[ms] · Est. May 2002
One durable person. One social graph. Many communities—and every way people speak, share, listen, write, gather and remember.
Well I thought I would start the thread since I'm sure everyone is going to have an opinion on it. Not sure what is in it yet. Does anybody know what is in it?
I still don't think the US government can do anything about the landslide that has already begun. This needs to be fixed on a global scale with everyone's ships pointed in the same direction.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
i dunno, but i'll take the check if there's one coming.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
This is going to be a fun thread...
I don't know the details of it either, but I think it's a significant chunk towards government spending in infrastructure, etc. and a minority piece in tax cuts.
I think most of it should be geared towards government spending, but it should be the [I]right[/I] kind of government spending. It needs to be stuff we really need and it needs to be stuff that we can put into action [I]now[/I], as opposed to in one or two years. The major weakness with some of Obama's grandious spending plans, I bet, is that they will either simply take too long to get off the ground or be targetted towards things that will end up being wasteful and inefficient.
What benefit are we talking about? Jobs, of course. That's going to be the number one concern: how to stabilize the unemployment rate and give those people out of work something to do.
I know the Republicans are touting a lot of tax cuts instead. I'm not really buying that. Tax cuts are nice, but they are not going to keep you in your job. And it's not going to be spent right now; it's [I]all[/I] going to be saved until the job situation is addressed and things bottom out.
And btw: $825 billion probably won't be enough; they will probably have to expland it. And it will take a long time for it to work, even if they find good projects to start now. Don't look for a turnaround before 2010 at best. There is no quick fix.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
^ part of the plan is to actually give tax refunds dating as far back as 5 years ago to companies who are seeing losses. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. Good in the sense that companies have some infusion in the system and/or bad in the sense that it may just be money that we don't already have.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
Don't profess to know anything about this at all. But spending on infrastructure and renewables can't be all bad. :)
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
Pork, pork and more pork. Oversight is needed. Greed got is into this mess.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
Oversight? Oversight most definitely will not work. Whoever does the oversight just gets paid off. You see your country is too corrupt.
We already read that book with Fannie and Freddie.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
[QUOTE=runningman;702654]Oversight? Oversight most definitely will not work. Whoever does the oversight just gets paid off. You see your country is too corrupt.
We already read that book with Fannie and Freddie.[/QUOTE]
If you're right, then we are fucked.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
well...we can't just curl up and die. we may not have a perfect answer, but we ultimately have to keep trying to do something.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
[QUOTE=Miroslav;702786]well...we can't just curl up and die. we may not have a perfect answer, but we ultimately have to keep trying to do something.[/QUOTE]
True. Hopefully Obama and the new leadership can push things in the right direction. I'd prefer tax cuts retro to '08.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
In case you're curious about what's in the stimulus proposal...
[URL]http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/106490/Stimulus-101-What's-in-the-Bills[/URL]
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
I read something like this on cnn.com^^^ seems like there are some good proposals in there
a hell of a lot better than sending out cheques IMO.. I mean, I wonder what percentage of people that received a cheque actually just went out and spent it.. no one I know did
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
[quote=DIDI;702519]Don't profess to know anything about this at all. But spending on infrastructure and renewables can't be all bad. :)[/quote]
Yes it can if the world won't buy your debt. Think about it as doing home renovations just after you lost your job and you can't get a loan.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
theres some things on that bailout that could help me out on my business, a lot of the taxcuts that are mentioned look pretty helpfull, at least for me and my wife.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
what happens after the commercial real estate collapse that is about to happen?? Why isn't Obama preparing for that? The banks have taken over the US government and everybody will feel the affects in Mid March if not earlier. It is like the gov't is always 10 steps behind the curve. This is an economic 9/11 what is happening here.. you guys are being robbed and you feel great about it.
Also at what point do we stop blaming Bush and accept responsibility for the new actions by Obama? Remember this is not Bush's watch anymore and what happens from here on out is on Obama
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
[quote=runningman;703602]what happens after the commercial real estate collapse that is about to happen??
