Texanadian

Something that hasn't been said in the midst of all this talk of ruining jobs for Gulf residents is that the oil rigs have provided jobs and a way of life for those very same people. Who works on these rigs? People who live in the Gulf states. Who benefits from locally explored oil? People who drive and use oil based products. Fishermen need boat fuel etc.

I don't doubt there will be some hoop jumping to get through to actually make a claim on the money. Because anytime you put up a pot of money to give away, you'll find that the list of people wanting it will grow.

I can see Barton's side of it. But really, this was BP either agreeing to it or simply giving away the money for publicity. Sure it's in their self interest to do it. Why else would they give the money away?

I dunno. I see Lamborghinis and Ferraris all the time. I doubt they're being driven by people earning 30K. Same deal with new BMW's and Mercedes Benzs. They're more common than a Chevy Cobalt. Again. not cheap cars.

On the other hand, I see cars with those wire wheels with the knock off spinner in the center. The wheels stick waaaaaaaay out from the tire. They're about $4,000 for a set. I recently found out that many people will rent the wheels for $250/month. These are the people who live in the projects but drive a bling bling car.

I don't see what the point of labeling CO2 on a car's sticker will do. A car with perfect combustion will emit only CO2 and water out the tailpipe. CO2 is the desired result of clean engines.

I just love the friendly banter that goes on about tax rises/cuts. The Dems say that they're not raising taxes on the rich. They're just letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Nope, no tax increase here.

One of the first taxes that went up was the cigarette tax. Who primary does this affect? Lower income people. Demographically, more poor people smoke than rich people smoke. Ahhhh, but the grandstanding was for a good cause. Children's health care. What a bunch of B.S. If you want to raise taxes to pay for children's health care, you should tax parents. Lower the child tax credit and use that money for children's health care.

I was pointing out the Laffer curve as a joke.

The trouble with progressive taxes is that 90% of the population will always vote to tax the other 10% at a higher rate. Same as people who don't currently pay income tax now. They'll always vote for higher taxes. I'm not saying that progressive isn't the way to go. But no style is purely perfect (other than none)

If only there were some sort of curve that could demonstrate how income taxes relate to the amount of money that the government brings in.

An electric train running off hydro electric power from the Columbia river dams ?

I have significant electricity consumption at home and my bill was $30 this month

Light rail trains typically weigh about 100,000 lbs. If they're occupied, they're a good deal. If they're not (as they often aren't), it's a horrendous waste of energy. You're lucky in that your electricity comes from hydro. Most other areas use natural gas or coal instead.

i've said it for years, suburban design is the worst, the absolute worst in the US. Grouping business of all types is stupid, but we do it and it is all automobile focused. If you need to do errands, you need to head out into different directions to get them done. Absolutely no stores, no offices, no anything are allowed in the neighborhood. I think the only "building" allowed in a neighborhood in the burbs is the elementary school.

we put accountants in one building, doctors in another, lawyers in another, architects in another.... in the city, things are everywhere so no matter where you live, walking/biking is an option and if it isn't you don't need to be on the bus for 40 minutes before you even see a store.

Houston is the largest city in the US that doesn't have zoning laws. Every once in awhile it will come up for vote, but people always vote it down. It helps keep real estate prices low. But it also prevents exactly what you speak of above. I like it. Seems to work quite nicely. A little bit of something everywhere.

Taxing cars by their engine capacity like they do in the UK would be a start and then people could live where they wanted if they were getting 55 mpg (American)

I don't think you need to tax engine size to get people to understand the message. The costs will self regulate themselves. If I live 50 miles from where I work, I'm not going to drive a pickup truck. I'll buy a small car. Or I'll move somewhere closer.

I've noticed here that the older neighbourhoods near downtown that have old 1960's and older style housing (read: every house looks different, no cookie cutter homes.) Nice lawns in front and back......They're being bought and torn down. Replaced by Fourplexes that take up all the room on the lot. There is no yard. The fourplexes tower above the old 1 story homes.

My wife hates it because it ruins the character of the old neighbourhoods. I'm mixed. I'll agree they're ugly as sin. But it is high density living. One of the problems of these homes is that they take up so much of the surrounding green space that it taxes the roads for flood water removal. (We get some serious heavy rain here).

Ironically the generation gap is backwards when it comes to housing. The older generation whose kids have long moved out are the generation that has the money. Don't want to drive as much when they get older. They're the ones who would benefit from living downtown. They don't need nor want the big houses either. But the young person or person who just started a family wants to have a cheaper cost home. One with a yard. One that's safe to let your kid learn to ride a bicycle on the street. One with an extra bedroom or two.

Creative ways to fund public transportation? *sigh* They act like it's some magical problem that could never be solved by user-pay. Instead there will be a higher gas tax and higher property tax so that people can freeload off the public transportation system. Public transportion isn't even that green or efficient.

In the UK - you can get gas mileage up to about 75 miles a gallon. Of course the gallons are ridiculously expensive - but when you've gotten used to a "good" car getting about 35mpg, it's quite a surprise.

It's not just the differences between UK and US gallons (4.54 litres for the UK vs 3.78 litres for a US gallon). It's the way that fuel economy tests are run. The 2008 EPA fuel test guidelines have changed to make cars more realistic in their actual mpg rating. For example, the old fuel economy test for the highway was to drive 60 mph max speed, with a 0-60 time of 18 seconds. No air conditioning being used. Wouldn't you know it? People weren't getting their EPA rated highway mileage. As a result of this change, a Prius went from 60 mpg to 45 mpg. Same car. Just a different and more realistic way of estimating fuel usage. I feely admit to having no idea how UK fuel economy tests are done.

