Hope & Change With New Congress

[RandallNeighbour]

Originally Posted by Lobo1186

I personally think SS and medicare can go the way of the dodo. it is just more money our federal government has no right to take and give.

I personally think that SS should have remained supplemental and not considered one's sole source of income in retirement (a view held by far too many ignorant Americans) by setting it up right in the first place. Had they told everyone that once they drained their government savings account they would receive no more money, we'd be in a far better place today.

I'm certainly not counting on getting any SS monies, even though I've been forced to give tens of thousands to it through the years.

And if I do get a check, I will dump every penny of it into a Porsche. The wife already told me I could do it if we kept saving for our retirement the way we've been doing

[Lobo1186]

Originally Posted by RandallNeighbour

I personally think that SS should have remained supplemental and not considered one's sole source of income in retirement (a view held by far too many ignorant Americans) by setting it up right in the first place. Had they told everyone that once they drained their government savings account they would receive no more money, we'd be in a far better place today.

I'm certainly not counting on getting any SS monies, even though I've been forced to give tens of thousands to it through the years.

And if I do get a check, I will dump every penny of it into a Porsche. The wife already told me I could do it if we kept saving for our retirement the way we've been doing

Haha there you go. personally if they were to take these monies and invest it for the people I would be down for that. Being, what you put in is what you get out. but otherwise the current system is crock. Much like how most companies go for a 401k approach rather than the old pension.

[Brucelee]

http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/ab-stoddard/127615-obamas-turn-to-change

Interesting article on the voter demographics and impications for the next two years.

[Allen K. Littlefield]

Originally Posted by RandallNeighbour

I personally think that SS should have remained supplemental and not considered one's sole source of income in retirement (a view held by far too many ignorant Americans) by setting it up right in the first place. Had they told everyone that once they drained their government savings account they would receive no more money, we'd be in a far better place today.

I'm certainly not counting on getting any SS monies, even though I've been forced to give tens of thousands to it through the years.

And if I do get a check, I will dump every penny of it into a Porsche. The wife already told me I could do it if we kept saving for our retirement the way we've been doing

Randall, I suggest you go back and read my post on the history of SocSec. If it was left alone as it was promised and the govt. didn't take it and spend it on the "Great Society" crap, it would be there for all who HAD to contribute to it. How come Congress has a private plan for their retirement and are all not on SS? How come the dangers of the market doesn't seem to apply here only the paying public?

The Dept of Agriculture has as many employees as their are farmers in the country, now why is that? Dept of energy has a 24.7 billion dollar budget for this year alone. To do WHAT? Latest junket to India will cost 2million a day, includes 40 aircraft, 3 choppers and armored cars. Therefore, NO, I do want the money I put into SS. Just abolish all of these nonsense Depts that do nothing but insure an army of democrat voters and return the money to the SS fund.

AKL

[jcb986]

Originally Posted by Allen K. Littlefield

Randall, I suggest you go back and read my post on the history of SocSec. If it was left alone as it was promised and the govt. didn't take it and spend it on the "Great Society" crap, it would be there for all who HAD to contribute to it. How come Congress has a private plan for their retirement and are all not on SS? How come the dangers of the market doesn't seem to apply here only the paying public?

The Dept of Agriculture has as many employees as their are farmers in the country, now why is that? Dept of energy has a 24.7 billion dollar budget for this year alone. To do WHAT? Latest junket to India will cost 2million a day, includes 40 aircraft, 3 choppers and armored cars. Therefore, NO, I do want the money I put into SS. Just abolish all of these nonsense Depts that do nothing but insure an army of democrat voters and return the money to the SS fund.

AKL

I agree with the overkill in Fed Depts. If this country was like Bear Stearns, we would be deemed bankrupted and corrupted...oh crap, we are like them. SS is a good thing as long as it is not run by the Government. The Democrats raid anything they can to get money for the promises that they made so they can stay in power.

[Perfectlap]

The more I read the paper and blogs, the more I seem to think I am in the minority who think that people place a REALLY disproportional amount of attention on these elections in the context of the economy or the stock and bond markets. Look at the big picture for a minute...the U.S. economy is $14 trillion. The Federal budget accounts for a a very small part of that. Nearly half that budget goes to defense and war spending. The amount of money that the govt could target to boost the economy is tiny. Certainly not anything close to being enough to reverse a decades long slump in wages and job growth that hit the wall 10 years ago now.

