Obama and Congress: second stimulus package of between $300 billion and $500 billion

Just one month into the fiscal year, the federal budget deficit has already reached $232 billion

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081107...get_deficit;_ylt=AjNu5fkSIrbUMQiNjXw_PrXv5rEF

 

And did anyone see how the execs are spending our bail out money?

 

Yes, I was listening to the CNN and FoxNews this morning and was getting pissed off. We didn't learn the first time we busted them spending shitloads of money (what was it, $400k?) on exec perks, so hey let's give them more money so they can do it again!

I have the same situation at my job right now, but on a smaller scale, and the injustice of it all drives me into a frenzy. The owner of the company was out of town on Friday and it's the responsibility of his son to manage the lab while he's gone. We also have another salaried lab manager beneath his son that is supposed to provide backup when the main man is out of town. Well, Gears of War 2 came out, so the son didn't come in so he could stay home and play video games, and then the lab manager decided he didn't want to be at work and left in the middle of the day when he still had patients to see!!! And they are getting paid for this!!! I get denied a raise so the Management can stay home and get paid to play video games!!! All while the lab is going broke! ARGHHHHH!!

Watching the news and dealing with my current work situation has really made me start to wonder if it pays to be honest.....

 

Good thing you mentioned CNN in there too, else I'd have to spend the next 200 post telling you how this story was fake, false, BS, whatever because it was on that there FOX NEWS!!!!

Anyway, I've got no problem with those that OWN and USE their OWN money in their OWN business to do whatever the hell they want. It is after all theirs. More often than not, those doing the high living are more often than not doing it with someone else's money.

Hang in there, work hard and you will succeed. As for the son playing, its gonna happen. And dad probably realizes it, if not, will one day.

As for AIG, they deserve to fall apart and go away.

 

Yes, but they cant if they keep getting handed taxpayer dollars to stay afloat. When welfare began it was intended to be a hand up, not a hand out... and it was never meant to be a lifetime commitment to support someone, much less a few generations of someones. An idea born of good intent was in practice the genesis of "Hey, they OWE me this... where's my damned check?"

Now we've extended welfare to corporations, and we're getting some of the same innapropriate behavior that made it a failed social theory to start with, just on a larger scale. We should let the "invisible hand" do its job and move on. Eventually we might even figure out that these ridiculous exec compensation packages are a sign of extremely poor management and the market will self-correct.

Instead Congress tries to avoid the pain by propping up poorly run companies that got their economic woes the old fashioned way... they earned them. We deny the darwinian market selection processes the ability to let badly run companies die and put the organic nutrients back into the soil for better run companies to emerge and flourish. It's a good ole boy system protecting its own, definitely a poor choice for a country that claims to have a free market economy.

 

Bogart: I think the US govt. is structurally in gear to run on deficits now. It went into deficit spending shortly after the first Bush tax cut. I suggest reading from the Suskind book about Paul O'Neill. It covers the first 2 years of the Bush administration from O'Neill's perspective.

On the first Bush tax cut, no one inside the bush administration was dramatically against it. As I recall both Greenspan and O'Neill were mildly for it, but wanted to balance it against possible budget deficits. It did move taxpayer money from roughly 20% of GDP ( a high) in 2000 to into the 18% range which was in line with long term history.

Since those first years of this decade, govt spending has only gone up, up, up. With this recession, people out of work, no damn capital gains anywhere, and corporate profits down, tax revenues to the govt will only go down, down , down. We are staring at deficits until some big changes, IMHO. And that doesn't include the bailout bucks.

 

I haven't heard any news on the bailout, errr, handout, errrr, stimulus package today? Can I expect my check before Christmas? I need to buy me some guns and canned beans before January 20th!

 

FG: You ougtta become a bank, insurance company or possibly a car company. currently, guns and beans don't count.

Figure out and pursue something entrepreneurial and get out of the lab. Sounds crappy.

 

I agree, The invisible hand and law of free market should take over. These companies should not exist.
Or how else are Businesses going to learn their lesson about BAD investments? They won't and they'll carry on, and the consequences will be that in turn will be left with a worse product. Because Competition provides a better product and having a dead company staying alive is definitely not fair to a free market and competitors.

 

Paul Volcker has predicted that we will see 1970s style inflation again.

I believe that with the high defecits in federal spending and trade that Volcker is right.

It's funny that after the 73-75 recession gold bottomed out at around $200 in 1976 and was at $1000 by 1979.