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(141 posts)

job creation

Started 3 months ago by JoB
Latest reply from redblack

JoB
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yes, i know this comes out of the Obama campaign...
but you might want to take a peek at the graph anyway..

we could all use some good news

http://www.barackobama.com/jobsrecord?source=20120205_pg_dncfull&utm_medium=email&utm_source=obama&utm_campaign=20120205_pg_dncfull

somebody is going to have to teach me that tiny url thing

Posted 3 months ago #
Smitty
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Thanks.

It is crazy how well 2011 looks considering those damn Republicans are blocking everything!

Posted 3 months ago #
JoB
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smitty..

imagine what it would look like if they weren't :)

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
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Oops.. you forgot the more important number.... the 1.2 million that dropped out of the employment pool... and are no longer counted as "unemployed". They just don't count.

LA Times

In fact, the total civilian labor force – those who are working or looking for work – last month was essentially unchanged from January 2008, a month after the recession officially began. If the labor force had grown at the same rate as the prior four years, it would be about seven million people bigger today.

In other worlds Ms. JoB... the total employed workforce is the same today as it was before the 3 trillion dollar spending spree. No net gain in jobs since he took office. Yea we could use some good news... it's coming.

Posted 3 months ago #
villagegreen
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Ms. Kootchman, you're a bit of a downer.

Posted 3 months ago #
metrognome
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as per usual, kman, you have completely forgotten that Bush the Incompetent signed the first bailout bill and that none of this would have been necessary if the Republican 'leaders' had any thing in their hearts but greed. You're also ignoring the likelihood that if nothing had been done, the unemployment figures would be much higher. I guess since Willard likes firing people and doesn't care about the poor, those higher numbers may be in our future any way...

So, here is a moral puzzler ... when Willard tithes his 10 percent (I know, that's redundant) to the Mormon Church, does he use his entire income to calculate the amount or does he exclude the money he has sheltered off-shore? If the former, isn't he now morally obligated to pay federal taxes on his whole income?

How does a Republican count to fifty? ... 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50.

Posted 3 months ago #
metrognome
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btw, here's what that candy apple red, lily-livered pantywaist liberal Clint Eastwood has to say about the bailout:

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120205/AUTO01/202050336/Chrysler-draws-praise-for-Clint-Eastwood-ad-touting-U.S.-turnaround

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
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None of this would have been necessary if Wall Street hadn't sold mortgage backed securities, backed by unqualified borrowers with the encouragement of the Federal Housing Authority. That's the problem, the root cause of the mess. Toxic Asset Relief Program. It's a downer villagegreen to get the full import of the jobs situation as it is? Well let's all go hold hands and sway to a fro to the music and pretend it doesn't exist. We can borrow 40 cents on every dollar we spend for how long? Watcha think? Without a net growth in the labor force, and the taxes derived therein....we have a labor force unchanged in numbers, with a 5 or so Trilion more in debt to cover. That's the "downer". Dump it on the younger generation who now carry a national debt burden never before inflicted on a demographic group. Did ya happen to note metro.. it was an ad? y'know he is a paid pitchman? Sorta like the Marlboro Man? Chrysler was saved by FIAT motors.. who themselves were forced to go through the cleansing of bankruptcy... and had the capital and the credit to acquire majority interest and apply that experience to Chrysler. (trying also to buy GM's european operations who need 4 billion, and the German government has said "no way" will they bail out GM Europe) Yea, that was a great ad... wonder how much he got paid?

Posted 3 months ago #
JanS
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and who initiated TARP?

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
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Dubya did. The shining tower of the FHA crashed the entire system. That's what government meddling does in private markets. Shield the creditors from risk and they will loan accordingly. No surprises...you'd be at the craps table all day long if the feds took away your risk and absolved you of any losses.

Posted 3 months ago #
JanS
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I'm just glad you didn't say Obama..most everyone else does about TARP's beginnings...and we all know how you hold Pres. Obama in such high esteem..

Posted 3 months ago #
metrognome
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"Chrysler, the third-biggest U.S. automaker, faced liquidation in 2009 before it was bailed out with $12.5 billion in loans from the Obama Administration. It underwent a restructuring bankruptcy that left it under the control of Italy's Fiat SpA and its hard-charging chief executive, Sergio Marchionne.

"Marchionne is now the CEO of both Fiat and Chrysler. Fiat owns 58.5 percent of Chrysler.

"Chrysler, which employs the most auto workers in the city of Detroit, last week reported its first full-year profit since 2005. It forecast operating profit would rise 50 percent to $3 billion in 2012, based on an expected 30 percent jump in sales of its cars and trucks.