[/quote]
Not specific to your substantive comment here, but just in general, are you like one of those guys that stand on the corner wearing an oversized sandwich board that says "THE END IS NEAR" or some shit like that? One of the mods needs to change your title to "Prophet of Doom" or "Resident Soothsayer" or something.
[quote=runningman;703602] Also at what point do we stop blaming Bush and accept responsibility for the new actions by Obama? Remember this is not Bush's watch anymore and what happens from here on out is on Obama[/quote]
There will certainly come a time where this is appropriate and as to certain things, that time is already here. Generally speaking, though, it's asking a lot to expect Obama to unfuck everything that Bush has done in a week. 8 years of wrong-headed policies allows you to build up an awful lot of steam in the wrong direction, and you can't just pretend that didn't happen. Much though I would love to just have a clean break, we're going to feel the sting of some of those policies for a long time. To use a poker analogy, if you're taking over for a guy who's got the short stack at the table, you wouldn't expect to knock everyone else out within a couple of hands, nor would you want to try.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
no you live in Obama land and I live on planet earth. What I meant by the commercial real estate is that retail is dead and when those buildings are empty they will stop paying the loan for the buildings.
I also take that as a compliment since their hasn't been anything good to happen in a long time. You folks actually believe that Obama can change this when he has brought in the same old hacks that he said he was going to change. It is business as usual in Washington he didn't't change anything.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
[quote=runningman;703641]no you live in Obama land and I live on planet earth. What I meant by the commercial real estate is that retail is dead and when those buildings are empty they will stop paying the loan for the buildings. [/quote]
I don't even care about the substance, that's not the point of the post. The point is that it seems that an overwhelming number of your posts recently follow a common pattern where you're predicting that some awful thing is going to happen.
I guess the point of the post is this:
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6cxNR9ML8k[/YOUTUBE]
:lol:
...and I wouldn't start patting yourself on the back too hard just yet, either. :lol:
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
[quote=runningman;703641]no you live in Obama land and I live on planet earth. What I meant by the commercial real estate is that retail is dead and when those buildings are empty they will stop paying the loan for the buildings.
I also take that as a compliment since their hasn't been anything good to happen in a long time. You folks actually believe that Obama can change this when he has brought in the same old hacks that he said he was going to change. It is business as usual in Washington he didn't't change anything.[/quote] You may end up being right and I'm not defending Obama...but do you realize that he's only been in office for ONE WEEK? Do you think you could, like, wait at least half a year to see what some of the actual results are of his policies before condemning him as an utter failure? Good god, dude :lol:
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
Oh have you guys not been paying attention. He is going to pass the biggest bill ever proposed. I don`t care if its his first week or his 120th week. This bitch is worth [B]$825 Billion [/B]not including pork. Basically he is adding 10% more in debt to your country.
Your Natoinal debt = $11 Trillion Obama is adding nearly $1 Trillion in spending more.
When are you guys going to realize that you cant put yourself more in debt to get out of debt. You cant get $1 Trillion from the world to pay off your $11 Trillion that you are already at. Sorry to burst your bubble but whether this is his first week or 120th is irrelevant this is a MAJOR deal and I feel a lot of you guys are caught in the Obama haze and kind of throwing it under the bus.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
[quote=runningman;703698]Oh have you guys not been paying attention. He is going to pass the biggest bill ever proposed. I don`t care if its his first week or his 120th week. This bitch is worth [B]$825 Billion [/B]not including pork. Basically he is adding 10% more in debt to your country.
Your Natoinal debt = $11 Trillion Obama is adding nearly $1 Trillion in spending more.
When are you guys going to realize that you cant put yourself more in debt to get out of debt. You cant get $1 Trillion from the world to pay off your $11 Trillion that you are already at. Sorry to burst your bubble but whether this is his first week or 120th is irrelevant this is a MAJOR deal and I feel a lot of you guys are caught in the Obama haze and kind of throwing it under the bus.[/quote]
So you're saying that neither government spending not tax breaks are appropriate policy during economic depressions.
What, then, would you say is the appropriate thing to do? Would you advocate that we (society) just do nothing?
