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Old 12-21-2008, 01:13 AM
 
955 posts, read 2,153,848 times
Reputation: 405

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The article below details the Presedent Elect's plan to create (or save) 3 million jobs.

Obama ups jobs promise to nearly three million - Mike Allen - Politico.com

The crux of the plan revolves around construction jobs. Will these provide on-going jobs for the workforce? As pointed out:

"Obama transition officials held an all-day series of meeting Friday in the basement of the Capitol with a large number of House and Senate staffers where they discussed specific areas of the recovery plan, such as energy and education.

The increase in Obama's jobs goal was first reported Saturday afternoon by Jackie Calmes of The New York Times.

Obama said earlier this month that the infrastructure part of his plan has five keys: making public buildings more energy-efficient; creating millions of jobs by investing in roads and bridges; modernizing and upgrade school buildings; expanding access to high-speed Internet; and making progress toward access to electronic medical records for all Americans."


Here is another thought on what to do with the $675 billion dollar proposed stimulus. If the government offered zero interest loans to qualified new business owners, look at what could happen. If the average loan to an entreprenuer was $250,000, there would be a creation of 2.7 million new small businesses. If each one employed ten people, the result would be a ten fold increase in jobs over the President Elect's proposal.

Many of these new companies would end up doing the same kind of projects that are being proposed while many would forge new ground. We have always heard that small business is the driver of the economy. So let them drive it.


And the best part is that this would be a loan, paid back to treasury.
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Old 12-21-2008, 10:10 AM
 
94 posts, read 126,365 times
Reputation: 43
A lot of those small businesses will fail and the loan would not be repaid.

As for investing in public works projects, I think that's a good idea, it worked well for Hitler. I just wish we would have an amendment requiring a balanced budget, rein in welfare programs, foreign aid to first-world Israel and other wasteful spending, and work to rid ourselves of our national debt. We can't spend ourselves into bankruptcy forever.
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Old 12-21-2008, 10:28 AM
 
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,708,708 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by UpperPeninsulaRon View Post
The article below details the Presedent Elect's plan to create (or save) 3 million jobs.

Obama ups jobs promise to nearly three million - Mike Allen - Politico.com

The crux of the plan revolves around construction jobs. Will these provide on-going jobs for the workforce? As pointed out:

"Obama transition officials held an all-day series of meeting Friday in the basement of the Capitol with a large number of House and Senate staffers where they discussed specific areas of the recovery plan, such as energy and education.

The increase in Obama's jobs goal was first reported Saturday afternoon by Jackie Calmes of The New York Times.

Obama said earlier this month that the infrastructure part of his plan has five keys: making public buildings more energy-efficient; creating millions of jobs by investing in roads and bridges; modernizing and upgrade school buildings; expanding access to high-speed Internet; and making progress toward access to electronic medical records for all Americans."


Here is another thought on what to do with the $675 billion dollar proposed stimulus. If the government offered zero interest loans to qualified new business owners, look at what could happen. If the average loan to an entreprenuer was $250,000, there would be a creation of 2.7 million new small businesses. If each one employed ten people, the result would be a ten fold increase in jobs over the President Elect's proposal.

Many of these new companies would end up doing the same kind of projects that are being proposed while many would forge new ground. We have always heard that small business is the driver of the economy. So let them drive it.


And the best part is that this would be a loan, paid back to treasury.
What about mass transit? OK I can see we have to do roads and bridges that are crumbling and schools but many cities have aging subway systems and bus fleets we need to replace too. I would like to see some of the money go that way.
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Old 12-21-2008, 11:20 AM
 
2,189 posts, read 7,688,632 times
Reputation: 1294
Quote:
Originally Posted by KevK View Post
What about mass transit? OK I can see we have to do roads and bridges that are crumbling and schools but many cities have aging subway systems and bus fleets we need to replace too. I would like to see some of the money go that way.
I would love to see a high speed train systems...I know there's about ten in the works, most seem to have major hurdles...