"Last May, the company repaid its U.S. government loans."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-nfl-superbowl-chryslertre8150fg-20120205,0,2000608.story

yep, pretty unsuccessful effort to save American industry.

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
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Thank FIAT... private capital saved them and good management may keep them alive. Fiat paid the taxpayer. GM is such a basket case they still owe us billions.... an counting. Still flogging the Volt and still with the highest manufacturing costs in the automotive industry. How are they doing? Ya think with no borrowing costs they would be profitable... Ford paid 238 million in borrowing costs and still outperforms GM. Add the sweetheart tax deal of carrying forward losses that would have been wipde out in Bankruptcy court and increased their tax liabilty.. and GM is no better off today then it was pre bail out...they counted the sales of Delphi and their finance arm as income.... and Ford still outsold them and actually had 4 billion in profits. That's a success? How about a stock price of $55 per share and investors actually willing to buy the shares so they can pay is back? Oh yea... Geitner says we will never recover the GM losses.

Posted 3 months ago #
skeeter
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Clarification on post #13. GM does NOT owe any loans to the U.S. government (taxpayers.) All loans were repaid with interest.

The U.S. government still has a significant equity position in General Motors. A position it hopes to sell as soon as it can.

But the loans are repaid.

Posted 3 months ago #
JanS
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aw, gee, skeeter...now you'll confuse people...what are we to believe? rantings or facts? so hard to decide...sigh..

Posted 3 months ago #
DBP
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Not taking a position here, but ABC News said (in a June 2011 article) that the auto industry bailout as a whole has already cost the taxpayers "at least $14 billion."

Source:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/06/how-much-did-the-auto-bailout-cost-taxpayers/

In re kootchman's point, I give you this from the ABC News article:

The government has yet to recoup roughly $27 billion from GM, although it holds 500 million shares in the company’s stock. The value of that stock when the government sells it will determine just how much taxpayers stand to lose.

At its current price, the stock is work roughly $15 billion, meaning a potential $12 billion loss. But don’t expect the price to jump anytime soon, experts say, despite the new profitability of the business.

If Treasury had known Chrysler would turn such a healthy profit, they could have waited and asked the company to do a stock buy-back, but GM's another story.

Posted 3 months ago #
JoB
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it's ironic that in a post titled jobs creation no-one has mentioned the autoworkers who are still employed thanks to that bailout.

if the economy recovers and people start buying cars again.. the GM bailout may still end up being a good deal for John Q.

kootch..
i didn't forget the unemployed who have been unemployed long enough to fall off the statistics..
i didn't forget whose policies put them there either

Posted 3 months ago #
DBP
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it's ironic that in a post titled jobs creation no-one has mentioned the autoworkers who are still employed thanks to that bailout.

Umm . . . actually, people have been talking about that, Jo. Have you read the whole post? (See #4, #6, #8, #12)

President Obama has certainly been talking about it, too. He considers the bailout a success, but I'm trying to contain my enthusiasm.

Whether government should be creating jobs at all is one question . . . but let's assume the answer is "yes": Yes, government should be creating jobs.

Now then, what kind of jobs is it that government should be creating, exactly? There are basically two kinds: sustainable jobs and unsustainable jobs.

I would put auto jobs in the unsustainable category. Why? Two reasons:

1) Autos themselves are unsustainable.

2) American automakers just can't seem to get it right, no matter how much "help" they get. They've been losing money steadily for about thirty years now.

I would have much preferred the bailout money go into creating sustainable jobs, like infrastructure repair, mass transit, clean energy, education . . .

It's too bad this country wasn't already gearing up on stuff like that when the automakers failed. If it had been, then many of the auto jobs could have just migrated over and the taxpayers wouldn't have needed to worry about resurrecting a dinosaur like Big Auto.

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
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Is schizophrenia a disease of the left? Let's see how this works... first, no Keystone pipeline cause it is an ecological insult... but.. lets use BILLIONS of taxpayer money to bail out an industry that relies on that ecological insult. See how that works? The voices you hear in your head, do they come from the DNC on microwaves? Our "equity" position.. is about 14 billion in the hole. We have it because investor capital was not worth the risk. GM still has a $56 per unit hour of labor costs.. the highest in the world. Like Solyndra, we were put in an inferior position, last in line for any compensation. GM bty STILL owes billions, outside the junk stock issue.

Jan 2012, Sen C. Grassley, Senate Finance Committee

"GM did not repay the loans with money it earned from selling cars. Instead, GM repaid the TARP loans with money it withdrew from another TARP fund at the Treasury Department."

