Before anyone

jumps to conclusions...my comment in this article are strickly of the nature of economic outcome. For instance, I would love to end the war in Iraq, but does not change the economics of war. 

by Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments) on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 8:21:20 AM
 

I've got 2 solutions to get the US out of recession

The first would work really quickly but would almost immediately be adopted by the rest of the world and so would only be temporary.  What is it?  Legalize all drugs and tax them with a heavy hand.

The second would work almost as quickly and last a long time though it's use may be to late at this point.  What is it?  Roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%ers and give the exact differencial to the poor and middle class in the form of payroll tax cuts.  Rather than provide a one time $600 check to everyone, make all the paychecks of the poor and middleclass bigger.

by erik mouse (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 106 comments) on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 12:30:04 PM
 

how much does commom sense cost?

       Common sense Mr. Mike. Give yourself an 'A'.

       The folks are brainwashed. Why are we surprised our leaders care not for our well being? We must care. Notice how all the answers presuppose it is the govs responsibility to correct it. That my dear is the fly in the ointment. The saddest part is that as we fall farther into the swindle, these same folks will point their finger at the gov, remove their $ from the banks, the banks will call in the notes, the collaspse will happen, banks will begin to close, neighbors will not be neighbors, PDD 51 will reveal its' ugly intention due to 'economic crisis' and all of us will pay for this utter stupidity with a learning curve of painful import.

     I'm getting ready, best I can. I like you, will spread the info to as many as I can, but cannot expect anyone to share my shortsightedness in this matter. 

     Ending the war will be very painful too. But, simply doing that can begin to reshape the character we have sold off with our lack of diligence. Doing a good work is its own reward. It must be we the people who, by our daily acts, rekindle the liberty that we ourselves have sold off on behalf of those not born yet. 

     Keep writing. Some are listening. One more is one more. You have common sense. Nothing is free. Thanx.

     peace 

by Mitch p. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 8 comments) on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 1:13:52 PM
 

Ending the war will immediately reduce the deficit.

Ending the war will immediately reduce the deficit.  Reduce our defense budget will help too.  We out spend the rest of the world combined on our military.  We must balance the budget we can’t spend more than we take in. 

Everyone must begin to deal with economic reality.   Social Security will be in trouble soon.  If you don’t start your own IRA or work for a company that that has a 401k you are going to be in big trouble when you retire.

by Michael Chavers (50 articles, 0 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 179 comments) on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 1:37:23 PM
 

konscept

Thanks for the nice reply. Yes, in the end we will begin to join together as friends, family and community and straighten this mess out as best we can.

I'm getting ready to post up a piece that looks to near future predictions and then a follow up as what an individual can do to make the best of a bad situation.

Economics, even macro economics, has much of its base in common reason. But, it must not be taught in U.S. schools these days.

by Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments) on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 2:39:40 PM
 

Michael

I agree with ending the war, but doing so will have a negative effect on the economy in the short run. I also agree with a balanced budget, but that too would deepen the recession and not pull us out, which was the subject of the article.

In the end, Americans will have to go through a very difficult time and eventually adopt a more sustainable and less consumptive lifestyle. There is no easy fix to the recession. I will post up a piece tomorrow that will give my preditcions as to the direction the U.S. will take.

by Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments) on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 2:46:27 PM
 

Looks to me as if ...

your Dear Leader is banking on the military-industrial complex to fix things, since war and weapons are the only things the US can export in impressive quantities.  That war budget says it all.

by delia (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 112 comments) on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 4:33:11 PM
 

Economic Suicide - No way out

Mike, it's sad when every alternative is like picking the short straw.

As you point out, decreasing military spending, our nations largest expense item, would completely trash the economy.  Pulling out of Iraq and downsizing the military has to happen, but it has to be a transitional process.  And those that benefit from military dollars aren't going to let their profits shrink peacefully.

The $600 checks, will be gone as soon as they are received.  A one time blip.  It will be too little too late.  But might get us through the election - which is probably the idea.

The National Debt - staggering.  OPEC signaling the possibility of changing the peg currency to the EURO and telling BushCo to go pound sand at his request that they increase oil production.  

Can we say $5 plus a gallon?

Venezuela telling the US that if EXXON continues to freeze their assets- they'll stop selling oil to the US.  Extortion breeds extortion. 

Saudi Arabia and China - don't want to be the last ones holding US dollars (over a trillion $'s each, worth nearly half they were a year ago)- let's hope they don't start dumping dollars.  

The US is the largest debtor nation in the world - and yet, the planned budget for next year - $400 billion more in deficit spending?  Any takers?

Brace yourselves - none of leaders dare utter the truth.

by August Adams (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 458 comments) on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 9:51:39 PM
 

August

Thanks for the good comments. Yes we need to pull in the horns of the military, but as you suggested, it will have to over some time or it spin us into never never land. Far too many Americans are living from that system to just shut it down.

The really staggering number is the $53 Trillion of unfunded debt. The plan is that growth will provide the money; the plan won't work.

I will be putting up a piece on my predictions for the coming year, brace yourself.

by Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments) on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 10:41:24 PM
 

Psst ... people ...

to start we need to get rid of the Federal Reserve Bank.

We do this one thing and we're more than half-way there. Watch Money Masters. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936

You must know that everything we're going through was planned - granted, planned by madmen, but planned none the less.

We have reached the apex of our corrupt system and at the center of this corruption is the Federal Reserve Bank. Do other commonsense things too but the most important is destroying the FRB.

