Who's more to blame for the economy? Obama or Congress

[idav]

I have to say that Obama is at least trying to do his job. But I gotta wonder if the government is the only american business trying to create jobs here.

 

[Storm]

I have to say that Obama is at least trying to do his job. But I gotta wonder if the government is the only american business trying to create jobs here.

Very good points.

 

[tytlyf]

Congress.

That was easy.

edit: Or were there more choices?

Alright, so the consensus is that Congress is responsible for the economy and recovery. Do people in Congress have a 'beef' with the president and will do whatever it takes to make him fail? Even blocking recovery efforts?

I'll have to post some Congressional statistics for both sides the past 4 years. But not tonight because I'm lazy.

 

[Storm]

Do people in Congress have a 'beef' with the president and will do whatever it takes to make him fail? Even blocking recovery efforts?

Um, yeah....

 

[idav]

When the kardashians and even apple is trying to send everything to china it makes me feel a bit ill. The rich are the ones with the power to keep our economy rolling.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Rick, would you respond to my post?

Sure what post number do you want me to reply too?

 

[Storm]

Oh, sorry, assumed you saw.

# 50

 

[Reverend Rick]

I have to say that Obama is at least trying to do his job. But I gotta wonder if the government is the only American business trying to create jobs here.

Thats because of the uncertainty of just what obligations and how much expense having additional employees will be once Obama care is enacted. I provide my employees with health insurance but I'm not sure my policies will be compliant or not. Would you buy a car or a house without knowing what the payment will be in the future? Hiring an employee is more expensive than that. Many are waiting on what their tax liability will be as well. Making payroll is stressful.

 

[Thief]

Thats because of the uncertainty of just what obligations and how much expense having additional employees will be once Obama care is enacted. I provide my employees with health insurance but I'm not sure my policies will be compliant or not. Would you buy a car or a house without knowing what the payment will be in the future? Hiring an employee is more expensive than that. Many are waiting on what their tax liability will be as well. Making payroll is stressful.

I just quit my job for a better one.

My most recent employer pays the people $45 to NOT enroll for insurance.

But consequently, skilled labor like myself will find something else to go do.

 

[idav]

Thats because of the uncertainty of just what obligations and how much expense having additional employees will be once Obama care is enacted. I provide my employees with health insurance but I'm not sure my policies will be compliant or not. Would you buy a car or a house without knowing what the payment will be in the future? Hiring an employee is more expensive than that. Many are waiting on what their tax liability will be as well. Making payroll is stressful.

Building any business is risky, but business is what keeps the money moving.

 

[gnomon]

Alright, so the consensus is that Congress is responsible for the economy and recovery. Do people in Congress have a 'beef' with the president and will do whatever it takes to make him fail? Even blocking recovery efforts?

I'll have to post some Congressional statistics for both sides the past 4 years. But not tonight because I'm lazy.

There has to be some definable proof that the POTUS is the decider on economics.

I voted through 90's and the nonsense that Clinton was a driver of the tech bubble during that era. It will take a lot to convince me that the Prez has a lot to do with it.

 

[Reverend Rick]

AKA: Why Storm replied at all.

I just can't get on board with this. Your arguments weren't without merit, but come on - let's at least TRY to find a solution that doesn't involve rendering the planet toxic to human life. I've got kids to think of, and so do you.

Even in this economy I choose to pay more to support clean energy. I don't look down my nose at those who can't, but prior conversations have made it abundantly clear that you are much more financially secure than I. It's about priorities.

I understand priorities, but some folks have 400 to 600 dollar electric bills in winter living in doublewide homes. It is all they can do to keep the power from being turned off. To double the issue, many of these mobile home dwellers work in the coal industry which would be shut down if you and Obama has his way. Coal mining is all these folks know and have been working in the mines for generations. They are proud hard working people just trying to raise their families.

I don't understand why we would abandon a resources that could supply us for another 300 years. We should find better ways to burn coal. It's cheap, it's here and it's ours to burn.

"Stop using electricity" is irrational to the point of parody. Some people may not be able to afford going without coal power, but those of us who can owe it to future generations to support clean energy development, no?