Whether taxpayer funds are ultimately recovered depends upon the administration’s ability to sell GM stock at a profit some day. Of course, we all hope it works out that way, and it might. But, the American people deserve more than puffed-up press releases and misleading commercials claiming that GM paid its loans back to the government with money it earned. The truth is that GM originally received over $49 billion from the US government and many billions remain to be recouped. That is why we were told at the Senate Finance Committee hearing that TARP losses related to the auto companies are expected to exceed $30 billion.

Ah yes... and hidden in all this crap it the 2.5 billion in 9% interest bearing debt obligation to the pension fund... which is a "hidden from taxpayer" raise. Making crap products, at the highest cost.... now y'know all the lefties screamed Keystone jobs
were only 16,000... refusing to acknowledge the multiplier of supplies, maintenance, taxes to states, refinery jobs etc... so let's use THEIR logic.. GM direct jobs saved? GM has 68,750 US employees.... the cost per job? 34 Billion divided by 68,750.... that's an Obama investment!!!

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
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Metrognome... see how that restructuring bankruptcy works? GM avoided the bankruptcy, avoided paying their debts, got interest free operating capital.. (not Ford) and a 9% securitized pension debt . In a bankruptcy the petitioner has to submit a reorganization plan , how they will return to health and remain viable...which of course they didn't. They got billions to essentially "stay the course" that drove them off the cliff... union benefits that cost them over $5600 per car produced. Chrysler bankruptcy forced all those hard choices with assistance from FIAT... an lo and behold... they paid the debt and look at their numbers! GM is still on life support...and in actual sales and profits, including their Euro operations... still losing money. We will be right back at the table.. want proof? Private investment capital .... GM can't attract it.

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
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skeeter..... no they have NOT paid back the loans... and not with interest either. Good try... and we are very unwilling shareholders of a junk grade investment. Let's call it what it is... a UAW vote buying spree.

Posted 3 months ago #
metrognome
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"Interestingly, back in June 2011, Romney used this same Obama-made-the-recession-worse rhetoric. But when NBC asked Romney why he made that claim -- when the data didn't support it -- he replied: 'I didn't say that things are worse.'

"He went on to say:

"'What I said was that economy hasn't turned around, that you've got 20 million Americans out of work, or seriously unemployed; housing values still going down. You have a crisis of foreclosures in this country. The economy, by the way, if you think the economy is great and going well, be my guest. But the president of the United States, when he put in place his stimulus plan and borrowed $787 billion, said he would hold unemployment below 8% -- and 8% seemed like an awfully high number. It hasn't been below 8% since. That's failure. We're over 9% unemployment. That's failure. He set the bogie himself at 8% ,which strikes me as a very high number and we're still above that three years later.'"

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/03/10312358-did-obama-make-the-economy-worse-not-according-to-most-statistics

And, the elephant in the room?? (hey, that was a pretty good pun ...) "He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-By-Republicans", "The Guy Who Was Alleged To Be President Between Clinton and Obama", your old buddy, Bush The Incompetent. Either that, or the magnificent economy generated during the Shrub years completely evaporated when Obama took the oath of office.

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
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I see metro... the overall Democratic arc of reason.. Bush did it, The Tsunami did it, global warming did it, ... but the facts of the case are, we bailed out a turkey for a temporary stay.. and no matter how Biden the Buffoon states it... even the US Treasury with all the Obama apppointees is predicting a 30 billion loss.. national treasure flushed down the drain, and debt to transfer to successive generations.... for 63,000 union votes. Here's a fact for ya.. in recovery, from recession, the rate of recovery accelerates dramatically..not under this administration... under this administration GDP growth has been 2% or less per annum. If that's better...I suppose so. Sorta like injecting bags and bags of plasma instead of closing the wound. The real number is percentage of the population actually employed... and wage growth was a whopping 4 cents per hour for non farm employment. 1.1 million dropped out of the labor market entirely...compared to the Obama claim of 230K new jobs... the long term unemployed, 27 weeks or longer remains the same at 5.5 million..nary a budge. It sure helps the numbers when you don't include the 1.1 million as unemployed and looking for work. SS claims are skyrocketing for new benefits as workers over 62 have thrown in the towel (while Democrats have cut the payroll tax to fund these "early retirements") More borrowing. More debt. Like the man side... judge me in three years.... and that is what we will be doing. Well, some of us will..since judgement implies looking at evidence.. some of us will not go through that formality.

