I know who I like to blame:
Todd Snider - Conservative Christian.. - YouTube
....all in good fun, Al, but certainly a modicum of truth therein, no?
Cheers, Doug!
A gentleman with a grasp of the problem.
- Thread starter Al Wohlstrom
- Start date
I know who I like to blame:
Todd Snider - Conservative Christian.. - YouTube
....all in good fun, Al, but certainly a modicum of truth therein, no?
Cheers, Doug!
Jim Craik
Lifetime Supporter
Jim Craik
Lifetime Supporter
Posted by Craig
**********
OK Craig, lets talk about the current administration and unemployment.
Look carefully at this graph and tell us who is responsibe for the current unemployment mess and has Obama made it worse or has Obama made it better?
Craig, you asked for it. Please comment on this chart and tell us again about who is responsable for the high unemployment.
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Here is my post. It talks about Jeff Immelt and his business approach, ie business model to use the federal government to fund R and D. And let me also add GE's banking business which got he bail out, their lighting business which closed a US plant that made the Edison bulb and opened a new florescent plant in China, and their wind turbine business.
Another lovely story about GE and its aero engine business. As you know the F35 fighter has an engine sourced from the Harrier jump jet. The engine is made by Pratt and Whitney and goes back to the 60s. Surprisingly GE wanted $2B from the Feds to design a second source engine. Why? Not bad if you can charge your R and D, your tooling, expense your capital equipment off to the government, and pay minimal taxes on your earnings.
I guess he will show the WH how to established more jobs with government funded programs. And don't forget the bailout GE Capital got from the Federal Government.
Let me add that I am a GE stockholder.
Another lovely story about GE and its aero engine business. As you know the F35 fighter has an engine sourced from the Harrier jump jet. The engine is made by Pratt and Whitney and goes back to the 60s. Surprisingly GE wanted $2B from the Feds to design a second source engine. Why? Not bad if you can charge your R and D, your tooling, expense your capital equipment off to the government, and pay minimal taxes on your earnings.
I guess he will show the WH how to established more jobs with government funded programs. And don't forget the bailout GE Capital got from the Federal Government.
Let me add that I am a GE stockholder.
It's called Unemployment Insurance
money paid by insurance company: the sum of money that an insurance company pays or agrees to pay if a specific undesirable event occurs. I paid for 40 odd years and collected once.
Entitlement:
government program helping specific group: a government program that targets a particular section of the population to receive specific social benefits
That is the last thing I have to say to you.
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Pete,
On the subject of minimum regulation for business, John Humphreys needs to ask himself why it was necessary for respective governments to regulate business so heavily in the first place.
Maybe it is time to see if less regulation would work, but having witnessed how some companies treat their employees despite all the regulation, I hate to think how they would treat them if left to self regulate.
Al,
That statement seems to imply that you would resent someone who paid for one year and collected for 40.
If their entitlement is legitimate they are no different to you.
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Jeff Young
GT40s Supporter
Making you no different from the folks who paid taxes, and then collected food stamps, or the folks who paid taxes and then collected Medicare or Medicaid, and on and on and on.
You're no different than those folks and getting you to understand that is critical. I fully agree with you waste and disincentives to work should be removed from all of these programs. But on the one hand receiving the benefits of these programs, and on the other globally attacking them all as the root cause or problems is, well, a problem.
You're no different than those folks and getting you to understand that is critical. I fully agree with you waste and disincentives to work should be removed from all of these programs. But on the one hand receiving the benefits of these programs, and on the other globally attacking them all as the root cause or problems is, well, a problem.
Nick,
Al paid for 40 years and collected for one very short time many years ago. He addressed this in a post late last year, and was very clear about it.
His point concerns the entitlement generation which we know very well here in the UK.
Al paid for 40 years and collected for one very short time many years ago. He addressed this in a post late last year, and was very clear about it.
His point concerns the entitlement generation which we know very well here in the UK.
