The Obama Administration nudges Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to the front of the class to present Pollyanna statements on subjects apparently not fully understood by the President or many of his advisors. Millions react with little more than frowns of confusion.
The skeptical population is exposed to too many scripts on the economy written in rose-colored ink, read through rose-colored lenses. Listening to Geithner, leads one to wonder if he’s read the news lately. Actually seeing him, leads one to doubt that he cares. Down the road, Bernanke does as he’s told by the bankers who have little concern for 17%+ unemployment. Their multi-billion dollar bonuses are thick insulation from the plight of Middle America. Ben Bernanke pontificates from The Fed, pretending that inflation is a curse, when in fact its advance would erode the assets of his bosses on The Street. Inflation’s impact would also be a reduction of the real debt currently burdening homeowners whose perceptions rendered home ownership a panacea.
Hypocrisy is one those more despicable black arts practiced by too many sitting in positions of influence. Self preservation and self interest too easily twists truth from the podiums of power, and confuses a population unfamiliar with the complexities pretended by economists. Today a whole middle class shudders at the long term prospects of its underwater mortgages further sliding into an abyss, as job continue to evaporate.
The public sustains abuse, particularly when the likes of Geithner, and Bernanke continue the reign of power and influence enjoyed by Greenspan, even after having proven complete and absolute incompetence during the creation of the mess. Of course in fairness to Bernanke and Greenspan, we should note that Geithner additionally demonstrated contaminated morals and meager principles in his tax filings. These three mousequeteers of finance and their friends, along with the misguided Congress of the past 20 years fuelled the indebtedness now burdening an anguished middle America. The crisis is the result of burst housing and debt bubbles, which many perceived correctly and some capitalized on. Bernanke, Geithner and Greenspan were not among them. Bernanke, however, was very capable when he effectively misled Congress on behalf of his boss in the White House and his bosses on The Street, to get the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) passed.
Both businesses and consumers are ignoring Bernanke’s continuation of “cheap debt”. If you’re concerned with job security, you’re not running out borrowing for a bigger home. These days, no one wants more debt, it seems. No one, that is, except Washington.
The lamentable uncertainty afflicting every corner of the United States has permeated its business engines. In Board Rooms across the Nation, Accountants are telling their bosses, “hold tight.” CEOs aren’t economists, or fortunetellers. They gleam information from those they have hired, and those which they have confidence in and trust. From behind closed doors, senior executives sense the choking “uncertainty” and they fear it. The result? Corporate America sits on almost $9 trillion in cash and counting.
Another result? Investors purchase Johnson & Johnson 2.95% ten-year notes, preferred over company shares or even over Treasuries with downward sliding yields. Suddenly junk bonds are more delectable than Treasuries? This is a major shift in perceptions. It is also telling of concern for the economy’s future, mid to long term. It speaks volumes of investor confusion about the economic future. Corporate America and Main Street are uncertain, and Washington daily adds to the confusion.
Corporate America would normally look for any excuse to invest. American business is seeking signs from the country’s leadership that it can “get behind.” That is the biggest failure of the current leadership in Washington. No one in the Capital seems capable of leading the charge to the restoration of confidence, least of all the inexperienced President. Ineptitude, indecision, reckless spending and loading up the future with unfathomable debt, pulls the train of hope into reverse.
A panoply of hapless maladroits appear like balls bouncing down a pinball machine, reacting to daily events with little grasp of the most critical expectations of a tired public. Perceptions are powerful forces moving through the country’s social, economic and political fabrics. While stagnating over economic stimulus package decisions, Washington should give energy to psychological stimulus.
Assertive leadership should take forceful steps to reduce administrative bureaucracies, and streamline all levels of the structures providing services, including simplification of the taxation and the health-care systems. Other actions should include biting into the biggest lie of them all – the Social Security and health-care costs which almost 80 million Baby Boomers have been led to expect as they head into retirement. The expectations represent entitlements of $4 trillion which the U.S. economy will be incapable of supporting. There is even more important action for a leader to take. Inspiration.
It is not the nature of the average American to want coddling by big government. America has long demonstrated a propensity for innovation, hard work, creativity, and entrepreneurship. America has progressed through numerous transformations since its founding. The vast majority of jobs lost in the past five years have been in manufacturing, while the most stable corporate environments have been those in the high technology industries.
We may not know what new chemicals or revolutionary algorithms will trigger new industry sectors, but as the future unfolds, America’s destiny will rest on the stimulation of interaction between people and the stimulation of thinking which will galvanize toward new discoveries. Avenues of communication, through the Internet, as well as physical corridors such as high-speed trains between major urban centers will further stimulate connections and energize creativity. Each of these discoveries, large or small, will then need encouragement on risk taking, and entrepreneurship.
Companies, nascent and mature, will require the opposite of the noise which is today effusing from Washington. Leadership means pointing to clear defined goals and energizing Main Street. It means stating confidence in the bearing – clear heading and clear direction. Once such leadership leaps onto the stage, there is pent-up pressure from the cash stockpiles corporations are sitting on. Just as significant is the pent-up creativity and innovation waiting to commercialize the next technological revolution. The psychological stimulus America hungers for, is inspiration.
