Creative Solutions for Dealing with the Economic Mess.

[Derach]

To me, the solution is simple. We are running in the red, we have to get into the black. How do you get out of debt? You spend less than you make over time. So you either make more $$$ or spend less $$$ ... It doesn't take a doctorate from Harvard to figure it out.

SOOOO

The government has to create more markets. The easiest way that will be totally painless to consumers is to legalize, tax and regulate things people spend money on now in a black market not subject to tax. The 3 things I would add would be:

Marijuana
Prostitution
Gambling

And trust me, if marijuana was legal, you'd see a tremendous growth in 'gardening'.

[RVonse]

My creative solutions (which won't cost government a dime):

1. Government needs to stop paying large corporations for outsourcing good paying middle class jobs. Get out of the WTO now.
2. Remove patent restrictions that large corporations have incrementally set up during the republican years so that America can begin innovating and inventing again.
3. Undue all the republican damage government has done to the unions over the last 30 years. Yes, that will mean some products will cost a little more but that won't matter if more people are now gainfully employed in high paying jobs.
4. Grant moderate tax cuts for the middle class but institute large tax increases for the obscenely wealthy. And institute extremely large tax increases for the death tax. Revenue staying the same but coming from different members of the population.
5. Close down 500 military bases that really aren't needed throughout the world and let other countries start solving their own problems.

With corporate lobby's controlling our government today none of this has a chance happen but it is still fun to pipe dream.

[grandpa]

My creative solutions (which won't cost government a dime): 1.
Government needs to stop paying large corporations for outsourcing good
paying middle class jobs.

This is something I can definitely agree with. People need to realize we have a capitalist government, and, at least ideally, they should resist it in every possible way and in all of its forms. Unfortunately, unions are hard to come by these days, and the depression of middle-class income has been a result, as well as the lack of any revolutionary potential in the workplace.

Grandpa h.

[Voluntary]

There is no need to get creative. Good economics is simple. Save and then invest. People don't save anymore, thanks to the government. The current stimulus package is not promoting savings, but erroneously counting on consumption to "stimulate" the economy.

All government has to do is be honest, but they are incapable of it and have to complicate things since they are self-seeking demagogues.

All government has to do is tell people to work hard, save, and look out for your fellow being during the next few years (while practicing humbler foreign policy, paying off the debt, and restoring the dollar). Then they can back this up with promising a few safety nets.

We need to liquidate our spending spree and invest into productive areas. These times do not call for "swift and bold" action, but rather "reflection and thoughtful analysis" of where we invest next.

[xyzer]

It seems to me what Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress are ignoring is the natural corrective process of a free enterprise system? 3/4 of job creation in this country is through small business activity? Wouldn't a lowering of tax rates for these entities increase their ability to expand and hire? Allowing a more rapid recovery?

Just pumping hundreds of billions of IOU backed dollars into the system will eventually devalue the dollar? Plus, it has little short term significance. So called 'shovel ready' projects take time...even years to be accomplished. Tax cut are more immediate!

Government should stay out of the details. e.g. salary structure, embargos, tax the rich (who already pay most of the taxes and have the entrepeneurial dollars) Right now Congress is telling business they have to accept bailout dollars and when they do they must conform to government mandates? That aint the way the system should work..is it?
Do we want the likes of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd telling us how to conduct our business activity? Is that whats meant by a creative soliution?

Most of what I read here is bigger government crap which may have some value but really screws the system up just as did the housing policy that started the whole mess. Didn't government insistence on lenders making bad loans eventually cause the credit crunch?

What in the hell are we talking about here socialism or capitalism? Both? What has been the system that has made the nation economically the most powerful?

[grandpa]

It seems to me what Obama and the Democrat controlled
Congress are ignoring is the natural corrective process of a
free enterprise system?
3/4 of job creation in this country is through small
business activity?

Xyzer, before I anything else, I have to ask: Why do you put question marks everywhere? I'm not trying to get personal here, but it makes your sentences harder to understand when you make a statement that looks like a question, but is not.

Anyway, , I've read that Americans should
"DEMAND a Free Market Solution, not Knee Jerk Socialism." The problem is, we don't have a "free enterprise system," and Obama has little choice but to engage in little bits of "knee-jerk socialism," if we wishes to keep capitalists in power. It's the same reason we ended up with labor laws. The state has to throw workers a bone every now and then, to prevent us from overthrowing it, and from taking "business activity" into their own hands.