The ethanol problem brings up another "creative" way of measuring fuel economy. Ever wonder why there are so many Flexfuel vehicles on the road even though hardly anybody buys E-85?

The answer is the mandatory Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Federal law requires that the cars an automaker offers for sale average 27.5 mpg; light trucks must achieve 22.2 mpg. Failure to do so can result in substantial fines. However, relief is available to manufacturers that build E85 vehicles to encourage their production.

The irony here is that although E85 in fact gets poorer fuel economy than gasoline, for CAFE purposes, the government counts only the 15-percent gasoline content of E85. Not counting the ethanol, which is the other 85 percent, produces a seven-fold increase in E85 mpg. The official CAFE number for an E85 vehicle results from averaging the gas and the inflated E85 fuel-economy stats.

Calculating backward from our test Tahoe's window-sticker figures (which are lower than but derived from the unpublished CAFE numbers), we figure the E85 Tahoe's CAFE rating jumped from 20.1 mpg to 33.3 mpg, blowing through the 22.2-mpg mandate and raising GM's average. What's that worth? Well, spread over the roughly 4.5-million vehicles GM sold in 2005, the maximum 0.9-mpg benefit allowed by the E85 loophole could have saved GM more than $200 million in fines. That's not chump change, even for the auto giant.

Ethanol is such a waste. We have government subsidizing farmers to grow a fuel that gets worse gas mileage than gasoline. The argument that it's better for greenhouse gases is blown away since simply planting trees on the land used to grow ethanol would do more for greenhouse gas reduction (not to mention be simpler to do).

Germany taxes you based on the size of your engine. I think this is wrong. Consider a Corvette with it's 6.2L engine gets better gas mileage than a Porsche 911 with it's 3.6L engine. A Corvette Z06 with it's 7.0L engine gets better gas mileage than a Porsche 911 Turbo. Yet in both instances, a Corvette owner would pay more in car taxes in Germany than the Porsche owner would.

Government safety rules have made cars much too heavy these days. A 1973 Honda Civic weighed 1500 lbs and got 40 mpg. A new Honda Civic weighs 2700 lbs and gets about 35 mpg. The engine technology is obviously better than it was 37 years ago. But when you're battling near twice the weight, the fuel usage is going to suffer.

The developed world is also now heavily into diesel cars that achieve fuel efficiencies greater than hybrids, yet for some reason not in the US.

That's because Diesel fuel is too polluting to be used in the USA. Gas engines run best with an air/fuel ratio around 14.5/1.....Diesels run ultra lean with air/fuel ratios running around 20/1. But the ultra lean while it lowers one area of pollution increases the other. California and 4 other states for example banned new Volkswagon Jetta Diesels from being sold for a number of years in the earlier part of the decade because they wouldn't pass California emissions standards. The gas powered Jettas had no problems.

I'll admit that newer diesel technology is better. But Americans by and large never liked the rattling bucket of bolts sound that diesels offered in the past. The stench of old diesels was never liked either. (I can't stand the smell of diesel) And diesels are a royal pain to deal with in the wintertime when it's below freezing.

Milton Friedman, the godfather of Libertarianism, was the one who first proposed the idea of Cap and Trade as an alternative to Federal regulations imposing restrictions on industry emissions.

The keyword is alternative. What Obama wants is both. It doesn't really matter how you make your product clean as long as it IS clean. That's what annoys me with vehicle emissions tests here in Texas. They don't just put a probe in your tailpipe and measure the pollutants. They do a visual examination under the hood and will fail you on the visual for missing emission parts even if your exhaust pipe emissions pass. Oddly enough, they only do the tailpipe probe on pre 1996 vehicles. Newer vehicles are tested with the under dash plug and checked for engine codes. This makes it extremely simple to tune out the problem and cheat the test. Hence why people can come in with heads and cam cars with no cats that are running so rich your eyes burn. But the under dash OBDII sensor reads everything as "pass" because the oxygen sensors have been replaced with "simulators."

Speaking of learning from the Gulf Oil Spill, by the logic of this, we should get off of our demand for seafood as well. Since the oil spill has shown how dependent fishing jobs are to our economy and eating habits.

You are joking. The biggest opponents of them in AUS are unions. More often than not, they are behind raids on construction sites that use them. Not that this is anywhere near the US's problem of course but still.

How ###### stupid can American unions be to not realize illegal aliens suppress their wages and displace their workers. Who is going to use a NYC union wanker and not use an illegal alien? NYC unions, their demands and their extortion are downright ridiculous as it is.

You understand the answer. It's 99% your answer anyways.

Of course unions are going to support legalization of illegals, for the very reason that illegals undermine the wage rates of unionized workers. Once legalized, they are subject to minimum wage laws (which unions always want raised) as well they can then be advertised to to become new union members. The final answer being that unions would no longer have to compete against illegals.

This race to the bottom, race to find the cheapest is why such a large part of America is now a ghost town. Americans were 100 fold wealthier than European and Asian counterparts in the 50's and 60's yet things were still manufactured here. Ironically also the time when the largest number of middle class had the highest [world leading] quality of life.

America does everything and anything it can it protect its own interests abroad but seems to allow the private sector to do as it pleases here. Heck, the oil spill and its epic failure is a the best indication of what happens when a country relies on the private sector alone.

Ghost towns are a visible effect of a plant closing down. The invisible effect elsewhere is not seen though. If IBM closes a computer plant in Deleware, it's visible. But what you don't see is a wind farm in Texas that uses 10,000 computers that saved a ton of money by buying Taiwan made Compaqs instead. Or somebody who opened up their own home run business using a computer for $300 that would have cost $1500 in the past.