Crossposted from The Pacific Gate Post
A constituent of the vast baby boomer generation with a career which has been fortunate to know the ponderous corporate worlds, as well as the intimately pressurized, and invigorating entrepreneurial domains of high tech and venture capital, I have harvested my share of mistakes meandering through corridors of enterprise from Silicon Valley, to London and endless, colourful, sometimes praetorian points in between. The voyage has provided an abundance of fodder for a pen yielding to an inquisitive keyboard, a foraging mind, and a passionate spirit.
Whether political or business or social or economic or personal, is it not all political? It is a privilege to write, and an even greater privilege to be read by anyone, and sometimes with the wind at my back the writing may occasionally be legible. I do not write to invite scorn, nor to invite respect, but if I get really lucky the writing can stimulate thinking. I also write for the very selfish purpose of animating my own processes, and engaging the best of what life offers. Above all, whether biting fire or swatting shadows, I am grateful to be gifted the freedom to write and publish whatever flows down to the keyboard. To all those who enabled this freedom, and to all those standing guard to preserve it, I am indebted.
good post … I would say that the last thing we need from Obama is inspiration … we have that in spades and as you say it is pent up … we need certainty … right now we are certain that there are new business killing taxes and regulations headed our way with vague threats of even more … what we need is some certainty that the rules won’t change yet again and again and again … we also need the certainty that there are actual rules i.e. laws which we can read and follow …
With so much of ObamaCare and the FinReg determined by Regulators it is near impossible to know what is next thing, business or group to be deamonized and burned at the stake …
Good post, but you miss one of the Main reasons (IMO) of why there is no recovery.
No one in business has any ideas of what the rules are. Washington is changing things so fast, that they can’t make rational business decisions… and with 2000+ page bills coming out, there is no way to forecast how the “details” of said bills will affect their business.
Then add in the blatant picking of winners and loosers by the Gov… and the fact that this administration uses politics to decides whether it will follow the law or not?
We don’t even have a clue as to what the Tax structure will be next year, as some Dems make noises about re-doing “some” of the Bush Tax cuts….
Uncertainty kills business, and this Administration and Congress has created uncertainty.
Good post yes . . . but in the end it might as well have started with “Once upon a time” . . . for it certainly ended with . . . “and we all lived happily ever after!”
Why did I say this? Simply because there is no optimistic perspectives left concerning anything Washington . . . only pessimistic (sorry) . . . but after all a pessimist is only an experienced optimist.
As a “Boomer” . . . my government through taxation has reduced me to the plight that all I will have left . . . and I ain’t quite to the point yet where I can even apply . . . is Social Security. Even to get that the government will force me to be sedentary . . . and thus collect maximum Medicare/Medicaid . . because if I remain active and work to make a few extra bucks the government will take part of my hard earned money and part of my social security away. So . . . I will become a barter-tender . . . opps barber-tender . . . opps, anyway I will find a source of income that I can keep secret and sure as hell tell no one about.
@ Jeff,
Obama is absolutely not capable of “inspiring” and I never understood the “tingly legs thing.” Arrogance is not confidence – Arrogance is hapless stupidity which this President seems to quite happy to demonstrate daily on every possible front. He is one big misstep after another.
The uncertainty and fear of the next misstep, and the complete lack of confidence in this Administration is very damaging to America.
Business leaders are also afraid to speak out against Obama because of the retributive actions he has taken in the past against anyone who reacts to him.
Look at the slaughter of all those GM dealers. Ask them how they feel about an Obama/Union run auto company.
We will have no turn around until new leadership is elected. In the meantime, there is still an enormous percentage of the population that seems to support this leadership, along with the uneducated Hollywood crowd which takes every opportunity to support him.
@ Romeo,
Agreed, . . . that’s what this uncertainty is rooted in – not knowing what the leadership will do tomorrow.
Business sitting on trillions of dollars, should be a very loud message about this Administration, yet the MSM isn’t dealing with this huge statement being made by those who actually provide jobs.
Obama is well on his way to turning all of America into the anti-business environment that California has become.
As we read and write here on FAs the Washington Circus is working on “Small Business” improvement tactics . . . need I say how the demies are going to IMPROVE the small business evironment? Or discuss why the repubs are againist it . . . this is MORE of the SAME.
Any idiot that takes “free money” or “low interest loans” only to have to pay it back ten fold via taxes/fees has to be either a very stupid businessman or a con-artist moocher that has no intention of paying anything back, taxes or principal.
Ruled by idiots . . .
Preyed on by the confidence man . . .
@ Tallgrass,
“it certainly ended with . . . “and we all lived happily ever after!” “
I just don’t think that an incompetent narcissist can kill the spirit at the core of the American fabric. All foreign countries wish they had such open environments that allows creativity and entrepreneurialism. In the streets of villages in Provence, and from London, to Jakarta, are countless people who wish they had the opportunities and the mindsets that exist in America. One President won’t extinguish that fervour.
In effect, a new leader wouldn’t need to walk on water, that new leader would simply need to unwind the mess that Obama has managed to create in the percepts.
You bring up a great point about bartering – it will be the evolution of a grey economy by small entrepreneurs working to feed themselves however they can.
Even new immigrants don’t want a system that simply returns them to a dismal life they left behind. I’m fairly confident this ship will be turned around.