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
Doing nothing would be the best way for free market capitalism to work. MAJOR corrections need to be made in order to move forward. Socialism is not the answer to free market capitalism problems. Sometimes you must let things fail in order to move forward. Stop coddling all this huge multinationals. What is happening right now as we speak is that the banks have now 100% taken over your country. I don't care if you believe me or not that is the way it is. Instead of the government trying to hold that banks in check it is actually the other way around. It is unfortunate but we are in the "time of quickening" where things happen faster than they ever had before. What used to take years to accomplish gets done now is weeks.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
I agree that doing nothing will let free market capitalism work. And it will work very efficiently. Unfortunately, there are some heavy prices to pay for that which may be worse than the cure.
Yes, markets ultimately need time to naturally correct themselves to a sustainable supply/demand equilibrium. But you should consider that [I]the speed and manner in which they correct themselves makes a big difference on peoples' welfare[/I].
Take this as an analogy: When your two engines in a commercial airliner go out, it is much better to figure out a way to glide that plane down slowly, if possible, and find a relatively safer place for it to crash-land than it is to just let nature take its course and have the plane to slam into the ground at terminal velocity.
What you are advocating is to just slam the airplane into the ground at terminal velocity. That solves your original problem and it is extremely efficient, but it also kills everyone.
Doing nothing when things are this bad allows a domino effect to take place, where the rapid collapse of one industry reverberates and brings down the next industry...and the next...and the next, until you really have virtually nothing left. The entire financial network - banks, stock markets, currencies - will vanish along with it. And you'll have a lot of starving people revolting in the streets.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
^ Best analogy yet, miro.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
Dear MoveOn member, Did you see how many Republicans voted for President Obama's stimulus package in the House yesterday? None. Seriously, not a single one. Americans voted overwhelmingly for change in November. We voted for an end to the partisan bickering and political games that are destroying our politics. And President Obama bent over backwards to get House Republicans to craft a bipartisan bill, to no avail. As the bill moves to the Senate, we need bipartisan support, or the stimulus won't pass. Senate Republicans need to know they have a clear choice: support a stimulus package that will put millions of Americans back to work, or continue to play the games that got us into this mess. We've put together a powerful new ad to pressure the key senators. President Obama spent hours meeting with Republican leaders personally. He made painful compromises to win them over.2
But Republicans refused to play ball. They're insisting on a plan that doesn't invest a cent in green jobs or health care or education. They just want more tax cuts for the rich and for corporations, even though that's part of what got us into this mess.3 GOP leaders will get their way—unless we can convince a few Republican senators who are on the fence. Can you contribute $25 to our new ad to pressure swing-vote Republican senators? Click here: [url]https://pol.moveon.org/donate/recovery_ad.html?id=15461-14469268-Tixdu3x&t=4[/url] Thanks for all you do. –Noah, Daniel, Anna, Carrie and the rest of the team Sources:
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
^^^ That sounds like our Getup. I think we copied your idea:) Great way for ordinary people to actually have an influence. :D From one of your links [QUOTE]But the size and substance of the stimulus package remain in dispute, as House Republicans argued that it tilted heavily toward new spending instead of tax cuts. [/QUOTE] ???????????????
New spending means building real benefits for the future , tax cuts just look like throwing money away.
[QUOTE=runningman;703602]
Also at what point do we stop blaming Bush and accept responsibility for the new actions by Obama? Remember this is not Bush's watch anymore and what happens from here on out is on Obama[/QUOTE] Well I think it will be a little longer than one week :lol: Bush had a whole 8 years to fuck it up. :lol:
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
this reminded me of this.
[URL]http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=216996&title=obamas-smug-little-bubble[/URL]
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
[quote=DIDI;704151]^^^ That sounds like our Getup. I think we copied your idea:) Great way for ordinary people to actually have an influence. :D From one of your links ???????????????
New spending means building real benefits for the future , tax cuts just look like throwing money away.
Well I think it will be a little longer than one week :lol: Bush had a whole 8 years to fuck it up. :lol:[/quote]
I understand that he can't undo everything Bush did in 1 week. But to pass a stimulus of $1 Trillion in your first week is what is worrying me. That would mean that in the last 6 months your country has added $2 Trillion to its national debt!!!