Were Americans really wealthier in the 1950's and 60's? How many families owned 2 cars? Or lived in a 2000 sq ft house? How many even had more than 1 telephone? And that phone was more often than not a party line, shared by the neighborhood. More families sewed their own clothes. Because it was hard to buy clothes for your 4 kids on 1 income. You probably owned 1 TV. But it more than likely wasn't a color TV. Those were too expensive for a family to buy.

As for the oil failure, what could the government do to make it better? Completely take BP (and any other oil companies' expertise out of the equation?) It was government laws that made offshore drilling illegal in shallow water. Forcing them to go farther and deeper in order to get the oil. Government itself only has maybe 5% of the knowledge of anything compared to the whole of society (private markets and people). So why not allow the private markets to figure out the way to run things? I'll take a Chevy over a Yugo any day. I'll take a private retirement fund over Social Security any day. The fact that there have been over 85,000 different ideas coming in from the public about the oil spill only goes to show that private citizens know more about fixing the oil problem than government alone does.

You got that right. Trying to find where something is made is almost an impossible task nowadays.

Anything made in America should have a logo saying so on the front. I believe in global trade but I am against outsourcing your entire country to a foreign land, particularly not a country with a government that only looks out for itself. China will soon own the world and we are simply sitting here [like fools] buying the but you get stuff cheaper Kool-aid.

I'd rather have money from a sound economy and be able to purchase something that is better made and costs more; than be poor and be forced to buy cheap ####### from China [aka walmart].

Labels can be easily replicated for fraudulent means. You mean this Sony TV wasn't made in New York?

Wal-Mart is a whole different topic. But suffice to say, it's a benefit to poor people both in that it offers cheap products as well as an abundance of cheap jobs. Jobs to people who can't get jobs in other higher cost places. Let's take a tie for example. Can probably buy one at Wal-Mart for 99 cents. I walked into Saks Fifth Ave here one time (had to use the bathroom) and they were selling ties for $200 each. I don't care if they were hand made by a US company, $200 is too much money for a tie. And somebody who didn't graduate from high school, can't speak English, or has a mental retardation just about certainly won't be able to get a job at Saks. This doesn't mean I shop at Wal-Mart either though. I don't like the long lines, the lack of decent air conditioning in there (stuffy and hot), the noise of people letting their 9 kids run around yelling etc. But from time to time when I'm between paychecks, it is handy to be able to buy stuff cheaply from there. Or if I just had a huge car repair bill, it's nice to save money at Wal-Mart while I make the money back.

Better be careful, China will invade Australia before the US.

http://en.wikipedia....account_balance

Australia's trade deficit is worse than just about all countries in the world.

The thing about trade deficits is that we only look at the first step of it. That being the money goes to another country. End of story. Nothing more to talk about.....But what happens to the money when it gets there? Do the Chinese simply burn the money? Throw it in the garbage can? Of course not. If that were true, then the prices of American goods would come down as the supply of money would get smaller. Or we could simply increase the printing of money and keep things relatively the same. Either way, it wouldn't benefit the Chinese since they would have no use for American currency.

So what happens to a US dollar when it arrives in China? We can look at two different scenarios.

Scenario 1) Assuming the only countries in the world that trade are China and the USA. Who in China would want to buy an American dollar? If the exchange rate is 6 yuan to 1 dollar, there will be very few people in China that would want to spend 6 yuan in exchange for 1 US dollar. Because there is nothing to buy in China for $1 that couldn't be bought with 6 yuan. Buying US goods would be too expensive for Chinese people. They'd rather buy cheap Chinese goods. And that requires yuans. So in order to sell US dollars in China, you'd have to agree to sell them for less than 6 yuan in order to get a buyer. Thus we have the worldwide phenomenon known as exchange rates. With exchange rates, the country to country selling eventually levels out to a point where both currencies are attractive to buy and sell.

But China for the most part has pegged it's currency against the US dollar. Not allowing it to be variable. This does hurt the USA. It keeps things cheaper to buy from China instead of the US. But it also hurts the Chinese. Because they can't really sell those US dollars in order to convert them into yuan at a reasonable rate. Thus the stockpile of US currency builds up in China. As inflation happens over time, the value of that money drops.

Scenario 2) Trading happens among mostly all countries in the world. In this case, we again see US dollars heading to China. The US officially has a trade deficit with China. But China could sell those US dollars to other countries were China does have a variable exchange rate. That money could then be spent in the US. Or it could be spent in yet another country......This has the basic picture of Country A money goes to Country B which goes to Country C which goes to Country D which goes to Country A. But all we see is a trade deficit between Country A (USA) and Country B (China)..... That Country A has a trade surplus with Country D is not noted.

China runs into a similar problem with holding US treasuries. When they have way more than anybody else, they're stuck with them. They can't sell them without taking a huge loss. Because the demand to buy them won't match the demand to sell them. It's like owning 80% of the stock for Wal-Mart. You can't sell the whole thing without taking a huge loss. Because there just aren't enough people willing to buy them. You'd have to lower the price. Hedge funds run into this sort of problem all the time. They can't sell off huge swaths of stock without effecting the stock price. (price goes down) Same thing with buying large amounts. The price goes up as they buy.

As for promoting a Buy American campaign.....there is really only 2 ways this can go. You can promote things to make it cheaper for US companies to sell products. Or you can promote things that make it more expensive to buy foreign products. I see very little public demand to lower corporate taxes, lower corporate property taxes etc. But there is always some public demand to stick it to foreign producers in the name of saving US jobs.