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
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In fact.. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Percentage of population employed - 2011 64.1 per cent
Percentage of population employed -2012 63.4 per cent

baaaaad, very bad.

Posted 3 months ago #
DBP
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kootchman, I'd appreciate it if you'd be a little more precise with your stats. I suspect that the "percentage of population employed" numbers you mention above include children, disabled, and the elderly in the term "population."

These percentage employed numbers would obviously not be same as the percentage of available workforce employed.

Can you cite the specific page this data came from?

Posted 3 months ago #
365Stairs
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I'm not posting to jibe, attack, or blame...I simply would like to know (if possible)...

If the unemployment rates (Fed or State) are say...reported at "X" percent* on a regular basis.

Where is the corresponding # of Jobs Available report (National or Federal)?

*whatever the actual % may be, this is irrelevant for the sake of this question.

The focus on the % growing or declining should include the managed process & knowledge that those who are unemployed have "X" available choices to get employed (even if this means taking something less or taking two jobs to make up for the one lost).

I also am aware there are those with limited capacity to do other work - besides what they are trained to do or have marketable skills in. Is there a stat for this specific % of the unemployed...?

Now - I am aware that available jobs may be "Seasonal" or "Retail" and not necessarily "Career" based - but jobs are jobs and when, faced with a choice of a limited handout or taking a whole new job in a new industry even if it is ground floor...give me gainful employment anyday.

Does the amount of available jobs in the US make any dent in the known unemployed % if those jobs were to be filled?

Posted 3 months ago #
JanS
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and answer me this...how the hell can we ignore the Bush years, like they and he never existed? You nall have no problem with citing Clinton, or Carter, when it suits your needs...but throw in a Repub? Mention Reagan and some of his detrimental things, or Bush (one, but esp. two) , and you throw it back at us...did your effing world not exist between 2000-2008?

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
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I don't ignore them. And.. every time you drag that pony out of the barn I give ya the same answer..over and over again.. copy and save the response and you can use it to answer your own question. ... he was a big government spender, AND I voted for the current presiding do ha.... who has failed miserably. I can admit a mistake. RR was a great president, not that he didn't have his shortcomings... but in the end... what distinguishes him from the current Occupier of PA Ave... most American instinctively knew he was a President who delighted in our exceptionalism and confident that we could find our own solutions as a nation and as a free people. This President thinks we need "nannies" of empirical fiat to control our lives and make our values set by legislation. Clinton had better job growth.. better GDP numbers, ... he was the best damn Democratic President in modern history... but he was a Republican and pretty much a middle of the road sorta guy. Don't ask, don't tell? Clinton. NAFTA, Clinton, repeal of Sarbanes/Oxley, Clinton, Welfare Reform, Clinton, China Most favored nation trading partner, Clinton. .... I'd vote for him over Obama or Dubya in a second. But neither is a candidate.. are they? We are voting to keep or retire THIS Occupier of PA Ave.

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
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DBP it is as simple as it says... it not complicated.. How much of the population is employed. That is pretty precise. The data set is ALL .. not a favorable subset as we would expect and get from the White House... Children are not employed, the elderly over retirement age, not many,..but they are part of the entire populations...can't get a more precise data set than including the entire population. it's the aggregat. The economic health of a nation is largely measured in what the proportion of the population is gainfully employed creating the income neccesary to support the population. If you want the subsets by class, age, race, education level, etc... all is available on the web site of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those were BLS numbers... have fun. Pull down menus and cross references, demographics... to delight. But the bottom line is we have a population that has grown since 2008 with less people working.

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
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365Stairs.. yes indeed you can find it all on BLS web site.. stats... it's what they do. You can find predictably, the least educated are suffering the most. With a public school system that routinely touts a dropout rate of more than 30%.... no surprises there. You can even do it by cross referencing... the racial group with the lowest unemployment rate.. Asians. Also the populations with the highest education achievement rates and the highest proportion of independent business owners. How come they got the message? Learn the language, demand academic achievement in a free public school system, and take advantage of the free enterprise system. Could it be more simple than that? Yet... we will still have the chirruping masses calling it all a lack of social spending and more big government to level the playing field. Sorta has a jingo in it, Learn, Demand and Do.

Posted 3 months ago #
DBP
Member Profile

DBP it is as simple as it says... it not complicated.. How much of the population is employed. That is pretty precise.

kootch, my friend, I'm afraid it's just not useful to look at employment numbers against the total population. That doesn't bear any relation to how the economy is doing.