Look at this way, taxes today are lower than they have ever been in recent memory. Google is paying 2% in taxes through perfectly legal measures. Warren Buffett challenged any of his wealthy friends to a $100,000K bet if anyone of them could show an effective tax rate that was higher than that of their own secretary.
Corporate taxes as percentage of GDP have fallen by 50% in the last 30 years.
Today, even after two years of Obama-Pelosi-Reid you have never payed less in taxes as an hourly worker, a salaried worker, a investor or a a Wall Street private equity partner (who pay a mere 15% on their carry). On top of that we had something in the order of $300 billion in tax incentives, larger than either the 2001 or 2003 tax cuts. Trillions upon trillions of dollars NOT collected in taxes and what has that produced as far jobs and wage growth? ZILCH. In other words reducing taxes is certainly better than raising taxes but it will not move the unemployment needle from 10% to 5%. That's become abundantly clear now. We're now into a full decade of these low tax rates with nary a whiff of inflation and the jobs did not come.
Clearly other things are at play here. It's not what the govt chooses to do or not..but what consumers are choosing to do. They whine about govt not doing enough to create jobs and then head for the Apple store to buy a $700 Ipad from a company that employs 1 U.S. worker for every 10 it hires. That's one way to increase profits 70% during 10% unemployment! But apple consumers are not alone...not by a mile. You simply have to be living in Bizzaro land to think that 24/7 consumption of foreign goods would not catch up to us sooner or later. Well this is that reality. And don't think that putting up all these Wal-Marts and Costcos wasn't going to put a seriuos dent in the number of small biz retaliers either. .. 10% unemployment would have come sooner but we had a nice 5 year binge of bundled and securitized credit to keep the faux wheels of consumption turning. That air bag support under our feet has been gone for two years now.

At any rate. Elections are almost pointless in the context of economic turnarounds. The govt is not gong to save you. It is your own every day consumer choices. We are barking up the wrong tree while giving those who do have the ability to hire Americans (Fortune 500s) a pass. It's an interesting knee-jerk reaction that prevalent today: the economy is bad? Well let's start talking about Congress and Obama. Huh? If unemployment is 10% that's because it's perfectly fine with Wal-Mart, Coca-cola, Johnson & Johnson, Exxon, Yum, Merck, Altria and all the others sitting on trillions in excess cash. They make money just same since their customer base has now exploded with Asian and South American consumers now accounting for greater than 50% of sales. And the stock market is back to its pre-bubble normal, they're not too worried about anemic U.S. worker wages. Has anyone stopped to think that 8-10% unemployment is now the new normal?

Okay now as far as the political soap opera that has little to do with reality,
The election was a bit of a double-edged sword for the Republicans. It surprised me in that this was the first time that the House flipped without the Senate. Tha's a red flag for something not being okay with the disgruntled voters. The Republicants and Dimocrats due as they always do, vote in lock-step. Elections are decided by independents. They distrust Republicans as much as they distrust Obama. The latest polling I read in the WSJ said they gave 55% to the Repubes and 45% to the leftys. That's interesting given the state of the economy. I would have pegged it at close to 70% for the GOP. But when you consider that 2/3's of independts considered themselve moderat to liberal (more like fiscal conservative-social liberals) it becomes a little clearer. About a 1/3 are solidly against Obama. The President is currently polling at 44-48% If he can reel in a 1/3 of the left leaning indys he'll be very close to 50%. If the Republicans come up with no good ideas, particularly ones that don't move jobs higher, at least 40% of the indys will move to Obama and that will for sure put him above 50%. The problem is that the GOP is racing to the hard right, even McCain is on board. If this results in a Sarah Palin/Sharon Angle/Bachmann type Republican it's a whole new ball game for Obama because nearly 70% of indy's can't stand Palin or think she's a deal-breaker. The frightening part if you're a Republican is that Palin & Co. haven't a single critic in the elected Republican leadership for fear of the backlash.The only critics are a smarty pundit or GOP strategist here and there like Krauthammer "She has a frightening lack of subsatnce". You need an equally popular opposing force to derail her Presidential run. Where's that going to come from. It would have to be on the level of Hillary vs. Obama and I don't see that happening ever because Palin is singing all the right tunes for the sort of Republicans who turn out to vote and get energized.

The election was almost like a challenge to both Obama and the resurgent Republicans: show us what you can do DIFFERENTLY. No fighting, no repealing without alternatives that show results in two years (they're not waiting long term).
If the Republicans decide to just fight for two years throwing up things they know will get vetoed it will electrify the Republicans and Democrats but will not pass muster with independents. The thing to keep in mind is that they will not give one-party control to either side. That means either we get Republican President (likely) with a very tone-down Congress (yeah right!)...or Obama part II with a fully Republican Congress. Bill Clinton all over again.

[schnellman]

The elections have insured that Washington will accomplish nothing over the next two years. And anytime Washington accomplishes nothing it is far better than anything they have ever accomplished.

[Lobo1186]

Originally Posted by schnellman

The elections have insured that Washington will accomplish nothing over the next two years. And anytime Washington accomplishes nothing it is far better than anything they have ever accomplished.

