The Washington Post‘s Steven Pearlstein (11/11/10), one of the few Americans (by his own account) who DOESN’T need to have his wages cut, writes:
Reducing the federal deficit won’t by itself do much to balance the U.S. trade account by increasing exports, but to the degree it involves increases in taxes or decreases in employment and income of government workers, demand for foreign imports will also decline. Such are the harsh realities of bringing an economy back into balance.
The U.S. had a trade deficit of $380 billion last year. To eliminate thisby lowering overall demand in the U.S., you’d have to reduce U.S. GDP by something like $1.5 trillion, since trade accounts for only about one-quarter of U.S. economic activity. So you’d be shrinking our economy somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 percent. Harsh realities, indeed.
i suppose suggesting we cut the trade deficit by getting the u.s. to make stuff for americans to buy [and export] would be out of the question…
I don’t wont to get into how to revigorate the economy, i just want to mention that the author seems to believe that not having GDP growth is a catastrophy. well the thing is that the amount of goods and services produced today in the USA are largely sufficient to provide a very comfortable living for all its citizens. what the US (and many other developped countries) needs is not a bigger pie, but simply to share that pie more or less equally between americans.
@Amine: Hear! Hear! Check out steadystate.org and TooMuch.org.
Now that we have a House full of Republicans, they are going
to need a diferent slogan–no, and Hell, no, aren’t going to be
accepted. For two years now, they’ve been against everything
proposed. What we have never found out is, What are they for?
Richard Walrath Says:
November 19th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Now that we have a House full of Republicans, they are going
to need a diferent slogan–no, and Hell, no, aren’t going to be
accepted. For two years now, they’ve been against everything
proposed. What we have never found out is, What are they for?
— i for one am afraid to find out but soon we will.
We really know what the Republicans want, that is for all of the money to go to the richest people in the world. They are working to change our American democracy into a new world oligarchy. They probably have already succeded. The more wealth that stays with the top 1% the closer they come to total control.
A fool and his money are soon parted; vote Republican you fools! I have said many times that any working person who votes Republican is an idiot.
Please read about how you are being SUCKER -PUNCHED – and that includes Tea Partiers, who are , for all practical purposes, us-and-them and blindly support the privileged and trickle-down: 1) Welcome to the Plutocracy, by Bill Moyers 2) The Laws and Policies of the U.S. are for Sale, by Johann Hari. Two exellent articles on the internet. // Jean Clelland-Morin
THis is not the belief of any Tea party member or Republican or Democrat ,Libertarian or even Marxist that I am aware of.Sounds like the musing of an economic prof on a philosophical basis.Keep moving folks there is no story here.
You know ,most people who had nothing to say would refrain from saying it.Then again ,that’s never stopped michael e in the past.Why should it stop him now?And when will he learn to put spaces after the punctuation in his sentences?Not that I’m mocking him ,of course;I’m showing solidarity with him.(Google “Rush Limbaugh Coomo”;I’m showing that kind of solidarity.)
Austin you are speaking :) .Yet you worry so little about the space between the ears of so many close to your heart.
There was a prof at Harvard that I heard say in a lecture” you can always tell a liberal by their disengagement from argument ,to comment on the proper use of English.It was not a compliment.
Austin, one word: ignore. That is all.
TiMN(my socialist friend)
To ignore:To pretend not to see
To refuse to pay attention to
To treat with contempt
To fail to care for or give proper attention to
In the last election cycle and during the Obama administration this was the norm with liberals in their relationships with conservative minded people. For a time and I must be honest here -it did work, and served to silence those who had opinions different from the status quo. But in the end(the last election)it was soundly rejected.I hope that as “we” take over the reins of power in such a complete way, that those on our side of the isle will learn from your mistakes, and treat people with differing views in a more respectful manner.
To those of you who share the discourse -even with people who are diametrically opposed to your own views……Good show.Jolly good show
Tim what can i say. Your ideas of constantly silencing the opposition is un American.(AS are your beliefs in socialism.)But is is always nice to hear from you.
Great more attacks amongst ourselves, just what we need. =o/
Pearlstien’s an idiot, this is a non-story. The way newspapers are going, he’ll be out of a job entirely soon enough. I wonder what his opinion of recessions, depressions and socialist programs will be then?
I agree with Woodward Burnstein above. Rather than sending manufacturing overseas, like American corporations have been only too happy to do for the last thirty years or so, we should return to making our own goods, and trading only with partners who subscribe to strict human rights agreements, etc. This is not isolationist because the world will always want to enter OUR market, and the U.S. would have leverage for setting terms for doing so. It would result in a “race to the top” rather than the “race to the bottom” that the current globalization scheme enables.
TimN, thank you for the advice to Austin, it was right on.
For anyone who’s interested, we do not live in these United States as a pure Democracy. This country is in part a socialistic country with democratic tendencies. We give the citizens the right to vote. There is no qualifications for a citizen to vote. No requirements either except being a citizen.
What would be interesting would be to put in place a few requirements:
How about a yearly course for all citizens in Civics? How about requiring those who vote to know what their party’s tenets are and what the other partys’ tenets are?
