all of his policies, but I knew that the only thing holding America back was an apathetic electorate and people not having faith in the system.

See, the economy is as much about emotion and "feelings" as it is about numbers and productivity. If people believe that things are getting better, they actually have a tendency to get better. So, even though I had actively campaigned for McCain in 2000 and voted for Bush twice, I voted for the man who seemed to have the ability to make people believe. Words are a powerful thing and Obama is a gifted orator. He let me down, but I don't see anyone else who would be any better and that is part of MY frustration.
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Old 10-07-2011, 11:17 AM
 
14,780 posts, read 43,582,793 times
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Originally Posted by bradykp View Post
i personally know someone who was recently laid of. odd circumstance at work, and knew it was coming. so this person decided to interview for jobs. well, a job was found, pretty close to the time the person was laid off, and some unemployment benefits were collected. this is one example, but i actually know dozens of people that have had this happen to them in the past 3-4 years. some were less fortunate, and were unemployed for 4 months, or 6 months. but none of them stopped trying to find a job, because living on 1/3, 1/4, or in this most recent example, 1/5 of their income was not an option.

in what case are unemployment benefits greater than a wage at a new job?

of course you know someone who knows someone...but does he really know her situation? i'm telling you not of people i know who knew someone, i'm speaking of people directly known by me. sorry, i disagree that making less money than you can make at a fulltime job is an incentive to not get a full time job.
I've said it on here before, I lost my 6-figure job at the beginning of 2009 and was out of work for about 5 months. My wife was a SAHM with two young children and we found out we were expecting number three shortly after I got laid off. My unemployment benefits paid about 1/3 of my take home salary. Of that HALF went to paying for COBRA as we did not qualify for any other assistance programs. We made the hardest decision of our lives and moved in with my in-laws (we were lucky that our lease expired the month after I got laid off). I never stopped looking for a job and one finally came through, albeit at a significant pay cut. We made a lot of sacrifices, our luxury cars were sold for cheaper cars, we don't take vacations like we used to, we clip coupons and shop smart, there are things we can't afford. We now own our own home and have adjusted well, but if it were not for the safety net of unemployment, we would have been bakrupted and had our credit destroyed.

I think the anecdotes of people living off unemployment are generally tied to young workers without families who can simply hangout at mom and dads or couch surf on their benefits. These are not the majority and I can't imagine anyone with a family and real bills choosing to stay on unemployment when there are job opportunities. I'm sure there are some cases where you have two income earners and kids involved, where it may make financial sense as well, but that again is not the norm.
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Old 10-07-2011, 11:19 AM
 
Location: NJ
17,574 posts, read 46,060,080 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NJGOAT View Post
The only thing the "rich" are asking in return is accountability. They want to know what the money will be used for and how the government is going to fix this mess. Honest question that no one seems to have the answer to.
This point defines how many people view the budget/deficit/spending. I think taxes should be lowered for everyone. Why? I don't trust the government with one cent of my money. And honestly I don't see anything changing in my life time.
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Old 10-07-2011, 11:36 AM
 
14,780 posts, read 43,582,793 times
Reputation: 14621
Quote:
Originally Posted by manderly6 View Post
This point defines how many people view the budget/deficit/spending. I think taxes should be lowered for everyone. Why? I don't trust the government with one cent of my money. And honestly I don't see anything changing in my life time.
I understand where you're coming from and you know I don't disagree on principle. The problem is there needs to be give and take from both positions and accountability for all. The governments role needs to be limited and applied to the areas that they are best at. Spending needs to be reigned in and the books balanced. The difference is that I have no problem with higher taxes if it means we also create impactful changes to entitlement programs and reign in defense spending. Until someone can come to me with a balanced plan and approach, I have to default to my not one more red cent position. The difference is unlike those in power, I'm willing to compromise and don't consider my tax rate a "sacred value".
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Old 10-07-2011, 11:45 AM
 
112 posts, read 134,684 times
Reputation: 68
Quote:
Originally Posted by bradykp View Post
the program was in place, it's just the specific companies to receive the money was put on hold.
There were discrepancies hence the program funding being put on hold, and why aren't there any signs protesting Ron Pelosi's company receiving over 700 million in bailout money? Why are the Democrats intent on destroying the coal industry and putting all this money into solar? is it because they, their family and their friends have money invested in solar energy?
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Old 10-07-2011, 11:47 AM
 
112 posts, read 134,684 times
Reputation: 68
Quote:
Originally Posted by robmm1978 View Post
I'd like to know where in NJ you can 'chill' on 1600 a month.
Very easily when you have a spouse that works.
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Old 10-07-2011, 11:49 AM
 
112 posts, read 134,684 times
Reputation: 68
Quote:
Originally Posted by bradykp View Post
i personally know someone who was recently laid of. odd circumstance at work, and knew it was coming. so this person decided to interview for jobs. well, a job was found, pretty close to the time the person was laid off, and some unemployment benefits were collected. this is one example, but i actually know dozens of people that have had this happen to them in the past 3-4 years. some were less fortunate, and were unemployed for 4 months, or 6 months. but none of them stopped trying to find a job, because living on 1/3, 1/4, or in this most recent example, 1/5 of their income was not an option.

in what case are unemployment benefits greater than a wage at a new job?

of course you know someone who knows someone...but does he really know her situation? i'm telling you not of people i know who knew someone, i'm speaking of people directly known by me. sorry, i disagree that making less money than you can make at a fulltime job is an incentive to not get a full time job.
Obviously I knew my families situation, and I have no doubt the person I spoke to a few weeks ago was being truthful.
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