You seriously think that CEO's of major corporations don't spend money? You really think Wall Street execs live miserly lifestyles? Yeah ok.

Food stamps are spent on one thing, food which is already a hugely gov't sponsored business. No grocery stores are being opened up or expanded because of the influx of food stamps. No grocery stores are going out of business becasue of the lask of food stamps. Any money spent has some degree of stimulative effect but the effect of food stamps is very small.

Your idea that food stamps or payroll tax decreases cause all this stiulus spending is completely misguided. Food stamps are spend almost exclusively on food, an industry that is not expanding and is being paid in many cases not to expand. The minor amount of money each consumer receives from payroll tax decreases are generally used to pay off debt, pay utilities or rent. You can't say that people cant afford to eat and are broke then say they are going to be big consumers when given food stamps or a few dollars extra in their paychecks. Sustenance living isnot effective stimulus. Paying your utility bill is not great stimulus. Buying food is not great stimulus.

Yeah they all get hundreds of millions when they get canned. I'm sure that they all just sit around and surf the net in their offices in between secret 'screw the middle class' conferences because they have giant golden parachutes. Most also have a high standard of living, spending LOTS of money and few people can afford to live off their savings forever regardless of how much they have. Your theory that there is no incentive for CEO's to perform because they may get a nice compensation package if they are fired is naive at best, ridiclous at worst.

The idea that the common investor has been screwed is bluster, plain and simple.

If in group A Mr. CEO has 20 million dollar a year salary and no other income and Group B we have 200 folks getting 100K in income at the end of the year which group would have spent the most buying goods and services?

Is 100k a year now middle class?

How many CEO's make 20 million a year in hard cash?

Hypothetical question. Reduce the numbers to what you see fit.

:zz: Not remotely close to what I said.

Not according to the facts I see, but you're entitled to your own opinion.

It is when consumers have zero money, because they are unemployed. Wal Mart welcomes those with food aid cards. Because otherwise they are not selling food.

Yeah, the investment accounts of the "common investor" have been reaping gains averaging 8% a year since 1996, haven't they? Whoops - no, they have not.

Look, it is this simple:

Republicans say that if you give the wealthy tax and incentive financial breaks, they will create jobs regardless of lack of consumer demand. "Trickle down" theory (long disproven)

Democrats say too many people are unemployed, the middle class has been ravaged, there is no longer a huge consumer class creating the demand that allows jobs to be created.

Pick one as the basis of one's economic opinion formulation.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Bernan...00699.html?x=0

So Wal Mart isnt selling food if not for food stamps?

8% a year? That is your standard? Why pick 1996? Why not 1986 or 1976?

"Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday that he's surprised by how cautious consumers remain more than two years since the recession officially ended. "

And they give this guy the keys? He has no idea why people aren't spending?

You really think that it is this simple?

The world is a far more complicated place than these two statements. It isnt black and white. For every move made there is a counter move, sometimes not the one expected, often effected by factors beyond anyones control or knowledge when the initial move was made.

I guess he doesn't read the papers

well I guess no one reads papers anymore

Does the New York Times on my IPAD count?

Sigh ... Sorry, refuse to have a discussion if this simplistic nonsense is your idea of debate.

Yes, 8% a year has been the historical 20th century stock market return if you invested and let it be without trying to time any markets. That's long gone. Of course, when I was young, savings accounts payed 5 1/4%.

That regular rate of return ended when Wall Street stopped being people investing capitalization in corporate American company growth and longevity, and became a gambling casino.

It is that simple as far as the very basic foundation of one's political economic theory, yes. Looking at the GOP vs the Dems, yes, that is exactly the basic, essential difference in what they believe.

And we have the past 100 years of economic actuality to see which has been factually more productive in this country.

Of course it's far more complicated than that.

Yes, zero-sum game theory versus the economic theory that that paradigm no longer exists (or never did)

Post 45
You wrote it!

When exactly did you lay out any Democratic economic theory? Is unemployment is high a theory?

no ink, no paper!

yet another fail by the da prez..

pretty bad when rolling stone has had enough of his bs

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...ymore-20110906

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...p_mostpop_read

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...p_mostpop_read

Oh for god's sake. Yes, I wrote, "Wal Mart welcomes those with food aid cards. Because otherwise they are not selling food."