@ James Raider;
I did not mean to sound so flippant . . . I do sincerely recognize the optimism in your post . . . and you are correct it will be the resilience of We THE People that save the Republic.
The barter system is already alive, well, and in full function . . . every where across this great Fly-Over-State of Oklahoma. From yard care to personal services . . . from computer repair to auto repair . . . from my garden to your table . . . We are living a hand-to-mouth existence out here, we are survivors. I will say, my lawn never looked better, my car runs great, the eggs on my table contains no salmonella, the tomatoes are truly vine ripe . . . and I can sleep at night knowing that tomorrow I will reciprocate to a neighbor who totally understands OUR situation.
My income is lower than ever . . . and my property taxes just got raised . . . go figure, lol. Guess I will have to drop my home owners insurance this year or sell the sow . . . damn sure hate to sell the bacon maker!!! LOL
This is the world progressives have built. They chain a man to another through taxation and entitlement. It is one thing to be dependent on the grocery store owner to provide a decent selection of foods to choose from. It is quite another to be dependent upon a benevolent government to provide the means to buy those foods, or for the benevolent government to decide which foods the grocery store owner can carry.
The progressives’ dream is for all people to rely on that benevolent government to provide for them. To be the government’s dependents. They abhor the individual who makes of life what he is willing to put into it with his own hands. They abhor the individual who doesn’t have to jump when the government tells him to.
Progressives yearn for the utopian society where everyone is equal. The problem is that it soon becomes apparent, under their dream system, that everyone is of equal servitude to the government.
In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, those who eventually come to live in Galt’s Gulch have to recite, and believe, a singular maxim of life prior to allowance in. It states:
I can think of no greater creed to live by if one truly wants to live in a free society. The founding fathers generally have espoused similar ideals upon which man should live. They embodied, in the Constitution, as much of that as possible, limiting the power of the federal government.
So I say, I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. I will, as well, fight against the encroachment of government against that ideal, which would chain me to other men, either as dependent or their benefactor, to the best of my ability.
@ johngalt,
Your comment reminds me of my somewhat confusing time in University, when I was surrounded by rather Academic White Tower perceptions of the world, just as I was also reading all of Ayn Rand’s books. Post graduate studies were worse. In the post graduate environment of very socialistic thinking I felt like a lone wolf.
The contrast helped me decide for myself which avenues I wanted to drive on. I’m not saying that I followed Rand, nor do I completely agree with many of her opinions, but I Loved both her convictions, and her ability to stimulate my thinking. Of tens of thousands of writers and thinkers I have read, she is one of those I am very grateful to have been exposed to.
Most of all, she kicked me off the socialist pseudo intellectual track of academe when I needed to give my head a shake. I decided to go into business after graduation, . . . and stayed there …. 🙂
I think that the progressive social ideal actually has to do with attaining a sustainable and equitable state of balance, with the needs and aspirations of the individual on one side of the scale, and the collective needs and aspirations of all individuals on the other.
Individual aspiration, creativity, and effort is obviously the driving force. The individual’s ability to express those things should be impeded as little as possible. With excessive impediments self expression is diminished–in itself an undesirable thing–and the productivity of the entire system slows down.
That said, none of us exists in a vacuum. Like it or not, we’re all part of a collective endeavor that takes place in a shared societal and physical environment. Those who do very well make use of that societal environment and impose demands upon it. They use the creativity of others that exists within society; they use society’s labor, its intelligence, its markets, its shared infrastructure, and its ultimately finite supplies of energy and resources that everyone collectively depends upon. Consequently, when they impose demands upon the collective system the course of their own endeavors, they should expect that an element of reciprocity will be involved.
It’s all about balance, and finding the middle ground.
@greg
But once you can no longer sustain the business structure to give those who inovate a chance?
There is no investment capital out there now becaue they have taken the reward away from the risk of investing.
And yes, none of us exist in a vaccuum, but that does not mean that I should support you if you are not helping my endevor.
You Get more of what you Reward… and get less of what you Punish… and the Progresive ideal is to Punish the successful, and reward sloth…
“There is no investment capital out there now becaue they have taken the reward away from the risk of investing.”
Not so far as I know. Who has seen big tax hikes, thusfar? The Bush tax cuts had a built-in expiration date, but most people won’t see a dramatic jump even when they do expire, and for those on the higher end, maximum tax rates will still be far lower than they were in past decades. A lot of money can still be made–just, perhaps, not as quickly as during the unsustainable, super-heated economy that was fueled by easy credit, unchecked consumer debt growth, rising federal deficits, and expanding bubbles that were totally unrealistic to begin with. Corporate profits have been at all-time highs this year. As you point out, record level capital pools exist. One thing is certain: Corporate America won’t make much money by continuing to sit on it.
The current problem is the vicious circle of sitting on money out of concern that consumers won’t buy your products, which decreases investment and hiring, which in turn decreases the consumers’ willingness to spend money to buy products. It’s a fear problem, but some are exploiting that fear to a particular political end.
