War = Credit Crisis

Thoughts?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/14/AR2008041402639.html?g=1

I'm not sure I can buy into Stiglitz's theory, but there's no denying the truth of these two statements:

"If we can spend $10 billion a month rebuilding Iraq," the Democratic presidential contender declared, "we can spend $15 billion a year in our own country to put Americans back to work and strengthen the long-term competitiveness of our economy."

"I think there is a connection between the state of our economy and Iraq, and what we're spending over there," said Rep. Baron P. Hill (Ind.), a leading Democratic budget hawk. "We're limited as to what we can do to stimulate the economy. We're limited as to what we can do on health care or any other program. We need to spend more money on infrastructure, on roads and bridges that would have a stimulative effect on the economy, and we're not doing those things because of all the money we're spending in Iraq."

While in theory I am inclined to agree, I am not so sure it is completely accurate. The jobs being lost are not the everyday Joe trash man, or the store clerk. The jobs being eliminated are the extremely overpaid executive positions. You never see the evening news touting 3000 burger king employees being laid off or 200000 walmart employees being let go nation wide. You here constantly about AT&T letting go of 1700 management positions, or even better watch this new airline merger and see how many high ranking executives get dumped once it's done. The jobs, as is always the case are out there if you really put out the effort to find them. I'm not saying that working at a fastfood joint or Walmart is a glamorous job but it WILL feed your family a hell of a lot more efficiently than unemployment will.

Do we need to spend 10 billion a day to rebuild Iraq? I don't know I'm not there. My opinion of it would be if we are spending that kind of money, we should be taking a commensurate amount of OIL to recoup what we paid out. That would help ease some of the burden here if people weren't paying $3.30 a gallon for gas. If we found a way to curb the fuel price increases, people would have some disposable income to spend elsewhere thus boosting the economy.

Just my $.02

GOD wrote:

That would help ease some of the burden here if people weren't paying $3.30 a gallon for gas. If we found a way to curb the fuel price increases, people would have some disposable income to spend elsewhere thus boosting the economy.

Just my $.02

$3.30?? Please tell me where I can find that station... as around me, they are $3.89 for non-leaded economy. $4.29 for premium. I kid you not.

If there was ever an incentive to walk or bike to work, it's this. I dunno about you, but I can't afford this at all. Mercifully for me, I'm only 2 miles from work, so biking or walking IS an option. But God help me (not you, the other God), I can't afford to not have this job at this location. Public transportation in LA sucks.

Out here in Pa it's $3.30 for regular unleaded. I know California is much much higher, but my understanding of why is because of the more stringent emissions regulations which mean more refining to make a cleaner burning fuel and in the end the consumer pays for the additional work.

GOD wrote:

The jobs being eliminated are the extremely overpaid executive positions. You never see the evening news touting 3000 burger king employees being laid off or 200000 walmart employees being let go nation wide.

I don't know about where you live, but here it's the manufacturing jobs that are being lost by the tens of thousands. They're jobs that pay anywhere from 30 to 60 thousand a year and the only jobs available to replace them pay 15 to 25 thousand a year.

Even if the people can manage not to starve to death, why should somebody who worked their ass off for 20 years to earn $40,000 a year with benefits and based their life on that have to lose everything they worked for and scrape by on $20,000 with no benefits so some CEO can make $40,000,000 for closing down the plant and moving to China?

Yeah I know "Free Enterprise", but it wasn't "Free Enterprise" that caused this. It was our government letting special interests dictate legislation and thereby manipulate the economy in favor of the corporate heads.

GOD wrote:

While in theory I am inclined to agree, I am not so sure it is completely accurate. The jobs being lost are not the everyday Joe trash man, or the store clerk. The jobs being eliminated are the extremely overpaid executive positions. You never see the evening news touting 3000 burger king employees being laid off or 200000 walmart employees being let go nation wide. You here constantly about AT&T letting go of 1700 management positions, or even better watch this new airline merger and see how many high ranking executives get dumped once it's done. The jobs, as is always the case are out there if you really put out the effort to find them. I'm not saying that working at a fastfood joint or Walmart is a glamorous job but it WILL feed your family a hell of a lot more efficiently than unemployment will.

Do we need to spend 10 billion a day to rebuild Iraq? I don't know I'm not there. My opinion of it would be if we are spending that kind of money, we should be taking a commensurate amount of OIL to recoup what we paid out. That would help ease some of the burden here if people weren't paying $3.30 a gallon for gas. If we found a way to curb the fuel price increases, people would have some disposable income to spend elsewhere thus boosting the economy.

