WOW Merc ! That's one heck of a "first decision" !

Let me pull out just one part of all that because I think I'm in complete agreement...

From what I've read and heard, the underlying road block to creating jobs right away is the part about banks having been bailed out in 2009 because that they had stopped providing credit to businesses. When businesses can't get loans to meet their needs, they can't keep up with inventories, payrolls, etc., and so employees lose their jobs.

In a nutshell, if banks were not sitting on those huge cash reserves and were not involved in using Federal Reserve Bank loans for "their own investment purposes", but instead were doing what banks are supposed to do (lend $) then the downward spiral might be reversed.

So, if the King would step aside and allow me to become Uber-President,
My one first decision would be to break apart the "banking activities" from the "investment activities".
That is, force a return of banks to what they used to be, and support them via the FDIC.
The FDIC should not be used to help with management's poor investment decisions.

The was a single law passed that allowed banks to get into the stock market, but I don't remember the name or year. But I think that was the beginning of all this mess.
Whatever that law was, the first thing would be to repeal that law.

Federal Reserve Bank funds should be used only for "lending/credit/monetary policies ".
Only stock-holder should funds be used for "the private investment" activities.
That is, make the stock holders take the risks and profits that come from short term management decisions.

If I could further direct the lending activities of banks, I would set first priorities at freeing credit (loans) to big, BIG, corporations because they can re-hire thousands of employees quickly, whereas starting up or re-starting thousands of small businesses is a much longer term project. After all, it was the big BIG corporations that laid off thousands of workers at a single crack, causes the chain reaction of thousands of people losing income, losing homes, etc.

Once I accomplished all that, I would resign from Uber-President and take nap.

Sorry for the long winded response, but unless we stimulate numerous portions of the economy at once nothing is going to work. Big Government throwing money at the problem has not and does not work. We must end the cycle of dependence on government for everyone's personal shortcomings and failures in life.

It is a big frigging mess. And the last 18 months have proven the current Administration, and the last 3 and 1/2 years of this Congress, have failed to fix what ails us.

Eh, I just want to get off the grid and further circle my wagons.

The talk of job creation is a bit of an administration smoke screen imho. Other goals are being packaged under the jobs heading. It makes sense to do so, I suppose. Moving to a less coal driven and updated national electric grid makes sense and is a nice twofer but will be more of a long-term boon than a short-term jobs deal. Of course if they focused on real short term jobs creation they' be criticized for that, since the complaining is largely partisan. *shrug*

Merc....your first action, a line-item veto, might work in your kingdom but is unconstitutional in the US, at least the versions attempted since the Reagan days.

And I'm not sure what you mean by "allow businesses to grow" (cutting regs? which ones?) or "putting money back into the economy" (more tax cuts that cut more revenue from the Treasury?) That would create more debt.

IMO, the stimulus package was misdirected at an attempt to build broader consensus. Nearly two thirds were not really intended as stimulus (small personal tax cuts, funding for UI extension, COBRA assistance, etc). I would have separated those programs and put much more funding into short-term job creation with the understanding that creating jobs with govt funding leads to a growing economy that creates additional jobs.

And I agree with lamplighter about the banks. W/o the TARP program (most of which has been repaid), manyy more banks would have failed and credit would have tightened even more, causing more small businesses to fail.

There is a growing consensus among economists that the stimulus and TARP prevented the economy from tanking even more:

Economists agree: Stimulus created nearly 3 million jobs

The economy has stabilized as a result of several actions - TARP, ARRA, Fed policy .It is growing, but at a slower rate than anyone would like.

Is the stimulus program a failure? IMO, only in the sense that it did not go far enough.

But in any case, opinions are probably driven more by politics than economics.

That is why I said if I were King.

The stimulus was a failure and a boondoggle of spending. Unemployment still at 9.6% after months of lies.

To damm funny!!! What a tool.

Oval Office rug gets history wrong

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...090305100.html

CBS
I found thin more than surprising. I hadn't thought the situation near this drastic.

Everyone made Obama's comments yesterday in Milwaukee sound like he was being a dick...really?

And people think the media has a liberal bias...pshaw! It has a sensational bias. But no one listens to me...that's alright...fuck all of you. ;)

You don't like it when he counts census jobs, then you don't like it when he doesn't count them as losses.

Typical cock sucking conservative.

Not actually wrong; King was paraphrasing Parker- King said the quote on the rug, and Parker didn't.

He counted them as a positive and didn't as a negative. Is that what you are saying? If so, then yeh thats pretty crappy. Either count them for both or neither.

As I recall, he counted them both times, noting that the recent unemployment numbers look worse because of the temporary census workers.

but that is not what you just posted.
fixed that for ya.

You're right.
Restatement:
The conservative cocksuckers put a negative spin on the overly-positive effect that the temporary census jobs had on the unemployment figures when they were created, then they put a negative spin on the overly-negative effect that the temporary census jobs had on the unemployment figures when they were disolved.

much more better.

And ...
The Liberal cocksuckers put a overtly-positive spin on the effect that the temporary census jobs had on the unemployment figures when they were created, then they put a overly-positive spin on the effect that the temporary census jobs had on the unemployment figures when they were dissolved.