The other problem is increased government spending to keep the economy on life support when we’d already been running big deficits for almost a decade, while vicious circle #1 simultaneously reduces revenue. The argument is that something drastically different could be done. An easy thing to say, provided one doesn’t have to demonstrate what and how, or give a lot of consideration to what the immediate consequences could be for the majority of Americans. Cut unemployment comp; add a million federal workers to the unemployment lines; let banks fail, homes be lost and added to an already crashing housing market, and let a large segment of US auto manufacturing permanently go under; let a wave of state bankruptcies sweep across the nation; even let Social Security go… To me, that sort of sudden response looks like the makings of total national catastrophe; a precipitous decent into social chaos…
I like to think there’s a real solution. Whatever it is, I’m pretty sure it won’t be simple, quick, or painless. Maybe we’re approaching an inevitable point of transition where political arguments will revolve around the equitable distribution of discomfort.
@Greg
That statement right there shows the depth of misunderstanding liberals and progressives have about individual rights. Individuals do not impose demands upon a collective system. That implies that a system, whether it be energy or whatever, is owned by collective society. That is not the case in a free-enterprise system. An individual demanding a service, pays a portion of his own wealth to acquire that service. It doesn’t happen at the expense of someone else, it doesn’t happen solely because of his demands. It happens because that man has the ability to trade value for value for that service.
Progressives, like you seem to be, believe that other men have the ‘right’ to another man’s value. You do not. You only receive value from a man if he chooses, of his own free will, to provide you with that value. Sometimes it is given freely, as in the case of private charity. Most times it is given based on the return value that man stands to receive.
There is no “middle ground” when it comes to freedom, friend.
@ Greg,
“. . . Corporate America won’t make much money by continuing to sit on it.”
. . . What would you do with it, given the current state of political leadership governing the country?
“The current problem is the vicious circle of sitting on money out of concern that consumers won’t buy your products, . . . “
That’s not the cause of the problem. You don’t go back up the food chain of responsibility far enough in your assessment. One point of the article is that in these tough times, both business and taxpayers look to the national leadership. When the President vacillates, blundering through one indecision after another, what is business to think? Only a fool would risk large proportions of cash in such uncertain conditions.
As always, environments are influenced from the top, whether it’s your own household, your company, or the country you’ve convinced a population that you could lead.
There’s a good reason why Boards of Directors don’t hire “ditherers” as CEOs. . . . And, how do you know if someone’s a ditherer? You look at his track record of achievement.
Not enough American voters were awake during the last Presidential election.
Consequently, when they impose demands upon the collective system the course of their own endeavors, they should expect that an element of reciprocity will be involved.
Well Greg, you seem to miss the point that in the process of organizing other people’s money, other people’s labor and other people’s ideas that by their very activity they have caused people to be employed, earning wages and supporting their families. Name me one poor person who has employed a middle class person full time? You can’t because it’s mutually exclusive. So the people who become rich by this activity have enriched society and not impoverished it, lest you actually think Bill Gates or Steve Jobs stole your money for that computer you are using? In fact, the rich by their activities make it possible for government to collect more taxes than otherwise would be possible since they by employing people create more taxable income, a multiplier effect.
Sorry, Greg, I’m not buying class envy, I am grateful to rich people for providing my job and comfy lifestyle and btw that’s why Marxists hate the middle class and call them the bourgeois. Our comfort and good living precludes revolution to put them in power to oppress the masses.
So I say, let the rich drive their Bentlys, Rolls Royces, fly in their Lear jets and have their big houses since it’s the little people, the middle class who builds their cars, planes, houses and other play toys and make a living from their excess.
Here’s another observation about the rich which you so glibbly dismiss as being stingy not contributing their fair share to society as though it was your right to reward versus merit much less decide what they can do with their own property/assets, virtually every modern convenience that exists today FIRST STARTED WITH THE INDULGENCE OF A RICH PERSON. Indoor plumbing, indoor toilets, air conditioning, cars, phones, TV, microwave, refrigerator, VCR, etc, etc, etc. It was not the poor who created the market for any of these things, it was the rich pampering themselves. How many times has a brand new product hit the market with a cost point that is way beyond the average person much less the poor that the rich did not first buy from their so called ill gotten gains to provide the seed money and market to bring down the price? Get some perspective there Greg.
@ Greg,
“. . . let banks fail, homes be lost and added to an already crashing housing market, and let a large segment of US auto manufacturing permanently go under; let a wave of state bankruptcies sweep across the nation; . . . the makings of total national catastrophe; a precipitous decent into social chaos.”
Nope. Banks should be allowed to fail – they mismanaged the business – there should be consequences. That goes for auto makers.
You seem to forget that through the process of bankruptcy, other companies pick up the valid pieces of the bank or auto maker. Those pieces then go on to be better managed and more efficient, more careful enterprises.
What you are advocating in this statement is the process applied in the communist system that the USSR enjoyed so much and that worked out so well. Taxpayers should never have been put on the hook to bail the clowns on Wall Street who mismanaged their companies so badly. Complete idiots were in charge and still are. They acted out of fear, not clear vision. They didn’t even know the depth of the toxic waste they were guaranteeing on behalf of the taxpayers. These entities should have been laid to rest.
I suspect from your comments that you have never managed a company. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have an opinion, but then it skews your thinking on something you’re not intimately familiar with.