See, any number of factors may come into play when you look at total population. For example, the population may have aged somewhat (relatively) since 2011, and hundreds of thousands of folks might have gone on Social Security in that time. So even if the number of employed people as a % of the total population has gone down, the number of employed people as a % of those in the workforce could have gone up.

Which it did, in fact. And not even the Republicans deny this. So what are you doing, man? What are you DOING?

;-)

Here's another way to look at it . . .

If you polled residents of Sun City, Arizona, you'd find an unemployment rate of some ninety-nine percent. Which is to be expected because, as we know, old people are lazy.

Conversely, if you went to Yuma, just a few hundred miles to the southwest — and you went there during lettuce season — you'd have a rate of nearly 100% employed, including children.

And this, too, is to be expected. Because there's just something about the smell of fresh lettuce that draws kids out into the fields.

:-P x Infinity + 1

Posted 3 months ago #
JoB
Member Profile

kootch...

Has Obama succeeded in digging us out of the hole Bush dug?
No.
Was it possible for him to do so?
No.
Could he have done a better job with the cooperation of the Republican party?
We will never know...
Because the one thing we can agree on is that he didn't get the cooperation of the Republican party.

One would think that if you had voted for the man you would have been just a teensy bit more supportive of his policies...

that is.. if you wanted him to succeed.

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

The movement of population aging is still irrelevant to the discussion, and given a population of 340 million, hardly a massive trend would have occured in one year. As I indicated and as you no doubt have read... there has been a surge in SS benefits enrollment, and as a trend, is significent as a cause of a moribund economy, many of the SS eligible are taking "early retirement" for lack of jobs. They have "given up"... Further proving my assertion. I didn't poll Sun City, the poll was the total population.. it would make as much sense to poll only .. say Bellevue... you are not drawing from a data set that extrapolates only age groups...although you could. Another example would be... Japan has an aging population... as does France.. to measure the future productivity of an economy, the statistic set of total number of employed compared to mean age indicates Japan will have to increase birth rate or allow more immigration. That is a long term demographic trend to follow..France allowed a vast immigration from French speaking, former colonies...so in short.. there has not been a major demographic shift in the USA in the last 12 months... the economy sucks, still sucks, and has not gained jobs. IN THE WORK FORCE is the key... those that are NO LONGER on unemployment are not counted as "in the work force"... they have lost their status. IF YOU READ the DLS statistics, 1.2 million dropped off the "in the work force status" because they no longer receive benefits... and are essentially not counted. That is how the White House spun the numbers... that's 1.2 million in ONE MONTH!!!!! If you have been unemployed for 30 months, are 28 years old, for the monthly unemployment rate... you are not counted. Now do you get it? If you are a recnt college graduate with no job not eligible for benefits, you are not counted as unemployed ..but You ARE counted as contributing to the percent of the population who are working. Not only is it useful.. it is essential to count all to get an accurate picture. They don't count food in the consumer price index to calcualate inflation... even though your food bill may be as much as 25% of your gross income. Doesn't mean your cost of living isn't rising does it? In the end, how many are working to support those who aren't is the measure of a healthy economy. Unless the lettuce pickers are documented, and pay SS they aren't counted in anyones data base. Your rationale is like kicking all of the food stamp recepients off the benefits plan and saying you have improved food security.

Posted 3 months ago #
DBP
Member Profile

IF YOU READ the DLS statistics, 1.2 million dropped off the "in the work force status" because they no longer receive benefits... and are essentially not counted.

There ya go, mate. Now you're making a good argument using the numbers. But it's a whole other argument than the one you were making before . . . about employment as a % of total population being a reliable indicator. See?

Anyway, all I'm saying is that you have to be careful when arguing from statistics — and especially when you're arguing from demographic statistics — because once you get a reputation for being sloppy or muddleheaded, it's awful hard to live that down. I still remember how, a while back, you said something about there being only six registered organ donors in Sweden (!) or some such absurdity. Then, when I looked into it and corrected you, you said something about not having time to check your figures. Then you proceeded to throw out more figures.

Ha-Rumph!

For the future, I propose the following. (And this would apply to all of us, not just you.)

1) Cite all statistics by Web page.

2) Keep your arguments as focused as you can. Take on only one or two points at a time, especially where statistics are involved.

3) When you're proven wrong on a point, don't muddy the waters by glossing it over or trying to splice on another argument (like you did just now.) Instead, just admit you were wrong and move on. Like I do. Sometimes.

It builds credibility.