Now, if you want to take that statement as I somehow think that Wal Mart only sells to people with food stamps, go ahead and be ridiculously black and white. I gave you far more credit than that.

:zz:

What are you trying to say?

I am talking about the essential party platform basic economic differences between the two major political parties in the US.

I'll see your opinion piece on the failure of the stimulus from the Wall Street Journal, and raise you nine fiscal studies saying the opposite:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...bibJ_blog.html

Adopt a Job Creator
 

Help the economy - adopt a job creator

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVwbY...layer_embedded

You didnt lay out a platform, you pointed out income disparity and high unemployment. What is the platform?

Doesnt anyone read links anymore?

Uh there are 2 of your 9 that said it didnt work and 4 of the others are based on modeling (i.e. guessing)

If it worked so well why are things still so bad?

Obama's a price is right girl...a spokesmodel for global corporate capitalism, nothing to see here. His opponent in the next election cycle will be his clone. Are people still having trouble figuring this out?? It's a clown show and nothing more.

...and like clockwork the credible, unspecified terror threat. Derp de derp derp. Baaaaaaaa

I didn't intend to "lay out a platform". Keep up, and stop throwing out silly straw men.

Interesting interpretation. Much more credible to listen to an anti-Obama op-ed.

It's just that simple. Right :tro:

That's our news media. Useless, superficial, already behind on that story from this morning.

oh, the irony.

"Democrats say too many people are unemployed, the middle class has been ravaged, there is no longer a huge consumer class creating the demand that allows jobs to be created."-Riot post 45

Let me ask once again, what is the economic platform for Democrats? Is the above quote really a platform?

Complaining isn't a platform. What exactly is the Democratic economic platform? You say that the GOP wants to use tax cuts to grow the economy, fine. That is a plan. What is the Dems plan?

well, i can guarantee it's not another stimulus. this plan might sound like one, but i promise, it isn't. nor is any of it shovel ready, or a recovery/reinvestment act.

it's a dog chasing its tail. people are afraid to hire because demand is low, but demand is low because a lot of people don't have work. if people had work, there'd be more demand....
then there are the companies who need to hire, and can't find skilled workers. they still haven't hired an electrician here at the paper mill, and they have had ads running for close to a year-but no one who has applied has the qualifications.

So flawed studies are the way to go? The same dopes who put those studies out are cut from the forecasting cloth of the idiots Obama hired that said the stimulus would prevent unemployment from reaching 8%.

Surely you read the "op-ed" piece which detailed a study which took real data from real people (unlike forecasting which is like taking Mike Watchmakers selections as fact) and showed the flaws that are being misinterpreted in other studies?

Of course the stimulus worked. Look at how the economy is growing. Look at how unemployment has gone down. Look at how the mood of the country has brightened. Look at Obama's ratings, surely the continued slump in those numbers can't be fallout from his hugely successful stimulus package because everybody loves Obamacare so it couldnt possibly be that either. Look at all those "shovel-ready" project that were completed. Look at the consumer spending. Surely the stimulus was a home run...

OBAMA: "The American Jobs Act answers the urgent need to create jobs right away."

THE FACTS: Not all of the president's major proposals are likely to yield quick job growth if adopted. One is to set up a national infrastructure bank to raise private capital for roads, rail, bridges, airports and waterways. Even supporters of such a bank doubt it could have much impact on jobs in the next two years because it takes time to set up. The idea is likely to run into opposition from some Republicans who say such a bank would give the federal government too much power. They'd rather divide money among existing state infrastructure banks.



--that doesn't sound like a very good idea. read it and the rest if you wish:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44446558/ns/politics/

Listen the guy is simply campaigning. HE needs to create the illusion that he is creating jobs or he is going to lose to one of the most uninspiring candidates in history (whatever GOP dope wins). He is still trying to act as though he is some bipartisan bystander in no way associated with the mess in Congress. The lefties are crying because he isn't radical enough in their opinion yet he is smart enough to realize that he better not appear to lean too far left if he is going to have a chance. Only the ineptness of the current GOP field has prevented him from being a huge underdog and leaning further left gives him no chance because he knows that the GOP will shred him with the economy being so bad. Of course the lefties also forget that their agenda cant thrive in an economic climate like we have now as there is just no more money for them to blow.

we were visiting in charleston the other day with two married couples from ontario. they asked us when we were going to have another revolution.

and to think it was impossible to be worse the carter:rolleyes:

So you deny that the Democratic position is to create jobs?