I don't know the details of why, but in 2000s FL approved for a high speed train that would initially go from Tampa, to Orlando to Miami and ultimately all over FL. Then it was repealed (again not sure why) in 2004. I not only see that as the future...But I personally like the idea of what is called the autotrain which is a standard speed train that goes from D.C. to Orlando, but see it in a high speed form. You get to drive your car onto the train and the train transports you and your car to your destination. I'm pretty close to Atlanta, I would love to drive my car onto a high speed train and get my destination twice as fast as if I drove...
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Old 12-21-2008, 11:50 AM
 
31,387 posts, read 36,970,250 times
Reputation: 15038
Quote:
Originally Posted by thegeist View Post

As for investing in public works projects, I think that's a good idea, it worked well for Hitler.
It worked equally well for the US, so the Hitler mention makes gives me great pause as to the intent of the poster.


Quote:
I just wish we would have an amendment requiring a balanced budget,
I love it when folks contradict themselves within the span of a sentence. You cannot fund a major economic stimulus while calling for a balanced budget in an economic downturn where revenues are decreasing.

Quote:
rein in welfare programs,
Which would be?

Quote:
foreign aid to first-world Israel
Why do I get a feeling that there is a connection between the Hitler mention and cutting aid to Israel, not that I am opposed to such cuts in principle.

Quote:
work to rid ourselves of our national debt. We can't spend ourselves into bankruptcy forever.
(to repeat)

I love it when folks contradict themselves within the span of a sentence. You cannot fund a major economic stimulus while calling for a balanced budget in an economic downturn where revenues are decreasing.
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Old 12-21-2008, 12:02 PM
 
Location: Dallas, TX
31,767 posts, read 28,762,760 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thegeist View Post
I just wish we would have an amendment requiring a balanced budget
That won't be very pragmatic, would it? However, it is important to accept that reaganomics is a bad idea. Even now, the emphasis is on credit, not on savings. Does it, then, surprise one, that there were two recessions under Reagan (two terms), one under GHW Bush (one term) and two under GW Bush (two terms) and national debt grew rather rapidly?

Oh, and Hoover tried to balance the budget during a recession. We know how that turned out.

This is why we need smart, intelligent and open minded people running the country, not one bound by "rules"... leave that to dummies who don't provide substance beyond pure political talk.
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Old 12-21-2008, 01:00 PM
 
Location: Columbia, SC
37,046 posts, read 19,018,642 times
Reputation: 14803
Quote:
Originally Posted by thegeist View Post
...work to rid ourselves of our national debt. We can't spend ourselves into bankruptcy forever.
Why not?

Deficits don't matter.

Ronnie said so. The country has never been in better shape than it has under Bush, even though he more than doubled in eight years the national debt accumulated in the 224 years before he took office with absolutely no effect on the economy. Quite an accomplishment, don't you think?

I'm amazed, anyway.
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Old 12-21-2008, 01:41 PM
 
Location: toronto, Canada
773 posts, read 1,213,550 times
Reputation: 283
Typical neo-Keynesian nonsense.
How many of your neighbours have managed to spend their way out of debt? Reality is a country is no different than a family household. Income must match expenditures.
Here is an article from my favourite columnist Eric Margolis
America needs period of pain | Eric Margolis | Columnists | Comment | Toronto Sun (http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2008/12/21/7817551-sun.html - broken link)