Greg, as many progressives do, misses the point entirely. That is, a man’s property is his own, and not the collective societies’. A man makes products that have value, not society. A man provides a service that has value, not society. A man creates art that attains value, not society. A man creates inventions that himself, or another, makes into products that have value, not society.
Society does not collectively ‘own’ anything. It doesn’t create wealth. An individual does. Greg, as all progressives are wont, thinks that society has a right, by simply being part of that society, to ownership of any fellow society member’s wealth. Thus, we have the teeth gnashing over some members of society ‘sitting out’ with their money. They believe that those people should be responsible to the rest of society and place their money at risk, for societies’ sake. And the progressives wonder why we are in this mess.
It’s simple Greg. People just want the ‘intellectuals’ in government to get their hands off people’s wallets. Leave them be, as much as is possible. Let government take only what they need, for only those things the Constitution states they can.
And don’t start talking about the ‘needy’, or the ‘feelings’ of the poor, or the collective desires. Neither you, nor the President, nor any other supposed ‘intellectual’ who flies with the progressive crowd has any right to my property that isn’t stated in the Constitution. None.
@Dan Scott, #16: “So I say, let the rich drive their Bentlys, Rolls Royces, fly in their Lear jets and have their big houses since it’s the little people, the middle class who builds their cars, planes, houses and other play toys and make a living from their excess.”
Sure, let ’em. I don’t begrudge them that. It would be nice to join the club. I don’t, however, buy into the idea that it’s the consumption of the wealthiest classes that create the demand that drives the general economy. Basically, it’s the middle and working classes that not only produce the most economically significant volume of goods and services, but that also provide the market for them. In the top level of the middle class, you’ll also find a majority of the creative minds that design the products and the machinery that makes them.
@johngalt, #18: “Society does not collectively ‘own’ anything. It doesn’t create wealth. An individual does.”
To my way of thinking, society undeniably does have ownership of certain things: the air, the water, the earth’s natural resources, the biodeversity of the planet; if those things are an any sense property, they’re the collective property of everyone, including people who haven’t even been born yet.
And while I’m a big proponent of the power of the individual, I think that no individual creates wealth in a vacuum. I can think of very few things that aren’t actually the product of collaborative efforts involving a great many people. Individuals are generally links in long, complex chains, operating within the greater societal context. The creation of wealth–or value–depends upon both individuals and society.
A free market and the profit motive are very good things. It astonishes me, though, that so many people seem to believe those forces have some built-in mechanism that will automatically optimize the world into its best possible order, if only they’re left completely alone to do their miraculous work. Suggest otherwise, and people seem to think you’re talking Marxism.
When I signed up for college French, I had no idea that I would learn something far more important than a new language. My professor, a French native, was a survivor of WWII. Some of his scars were noticeable because they were on his face. Others we could only imagine.
One day at the end of the class a student joked that he wasn’t worried about tuition increases because his parents were paying for it. The professor interjected: “You do not have the right to spend the lives of others.”
The student protested: “I’m not spending their lives. I’m spending their money.”
The professor replied: “They spent time out of their lives to work for this money. They have the right to spend it because they gave part of their lives to earn it. When YOU spend it, you are spending THEIR lives. You do not have that right.”
I never looked at money the same way again.
@ Tooth,
Really well said.
Your note should be plastered on the walls of all universities and colleges. It should also be plastered permanently on the walls of all teenage bedrooms.
. . . Nip expectations from others in the bud.
“You do not have the right to spend the lives of others.”
Hear, Hear.
@ Tooth,
Your note should be the campaign rallying cry of the next Congressional and Presidential elections.
@Greg
I didn’t expect you to understand, Greg. You speak of the earth, sky and water while I was speaking of something else entirely. You don’t understand, and cannot hope to understand, the property I speak of, because you don’t believe that man(singular) has sole ownership of his own property. You believe that because a man uses another man’s labor to grow his business and create wealth, that all who have participated in the process have ownership rights. You believe that if a man uses a natural resource, that all society owns part of the final product. That is where you are wrong.
It is no wonder that you side with progressives and socialists on this matter.
I will say it again. Wealth is created by the individual, through his labor, or his mind, or both. Wealth is not created by society, only consumed. And it is the individual that has sole ownership of his property, through his labor, mind, or both.
You aren’t considered a socialist or progressive because you believe a completely free-enterprise system exploits people. You are considered a socialist or progressive because you believe that other men have a right to your property, simply by being.
Greg;
The very concept of society OWNERSHIP of earth, wind, sky . . . is such abstract bullshit . . . no society does not own it. . . no one owns it, period. Now you can set there and say that well society must protect it . . .even that is bullshit . . . sure we may have created this organization called the EPA but do they protect it? No they protect nothing, all they do is figure out how to charge somebody for the impact that they has occurred. The actual protection of those “unownables” is the responsibility of each and every individual . . . not some nebulous group of idiots that set in their ivory towers and makes some kind of stupid regulation that is enforced by law. You can make these Startrak like projections of assimilation into the hive all you want, but in the end you tell me why the third world is poluted that the rivers don’t flow and the air don’t blow. You are as full of crap as a Christmas turkey and I don’t buy anything you have said. I am a free man and I will stay that way, thank you very much. I have spent sometime in the third world and if you believe that “we in the US of A” are responsible for the conditions that exist in the third world you are even less informed than all the crap you have thrown out. Go home commie, go back to where ever it is you crawled out of, you are a danger to this country!!!
greg @ 19
” I don’t, however, buy into the idea that it’s the consumption of the wealthiest classes that create the demand that drives the general economy.”
