Reply With QuoteHey with all the efforts to get folks on food stamps why not? Poverty is the life these days!
US poverty on track to rise to highest since 1960s
Hey with all the efforts to get folks on food stamps why not? Poverty is the life these days!
Barry can add this to his list of accomplishments. (Losing AAA status, Cash for Clunkers, Obamacare, etc. What can't this man do?)
What he couldn't do was to accomplish this "achievement". Learn to read you hypocrite.Originally Posted by C.Puffs
The recession began before Obama assumed office, and none of the other factors was of his making either.He pointed to the recent recession but also longer-term changes in the economy such as globalization, automation, outsourcing, immigration, and less unionization that have pushed median household income lower. Even after strong economic growth in the 1990s, poverty never fell below a 1973 low of 11.1 percent.
One can argue that Obama's and his fellow Dem's economic policies are the reason that the recession has lasted so long. If we were in an actual recovery instead of heading down for the second dip in a double-dip recession, this milestone would have likely not been reached.
I'm no Obama/Democrat fan......but both parties are effectively trying to use magic potions and human sacrifices to prevent the inevitable tide from rolling in and drowning the village.
No one in the GOP has the answer either....at least no one with any decent amount of influence/control.
The GOP can't and/or wont fix this either until it's left with simply no other alternative to a known existential threat.
By the end of this, I suspect the US will be, on average, returning to a quality of life and standard of living not too far removed from the 1960's.......bar the extra electronic entertainment cr@p, sand dial life expectancy, and the fact BOTH Mom AND Dad have to work to afford a 1960's life style.
Id love to know what policies would have worked in your opinion....
This would most definitely be true if all of this was about misguided "cleanup efforts" but the crisis is not only still ongoing, it's even going to get worse. This is due to factors beyond the reach of a four years term and partially - in a globalized world - even beyond the reach of a government of the United States.
I'm not saying Obama has the wits to cope with the crisis, in fact I doubt it. Just as well as I doubt he could do much about if he had the wits.
Yes, the big problems are structural and a major economic event seems inevitable. I agree no one is addressing that. But in the meantime, the current anti-business policies and uncertainly generated by the Obama administration are thwarting investment and job creation.
Only thing i can quickly think of that the govt can do to help out main street is to somehow tell the banks that when they borrow from the fed at zero percent, dont hoard it or lend it out at 4 to 5 percent.
if that isnt robbery i dont know what is. but hey, we can all grow up to be major huge banks one day.
What kind of policies can we enact that can encourage consumer spending as well as lending for to invest? Thats the major question, and so far neither dem nor repub has the answer. We're better off hoping that one of the big banks becomes a white knight and shakes up the status quo. *ahem jp morgan (doubt it, but seems the least evil)
Instead of passing reams and reams of additional anti-business regulations, launch a major effort to streamline and reduce the burden of federal regulations. The byzantine labyrinth of regs is a huge drag on the business sector. Reduce the complexity. KISS.
Stop changing the business playing field on a whim for political reasons every couple weeks. The uncertainly that this administration has created has quashed investment and job creation.
Push for a real tax reform, with a gross simplification of income taxes (KISS) and a closing of loopholes. Reduce corporate taxes, which are among the highest in the world.
Pass tort reform, and stop vampire lawyers from sucking the lifeblood out of our economy.
Grow a set, have the national debate, and reform what is by far the biggest budget item; entitlements.
Instead of the utter disaster called Obamacare, institute health care reform that actually reduces healthcare costs. (look to the Obamacare threads for a complete list of suggestions on this)
Stop wasting $billions$ on failed 'green energy' and 'green jobs' programs.
Instead of fighting against fracking, which is providing us with clean, inexpensive natural gas energy, tens of thousands of jobs and increased government revenues, support it by removing government barriers to it where possible.
Let it be known that there will be no more 'too big to fail' bailouts. Let companies fail, and let the natural market processes clean out the deadwood. Only take the absolute minimum steps necessary to prevent bank runs and chain reaction bank failures.
Push for reform of the Fed. It is artificially holding down interest rates to ridiculously low levels. Few people are going to put their money into a bank account for a less than 1% return. It is also monetizing the debt by purchasing massive amounts of T-bills, working in a corrupt partnership with the government to explode the national debt to previously undreamed-of levels.
Those are a few things that would have been helpful.
The government should've granted bailout funds only linked to these conditions, and that's definitely a mistake Obama made.
Now they could instate government controlled development banks or take other steps to promote cooperative banking. Just before someone cries "Socialism!!!" now - it isn't. In Germany we have the KFW which simply started up as a government-launched funder of rebuilding projects after the war. Today it is a "normal" market-oriented bank with a prime Capitalist assets' total nearing 0.75 trillion $, but it restricts itself to funding small and medium business at reasonable conditions. The renunciation of the small/medium size firms sector should be reversed in the long run. All economies which are still sitting pretty right now have one thing in common: a strong and energetic SMB sector.
Government micromanagement of the private sector always works out so very well.
We're not talking about "micromanagement" here but about an ordoliberal economy.
-- Just for C.Puffs, even though I seem to be on his ignore list: the "liberalism" in that word is totally unsuspicious and has nothing got to do with your "liberals". --
An ordoliberal economy allows full bent to the markets and doesn't interfere with business. It doesn't teach you how to swim nor will it come to rescue you if you drown. All it will do is to build both a swimmer and a non-swimmer area in its pool, and not let you jump into the water unless you've learned how to swim.
The KFW for example isn't "managed" by the government, let alone in the sense of "micromanagement". The government doesn't decide with which company they trade or in which way they operate, and it is profit-oriented. The bank was simply created to concentrate on the SMB sector, just as the founders of a "free market" bank would've decided on the specialization of their enterprise (i.e. investment or trading and so on).
There also are private-owned cooperative banks, by the way...
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