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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (59418)	2/16/2009 12:46:27 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 224757

Fluctuations in the value of houses do not imply that there was no real wealth created since the turn of the century. The houses where overvalued, but they still represent real wealth, so do all the other goods and services created since 2000.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (59418)	2/16/2009 12:52:00 PM
From: longnshort	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224757

EDITORIAL: Stimulus package flunked test Monday, February 16, 2009 GLASS HALF-FULL: President Obama, in his Saturday radio address, hailed the House passage of his stimulus bill, but did not mention the total lack of Republican support. (Joseph Silverman/The Washington Times) The $787 billion economic stimulus package that Congress passed Friday, with the support of no House Republicans and only three GOP senators, is a hideous caricature of what its sponsors promised. It was originally advertised by President Barack Obama as something that would create or save 3.5 million jobs and would be timely, targeted, and temporary. The final package clearly flunked the latter two descriptions - it was 1,073 pages of scattergun spending, with much of it extending for a decade - and it offers a "cure" to the jobs hemorrhaging that may be far worse than the disease. Before Mr. Obama has even submitted his first budget later this month, he and congressional Democrats have increased spending for multiple programs that will be in place for the next 10 years before expiring - a multiyear practice virtually unheard of in American politics that may cost $2 trillion more to fund. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the full cost of this bill, including its $348 billion debt service and the out-year financing, will reach $3.2 trillion by 2019. There are countless handouts that are nice (especially for the direct recipients) but questionable in the overall scheme of emergency stimulus planning - increases in spending for the arts, day care centers on military bases, space exploration, water clean-up, and on and on. In each case, one or more persons may get or retain a job, but it still is inefficient make-work like some of the New Deal programs of the '30s. Many economists are aghast at the hodgepodge spending and warn of dangers ranging from hyperinflation to stagflation (but it is true that with 100 economists in a room, you may get 200 opinions). The most insulting piece of it was a modest $30 million House Speaker Nancy Pelosi inserted to protect the salt marsh harvest mouse, a tiny rodent indigenous to the San Francisco coast - an obvious earmark in a bill that Mr. Obama said with a straight face would be "earmark free." Mr. Obama mocked Republicans for calling this a spending bill. Just as a dog is definitely an animal but an animal is not necessarily a dog, a stimulus is a spending bill but a spending bill is not necessarily a stimulus, and this dog don't hunt. The longer the stimulus bill was looked at in Congress, the more liberal (in many ways) it became. For example, the original $1,000 rebate for taxpayer families was reduced to $800 - a $29 billion cost cut that went instead to other programmatic increases. Any positive effect this stimulus will have on the economy at a given point is far outweighed by the clear abuse of the legislative budget process and the fact that its $3.2 trillion price will be a crushing burden on the nation that some experts warn will only cause more fiscal and unemployment problems. We hope they're wrong and we're wrong, but the package Mr. Obama will sign Monday is no thing of beauty to just about anyone, so far as we can determine.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (59418)	2/16/2009 12:54:08 PM
From: tonto	1 Recommendation Respond to of 224757

We really have seen a slide since 2006 and it is getting worse. Every household will be 30,000 dollars more in debt when Obama signs the risky plan tomorrow.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (59418)	2/16/2009 10:59:35 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	2 Recommendations Respond to of 224757

Miami banker gives $60 million of his own to employees==better than demorat tax cheaters BY MARTHA BRANNIGAN mbrannigan@MiamiHerald.com Lots of bosses say they value their employees. Some even mean it. And then there's Leonard Abess Jr. After selling a majority stake in Miami-based City National Bancshares last November, all he did was take $60 million of the proceeds -- $60 million out of his own pocket -- and hand it to his tellers, bookkeepers, clerks, everyone on the payroll. All 399 workers on the staff received bonuses, and he even tracked down 72 former employees so they could share in the windfall. For longtime employees, the bonus -- based on years of service -- amounted to tens of thousands of dollars, and in some cases, more than $100,000. At a time when financial titans are being paraded before Congress to explain how they blew billions on executives' bonuses even as they received a taxpayer bailout, the big-hearted banker's selfless deed stands out. ''I retired seven years ago, and all of a sudden I get this wonderful letter and phone call,'' said Evelyn J. Budde, who spent 43 years at City National Bank of Florida, rising to vice president. ''I was shocked,'' said William Perry. In 43 ½ years at City National, he climbed from janitor to vice president. Like many longtime City National employees, he forged an unbreakable bond with the bank that continued into retirement. Perry returns regularly for the annual employees' dinner. Abess didn't publicize what he had done. He didn't even show up at the bank to bask in his employees' gratitude on the day the bonus envelopes were distributed. He was inundated with letters soon afterward. Asked later what motivated him, Abess said he had long dreamed of a way to reward employees. He had been thinking of creating an employee stock option plan before he decided to sell the bank. ''Those people who joined me and stayed with me at the bank with no promise of equity -- I always thought some day I'm going to surprise them,'' he said. ``I sure as heck don't need [the money].'' miamiherald.com