Some more perspective is apparently needed here… If 5% of the population owns/controls 70% of the nation’s wealth are you really correct in saying that 95% of the population is consuming most of the nation’s goods and services? Think about that for a moment and do you dispute the wealth concentration percentage I have asserted?
5% of 300+ million people is 15 million leaving some 285+ million people. These 15 million rich people are mostly not wage earners but owners of stock, companies or bonds. Their ingenuity employs basically ALL or MOST of the wage earners. Do you dispute that assertion?
Who therefore has the MEANS to buy MOST of the total dollar value goods and services? 15 million with 70% of the wealth or 285 million people with 30% of the wealth? 15 million people have the total combined buying power of over 2X the remaining 285 million people and you think they don’t create the demand that drives the economy?
While we are on the subject, by extension who therefore does the primary investing of capital resources that produces all this wealth? The 5% or the 95%? So who is the primary benefactor of society? Politicians and liberals or Capitalists?
@Tallgrass, 24: “The very concept of society OWNERSHIP of earth, wind, sky . . . is such abstract bullshit . . . no society does not own it. . . no one owns it, period.”
There’s nothing the least bit abstract about it. I consider that the concept should be self-evident to anyone who thinks the matter through. We’ve come a lot farther along in acting on that realization than the third world and the rapidly industrializing second world, and we’re all much the better for it. Consider this 2008 photo of downtown Beijing:
http://earthfirst.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/beijing-smog.jpg
Nice, isn’t it? The rivers are getting similar treatment. The People’s Republic of China has no idea of the price their people are going to pay for their too-rapid industrialization, and for not paying attention to the obvious.
The well belongs to everybody. Nobody gets a license to poison the well.
@Dan Scott, #25: “Their ingenuity employs basically ALL or MOST of the wage earners. Do you dispute that assertion?”
Yep. If we’re talking about the upper 5%, I would say that their ingenuity controls to a greater extent than it employs. Their native ingenuity has more to do with the matter of accumulating and managing wealth itself than with the direct creation of goods and services. If they calculate they can generate more wealth by directing their investments into a foreign economy, that’s what they’ll do. If tax changes benefit them, it doesn’t automatically follow that they’ll run out and build American factories.
No doubt the upper 5% almost entirely support a variety of goods and services industries that cater to the most upscale wants and needs. They’re not what keeps the average retail store open or America’s assembly lines busy. The bedrock industries are built on the demand of mainstream America–the very people who are currently hard up for disposable income.
“Their native ingenuity has more to do with the matter of accumulating and managing wealth itself than with the direct creation of goods and services.”
#26 and now we understand why liberals like Obama and his advisors are clueless as to the workings of the economy and their attitudes towards the wealth creators. The accumlation and management of wealth CREATES goods and services. When wealth is accumlated it isn’t stuffed in a mattress, it’s put in places like a bank where that money is promptly loaned out to finance mortgages, car loans, business loans, etc.
You bite the hand that feeds you and then whine when they take their marbles elsewhere (foreign economies) after they have had enough of your empty moralizing as to how “their” resources should be redirected in a manner you think best via confiscatory measures such as taxes and mandates. The bottom line is this, you liberals misappropriate and misuse the funds you confiscate and get huffy when things don’t work out as you planned. We all would be far better off if you would just stop the meddling, let the rich do their thing and continue to create wealth by which all the rest of us benefit no thanks to your bad ideas. 100s of Billions of dollars every year are wasted in non producing dead end useless programs that divert from business investment that could have created millions of jobs. With friends like liberals, the poor need no more enemies.
@ #27: “You bite the hand that feeds you and then whine when they take their marbles elsewhere (foreign economies) after they have had enough of your empty moralizing as to how “their” resources should be redirected in a manner you think best via confiscatory measures such as taxes and mandates.”
They take their marbles and build factories elsewhere, removing American jobs overseas in the process, but still want to sell their products in the American marketplace; and then they whine that their profits from doing so are taxed too much, and that the taxes are used to help lazy, unemployed American workers.
Who’s ultimately responsible for our foreign trade imbalance? For the overseas outsourcing of 200,000 American jobs per year over the past decade? For the flood of undocumented aliens into the US, happy to work for no benefits and substandard wages? Mainstream America? Keep in mind that “mainstream America” includes most small businesses, that rely upon other mainstream Americans to purchases their products and services.
As is frequently suggested, Follow the money. Nine times out of ten, you’ll find most of the responsibility for such situations among the people who have most profited from them.
Commrade Greg;
You spout off about small business, spout off about business in general, you spout off about the collective, you spout off about ownership of wind, water and land, yet nothing you have said makes any sense to the capitalistic conservative. You make all these claims about following the money . . . about how by just following the money you will find the source of the problem . . . which is the only thing that you have said that makes any sense . . . simply because if you follow the money it leads to big government . . . simply put more than 60% of every dollar is now funneled toward the government, one way or another. Government includes inter-local, local, state, regional, and federal. Did you notice the NEW categories that are popping up everywhere . . . interlocal (income taxes based on zip code) and regional (based on artifically created “climate zones”)”. So I agree if you follow the money the source of the problem will be quickly identified . . . to damn much of you so called “Collective”.
