How to Fix Our Economy

[quote]Nyballer31 wrote:

We have huge oil reserves in Alaska, offshore and in the Rocky Mountains. Commen sense would say maybe now would be a good time to tap into in considering were sending over 700 billion dollars overseas that could be used in this country to fix critical infastructure. So what do our politicians do they work on a “energy bill” that bans drilling in areas where the oil is. Where is the outrage from Amercian people.

[/quote]

I haven’t exactly thought this through, but I’ve got this idea that we help the rest of the world use up all the rest of the worlds petrolium supplies. It’s going to get used up, we may as well use as much as we can. Meantime we become petro independant with alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, geotherm and I’m sorry to say, but I don’t see any other way, nuclear.

Then, in 50 or 80 years, whenever it is the rest of the world is tapped out, they will have to come to daddy, hat in hand, begging for oil. And we can say “you remember all those years you hated us? All those years we spent liberating nations and helping the people of the world with various humanitarian aid (read money, medicine and American lives)? Yeah, those years. Well, I’m sorry, but, we really need that oil for our stock car racers.”

NASCAR must live on!

There is no fix. Things have already gone much too far in the wrong direction to be fixed.

The economy is fucked.

[quote]GumsMagoo wrote:
What about ending the war… that might also save a dollar or two.[/quote]

Nope. It’d be easier to turn American society inside out than to end that unjust war where we spend 12 million an hour.

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Deport illegal criminals, end the war, encourage companies to make “Made in the USA” mean something positive, punish those responsible for the mortgage mess, and let me run shit for a little while. [/quote]

Funny, because I remember all the conservatives cheering on NAFTA and all the other agreements…

And now all of a sudden we’re seeing what happens with these stupid policies.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
MaximusB wrote:
Deport illegal criminals, end the war, encourage companies to make “Made in the USA” mean something positive, punish those responsible for the mortgage mess, and let me run shit for a little while.

Funny, because I remember all the conservatives cheering on NAFTA and all the other agreements…

And now all of a sudden we’re seeing what happens with these stupid policies.[/quote]

Bill Clinton was a huge proponent of NAFTA. Shitty memory? Or just spewing bullshit partisan talking points?

[quote]belligerent wrote:
There is no fix. Things have already gone much too far in the wrong direction to be fixed.

The economy is fucked.[/quote]

The economy is fucked either way, you’re right. But the more the FED and government intervene, the longer the pain is gonna last.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Funny, because I remember all the conservatives cheering on NAFTA and all the other agreements…

And now all of a sudden we’re seeing what happens with these stupid policies.[/quote]

Wasn’t that one of Newt Gingrich’s babies?

On the House side, NAFTA supporters included big name GOPers as Dennis Hastert, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, John Boehner, Newt Gingrich and Ron Portman, all of whom rose to leadership positions in the House or the Bush Administration. Democrat Nancy Pelsoi, who voted yes on NAFTA, ended up Speaker of the House.

credit for exports, tariffs for imports.
tax cut across the board
decrease spending by 15% immediately, working up from there.
Kill income tax and inheritance tax.
No benefits for illegal aliens.
Tort reform

[quote]jp_dubya wrote:
credit for exports, tariffs for imports. [/quote]

Why do you propose taxing imports? That hurts trade. The less goods are imported the less goods will be exported.

Why would you “credit” exports and how would you propose to to it? You propose to subsidize it with taxpayer money?

[quote]rainjack wrote:
Bill Clinton was a huge proponent of NAFTA. Shitty memory? Or just spewing bullshit partisan talking points?

[/quote]

Oh believe me I remember. It was probably the only thing that made me put my head in my hands during his two terms. I didn’t understand the idea then, and he deserves a huge part of the blame.

I can blame the Democrats as much for being pussies back then as I can for anything else.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
MaximusB wrote:
Deport illegal criminals, end the war, encourage companies to make “Made in the USA” mean something positive, punish those responsible for the mortgage mess, and let me run shit for a little while.

Funny, because I remember all the conservatives cheering on NAFTA and all the other agreements…

And now all of a sudden we’re seeing what happens with these stupid policies.[/quote]

How is NAFTA stupid? Please educate us on what NAFTA has to do with failing financial institutions. And don’t hold back any of that economic expertice. This should be good.

Butt out. The economy will fix itself.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Butt out. The economy will fix itself.[/quote]

No - there needs to be some sort of safety net for the loans that the fed forced lenders to make. A small tweak to the accounting rules, and an insurance fund would be all that is required to get Washington to own up to the damage it has caused by getting involved in private business.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Bill Clinton was a huge proponent of NAFTA. Shitty memory? Or just spewing bullshit partisan talking points?