Posted 3 months ago #
redblack
Member Profile

kootch, referring to w:

... he was a big government spender

then, kootch, referring to reagan:

RR was a great president, not that he didn't have his shortcomings...

both of these men drove up the debt with deficit spending.

how many times did reagan ask for a debt limit increase from congress?

i mean, blame congress for spending it, sure. but reagan wrote the red ink that you decry.

like obama, he wrote more red ink in 8 years than the first 200 years of the republic combined.

and, btw, jobs fled these shore for asian economies by the millions under reagan.

just sayin' that your criteria for "great" seem to be pretty inconsistent. does "great" mean cutting taxes? well, then reagan is your man.

but bush cut them deeper.

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

redblack... same old same old... but one more time. Congress and Messr Tip O'Neil spent it faster than Reagan could raise revenue. Although he DID raise total revenue through tax cuts. got it? He increased revenues ... congress spent more. Same as today...cept, congress is being cheered on by The Occupier of PA Ave. The price of single party government. I was in Spartanburg SC when those jobs went overseas dude ..I saw the rail cars full of textile equipment being shipped to Mexico, China, Malaysia.. .. remember Ross Perot.... ? The great sucking sound of lost jobs going overseas? He was vehemently opposed to NAFTA and China as Most favored nation status .... all those lost jobs? Dude that was a Clinton hallmark. Jesus man, it's history, accessible to all... Clinton negotiated over 300 "fair trade "deals...in 1998 we lost over 150K manufacturing jobs... and have continued on that trend ever since. Say.... you forgot to include Kennedy... a far bigger tax cutter than RR or Bush...and I'll be damed..he raised revenue too! Congress would later undo all the good with "The Great Society" plans of LBJ. and Viet Nam.. can't fight wars and fund social programs on deficits forever...we paid the piper eventually...with the great stagflation years of the Peanut farmer.

The effects:

JFK cuts 8.8 per cent of GDP
RR cuts 5.3 per cent of GDP
GW cuts 8.1 per cent of GDP

All raised increased revenue... congress went on spending sprees and negated the increase of all three. But we did hire The Messiah to fix it....and he hasn't ... he made it worse. Trillions worse

Posted 3 months ago #
redblack
Member Profile

ah. raised revenue. for the top 1%. but not for anyone else.

again, it's a matter of scale and perspective.

nah, we're all just liberals sponging off of the government with our social spending under our flat wages and our hamstrung government.

but those who reaped the benefits of the reagan tax cuts - why, they're great americans, huh?

btw, when you crash the value of a currency, and there's more of that currency floating around, numbers - like GDP - tend to increase.

and you know, there was another guy who cut taxes on the wealthy and big industry and called his country's liberal government "marxist" and "socialist" - all in the name of "fixing" it. he made the same economic arguments that you do, but what he was really doing was concentrating his nation's wealth upwards. the effects of supply-side economics in that guy's country were devastating.

his name was pinochet. and - what do you know? - he and reagan were both adherents of milton friedman! weird, huh?

now there's some role models for ya'.

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
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Your man crashed the currency...it's his printing press that keeps churning out de-valued currency to pay for the deficit spending. It's also increases inflation. Money worth less buys less. See food prices this year? Since SS does not include food costs as part of the inflation index and COLA adjustments... take that one on the chin all you old farts forced out of the job market and into early retirement.

You don't get it at all redblack. Obama wants to raise the capital gains to 25 per cent... AND he has held interest rates to a below market rate of 2 per cent. Watch the equities sell off fire... as investors divest their portfolios to secure their gains... your 401 K and pension funds will take the hit... the sell off will be massive..defeating the very intent of low capital gains rates... an orderly, non speculative market. Would you hold a 3 per cent yield security taxed at 25 per cent? Or ... take that capital overseas? The cycle is complete... first you drive the jobs offshore... then the investment capital. Habla espanol? Those Pinochet cronies... where did their money go bty? The USA ... for higher returns. Made Miami the de facto central bank of South America.

Thats how deficit spending governments get around paying their debts.. they drive up the rate of inflation to increase revenue of inflated dollars to pay off debt. It kills fixed income retirees..(see Carter years) and touches off wage inflation. Usually solved by a hard landing recession... except the levels of Obama debt are in totally new territory.. the counter to inflations is in increased productivity... which of course reduces jobs... but these numbers.. debt exceeding 100 per cent of GDP... there may not be enough productivity gains to be had. Uncharted waters

I got news for ya.. supply side economics did work... the net gain in wealth extended to the entire population. The distribution wasn't even.. but gain they did. Government services and expense soared too. They rose faster then the gains of the bottom 2/3 ... and the costs of supporting that expansion fell on everyone... but mostly the lower 2/3 ... property taxes, sales taxes, use taxes. fuels taxes, airline fees, all the things that can't be avoided... that's where your gains went dude. Little green boxes painted on the street and state employees who sit at home collecting checks for years while suspended for malfeasance... or spy cameras to grab a $144 dollar fine... the "mythical 1 per cent get 1 per cent of the tickets... the other tickets go to the 99 per cent. They don't means test fines, tolls, user fees, or sales taxes do they?

