Thread: The strongest economy in the world

The US economy has been saved, hallelujah

Gallup Poll: Americans Most Negative On the Nation And Economy In 30 Years.

Must be some more of that wonderful Hopey-Changey we were promised, huh?

The slow bleed economy:

Study Shows More Americans Are Raiding 401(k) Accounts To Pay Bills

March 6, 2013 10:00 AM



Study Shows More Americans Are Raiding 401(k) Accounts To Pay Bills « CBS Philly

Incomes are down. Inflation is up.

Why America's middle class is losing ground

By Tami Luhby @CNNMoney March 5, 2013

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
When Debbie Bruister buys a gallon of milk at her local Kroger supermarket, she pays $3.69, up 70 cents from what she paid last year.

Getting to the store costs more, too. Gas in Corinth, Miss., her hometown, costs $3.51 a gallon now, compared to less than three bucks in 2012. That really hurts, considering her husband's 112-mile daily round-trip commute to his job as a pharmacist.

Bruister, a mother of four, received a $1,160 raise this school year at her job as an eighth-grade computer teacher. The extra cash -- about $97 a month, before taxes and other deductions -- isn't enough for her and her husband to keep up with their rising costs, especially after the elimination of the payroll tax break. Its loss shrunk their paychecks by more than $270 a month.

"If you look at how much prices are going up, you get in the hole really quick," Bruister said. "It's a constant squeeze."
In the wake of the Great Recession, millions of middle-class people are being pinched by stagnating incomes and the increased cost of living. America's median household income has dropped by more than $4,000 since 2000, after adjusting for inflation, and the typical trappings of middle-class life are slipping out of financial reach for many families.

For the middle class, expenses grow faster than paychecks - Mar. 5, 2013

Originally Posted by robuzo

Why Should Taxpayers Give Big Banks $83 Billion a Year?

Hmmmmm......let me make a wild guess.
PAYBACK!!

^Yes, Sabang, the minimum wage has fallen very low in the US. I cannot imagine trying to live on those wages.

Here is the "Broken Window Fallacy." related to current US policy, peppered with Paul Krugman's belief system.

The Broken Window Fallacy - YouTube

[yt]gG3AKoL0vEs[/yt]

Interesting video. I'm not sure I agree that had not money been spent on public works it would help the economy more. Since so many products are many in China these days, money spent on public works probably is spent at least initially on American products such as steel. Okay, I know there have been cases of US bridges being built with Chinese steel but that could be dealt with. The idea of taxpayers spending money on US products just isn't the case these days. Not sure what the solution is. Spending on wars and military doesn't result in an increase in the quality of life for all Americans. A bridge will be there to use but weapons are like broken windows.





Here's a clip I just came across. Not sure if you guys have seen it yet.





I enjoyed listening to this guy on Bill Moyers. He has a video out somewhere on the net called
Capitalism Hits the Fan: A Lecture on the Economic Meltdown but I can't find the whole lecture so I won't post it. Here is Richard Wolff on Bill Moyers...

Richard Wolff on Fighting for Economic Justice and Fair Wages | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com



A preview of Capitalism Hits the Fan.

Originally Posted by sabang

I had not realised the extent to which the US workforce has been screwed-

During his 2008 election campaign, Barack Obama championed a federal minimum wage—but after winning, he fell silent. The 1968 minimum, its historic peak in real-dollar terms, would be the equivalent now of $10.50 per hour, compared with the present minimum, $7.25, one of the lowest among major Western nations. Thirty million working Americans laboring between those two hourly rates are making less than workers made in 1968.

Tens of billions of overdue dollars annually for these hard-pressed workers would be a very effective stimulus program; the increased purchasing power for a stressed and indebted working class would immediately increase consumer demand and thus create more jobs. At least 70 percent of Americans polled favor a minimum wage adjusted to inflation—but so indentured, so cautious, so distant from these workers and their children are today’s Democrats that none of them would push the issue unless President Obama championed it. Obama finally lifted the party taboo in his recent State of the Union address, when he proposed a $9 federal minimum wage by 2015—a weak contrast to his 2008 proposal for a $9.50 minimum by 2011.
Why Are Democrats So Defeatist? | The Nation

Income-driven growth worked extremely well during the sixties, indeed. Unemployment as low as 1.5%, economic growth more than 6% per annum, median family incomes up 50% by the end of the decade.
US History: Economics of the 1960's

Originally Posted by OhOh

Get the voter % on minimum wage and government handouts = voter will continue to vote for the gravy train.

The largest block of votes are available to whoever "promises" the continuation.

Good grief, OhOh! Minimum wage and handouts is the gravy train? What "free" hovels? People will vote for the party willing to help them keep their families afloat.

If there aren't enough decent jobs and they aren't payed enough to live on by their employers, then yes, they will take money from the government no matter how personally demeaning it is for them to do so.

Is a shame people would rather watch TV than take to the streets to demand those corporations with the highest profits ever, create American jobs.

An interesting video from Robert Reich

Now this is a real shocker!

Top 10 states for business all led by Republican governors.

Imagine that!

CEO magazine put out its annual business friendliness ranking of the states and here are the bottom 10 states:



Imagine That

^ Funny you should choose Texas, one of the most backwards states in all of America...

Among the 50 states, Texas ranks last in the percent of the population that has graduated high school.

It has the highest proportion of people without health insurance, and releases the most carbon dioxide and hazardous waste of any state.


Source: State Legislators Release Grim Statistics On Texas Versus Other States
Texas is the most dangerous state to go to work in and Rick Perry likes it that way


Is this really the kind of country you want to live in?!

Originally Posted by TonyBKK

Texas, one of the most backwards states in all of America...

