Kmarion wrote:
Turquoise wrote:
You gotta remember, America is a pretty conservative country compared to most of the First World. We're closer to the Third World in our conservative nature.
Most of the First World is quite liberal and socialistic -- at least compared to us.
Let's not forget it was conservative economics that pulled us out of the
Carter disaster. Bush's tax cuts also helped to stop the
Clinton Recession from worsening. If he didn't spend money like a mad man we would be in excellent shape. Ironically it was the economic boom that he helped create that accelerated the housing market. This in turn brought out the greedy predatory lenders. The lending market fallout has been are worst problem. Unfortunately we've tried to stop the bleeding by cutting rates and offering incentives. The market has already
shown signs of correcting itself on it's own. By cutting rates we are creating an even bigger problem. Of course it's not the president who decides to cut interest rates.
Wow, what a bunch of crap, and people just accepted this without question?
The Carter economy...inherited from Nixon/Ford, primarily a result of Nixon's inability to placate OPEC in '73.
The Clinon Recession, which was not a recession at all, was a result of the dot.com bubble burst which was quite predictable. If anything, Clinton can be blamed for not reigning it in, but then the corporate wing would have had an even bigger cow. Another conservative creation that made a no-win situation for the Democrat in power. Subsequently the next flux was a result of September 11. The complete deregulatory Bush reaction to the whole thing, which was basically a money grab (by de-regulation of the credit industry - bankruptcy law revision and mortgage/student loan deregulation) and easy sell-off to China, as well as spiralling war debt mixed with "Reaganomic" tax cuts, has lead to our current situation.
To be fair to Bush though, a lot of people want to blame the price of oil/gas (major cause of inflationary pressure) on the Iraq war situation, it actually has not much to do with it. China/India's rise in demand, along with OPEC greed, has basically pushed the commodity prices for fossil fuels to completely crazy levels, regardless of Iraq's inability to produce at their old levels. Iraq hasn't operated at full capacity since Bush I, and realy isn't a big factor. The latest war just cut easy supplies to France (earning their ire) under the corrupt UN Oil-for-Food deal.
The Bush Repugs (and their Democrat enablers) can definitely take the blame for the credit bubble though, which basically amounted to steal from the poor and give to the rich robbery. Other nasty policy eggs that have yet to hatch is the out-of-control spending (including war debt and national security outsourcing), failure to collect corporate taxes, allowing corporations to off-shore (like Halliburton) to tax havens, failure to enforce heavy fines for environmental damage and illegal immigrant hiring in some industries, and relaxation of consumer protection laws and human rights treaties which allows Chinese products to flood our markets with little oversight. Basically, spending money like it was going out of style but not collecting dues. This is going to create a very biting tax crunch in the near future for everyone. But, so long as they can keep the finger pointed at illegal immigration and blame the Mexicans, everything is ok. 99% of the crap you buy at Wal-mart did not come from Mexico though, I promise.
Another huge Bushie problem is the complete lack of oversight and enforcement of trade commission policies. No audits or cursory and meaningless audits means a lot of big investment firms have no idea, and cannot (or don't need to) disclose, just how much bad debt they carry in their portfolios. This means nobody on Wall Street trusts each other any more and it makes it impossible to do honest business transactions. Baer Stearns was just the tip of the ice berg.
Solutions:
1) Re-negotiate NAFTA with a multi-national minimum wage and regulatory enforcement so we at least stop bleeding jobs to south of the border, and reduce the inequality that causes the illegal immigration scare. This is just a band-aid though, it will curb our economy just a bit until the corporations pick up and re-locate to Asian markets. It will help for about 2 years or so.
2) Stop the corporate welfare! No more multi-billion dollar tax-payer bail-outs to irresponsible investment firms or poorly managed vital industries. The US is the only country that gives away tax money like that. If you absolutely need to bail out a company with tax-payer money, get something in return, like how France, Germany, Russia, and Britain does things...the Fed should put some major strings attached (like stock ownership). If you think an industry is vital enough to throw money at it, nationalize part of it so the taxpayer gets something in return.
3) Stop the outsourcing of federal jobs. Putting government functions (especially military support and intelligence services) in the hands of for-profit private contracting companies makes them very much LESS efficient, susceptible to political agendas, and prone to error, corruption, and inaccuracy.
4) OVERSIGHT. Make everyone who receives federal funds scared shitless of corruption. Tax money comes out of people's pockets, make them realize that its not free or bottomless. No more "no-bid contracts" or any other related shit. Our mid-level bureaucrats are some of the most honest in the world, relatively speaking, this is an asset that should be used for the good of the US.
5) Shift Military Socialism to Public Works Socialism. If we're going to prop up 12% of our economy on tax-payer funds (we already are under de facto socialism), then stop paying for crap that hurts us world-wide. Do something useful with the money. $2 Trillion on the Iraq War, down the garbage can. Thats a lot of schools, hospitals, free health care, free education, green industry conversion, massive scientific research projects, etc, that are now denied to future generations. Stop bleeding money. American taxes should be invested in America...or do we think the Middle East or China are going to do us a big favor and prop us up when we fall or we have a little human rights issue?
If I had to pick one I would trust to at least start us on the right track, right now its Obama. As for myself, screw hording food and water. I'll just stick it out in the boom towns that are Eastern Europe right now. I make almost $80,000/year and pay $500 income tax/year. There are no illusions about what the government does for its people here, which is jack shit. Somehow, society still functions.
