Obamatrons: He has no idea what to do

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What you fail to get is that I work for a very large corporation. Last year our division had record revenues and profits. As a result of that, the CEO, CTO, and CSO of our division gave themselves around 200k EACH in bonuses, as well as contributed a record amount to corporate. At the same time, I had to put up a big fight for my employee who makes 40k for managing 6 million dollars in revenue to get a .5% raise. Also, another employee went without a raise for the second year in a row despite a good review. This is the reality of what goes on in many corporations. Your faith that the CEO's will save the country is ridiculous. And I for one am sick of listening to their threats.

Bravo! There has been a concerted attempt to destroy unions, to gut the support services for the poor, and to shift income to the wealthy. Those actions are the class warfare, not the attempts to stop this greed.

[Anonymous]

Corporations don't want to spend that cash because they're afraid theyre going to have to use it to pay higher taxes, and pay for more regulation and more controls etc. CEOs are terrified of Obama. CHeck out the responses at Sun Valley this week from the largest CEOs, they really think that the guy hates business.

You don't understand jack about how a business works. What you just said is like saying "I don't want to get a job because I might have to pay taxes on my income."A business that manages to stay in businesses produces up to the point where its marginal cost meets its marginal revenue. Get it? Revenue. Revenue. Without paying customers there are no revenues. With people out of work who don't have money to spend on your goods there are no revenues. Without the prospect of revenues, businesses will not hire here. Where they will hire is in countries where labor is way cheaper and where there is a ton of growth, because, guess what, that still buttresses their bottom lines and their bonuses, even if their US operations are in the dumps.

When they go to Sun Valley and issue concerted press releases for the peasants out there about how taxes are preventing them from hiring here, it's because they want their taxes lowered so they can get bigger bonuses and bigger profits (which increases the value of their stock options) and pay less on those salaries and bonuses and stock options. If I came and told you that I love you and your family and that I am incredibly concerned about your welfare, would you believe me? I would hope not. Nor should you believe them. They don't give a rat's *** about the great unwashed here. There are plenty of great unwashed elsewhere to do the work and buy the stuff. They just want to pay less taxes, because, well, they are still taxed here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spin Spin Spin. The fact is that CEOs are very pessimistic. The president is supposed to bring confidence to the US economy not scare people out of it. His tone and view of business is an adversarial one. I don't know where he plans to get tax revenue from when companies won't hire or keep laying people off because they're afraid of the increased cost of doing business.

The biggest load of crap. Cheerleading does not make an economy work. That's exactly what lost McCain the election. He tried to do cheerleading when the public wanted him to know it was serious. And the increased cost of doing business is a perennial complaint. Airbags in cars, catalytic converters? Those were supposed to be the death of us. Smokestack scrubbers? FMLA? The death of us.

The fact is that the lack of regulation in the financial markets is part and parcel of the reason we ended up where we are today. No less than Alan Greenspan, the ultimate believer in market self-regulation, has called this the biggest surprise in his career. So now the same people whine and complain. Don't think for a minute that they won't return to the same behavior if we don't put regulations in place. They seek economic advantage, and it's not their patriotic duty to ensure that what they do is good for America.

I expect business to whine. But only a sucker buys it.

As for what Obama is doing, he is forcing the Republicans to do the heavy lifting. They won in 2010 with a vow to cut government. The fact is, they can't actually do it without either eliminating things important to the average voter or making changes that upset conservatives. Only a novice would take the heat off of them now, after they did nothing constructive from 2009-2010. They have to get real before he makes his next move. It's their game of chicken, let them play it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spin Spin Spin. The fact is that CEOs are very pessimistic. The president is supposed to bring confidence to the US economy not scare people out of it. His tone and view of business is an adversarial one. I don't know where he plans to get tax revenue from when companies won't hire or keep laying people off because they're afraid of the increased cost of doing business.

This is laughably off the mark. Corporations are making record profits. They're not hiring people because there's no projected demand. There's no projected demand because there's 10% unemployment, and consumers are terrified they'll be laid off. The government should be spending more on public infrastructure projects to make up for the shortfall in demand. The interest on government debt is at an all-time low. We should be borrowing money hand over fist.

We're making the exact same mistake that Japan made in the 90s. And folks like OP are economically illiterate cretins who are being taken advantage of by politicians with a short-sighted partisan agenda. (i.e. tank the economy and regain the levers of government). Sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Corporations don't want to spend that cash because they're afraid theyre going to have to use it to pay higher taxes, and pay for more regulation and more controls etc. CEOs are terrified of Obama. CHeck out the responses at Sun Valley this week from the largest CEOs, they really think that the guy hates business.