Posted 3 months ago #
JoB
Member Profile

sigh...

just one day i would like to drop in here after spending a day trying to help people who have been derailed in the mad dash to wring every drop of wealth out of the American people to find that the conversation has taken an unexpected charitable turn.

that isn't going to happen today, is it?

Kootch...

on any given day as i walk from one end of Nickelsville to the other,
how many people do you think ask me if i have work for them today?
or if i know anyone who wants work done?
or if i know anyone who is willing to take an application and actually interview them for work?

i will give you a hint..
the inside joke is that it takes me a full hour to make a quick stop by camp...
and that's if i am only dropping something off or picking someone up.

if i am working on a project, it takes much much longer..
and the number of people i talk with rises exponentially...

the tragedy is that i could give a personal recommendation to many of the residents based on little more than the work ethics i have personally observed.

Posted 3 months ago #
HMC Rich
Member Profile

Redblack. Please look at both sides of the aisle whether they are Republican or Democrat.

Post 31, you spoke about the debt going up under RR and Bush II.

Correct. The debt went up.

Now look at the make up of the congresses. Nobody except a few believed the Laffer Curve and many of you still don't but, Reagan tried to make a deal with Rockefeller Republicans and Democrats. They said they would not raise spending while he implemented the tax cuts. Because this was so new he had to do it over three years. Reagan kept his part of the bargain but Congress kept spending . Reagan signed the budgets. So, yes the Debt went up. But the Democrats and many Republicans reneged on their promise.

Next, Clinton with the Gingrich House. Many of you point proudly at the Clinton years, and why not. He got it on a lot of the economy after getting slapped around the 100 days, and after the Midterms with a huge helping from the Contract With America and Newt Gingrich. Debt erased. How cool was that?

W... Republicans in the Congress got lazy. (How I disliked Hastert and the RINO's). Call them Democrat light. Bush did grow government, and the congress spent (Yes Republicans too spent way too much). 2006 was a perfect storm. The roots of the Tea Party in my opinion started here. Couple that with Foley and the Iraq war...And an Anti Bush Beltway Press, even Republicans got tired of the RINO's spending and started voting R's out too. Democrats and Pelosi and Reid get the majority in 2006. More spending.

What you guys never seem to admit is that W and his cabinet saw the dangers of the impending housing and wall street crash created by Government interference from both parties. Gramm's bill repealing the Glass Steagal act plus the horrible meddling of the CRA by Clinton, and the cash cow for Democrats called Fannie and Freddie. Why Mr. Raines, Ms. Gorelich and others haven't been indicted is beyond me, but DC takes care of their own.

So, RB, you are right but you left a few things out. It takes two to tango and both sides were in bed together.

I say both sides are culpable.

Speaking of budgets. Over 1000 days since the Senate passed one. If that had been a Republican led Senated the Lame Stream Press would have had a daily count. In fact, they don't hardly report the numbers of casualties in Afghanistan with the disdain they reported on during the W years. Amazing how compliant the press is these days.

Posted 3 months ago #
HMC Rich
Member Profile

Needless to say, The debt has rocketed since the current spender in chief came to power. And you can't blame Republicans because they were against most of the spending and Obama did not even try to play ball with them the first two years. Now he just blames them for the problems and ignores his own reckless spending and broken promises. He really was unfit for the job.

Posted 3 months ago #
redblack
Member Profile

so republican debt is okay. got it.

but you know, obama wouldn't have had to take is into these uncharted waters if his predecessors had walked it like they're now talking it and balanced their budgets.

congress doesn't do that, btw. POTUS does.

what we basically have here is a wildcat strike by republicans, who refuse to pay for the country's social spending with their taxes.

Posted 3 months ago #
JoB
Member Profile

redblack

"what we basically have here is a wildcat strike by republicans, who refuse to pay for the country's social spending with their taxes."

Yes...

however i would amend that to read "who expect others to pay for their own special interest spending "

or "who want to pad their own corporate bottom lines at the country's expense while refusing to fund the country's social safety net for those they have put out of a job in order to increase their own personal profit"

guess i am feeling a little feisty today

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

redblack. we hit it today, 49.5 per cent of the population pays no federal income tax. Not a dime. If the data on food stamps is correct, that means all of them qualify for food stamps. Let me share some numbers for ya.

