For history tells a different story. History reminds us that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas. In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry. From the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution came a system of public high schools that prepared our citizens for a new age. In the wake of war and depression, the GI Bill sent a generation to college and created the largest middle-class in history. And a twilight struggle for freedom led to a nation of highways, an American on the moon, and an explosion of technology that still shapes our world.
In each case, government didn’t supplant private enterprise; it catalyzed private enterprise. It created the conditions for thousands of entrepreneurs and new businesses to adapt and to thrive.
We are a nation that has seen promise amid peril, and claimed opportunity from ordeal. Now we must be that nation again. That is why, even as it cuts back on the programs we don’t need, the budget I submit will invest in the three areas that are absolutely critical to our economic future: energy, health care, and education.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Obama Rocks!
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The full text of President Obama's 2/24/2009 address to the joint session of Congress can be found here --> http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/feb2009/db20090224_550589.htm
He does a good speech, I'll give him that! He's got great writers and has good earnest delivery. Now let's see how well things work out.
i enjoyed that bit from the address too!
i was impressed with the sheer ambition of his agenda. i'm sure his numbers went up, too.
gobama!
As much as I hope OBHs plan works, unfortunately I just don’t see it happening. I personally am taking steps for a complete economic meltdown by reducing debt and moving investments to secure sources of income. While OBH is mirroring GWB on the war on terror (even wiretaps), he seems to be just trying anything and hoping on the economy.
Economies do not prosper by raising taxes on the rich and providing an unfavorable environment for the job creators. I am a SBO and my new comprehensive tax rate will now exceed 50%. The government cannot even begin to compete with the private sector when it comes to creating jobs and developing market strategies. New jobs using bigger government will never result in financial prosperity. No nation has ever spent their way to financial prosperity. BHO has just successfully devalued our currency to the point that it will takes decades to regain respectability. There is no longer any conceivable reason for business to invest in the US over any nation in the EU or even Asia.
Obama is not really interested in the economy or the markets that keep falling. He is interested in power and controlling the people to be more and more reliant on the government. This is no more than the largest power play in history. All dissenters will must be silenced,
Congratulation anonymous fuckstick, your comment has officially been voted the stupidest comment of the year so far. Your prize: my derision.
History has routinely and impulsively written off Adam Smith and his free-market philosophy. But time after time a new and more vivacious global marketplace reappeared after being savagely attacked by the likes of Marxists, Keynesians and a host of other socialist parasites. Market capitalism rebounded after the up and down industrial revolution of the 19th century, the only Great Depression and multiple world wars of the last century. It will recover from the financial panic of Obamanomics. Obamanomics is not new; it’s been tried and failed throughout history. It has a new package, new leader with the same results but America will bounce back.
In my opinion, Lou, America will only bounce back fully when we understand that complete and total unfettered free markets do not work. By this I mean we need regulation and oversight so that unscrupulous, greed merchants cannot run roughshod over our economy the way they have. Let's re-regulate everything that we have de-regulated, and add more regulations. For example, we need regulations on who can receive credit (age limits, for example) and on the maximum interest rates for that can be charged. I'd like to see regulations that place controls on runaway executive compensation packages, too!
The regulations are not the problem. They are a plenty. Its the lack of enforcement that is the problem or more concisely corruption. Of course than runs true in many of the arena of issues our government faces. The government has a difficult even prosecuting their own offenders therefore I hold very little faith elsewhere.
Incidentally, none of us have actually seen "complete and total unfettered free markets" in our lifetime.
Regulation in and of itself is a neutral thing. It can be beneficial for the public (like insider trading laws or the "uptick" rule on short sales) or harmful ("mark to market" accounting is a recent example). But even in the case of good regulations, without proper enforcement they become impotent. The Madoff scam is a perfect example. If regulators had done their job (and they HAD been alerted to problems on multiple occasions), then he would have been in prison long before it had reached this point.
csm,
I agree with you that credit card companies should be subject to usury laws just like everyone else. My understanding is that they avoid that restriction by carefully wording their contracts so that use of the card is not actually considered a "loan". It's absurd, of course, especially in the case of cash advances.
At the same time, limiting executive salaries won't help anything. A better solution might be to make shareholder lawsuits against corporate officers for "breach of fiduciary duty" easier.
It isn't a lack of regulation that brought us to this current situation. It was a combination of many things (govt pushing risky loans, greed, stupidity, normal market forces, lack of confidence driven by continuous "crisis" talk, etc.).
But I think that the most significant problem that led to this downturn is too much trust... people blindly trusting their investment advisers, banks trusting the govt to back them up, govt trusting businesses to "do what's right", etc. If any of you have actually read Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" (and my kudos to anyone who has), you must have noticed that one of his main points about a free market economy is that you shouldn't trust anyone else. Everyone is working in their OWN best interest and doesn't really care what happens to you... so every person needs to watch out for himself/herself.
If the general public had been less trusting and done some of their own homework before investing money, many of these worthless instruments would have died a relatively painless death.
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