Letters to the Editor
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trickle down
I work at an aircraft plant, designing business jets for corporations and "the evil rich". There are currently 12,000 of us employed here, people with spouses and children. If those who want to remove Bush's "unfair" tax cuts get their way, what will happen to us when those corporations' profits are seized? How many middle-class Americans will lose their jobs if the rich can't afford to buy business jets anymore?
Is the plan to then throw good money after bad and demand that the government prop up my company, when the market can no longer do it, in order to keep the jobs from going overseas? Are we to join the growing line of industries that are demonized by the very institution that helped destroy us by making it more difficult for our customers to buy our products?
Let's assume, for the moment, that all people above a certain income level do actually become evil, and change their focus from raising children and leading a good life to the self-centered pursuit of the dollar. Would those people respond to a tax increase by saying, "Oh well, I guess I don't get to be as rich now," or would they simply spend less or raise the prices of their products in order to keep the money coming in as before? My guess is the latter, and history has proven that to be the case more often than not.
So, before we charge ahead with repealing the tax cuts "for the rich", let's take a moment and consider how their reduced ability to live the good life will have a very real effect on the rest of us.
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shotgun marriage it was not
The bailout of Bear Stearns by J.P. Morgan, a shotgun marriage in which Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke played the role of farmer's daughter's father
I beg to differ. Bernanke is the one who was naive--an academic swimming with the sharks. This whole thing was engineered by J.P. Morgan, a wily bunch of cardsharps who picked up assets for chump change while getting the taxpayers to cover the liabilities. Nice work!
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Tent City In Los Angeles
Here is the link to the BBC feature on the tent city in Los Angeles http://econvideo.blogspot.com/2008/03/bbc-tent-city-in-la.html
Another link to Bush's vision for America's future
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iob_jCas46Q
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Nice try, Andrew but you could not be more cluless
Der Andrew:
Thanks for pointing out the obvious about the state of the economy and blaming it on the Republicans without offering ANY ideas on how to reverse the economic downcycle and create economic growth. The reason you could not offer any solutions is that democrats and their mindless liberal brethren have NO clue how to create economic growth other than by transferring wealth from the "rich" to the "poor" and increasing government spending which is the most inept way to stimulate economic growth. That mindset is called socialism and it has failed miserably every where it has ever been tried. That is why
Russia today has less than 5% of the USA's GDP 90 years after doing exactly what you suggest.
I know facts do not matter to you Andrew, but your readers who want to avoid economic suicide might consider the following realities:
1) The current economic downturn began exactly 8 months after DEMOCRATS took control of Congress and began demanding higher taxes, higher government spending and an idiotic withdrawal from Iraq that has caused oil prices to rise by $50 per barrel since November 2006.
2) The radical increase in oil prices is a primary driver in the economic slowdown because it correlates to Americans paying over $350 billion more for oil annually since DEMOCRATS took control of Congress and began demanding a reckless withdrawal from Iraq that would throw Iraq into chaos and ignite a broader Middle East conflict that would end Iraqi oil exports and threaten global access to Middle East oil at cheap prices.
3) The increase in oil prices has almost nothing to do with demand increases because supply has grown to more than offset increasing oil demand. Their are no oil shortages and the change in the dollar/Euro exchange rate accounts for less than a fourth of the increase, if that. What has changed is the likelihood has been growing that dems will win in 2008 and follow through on their beyond stupid plan to abandon Iraq to chaos that will threaten access to Middle East oil and set off massive additional increases oil prices that could trigger a global economic depression.
4) Unlike the democrats and their clueless liberal constituents, the oil commodity markets live in the real world and they understand that America cannot leave Iraq without triggering massive further increases in oil prices. Therefore profit speculators and hedgers have been flocking to the oil markets as the best place to invest in a down economic cycle. The huge increase in investor and hedging demand has driven up oil prices. The ONLY WAY to reverse the up spiral in oil prices is for Americans to unite in their determination to stay in Iraq to defend global access to Middle East oil, and to invest in helping the Iraqis increase their oil production from 2MM barrels per day to their 8MM per day potential.
5) The best way to understand the Democrat's position on the American economy is to imagine a list of all the things you would do if your objective was to destroy the American economy. Please consider this list of things that could be done to wreck the American economy:
1. Withdraw American forces from Iraq and thereby trigger a massive increase in oil prices.
2. Leave Iraq and position America's worst enemies to threaten access to up to 2/3 of the earth's oil reserves.
3. Create a massive and costly new universal health care entitlement at the precise moment that millions of baby boomers are retiring and placing an ever increasing financial burden on the government.
4. Enact punitive new carbon taxes to drive down energy consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Increase Federal spending on education, and cash hand outs for the economically disadvantaged.
5. Oppose oil and gas drilling in ANWR and in offshore USA outside the Gulf of Mexico.
6. Oppose strong incentives to rapidly build new nuclear and clean coal fired power plants.
7. Enact additional new government subsidies for the production of ethanol that will further drive up the price of grain commodities.
8. Radically increase income taxes on corporations and the 25% of Americans who are already paying 86% of Federal personal income taxes. Contrary to your demagoguery on taxes, Andrew, the top 25% of American wage earners are paying 86% of total personal income taxes vs 84% before the Bush tax cuts. By contrast, the middle 50% of wage earners are paying only 14% of total income taxes vs 16% before the Bush tax cuts.
9. In a self-serving effort to create a huge new block of grateful Democrat voters that will ensure long term Democrat political power, give a path to full citizenship and full social security, Medicare, healthcare and other government benefits to 20 million illegal aliens.
10. Squander billions on "clean energy" initiatives with no certainty they will ever produce cost effective results that can measurably reduce oil consumption or global warming.
Despite the obvious harm these policies would do to the economy, every one of these items is an action advocated by the Democrat Party and its Presidential candidates. Just as with national security on Iraq, the Democrats ignore the disastrous effects of their policies and place their political power ambitions above the national interest.
The Democrats do not have a cohesive, rational economic growth policy. They have a series of independent policy positions on issues that are designed to pander to special interest voting groups regardless of their effect on the economy.
If facts really matter to you, visit www.politicalrealityonline.com
for the whole truth underlying the major issues of this campaign.