JoB compassion starts with the courage to tell the truth. The very least amongst us in large measure live as they do by choices made. This is not, it will never be a world that can protect you from your own choices... choosing bad mates, drug abuse, dropping out of school. having children out of wedlock, single parenthood, poor character, criminal behavior.. now you can hold on to some "noble downtrodden" myth... (a favorite of redblack's ie Charles Dickins) but it obscures the facts.

In the USA the top 10 per cent pay 70.5 % of all income taxes. That top 10% has an adjusted gross income ranging from $ 113,000 up.

The top 5 % pay 58.7 per cent and the range starts at 154,600.

And the top 25% carry the rest of the country at a starting salary of a shade over $ 66,000.

A moron would chant the Occupy sloganeering of "we are the 99%" '

Soooo let's see just how generous the top 10 per cent are shall we? Let's compare to countries that we share a democratic based system of government.

Lets use a more comprehensive set of data.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/27134.html

"The table then adjusts for the underlying allocation of income by showing the ratio of income taxes paid to the share of income earned by the top decile in each country. The ratio for U.S. households is 1.35, far greater than the ratio of taxes to income in any other country"

See Table 4 in it's completeness.. but this excerpt is interesting.

Australia top 10% = 36.8 per cent
Canada 35.8 per cent
Denmark 26.2per cent
Germany 31.2 per cent
Norway 27.4 per cent
USA 45.1 per cent
Itlay 42.2 per cent

Posted 3 months ago #
JoB
Member Profile

kootchman...

do you mean to tell me that when an executive makes the decision to move his manufacturing plant overseas so he can take advantage of cheaper labor and shelter profits that he asks his employees to help him make that decision?

Because that is the only way those unemployed workers would have become unemployed because of their own personal choices..

ditto for all those laid off bank workers.. and ...

shame on you for blaming the unemployed for the profit motive choices made by their employers

Posted 3 months ago #
JoB
Member Profile

kootch...

you do understand total tax load, don't you?
because you sure do ignore it.

you also ignore the percentage of American corporations that made record profits and paid no tax at all.

cherry picking facts and creative accounting might dazzle the uneducated..

but the educated person will simply point out the reality you are trying to hide behind all that smoke and mirrors...

Posted 3 months ago #
JanS
Member Profile

instead of disparaging the people who supposedly didn't pay income tax, and qualify for food stamps, how about showing compassion for the people who don't make enough to pay those taxes. Somehow, I'm suspect of that number. Without going into detail, I can honestly say that I made below poverty level in income last year, but paid a whole passle of taxes...persona;l choices? You, my friend, need to reevaluate yourself..not everything is measured in the bottom line. I'm ashamed for you, and for what you're posting. Obviously, we disagree on many things here.

And what JoB said in post #46 ! What world do you live in, anyway?

(disclaimer - just got home from 5 hours at the dialysis clinic, and am absolutely cranky as he!!)

Posted 3 months ago #
redblack
Member Profile

we hit it today, 49.5 per cent of the population pays no federal income tax. Not a dime

how many times are you going to say this? everyone who draws a paycheck in this country pays income taxes. some people have exemptions that exceed their incomes.

now, think about how poor you have to be to make less than the standard deduction. furthermore, what does it say about the distribution of wealth and income in america when the tax entry threshhold is over 100 percent of median income? ...which happened during bush 2's reign, by the way.

and under bush 2, the percentage of wage-earners who "pay no income taxes" (as you put it) was over 50%.

http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/2010/08/10/there-is-nothing-new-about-families-paying-no-income-tax/

Posted 3 months ago #
redblack
Member Profile

one more thing, kootch. paying taxes isn't "generosity." it's an obligation to our - not just your - country.

Posted 3 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

Pull on the oar. Our highest wage and compensation earners pay more than any other system in the western world. The only one that doesn't is Italy. My "obligation" is to pay for those things the federal government is charged with doing. Nothing more. The rest is up to the state and local governments to decide. You are al gouging the young of this country who will carry your progressive debt their entire lives. Of course the Senate won't create a budget... they would have to go on record... it's easier to pass continuing resolutions, one after the other and bringing us to crisis points. Simpson Bowles was a reasonable compromise.....when the Democrats saw they would actually have to set priorities, they gasped and buried it. It involved responsible governance. Well,JoB since all the top wage earners are ducking taxes and corporations too...why do you stay so wedded to a progressive system?

Posted 3 months ago #

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