www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Re: Stimulus/Recovery and Reinvestment Plan

Dan,

I certainly agree with you that "service" is not "industry," and if your point was simply that government workers don't produce goods that can be sold, I have no disagreement with that. It's just that your assertion that if government workers only knew how to produce anything they would be in industry. To be perfectly honest, it seemed a bit insulting to me, but maybe I misinterpreted your comments.

Ryan

A friend in the financial industry asked me this morning what I thought about the economy, the stimulus, etc.

I'm no economist, so my opinion is like anyone else's. Opinions are like sweat socks. Everyone has two and most of them smell bad.

I don't see the whole world coming out of this in the next four years. Sorry to be a downer, but that's how I see it. It takes a long time to build wealth. It gets there by people doing what our grandparents and great-grandparents did: saving something each month and slowly building up the total. It's that simple. It also includes not touching it unless it's an absolute emergency. And an absolute emergency isn't college tuition or a new car or new clothing. It's something more, much more. In fact, when I used to talk to my own relatives about this, they simply stated that savings are what you lived on when you were too old to work. You didn't touch them until you were too old to work. In the meantime you scrimped and scratched to make a living and feed your family without touching savings. And if you absolutely had to do so, you took out as little as possible.

Wealth can only be built slowly. It can be lost quickly--just look at this past year. The world economy is still hemmorhaging jobs, wealth, and even hope for some people. Iceland is in default--a country, in default.

And the stimulus we intend to spend is going to be as big as the GDP of all but something like 16 countries?

If you've got a patch of back lawn, see if someone can help you put in a garden this spring. It may take some "victory gardens" to help ride this out.



Like it or not, the news was--about a year ago--that about half of the total work force in the U.S. worked for some level of government. With the private sector crashing I don't know what will happen with them: how many can be retained.

BOB

Job weakness: beyond layoffs [finance.yahoo.com]

It's clear that some are taking a knee jerk reaction...drastic times call for drastic measures...I agree that government is at times overblown...but in this economy is it prudent to cut those people when they are not likely to get a job in the near future??? That is cutting on one side of the balance sheet to take from the other side. Also in regards to my posting above...it's not only the CT government employees that are being effected...it's the construction workers on the infrastructure projects as well (which are not govt. employees) these private sector jobs will be more heavily effected than the govt employees...take a look at the above article the hiring freezes have created a situation where people are loosing their jobs and business isn't hiring...it's bad out here...and that's nowhere near Michigan, California or Rhode Island, who I believe all have unemployment rates over 10%

Service is an entirely different kettle of fish than is industry. It is a mistake to call Banking, education, of government anything than what they are. They are services not industries. Most of what both my wife and I have done our entire lives is service not industry. Industry builds cars, houses, appliances, etc. We have never done any of that. Service is important in that it supports industry but without industry service cannot develop an economy. Some services will always be needed even if there is not industry but what one has in an economy that is dominated by service is the Third World. Thus it has always been and thus it will always be.

What these bail outs do is pour money, tons of it, into the service sector where it is not needed and very little into industry where it is. That is a prescription for disaster and doubtless explains why only WWII pulled us out of the depression.

I too spoke with my banker who has a Master's Degree and working on a PhD in finance. She is very clear that this funny money being poured out from the Government will only limit the ability of our economy to recover. It is a terrible idea.

CDL

BTW Ryan, To whom did you refer when you spoke of my last two students?

Dan:

I meant to write "sentences," not "students." The only thing I can figure is that I typed the post from my computer at work (I am a teacher) and must have been thinking of my students.

Ryan

Ryan,

Thanks for the explanation. I've made many typos here and in my life. I certainly wouldn't criticize someone for that. I just thought I missed something.

CDL

I see many blame the peoples (what silly people) elected representaives in the Congress but no one says anything about the biggest spending Republican President in memory, who signed off on these bills. This all happened on his watch and he did nothing.

Amen!

It didn't all happen on his watch. But be that as it may, whining like this is the usual digression from the issue at hand. Printing funny money, effectively trying to borrow ones way out of debt, is stupid no matter who proposes it.

CDL

Bob-

I have to disagree... "The buck stops here!" - sign on the desk of President Harry S Truman.

Unfortunately, the 350 billion bucks that was supposed to flow into the economy stopped somewhere on the desks (or the wallets) of those executives who applied for the bail-out funds (AIG, BofA, etc). The Treasury under Bush is to blame for poor oversight.

I don't care who's to blame. If ideas were dynamite neither party has enough to blow up a paper bag. My fourth or fifth counsin depending upon how one figures it is Arther Laffer. Someone here probably knows that name. He was one of the primary figures on the economic team for Mr. Reagan. What we need is to pay attention to the lessons learned when that team stopped the insanity that now reigns in Washington.

CDL

I think Psalm 146:3 said it best, "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help." I have no faith in either party anymore, and don't expect solutions from either of them.

CDL-

Dr Arthur Laffer was @ USC while I was there as an undergrad in the early years of the Reagan Revolution (I actually had a class with Dr Laffer's then girlfriend also an undergrad). During a August 28, 2006 broadcast on CNBC, Dr. Laffer rejected the notion that the US was headed for a recession in 2007/2008. He made on on-air wager with Peter Schiff who actually made the recession claim. (The wager was a penny and the honor of their respective reputations.) Dr Laffer has yet to pay.

Father Deacon,

Well you got me on that one. I'm sorry he lost. I've never met him but hope to this August at a family reunion. I'll ask him then if he has repaid the debt.

CDL

Father Deacon John:

While I liked Truman's desk plate, I also have to say that one man--the president--is up against 535 people in another branch of government who have a knack for fouling things up and then trying to avoid blame for their actions by dissing the president. I'd blame a president if he were the dictator and there were no 535 legislators, but can't lay all the blame on one man for this current debacle.

The Treasury is certainly to blame. And everyone who scrambled--yes, scrambled--to DO SOMETHING is to blame. when did you ever hear of anyone giving away that kind of money with no strings? It was insane. And the further pretending to DO SOMETHING more is equally insane. The private sector is swirling down the drain and that is the only place where jobs and wealth can be created to stimulate any economy. But the new taxes needed to sustain the stimulus have to come from crushing further the private sector.

I do have a solution, but it's not Christian so I won't post the full details. Basically it involves the people hanging politicians as a naitonal sport--something like an afternoon at a baseball game.

BOB