How about having a working knowledge of all of the amendments, including the historical significance of the most important and hard fought ones? And why there was the need for these amendments?
How about having a working knowledge of the three branches of government and what some of the limitations in their power structure are and, also, what some of the day to day activities are in relation to how many days off they take for compensation days and what the absentism is for the voters’ individual members in Congress; just how productive are they?
Why not include the Senators names from your state and their voting record and number of bills introduced.
How about knowing the House of Representatives’ names and voting record?
How about knowing the Presidents’ cabinet members and what their function is in this democracy?
How about some of the details about procedures in the sessions of both the House and the Senate?
How about knowing how many bills were held up in the particular session of Congress, due to filibusters and other delaying tactics and which party was responsible?
How about knowing which lawmakers are standing in the way of business of Congress?
How about knowing the latest bills being voted on, weekly or monthly perhaps?
How about knowing a little bit about history of your own party?
How about requiring voters to know the self interest factor in the legisllation going on: Is it going to help or hurt me, or someone I know?
How about knowing current issues and the truth about them and not allowing someone to vote if their facts do not match what the truth of the matter is?
Should bigots be allowed to vote without qualifications?
Another thing, since most people get their current events from TV, can there be a fact checker built into what the guests on talk shows say? If it is not true, to, on the spot, expose the lie and set the information up to be discussed accurately. Why not use a robot host ask the questions of the guests. Just as there are programs for psychologists that ask preselected questions no matter who the client is, do that for news programs in order to not allow softball questions from the host. FOX is the softball question leader. Have it so that a pundit cannot misconstrue the points being made by, say, a panel of people that must conform to the truth or be exposed. Apply to the politicians, pundits, talking heads, and all who are in a position to influence others with their rhetoric in order to get to the truth of the matter. It could apply to all parties, Republican, Democrat, Green, Tea Party, everyone.
At the very least be able to track what is being said on TV to what the truth is. It really upset me during this last election with the campaign ads, that I was unable to debunk what was being said even though in my heart of hearts I knew they were not being truthful. Some of it was outright lies and some just plain misleading and apparently after the 2010 election no matter what the truth was, people were elected based on some of these suspect ads. If only all information was at hand and did not have to be researched for the truth. But any serious person who wants to be in the know about most information, must dig for the truth. Everything you read, hear or get VIA TV has to be independently verified, you cannot believe anything.
A sad state of affairs.
Raymond We are a socialistic country with capitalistic tendencies?I was gonna jump all over that bit of bunk but….Well actually under Obama…you are right!
As far as truth verification- it is a good sentiment but unworkable.Facts are facts of course…in the last presidential election Obama was known to of been very close to a certain racist ,seperatist,marxist reverend Wright.He was Obama’s spiritual leader…mentor and dear friend on every level. That is a fact. Yet Obama in effect saying “never heard of him”was accepted by people on the left, and the matter was closed.Of course somebody on the right with such a radical tie would be toast…as Obama rightly should of been.You being a hard man of facts I wonder how did you vote…knowing this fact?There were a ton of such FACTS that would of eliminated Obama from consideration.Facts known inside out and backwards by all of us.Yet all that was pushed aside, and we elected thee most unqualified man ever to hold office.And look at the results . Disaster!Disaster by any sane measurment. Yet those on your side of the isle still piss rose water and dream of poppies- poppies when it comes to this president (as the world recoils in horror.And you will vote for him again.So lets say I am dubious of people on your side proposing some sort of measured truth meter.I would say if your side is involved you better hold onto the truth-your hard earned wealth(and your ass)with both hands.
Michael e. Of all that I said in my last post, all you can do is point to an irrelevant fact about Obama’s presidency. Why not address more of the facts that I brought up? I think I brought to bear a few facts you should have addressed. What you said about Wright is almost a non sequiter in response to what I said. Sure you are stating a fact about Obama and J. Wright, but so what? No matter how irrelevant to the topic, but you are just like FOX. You bring up an irrelevant point and then make that a take off point for your obfuscation. When will you folks on the right put the irrelevant facts about Obama and come up with something worth discussing?Cherry picking, red herrings, strawmen…. yea, your forte I’m speaking of.
Rayond i thought i did say(in my own way) that although giving our elected officials some sort of competency test may seem an interesting idea …..We did not expect it 2 years ago from the leader of the free world(competency), so if i seem confused that his underlings need one administered before taking office -Im sorry I really don’t get it..That is why I brought the prez into it.
And your idea of setting rules(and who i wonder would enforce those rules) to the way people read issues and expound on their beliefs is just an infringement on freedom of speech.Fact checking is kind of unworkable.People read different things into the same facts.I truly believe data shows we are in a cooling period.Many on these blogs would say the opposite.Now if next year the world warms I would say I was wrong for that period.But as the world has cooled -who here is deferred in their beliefs of Global warming?As one Global warming theorist said”If we could live a thousand years you would see I am right”.I feel your pain about people believing what they are fed.But a free press and freedom of speech means just that.The right to be wrong and damn proud of it.One thing I feel the left does is believe that people are intrinsically dumb.They patronize them.I feel the opposite.Given the information America will slowly right herself every time.My feeling in that is what is happening now.