For too many years excess liquidity has created an excessive expansion in credit in the US. The liquidity fed price increases in property, housing and financial assets. American consumers went on a spending frenzy and entered a zone of negative savings. The spending was largely for imported products and financed by foreign held dollar reserves. The consumer borrowing and spending was further augmented by huge federal deficit spending again largely funded by overseas borrowing.
A large portion of US energy consumption is from foreign suppliers and this further exasperates the trade deficit. Currently the collapsing values in homes is both a cause and an affect of a declining credit market. The Federal Reserve has tried to reverse the trend with declining interest rates but this does not seem to be working. What it is doing is further weakening the dollar and causing an increase in dollar denominated commodity prices. The congressional answer of sending everyone a $600 check is absurd and wasteful.
It is time for a change. The first change is to quit relying on consumer spending. There needs to be both incentives for saving and disincentives for spending. Tax free savings accounts are a simple solution and this can be further augmented with a forced savings program. Privatizing portions of social security could be used to affect the same result. Portions of the Social Security funds could go to capitalize semi-public corporations that expand fee-for use infrastructure projects such as bridges, roads and airports. The future fees would go back into Social Security.
Private capital should be given a fixed holiday period of tax free status for new factories and domestic energy sources. Corporate taxes and capital gains taxes should be further reduced. The goal is to increase the value of the dollar, reduce imports and increase real wages for American workers and allow them to save more money. These should be Republican values.
Corporate taxes and capital gains taxes should be further reduced.
ReplyDeleteA stock holder in actually taxed twice. The corporation is taxed on profits, and then the stockholder is taxed on dividends.
Capital Gains On Real Property--End the Taxation of Time! Free Chronos! Chronos Is A Political Prisoner! Free Chronos Now!
Wyoming Democratic Caucus
ReplyDeleteCandidate________Votes____%
Barack Obama____4,459___59
Hillary Clinton____3,081___40
Other
7500 votes, who was the genius that came up with the caucus idea? What the hell are they?
Less than 10% of the democratic voters. Participatory democracy, deuce, you got to get off your ass and get out and participate. Got to saddle up and ride into the caucus site, in Wyoming. And the article I read said the turnout was 'huge', bigger than normal.
ReplyDeleteFavors the young and committed. The older folks can do without all the fuss.
ReplyDeleteIn 2004, a mere 675 people statewide took part in the caucuses.
ReplyDeleteIn Wyoming, from the Drudge article.
Six hundred and seventy five souls, in 2004, in all of Wyoming. Either the candidates weren't worth a shit, there was a rodeo, or a special spring hunt, or the people had wised up to a meaningless sham, the politicians never coming through on what they promised anyway.
Blue Light Special Day at K-Mart would draw more people.
Inflation, Liquidity, Money flow, Dollar value, are a reflection of investment opportunities being realized or not.
ReplyDeleteSolar Energy is a huge multi trillion dollar investment opportunity waiting for the federal government to see the light.
ReplyDeleteIf solar energy were a great investment, it would prosper without the Federal Government.
ReplyDeleteThat it does not, prosper, indicates that the technology is uneconomical.
Should the Federal Government "make" it economical?
Pray tell how, but by manipulating the other energy markets.
Making them uneconomical, as well.
Raising the costs of other, more economical sources, to compensate for solar's noncompetitiveness. Just because the "Energy Czar" likes it more, today, than yesterday, even more than tomorrow?
The Government has no power to invent technologies that do not already exist, nor to wave a wand and create them.
It only has the power to limit the use of what does exist, like the nuclear fission that bob extols.
Massive investments in economic development, by Government, leads to ever greater fraud and abuse. Not economic advancement, or the Soviet Union would dominate the World Economy.
If solar power were economical, Arizona Public Service would be building ever more solar plants, where as the reality is, the one plant that is in the planning stages demands a tax holiday to even begin to pencil.
With consumer costs per kilowatt produced almost triple that of the Palo Verde nuclear facility.
Solar needing almost 8 acres of land per megawatt produced. Land that Mr Renzi and his fellow travelers will gain vast sums of public cash for.
