Money, Taxes, and Rebates

I think Lewis Black said it best when he said,
"When voting for president, your voting for two piles of [Censored]. The only difference is the smell."

... or the difference could be one chooses religious ideaology and morality for you.

I think Lewis Black said it best when he said,
"When voting for president, your voting for two piles of [Censored]. The only difference is the smell."

I think a lot of people felt this way in 2004, that John Kerry was the lesser of two evils, and that is why Bush was able to get re-elected. I really think we can do better with Obama for this election though. I don't think you can call him the lesser of two evils when compared to McCain or Clinton, I think he can really do a lot of good for our country. Watch some of his speeches, watch some news coverage of the upcoming primaries, it is hard not to get inspired by that man.

Back to the initial topic, I've heard a lot of commentators say that instead of giving Americans this stimulus package the government should put the money towards American infrastructure, repairing or building new bridges, upgrading power lines etc. It would gaurantee that the money isn't just going to be put in the bank and it would create new jobs for the people who are unemployed. It looks like it might be too late for Bush to do this instead of his stimulus plan, I was just wondering what Matt White's expert opinion on it was.

One of the greatest flaws in the Amercian Economy is that it was designed to follow a system of consumption. Our economy only "grows" if we can miraculously keep the pace of consumption in the "expansion range".

This particular economic theory is what lead American companies (and rippled elsewhere) to utilize planned and perceived obsolescence to create a constant deterioration of "durable goods"so that the American people would constantly need to replace their otherwise perfectly good products so fast that consumption would continue at a rate appreciable to our population growth.

There are several problems with this theory, which I will not detail greatly here, but one of them is that the Government has functioned on similar theories when looking at our Infrastructure as a nation.

Instead of repairing an old road, bridge or power station, the government would rather invest larger amounts of money into New equipment and locations, preferably closer to their personal constituency. That bigger price tag for newer stuff leads to massive shortfalls in our budgets, and often leads to critical budget items being underfunded.

Even more frustrating in that scenario is that the Government (both state and federal) will typically mandate that New construction be done, and then give budgets which would not even cover basic repairs to all the problem if we were going with a repair-based system.

This is why the Nation needs Sustainability, not Consumption, at the heart of it's Civil Infrastructure.

If the government systematically when through and rebuilt one bridge or road per state a year, for 30 years, and begin again at the end of that rotation, you would have a constant flow of work to lower and lower middle class laborers. You would also never have a bridge or highway or fire station that is "woefully out of date". Perhaps then you would not have  18 power stations due to close in 2 years with no plan to replace them.

On this more "sustainable" system, you would also have constant upgrades going into place as new technologies become available. While the entire "fleet" of police departments may not have the up-to-the-minute technology, you will not have a major metro station using 50s era radio technology, or an archaic radar control network built in the 40s controlling our air traffic.

There are plenty of ways to boost the economy, but they require such a dramatic change of thinking from the current status quo and greed based money pumping going around on both sides of the isle, in just about every state, that until a seriously revolutionary set of leads (note, plural) get into place, we likely will not see it.

Volk

Regarding the alternate stimulus package, I don't really know. Certainly it would be better than just tossing out money, but the economy - in particular unemployment - is not in a state that calls for a New Deal type of initiative. I also think that the New Deal was much more feasible then than it would be now because of the relatively low national debt compared to today, and particularly considering the extent to which our national debt is a part of the problem. I think the best policy is for America and Americans to stop borrowing money and try and reduce our debt. Debt isn't all bad, but it has become akin to free money, and it most certainly is not free.

Regarding the flaws of the economy, I think Matt has nailed one very important dynamic, but I don't think you can fairly call the U.S. economy "designed". The only markets that are more free than the U.S. market are ones that are in countries without a central government. What happens within the U.S. economy is the opposite of design.

As far as the repair/care versus replace dynamic, that is not entirely the fault of corporate America. Once manufacturing efficiencies reached the tipping point where making a new widget was cheaper than repairing a widget, Americans sensibly (from a purely economic standpoint) began replacing widgets instead of fixing them. This is in turn led to a decline in maintenance of things, since the entire relationship of caring for them was disrupted by the simple economic fact that replacing things was cheaper and therefore made maintenance a waste of time and resources. Now, this does not apply to all things in fact, but tends to get applied to them in perception. Thus, careful maintenance of your DVD player is probably quite pointless, but, doting on your car makes alot of economic sense; Americans, however, have a tendency to care for neither.