You don't understand jack about how a business works. What you just said is like saying "I don't want to get a job because I might have to pay taxes on my income."A business that manages to stay in businesses produces up to the point where its marginal cost meets its marginal revenue. Get it? Revenue. Revenue. Without paying customers there are no revenues. With people out of work who don't have money to spend on your goods there are no revenues. Without the prospect of revenues, businesses will not hire here. Where they will hire is in countries where labor is way cheaper and where there is a ton of growth, because, guess what, that still buttresses their bottom lines and their bonuses, even if their US operations are in the dumps.

When they go to Sun Valley and issue concerted press releases for the peasants out there about how taxes are preventing them from hiring here, it's because they want their taxes lowered so they can get bigger bonuses and bigger profits (which increases the value of their stock options) and pay less on those salaries and bonuses and stock options. If I came and told you that I love you and your family and that I am incredibly concerned about your welfare, would you believe me? I would hope not. Nor should you believe them. They don't give a rat's *** about the great unwashed here. There are plenty of great unwashed elsewhere to do the work and buy the stuff. They just want to pay less taxes, because, well, they are still taxed here.

I concur that OP is a fucking imbicile. I think they used to call them "useful idiots".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have one of the lowest tax rates in the industrialized world. Cutting taxes more for businesses isn't going to do anything.

Big companies are sitting on tons of cash.

If the private sector doesn't spend it and therefore create jobs (free market), then government needs to step in to spend more (stimulus).

Our whole conversation needs to be about job creation right now, not "fixing" Medicare, etc. Worry about that after we get back to work.

Here's a thought - the private sector won't spend any more of that cash than they have to, especially on labor, because the scope/cost/consequences of Obamacare is still a black cloud over their balance sheets. Productivity tools (software, systems, etc.) is where the money is being spent at my company - and in a bigger way than I have ever seen before. The handwriting is on the wall I fear for some staff as we start to see the gains being made by the "systems" and "delivering services in the cloud." People needs are going to go down, not up. We employ 20-25 people, going to 15 - 20 I strongly suspect within the next year.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
Here's a thought - the private sector won't spend any more of that cash than they have to, especially on labor, because the scope/cost/consequences of Obamacare is still a black cloud over their balance sheets. Productivity tools (software, systems, etc.) is where the money is being spent at my company - and in a bigger way than I have ever seen before. The handwriting is on the wall I fear for some staff as we start to see the gains being made by the "systems" and "delivering services in the cloud." People needs are going to go down, not up. We employ 20-25 people, going to 15 - 20 I strongly suspect within the next year.

So, your company is replacing expensive people with cheap tools and you blame it on healthcare reform? That seems like a stretch. Given the size of your company, the healthcare reform law will probably help it due to the small business healthcare exchanges and tax credits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have one of the lowest tax rates in the industrialized world. Cutting taxes more for businesses isn't going to do anything.

Big companies are sitting on tons of cash.

If the private sector doesn't spend it and therefore create jobs (free market), then government needs to step in to spend more (stimulus).

Our whole conversation needs to be about job creation right now, not "fixing" Medicare, etc. Worry about that after we get back to work.

Here's a thought - the private sector won't spend any more of that cash than they have to, especially on labor, because the scope/cost/consequences of Obamacare is still a black cloud over their balance sheets. Productivity tools (software, systems, etc.) is where the money is being spent at my company - and in a bigger way than I have ever seen before. The handwriting is on the wall I fear for some staff as we start to see the gains being made by the "systems" and "delivering services in the cloud." People needs are going to go down, not up. We employ 20-25 people, going to 15 - 20 I strongly suspect within the next year.

Spending money on productivity is a good thing to any economist.

Sorry, but if machines or services can some of replace you, it doesn't matter who is in office. You need to make yourself useful. It is not the job of government to make sure that companies continue to employ that extra 5-10 people even when it does not make economic sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Higher taxes, more regulation, more redtape, lets hamstring business etc. Now let's see how that grows our economy. I personally don't think Obama is a socialist, just someone who is clueless about what spurs economic growth. Hint: It's not class warfare.

Yeah and we saw how less regulation of dangerous investment vehicles protected us from the worst recession since the Great Depression. I sure wish that AIG and others had had to deal with more regulation to prevent them from engaging in crazy mortgage investment strategies and credit default swaps that made them lots of money but took the rest of us to the brink of disaster.

[Anonymous]

One problem with these discussions is that there are no controlled experiments in the world economy. So there is no way to tell whether our present problems are due to Obama doing too much, too little, or the wrong thing. Each observer can use the results as evidence of the rightness of his/her own ideas.

