From The New York Treason, umm, Times, actually, comes a breakdown of who thinks what about the nearly 1 trillion dollar packaged bill to revive our economy.
A primary component is tax cuts, to give the average worker bigger paychecks and who can then spend more money, “helping stores to sell more, factories to produce more”. Except the stores selling more will be Walmart and Target outlets and the factories producing more will all be in China. Small businesses, those that are still able to compete with the big corporations, won’t be doing much better if at all because they mostly sell luxury or “peripheral” items, like boutique clothing and antiques, for instance, that people will still put off buying. The cafes and restaurants of America are hurting for customers. People aren’t getting their fender dents fixed because of the deductible, or their roofs repaired and the extra money in peoples pockets will still be going to China and increasing our trade deficit. We need that money to stay in America and nothing I see in The Package will promote that.
Attached to this over 600 page bill are piles of provisions for pet projects like parks and museums which are now being called “job creation” projects. Not very long ago they were called Earmarks. Pork!
Included is money for traditional job-creating programs such as highway construction and mass transit projects, but the measure tickets far more for unemployment benefits, health care and food stamp increases. The Republicans don’t like that much but it wouldn’t be happening now if both parties had protected American manufacturing.
What’s needed is stimulus for our manufacturing. Food stamps for the poor are great, rebuilding our bridges is obviously necessary, but those are temporary things and we need long-term fixes. Rebuilding our manufacturing base is the only possible means to do this and yet I see nothing in this bill that would. We need to encourage our own entrepreneurs to open factories and produce goods right here at home instead of seeing “Made in China” on literally every label in every store.
Short of our worthless politicians actually doing this right, what we need is a civil war in China or at least the collapse of their current government. If their economy continues to falter, this latter could happen, and while it wouldn’t stop the outflow of their polluted, shabby wares, the resultant havoc would slow things down more.
Meanwhile, the continuing decline in their Gross Domestic Product may well result in increased taxation to finance the State, which would escalate the cost of their goods to us. That would give incentive to fire up some of our hibernating industries again.
The collapse of the global economy is being blamed on America, and why not? Being the most successful, we endure the most jealousy and hatred for it. But the truth is that this mess was a global effort. The outrageous increase in the price of oil tipped the scales. We were having a recession until that happened, now it’s going into depression. Why did the Arabs get away with this? Because the world was competing for the oil with China being the most aggressive competitor. The price went up so high and drove other prices so high that everyone quit buying, and when that happened, everything that was already held together loosely simply fell apart. Who promoted and encouraged the massive price increase? George W. Bush, oilman and close friend of the Saudi royal family. Put the blame for this mess at the feet of the one who deserves it most, but it was still a global effort.
In separating the enonomist wheat from the chaff, the first step is to throw out all the statements of those who preach a pro-China trade position without mentioning the damage to our manufacturing and therefor our increasing unemployment. I’d like to know who writes their paychecks and I suspect Walmart writes a few.
A rising number of economists point out that there’s a simultaneous recession in the U.S., Europe, and Japan, something we’ve never seen before, and which points to harder times ahead than generally predicted. Developing economies in Asia are in recession or declining sharply, as well. China still enjoys nearly 7% growth but that’s down from a whopping 16% due to less exports, and the Chinese claim they need at least 8% growth to maintain a job supply for new workers entering the job market. Which means the Chinese are starting to suffer unemployment woes too. Which means I may get my wish and their government may destabilize.
Okay, so it’s a global recession and the so-called Stimulus Package isn’t going to do much to help. In fact it’s plunging us all a lot deeper into debt with other nations and the only way to repay it is by dramatic inflation.
What can I say? This is just another boondoggle. George did one last massive rape of us by getting his half of the $2 trillion bailout to finance his buddies in business, and now Obama will get to do the second rape, both assaults being aided and abetted by our honest and trusted public servants who work their fingers to the bone with only our interests at heart, all for the good of America. And if you believe that, I’ve got some great desert real estate in Syria I’d like to interest you in.