[Pops]

First I want to say kudos to coming up with a better name than the typical lame Dem contraption like Stimulus Two or something.

Politically it seems to include some things pubs can vote for, if they are going to vote for anything and also puts them on the spot about taxes lower vs upper.

Overall I'm not sure really what the government can do aside from trying to keep money moving by borrowing and spending. The accumulation class is doing quite well so obviously our economic problems aren't due to lack of investment potential, over regulation, etc.

We don't have a supply problem, we have a demand problem.


Oh, just about the speechifing, I also thought it was about time that O and the dems in general got around to making the case that there is a role for government. They have been back on their heels since the great society started looking like the politburo. The War on Poverty helped a lot of people but of course went too far, just like the War on Drugs and now the War on Terror.

I'm not certain that anything is going to improve the economy, actually I'm not certain the economy should improve. For me personally, learning to live lower on the hog is the main preparation for PO. If world GDP is bound to decrease, then perhaps the best preparation for the country as a whole is learning to live lower on the food chain.

[MD]

I've been wondering about the silence on this board with regard to last night's speech. I've been no great fan of Obama, to date, but I have to give him credit for this speech which was to me very a presidential presentation.

I remain skeptical that it will amount to much in the way of action, however. The problems we face run far too deep to be mitigated by a simple "call to arms".

He was very right in one regard. We don't have 14 months to wait for the voting booths to present a new mandate. Either these jokers in Washington will roll up their sleeves and dig for real actionable items, or they won't and we will suffer for it.

Unfortunately I have to bet on "won't". It's a very sad state of affairs.

[Plantagenet]

I didn't think it was one of Obama's better speeches. He sounded petulant and stressed to me....

This morning Timmy Geithner was on NPR and he admitted the administration isn't projecting that Obama's new stimulus will result in any new jobs at all. Maybe Obama knew that and the stress in his voice came because Obama already knew as he was reading his teleprompter that his whole speech was a sham and that his own people won't project that even a single permanent job will result from the hundreds of billions of new stimulus spending.

[Sixstrings]

It's not a jobs plan. Here's what it is:

1. Bailout cash for states so hopefully they delay layoffs.. we done been here and done this.. it's temporary, no soltuion.

2. Tax cuts.. Republicans will like the business tax cut for hiring people. I'm skeptical on that.. if a boat is sinking and going nowhere, does it help to paddle faster? I dunno. Thing is, there are reasons why business isn't hiring.. mainly globalization with cheaper labor elsewhere, also automation and efficiency so that they don't really need new hires. It's not a solution if it doesn't address the problem.

And the GALL of Obama to mention "jobs" and "more free trade deals" in the same speech. That's the Republican message.

3. Unemployment comp extension. Well it's better than having Americans on the street begging for rice like Indians, but.. it's temporary. Not a solution. Just passing the buck until 2012 keeping the checks coming.

The worst thing about it is that this "jobs plan" is yet another excuse for Obama to go after Medicare. This guy is one hell of a Republican, it's stunning.. he is obsessed with gutting Medicare just like on the debt deal where he wanted to "go big" on a "grand bargain":

Obama is Coming to Cut Medicare

The problem, though, is that this jobs package isn’t going to pass, so this speech wasn’t about policy, it was about messaging. Seen from that perspective, the speech was very scary to me as a progressive, because in the middle of what should have been a speech about getting Americans back to work, Obama very publicly endorsed putting Medicare and Medicaid on the deficit-reduction chopping block. Most important, Obama signaled he supports reducing Medicare spending that “some in his party” won’t like.
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/09/09/obama-is-coming-to-cut-medicare/

Obama proposes to pay for the $450 billion tax cuts / unemployment comp / state bailout by CUTTING Medicare. This is on top of the trillion dollars or whatever the Super Committee is supposed to cut. That's a lot of money I don't even see how they can get that much out of Medicare and Medicaid.

What it comes down to is "pass this $450 billion bill, and the Super Congress will pay for it with cuts on top of the trillion we agreed to cut on the last fight we had." It makes no sense economically. If you cut the budget by these amounts that's deflationary, you're going to wind up destroying two or more jobs for every job you save / create.

[Sixstrings]

Obama Jobs Plan: $447 Billion, More Than Half In Tax Cuts, To Be Paid For By Super Committee
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/08/obama-jobs-plan-speech_n_954657.html

That headline says all you need to know. "The Super Congress will pay for it."

[Cog]

Sixstrings basically nails the problem with this "jobs program".

Regarding the extension of unemployment. It is my understand that after 99 weeks you are cut off period. This is happening now even though an extension was completed some time ago to run out in December 2011. This new extension if passed will only apply to those who have exhausted their normal 6 months of state unemployment but have not exceeded 99 weeks.

