Posted on 02/24/2006 6:51:54 AM PST by gooper
The hubbub over terrorism isn't the biggest problem with the Dubai flap...
The real absurdity here is that Congress doesn't seem to realize that an Arab-owned company's management of America's ports is just a taste of what is coming. Greater foreign ownership of U.S. assets is an inevitable consequence of the reckless tax-cutting, deficit-ballooning fiscal policies that Congress and the White House have pursued. By encouraging the United States to consume more than it produces, these fiscal policies have sucked in imports so fast that the nation is nearing a trillion-dollar annual trade deficit. Those are IOUs on America's future, issued by a spendthrift Congress.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The answer is "Yes." We've done it before, it will be done again.
As President Reagan used to say when asked about the enormity of the deficit: "The deficit's big enough to take care of it self."
All will be well. Honest.
So 5 years there was no national debt?
Simple exercise on HOW taxcuts INCREASE Govt Revenue. Suppose you had 100 taxpayers who each made $100. 100 x 100 = $10,000. Now suppose the Govt taxes them at 30%. 10,00 x .30 = 3,000. NOW a Reagan style leader comes in and cuts the rate to .25%. The cut in the tax rate spurs economic activity because the taxpayers have more incentive to earn more since they do not simply have to give more to the Govt. So this year they make $125 taxed at .25% under the new rate the Govt rakes in $3125 in taxes. That is an INCREASE of Govt revenue.
The alternative was to let the world sink into deeper and deeper recession. Then, a reincarnated FDR could have come along and wisely guided it into worldwide conflagration, so it could recover on carefully calculated rationing and niggardly government handouts. No thanks, We will be OK. Other nations" economies are perking up and growning. That makes markets for us. As bush said this wek, there are now 300 million middle class Indians buying washing machines and computers and atomic energy plants from us. We just need more customers who can afford what we sell.
Your thesis sounds good, but we are not opening up markets for American manufacturers, but for others. The deficit spending, should never have happened, the budget should be under a trillion a year easily, and the reason it is not and never going to be is the Republican party, and GW Bush. I thought that when the "adults" were in control, we would get control, boy was I wrong, and so was the rest of America.
"Can we really grow our way out of the mountain of debt that we've accumulated over the last 5 years?"
Be American, Buy American. Support American manufacturers and suppliers. Insist on American made products.
Restrict cheap imports that displace American workers and American productivity will increase. American workers support American business and American business rewards that support with more jobs.
There is always someone willing to do a job cheaper. That don't always translate into quality. Cheap imports are not only sucking away our jobs, but they are sucking dry the wallets of those fortunate enough to have jobs. A nation of consumers needs to be a nation of producers or one day we will not be able to afford our consumption. I believe much of the trade defecit is related directly to oil imports.
Stop confiscatory taxation of business.
Relax environmental restrictions so steel mills and mines can produce product profitably.
And bitterly fight trade barriers that squash profit and competition.
The Dumb-As-A-Post , as usual, is too smart by half. Tax cuts increase revenue, a fact which is as proven as it is undisputable.
The problem with our government is that it is addicted to spending money on things that it should never have been involved in in the first place. Add to that programs like NAFTA, CAFTA, and the wholesale exportation of jobs to the Far East, and you begin to understand why we are in such a damn mess.
My family is in construction. My grandfather started the company during the Depression, with one dump truck, which he rented. In the last 70-odd years, this small business has grown into a company which nets several million dollars a year in revenue, owns millions in real-estate holdings, and has won several prestigious national engineering awards. It is one of the larger firms of its kind in the United States.
This company wasn't built up by overcharging consumers, or by exporting/importing our labor out to the cheapest bidder. It wasn't built on how much debt we could accumulate, and it wasn't built by borrowed promises to the next generation that will inherit it. It WAS, however, built by sound reinvestment, a bit of luck, and one hell of a lot of hard work.
Our government has forgotten its place, and it has forgotten what hard work is Our officials have lost their stomach for anything which requires them to take a stand on an issue which may cost them their jobs, but be healthier for the country.
We no longer have leaders, only politicians.
This guy is a moron. Suppose his prediction is true " "in a matter of a few years foreigners may end up owning most of the U.S. capital stocks: ports, factories, corporations, land, real estate and even our national parks". What would the American foreign owners have instead? They would have gotten the capital and invested it in the latest and greatest ventures instead of the old stuff. I can imagine that space tourism might just be hotter in the 21st century than some national parks.
