Originally posted by: Jhhnn
As many have alluded to, the whole idea of a stimulus package is largely psychological, anyway. Hopefully, it gives people the confidence to spend and invest, even if they don't actually receive any of it themselves.
And you all need to 'get real' - 'confidence' has nothing to do with our woes- it's that people, in general, have no money to 'spend and invest' .. maybe you heard of collapse in employment, stagnation of wages for 30 years now, personal debt leveraged negative under new found old sound banking practices?!?!
What many people do not understand it's people at the bottom 80% that drive the whole economy, the top 20%, have money because, among other things, by their nature they don't spend, are frugal. They don't invest in new businesses, expand businesses, or do research and development or anything else if there's no demand. Demand drives the economy, not supply. Why would you invest in greater production capacity if no one is out there with money to spend? Good luck getting them to change their fiscal habits. The bottom labor pool OTOH makes things gets paid and spends like drunken sailors and the top reaps those benefits. However, they are totally broke and will remain so until policies are demanded which redistributes some profit back to the bottom. Everything from unions to shrinking the labor pool (H1B and illegals do not help) to higher marginal rates do this.
The MAIN problem with the economy of capitalism, our economy, is an endemic problem where wealth is concentrated in the hands of a select few. When dealing with a landless and destitute workforce, owners tend to get it all by their control of capital. The Term "original distribution" is a fantasy which will never happen - ie. where worker and owner get equal parts of profit of thier labors. Owners like to pay subsistence wages and eventually you have a work force fighting for starving wages because there's more workers than capital availiable. Eventually you get a depressed economy because investors don't invest in new businesses, expanding businesses, new equipment, research and development or anything else if there's no demand. There is no demand if there is no people out there with decent disposable income.
The way to fix this is to establish mechanisms to move wealth from the top back to the bottom. One simple way to do that is labor unions. The other simple solution is progressive taxation and low or no taxation at the bottom. Our modestly unionized, progressively taxed economy from the end of the war into the mid-1970's was just amazingly prosperous almost to the bottom of society. Also, every "rich" country has capitalism with strong redistributionist undertones. There was a lot of prosperity under Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and Clinton because their policies put money in the pockets of the people on the bottom, creating demand and stimulating investment.
Republicans, in general, are thinking two move chess ahead against a four move opponent. They strive for policy that that furthers the divide and short term profit taking hence their crappy economies. Every republican president but Reagan left office with higher unemployment than they came in with. . They seek to eliminate taxes on where the wealthy get their money, primarily capital gains and dividends. They hate unions and the minimum wage like the devil hates holy water. If the economic history of the United States proves one thing it is that wealth get concentrated in few hands during Republican admins and the economy goes in the toilet top to bottom because they are also eventually hurt by by slow sales their paltry wages are yielding. They actually know this, but there is a thing called competition among them which makes paying high impossible for the most part...If I pay a guy $20 a hour to work in my liquor store I will lose money to my competition and over the whole deal and maybe go broke myself but if forced I woudnt. Also CEO's and business owners have a duty to maximize profit and minimize liabilities (wages). Makes for an interesting struggle and I hope Obama gets on board with redistribution rather than borrow/soon print and spend which is really a tax on the poor because of inflationary results.
Bad plan, period. You'll see.