So quite without the help of corporations and bought-and-paid-for politicians telling Americans to buy more things, Americans took it upon themselves to stop caring about their belongings so much. And they spread that ethic to a host of other products (cars, houses...) that do in fact offer a reward for their proper care. Once this trend was clear, corporate America simply realized two things - one, the opportunity to sell more things by leaning on Americans' already developing belief in the need to replace things, and two, the fact that Americans were increasingly looking for things that were cheaper, rather than better, because of this same dynamic. And so entered Wal-Mart and Target and their aisles of plastic goods being sold for prices that beg you to buy and discard them at will.

Somewhere along the way, the entire pattern became ingrained into the American consumer's mind, and it cannot be entirely blamed on corporations or the government. To change the way the system works, you must first change the American consumer. This is true also of the horrifying problems with our food supply - but that is a story for another time (read The Omnivore's Dilemma if you're interested).

I think it's very important to weight the impact of the everyday decisions of Americans when it comes to how government policy should be set. The government can only do but so much, and policies that do not account for how Americans think about a particular topic are bound to fail in much the same way that trying to hammer the proverbial square peg into a round hole will fail. Most of our problems are our own doing, not our government's and not corporations'. Our politicians must be forgiven to some extent for enacting bad laws when the popular will seems to favor them; that the popular will is often founded on ignorance of the nuances of a situation are irrelevant because the people will no better understand those nuances when you're trying to get reelected and your opponent is drilling you on your unpopular legislative record. Likewise, our corporations must be forgiven to some extent for responding to our demands, because they must compete in the market and also must improve the value of their stocks - stocks which are not merely the possessions of rail barons in giant mansions, but are the underpinnings of the retirement savings of a great many middle class Americans.

All of this is, incidentally, is one major reason that I support the candidacy of Barack Obama. He is the only candidate who consistently speaks to the need of American citizens to be the agents of change. He understands - surprisingly for such a liberal Democrat - that the government can really only do so much to help the situation. But the American people, if wisely led, can change the course of things with their collective choices and action. Critics tend to discount his charisma and speaking ability as window dressing and useless puffery, but I think they are very wrong. What needs to be fixed about this country has largely to do with the people of this country. No other candidate has the ability to communicate with the American people the way that Obama does, and I think that here and now, it is simply the most important qualification for the job of President of the United States.

My only concern when it comes to the presidency now, does Clinton, Barack, McCain, Guiliani, etc, etc, etc... support LARPing?    If I can write off LARPing as a health care cost (for the running around/exercise), or as a mental health expense for therapy (getting away with hitting friends with latex as opposed to the fantasies of killing people in my office).

As much as I dislike talking politics on a forum/board, it's nice to see so many of you interested and speaking intelligently on the issues.

And that is the crux of the issue.

People need to be invested and interested in the continued success of our nation. People need to be educated on the subjects of policy and help choose leaders who are capable of inspiring the population to make the changes that our society needs so badly.

Government and Corporations do not change, but Individual within those organizations can inspire others to make that change with their feet, their dollars, and their words.

If we wish to have safe homes, then the populace needs to help support safety and work *with* the government to give it to us.

If we wish to have a sustainable economy, the populace must stop buying destructive products and supporting dangerous systems and work with the government and businesses that are sustainable.

If we wish to have good medicine be affordable for everyone, then we as individuals must work to support medical systems which are advantageous to all.

But the assertion that Government and Corporate systems are driven purely by are actions is wrong. Corporations are driven by our dollars, but more importantly, are driven by their own resources and systems that create reliance on their resources.

More importantly, the responsibility of the individual does not obsolve business and government from responsibility. Those corporations are run by people, individuals, with morals and ethics as well. Decisions are made by individuals how those corporations and governments act. Those individuals, too, need to act with the best interest of the greater good in mind as well. We cannot hide behind the anonimity of the great machine, be it corporate or government.

A perfect example of such decisions is the decision by lawmakers to mandate electronic companies fund and support recycling programs to encourage people to recycle their electronic waste. The Government stands up and makes the choice to move forward on something that is needed and beneficial that people could not "demand" with their dollars.

An example of the opposite can be found in the form of major media conglomerates run in Atlanta deciding that the people of Chicago and Philadelphia "want" more "Ethnic" radio, and so they can shut down their rock and alternative channels. Their evidence, because there are a lot of ethnic stations already, they must want more.


America is a great monstrosity of a machine. We have Corporate, Government and Popular elements which drive every facet of life and their is responsibility in every part to keep the other two in line. People just need to wake up to their responsibility and use it.

Volk