Pat
Supporter
Come on Cliff, we've tried this and it didn't work, remember the Obama stimulus? Where are the $trillion dollars worth of infrastructure benefits?
According to Forbes, there are 403 billionaires in the US. Let’s assess some meaningful taxation. Let’s just take a $billion from each billionaire for $403 billion. Let’s throw in eliminating the Bush tax cuts which are $60 billion per year according to CBS News. So now we are at $463 billion.
Now if you consider for 2011, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that if current laws remain unchanged, the federal budget will show a 2011 deficit of close to $1.5 trillion, or 9.8 percent of GDP. The CBO projects total revenues of $2.228 trillion and total outlays of $3.708 trillion for a deficit of $1.48 trillion for 2011 (although other estimates go to $1.65 trillion).
So we soak the rich (and everyone else impacted by the Bush Tax cuts) we knock off $463 billion out of $1.48 trillion and you still end up with $1.2 trillion annual deficit. This doesn’t even touch the $14 trillion recurring deficit.
I’m certainly not a CPA (but I am married to one) but this is under any measure unsustainable spending. While the Democrat talking points are to blame the target du jour (the Tea Party is the “New Bush”) remember that Nancy Pelosi was just as strident on refusing Medicare and Social Security recipient benefit cuts (it’s OK to zap the providers who are rapidly becoming incented to stop providing) as the Tea Party elements were on not raising taxes. Sadly, National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (also called Bowles-Simpson) was a way forward on both spending cuts and taxes which was ignored by the administration. Bowles-Simpson level of impact was what the rating agencies wanted to see and all they got was a renewal of class warfare and partisan politics.
The simple answers are that we need to drastically cut spending, simplify the regulatory environment and tax code (see Simpson Bowles), grow debt only at a rate at or below that of GDP and get government out of Soviet style business micromanagement. It didn’t work on the collective farms and it’s not working for small business.
If you want something that might work, perhaps avoid what's failed in the past...
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Jim Craik
Lifetime Supporter
Veek,
I think Cliff is right. we need to increase revenue (either through higher taxes or better inforcement of our current tax structure) and much greater Government spending. This is what the markets want and this is what polls show the American people want.
I think Cliff is right. we need to increase revenue (either through higher taxes or better inforcement of our current tax structure) and much greater Government spending. This is what the markets want and this is what polls show the American people want.
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This is intersting:
IRS: Not enough rich to cover the deficit « Don Surber
Bottom line, the top 8200 rich people make $240B. Increasing their income tax by 10 - 15% will produce how much revenue (going from 35 to 50%), $24-36B (I don't profess to be an accountant or mathmatician).
IRS: Not enough rich to cover the deficit « Don Surber
Bottom line, the top 8200 rich people make $240B. Increasing their income tax by 10 - 15% will produce how much revenue (going from 35 to 50%), $24-36B (I don't profess to be an accountant or mathmatician).
Really? Now, admittedly, I'm a retired BHOF and I've slept since then, so my memory might well be a bit muddled, but as I recall the Stimulus package was originated and signed into action by a Republican POTUS, to wit: GeeDub.
Right?
It was already 2/3 spent when Obama took office. He used the remaining cash to bail out the automobile manufacturers, and implemented certain practices to ensure that the $$ would be paid back, which I believe most of it has been (at least the part that was actually LOANED out during Obama's presidency, for the rest, read on).
However, the "first" 2/3 that G. W. Bush handed out to the bankers and the insurance industry, well, IIRC that's a different matter. The recipients used the cash to INCREASE the huge salary/finge benefit packages that their executives were receiving (the very same executives who led those companies to the brink of bankrupcy), among other things, and to my knowledge the monies were not "monitored" so essentially the government doesn't know how much who got and where it went, much less have any hope of getting it back.
Now, let's for the sake of argument assume my memory is correct...just who do you want "managing" your government's money, the Republicans or the Democrats?
Yeah.....I know who I think has done a better job.