Just my $.02

I have to disagree, a bit. My husband was laid off in December and he was nowhere near the executive level. I work in Manhattan and hear of all levels of employees being laid off from large, global companies constantly. He has an opportunity to work for a financial planning/insurance company, but the salary is minimum wage, so it would be primarily based on commission. I'm told that his hours will be extremely long (8a-8p) and weekends. At minimum wage, which is what your local fast-food place or Wal-Mart pays -- even if he were lucky enough to get those kind of hours (yeah, right!) -- there is no way that he would bring home what he does on unemployment. He has elected to have no taxes taken out of his unemployment, so he gets to take home the entire $405 a week. If he were to just get minimum wage, he would get taxed and come home with less money -- trust me, I took the calculator out. There's just no way any one, much less a family, can survive on that *and* pay their mortgage.

I believe a lot of the US economy woes are hugely affected by our money being poured into Iraq, as well as the negativity that we are suffering from most of the world because of our involvement. Our dollar is at the lowest point it has been in decades. Sure, recouping some oil as payment may seem logical, but can you just imagine the flood of criticism and outrage from the world if we did that? That region alone doesn't want us there and would rather we all perished in flames anyway, but we'd certainly loose any support we had from our allies.

We're in a loose-loose situation right now and I blame it squarely on the current administration and their lack of responsibility to the US people for getting us into this situation when there was so much shoddy intelligence that proved false later. Sure, that country was screwed up for a long time and their president was the devil incarnate, but you don't put the lives of your soldiers and Iraq's citizens in jeapardy unless you have exhausted an intense and thorough investigation into your so-called intelligence. I know young men who have died in this war and am feeling the financial pinches more than ever right now. Can you tell that I'm not voting Republican???

Debbie

People who only hear or read about the job crisis but don't see the devasting results first hand in their lives or in the area where they live really don't understand the seriousness of the situation not only for the people who are losing their livelihoods, but for entire communities where the factories close.

Many towns and small cities in the southeast and midwest were literally built around a manufacturing plant or mill. That factory was the basis of the economy in those towns and much of the surrounding areas. The small businesses in the areas depend on the wages paid by that company to keep them going. When those wages are gone many of the small businesses are no longer able to stay afloat and they close too.

ohsherrie wrote:

Yeah I know "Free Enterprise", but it wasn't "Free Enterprise" that caused this. It was our government letting special interests dictate legislation and thereby manipulate the economy in favor of the corporate heads.

Some things to add Sherrie...it's not just the big bad corporations. It seems easy to blame them....If corporations don't do well, tax revenues drop. Without tax revenues, well, public spending drops. Public spending is already taxed with this stupid war. So while big bad corporations might be to blame for some things, I'm not entirely too convinced that the majority of 'breaks' they've been getting has been that bad for the economy.

I *will* say this. One issue that no one talks about, is the fact that George Bush, a staunch globalist, is to blame for the big bad O word. Outsourcing. He created an environment that makes outsourcing VERY favorable to corporations....and he even targeted certain industries, like software development. Through a multi-faceted effort by changing osha laws, trade regulations, taxation, etc ... it became almost nonsensical to keep programers here in the states. The same things happened in other industries, like textiles. Osha regulations on textile makers got SO restrictive that they had no choice but to outsource.

Then, this whole shooting match set the stage for one of the biggest dupes in history. The manipulation of the inflation rates. I firmly believe that we've experienced steady inflation over the past 8 years. However, we haven't seen the effects because we (as a country) have shifted our cost sources. In 2000, when you bought a pair of levis, there was a good chance it was made in the US. Not anymore. Levi shifted production to Mexico for a few years and again to guatemala. I have no idea where they are made now, but if the cost to make something here in the US goes up...thats inflation. No IFS ANDS or BUTS. By shifting where you make something, you're only masking the truth.

All of a sudden, we're seeing inflation now...the cost of grain/flour, the cost of Cobalt, the cost of copper, the cost of rubber, the cost of iron...all basic raw materials, has either doubled or worse in the past few years. We've lost our ability to shift down these sources any further....if at all. And as a result, things have gotten bad.


So while I agree that over the past few years, Dubya has handed out some corporate free-passes, I will submit that not all of them have been bad....and Dubya has done far worse to our economy through inflation and trade manipulation.

You're absolutely right Frank as far as the overall economy is concerned. It's the manufacturing job losses that I was addressing in my post. Those are due to Dumbya giving tax cuts and corporate welfare to companies to move overseas.

Well here's a little tidbit about why the rest of that region hates us so much. In the war powers doctrine, there is something about regimes being taken by force. When a regime is removed from power by the act of war, all debts, loans, etc owed to all countries around the world become null and void. They hate us because we just cost them billions and billions of dollars in loans and interest payments if I read that correctly.