- Thu Feb 20, 2014 8:28 am
#36972
I saw that Brandon chastised me a few days ago for not answering his post in a timely manner. Sorry Brandon, I don't live on this board as some seem to do. I use this board as entertainment; reading the comments of those who have little knowledge of just how complex the world and commerce is and how the actions of other governments can affect us. Occasionally I check in to throw something out there to “stir up the troops.”
Reading the comments on this board makes me understand why we have the Congress that we do and why the incompetents keep getting reelected. I have seen reports that say over 80% of citizens do not know who their Congressman is. In my opinion, these people should not have the right to vote. (Mine is a Tea Party backed doctor who hasn't had an original thought since he was elected. If the Tea Party Caucus says it, it has to be gospel.)
As I have stated in my posts, I am a Republican. Let me clarify that; I am a moderate Republican and I must admit that I sometimes vote for a Democrat (I will not vote for an incompetent or crazy person just because they are a Republican.) I support business and free trade that makes sure that the USA gets a fair deal in the trade agreements. (Bill Clinton, the God of the Democrats, has cost us about a million jobs with NAFTA.)
Let me elaborate a bit on how our elected “leaders” are working for the constituency. Please note that I did not single out any party or politician; there's enough blame to go around for everyone.
Two days ago, at the Fed Board meeting, several of the governors started pushing for the an increase in the interest rate. You might say that this will have little effect on you because you are not intending to borrow any money soon. But! I'm sure that you have read or heard about our failing infrastructure. I'm sure that you have read or heard about how the interest rate of the Fed has been about zero for the past several years. I'm sure that you have read or heard about the high unemployment rate that has been around for the past several years.
Recently, I read that there are 3,500,000 people that are unemployed. Many have seen their unemployment benefits run out and many have given up on finding a job. A recent report says that there are 2.5 applicants for every available job. (Please note that these figures can be and are manipulated by whoever is presenting them to make their case seem better.) Let's assume that that 3.5 million figure above is correct. If we could get those people back to work at $25,000 per year ( not a huge salary, only $12.02 per hour) it would generate over $87.4 billion a year in salaries. At 15%, this would bring in $13.125 billion in taxes. This does not take into consideration the costs to the government caused by the lack of self-respect and despair that every unemployed person experiences to some degree or other. This does not take into effect the savings to the government in the reduction of food stamps, unemployment insurance, lower crime, Medicaid, and all of the other benefits that the unemployed need. This probably is equal to or greater than the taxes that would be generated by putting all of those people back to work.
The problem is how to get those people back to work. Now we can get back to the infrastructure. If our “leaders” had the interests of the country at heart the infrastructure would have been the “hot button issue” in Congress for the past several years. Remember the I-35W bridge collapse that killed 17 people a few years ago? Remember New Orleans after Katrina? The bulk of Katrina had already passed New Orleans and then the levees failed and flooded New Orleans. Both were failures of engineering as well as failing to maintain and upgrade the infrastructure.
A world-class infrastructure is necessary for maintaining and growing an economy of any country. Business tends to gravitate to the area that allows the movement of goods and products without undue expenses. Talk to anyone who travels to other countries and they will tell you about how the other country's airports and highways are so much better than our airports and highways are. Our ports are second rate and failing fast. We are talking (and talking and talking) about building ultra high speed rail lines. Romania (a Communist country a few years ago) has 4 of them. India is starting to build huge infrastructure projects, positioning itself to become a huge player in the world economy. China has built many projects that have propelled them past the United States and it is doubtful that we will ever catch up.
Our “leaders” could have borrowed money to build the world-class infrastructure at near zero cost the past few years. (The remarks by the Fed governors might be signaling that that window is fast closing.)
Although inflation is super low, it is there in fact. This inflation would have made the cost of the money we borrowed to build and maintain a world-class infrastructure even cheaper, and inflation in the successive years would have made the money cheaper still. The fact that the improved infrastructure would grow the economy and create more jobs and wealth, thereby create more taxes and reduce the need for benefits, would make the money cheaper still.
Another place that our “leaders” have failed the citizens is in education. The US ranks 27th in the world in math and science. For some reason, education is the first thing that is cut when the politicians want to cut taxes. Sadly our children will feel this more than we will. We do have great higher education institutions and we are training the engineers and scientists for the countries that are competing with us for a piece of the economic pie. Many of the business people and scientists in China have Harvard, Princeton or Stamford rings on their fingers. For some reason people in the US do not care that we are educating ourselves into a second rate spot in the economic world.
One area that I personally feel that our leaders have let us down is our military and our wars. Our military expenditures are about 39% of the world's total military expenditures. We build planes, tanks and other equipment that the Pentagon does not want or need. Much of what we build is outdated and out of touch with the new missions of the US military. Think of the wars we have fought:
Viet Nam
Grenada (To save medical students who say they didn't need saving.)
Panama ( Invade a country to get one man?)
Iraq (2)
Afghanistan (With a leader that says he'd rather deal with the Taliban than the US.)
Did any of these wars need to be fought to save the United States from being invaded? Now, some in Congress are salivating over invading Iran. Saudi Arabia is worried about Iran's nuclear ambitions. Where is their military? They have more money than we do (oil) why don't they spend their money to keep themselves safe. I am a veteran but I am getting tired of putting ourselves in debt to prop up some dictator or to free some people only to have those people turn on us and kill our military. Too many of us forget that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were fought on borrowed money. (Remember the lie that Iraq's oil would pay for the war?)
