Bump
Just like FDR, Obama has turned a recession into a depression with his socialism.
Give me 6 months as supreme dictator and I’ll fix things.
You might want to hide in your basement for the duration but you can put SEAL team 6 on me to make sure I leave after 6 months.
Minimizes short-term pain, while
Getting the long-term deficit under control
Brilliant!!
Import tariffs.
Bring back American jobs and factories from communist China.
What’s wrong with pressing for energy independence which seems providentially within our reach?
So far no one seems to have read to the bottom of the article where this guy comes out swinging for infrastructure expenditure, then states that much of Europe (and Asia) has vaulted past us in infrastructure. How’s that working out for Europe?
Federal spending is more like 25% of GDP, and Blodgett's grasp on history is nearly as accurate.
The economic situation in 1920 was grim. By that year unemployment had jumped from 4 percent to nearly 12 percent, and GNP declined 17 percent. No wonder, then, that Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover — falsely characterized as a supporter of laissez-faire economics — urged President Harding to consider an array of interventions to turn the economy around. Hoover was ignored.
Instead of "fiscal stimulus," Harding cut the government's budget nearly in half between 1920 and 1922. The rest of Harding's approach was equally laissez-faire. Tax rates were slashed for all income groups. The national debt was reduced by one-third.
The Federal Reserve's activity, moreover, was hardly noticeable. As one economic historian puts it, "Despite the severity of the contraction, the Fed did not move to use its powers to turn the money supply around and fight the contraction." By the late summer of 1921, signs of recovery were already visible. The following year, unemployment was back down to 6.7 percent and it was only 2.4 percent by 1923.
Harding slashed taxes for all, cut spending, and cut federal debt, and the economy rebounded very rapidly free of government direction. We desperately need another President Harding and 'return to normalcy'.
The problem with debt based wealth is that it isn’t real. It’s a fun game until reality sets in.
The cure for this mess is cheap energy, and lots of it. Of course, smaller government and lower taxes would go a long ways towards putting money back into the economy where it belongs.
I read the article. I need to read more articles like that. Articles that tell me exactly what I need to know. What do I need to know? How to fix the the economy. So I read the article and it told me how to fix the economy. The article said we need to build lots of bridges. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the articles in upcoming days.
Uh....isn’t this the same Henry Blodgett who helped create the Internet bubble? It is. Now, he’s trying to do pennance, I guess.
The Fix!!!
There recently was an article in the St. Petersburg, FL. Times. The Business Section Asked readers for ideas on: "How Would You Fix the Economy?"
I think this guy nailed it!
Dear Mr. President, please find below my suggestion for fixing America's economy.
Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan.
You can call it the "Patriotic Retirement Plan:"
There are about 40 Million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece, severance for early retirement! With the following Stipulations:
1) They MUST Retire! Forty million job openings… Unemployment Fixed!
2) They Must buy a new American made Car. Forty million cars ordered… U.S. Auto Industry fixed!
3) They MUST either buy a house, or pay off their mortgage… Housing Crisis fixed!
It can't get any easier than that!!
P.S. If more money is needed, have all members in Congress pay their damn taxes!!
And while 'our' DC Reps and Senators are at it, change the law and make Congress retire on Social Security and Medicare. I'll bet both programs would be fixed, pronto!
Too many people working for government making way too much money doing very little! Cut out obsolete or superfluous departments, like Herman Cain said, eliminate the EPA! Drill here drill now! I’m sick of career politicians, aren’t you? Let’s trim time Congress a max of three terms for the House, and two for the Senate! Ever wonder how they go in on a shoe string and come out with a pot of gold? They are supposed to be working for the country, not for themselves!
IT is time that the people wake up to the fact that green is Red! We are not mindless cattle to be herded this way and that! We are The PEOPLE! Our Almighty God inspired our sacred documents for a Godly people Must I say once again, “Without God there can be no America”!? And that is exactly why they are trying to get rid of Him!
We need an astute as well as a Godly man in the Oval Office!
1. Government must be streamlined substantially. That means every Federal, state and local government agency must be aggressively audited for overlapping bureaucracy, agency bloat and obsolete/unneeded regulations and we must at minimum cut down the size of government 30% now, with a goal of 50% or more within circa four years.
2. Income taxation needs to drastically overhauled (and eventually phased out) to reduce yearly compliance costs and encourage more savings and investment in the USA overall. This means implementing the Steve Forbes no-loophole 17% flat-rate income tax starting the 2012 tax year, and start the conversion process for retailers so after the 2014 tax year, the income tax is phased out and we replace it with something like FairTax (H.R. 25/S. 13).
Countdown until Zer0 and his administration leaves office: 476 days as of October 1, 2011.
Great, great post blam. Thank you so very much. The 11-2012 election is all about the financial death spiral that 80 years of creeping socialism has resulted in for America. That election will be the watershed election of my lifetime.
During the Reagan years, Art Lafer published an article about an economic/social curve that he invented, which came to be known as “The Lafer Curve.” If you come across it please include it in this thread so that we can more easily compare it to the curves printed in Henry Blodgett’s article above.
If you decide to make the Lafer Curve a separate thread, please be so kind as to ping me.
“Four years ago, when the debt-fueled boom ended and the economy plunged into recession, most economists and politicians misdiagnosed the problem.
They thought we were having just another post-War recession—a serious recession, yes, but a cyclical one, a recession that easy money, government stimulus, and a return of “confidence” could fix.
A handful of economists, meanwhile, argued that the recession was actually fundamentally different—a “balance sheet” recession resulting from a quarter-century-long debt-binge, one that would take a decade or more to fix.”
There will be no recovery with energy prices at this level among other things.