Government mismanages ecnomic development, historicly.
ReplyDeleteThose that manage their economies the most, do the worse.
Not tasty puddings, but historicly accurate. Freedom of investment, that's what leads to economic development, not subsidies and market manipulations by the "all knowing" wizards and gurus.
mat would take US back to the future, back to greater Governmental regulation of industry and economy. Back to the stagflation of the 1970s, when his paneceas were tried, and proven failures.
He would discard the degregulation that has made the US the engine of the worlds' economic development for the past forty years.
Please Mr Wizard!
Fizzle, frazzle, dribble dee
Please, it's time to set US free!
Seldom Seen is back on the house boat on the Green River, Hayduke looks to have gone to Australia, at the end of Hayduke Lives, Rat.
ReplyDeleteThe Green River, which no longer flows to the sea, sucked dry by civilization.
And Bryson and Katz, those intrepid hikers, have given up, and are in a rental car, heading to Virginny, picking and chosing which portion of the trail to hike, Trish.
ReplyDeleteMr Wizard woodda had this country shining by now, if left to himself and his young students.
ReplyDelete"If solar energy were a great investment, it would prosper without the Federal Government."
ReplyDeleteHow much did the government invest in to make oil prosper?
The Green River flows into the Colorado--
ReplyDeleteThe lower course of the river, which forms the border between Baja California and Sonora, is essentially a trickle or a dry stream today due to use of the river as Imperial Valley's irrigation source. Prior to the mid 20th century, the Colorado River Delta provided a rich estuarine marshland that is now essentially desiccated, but nonetheless is an important ecological resource.
An important desiccated ecological resourse. :(
resource
ReplyDeleteFind out what really happened to the Lost Ark of the Covenant tonite on C to C. Or not.
ReplyDeleteSat 03.08 >>
Professor Tudor Parfitt will discuss his new book The Lost Ark of the Covenant.
First Hour: Dr. James Richardson will comment on the bizarre story of an Arkansas Mayor who claimed to be brainwashed by a satanic cult (news story).
Mayor(in Arkansas) Resigns, Claims He Was Abducted By Satan Worshippers
ReplyDeleteIt was a double-life he had never acknowledged, Williams said, because he didn't even realize it existed until he had recently taken a truth-serum injection.
As Williams regained his memory, he said, he realized that he had a wife and two kids but that he had decided to leave and take on a new identity to protect them.
"I had no choice. The choice was to watch my family killed before my eyes or go with these people, and I chose instead to run," Williams said.
He wouldn't explain from who he was running, saying only that he had been brainwashed.
"I had multiple shock treatments," Williams said. "It took five years to get my memory back."
Truth serum, brainwashing, multiple shock treatments--hell, I'd be confused too.
dRAt,
ReplyDeleteWhy is ok for the government to spend 100s of billions on NASA, but not on finding a replacement to oil?
Why is ok for the government to spend trillions on war, the military, and other subsidies to maintain an oil economy, but not on finding a replacement to oil?
Why is ok for the government to lose trillions in foreign exchange, but not seriously try to find a replacement to oil?
"Government mismanages ecnomic development, historicly."
ReplyDeleteDamn straight it does.
The notorious 3am “red phone” television advertisement, suggesting that only Clinton was fit to answer a crisis call at the White House in the middle of the night, backfired last week when a poll revealed that most viewers felt McCain was best qualified to pick up the phone.:)
ReplyDeletearticle
Sombrero Reprocessed
ReplyDeleteThe MSMs End Game
ReplyDeleteThe death of newspapers means the life of trees, Mat.
ReplyDeleteHey Bob, how come no black hole on M104? I thought this was standard fare with galaxies now days?
ReplyDeleteAstronomy Picture of the Day seems to have moved on to a new topic. Here's M104 Again, aka Sombrero
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Mat, I'm just a Star Geezer.
:)
ReplyDeleteI'm just a tree stump.
ReplyDeleteGarfield Minus Garfield
ReplyDeleteThis says it does have a black hole, and a big one. Not something to wander into.
ReplyDeleteMost of you must be newspaper by now.:)
Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.