Not all of us can afford our power bills doubling or tripling. I'm just saying.

This idea is immensely appealing as an ideal, I'll grant you. However, I don't see the ideal translating into feasible legal codes. Do you?

Sure, you get a 75% tax on over 10 million bucks unless you hire X amount of folks each year. A ratio or a deduction for each new employee. I would raise the 250K to a million.

50,000 to 1 million 15%
1 million to 10 million 25%
over 10 million 75%
over a billion 90%

Stop treating half a million folks like billionaires, let the little rich guys get richer which is the small business engine in this country that creates jobs.

Make the ultra rich pay or start hiring folks as well.

All the rich need is an incentive to hire folks, problem solved.

Where most Republicans get things wrong is they automatically believe tax savings will be spent on jobs. In a way they are correct, they just create off shore jobs not domestic jobs.

 

[tytlyf]

I understand priorities, but some folks have 400 to 600 dollar electric bills in winter living in doublewide homes.

How is that possible? Is there a draft or no insulation? I can run AC all day around 78 and get away with 60$ a month? Heating is typically much less expensive than AC.

 

[Storm]

I understand priorities, but some folks have 400 to 600 dollar electric bills in winter living in doublewide homes. It is all they can do to keep the power from being turned off.

Uh huh. That's why I pointed out that some folks can't, and I don't pass judgment on them. So, I don't see why you felt the need to elaborate on my point as if it were a rebuttal.

To double the issue, many of these mobile home dwellers work in the coal industry which would be shut down if you and Obama has his way. Coal mining is all these folks know and have been working in the mines for generations. They are proud hard working people just trying to raise their families.

Is anyone saying we should stop cold turkey and just lay off the miners without so much as a fruit basket? Certainly not I.

I just don't think we should expand the industry and 'drill, baby, drill!' like it's a feasible alternative to investing in sustainability.

I won't pretend to sufficient expertise with a detailed plan, but what I'd like to see is gradual reduction coupled with worker retraining.

I don't understand why we would abandon a resources that could supply us for another 300 years. We should find better ways to burn coal. It's cheap, it's here and it's ours to burn. Not all of us can afford our power bills doubling or tripling. I'm just saying.

1) Fossil fuel consumption is poisoning our environment, and by extension us.
2) So, accepting for the sake of argument that it will last another 300 years (I don't know whether that's the estimate or just a number you made up as an example), what then? Sooner or later, we WILL have to turn to clean energy. Wouldn't it be better on every level that that be sooner? Less pollution, more time for research and infrastructure building, and probably a dozen other factors I can't think of right now.
3) Clean power doesn't cost THAT much more. Well, full disclosure, I haven't looked at a utility bill since my move a few months ago, since I pay room and board while my dad handles finances. So, to specify, it doesn't cost that much more in Portland. It's an average of 3% increase with my old power company.
3a) As we build more clean energy plants, the price difference will decrease, no? So, isn't the solution to keep building more?

Sure, you get a 75% tax on over 10 million bucks unless you hire X amount of folks each year. A ratio or a deduction for each new employee. I would raise the 250K to a million.

50,000 to 1 million 15%
1 million to 10 million 25%
over 10 million 75%
over a billion 90%

Stop treating half a million folks like billionaires, let the little rich guys get richer which is the small business engine in this country that creates jobs.

Make the ultra rich pay or start hiring folks as well.

All the rich need is an incentive to hire folks, problem solved.

Where most Republicans get things wrong is they automatically believe tax savings will be spent on jobs. In a way they are correct, they just create off shore jobs not domestic jobs.

I would totally support all of the above.

 

[Revoltingest]

You act as if economists are no better than laymen in figuring out how economies work.

It's not quite like that. Economists come in many different stripes. When politicians want a particular agenda supported, they'll hire like minded economists.
So the results of politically proffered economic prognostication appear to be no better than from laymen. Some economists do know how economies work, but
they will be few voices in a cacophony.

And you also appear to think that economic theories are "untestable"--that they don't explain observed economic behavior.