Again Miro your analogy is a little to melodramatic. Things fail every day and the US is repeating mistakes from the last great depression by inflating the currency. This will drive us faster into the ground than parachute us in.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
Miro is completely right. . .the laws of economics clearly allow anyone to see that a government intervention is the best way for us to see a recovery as soon as possible. . .Although, I would like to add that since the world economy is so globalized a more coordinated effort between governments may be needed or we will end up with tariffs.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
well I wish you guys the best of luck since it has never happened in the past.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
[quote=runningman;704484]well I wish you guys the best of luck since it has never happened in the past.[/quote] What exactly hasn't happened in the past?
Look, I agree with you that these are highly risky actions. And I sure don't like the fact that the government has to potentially take these actions into markets...and I know there are real risks with increasing the deficit. I wish we didn't have to be dealing with any of this. But have to deal with it. Shit has hit the fan and stakes is high, son! I'm afraid we don't have much of a choice but to knuckle down and take some sort of a bet to stabilize the economy if we don't want things to get [I]drastically[/I] worse... But the key is, if we're going to mortgage our future, we have to be making damn good bets. And that's of course easier said than done...I will agree that they have done a C- to D so far with the bailout money. It is a hell of a crap situation...I dunno, wish I had the answers.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
I don't understand. can someone explain [i]really[/i] simply where this money comes from? is like foreign loans or something or does the gov't just pull money out of nowhere?
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
Basically Tiddles your government is borrowing money from China, Japan..etc. to even get money to print in the treasury. What guys like Miro on here believe is that you can get a loan to pay off a loan. Which we all know is impossible. Picture it like this, you are $100,000 in debt and you go to the bank and get a $10,000 loan to pay off your $100,000 debt. Mathematically that is impossible right?
Well Obama now has decided for you that you are going to take that $10,000 loan and do home renovations (Government Infrastructure) even though you don't have a job to pay off any of the loans. You see the government can't stimulate an economy it can shock it but it can't raise Frankenstein back from the dead. It has never happened in history (Rome). But some people believe that this is a good idea.
Also Miro you talk about doing this radical and different. Different and radical would be to let things fail since the trend is to bail everyone out.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
^^ I admit it's a real risk and an unpleasant situation to further increase the national debt in the near term. I just don't know what's worse:
spend something to stabilize the economic disaster
or
save the cash and just let things play out
there are some formidable risks to both approaches.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
[quote="Miroslav"] save the cash and just let things play out [/quote]The last great depression happened before the advent of nuclear weapons. Keep that in mind. These bailouts could inadvertently be preventing a nuclear holocaust by not letting the fabric of society completely shred.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
if it's over $500, I promise to spend it on actual things. like a nice new subwoofer and some art materials.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
I'm soooo glad we have CHANGE with Obama....
There is so much BS in this "Stimulus Package" that should not be there but should instead be in its own bill instead of used as a bargaining chip by the Dems.
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
Obamas message of fear. He is starting to sound more and more like Bush. Bush wanted to take your freedom away and Obama wants your money.
"This recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse,"
Ya so adding $1 trillion in debt will surely fix it..lol.. 5 million jobs if your lucky more like 30 million.
[URL]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090205/ap_on_go_pr_wh/congress_stimulus_126[/URL]
Glenn Beck is hilarious in this one. I hate GB but in this case he is right about Obama. Maybe a little over the top but Obama is def. a Markist
[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuwgHNtyD54"][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuwgHNtyD54[/youtube] [/URL]
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
[quote=runningman;706676] but Obama is def. a Markist[/quote] "Marxist"...as in a follower of Karl Marx ;)
Re: Obama's $825 Billion Stimulus
He just gave a pretty rousing speech in support of the bill at a Democratic Caucus meeting. Don't have the link but I just watched it on CNN. It was in simple, easy-to-understand terms, and went after all of the arguments leveled against the bill.
Made the Republicans look like nothing more than bumbling obstructionists, which is really what they've been reduced to anyway.