Repairing our economy

I35

I35

5,000+ Posts
Let’s face it, anybody that isn’t brain dead knows BHO has been a disaster of a President. There are so many issues that it would take now till the election day to cover it all. I want to look at the overall picture of our economy. The obvious issues are unemployment, credit ratings, deficit, debt, gas, insurance and many others. But what we aren’t talking about is the iceberg underneath the water. I have always believed that fear is the biggest of many driving forces that affect the economy. The fear is not only stemming from the things mentioned above, but also what’s to come due to the ideology of this President. It’s just as much not knowing what he’s capable of as much as it is thinking you know due to his first four years. Either way it’s the uncertainty that causes the fear.

For that reason people that have money are holding on to it the best they can and that spirals down which causes the real trickledown effect. I’m so tired of even talking about our Government spending and putting more people in the wagon and less pulling it. But they are spending and we are barrowing and printing money. We are losing the value of the dollar by printing more. But that’s the short term effects. Wait till Obama is out of office and if Romney or the next GOP President (in 2016) are able to get a real GDP moving the right direction for our economy then we will see the results of all the printed money. The fear will be gone and the money that was all being held due to that uncertainty will start flowing into the market again. Then you add the already printed money and now we have a huge problem with inflation. It will probably be much worse than the Jimmy Carter era. This is really scary and the damage has been done. But like I said earlier, the damage we see now is just the tip of the economic iceberg.

But what drives me crazy is Obama campaigning against “Us going back to the failed policies of the previous administration.” Does this President not know that we have governed this way for longer than his life time? 9-11-2001 happened so that had consequences. Yes there are some differences but overall both Dem and Republican Presidents have pretty much been on the same page. Yes we have had trouble with the economy before. It’s impossible for there never to be due to population growth and other circumstances. But we have never wavered with our overall philosophy and it has always worked out. My only complaint is how much we have taken our debt over the years. But that’s nothing since the spending of 2006. Between 2006 and 2010 was outrageous. We have never had a President in my lifetime that has pushed socialism this far before. He believes the government should be depended on at way too high of a scale. Socialism doesn’t work. Never has and never will. I think America is great. But we have to get back to what made America great in the first place. The first step is getting out of office our worse President ever. It’s time to repair all the damage and come together as we always have. Let's let our next president after BHO fight the inflation instead of contributing to it.
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I am in business and talk to a lot of business people. By far, uncertainty with regard to taxation, spending, and regulation are the fundamental problems. Businesses are being very cautious with expansion and hiring because they don't trust Obama due to his obvious anti-business bias. Despite what some believe, businesses hate having to lay off employees. It's bad for business, morale, and the bottom line. Since they don't know what the future holds if Obama wins, they avoid hiring to avoid potential layoffs down the road. We have a Consumer Confidence metric, but we need a Business Confidence in Government metric, too. Maybe that would open some eyes in Washington.

This lack of confidence is so obvious to people in business, but this administration doesn't seem to get it. If Romney wins and gets control of Congress, the unemployment rate will begin a steady decline back to a more acceptable level. If not, plan on another 4 years like the last 4 years, if not worse since he'd be a lame duck.
 
Like I said in another thread, businesses have no idea what their tax burden will look like, what healthcare costs will be, or whether or not we'll have a government default. Basically all three of those issues are in disarray. It makes sense that businesses would be risk averse in general.

Nevertheless, you can say "socialism doesn't work," but regardless of who wins this election, we're on the path to it. With the economy the way it is, this election shouldn't be close. This should look like the 1980 or even the 1932 election. It's not going to. If he wins at all, it's going to be a nail-biter, which is indicative of where we're heading.

I think there's a very large contingent of Americans who simply don't value economic freedom or view it as fundamental in the traditional sense. In other words, they'll trade economic freedom for security, and that means they'll eventually be willing to embrace social democracy as Europe has.

It's scary for two reasons. Obviously, socialism doesn't work. However, in addition to that, we don't do socialism very well, because our citizens aren't engaged in the political process, so the more power the government has, the more our people get fleeced. They simply don't expect much for the taxes they pay.
 
Mitt's not necessarily the most compelling candidate in general. However, he will provide better leadership on the economy (he couldn't do worse) which will restore confidence for businesses. That doesn't necessarily mean everything will be pro-business. What it does mean is that decisions will be made so businesses know what they're dealing with and they can invest accordingly. That will get the economy moving for real. More government spending and dithering in Washington won't.
 
A right winger today tried to convince me that the liberal leaders of the Dem party were following Cloward-Piven strategy. For those who don't know, the Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward (1926–2001) and Frances Fox Piven (b. 1932) that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of "a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty". Cloward and Piven were a married couple who were both professors at the Columbia University School of Social Work. The strategy was formulated in a May 1966 article in left-wing[1] magazine The Nation titled "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty".[2]

The two were critical of the public welfare system, and their strategy called for overloading that system to force a different set of policies to address poverty. They stated that many Americans who were eligible for welfare were not receiving benefits, and that a welfare enrollment drive would strain local budgets, precipitating a crisis at the state and local levels that would be a wake-up call for the federal government, particularly the Democratic Party, thus forcing it to implement a national solution to poverty. Cloward and Piven wrote that “the ultimate objective of this strategy [would be] to wipe out poverty by establishing a guaranteed annual income...”[2] There would also be side consequences of this strategy, according to Cloward and Piven. These would include: easing the plight of the poor in the short-term (through their participation in the welfare system); shoring up support for the national Democratic Party then-splintered by pluralist interests (through its cultivation of poor and minority constituencies by implementing a national solution to poverty); and relieving local governments of the financially and politically onerous burdens of public welfare (through a national solution to poverty).The Link

For the record, I totally disagree that the strategy is being enacted. I think the overload of the system will occur because of a negligent electorate and self-serving politicians not because of a secret agenda. It is thought provoking, however.
 
I honestly think that the answer to this country's economic problems will be in higher earnings/benefit for the working and middle class. I know Romney and Ryan favor tax cuts and elimination of capital gains tax to stimulate the economy with closing of loopholes to make up the revenue difference. The obvious loopholes to be closed are beneficial to the working class -- mortgage deduction, state and local tax payments, etc. I know we don't like the idea of class warfare, but I don't clearly see how making it easier to accumlate mass wealth with result in an increasing standard of living for people who have to work ot earn money. We still have the Bush tax cuts in place? Did they work? Are they Working? Please link me to a compelling case that it benefits working people. It seems to me employees, in this eonomy, have not been rewarded for dramatic increases in productivity.
 
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