Not all theories are untestable.
But those which predict behavior of the population of the entire US typically aren't testable in the sense that you can't do comparisons.

Before the repeal of Glass-Steagall under Clinton, we had half a century of liberation from the boom-bust cycles caused by economic bubbles. That is because both political parties used tested fiscal and monetary policies to minimize recessions and economic bubbles. We know what happened under the final days of the Bush administration. We experienced the collapse of a housing bubble that deregulation of the banking industry had permitted. Understandably, there are now a lot of people who want to return to the "bubble" days, when expectations of growth exceeded reality. It was not the deficit that caused the collapse of the housing bubble, but it is the deficit that fiscal conservatives want to fix as a cure-all solution to our problems.

That is not at all convincing, since there were too many other changing parameters to make that limited correlation.
Moreover, the bank failures were directly caused by bad loans, which were made more common precisely because of new regulations, eg,
the Community Reinvestment Act, governmental demands that Fannie & Freddie make riskier loans, preferential tax treatment of home
sale income. Had those regulations not been introduced, the housing bubble would've had less incentive to grow. The empty hue & cry
that deregulation caused the problem is one reason I ignore many economists...they're just cheer leaders for the politicians who employ them.

I agree with that assessment, and I am more "socialistic" than you, in that respect. Government spending per se is not a good thing, although even bad spending policies can sometimes be better than no spending policies. For a flagging economy to turn itself around, we need to stimulate demand. Demand comes in the form of lots of people spending money for goods and services that lots of people produce. It does not come in the form of a few rich people hiring more servants and buying bigger, fancier yachts.

But to say demand must be stimulated doesn't address the cost of the stimulation itself.
Repaying the cost will be a damper on the economy, & none of this is analyzed in a rigorous quantitative way.

The upshot is, that I'll go by my own judgement in matters economic.

 

[Sunstone]

Stop treating half a million folks like billionaires, let the little rich guys get richer which is the small business engine in this country that creates jobs.

Amen. People with a million or two tend to invest in their communities. People with a billion or two tend to invest in China.

 

[Storm]

How is that possible? Is there a draft or no insulation? I can run AC all day around 78 and get away with 60$ a month? Heating is typically much less expensive than AC.

I don't know where you live, but a big part of it is the extremity of the climate. Costs less to run the AC at 60 when it's 65 outside than it does to set it at 80 when it's 105.

And yeah, mobile homes are not known for their energy efficiency, either.

Granted, Rick probably made the numbers up to make his point, and may have exaggerated a wee bit, but not beyond belief. I got no beef.

 

[Storm]

Amen. People with a million or two tend to invest in their communities. People with a billion or two tend to invest in China.

No kidding.

 

[Reverend Rick]

How is that possible? Is there a draft or no insulation? I can run AC all day around 78 and get away with 60$ a month? Heating is typically much less expensive than AC.

It has to do with how much you pay for kilowatt and how far you live away from power generation aka transmission costs. I live close to town and pay 1/3 of what they pay per kilowatt. They belong to a co-op where I buy my power from the city. Is your house sheltered from wind? people who live in subdivisions break the wind from each other. I guess your climate must be different because our cooling bill is much less than our heating bills. I'm thinking trailers are not as insulated as well, but many of these double wides exceed 2,000 square feet. How many square feet do you cool?

 

[Reverend Rick]

I don't know where you live, but a big part of it is the extremity of the climate. Costs less to run the AC at 60 when it's 65 outside than it does to set it at 80 when it's 105.

And yeah, mobile homes are not known for their energy efficiency, either.

Granted, Rick probably made the numbers up to make his point, and may have exaggerated a wee bit, but not beyond belief. I got no beef.

I go by what people tell me their bills are. Being an electrician, I discuss power bills quite alot. The 300 year coal supply is easily verifiable.

The 400-600 amount is the biggest winter bill number. I have my heating and air turned off this time a year. I had all my windows open today and have just one open now and the temp is 74 in my house and it is cool outside now. My electric will be less than 100 dollars this month. In Kentucky the low temp can be below zero in winter and as high as 107 in summer.