"The shoes Iraqi journalist Muntader al-Zaidi threw at George W. Bush had more courage and truth in them than all of America's fawning media. Al-Zaidi reminded the world that Bush, Dick Cheney and their helpers have the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on their hands -- perhaps as many as one million.
In New York, fabled investment guru Bernie Madoff is accused of bilking clients of an astounding $50 billion while well-fed federal watchdogs snoozed.
Thanks to Madoff and Wall Street bandits, tens of millions of people have lost their life savings and retirement funds, and the world financial system is on the rocks.
Wall Street's big money con men, hedge fund Houdinis, and casino capitalists made a staggering $33.3 US billion in bonuses in 2007 alone by shady financial engineering and hawking fraudulent securities. Yet they have so far escaped prosecution. They get to keep their swag and $30-million South Hampton beach houses.
Worse is coming. Chrysler and Ford will shut plants in January. GM is next. In spite of the $13.4-billion auto industry bailout announced by President Bush last Friday, many plants may never reopen. As this column has long said, the U.S. auto industry closely resembles the old Soviet Union: Economically declining, bereft of new ideas, producing unwanted products, run by dimwitted careerist bureaucrats.
America produces the wrong cars, and far too many. The bloated auto industry must downsize. It has been selling cars only thanks to the steroid of cheap, easy credit -- in effect, almost giving them away. Now that the drug is largely cut off, sales have nosedived.
The U.S. economy has been running almost entirely on credit for a decade. The U.S. national debt is twice America's net worth. Government and business encouraged a reckless credit binge to which the nation became addicted.
SAVINGS
Manufacturing fell to only 12% of GDP. Finance -- the shuffling of paper -- became America's leading industry. Americans saved nothing and had to borrow $1.2 trillion from China and Japan to keep the orgy of consumerism going.
Washington's response was panic, then flooding the economy with freshly printed money in hope something positive would happen. Japan made precisely the same gamble when its bubble economy collapsed in the early 1990s. Today, Japan has one of the world's highest deficits and its economy remains dead in the water.
The U.S. economy must be weaned off credit addiction. Pumping billions and billions of dollars into the economy is like mainlining more drugs to a sick junkie.
The economy needs a period of cold turkey in which remaining credit bubbles, bad debt and financial distortions are purged. This is called recession, and it's a vital part of the capitalist free market cycle.
Without a period of pain, we can't restore economic health or sanity.
But panicky American politicians plan to spend $8.5 trillion to stave off this necessary, beneficial recession. Their misguided efforts risk igniting a future firestorm of inflation that will be far more dangerous and painful than any recession.

HYPERINFLATION
That is why the European Central Bank, with vivid memories of the terrifying 1920s hyperinflation in Germany when a loaf of bread cost 80 million marks, has resisted deep interest rate cuts and printing money.
The Fed's recent slashing of U.S. interest rates to zero is a sign of utter desperation and an act of folly. Once investors realize that Europe, Canada and Asia are far safer investments than the U.S., watch for the U.S. dollar to nosedive -- as it should.
The remedy for America's economic ills is not more money but patience.
Americans must relearn the old verity that one must save for purchases and rainy days; that gambling with your home is idiotic; that there is no substitute for hard work or manufacturing; and that it's always very risky to trust politicians or financial "professionals" with your money.
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Old 12-21-2008, 02:05 PM
 
19,198 posts, read 31,422,068 times
Reputation: 4013
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcmastersteve View Post
Typical neo-Keynesian nonsense.
How many of your neighbours have managed to spend their way out of debt? Reality is a country is no different than a family household. Income must match expenditures.
Completely wrong. When your household achieves sovereignty in international relations and gains such powers as those of taxation and coinage, you can come tell me that you are on your way to being no different from a government. The reality is that households are very different from corporations which are very different from governments. That's why each of these is treated as a separate sector in virtually everybody's analysis.
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Old 12-21-2008, 03:33 PM
 
955 posts, read 2,153,848 times
Reputation: 405
Quote:
Originally Posted by thegeist View Post
A lot of those small businesses will fail and the loan would not be repaid.

As for investing in public works projects, I think that's a good idea, it worked well for Hitler.
Getting back on point, many small businesses do indeed fail, usually because of poor initial capitalization. My ideas gives a decent amount of funding for start up. In addition, I would have all the prospective businesses present their plan to a committee made up of the local university's business school and local business owners. That is something that is done pretty much everywhere. There are contests run by the schools and prozes awarded to the best business ideas. Now we would have the added prize of start up funding.

Even if fifty percent fail, my plan still adds more jobs and uses the marketplace to decide what works, not individuals lobbying for their pet projects.
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