But either way, if you haven't found a job in 6 months, you are going to have a very difficult time getting one after. I would not extend unemployment to anyone. Recognize the new world we live in and cut these folks loose.

The other item Obama has planned is to cut the employee FICA contribution even further from the current 2% cut for 2011 and to cut the employer match as well. Now if you really want to destroy the underlying funding assumptions behind social security, this is what you would do. I'm surprised Obama has not been called out on this issue by Democrats, since if you keep cutting contributions to social security this way, the program blows up much sooner than currently projected.

[Oakley]

First I want to say kudos to coming up with a better name than the typical lame Dem contraption like Stimulus Two or something.

Politically it seems to include some things pubs can vote for, if they are going to vote for anything and also puts them on the spot about taxes lower vs upper.

Overall I'm not sure really what the government can do aside from trying to keep money moving by borrowing and spending. The accumulation class is doing quite well so obviously our economic problems aren't due to lack of investment potential, over regulation, etc.

We don't have a supply problem, we have a demand problem.


Oh, just about the speechifing, I also thought it was about time that O and the dems in general got around to making the case that there is a role for government. They have been back on their heels since the great society started looking like the politburo. The War on Poverty helped a lot of people but of course went too far, just like the War on Drugs and now the War on Terror.

I'm not certain that anything is going to improve the economy, actually I'm not certain the economy should improve. For me personally, learning to live lower on the hog is the main preparation for PO. If world GDP is bound to decrease, then perhaps the best preparation for the country as a whole is learning to live lower on the food chain.

The title given to a bill is a form of advertising, often to mislead and cover up the inadequacies of the product. The "Patriot Act" was hardly patriotic, and most "tax reform bills" are just the opposite.

This current legislative proposal is just more of the already discredited economics of Keynes. The failure of demand is a result of spenders being overburdened with debt. The debt came from prior government interference in the market place to begin with by making credit very easy, and even more fundamentally by instituting in 1913 a debt based money system (all of our money is bank debt, created out of thin air and loaned to the public). Now that the debt burden is crushing, people are not spending enough because their money is going to the required debt payments. A huge number of people, businesses and the federal government are walking cases of bankruptcy, but instead of letting them default so they can get out from under their debt burden, the federal government is propping them up enough to keep them in debt and keep them not having free spending cash. All these attempts to prevent people from suffering the consequences of their financial mistakes just stretches out the depression. There is a description of depressions that says they are in size in proportion to the debt created in the prior boom, and in length in proportion to the effort of government to prevent them.

But even more insidious is the creation of more debt based money as Obama is proposing. Creating more money dilutes its value. So people must pay more for what they buy as prices rise, or don't fall as much as they otherwise would. This reduces the ability of people to buy things, and wages never keep up with the price increases, especially since businesses are not doing so well.

The short term answer is to just let the debt be liquidated through bankruptcy so that we can then move forward. The wrong answer, which Obama has chosen is to both increase debt levels and prop up the walking bankrupts, keeping them under the burden of their current debts. A more fundamental long term answer is to gradually shift out of the current debt based monetary system, into one of gold and silver coins (and their electronic warehouse receipt equivalents), coupled with 100% banking reserve requirements. As long as we continue with the Federal Reserve and commercial banks having the power to create money out of thin air and loan it into existence at interest, fleecing the public in the process, we will not have a stable or equitable economy.

[Sixstrings]

I'm surprised Obama has not been called out on this issue by Democrats, since if you keep cutting contributions to social security this way, the program blows up much sooner than currently projected.

You raise a good point. It's disturbing, Obama saying Social Security is in trouble and then he turns around and DEFUNDS it. The little tax cut wasn't worth raiding Social Security. Obama's defunding of Social Security HAS been reported on in the liberal netroots -- firedoglake and democraticunderground.com.

This is why I get so pissed off about politics. Elect a Democrat and OMG they pull crap that Republicans would never be allowed to get away with.

Nothing makes sense, as a liberal one has to wonder if he should vote Republican since we're powerless against a DINO.

On the unemployment comp.. if the plan is that this is it, long slow decline for the US with no jobs recovery ever again, then at the minimum we need a "dole" like the UK. That means an unemployment comp that never runs out. Not a perfect solution, but we have to do something for folks Cog.. the rich took all their marbles and are playing in China..

[peeker01]

The stock market is lov'in on obama now too.

[gollum]

The same old solutions over and over again, from both parties.

[MD]

My you are a cynical bunch, and I thought I had it bad.

[gollum]

How does pouring money in to what will soo be useless infrastructure to create some temporary jobs help anything? I'd feel a lot differen't if he was going to attempt some sort of national rail powered by nuclear or wind.