Let's take US steel for example. There has been a push for decades to subsidize it by putting a tariff on foreign steel entering the country. This makes it so there is no benefit for GM/Ford/Chrysler to use foreign steel in their car as the price would be the same or cheaper to use US steel instead. What does this do? This makes it cheaper to buy a Japanese car. In effect subsidizing Japanese auto makers. Because all you did there was make it more expensive to buy a US made car while the price of a Japanese car stayed the same.

But what about the consumer? How does the consumer benefit from taxes put on at the border on incoming products? It's not the same as getting a discount on locally made products for the difference. You don't get the 30% tax in your pocket. No, the money goes to government instead. Which may or may not be used in a beneficial way. It sure isn't being used to benefit you directly. You had to pay the full cost of it yourself. The countries with the least amount of free trade are the countries with the worst economies. There are less places for people to sell their product to and there are less places for people to buy their products from.

I noticed the above paragraph in real life when I lived in Canada. If I bought something from the USA, once the product arrived in Canada, I'd have to pay provincial sales tax and federal sales tax on the good after the exchange rate had been factored in. So for $300 USD worth of goods, I'd have to pay $390 CDN (using a 30% exchange rate) and then 14% sales tax on top of that. (Another $55). Giving me a net price of $445. Meanwhile if a US person bought a product in Canada, it would arrive with no sales tax in their home state. I asked the government why I was having to pay British Columbia sales tax and Canada sales tax on goods purchased abroad as there was no physical sale going on in either BC or Canada. They replied that it was to level the playing field among Canadian companies. But those Canadian companies didn't receive the $55 and neither did I. It also eroded the competition among provinces and states. Again, all anti-consumer.

There is a certain truth to Booyah talking about buying better made goods from the US compared to cheaper products from China. Power tools for example. A US made drill tends to last longer than a Chinese made one. I was talking to the carpet guy who was putting new underlay and carpet in our dining room the other day. (We have concrete under the carpet). He noted that Chinese screws/nails would break when trying to put them into concrete but that US screws/nails wouldn't. On the other hand, what is the difference between a pair of Chinese socks vs American socks. Little to nothing.

Greedy rich people......hey wait a minute.

You are politically off kilter if you think Obama is left wing. What exactly has he done that persuades you that he is left wing? Health care reform? As I said, even in the weird context of American politics Obama is a long way short of left wing.

He said his preferred health care system was single payer system.

Nationalization of banks, automobile makers.

Wants to raise taxes on the wealthy. (income tax brackets)

Did raise taxes on the poor. (cigarette taxes)

Thinks we need small cuts in the budget rather than large ones.

To further this point, Nixon also advocated a welfare reform package that, among other things, would have provided a guaranteed minimum income to all people living in this country. Liberal opposition (because the reform was not generous enough) killed the proposal late in Nixon's first term.

Now, has anyone heard Obama proposing that the poor have a government-guaranteed minimum income? (That's a rhetorical question, by the way.)

The negative income tax is what you are referring to. That was designed to replace (eliminate) welfare, food stamps, section 8 housing, medicaid etc and replace all them all with a minimum income so that people could buy their own regular health care plan, food, rent etc......Unfortunately it got watered down by the time it went through congress.

The modern day implementation of it is the earned income tax credit. The problem of course is that people get that and it has no bearing towards income standards relating to qualifying for welfare, food stamps, etc.

But getting back to Reagan. I'll admit, he wasn't perfect. Some things worked out great. Some things didn't. But to get elected into office, you ultimately have to pull the left and right voters in simultaneously. This is how Reagan could count on blue collar union voters during the '84 election. But go back to '80. People were flat out tired of the status quo of the 70's. People wanted a breathe of fresh air. Somebody who thought big. He was the guy.

Somebody who is considered a far right candidate today would have been too far right to have gathered the left vote back then. Even looking at the last election, the most left candidate would have been Kucinich. The most right candidate would have been Romney. Neither of them did too well. So who did we get? Mr in the middle McCain and Mr in the middle Obama.

let me reprhase.

Greed is a desire for more than what is actually needed.

Therefore just because you 'earned' it, doesn't mean you need it. In a technical sense if you are 'earning' more than you actually need to survive than it's greed by default. Your services should theorhetically be sold for less to meet your needs to keep it from falling into the greed catagory.

By that theory, anybody making more than minimum wage is being greedy. Anybody who owns 2 cars instead of 1 is greedy. House? How dare you? An apartment will suffice just fine. What kind of society do you get when you aim low? A society of poor people who don't advance. Lack of new inventions. Lack of better inventions. No need for a cell phone when a landline does the job. No need for a Porsche when a VW Bug does the job. Greed could be defined as building a swimming pool when there is a lake/river/ocean within an hour's drive.

Let's take a common product we all use. Insulation. Somebody had to be greedy and try to sell more product by designing higher R-value products out of different materials. Why? We already had R-5 and R-10. But somebody decided we needed R-40 and R-60.

Bill Gates could have retired a multi-billionaire 20 years ago like Paul Allen did. But he chose to continue on, becoming the world's richest person for many years. He most certainly was earning more than he could spend year after year. But what is wrong with that? The world is a better place because of Gates. Obviously for the advancement of technology. And now for his charitable works. There is no way he could have funded his charity work without being "greedy" in order to get that much money in the first place.

The greed of the rich in material possessions is what helps make them affordable for the poor. Things like air conditioners, heat pumps, personal computers, TV sets, washing machines. These were products that only the rich could afford initially. But as they bought them up, the products became affordable to the less wealthy.