If foreign ownership of U.S. assets didn't decline in the late 1990s when our government was supposedly operating on a "surplus," then the facts simply don't support what this guy is saying.
Dont worry once the GOP throws away the next election with these silly stunts the Dems will taxes our A$$E$ nicely to pay it off.
However if Im not correct....the Dubai company is replacing a British company....so how that effecting the balance of trade in this particular case?
If the administration did nothing to attact foreign investment theyd be ridiculed by the left and now as they try to KEEP the US economy an open environment theyre criticized.....hilarious.
You are wrong and you are mixing up the budget deficit and trade imbalance. Shovelling money out of Washington to the states and tax cuts have put all but the most irresponsible states into surplus when they were really hurting. There is no magic number that the budget should be. That is just crazy. We could follow purer balanced budget policies, if some other countries would wize up ( EU and Japan). As it is, however, we pull them along, sort of, in spite of themselves. But we could easily have sunk them, too. Now, the Republicans can go back to budget balancing, and I hope they will. I think they are going to, and will be joined bu budget hawk democrats, though they have different priorities.
You're missing the point of the article. David Ignatius is pointing out that there are national security concerns here. Arabs are taking over and the only way to stop them is for us to give Dave and his buddies our life savings.
This is not news.
Canadian, European and Japanese businessness own a significant portion of commercial US real Estate. This has been known since the 1980's.
Arab oil money has been flowing into the United Sates since the 1960's, investing in everything from power plants and refineries to supermarkets to banks to casinos.
Japanese and Korean automakers and heavy industry have been building production plants in the United States for two decades now.
China runs the Port of Los Angeles, amongst others.
Every country on the planet invests in the American stock market and buys US Treasury Bonds. This has been going on forever.
A significant portion of the major, urban construction work in this country is handled, planned or executed by foreign firms, hired by American citizens.
You'd be surprised at what you find if you just did a little research on Dun and Bradsteet as to who owns what and in what proportion.
This is not news. It's been happening for a very long time. The only difference is the (justifiable) fear we have of anything Arab or Islamic, which is what's really driving all of this brouhaha.
I'd bet a paycheck that before this all started, 9 out of 10 people in this country couldn't locate the UAE on a map (6 out of 10 probably still can't --- they're probably democrats), nor would they care to. Unless Abu Dhabi managed to get a team into the Super Bowl, most Americans would be happy to go through life totally ignorant of them.
The "Security" angle is a red herring. Security was, and will always remain, the province of the Department of Homeland Security (you know, the guys who's parent agencies let the 9/11 hijackers into the country in the first place?). All DPWorld is going to do is to direct traffic in the port and assign berths to incoming ships. The Coast Guard, FBI and the other fed alphabet soup agencies still do whatever it is they do (or often not do). That means we're STILL being guarded by disinterested Federal union workers.
I'd worry more about that than I would DPWorld.
You are right, this is a business sale from one corp to another. The only thing we get out of it are collecting thr "compliance costs." I imagine lots of Washington lawyers and lobbyists have made millions helping the two corps navigate this multi-agency review process.
Most countries in the world do not have a good business climate. They do not have the contract and property rights ensured by courts or the transparency to protect against corruption. It is a testament to what a good system that we have built that people want to invest here and not elsewhere.
I spent seven yers of my life working for a Japanese company (Nomura Securities,largest securities firm in the world, btw) here in the US. You'd be AMAZED at just what the Japanese ALONE have their fingers in.
Half of this tempest in a teacup revolves around ignorance and the rest around bigotry.
I'm certainly no fan of Islam (just read my posts!), but even an Arab oil shiek leaves his religion on the front porch when it comes to his money (or blonde prostitutes).
I don't. The goal is sustained wealth creation, and that's what the recent tax-cuts have done.
Basically, back in 1980 the average household owed about 11% of their wealth to the national debt. Clinton's tax hikes increased the burden of debt up to 19%. Bush's tax-cuts have brought it down to 16% and it's still falling. (graph here) The bottom line is that during the Clinton high tax economy we had a soaring national debt and a falling private net worth.
You assume that budget balancing and tax cuts are related. They are not.
Cut taxes all you want, when revenues increase (as they always do), the government (regardless ofparty philosophy or affiliation) spends the extra cash anyway. In fact, they OEVRSPED it, which is how we get deficits in the first place.
The issue is not whether or not tax cuits are good for the economy (answer: they are), the issue is whether or not the jerks we send to DC have any discipline with that money (answer: they aren't, and we don't particularly care enough).
Excuse me, that was OVERSPEND (not enough coffee yet!).
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