The crazy thing is that we think doing this shows how smart we are and how stupid the other guy is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One problem with these discussions is that there are no controlled experiments in the world economy. So there is no way to tell whether our present problems are due to Obama doing too much, too little, or the wrong thing. Each observer can use the results as evidence of the rightness of his/her own ideas.

The crazy thing is that we think doing this shows how smart we are and how stupid the other guy is.

That's true, but we can look at recent times in the past when conservatives told us that raising taxes would kill the economy, or cutting taxes would increase revenues, and find out that they were wrong. What you take from that is up to you.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:One problem with these discussions is that there are no controlled experiments in the world economy. So there is no way to tell whether our present problems are due to Obama doing too much, too little, or the wrong thing. Each observer can use the results as evidence of the rightness of his/her own ideas.

The crazy thing is that we think doing this shows how smart we are and how stupid the other guy is.

I think we should be able to agree on what actions have been taken. Empirical evidence should indicate what has been the result. We had a stimulus package that many thought was too small. Initially, there was an increase in employment. Then, attention turned to the deficit and today we had a dismal jobs report. I have no problem drawing conclusions from that and suggesting what should be done. There should be large scale investment in infrastructure such as bridges and railroads, a major jobs program, mortgage reform, and investment into green businesses and industry. If there is a concern about the debt, we should raise taxes on the rich and corporations. I understand that many would oppose these ideas. I respect their opposition, but I ask to hear their suggested actions. I'm not trying to look smart or make anyone look stupid. But, people who do nothing other than criticize and have no proposals to offer make themselves look stupid.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One problem with these discussions is that there are no controlled experiments in the world economy. So there is no way to tell whether our present problems are due to Obama doing too much, too little, or the wrong thing. Each observer can use the results as evidence of the rightness of his/her own ideas.

The crazy thing is that we think doing this shows how smart we are and how stupid the other guy is.

I think we should be able to agree on what actions have been taken. Empirical evidence should indicate what has been the result. We had a stimulus package that many thought was too small. Initially, there was an increase in employment. Then, attention turned to the deficit and today we had a dismal jobs report. I have no problem drawing conclusions from that and suggesting what should be done. There should be large scale investment in infrastructure such as bridges and railroads, a major jobs program, mortgage reform, and investment into green businesses and industry. If there is a concern about the debt, we should raise taxes on the rich and corporations. I understand that many would oppose these ideas. I respect their opposition, but I ask to hear their suggested actions. I'm not trying to look smart or make anyone look stupid. But, people who do nothing other than criticize and have no proposals to offer make themselves look stupid.

We should, but given that some think Obama is leading us down the path to socialism while others think the policy was drawn up by Wall Street, I don't think it is likely that we will. But perhaps we can accept the other view as an interesting take on reality that is worth debating rather than a symptom of insanity that we treat with invective,

On the other hand, I admit there are times I feel invective is the only reasonable response, such as when I read about the outrageous pledge Santorum and Bachmann sighed recently: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/08/michele-bachmann-rick-san_n_893523.html

[Anonymous]

With that pledge firmly in mind, I'm taking Thomas Jefferson of the list of founders

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One problem with these discussions is that there are no controlled experiments in the world economy. So there is no way to tell whether our present problems are due to Obama doing too much, too little, or the wrong thing. Each observer can use the results as evidence of the rightness of his/her own ideas.

The crazy thing is that we think doing this shows how smart we are and how stupid the other guy is.

I think we should be able to agree on what actions have been taken. Empirical evidence should indicate what has been the result. We had a stimulus package that many thought was too small. Initially, there was an increase in employment. Then, attention turned to the deficit and today we had a dismal jobs report. I have no problem drawing conclusions from that and suggesting what should be done. There should be large scale investment in infrastructure such as bridges and railroads, a major jobs program, mortgage reform, and investment into green businesses and industry. If there is a concern about the debt, we should raise taxes on the rich and corporations. I understand that many would oppose these ideas. I respect their opposition, but I ask to hear their suggested actions. I'm not trying to look smart or make anyone look stupid. But, people who do nothing other than criticize and have no proposals to offer make themselves look stupid.

We should, but given that some think Obama is leading us down the path to socialism while others think the policy was drawn up by Wall Street, I don't think it is likely that we will. But perhaps we can accept the other view as an interesting take on reality that is worth debating rather than a symptom of insanity that we treat with invective,

On the other hand, I admit there are times I feel invective is the only reasonable response, such as when I read about the outrageous pledge Santorum and Bachmann sighed recently: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/08/michele-bachmann-rick-san_n_893523.html

If I had one wish from a magic genie, it would be to cure cancer. But if I had a second, it would be for a video to show up on Youtube of Santorum and Bachmann doing it. Those two kids deserve each other.