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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (8782)	3/10/2009 11:49:17 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 103300

Long post. I ignored all the points after the first three for reasons of time. (No time to take on all eight...) But, here are my replies for the first three points: 1. In discussing President Obama's spending plans, Professor Tyson uses the term "investments" instead of the more-accurate term "spending" 7 times. This is reminiscent of how the Clinton administration categorized new spending when she was in that administration. Yep! Many politicians have resorted to this bit of rhetorical re-definition in recent decades. (In this particular political year however, at least some proportion of current federal expenditures can probably LEGITIMATELY be regarded as 'investment'. I refer specifically to some hundreds of Billions in 'bail-out' funding extended to various institutions in the financial sector --- much of which spending has been made as direct interest-bearing loans, or equity investments, for which notes, stock and warrants have been issued. This no doubt meets any definition for 'investment'.) 2. She starts out by saying that Obama "inherited an economic crisis worse than any the nation has experienced since the Great Depression." It's legitimate for an author to start that way if she tells us, somewhere in the article, her basis for that claim. She doesn't. Correct. But there seems no shortage at all of information (readily available practically daily in the sad headlines of most any newspaper in the land) to support that contention. For example, this: Second worst correction in the DOW since 1896: Or this: Message 25480789 3. She states: "These changes [Obama's proposed tax increases on high-income people] will affect only the top 3% of taxpayers, the group that has enjoyed the largest gains in income and wealth over the last decade." This is probably false. A substantial percentage of people making over $200,000 in future years will be people who were not making that much in past years. She completely leaves out the fact of income mobility. Unless a tax provision is indexed for inflation (most are not) then BRACKET CREEP is always a realistic possibility. (I refer you to the well-know issue of the Alternative Minimum Tax --- which has crept down into the ranks of the Middle Class for exactly that reason!) Bracket Creep is the politicians FAVORITE TAX INCREASE! (As I have posted here many times....) Politicians love it so much because they never have to record a vote for increasing taxes. (They just let inflation do the dirty work for them.) :-)

To: TimF who wrote (8782)	3/10/2009 4:23:05 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 103300

"The Great Recession". Not to be outdone by dismal World Bank forecasts, the IMF says the global economy is likely to shrink to 'below zero' this year in the face of the 'Great Recession.' "Continued de-leveraging by world financial institutions, combined with a collapse in consumer and business confidence is depressing domestic demand across the globe," said IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, "while world trade is falling at an alarming rate and commodity prices have tumbled." reuters.com