Posted on 02/18/2010 4:36:23 AM PST by radioone
Huh? You think, since he wrote the column, that readers might expect him to present his solutions?
That's his observation, Will. The observation is its own solution.
Here in California we see the symptoms of the same Greek malady as we go from one budget shortfall to the next — dream-like borrowing, raising taxes, and furloughing, in lieu of the tough medicine of cutting government payrolls, changing pension payouts, and freezing the pay of state-workers until their compensation mirror images those in the private sector.
Poor reading skills again.
Why am I not too optimistic right now? Our President, who submitted the largest deficits in recent memory, and who is on track to nearly double the national debt in record time, continues to blame Bush — not just for Bush’s lamentable deficits, but for Obama’s own new unsustainable ones. I think his weird logic is: “Bush’s bad deficits made me trump them by a factor of four.” When the Commander-in-Chief expects the populace to believe that, or drops real unemployment figures and talks instead of theoretical jobs saved, or flip-flops on everything from evil Wall Street bankers now suddenly good, or bad nuclear power now vital, then we have about as much hope as we would have under Jimmy Carter.
Goods and services production are symbiotic (which is essentially VDH's point), not exclusive to each other.
I wonder if you or anybody else here has a definition of “wealth.”
Obviously not all physical productions are true wealth, as money can be and often is wasted producing something that provides little or no value when completed.
Equally obviously, at least to me, some services and intellectual productions do create wealth despite having no physical existence. For instance, computers have greatly increased productivity and therefore the generation of wealth per worker hour. That has real value, even though the software programs that actually do the work don’t have any true physical existence.
Mash the two together, especially in a headline, and you get people flooding the thread who think "real wealth" is only generated by people turning screws in a factory with a smokestack.
Only partially. The budget shortfalls are due to both flat or declining state revenues as well as mushrooming expenses and borrowing. He says little or nothing about what's caused the stagnant revenues, or stagnant economic activity, etc.
The problem of the past few years is two sided, unfavorable as to revenue, and expenses and debt.
There’s really no point in discussing this with you until you finish reading the column.
Look at implementation of the Income Tax and the Federal Reserve...1913.....
Ping.
No point in discussing with you until you address my initial point: VDH presents generality after generality, but few specific to solve all the problems he identifies. He needs to lay out some specific policies to address all these problems.
The main thing that's heard these days is to reduce the corporate tax rate to make domestic companies more competitive. But that rate went from 52% to 35% during the decades when domestic corporations were becoming much less competitive.
This is not a policy that can be followed without many specifics:
We strangle Silicon Valley with all sorts of labor and business regulations until it fabricates and outsources abroad. In other words, we are creating no real new sources of concrete wealth as we nuance the shrinking capital we inherited.
He should recommend specific changes, and not deal in so many generalities.
Imagine a politician announcing: we are going to raise the Social Security age to 66. We are going to freeze and cut spending until we balance the budget within three years, and then with surpluses pay down the debt within 6 years. We are going to build 100 new nuclear power plants and open up the country and its shores to oil and gas production. We are going to cut back all federal entitlements and subsidies by 20% immediately. We are going to ensure enough water for agriculture.Oh wait, he did . . . your point was?
Gud redding iz herd.
Talk about a head-scratcher.
I know now 39% is the second highest. Maybe if they were the highest and other taxes were raised too, that would fix our problems? And we should spend less on reading in schools.
1. raise corporate taxes (increasing prices to the consumer),
2. prevent corporations from off-shoring (increasing prices to the consumer), and
3. raise import taxes (increasing prices to the consumer).
This is a key thought.
In our two-party system, The Republicans have become used to a more or less permanent minority status in the legislatures of many states, and definitely at the federal level.
The official Republican Party appears actually HAPPY with this!
It absolves them of responsibility and frees them to work for their corporate constituents. Working with the Democrats, the Republicans have absolutely acquiesced in restructuring the taxes of the 1940's and 50's, transferring them from corporations to the 'Middle Class.' At the same time, the tax structure has encouraged and actually given incentives to those corporations to move their operations offshore.
In general, the Official Republicans are happy to let the Democrats do any damn thing they want ... as long as their people arfe covered.
The Republican Party used to be able to reasonably claim it represented Main Street, not Wall Street. It has kept this claim, but has substituted Main Street economic common sense for "Family Values," an issue that allows it to hold on to safe seats in more conservative areas, while selling conservatives down the river, acting as the Democrat's pushover Loyal Opposition.
My greatest fear is that the loathing the Democrats have engendered will be harnessed by RINOs who cannot wait to get back to business as usual. They don't really want control. They want their clout back.
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