True lol,

Keep in mind that shrinking the government is a good thing. they have outgrown their rights given to them by the constitution. it may not be as big in some areas as lets say defense budget but at least defense is one of its duties.

the D-fence budget will shrink come july when we start to withdraw from Afghanistan and decrease the military.

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by schnellman

The elections have insured that Washington will accomplish nothing over the next two years. And anytime Washington accomplishes nothing it is far better than anything they have ever accomplished.

AMEN TO THAT!

Actually, I think what the GOP will do is use the investigative powers to expose much of what Obama has been doing by executive fiat.

Perhaps a new head of the EPA?>?

[kabel]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

Okay now as far as the political soap opera that has little to do with reality,

Ha! Had not made this correlation, no matter what side you lean towards, the last 4 years have indeed been like a ridiculous "reality show"

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by kabel

Ha! Had not made this correlation, no matter what side you lean towards, the last 4 years have indeed been like a ridiculous "reality show"

it is truely amazing how few people realize that the govt has neither the pockets nor the man power to move that unemployment needle from 10% to 5%. That is entirely up to consumer's choices. If they buy from companies that have an interest in taking on more U.S. workers then we will see big movement on jobs.
If we continue to buy from companies that are morely likely to take rising revenues and simply send jobs off-shore, then we get what we have today. Compounding matters is that companies that export jobs to lands where labor equals 1/10 of U.S. wages (not including benefits of course...) are obviously more attractive to Wall Street. We argue about which way the govt should or should not spend a trillion dollars to stimulate job creation while sending 12x's that amount to companies that export jobs, both blue collar (China) and white collar (India).

What Congress could do is simply start a campaign to encourage consumers to buy from companies A thru Z which have pledged increasing jobs X% in 2011.
A yearly pledge of sorts. Surely they will want something in return but at least we are informing the consumer about which companies have a long term plan that involves American workers. Andy Grove who built Intel was recently complaining about this in the tech sector recently in a Wall Street Journal Opinion piece: "every tech firm wants to send every job possible to China as part of a 'China Plan'...but where's the USA Plan?".

[Brucelee]

Consumers will not spend money that they don't have or believe will not be there in the future (on average).

What the Feds CAN do is figure out how to stablize things, take less money from taxpayers, and stop passing laws that create massive uncertainty.

That would be a start.

Good luck with that!

[extanker]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

it is truely amazing how few people realize that the govt has neither the pockets nor the man power to move that unemployment needle from 10% to 5%. That is entirely up to consumer's choices. If they buy from companies that have an interest in taking on more U.S. workers then we will see big movement on jobs.
If we continue to buy from companies that are morely likely to take rising revenues and simply send jobs off-shore, then we get what we have today. Compounding matters is that companies that export jobs to lands where labor equals 1/10 of U.S. wages (not including benefits of course...) are obviously more attractive to Wall Street. We argue about which way the govt should or should not spend a trillion dollars to stimulate job creation while sending 12x's that amount to companies that export jobs, both blue collar (China) and white collar (India).

What Congress could do is simply start a campaign to encourage consumers to buy from companies A thru Z which have pledged increasing jobs X% in 2011.
A yearly pledge of sorts. Surely they will want something in return but at least we are informing the consumer about which companies have a long term plan that involves American workers. Andy Grove who built Intel was recently complaining about this in the tech sector recently in a Wall Street Journal Opinion piece: "every tech firm wants to send every job possible to China as part of a 'China Plan'...but where's the USA Plan?".

buy american.....wait...isnt this an import forum ?

[Brucelee]

We should have annexed Germany when we had the chance!

The last time I bought a washing machine, I tried to buy "American."

Good luck on that score.

[Iflylow]

As I read all the other posts, and thought about buying American, I realized that without a lot of independent research, there is no way I can determine what companies are american. How hard would it be to set a standard regarding american parts, manufacture, employment, and post them on a high-profile website?

Many would still choose the cheaper imported goods, but the ones who care would spend the extra to buy american.

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

What Congress could do is simply start a campaign to encourage consumers to buy from companies A thru Z which have pledged increasing jobs X% in 2011.
A yearly pledge of sorts. Surely they will want something in return but at least we are informing the consumer about which companies have a long term plan that involves American workers. Andy Grove who built Intel was recently complaining about this in the tech sector recently in a Wall Street Journal Opinion piece: "every tech firm wants to send every job possible to China as part of a 'China Plan'...but where's the USA Plan?".

[jcb986]

Well, the way I see our industry is simple. Compare our industry as a mighty whale cruising along as it did many years ago supplying jobs and wealth. Now comes along unions, local, county, states and Federal governments as suckers and attach themselves and start draining the whale. Slowing it down and making it sick. There are just to many suckers attached anymore for the whale to get back to health and that is why our manufacturing industry is in trouble. To get back to health we need to revamp the whole system...patching as we have is like a dike with many plugs, all of them seeping through their or around their plugs. One day, well......