[MD]

"My fellow Americans,

It's time to put pretense, pundits, and politicians aside. It's time to acknowledge that fact that our economy is setting itself a new course... one that does not include an automobile for the majority of Americans that have grown up expecting to own one. Yes, the age of the gasoline fueled automobile is nearing its end.

Instead, most of you will have to learn to accept a new mode of personal transport. The vehicles available to most Americans will be smaller, slower and will have a greatly reduced range.

The age of commuting long distances to work is also over. Our great-grandparents rarely commuted more than a few short miles, unless they rode train or bus.

Your future will be similar, in that your long distance travels will have to be via mass transit, the redevelopment of which I am asking congress to take on as their great task for the next 14 months. Their mission is to lay out the infrastructure development plan that will create a mass transit system that is the envy of the world.

Your future will be dis-similar in this regard: Instead of depending on horse and buggy for your short distance travels, I am asking you, the American people, to work as the free-thinking entrepreneurs that you are, and to come up with new ultra-light vehicle transport solutions for local travel. In order to help you to that end, I am asking congress and the EPA to completely revamp their environmental, safety, and performance regulations.

By the end of this decade, this initiative will have as its primary goal, a road system that will restrict all local and county or parish travel to vehicles under 1000 pounds and 35 miles per hour maximum speed...

etc."

A speech with that theme would leave me pissing my pants with joy... at minimum.

[Sixstrings]

How does pouring money in to what will soo be useless infrastructure to create some temporary jobs help anything? I'd feel a lot differen't if he was going to attempt some sort of national rail powered by nuclear or wind.

It is rather pathetic eh. As if building schools will solve the jobs crisis. It doesn't even make sense. You can't build enough to schools to get all the construction guys back to work..

Thinking about my county, we already have too many schools. They cost a fortune. They're nice, that's what my property taxes pay for. And yet my county also has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

More schools won't help. Ok let's say they build two new schools in my area, that really aren't needed.. that's just two projects, that only puts a few hundred to work. Then what happens when the federal money runs out and the state / county has to come up with the cash to operate the school.. will the schools fold just like that solar plant?

[RedStateGreen]

The announcements did not surprise me one bit.

Mr. Obama is a corporatist. He was chosen to keep people as happy as possible for his term and keep them from rioting, while transferring as much money to the coffers of the rich as is humanly possible. They know what's going on, and want to keep us in the dark for as long as possible. He's doing exactly what he was hired to do.

The people who run this country are not doing it for our benefit, except for perhaps a very few principled people. The myth that we elect our leaders and that they will do anything other than what benefits their bosses is what keeps this whole thing going.

[AgentR11]

House Amendment to introduced bill titled "American Jobs Act of 2011".

Strike all after first line.
Beginning line 2, append:
BITE ME.

[gollum]

The announcements did not surprise me one bit.

Mr. Obama is a corporatist. He was chosen to keep people as happy as possible for his term and keep them from rioting, while transferring as much money to the coffers of the rich as is humanly possible. They know what's going on, and want to keep us in the dark for as long as possible. He's doing exactly what he was hired to do.

The people who run this country are not doing it for our benefit, except for perhaps a very few principled people. The myth that we elect our leaders and that they will do anything other than what benefits their bosses is what keeps this whole thing going.

Funny, I think the tea party may indeed do well this election but after that I'm pretty sure some sort of repackaged communism will be the order of the day.

[Plantagenet]

Good post AgentR11---except there isn't any bill to amend.

I wonder why Obama called this the "Jobs Act" instead of the "Jobs speech." I guess the thinks we'll all just pretend there is actually a bill.

After all...there is no actual "act" that Obama has sent to Congress. There is no actual language for a bill coming from Obama and there are no official numbers or estimates from the government of this pretend "act" would actually accomplish. When it comes to paying for it, Obama had no suggestions. He waved a magic wand and said the "supercommittee" will do it----and thats an obvious lie. I'm sure the CBO won't analyze Obama's phony "act"----they've already said that can't "estimate" Obama's speeches----they need actual language and numbers which Timmy Geithner said just this morning the Obama administration won't provide.

I suggest this topic be renamed the "American Jobs Speech".

It would be more honest all around.

[Cog]

More schools won't help. Ok let's say they build two new schools in my area, that really aren't needed.. that's just two projects, that only puts a few hundred to work. Then what happens when the federal money runs out and the state / county has to come up with the cash to operate the school.. will the schools fold just like that solar plant?

And therein lies the rub. In my school district, we voted a bond increase that raised our property taxes to revamp schools. I voted against it but it ended up passing and the schools were built and revamped. My preference is to have the property owners directly involved in a school district to make those decisions rather than some guy in Washington. In very poor school districts, then the state can involve themselves since I pay taxes to them as well.

I don't really feel like funding school districts half way across the country who may or may not be fiscally responsible and know what they are doing. Which is why I don't like school funding decisions being made in Washington.