Which spending cuts are more acceptable

[Zigzagman]

Maybe if our political heroes are unwilling to totally throw our the 2500 page tax code then maybe just add two more brackets - $500K and $1000K. Greg, a 25M salary is crazy for anyone other than a private business owner. When the corporations do it they are simply screwing the shareholders but usually call it a bonus.

I find it rather strange that we have assigned responsibility to the President for "creating jobs". If anyone in Washington has that responsibility then it should be Congress but I am doubtful about that also. Jobs (if we are talking non-government) are responsibility of private business.

Peace

[Alan]

I find it rather strange that we have assigned responsibility to the President for "creating jobs". If anyone in Washington has that responsibility then it should be Congress but I am doubtful about that also. Jobs (if we are talking non-government) are responsibility of private business.

Peace

Washington doesn't have that responsibility, although they do have a huge effect on the business environment where jobs are created. This administration has made all the wrong moves to help create that environment. They've made business out to be a collectively evil entity which must be regulated into submission, probably because it plays well with the base.

Jobs are waiting for the right environment. Maybe in 2013?

[ApatheticNoMore]

And oh yeah, stop giving artificial respiration to people who bought expensive houses on low incomes. Let the houses go back to the banks that made the risky loans and let the people live in apartments or cheaper houses like they should have. I'm tired of watching people whine about being kicked out of their houses that are twice as large and 50 years newer than mine.

They're not doing it for the "homeowners". They could really care less about such little guys. They're doing it for the banks.

[Rogar]

Washington doesn't have that responsibility, although they do have a huge effect on the business environment where jobs are created. This administration has made all the wrong moves to help create that environment. They've made business out to be a collectively evil entity which must be regulated into submission, probably because it plays well with the base.

Jobs are waiting for the right environment. Maybe in 2013?

Alan, I'm curious what you think evil government should be doing to allow business the environment for job creation? Corporate profits seem to be up modestly, but they are afraid to hire. Banks are flush with cash but afraid to lend to new ventures. A lot of the tradition tools that have been used by the Fed and government successfully in the past haven't worked to the degree needed and the news pundits say our quiveris is just about out of arrows. Cutting taxes seems like it would only make the deficit worse. And austerity programs, at least in the near term would seem to take cash out of the economy.

Sorry to get off topic a little, but curious.

[jp1]

Ditto what Rogar said...much more for education, libraries and trade schools, much, much less for defense...and while we're at it, let's cut govt. subsidies for corn and subsidize broccoli instead. Our world would be a healthier place.

While I agree on eliminating all the current agriculture subsidies I disagree with adding new ones for broccoli or any other healthy food. With subsidies comes a perception that government should be allowed to exert more control. And frankly I'd really rather have the government less involved in my food, not more. Our CSA farmer provides an excellent product without subsidies, for a modest price of roughly $21/week which provides more veggies then we can eat in a week, and does well despite playing on a field where others get subsidies. Eliminate all subsidies and he'll do even better.

[Mangano's Gold]

Ii saw an interview with Warren Buffet yesterday."

He was on Charlie Rose, essentially promoting the recent Op-ed he wrote. He said that if he could pick twelve people to read his Op-ed it would be the members of the Super-committee.

I enjoyed the interview (a full hour) so I'll give my highlights:

-- the SS comment was made in passing

-- He thinks we should raise taxes on only those making a million or more

-- He dismisses the idea that this would adversely impact investment or it is "unfair"

-- He thought the debt ceiling debate was really really bad, specifically the Tea partiers who forced Boehner out of a Grand bargain. He discussed this at length, and described the Tea partiers as forcing a game of chicken and then "throwing out the steering wheel". If you are in a game of chicken, and the other guy throws out the steering wheel, then the non-crazy person has to give in.

-- He is a true believer in America and the American system

-- He says the Housing Crash is to blame for the bad economy

-- He says that once new housing starts get to 1 million, the unemployment rate will drop to under 7%. He stressed that this is THE key to the recovery, and it could happen sooner than many think.

[Alan]

Alan, I'm curious what you think evil government should be doing to allow business the environment for job creation?......
......Sorry to get off topic a little, but curious.

Leaving them alone.

As an example, during the first quarter of this year, this administration proposed or enacted more than 250 regulations amounting to more than $24 billion dollars in regulatory costs to businesses, large and small.

The cost of compliance is increasingly becoming a larger and larger drain on even the smallest businesses.

Power plants are closing as a result of this administrations energy policies, which seem to be designed to cause energy prices to "necessarily skyrocket". This increases costs to manufacturers especially but everyone is affected by the un-necessary increase of their cost of doing business. They've also made it increasingly difficult to harvest our own energy sources, increasing our dependence upon foreign sources and keeping gas/oil prices un-necessarily high.

And let's not even get into what they've done to the dollar as a result of their experiments in quantitative easing. I believe it's been de-valued by 7 or 8% in the past year.

Plus, just about everyone who provides jobs are labeled as millionaires and billionaires who must pay more. Government shouldn't be in the business of class warfare, but this administration seems to feed it's base the necessary class envy in order to keep them engaged.

All this, and more, does nothing to improve the job market, but it does satisfy a certain demographic. Is that what we want from our government?

[peggy]

Stop subsidizing oil companies, cut Congressional pay, cut their staff's pay, and cut the President's pay. Obama claimed he froze salaries, but somehow over half the White House staff got raises. One guy in particular got a $36,000 raise, I don't make that in a year. Go over the budgets with a fine-toothed comb and embarrass any Congresscritter that spends money on something insane.

http://factcheck.org/2011/08/top-20-white-house-raises/

Actually, most of those "raises" were job promotions. The overall cost of his staff actually dropped.

[Mangano's Gold]

=alan;38604]
And let's not even get into what they've done to the dollar as a result of their experiments in quantitative easing. I believe it's been de-valued by 7 or 8% in the past year.

Leaving aside that Obama doesn't control the Fed, or that dollar devaluation may be a good thing, here is a 10 year chart of the dollar against a basket of currencies. take off the blinders, dude. Not everything is Obama's fault.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?id=DTWEXM


edited: okay, I can't get the chart in. The link leads to the full 30 year history.

[Rogar]

Thanks Alan. I don't totally agree everything, but understand better. Perhaps some discussion for another topic? I worked for a fortune 500 company for a long time and know there are government excesses that just wouldn't fly in the private sector. When managers didn't meet their major goals, they were generally replaced. No excuses. I agree that something isn't working and needs to change. Obama has not met his goals, I'm just not sure what the replacement is or if it has been his fault.

I would have to add that it was deregulation of the financial industry that got us into this whole mess. Deregulation of the oil and gas big businesss has resulted in price collusion, price gouging, and quasi monopolies. The EPA is sort of a two edged sword, but thank goodness Nixon created it. It's not all bad, maybe just too much.