Is this really too hard?

"Flawed" simply because you say so, huh? LOL.

:zz: That doesn't make any sense. I've probably got some duplication in the below, but there's plenty of stimulus there.

* Cutting the payroll tax in half for 98 percent of businesses: The President’s plan will cut in half the taxes paid by businesses on their first $5 million in payroll, targeting the benefit to the 98 percent of firms that have payroll below this threshold.
* A complete payroll tax holiday for added workers or increased wages: The President’s plan will completely eliminate payroll taxes for firms that increase their payroll by adding new workers or increasing the wages of their current worker (the benefit is capped at the first $50 million in payroll increases).
* Extending 100% expensing into 2012: This continues an effective incentive for new investment.
* Reforms and regulatory reductions to help entrepreneurs and small businesses access capital.
* A “Returning Heroes” hiring tax credit for veterans: This provides tax credits from $5,600 to $9,600 to encourage the hiring of unemployed veterans.
* Preventing up to 280,000 teacher layoffs,while keeping cops and firefighters on the job.
* Modernizing at least 35,000 public schools across the country,supporting new science labs, Internet-ready classrooms and renovations at schools across the country, in rural and urban areas.
* Immediate investments in infrastructure and a bipartisan National Infrastructure Bank, modernizing our roads, rail, airports and waterways while putting hundreds of thousands of workers back on the job.
* A New “Project Rebuild”, which will put people to work rehabilitating homes, businesses and communities, leveraging private capital and scaling land banks and other public-private collaborations.
* Expanding access to high-speed wireless as part of a plan for freeing up the nation’s spectrum.
* The most innovative reform to the unemployment insurance program in 40 years: As part of an extension of unemployment insurance to prevent 5 million Americans looking for work from losing their benefits, the President’s plan includes innovative work-based reforms to prevent layoffs and give states greater flexibility to use UI funds to best support job-seekers, including:
o Work-Sharing: UI for workers whose employers choose work-sharing over layoffs.
o A new “Bridge to Work” program: The plan builds on and improves innovative state programs where those displacedtake temporary, voluntary work or pursue on-the-job training.
o Innovative entrepreneurship and wage insurance programs: States will also be empowered to implement wage insurance to help reemploy older workers and programs that make it easier for unemployed workers to start their own businesses.
* A $4,000 tax credit to employers for hiring long-term unemployed workers.
* Prohibiting employers from discriminating against unemployed workers when hiring.
* Expanding job opportunities for low-income youth and adults through a fund for successful approaches for subsidized employment, innovative training programs and summer/year-round jobs for youth.
* Cutting payroll taxes in half for 160 million workers next year: The President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last year to cut workers payroll taxes in half in 2012 – providing a $1,500 tax cut to the typical American family, without negatively impacting the Social Security Trust Fund.
* Allowing more Americans to refinance their mortgages at today’s near 4 percent interest rates, which can put more than $2,000 a year in a family’s pocket.
* Cutting the Payroll Tax Cut in Half for the First $5 Million in Wages:This provision would cut the payroll tax in half to 3.1% for employers on the first $5 million in wages, providing broad tax relief to all businesses but targeting it to the 98 percent of firms with wages below this level.
* Temporarily Eliminating Employer Payroll Taxes on Wages for New Workers or Raises for Existing Workers:The President is proposing a full holiday on the 6.2% payroll tax firms pay for any growth in their payroll up to $50 million above the prior year, whether driven by new hires, increased wages or both. This is the kind of job creation measure that CBO has called the most effective of all tax cuts in supporting employment.
* Extending 100% Expensing into 2012:The President is proposing to extend 100 percent expensing, the largest temporary investment incentive in history, allowing all firms – large and small – to take an immediate deduction on investments in new plants and equipment.
* Helping Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses Access Capital and Grow: The President’s plan includes administrative, regulatory and legislative measures – including those developed and recommended by the President’s Jobs Council – to help small firms start and expand. This includes changing the way the government does business with small firms. The Administration will soon announce a plan to accelerate government payments to small contractors to help put money in their hands faster. The President is also charging his CIO and CTO to, within 90 days, stand up a one-stop, online portal for small businesses to easily access government services. As part of the President’s Startup America initiative, the Administration will work with the SEC to conduct a comprehensive review of securities regulations from the perspective of these small companies to reduce the regulatory burdens on small business capital formation in ways that are consistent with investor protection, including expanding “crowdfunding” opportunities and increasing mini-offerings. Finally, the President’s plan calls for Congress to pass comprehensive patent reform, increase guarantees for bonds to help small businesses compete for infrastructure projects and remove burdensome withholding requirements that keep capital out of the hands of job creators.