But it won't happen. Not anymore than people will stop eating meat, or driving SUV's until there's no more meat to buy, gas to get to the store if there were, or energy to light the stove if all the former were available.

Hold on kids - it's all downhill from here!

by Mr M (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 1688 comments) on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 11:53:56 PM
 

Follow the money

How much would it help( to get out of recession) if ALL profits were seized from the war profiteers? forfeiture of assets involved in a crime? That would be one hefty paycheck. After all, it is they who are bleeding America( and the world) dry.

by nakedtruth (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 38 comments) on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 1:36:59 AM
 

Thanks

to all for your comments. The key is sustainable jobs and a departure from our current growth oriented consumption economy.

Today GM announced that it will offer buyouts to the remaining 74,000 workers after posting a $38 Billion loss for 2007. The big slide has picked up some steam.

by Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments) on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 7:18:26 AM
 

The Broken Window Fallacy

Hello again, Mike. Please permit me to quibble about a single point in your excellent article.

War expenditures are not good for any economy. They are pure consumption, and they produce nothing. War is destructive physically and economically too. Soldiers are pulled from the private sector where their efforts would have been put into productive efforts. All the salaries of all the people working at defense contractors are equivalent to government jobs -- the entire output of their effort is either destructively consumed or stockpiled. None of it gets invested back into the productive sector of the economy. It is a very necessary expense, but it is an expense.

Wealth is not money. Wealth is created and consumed, money is a medium of exchange to make money portable and to ease transactions. Wealth is something that is dug up or grown from the ground and had human thought and effort applied to it, to make it valuable to humans. The most basic forms of wealth are things we need to survive -- food, housing, energy, transportation, etc. Everything else we do comes from surplus above and beyond what we need to survive. And that includes necessary expenses for services. Services include government functions, and that includes military spending. Military spending provides an essential service, but it is overhead. It is not part of the productive sector of the economy. Every dollar spent on it has to come from surpluses in the productive sector, and thus it decreases the efficiency of the productive sector.

And our military spending is currently beyond what the citizens can be taxed for. So our government borrows and prints the money to pay for it. It is this borrowing and printing that is ruining our economy, by decreasing our standard of living silently, and running the productive sector offshore.

So decreasing government expenditures to a level less than what the government takes in must be the first order of business for any economic recovery to begin. And our trillion dollar war must be the first place to start. It is the fastest way to cut down on the 2 billion dollars per day the government is borrowing to pay day to day expenses.

Obviously, there is no way we can pay this level of debt back with current tax levels, even if government cut back and stopped borrowing tomorrow. It would take a huge expansion of the economy to ever catch back up. And we are not going to get a huge expansion of the economy without another huge decrease in the size and expenses of the government. Already the taxes and regulations in place are permanently destroying our manufacturing base, companies are leaving because there are lower taxes and less regulation in communist countries than here in the land of the free.

Bottom line: We might not get any recovery at all. Recipients of tax dollars are not going to relinquish their claims, and interest obligations on government debt have mortgaged our productivity far into the future. The government won't willingly downsize, and you can't force companies to produce for a failing market. So my arguments about the military budget are probably a moot point -- when the depression hits with full force and / or the currency fails, the government will be forced to scale back anyway.

For a nice explanation about why spending in the military-industrial complex benefits a very few but at the expense of everyone else, see this article:

http://www.mises.org/story/2868

Central planning doesn't work. So we need to get rid of the central bank. That poll you mentioned reveals a deeper truth: people think the government creates jobs and runs the economy (and should). Here's hoping that we can educate enough of them soon enough that when the fit hits the shan, they don't all rise up and demand that the government take over all economic activity, but instead decide to roll back government and let them run their own lives with value-based money. Fat chance, eh?

by John Danforth (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 98 comments) on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 7:45:47 AM
 

recession solutions

the same poll was conducted in toledo by the oregon news with about the same results.Americans are not the most brillant people on earth.Ending the war will end a debt we can never pay back but ending the global economy and forcing american companies to come back is the best solution for ending debt and the recessession.Millions of jobs,have been lost overseas greatly cutting purchasing power and american wealth.This is the major cause of the recession.Unfortunately neither Obama or Clinton give a damn about this and Republicans certainly don"t.I persoanlly have been waiting for a depression since ronnie Reagan forced the global economy on us and encouraged companies to move overseas.America gave up their chance for salvation by rejecting Kucinich the only candidate to oppose the global economy.I will say what i have said before, enjoy your recession America you allowed it to happen.

by liberalsrock (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 126 comments) on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 8:06:40 AM
 

John

Thanks for your excellent comments. And yes, there is a very large and important distinction between our government and productive overhead.

But to your final point...one of my greatest fears is that "the people" will relinquish all to government intervention as the recession deepens.

by Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments) on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 8:52:35 AM
 

liberalsrock

The job drain and forcing lower standards on the Middle Class is certainly at issue. Most of those in the Middle have incurred enormous debt while trying to maintain a past standard that is simply no longer possible.

But one correction to your comments; Ronald Reagan did not enter into NAFTA or the WTO, Bill Clinton and Al Gore did in January 1994 and January 1995 respectively. These were the two most damaging agreements for Middle Class Americans that were ever passed. I was writing a newspaper column at the time and offered to eat a 50 pound crow on the court house steps if Middle America benefited from NAFTA. I still haven't eaten the big black bird.

by Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments) on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 9:02:10 AM