OK, TEA Party sympathizers. let's see you take your best shots. I know this might have been a post that might incite some angst, I'd like to hear from you. I don't mind admitting it when I am wrong, and my memory might well be failing me (they say the memory is the second thing to go, after all).
What say you!
Cheers from Doug!!
Domtoni,
Some salient points from a left wing article entitled "The Myth of Welfare Dependency"
The myth of welfare dependency
Frank Field might argue that, whatever the causes of the expansion of welfare spending, it is unrealistic to expect taxpayers to foot the bill. He claims that the welfare budget (approximately £90 billion a year) costs the average taxpayer £15 a day out of their wage packet. But Field's figures are bogus.24 The welfare state is usually portrayed as a sort of Robin Hood, redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor. Welfare economists have constructed a computer simulation model ('LIFEMOD') to investigate the effect of the welfare state over the life times of 4,000 statistically representative individuals. After all, the same person will be a net gainer from and net contributor to the welfare state at different times of their life. This model allows us to estimate how much the welfare state actually redistributes wealth between people, rather than between different periods of the same person's life. In fact 'nearly three-quarters of what the welfare state does looked at in this way [ie over a lifetime] is like a "savings bank"; only a quarter is "Robin Hood" redistribution between different people'.25 This means that the taxes which go towards welfare are,
Not a payment from workers to the grasping poor. It is mainly people paying into a 'social insurance' for the future. So almost £30 billion, a third of total social security spending, goes on pension.26
Six out of ten people take out of the system roughly what they pay in, while only the richest 15 percent pay in significantly more than they get back. And the model also suggests that the welfare system redistributes less than it did a decade ago.27
The findings generated by such computer models show how little the welfare state actually redistributes, and demolish a central reform suggested by welfare dependency theorists. The main way the welfare state already works is like the 'savings bank over a lifetime' which they say would get rid of dependency. The main effect of creating a formal 'lifetime savings bank' would be massive administrative costs
Those who talk of welfare dependency paint a picture of an underclass of long term unemployed and single parents cut off from the rest of society and demoralised by having to depend on the state. But nearly one third of the poorest 20 percent of the population are in work or self employed.37 Contrary to the media image, self employed workers have not risen out of the ranks of the working class. They lose out on sick pay, holiday pay, and other in-work benefits. Even in terms of their income, many self employed workers are worse off. Of all those people on below average income (two thirds of the population), the self employed have lower average incomes than those on income support. 'Other things being equal, self employment raises the chance of an individual being in the bottom tenth of earners by a factor of 3.7',38 while a study conducted in Luton showed that 'over 25 percent of the town's owner-occupiers had lost their jobs between 1989 and 1993'39, and according to the Rowntree Housing Review, a quarter of unskilled manual workers are servicing mortgages.
Within the welfare budget, one of the areas which has grown most under the Tories is spending on Housing Benefit. Government spending on housing has increased massively at the same time as the quality of housing has generally declined and rents have risen above the rate of inflation. The people who have benefited from this policy are private landlords. Today there are nearly half a million homeless people in Britain, and over 1 million live in homes officially unfit for habitation. At the same time, 800,000 homes lie empty,23 and the government will not allow local councils to use receipts from council house sales to build new council housing to replenish housing stocks.
Due to a combination of unemployment and enforced early retirement (finding a job when you have been made redundant at 55 is almost impossible), one in four men of working age in Britain are economically inactive.14 In 1977, 8 percent of 55 to 64 year old men were out of employment. By 1994 this had risen to 59 percent15--given the high levels of poverty among pensioners, few have opted for this out of a taste for the good life.