One must remember what the economic climate was like at the time Keynesian economics became popular (mid 1930's). From 1929 to 1933, the amount of money in the economy had shrunk by 1/3rd. The Federal Reserve had been tightening during those years. And it held it's tight outlook through the 1930's until World War II happened. Looking at the banking system, again we had 1/3rd of the banks failing from 1929 to 1933. FDIC didn't exist yet. Do you think people were nervous about saving money in a bank?

Unfortunately due to the way banks loan out the same money several times, it's easy for good banks to have bank runs just like the bad banks got. If you deposit $1 into a bank (bank #1), the bank will keep about 10 cents of it and then loan out the other 90 cents to a different bank. Now the two banks will each have $1 of deposit on their records (actually $1.90) even though only $1 existed in the first place. Now if bank #1 has a run on it's funds, it's going to need to call in it's loans from bank #2. Bank #2 may have been financially strong with no problems. But now Bank #2 has to pay back bank #1 that $1 it borrowed. But.....you guessed it. Bank #2 has already loaned out that $1 to one of it's customers and now has to dip into money from somewhere else to pay back bank #1.

Now there are 3 varying ideas about the whys and results of the Great Depression. The Keynes approach was for government to spend it's way out of it and into a recovery. The Austrian school says that it was the over stimulated economy (easy credit) during the roaring 1920's that created the bubble and then burst of the great depression. Same theory about the early 2000's vs the economic fall out of 2007-2008. The Chicago school says that it was the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve bungling things in the start of the great depression that increased it from a moderately bad recession into a full blown crisis.

Unemployment stayed above 10% all the way through the 1930's until the start of WW2. When you take 12 million people out of the labor market and put them into the war, it's going to reduce unemployment.

Now as for Reagan and Clinton, again it comes down to the economic times they were in. Or to put it more bluntly, "being in the right place at the right time."

Let's not forget that Reagan lost in 1976 to Gerald Ford on the GOP ticket. I know of very few people who don't agree that a 50% top bracket is a better idea than the 70% bracket that existed when Reagan came into office. Reagan did raise taxes though. The Social Security act in 1983-84 eliminated the tax free payments for people receiving Social Security. And the rates went up for people paying into the system. But getting back to being in the right (or wrong) place at the right time. Reagan had the giant military budget of the 1980's trying to outdo the Soviets in the cold war. Clinton on the other hand came into office after the cold war ended. Military spending was much MUCH lower than it is now or during Bush II's term. This was the right thing for Clinton to spend less on the military budget. Clinton's pushing the top bracket up to 39% was still lower than the controversial move (at the time) of Reagan lowering the brackets from 70% to 50%.

Keynesian economics got sand kicked in it's face during the 1970's when we had stagflation. High inflation with high unemployment rates. The Keynesian idea simply wasn't working. Because high inflation is a sign of governments overspending. It was Paul Volker who was primarily responsible for the economic boom during the 1980's. He raised interest rates through the roof in order to get rid of the terrible burden of inflation. This caused the 1982 recession. No way around that. It had to happen. But since it happened right after the Reagan tax cuts, it was natural for the Democrats and Krugmans of the world to blame Reagan and his tax cuts for the '82 recession. Reagan does deserve credit for not trying to step in and "correct" the economy during that time. It's hard to stand aside and wait it out when the economy is in the tank......Once the inflation rates came down, we experienced the mid 80's economic boom. And why not? The 1970's tax rates were gone and the inflation burden had been reduced to a manageable level. Housing market came back after the 18% mortgage rates returned to the sub 10% levels.

Like I say, it was a matter of Reagan being in the right place at the right time. Volker was elected into office by Carter. And Carter was the one who started the deregulation of industry. It takes a number of years for Federal Reserve policy to eradicate inflation. It can't be done in one year. Volker started a steady rate of monetary policy around 1979 and it took until 1983 for it to really iron itself out.

Essentially what Krugman is arguing is that it would be better if states could run large deficits like the federal government does. I disagree. Now the argument about federal spending to stimulate the economy is wishful thinking. If that were the case, then Greece would have a great economy. After all, their government has been spending more than their GDP. It's fighting against yourself. Like bailing a hole in a boat out with a bucket.

Let's look at the economy on a large scope. The federal government runs a deficit (in theory) to stimulate the economy. Where did the money come from? Well under deficit situations, there are two ways it can be done.

1) Sell treasuries (bonds) that agree to pay more money in the future (interest) in order to get the money now.

2) If not enough treasuries are sold, then the federal reserve can print up the money.

Greece can't do # 2 because they're tied to the Euro. The US can. But that just devalues money, which is a burden on everybody.

The great example over the last few years/decade has been California vs Texas. One state has had high government spending, high taxation, and is not very business friendly. The other state has been the opposite in all regards. The Texas economy kicks California's butt any way you look at it.

Krugman brings up an interesting point in taxation via generality vs specific incomes. It's not so much that corporations want less for themselves and more for everybody else. It's that everybody wants lower taxes for themselves and higher for everybody else. There are very few people who think taxes should go up for their own bracket. But almost everybody thinks that other people should pay higher taxes. This is why governments get into debt in the first place. It's always the notion that somebody else should pay for something (by governments spending on it)

The temptation to have somebody else pay for it by government is spread out the larger the government is. Not many people think their own city should pay to build a new arena. More people think their state should pay to build a new arena. Almost everybody doesn't see a problem with their federal representative getting money from the federal government to build a new arena. But the result is the same regardless of which government level pays for it. Actually it's worse, the higher up you go because the benefit of the arena is overwhelmingly for the local population. Less so at the state level population. And non-existent at the federal level. As such, we again run into cities have tight budgets. States having moderate budgets. Federal having a terrible budget.