ReplyDeleteBeats jihad.
"Most of you must be newspaper by now."
ReplyDeleteI'm no cold fish. I'm physical.
..this guy noticed that Garfield comics make just as much sense if you throw random panels together,..
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dougshaw.com/garfield.html
Former Fed chief says downturn possible by year's end (2007)
ReplyDeleteThe Solar Plants in CA and AZ already produce power for much less than it cost in Hawaii, so the smart thing would be solar.
ReplyDeleteNoooo, HECO (Hawaiian Electric) is planning on a biofuel fuck running on palm oil imported from plundered forests.
...continued outgo of cash, despoiled environment, whereas solar is free! (fuel)
---
Those plants are coming in at 10-15cents/kilowatt.
Some Economist should factor that against the total cost of exporting BILLIONS of dollars a week to import energy.
Pure economics Mat, no pressure from the Energy Co's making Billions, or the Saudis doing the same.
No lobbying, no behind the scenes action, just a straight and pure decision based on objective economics.
NOT.
“The ice cream man versus the physicist.”
ReplyDeleteThis sucks, big time.
Was always a safe GOP District.
...Was
Democrat Wins Seat Once Held by G.O.P. Speaker
Change, anything but Bush:
(preferably, the Black Messiah)
Mr. Oberweis tried to gain mileage by pointing to his endorsement from Mr. Hastert, while Mr. Foster’s campaign worked to focus voters’ attention on his endorsement by Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.
The opening image on Mr. Foster’s Web site showed him standing beside Mr. Obama and the words: “Bill Foster represents the change we need.” Mr. Foster’s campaign also seemed to share language familiar to Mr. Obama’s campaign. His signs read: “Foster, Democrat for Change.”
How come the Casino stopped the Truck Farmer?
ReplyDeleteAenea said...
ReplyDeleteDoug: Who is
"Osama bin Laden?"
---
Bush doesn't care where he is.
Is that edited, or straight from the moron's mouth.
(I guessed edited, at the begining, the end looked genuin.)
Looks like he was on Nitrous Oxide.
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress would work to override Bush's veto next week. "In the final analysis, our ability to lead the world will depend not only on our military might, but on our moral authority," said Pelosi, D-Calif."
ReplyDelete---
Right,
Coming from you, speaker of the house, that means we're F......
"Truly not concerned about bin Laden."
ReplyDeleteBobal: The death of newspapers means the life of trees, Mat.
ReplyDeleteThe collapse of the housing market is cause for celebration in the woodlands too.
2164th: 7500 votes, who was the genius that came up with the caucus idea? What the hell are they?
ReplyDeleteIt has benefits. Those dummies who vote strategically for Hillary because Rush told them to do it don't get very far in a caucus room full of hostile Donks. Obama does really good in a caucus situation. In fact, if Hillary wants to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida, they should hold caucuses, since they've already held their expensive primaries.
2164th: The consumer borrowing and spending was further augmented by huge federal deficit spending again largely funded by overseas borrowing.
ReplyDeleteDeficit spending is a Republican Value. The idea is to run America so deep into the red on military spending that the Democrats won't have any money left over to spend on social programs. But with the highway bill and prescription drug benefit and aid to Africa and a huge "stimulus package" Bush has shown a willingness to spend money as a sheer exercise in power, ideology notwithstanding.
A large portion of US energy consumption is from foreign suppliers and this further exasperates the trade deficit.
Only 30% of our oil comes from domestic sources. This is a national security issue. We were able to defeat the Empire of Japan because they relied on oil from Indonesia, and this was vulnerable to anti-shipping measures.
It is time for a change. The first change is to quit relying on consumer spending. There needs to be both incentives for saving and disincentives for spending.
Abolish taxes on interest income, and create a national sales tax.
...this can be further augmented with a forced savings program.
Forcing people to do things is a Republican Value.
The goal is to increase the value of the dollar, reduce imports and increase real wages for American workers and allow them to save more money.
The collapsing value of the US dollar makes imports expensive and reduces them, and stimulates our export economy, which brings manufacturing jobs back here.