Bush has just jumped the shark.

If this were another country we would call the stimulus package a soft "currency devaluation".

And what's this about giving away money to non-taxpayers and calling it a "rebate"?

It's obviously a grocery bill inflation rebate to counter the results that the stimulus package will cause more of in future.

"Live for today, I think most of are guilty of it." -ja

OH, no you don't!...The Chimp had fiscal schedules and budget forecasts and an office of economic advisors. The problem is/was that no one cared to RECONCILE the books. That would require government cuts and tax re-allocations, or no cuts and tax increases.

Notice how obvious the first choice would be if Bush were not some kind of cryptoid with an "R" by his name. At least my conscious is clear except for short bouts of schaudenfreud here and there.

Sorry, it was Bill's article. (I have him pegged as Foreign Correspondent for some reason).

Also: how could I mistake schaudenfreude for "schaudenfreud"? The feminine aspects of the definition are so obvious, at least to the Teutons (the feminine "-e").

Economic Malady - Stimulus Insufficient

The underlying problem with the economy is an extreme maldistribution of income between the working class and the capital owners. When a CEO can make 300 million dollars while an average worker's wages haven't even kept pace with inflation what results is a dysfunctional market economy starved for consumption spending. The average American has had to fuel his/her spending with debt obtained by borrowing on the equity within their home - that phantom equity has now evaporated.

In order to correct this out of balance condition there needs to be laws in place (similar to the anti-Trust legislation) that caps the annual income of all capital owners and their surrogates (CEOs, CFOs, etc.) at a specific federal percentage above that of the highest paid worker within their respective firm. Also, we need to eliminate labor arbitrage by canceling all Temporary Worker Visa programs (L-1, H1-B, etc.), and establish tax penalties for firms that expand their workforce above some threshold through outsourcing, or replacement hiring in foreign locations.

Essentially, FDR was accurate when he characterized the Great Depression as an out-of-balance Economic malady. Rural income prior to the Great Depression was significantly lower than urban income, now (overvalued home equity) as then there was unlimited amounts of overvalued phantom equity flowing into the stock market, the income differential between labor and capital while nowhere near the current astronomical level was still much higher than sustainable. There in lies the root cause of the out-of-balance condition that precipitated the Great Depression. Any system including the market economy that gets to far out balance does not function properly. Certain constraints need to exist to keep the market economy from slipping into a dysfunctional state. Balance is the essence of stability nothing short of this will guarantee permanence.

John Maynard Keynes -
 If fiscal policy is used as a deliberate instrument for the more equal distribution of incomes its effects in increasing the propensity to consume is, of course, all the greater.
Aggregate consumption depends mainly on the amount of aggregate income.
Consumption - to repeat the obvious is the sole end and object of all economic activity.
 We cannot, as a community, provide for future consumption by financial expediants [stocks, bonds, 2nd mortgages on home loans, etc] but only by current output.
Capital is not a self-subsistent entity existing apart from consumption.
Consumption is directly tied to the level of employment.

My Proposed Program
• 2 year 800 billion emergency Infrastructure Investment Jobs Creation Program (IIJCP) aimed at building new interstate highways, mass transit systems, schools, bridges, public hospitals, libraries, and assorted public buildings.
• Eliminate labor arbitrage by canceling all Temporary Worker Visa programs (L-1, H1-B, etc.), and establish tax penalties for firms that expand their workforce above some threshold through outsourcing, or replacement hiring in foreign locations.
• Taxation of corporate profits in the amount of 95% for firms that exceed a threshold level of jobs outsourced to a foreign country.
• Taxation at the rate of 80% on individual yearly income received from any corporation, not-for-profit organization, or any form of legal entity where the total income exceeds the U.S. average yearly median individual income by 200%.
• Fair trade agreements that ensure nations will offer decent wages, humane working conditions, and sound environmental policies.
• A nationalized health care system for all U.S. citizens.
• An effective federally funded tuition assistance program for U.S. citizens targeted at professions in demand.
• Repeal all legislation that inhibits the right's of individuals to organize under labor unions regardless of position or any other currently disqualifying classification.

My Observations:
• An economy can only function when a large proportion of the populace is engaged in the economy thus able to purchase what is produced.
• If price is inelastic and labor remuneration static demand will fall due to reductions by industries in their capital base (the most important being labor).
• Firms forced to compete (those that are not oligopolies) in an economic environment where demand is declining will still compete on price but efficiency gains and operating cost reductions by nature have marginal declining utility whereby a point is reached when the firm's factors of production (land, labor, or capital) must be slashed. These cuts in factors of production will have a multiplicative effect throughout an economy resulting in an ever building 'wave' of economic decline.
• It is important to keep in mind that an economy cannot continue to grow when long-term consumption continues to decline. This in turn ties directly to reductions in the factors of production to accommodate continual long-term reductions in consumption.
• When geographical barriers, constraints to the free flow of labor resources, underemployed resource utilization, similar knowledge distribution across all nation state's, and nation state governmental inconsistency exists no global free market can exist and thereby at the nation state level no significant corresponding opportunity cost for engaging in one form of economic endeavor over another.

The fact is place where wages are controlled by the government the economies are much worse. The Old Soviet Union. China North Korea.
Even Japan has problems they capped CEO salaries and then gave everyone life time employment and it burst after 30 years. Class warfare is institutionalized jealousy and is just as productive. it also leads to idea like taxing a corporation which rhen passes those taxes down to the people which in turns cause the poor to be further hurt.

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association--'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.'" --Thomas Jefferson: Note in Destutt de Tracy's "Political Economy," 1816. ME 14:466

Our wish... is that... equality of rights [be] maintained, and that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry or that of his fathers." --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:382


"If the overgrown wealth of an individual is deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra-taxation violates it." --Thomas Jefferson: Note in Destutt de Tracy's "Political Economy," 1816. ME 14:466

"Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Reply to New York Workingmen's Democratic Republican Association" (March 21, 1864), pp. 259-260.