You are a fact-twister, sneaky, totally mislead, out of touch with everything that founded this country person and nothing said here is going to change your perspectives . . . in the end . . . you will just crawl away to your collective and figure out how to get a “tax reduction”, lol. Go figure.
@Greg
One can hardly begin to point out the inherent ‘wrongness’ of such a statement, Greg. In order to believe that statement, one has to assume that companies moving jobs overseas are the ‘source’ of the problem, and not an effect due to governmental actions. It used to be, in simpler times, that a company would start and flourish based upon a sound business model of simply providing a product, or service, that consumers desire, at a reasonable cost. Now, the business model has to contend with massive governmental regulations and taxation, that oftentimes increases the cost of the product or service beyond what consumers consider reasonable. The business model has to satisfy, along with the consumer’s demand, the demands that governmental actions places upon it.
Layers upon layers of governmental regulation(which includes the taxation of products and services) achieve the effect of placing the cost of doing business so high, that many times the choices are simply to move, or close up shop. Yet, you would have people believe that companies move their business, or portions of it, and then government steps in with higher taxation and more regulation “to help the unemployed” or “to help the underprivileged”.
Your statement is akin to putting the cart before the horse. How many business models have failed due to misunderstanding the effect government overreach has on it? How many business models have failed, when they were successful during a time, only to have new and more restrictive governmental regulation price their product or service beyond what consumer’s reasonably would pay?
Many people are finding out just how true that statement really is.
@Tallgrass, #29: “…more than 60% of every dollar is now funneled toward the government, one way or another.”
It’s not like the government keeps tax revenue. The government spends it, across all tiers of the economy. Money has value only to the extent that it remains in motion. Government spending is a big part of what does that.
The progressive social programs many conservatives deplore put some of the money into the hands of the people who are most likely to promptly transfer it into the cash registers of local businesses, which in turn spend it to restock their shelves. Public employees, paid to provide essential public services, do the same with their paychecks. The government doesn’t build or manufacture roads and highways, bridges, dams, jet fighters, naval vessels, public schools, water and sewage systems, etc. Private industry does that, and wouldn’t have anywhere so big a market for their goods and services without tax dollars.
What percentage of the national infrastructure society and its economy totally depend upon is actually of private origin? What percentage of the total demand that drives the supply side of the economy is actually private?
“You are a fact-twister, sneaky, totally mislead, out of touch with everything that founded this country person…”
I think maybe I’m just a person who considers certain realities that you would much rather ignore, because they don’t fit well with your own model of how things work. You’ve pigeon-holed me, based not on what I believe, but based on what you believe, and are doing way too much reading between the lines. I presume you realize the most common synonym for the word collective is corporate? My dictionary of the English language doesn’t have a red cover.
@johngalt, #30:
There was an intentional element of hyperobole in that statement, which reflects that of the particular comment I was responding to. That said, I really do believe that the profit motive has too often overridden any consideration of national interest, and of long-term consequences.
Placing all of the blame on government policy–on excessive regulation and too much taxation–is a very convenient rationalization. That’s hardly the entire picture, however. What many businesses have actually availed themselves of are foreign settings that provide exploited labor working at near-slave wages, and an almost total lack of the most basic sort of evironmental regulation. I have problems when they try to characterize that as “taking a principled stand”.
Are American workers really supposed to lower their own expectations sufficiently to compete with people who are willing to work 60 hour a week for 20 cents an hour while living in increasingly toxic environments, and having no expectation of any level of personal social security?
@Greg
By what right does government have, specifically according to the Constitution, to do so? By what right does government have to take property, from one individual, and give it to another?
You assume, in the wording of that paragraph, that the people who have earned the property that government takes from them, will spend it in ways not beneficial to society. Government, then, usurps the decision making of private individuals, and decides what is right and wrong, and hence, chooses the winners and losers, instead of allowing basic laws of economics, including supply and demand, to make the best choices for individuals and businesses. Government claims the responsibility of people in business to make rational, educated decisions based on consumer desires, but then rejects that responsibility to the populace as a whole. Businesses that should fail, based on inadequate business models, are propped up, while others, who may have success without government interference, are pushed aside in favor of ‘cronyism’.
That is evasive in principle, Greg. It assumes that private enterprise cannot do what government can. It assumes that privatization of accepted government services is not possible. It assumes that government is the be-all, end-all for any public service, and that without government, those services would become non-extistent.
You may not think that your dictionary is red in color, but your words paint a different picture. Your words, which we must assume are particular to your own ideology, show a desire for government to be masters of all, where the people are concerned. They give the impression that government can best decide how we should live. That is the code of a socialist.
We desire the individual to reign supreme, not the government. The individual makes the best decisions concerning his own well-being, not government. Government is necessary, but only for the promotion of equitable opportunity in private enterprise, not to decide what constitutes equality in outcome. There is a big difference between the two, and it is apparent to all who read your posts that your desire is for the outcome, not the opportunity. That, as well, is the code of a socialist.