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Originally Posted by TonyBKK

Texas, one of the most backwards states in all of America...

It is in fact one of the worst shit holes I have visited in all of the US. So it is far from BS. It is a prime example of deregulation gone wrong. Strip malls next to apartment blocks next to skyscrapers. Hell Houston did not even have a recycling program when I was there last.

BTW the most backwards ass shit holes I have visited all were either in the south or the midwest. Although Baltimore was right up there.

Indeed Texas is a shithole, and only getting worse---

Source: Medicaid: http://bit.ly/15c1FDP
Tax cuts: Business-tax breaks headed to Gov. Perry | Texas Politics | a Chron.com blog

Best economy in the world is right here in LOS,

Shocker!

Red States Have The Most Economic Potential



A new study from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) ranked all 50 states for their economic potential, and surprise! Virtually all of the top ten were states that voted for the GOP.

The study, called "Red States, Poor States" was the sixth in a continuing series from ALEC, and rated the states using 15 factors, some of which were minimum wage laws, labor policies, and rates of taxation. The top of the list was Utah.

ALEC’s Jonathan Williams said, "The real key to Utah is low tax rates, but more than that a predictable tax climate. Utah legislators are very conscientious about the fact that they don't spend beyond their means and also they don't make changes in tax policy retroactively. They make changes very gradually and they generally make them in a lower tax direction."

Williams added that the worst ten states were more likely high-tax "blue" states which had stringent restrictions on businesses.

According to the ALEC study, the state with the greatest economic growth from 2001-2011 was Texas, and the worst was Michigan. The numbers for growth were derived from the states' job growth, gross state product growth, and population shifts. Williams said that the study did not include data from natural resources, weather and social policies."


Imagine That!

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Shocker!

Red States Have The Most Economic Potential



A new study from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) ranked all 50 states for their economic potential, and surprise! Virtually all of the top ten were states that voted for the GOP.

The study, called "Red States, Poor States" was the sixth in a continuing series from ALEC, and rated the states using 15 factors, some of which were minimum wage laws, labor policies, and rates of taxation. The top of the list was Utah.

ALEC’s Jonathan Williams said, "The real key to Utah is low tax rates, but more than that a predictable tax climate. Utah legislators are very conscientious about the fact that they don't spend beyond their means and also they don't make changes in tax policy retroactively. They make changes very gradually and they generally make them in a lower tax direction."

Williams added that the worst ten states were more likely high-tax "blue" states which had stringent restrictions on businesses.

According to the ALEC study, the state with the greatest economic growth from 2001-2011 was Texas, and the worst was Michigan. The numbers for growth were derived from the states' job growth, gross state product growth, and population shifts. Williams said that the study did not include data from natural resources, weather and social policies."


Imagine That!

A bunk study by a bunk organization.

"ALEC is a corporate dating service for lonely legislators and corporate special interests that eventually the relationship culminates with some special interest legislation and hopefully that lives happily ever after as the ALEC model. Unfortunately what’s excluded from that equation is the public."

"ALEC is the creation of the Koch brothers who amassed their fortunes in oil and who live in Florida. The goal of ALEC is to influence legislators across the nation."

According to Bloomberg News, ALEC is funded by Koch Industries Inc. and Exxon Mobil.

More trash from booners.

Booners post's for the most part are simple cut and paste's of foxnews/Right wing blogs wacko talking points. He takes everything that these propaganda mills churn out and believes it like holy scripture.

He is an example of the sheep that occupy much of the inner US. They don't think for themselves and vote outside of their own best interests. They have little if any understanding of the machine that is destroying the American quality of life. They march to the sound of the Koch brothers horn and are totally, hopelessly brainwashed.

Back to the appallingly low minimum wages in the states, here is why the US economy will never be the 'strongest economy in the world' again, unless some fundamental restructuring is done-

One Walmart's Low Wages Could Cost Taxpayers $900,000 Per Year, House Dems Find

Walmart wages are so low that many of its workers rely on food stamps and other government aid programs to fulfill their basic needs, a reality that could cost taxpayers as much as $900,000 at just one Walmart Supercenter in Wisconsin, according to a study released by Congressional Democrats on Thursday.

Though the study assumes that most workers who qualify for the public assistance programs do take advantage of them, it injects a potent data point into a national debate about the minimum wage at a time when many Walmart and fast food workers are mounting strikes in pursuit of higher wages.

The study uses Medicaid data released in Wisconsin to piece together the annual cost to taxpayers for providing a host of social safety net programs, including food stamps and publicly subsidized health care, to workers at one Supercenter in the state.

According to the report, Walmart had more workers enrolled in the state’s public health care program in the last quarter of last year than any other employer, with 3,216 people enrolled. When the dependents of those workers were factored in, the number of enrollees came to 9,207.

"When low wages leave Walmart workers unable to afford the necessities of life, taxpayers pick up the tab," the report says.

One Walmart's Low Wages Could Cost Taxpayers $900,000 Per Year, House Dems Find

Walmart, Target, maccas and the other fast food chains- what 'value added' do these provide to the economy if their low wage workers need to rely on government benefits to survive? There is very little economic benefit from such employment, because taxes are being used to subsidise the employer to employ people in these shitty jobs. The corporation and it's shareholders bank their profits just the same, and pay a very low rate of tax on them, while sponging off the state to provide a basic quality of life to it's lowly paid employees. The wealth trickles ever upwards, leaving less and less of the pie for consumption- the driver of any advanced economy.

If this can be called capitalism at all, it is vulture capitalism. But it's closer to the truth to call it socialism- corporate socialism. Thus the US is destroying it's own market, through short sighted and greedy tax policy designed to benefit only the existing rich and corporations.