* Tax Credits and Career Readiness Efforts to Support Veterans’ Hiring:The President is proposing a Returning Heroes Tax Credit of up to $5,600 for hiring unemployed veterans who have been looking for a job for more than six months, and a Wounded Warriors Tax Credit of up to $9,600 for hiring unemployed workers with service-connected disabilities who have been looking for a job for more than six months, while creating a new task force to maximize career readiness of servicemembers.
* Preventing Layoffs of Teachers, Cops and Firefighters:The President is proposing to invest $35 billion to prevent layoffs of up to 280,000 teachers, while supporting the hiring of tens of thousands more and keeping cops and firefighters on the job. These funds would help states and localities avoid and reverse layoffs now, requiring that funds be drawn down quickly. Under the President’s proposal, $30 billion be directed towards educators and $5 billion would support the hiring and retention of public safety and first responder personnel.
* Modernizing Over 35,000 Schools – From Science Labs and Internet-Ready Classrooms to Renovated Facilities:The President is proposing a $25 billion investment in school infrastructure that will modernize at least 35,000 public schools – investments that will create jobs, while improving classrooms and upgrading our schools to meet 21st century needs. This includes a priority for rural schools and dedicated funding for Bureau of Indian Education funded schools. Funds could be used for a range of emergency repair and renovation projects, greening and energy efficiency upgrades, asbestos abatement and removal, and modernization efforts to build new science and computer labs and to upgrade technology in our schools. The President is also proposing a $5 billion investment in modernizing community colleges (including tribal colleges), bolstering their infrastructure in this time of need while ensuring their ability to serve future generations of students and communities.
* Making an Immediate Investment in Our Roads, Rails and Airports: The President’s plan includes $50 billion in immediate investments for highways, transit, rail and aviation, helping to modernize an infrastructure that now receives a grade of “D” from the American Society of Civil Engineers and putting hundreds of thousands of construction workers back on the job. The President’s plan includes investments to improve our airports, support NextGen Air Traffic Modernization efforts, and resources for the TIGER and TIFIA programs, which target competitive dollars to innovative multi-modal infrastructure programs. It will also take special steps to enhance infrastructure-related job training opportunities for individuals from underrepresented groups and ensure that small businesses can compete for infrastructure contracts.The President will work administratively to speed infrastructure investment through a recently issued Presidential Memorandum developed with his Jobs Council directingdepartments and agencies to identify high impact, job-creating infrastructure projects that can be expedited in a transparent manner through outstanding review and permitting processes. The call for greater infrastructure investment has been joined by leaders from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka to U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue.
* Establishing a National Infrastructure Bank:The President is calling for Congress to pass a National Infrastructure Bank capitalized with $10 billion, in order to leverage private and public capital and to invest in a broad range of infrastructure projects of nationaland regional significance, without earmarks or traditional political influence. The Bank would be based on the model Senators Kerry and Hutchison have championed while building on legislation by Senators Rockefeller and Lautenberg and the work of long-time infrastructure bank champions like Rosa DeLauro and the input of the President’s Jobs Council.
* Project Rebuild: Putting People Back to Work Rehabilitating Homes, Businesses and Communities. The President is proposing to invest $15 billion in a national effort to put construction workers on the job rehabilitating and refurbishing hundreds of thousands of vacant and foreclosed homes and businesses. Building on proven approaches to stabilizing neighborhoods with high concentrations of foreclosures, Project Rebuild will bring in expertise and capital from the private sector, focus on commercial and residential property improvements, and expand innovative property solutions like land banks. This approach will not only create construction jobs but will help reduce blight and crime and stabilize housing prices in areas hardest hit by the housing crisis.