We do not begrudge you your ideology, Greg, we only begrudge you for not being honest about it.
@Greg
No, Greg, they are not. What they should expect is that government provide a suitable environment for business to act accordingly in their pursuits. Government does not do so, however, and makes demands of private enterprise, and they justify it by calling for equality for all. What governments actions do is twist the equality into the outcome of private enterprise, and thus, when burdened with excessive and overreaching regulation and taxation, private enterprise opts to do business elsewhere. If government was more concerned with the opportunity for private enterprise, and kept a ‘hands off’ approach to the outcome, I believe you would find more business willing to keep jobs here.
As I stated before, your assumption is that business is the cause, while the truth is that government action is the cause.
@johngalt, #33: “You assume, in the wording of that paragraph, that the people who have earned the property that government takes from them, will spend it in ways not beneficial to society.”
That statement might relate to one of the points that’s central to our differing outlooks.
What I assume is that people will generally spend in ways that are most beneficial to themselves. That’s human nature.
“As I stated before, your assumption is that business is the cause, while the truth is that government action is the cause.”
I don’t actually put the cause entirely on one thing or the other. I tend to see the individual and society, private and public, business and government, as having symbiotic relationships with one another.
@Greg
Hmmm. Interesting. You state that people will pursue what is most beneficial to themselves, and hence, what will make them happy. Something that is part of the foundation of our country, and indeed, stated as just cause in one of our most important documents.
It’s interesting because what you claim to be the ideal, is that government has the right to pursue our happiness for us.
I’d like you to find a quote by a founding father, or passage from the Constitution that, in any way, states that private individuals and government are in a symbiotic relationship. From everything I’ve read, the founding fathers warned against the encroachment of government on what was considered private, individual pursuits.
Commrade Greg-er-off-shivnessiki;
Man, there is nothing that I can do for you. One of these days when you are setting in the middle of your pine forest (owned by the collective), eating your peanut butter (provided by the collective), smoking your legal medical dubbies (provided by the collective), taking your HIV meds (provided by the collective), ridding your bicycle (provided by the collective) and the time comes when there is no hope medically (and you death is predicated by the collective), your burial is predicated by the collective, then you will understand what it means to be free . . . but until the time that the decision is made for YOU to be kind to the collective that is time for you to, ah . . . perish . . . you are totally hopelessly out of touch with what it means to be FREE. I am glad it is YOU and not me. Because I have been around and seen what happens to the collective . . . we called such communes in the 1960’s and guess where most of those people are? Living off of people like you. It saddness me beyond your comprehension to see such poor judgement come from anyone . . . and even more sure am I that you are a FOREIGNER and do not live in the US . . . so take whatever you have and suck it up man, live with what you got and stay away from the US of A.
Commrade Greg-er-off-shivnesski;
Clearly you don’t know crap about business law, a corporation is a collective . . . man you are out of touch. I would agree to the collection of assets of a corporation being treated as a “single entity” and that my friend is pricipally due to legal action thus being limited in scope to the corporation. Be that as a corporation, that the individuals that are part owners of a corporation, are protected legally, since the corporation is a legal “singularity” of operation. Do you believe in this concept of multiple individuals treated as a single entity?
@ Tallgrass & Johngalt,
There seems little to gain in discussions with drive-by post-attackers like “Greg.”
He’s stuck somewhere deep in a lack of ability to grasp the complex elements that make up society, particularly a successful one.
He, like his leader, blames corporations for all manner of discomfort too difficult to fathom. None has managed any business, but could have learned much from running a lemonade stand. Their arguments are devoid of common sense and critical thinking.
He and his friends blame corporations for loss of jobs because factories have been moved to countries like China, outsourcing to cheap labor. He thinks it clever to suggest “Follow the money” but he doesn’t know how to do it. So, in effort to peer into the acuity of his analytical capacities, he and his friends should be asked the following:
– YOU purchased a computer, . . . where was it made?
– YOU purchased a desk to place it on, . . . where was it made?
– YOU purchased a chair to sit on, . . . where was it made?
– YOU purchased a car, . . . where was it made?
– YOU purchased numerous and sundry clothes, . . . where were they made?
– YOU purchased a TV, . . . where was it made?
– YOU purchased a cell phone, . . . where was it made?
– YOU purchased an mp3 player, . . . where was it made?
– YOU purchased a stove, a stove, a fridge, micro-wave oven, a dishwasher, a washer/dryer, . . . where were they made?
– YOU eat salmon produced in harvesting farms in China. . . . What? You didn’t know?
YOU purchased all these things made primarily in China. You spent borrowed money for goods made in China. Evidently, much of what you have earned has gone to China. Good for you. That computer you write with didn’t cost you $10,000, but cost you less than $2,000 because it was made in China.
YOU have enjoyed a higher standard of living because the Chinese government suppresses and abuses its people and allows its environment to be raped. A limited number of cleptocrats in Beijing thank you.
YOU enjoyed a higher standard of living knowing full well where everything came from, and yet in full Hypocrisy, you and your friends couldn’t abstain, . . . and you keep mouthing off about corporate America.
This sort of attitude, supported by the Administration, is simply pathetic.