Obama practically has to promise Americans he can create or save 3-4 million jobs, otherwise he'll be known as the President who kept Bush's economic failures going. In a way you're right that a President shouldn't be the arbiter of a country's business activities. However, the free enterprise system does not work well, because it is driven almost entirely by greed alone. That will not do. Either workers have to check and balance it, or some other means, including the government -- because those only in it for the money are generally not going to behave responsibly.

Grandpa h.

[Whatssnew]

There should be no Federal Government, and taxes should be similar to as follows:

Income Tax----Central Government
Sales Tax-------State Government
Property Tax---Local Government

Only three. Just think of how much it costs to keep such an un-necessarily complicated tax system afloat. Think of all the tax related court cases. The up side is the tremendous affect this will have on the country and its courts, the down side is the thousands of over paid lawyers that would be out of a job. Of course this would also mean government transparency, and a smaller government. I imagine many a politician screaming over that.

America of WWII is nothing like the America of 2009. Back then people really understood how to survive. (Hoard food, grow your own food, hide money in the walls, ex…)

There already are agencies out their collecting clothes, just pick up your phone book and call them. But forgive me if I who live in the higher reaches of the Rockies am a little stingy about sharing hard to find warm clothes, which I can hardly afford.

People need a place to live, people have houses they can’t sell, or afford to pay the taxes on. How about an agreement, if the landlord has tenants that they do not make a profit off of, then landlord does not have to pay taxes?

[xyzer]

grandpa..

Xyzer, before I anything else, I have to ask: Why do you put question marks everywhere? I'm not trying to get personal here, but it makes your sentences harder to understand when you make a statement that looks like a question, but is not.

Its my version of the Socratic method which I think an appropriate way to participate in the give and take of ideas. As I recall Socrates, a much wiser old dude than I am, utilized the system when he discussed things with his followers. If one asks the right questions one can get responders to think in the terms Socrates (and I) think they should? It may be annoying but it is better than spouting absolute opinions..more subtle. However, I agree with you. I do use it a bit too much.

the method is most commonly found within the so-called "Socratic dialogues", which generally portray Socrates engaging in the method and questioning his fellow citizens about moral and epistemological issues.

By the way I do not agree with your assertion that the free market system is motivated by "greed". The profit motive is not greed. It hitches to the human need to make money and increase ones wealth. Are you considered selfish because you want to make money?
This requires entrepreneurship and investment(risk taking). I ask you how come the socialist/communist economic systems have done so poorly over the years while the free market economies have boomed.....unless and until the bureaucrats(government) started interfering with the free market as it did in the USA?

In effect we are now seeing a struggle between entrepreneurship and bureaucracy in our approach to economics. Obama, Frank and the rest of the socialist thinkers are pushing for more government controls. This inspite of what has happened in the housing an credit market over the past decade?

[grandpa]

By the way I do not agree with your assertion
that the free market system is motivated by "greed".
The profit motive is not greed.

Actually, it is. And it is not only individual greed we're speaking about, but institutional greed -- with a disproportion in wealth that essentially rewards itself for its own policies of theft (AKA the privatization of resources). This would be true even if I didn't make assertions about it.

And that's why a "free market" correction is hardly any comfort to me. When it's proposed that we solve problems by greed, then have it argued that it is not greed -- where does that leave us? In semantic denial.

Grandpa h.

[xyzer]

Then, if I may rely on my Socratic approach to the issue gandpa...I ask is one greedy who wants to live a comfortable lifestyle? Or should one deny him/herself and family, any product of someones attempt to sell or provide services while making a profit? Does bureaucratic government provide one better service than a private business in competition with others who provide a product or service? Is it institutional greed that allows McDonalds to compete for business/profit by providing more for a meal than Wendys? Should all dental offices be conducted providing the same services for the same price, within the same time frame?

And so on.

[grandpa]

Then, if I may rely on my Socratic approach to
the issue gandpa...
I ask is one greedy who wants to live a
comfortable lifestyle?

They are if they do so by living on the forced labor of others, which is what private property and taxation inevitably entails. If you're really in favor of a "comfortable lifestyle," you'd support getting robber barons and capitalist predators to stop breathing down people's necks. You shouldn't be comfortable with supporting mass murderers, either, which is what we're paying for with our militarized economy.

Grandpa h.

[xyzer]

They are if they do so by living on the forced labor of others

Hmm... Who is more likely(and legally) to force people to work? Government or a private citizen running a business?
grandpa, your 'slip' is showing on that one.

The only people I've noticed our government forcing into a job is when a draft law is posted. Check your history and facts to see how the free enterprise, capitalist system has made the USA rich and powerful? A socialist/communist sytem like those tried in Russia and Cuba have a directly opposite effect.