* Expanding Access to High-Speed Wireless in a Fiscally Responsible Way: The President is calling for a deficit reducing plan to deploy high-speed wireless services to at least 98 percent of Americans, including those in more remote rural communities, while freeing up spectrum through incentive auctions, spurring innovation, and creating a nationwide, interoperable wireless network for public safety.
* Reform Our Unemployment Insurance System to Provide Greater Flexibility, While Ensuring 6 Million People Do Not Lose Benefits: Drawing on the best ideas of both parties and the most innovative states, the President is proposing the most sweeping reforms to the unemployment insurance (UI) system in 40 years help those without jobs transition to the workplace. Alongside these reforms, the President is reiterating his call to extend unemployment insurance, preventing 6 million people looking for work from losing their benefits and extending what the independent Congressional Budget Office has determined is the highest “bang for the buck” option to increase economic activity.
* Reemployment Assistance: States will be required to design more rigorous reemployment services for the long-term unemployed and to conduct assessments to review the longest-term claimants of UI to assess their eligibility and help them develop a work-search plan. These reforms are proven to speed up UI beneficiaries’ return to work.
* Work-sharing:The President will expand “work-sharing” to encourage arrangements using UI that keep employees on the job at reduced hours, rather than laying them off.
* State Flexibility for Bold Reforms to Put the Long-Term Unemployed Back To Work:The President is proposing to provide additional funds to allow states to introduce new programs aimed at long-term unemployed workers, including:
* “Bridge to Work” Programs:States will be able to put in place reforms that build off what works in programs like Georgia Works or Opportunity North Carolina, while instituting important fixes and reforms that ensure minimum wage and fair labor protections are being enforced. These approaches permits long-term unemployed workers to continue receiving UI while they take temporary, voluntary work or pursue work-based training. The President’s plan requires compliance with applicable minimum wage and other worker rights laws.
* Wage Insurance: States will be able to use UI to encourage older, long-term unemployed Americans to return to work in new industries or occupations.
* Startup Assistance: States will have flexibility to help long-term unemployed workers create their own jobs by starting their own small businesses.
* Other Reemployment Reforms: States will be able to seek waivers from the Secretary of Labor to implement other innovative reforms to connect the long-term unemployed to work opportunities.
* Tax Credits for Hiring the Long-Term Unemployed:The President is proposing a tax credit of up to $4,000 for hiring workers who have been looking for a job for over six months.
* Investing in Low-Income Youth and Adults: The President is proposing a new Pathways Back to Work Fund to provide hundreds of thousands of low-income youth and adults with opportunities to work and to achieve needed training in growth industries. The Initiative will do three things: i) support summer and year-round jobs for youth, building off of successful programs that supported over 370,000 such jobs in 2009 and 2010; ii) support subsidized employment opportunities for low-income individuals who are unemployed, building off the successful TANF Emergency Contingency Fund wage subsidy program that supported 260,000 jobs in 2009 and 2010; and iii) support promising and innovative local work-based job and training initiatives to place low-income adults and youths in jobs quickly
* Prohibiting Employers from Discriminating Against Unemployed Workers: The President’s plan calls for legislation that would make it unlawful to refuse to hire applicants solely because they are unemployed or to include in a job posting a provision that unemployed persons will not be considered.
* Cutting Payroll Taxes in Half for 160 Million Workers Next Year: The President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last December by cutting workers payroll taxes in half next year. This provision will provide a tax cut of $1,500 to the typical family earning $50,000 a year. As with the payroll tax cut passed in December 2010, the American Jobs Act will specify that Social Security will still receive every dollar it would have gotten otherwise, through a transfer from the General Fund into the Social Security Trust Fund.
* Helping More Americans Refinance Mortgages at Today’s Historically Low Interest Rates: The President has instructed his economic team to work with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, their regulator the FHFA, major lenders and industry leaders to remove the barriers that exist in the current refinancing program (HARP) to help more borrowers benefit from today’s historically low interest rates. This has the potential to not only help these borrowers, but their communities and the American taxpayer, by keeping borrowers in their homes and reducing risk to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.