Umm Hello

[ Tue Dec 02, 12:45:23 PM | Drew Pecunia | edit ]
In Heart of Steel Country, Bush Talks of Economy, Not Tariffs

Umm Talk to the hand. Shouldn't we be protecting some of our industries? We all know a country can't run on services alone. Certainly it can not create jobs for its less educated people. Does anyone remember the concept of mercantilism. It is the process by which you keep the colonies dependant on you for all of your goods. Sound familiar? Made in China

Anyone remember when it used to be Democrats that got accused of spending too much. So now we are spending too much, we gave a big tax break, and mortgage refinincings are done. Yet we still have no new jobs being created in the economy. In order to keep unemployment at its current level--not so good--we need to create yes create 60,000 new jobs a month. To encourage the type of boom we had in the 1990's would require 300,000 new jobs to be created every month. This is clearly not the way to do that.

Not all spending is created equal. How do I mean. Well spending by the government on infrastructure--roads, mass transit, ports, construction and the like directly creats decent paying jobs in the construction sector and pays dividends for years to come in side business created from those jobs. Spending on military conflicts in the gulf, interest on the debt and the like creates no tangible long term benefit to the economy.

Not all tax cuts are created equal. Creating a stimulus to the US economy and indeed any economy--with the purpose of creating jobs requires that the tax cuts be targeted at people who will immediately spend the money. The last tax cuts did not achieve this aim -- and therefore no jobs were created. What do I mean? Well, when my parents get a tax cut that money is simply invested for retirement. They have more than enough money coming in every month to cover bills so they invest in bonds or the like. While this makes it easy for business to raise capital--it is not necessarily spent on creating jobs.

Let's try another example. If someone who is just barely getting by--paying for rent, keeping that old car held together with gum and ruberbands, or is just dealing with that old energy hog refrigerator gets a tax cut. Well they replace the car and refrigerator! So they buy that on the economy. The stores make money right away, the factory has to produce more goods, and Americans work. That is assuming that they buy American.

Well what if the entire cylcle I just described had been repeated over and over again by giving the people most in need of a tax cut a cut. The answer is fairly straight forward as I am sure you have guessed. Many people replace their cars, refrigerators, etc. This results in a huge boost to the economy.

So isn't this what we should be doing instead of our current policy? Think logical!
- Drew, 12:42 PM