Making up the money in federal taxes later when the economy recovers? That's assuming that the increase in taxes is greater than the future budget. And how often does that happen? Economies don't grow because government spends too much money. They grow when private companies are successful and consumers have employment in private jobs. One need only look at communist countries where there is no unemployment. But the economy is terrible.

If Krugman thinks the economy will flourish by "putting more money in your pocket." Then the most efficient way of doing this will be to not take the money out of your pocket in the first place. Less and/or lower taxes. But the idea of governments borrowing/inflating or taxing people and then giving that money back out in the form of stimulus spending is inefficient at best.

Most Americans can't make it on minimum wage, so many of them have had their income supplemented with government welfare through programs like Section 8 and WIC.

Unfortunately programs like Section 8 give the incentive to not improve one's employment situation. Why earn more money and pay your own rent (and live anywhere you want), when you can get free rent? So now you're essentially forcing yourself to live where the government tells you to live.

If we had a need for unskilled workers you can bet that we would offer visas to applicants with no specific skills. But we have no need for this, partly because those positions are filled by illegal immigrants. I often hear that if we "deported all the illegal immigrants, there would be no one to pick the lettuce." (Sounds sort of like a stereotype to me, but this comes from those against enforcing immigration laws because it is unfair to do so.) If we needed people to pick lettuce and we couldn't find them in the US, we would find them outside of the US, have no fear. I think that is where the queue-jumping argument holds water.

I don't know where this fear of nobody to pick fruit comes from. If the wages are high enough, people will do it. Simple as that. In Alberta Canada, the fast food restaurants in the northern part of the province have starting wages of $14/hour. And Alberta was the lowest min wage province in all of Canada for a long time. It has nothing to do with unions. Nothing to do with min wage. It has everything to do with supply and demand. There is a demand for unskilled entry level workers. But the supply is small since every able bodied person can go work in the tar sands for huge money right off the bat. Why flip burgers for $5 when you can start at $30 working in the fields? Why work in a warehouse running a forklift for $10 when you can go make $30 somewhere else? Once the fast food joints raised their wages high enough, people started filling the positions......The same thing would happen with lettuce pickers, strawberry pickers etc. Heck, farming is supposed to be a well paying job. At least it used to be. And I see no reason why it shouldn't be. It's hard work and long days. And there is obviously a demand for food.

As I stated before, we effectively subsidize employers with Government welfare programs for working Americans living in poverty. If you are in favor in raising the minimum wage, that's great as that wouldn't depend on somehow making the millions of undocumented workers go away, but it would help to lift all boats.

Just the opposite! Raising the minimum wage would encourage more under the table jobs and penalize the legal workers. Take a new legal immigrant who can't speak English. Has very little in the way of networking (let's face it, a ton of jobs are found because somebody you know knows somebody with an opening). Or somebody who isn't quite there mentally. These people tend to get low paying jobs. But raising the min wage discriminates against them. It locks them out of the job market.

If you want to pay $5 to have somebody tend to your flower garden, the only way you can do it is to hire an illegal or somebody willing to work for cash. The whole thing is illegal. Now what if they raised min wage to $12/hour? Well now that locks everybody who makes $8 out of the job market. They have to compete for the same job against people who are worth $12 already.

Lower wages are the tool that allows everybody to get a job. Doesn't matter what the income level is. If you're applying for a job and asking for $70,000/year. And you're up against somebody who is asking $80,000 to be hired, you're going to get the job. The same principle applies for min wage jobs. Except that when you institute a min wage, you take away the ability to underscore the other person applying for the job.

It's interesting to see how when the USA was founded, there was free immigration. And nobody was against it. If you could get on the boat and get here, you could stay here. But we didn't have min wage, welfare, section 8, none of the sort. You had to make it on your own. And you had every reason to make it since you were depending on yourself.

Minimum wage laws are one of the keys to current illegal immigration being so popular. If we didn't have min wage laws, then illegals would have to compete against regular Americans for all jobs. But since we lock Americans out of jobs, it opens up the floodgate for illegals to come in and work "the jobs we don't wanna do."

You're right. Most "families" rely on one or two or three minimum wage jobs to support them. The idea that "minimum wage jobs are entry level jobs, ones that people take to gain experience and work out and up from" is absolutely hysterical. It might have been the way America was "suppost" to work...60 years ago. Where do the burger flippers and ditch diggers go from here? It's not just the illegals that are taking the jobs -- it's an American economy that relies on minimum costs to make maximum profit.

By your theory, nobody would ever progress from any job. Somebody has to become supervisor or assistant manager. Somebody has to be the person who teaches the new person the job. Just about every chef or cook has at one point in time flipped burgers. Construction workers, carpenters, plumbers, most of them started at the bottom of the food chain at some point in time.

As far as minimum costs to make maximum profit. That's the way the system is supposed to work and does work. It doesn't matter if you're selling designer clothes, jewelery, cars, or oranges. You want to sell them for the most money possible. And the person buying them wants to buy them for the lowest amount possible. Employees have a certain worth to the employers. Somebody working at a gas station is going to be worth less than an engineer working for Google. It's in Google's best interests to give their employees more money, better work schedules, on site daycare, free food, free transportation. Despite this, Google is still giving out the least necessary to have the best workers. It's also in the gas station's best interest to offer the least amount necessary to attract workers that fit their bill.

My advice to anybody who wants to move to any country in the world is to pick up a trade or go to school. It makes moving to another country immensely easier. Both on the immigration front as well as getting a job when you get there. My old boss immigrated to Canada from Germany. He had a Masters degree in Baking (youngest German to get a Masters in the field) and had 2 years of Food Technology on top of that. He had no problems getting a job when he came to Canada. He started the same way everybody did. Sweeping the floors. Being a helper. Cleanup duties.