There is much more that I could put into this post but I”m sure you get what I am saying.
Reading the comments on this board makes me understand why we have the Congress that we do and why the incompetents keep getting reelected. I have seen reports that say over 80% of citizens do not know who their Congressman is. In my opinion, these people should not have the right to vote. (Mine is a Tea Party backed doctor who hasn't had an original thought since he was elected. If the Tea Party Caucus says it, it has to be gospel.)
As I have stated in my posts, I am a Republican. Let me clarify that; I am a moderate Republican and I must admit that I sometimes vote for a Democrat (I will not vote for an incompetent or crazy person just because they are a Republican.) I support business and free trade that makes sure that the USA gets a fair deal in the trade agreements. (Bill Clinton, the God of the Democrats, has cost us about a million jobs with NAFTA.)
Let me elaborate a bit on how our elected “leaders” are working for the constituency. Please note that I did not single out any party or politician; there's enough blame to go around for everyone.
Two days ago, at the Fed Board meeting, several of the governors started pushing for the an increase in the interest rate. You might say that this will have little effect on you because you are not intending to borrow any money soon. But! I'm sure that you have read or heard about our failing infrastructure. I'm sure that you have read or heard about how the interest rate of the Fed has been about zero for the past several years. I'm sure that you have read or heard about the high unemployment rate that has been around for the past several years.
Recently, I read that there are 3,500,000 people that are unemployed. Many have seen their unemployment benefits run out and many have given up on finding a job. A recent report says that there are 2.5 applicants for every available job. (Please note that these figures can be and are manipulated by whoever is presenting them to make their case seem better.) Let's assume that that 3.5 million figure above is correct. If we could get those people back to work at $25,000 per year ( not a huge salary, only $12.02 per hour) it would generate over $87.4 billion a year in salaries. At 15%, this would bring in $13.125 billion in taxes. This does not take into consideration the costs to the government caused by the lack of self-respect and despair that every unemployed person experiences to some degree or other. This does not take into effect the savings to the government in the reduction of food stamps, unemployment insurance, lower crime, Medicaid, and all of the other benefits that the unemployed need. This probably is equal to or greater than the taxes that would be generated by putting all of those people back to work.
The problem is how to get those people back to work. Now we can get back to the infrastructure. If our “leaders” had the interests of the country at heart the infrastructure would have been the “hot button issue” in Congress for the past several years. Remember the I-35W bridge collapse that killed 17 people a few years ago? Remember New Orleans after Katrina? The bulk of Katrina had already passed New Orleans and then the levees failed and flooded New Orleans. Both were failures of engineering as well as failing to maintain and upgrade the infrastructure.
A world-class infrastructure is necessary for maintaining and growing an economy of any country. Business tends to gravitate to the area that allows the movement of goods and products without undue expenses. Talk to anyone who travels to other countries and they will tell you about how the other country's airports and highways are so much better than our airports and highways are. Our ports are second rate and failing fast. We are talking (and talking and talking) about building ultra high speed rail lines. Romania (a Communist country a few years ago) has 4 of them. India is starting to build huge infrastructure projects, positioning itself to become a huge player in the world economy. China has built many projects that have propelled them past the United States and it is doubtful that we will ever catch up.
Our “leaders” could have borrowed money to build the world-class infrastructure at near zero cost the past few years. (The remarks by the Fed governors might be signaling that that window is fast closing.)
Although inflation is super low, it is there in fact. This inflation would have made the cost of the money we borrowed to build and maintain a world-class infrastructure even cheaper, and inflation in the successive years would have made the money cheaper still. The fact that the improved infrastructure would grow the economy and create more jobs and wealth, thereby create more taxes and reduce the need for benefits, would make the money cheaper still.
Another place that our “leaders” have failed the citizens is in education. The US ranks 27th in the world in math and science. For some reason, education is the first thing that is cut when the politicians want to cut taxes. Sadly our children will feel this more than we will. We do have great higher education institutions and we are training the engineers and scientists for the countries that are competing with us for a piece of the economic pie. Many of the business people and scientists in China have Harvard, Princeton or Stamford rings on their fingers. For some reason people in the US do not care that we are educating ourselves into a second rate spot in the economic world.
One area that I personally feel that our leaders have let us down is our military and our wars. Our military expenditures are about 39% of the world's total military expenditures. We build planes, tanks and other equipment that the Pentagon does not want or need. Much of what we build is outdated and out of touch with the new missions of the US military. Think of the wars we have fought:
Viet Nam
Grenada (To save medical students who say they didn't need saving.)
Panama ( Invade a country to get one man?)
Iraq (2)
Afghanistan (With a leader that says he'd rather deal with the Taliban than the US.)
Did any of these wars need to be fought to save the United States from being invaded? Now, some in Congress are salivating over invading Iran. Saudi Arabia is worried about Iran's nuclear ambitions. Where is their military? They have more money than we do (oil) why don't they spend their money to keep themselves safe. I am a veteran but I am getting tired of putting ourselves in debt to prop up some dictator or to free some people only to have those people turn on us and kill our military. Too many of us forget that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were fought on borrowed money. (Remember the lie that Iraq's oil would pay for the war?)
There is much more that I could put into this post but I”m sure you get what I am saying.
- By elklindo69
- By uvgotmale970