Despite all this, all the reports come out in favour of some form of private pension provision as a way round the 'massive' increase in the number of pensioners. Faced with the declining level of the state pension many people are already turning to private pension schemes. This has proved a disaster because the high administrative charges and commissions eat into private pension scheme contributions. Consequently millions of low paid workers end up worse off. Incredibly '2 million people have been persuaded to opt out of the state pension and into private pensions when their earnings were too low for them to achieve a comparable income in retirement' to that which they would have received had they remained in the state system.16 Life insurance companies estimate that 8 million people are earning too little for it to be worth their while getting private pensions. According to John Hills, there is little gain from having an occupational pension which involves contributions of less than £55 per week--putting it out of reach for most people.17
Insurance company representatives also told the Social Justice Commission that they are not prepared to offer any adequate schemes for insurance against unemployment. Levels of burglaries, fires and deaths can be roughly predicted and insurance premiums worked out accordingly. If private unemployment insurance existed, the 1991 recession would have wiped out any company that had set its premiums the year before.18 All such insurance schemes, whether for pensions or unemployment, face the same difficulty--the most vulnerable are the least able to pay.
Two thirds of pensioners live on less than £80 a week, and half of these are living below the poverty line.19 These people have paid into the social security system all their lives, through national insurance, income tax and indirect taxes such as VAT. The problem they face is not welfare dependency, but low pensions. While pensioners are failed by the current welfare system, the vast majority would be even worse off under the private pension schemes proposed in order to save the ruling class money
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Nick, where did these figures come from, or are they old figures?
(Must admit I did not read all, but these stuck out)
Keith,
Understood it is a bit long winded a few things stuck out for me as well. I think it is from around 1995 so whilst I admit the figures are out of date I still believe a lot of the arguments are valid today.
Way out of date Nick, I must say (being a recent receiver of the State Pension) that I find the current amount liveable and if you don't reach the Govt's criteria for "poverty levels" then you can apply for Pension Credit (untaxed) which can give you another £4,000 per year on top of the State Pension (earnings, not contribution, related) of £6,500 per year.
Once you receive Guarantee (Pension) Credit then Council Tax is paid and there are a raft of consequential "benefits" available ranging from vouchers for spectacles to dental care.
I personally do not find it difficult to live on this kind of money even if I didn't own my own home, the system would pay the mortage interest charges as well.
A pensioner living alone in the UK could therefore expect up to £15,000 per year even if they haven't paid enough contributions. If they are disabled then Attendance Allowance will give another £4,000 per year for personal care to spend on as they see fit, and Social Services can also arrange to have special beds, chairs and disabled items fitted to your house (free of charge) and receive goods such as mobility scooters and stairlifts VAT free and heavily discounted.
No need to fear old age in the UK, even if you don't have a private pension. What a fantastic (and much maligned) system!
Once you receive Guarantee (Pension) Credit then Council Tax is paid and there are a raft of consequential "benefits" available ranging from vouchers for spectacles to dental care.
I personally do not find it difficult to live on this kind of money even if I didn't own my own home, the system would pay the mortage interest charges as well.
A pensioner living alone in the UK could therefore expect up to £15,000 per year even if they haven't paid enough contributions. If they are disabled then Attendance Allowance will give another £4,000 per year for personal care to spend on as they see fit, and Social Services can also arrange to have special beds, chairs and disabled items fitted to your house (free of charge) and receive goods such as mobility scooters and stairlifts VAT free and heavily discounted.
No need to fear old age in the UK, even if you don't have a private pension. What a fantastic (and much maligned) system!
Pat
Supporter
Just for the record... there have been two.
FYI The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA (Pub.L. 111-5) and commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act, is an economic stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress in February 2009 and signed into law on February 17, 2009 by President Barack Obama. Cost of the economic stimulus package was estimated to be $819 Billion at the time of passage.
Bush President Bush signed a multibillion-dollar economic rescue package with bipartisan support in Feb 2008 with $300 to $1,200 rebates for many American households. Cost was $168 billion and it was fully distributed.
Given the current situation, they appear not to have worked.
Jeff Young
GT40s Supporter
With a large portion of well respected economists saying that they weren't enough, and there needed to be more.
You'd note of course that the ARRA was signed just a few days after President Obama took office. Both sides/parties/Presidents worked on it.
You'd note of course that the ARRA was signed just a few days after President Obama took office. Both sides/parties/Presidents worked on it.