Property taxes are a direct attack on freedom and liberty. With property taxes, you never truly own your own land/home. It's disgusting when you get down to the root of it all. If you don't pay the taxes for the land that you own, the property that you own, etc. the government can seize it..... That's a bit messed up if you asked me.

I argue that property taxes are the least intrusive and fairest of taxes.

It doesn't change if you are single/married/no kids/many kids. There is no auditing of your personal records (income tax) or paperwork for businesses to file (sales tax). It's easy to calculate. Property taxes are for protecting your land. Police, firetrucks, snow removal, street sweepers, clearing downed trees on your street. It has the least economic impact. And the least evasion of the three taxes.

i don't like unreasonably sized houses. the world's natural resources are limited and these people obviously could care less about consuming natural resources - life is all about them. the waste is a disgrace. i would tax properties not only on their value, but on their size as well. families have shrunk in america yet houses have grown larger - ridiculous! it is showmanship at its worst. most of the people that build these large homes are so busy at the office, they are hardly ever at home so what is the purpose other than showmanship? they host parties for crowds of people? no excuse, for the cost of maintaining a large home for the "occasional" party, they could have the party at a hotel and it would be even more comfortable.

5000 sq foot home and less deserves a normal tax rate in my opinion. anything above 5000 sq foot and i think a natural resource sucking surtax/surcharge should be added to discourage building these homes.

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i hate income tax. the end-of-the-year process is total BS. half of the IRS could be dissolved. i support a sales tax. but still, the super rich, the ones ripping off shareholders, i support an income tax on them.

Nobody disputes that a 5000 sq ft house uses more resources than a 2000 sq ft house. But we're assuming equally built homes in equal climates.

A 5000 sq ft home in Florida will use less resources than a 5000 sq ft home in Maine. In fact the 5,000 sq ft home in FL will use less energy than a typical 2,000 sq ft home in Maine. Florida home in all cases will use a central air conditioner (300% efficient). In Maine, you're looking at an oil furnace (60% efficient) or a natural gas furnace (80-95% efficient).

Even if the Maine house had a heat pump, it's going to be less efficient than the Florida air conditioner. That's because the Maine home will be running defrost mode during the winter (A/C on to send the heat to outside to clear the frost and auxiliary heat at the same time, typically 100% efficient heat strips or natural gas) to keep the house warm while the defrost cycle occurs......During non defrost times, the auxillary heat will still kick on in the Maine home when the heat pump can't supply enough heat in the winter.

Contrast that to the Florida home where there is no defrost cycle nor is there any auxiliary cycle. The system runs in A/C mode at 300% efficiency all the time. Worst case in Florida is during August when the temperature hovers around 100°. You're cooling down to 75° inside. A 25° temp drop using 300% efficient equipment. In Maine, you're looking at heating from -10°F outside to 70° inside. An 80° temperature rise using 60-95% efficient equipment. Heat pumps don't even work all that well in weather less than 25-30° outside. Thus you're pretty much forced into using inefficient technologies like oil/gas/electric furnaces or radiators/baseboard heat.

Should we tax old houses higher because they have less insulation? Try heating a house built in 1940 during the winter. Single pane windows. Drafty fireplaces. I lived in a house as a kid that the insulation consisted of rolled up newspaper that had been dropped down from the tops of the walls.

When I lived near Vancouver in Canada, we heated for 7 months a year and did nothing for the other 5 months (no heat, no A/C, just open windows all summer). In south Texas, I run the air conditioner 11 months a year......I use less energy in Texas!

Larger homes are in many cases simply larger because we expect larger homes. The days of having 6 kids and a 1200 sq ft house seem antiquated today. 20 years ago a 27" TV was large TV. And a 32" TV was huge. Today a 42" TV seems small and 50" TV's are the norm. It's just what we expect.

i agree with her, tax them out of their natural resource wasting 20 thousand square foot homes. do it! there should a "super" tax for the super rich. i can't control it as a tiny shareholder, but corporations are paying their executives way too much and that does effect, in the long term, the share price (tick me off). a lot make at least 10 million, but some make hundreds of millions and they aren't worth it. company founders, i find exception to them for, they do deserve a major share of the stock.

This is where the New Hampshire way of government comes in. No state income tax. No state sales tax. Moderately high property taxes. (I support this) It's much better to tax people by property tax than it is by income tax. What are you trying to do? Penalize and reduce the amount of income? Or penalize and reduce the amount of oversized overpriced houses? Property taxes are also fairer since everybody pays them and there are few ways of getting around them. I also like the idea of a once a year tax rather than a weekly/bi-weekly (income) or daily (sales) tax system.

FAIR TAX. Read the book

Although I prefer sales taxes to income taxes, I don't like the Fairtax. A 30% sales tax on top of state and local sales tax doesn't solve government spending problems. It simply shifts the tax burden from your right pocket to your left pocket. Their notion of it saving Social Security and Medicare because it comes out of one giant pie rather than a smaller separate FICA pie is sticking their head in the sand. And we simply trade one form of tax evasion and black markets for another set of tax evasion and black markets.

Ron Paul mentioned that to roll back the government to 2000 year levels and we could abolish the I.R.S. right away during the debates. If I remember everyone said he was a nut and could never do such a thing. So guess what? We get what we wanted.

I remember Obama saying we needed to trim the budget with a scalpel instead of a hatchet.... Scalpel? Heck, we need a guillotine!

*sigh*.....

