Posted by
Tim Blessing on Saturday, February 02, 2008 7:35:42 PM
The economy is in a recession, which will probably last a year or more.
Such a situation is not intolerable for rich people or upper middle class people, but it is harmful for the middle, working, and poor classes.
Extedning unemployment insurance by a year would expand the deficit, but would be tolerable in the framework of a year.
Welfare Programs are good for up to five years if I am not mistaken.
Health Insurance is divided into several parts: Private, Group, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Private Health Insurance is expensive.
Group Health Insurance is inexpensive, but is tied usually to a job.
Medicare is for old people and disabled adults/children.
Medicaid is for poor people.
What we don't have is some sort of interim health insurance.
A recession wring's the excesses out of the economy.
It is a brutal process, but the economy should grow for the next 8 to 10 years.
Tax cuts should work, but the amounts people are talking about may not be enough to jumpstart the economy.
Government Spending once upon a time was used to jumpstart the economy, but with all of our debt and a lack of demand by the government for private sector products isn't there anymore.
The two big ticket areas for government spending were defense industry products and health care industry products. The problem has been that these industries have become highly technical and specialize so that jobs aren't there for working class people.
Interest Rates would work, but they are already as low as you can go so they may not have the usual stimulative effect on the economy.
Free Trade Agreements have a bad reputation in the United States due to the loss of manufacturing jobs and loss of whole industries to other countries like China.
We need to cancel that trade agreement with China, ask for Japan/Europe's help in the interim, and look after our own economic affairs.
We need to become Yankee Traders again when we knew how to make good products and sell them at a profit.
Ironically, this recession may end the alliance of economic and social conservatives in the Republican Party and destroy the link between the economic liberals and social liberals in the democrat party.
President Bush is sitting atop a volcano ready to explode just like James Buchanan did in the late 1850s.
In the final analysis, Iraq caused a lot of these economic problems. Iraq is bad for business