Considering that 47% of Americans paid no federal income taxes last year and many of them got more back than they put in, I think it's kind of hard to blame the rich for not paying their fair share. How is fairness defined when people who pay ZERO complain that others who do pay aren't paying enough? Or that people getting the subsidy complain that the people paying the subsidy aren't paying enough, as in the case of the people getting more money back than put in.

Income tax isn't even a wealth tax. It's a tax on getting wealthy. Somehow we've decided that people who earn a lot of money. People who have a special talent. People who went to university for a decade. These people should pay more because of their success. Why?

The Capital Gains tax rate of 15% is only for long term capital gains. The people day trading get taxed on that just as if it were regular income. But let's take the long term capital gainer. What is the effect of that person? They've decided to take money they've saved up and contribute it to companies so that those companies can expand. Buy new machinery. Hire more people. Pay higher salaries. Donate charitable gifts to the localities. All of this is good. Long term capital gains are people who've saved up for retirement. Pension funds. IRA's.

Actually the 15% rate is only for long term gains for people in the 25-35% income tax brackets. People in the 15% income tax bracket pay 0%!

If you really want to tax people on capital gains, why not just eliminate IRA's and 401k's? Would that be more fair? And would it benefit the economy and/or the creation/advancement of jobs for the poor?

To take matters to a different level, we could eliminate all personal income taxes for everybody if we went back to 1999 Federal government spending levels. The total federal budget would be the same. I don't think Hillary should have a problem with that since it was her husband that approved the budget in 1999. Of course the economy would rock on. Sales tax collections would skyrocket.

But the argument on income taxes is always how much somebody else should pay. There are very few people who think they themselves and only themselves should pay more. New Hampshire actually created a "tax me more" fund for people who didn't like that the state has no income or sales tax. They can voluntarily contribute more money to the NH government that way.

http://www.worldwide-tax.com/brazil/brazil_taxes.asp

Check out Brazil's tax rates. The personal income tax rates look quite decent actually. Top rate of 27%. But those Social Security taxes are a killer.

I wonder how this will effect this wonderful example of UK welfare gone wrong.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1265508/Peter-Davey-gets-42-000-benefits-year-drives-Mercedes.html

Danno why don't you use AUS or Canada as an example? The tea-party seems to ignore both of these countries success and social benefits.

Actually, last time I checked, AUS provides greater benefits than a majority of European countries. Not to mention, for eight straight years prior to 2009, the federal government in AUS, had a budget surplus.

Can't speak for Australia, but Canada has a larger localized government and a smaller federal government. Canadian provinces have larger budgets and taxes compared to US states. Gas taxes are funded by the provinces to a larger degree than US states do. At the same time, national gas taxes in the US are spent on roads to a much higher percentage than in Canada. Health care is run by the provinces instead of the federal government. Even minimum wage is a provincial law (there is no national min wage in Canada).

The above shows why Canada looks great on paper when only looking at federal spending and benefits.

I don't know any Canadians who object to the idea of working past age 60. And Canadians by and large object to lavish public pension plans, ridiculously low requirements for government pensions, and there is no way you could pass Euro style tax rates on the Canadian population. Consider that after passing the GST, the conservatives went from the ruling party to losing every seat in Canada except for two. And that was for a 7% tax. Europe with their 20% VAT's is a whole different level. Canada's top federal income tax bracket is 29%. The provincial brackets vary, but count on the top brackets being about half as much.

I can't be the only one that saw that Greece cut it's public sector bonuses of 2 months pay! Sheesh. How many people where you live get a 16% annual bonus?

I disagree on harmonizing or Europeanizing the retirement age. People vote with their feet and move to where life is best. Germany may have a higher retirement age. But it also has the economy and stability that some of it's neighbours don't have. Not getting dinged for every penny you earn to support "somebody else" is also a benefit to Germany. This rewards hard work and doing all you can to get ahead. In societies like this, everybody benefits. In welfare state areas where not working is rewarded, the result is less work. Nobody benefits from this.

Government is in the business of representing the people, advancing the country and should be in the business of ensuring an equal playing field for all; which usually comes in the form of rules and laws.

The thought that less rules is better is just silly. Rules and laws are what prevent Chernobyl, frequent recessions, exploitations, monopolies, duopolies, safety violations (miners deaths in WV) etc etc etc. Independent Federal Consumer protection agencies such as those in the UK, Canada or Australia prevent consumers from being exploited and strong-armed by large companies. The US has no such agency.

All libertarians have a knack of ignoring the success of those abroad, while picking those that have not worked to make their point. Also refuse to respond to why third world countries are the only people that have the exact same mindset - less government. It's common sense to realize that without rules or law and order, society naturally navigates (transforms) to King and Queen types of societies;, where a limited number of aristocrats have the majority of wealth in power. Something that can be seen in even the poorest of the poor countries.

Governments are in the business of representing the people who have the most power and influence. Doesn't matter if you're in a socialist country or a capitalist country. The only way they make fields level is by making it unlevel for others. The steel industry in the US wants tariffs to be put on foreign steel coming into the USA. What does this do?

1) It benefits the US steel companies.

2) It hurts American consumers who use products made from steel.

3) It also indirectly subsidizes foreign car companies by making it more expensive for domestic car companies to use steel.

Monopolies only exist due to governments. There is no monopoly on grocery stores. There is a monopoly on the post office. There is no monopoly on radio stations. In North Korea you won't find a radio station aside from the state owned station. You can own any mutual fund you want to. But you only have one choice when it comes to which Social Security program you want to join. The simple fact of the matter is that competition allows others to join in and try to outsell when one company has the majority of the consumer.

Kings and Queens? Under a Libertarian choice, there isn't any power or money to be owned by a King or Queen. There is nothing to seize or take control of.