Oh believe me I remember. It was probably the only thing that made me put my head in my hands during his two terms. I didn’t understand the idea then, and he deserves a huge part of the blame.

I can blame the Democrats as much for being pussies back then as I can for anything else.[/quote]

NAFTA isn’t perfect, but it’s the right idea. What, specifically, don’t you like about it?

[quote]jp_dubya wrote:
credit for exports, tariffs for imports.

[/quote]

Why do you want to “fix” the market? What would that help?

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Bill Clinton was a huge proponent of NAFTA. Shitty memory? Or just spewing bullshit partisan talking points?

Oh believe me I remember. It was probably the only thing that made me put my head in my hands during his two terms. I didn’t understand the idea then, and he deserves a huge part of the blame.

I can blame the Democrats as much for being pussies back then as I can for anything else.

NAFTA isn’t perfect, but it’s the right idea. What, specifically, don’t you like about it?[/quote]

The deindustrialization of America that it’s led to.

It’s a dangerous road to be on when every old factory town begins looking like Youngstown.

I thought this article was interesting about it.

I remember when the protestors shut down Seattle… that was American patriotism at it’s finest.

Pro/Con: Should Congress renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement?
By Mark Weisbrot
Commentary
Article Last Updated: 09/22/2008 12:45:13 PM PDT

THE LONG-AWAITED “Battle in Seattle” opens Sept. 19-26 in movie theaters across the country.

It’s a rare combination of high drama and history-making events as they actually happened when thousands of protesters shut down the World Trade Organization in Seattle nearly nine years ago.

And it has an all-star cast including Oscar-winning beauty Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Rodriguez, Ray Liotta and Andre Benjamin.

Perhaps most unusual for a feature film, it gives the protesters credit for what they accomplished: They changed the debate over what has been deceptively marketed as “free trade.” They were beaten and jailed, choked with tear gas and shot with rubber bullets, but they succeeded in raising awareness about what these organizations and international agreements really do.

Before the Seattle protests in 1999, almost nobody knew that the World Trade Organization was not so much about “free trade” as about creating new rights and privileges for corporations at the expense of the environment, public health and the public interest in general.

The WTO and NAFTA’s provisions on “intellectual property,” for example, are the exact opposite of free trade, according to standard economic analysis. They increase the cost of medicines by extending and protecting the patent monopolies of big pharmaceutical companies and stifling international free trade in generic medicines, some of

which are desperately needed in developing countries.

The debate has widened and the Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, has proposed to renegotiate NAFTA. And why not? The original agreement was approved in 1993, before anyone knew what was in it. Among other things, it contained “sleeper” provisions that enabled corporations, for the first time, to sue governments directly for environmental regulation that affects their bottom line.

We also have nearly 15 years of experience with NAFTA and it clearly did not deliver on most of its promises. It was sold as a job creator, but the United States actually has lost jobs, especially in manufacturing, as our trade deficit with Mexico has grown.

Even more important, NAFTA has helped perpetuate the downward pressure on wages that have made the United States a much more unequal society in the last three decades. From 1973 to 2007, wages in the United States barely grew at all, as compared to a 74 percent increase from 1948 to 1973.

This change in the economy is partly a result of subjecting the majority of the American labor force �?? the more than 70 percent that do not have a college degree �?? to increased international competition, while maintaining protectionism for highly paid professionals such as lawyers, doctors and upper management.

It is also what standard economic theory would predict. Yet almost every newspaper editorial board in the country has someone who took an Econ 101 course and thinks they learned that increasing trade must be good because it makes “countries” better off.

Unfortunately, NAFTA does not appear to have helped Mexico either, where growth since 1994 has been sluggish, wages stagnant and hundreds of thousands of families displaced from farming as they were forced to compete with U.S. agriculture. NAFTA did increase trade, but trade is not an end in itself; the goal is to improve people’s living standards.

So by all means, let’s renegotiate NAFTA �?? and the WTO agreement, too. We’re likely to end up with better agreements now that people know something about what is being negotiated.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Bill Clinton was a huge proponent of NAFTA. Shitty memory? Or just spewing bullshit partisan talking points?

Oh believe me I remember. It was probably the only thing that made me put my head in my hands during his two terms. I didn’t understand the idea then, and he deserves a huge part of the blame.

I can blame the Democrats as much for being pussies back then as I can for anything else.

NAFTA isn’t perfect, but it’s the right idea. What, specifically, don’t you like about it?

The deindustrialization of America that it’s led to.

It’s a dangerous road to be on when every old factory town begins looking like Youngstown. [/quote]

Times change.

You change with them or perish.

[quote]orion wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Bill Clinton was a huge proponent of NAFTA. Shitty memory? Or just spewing bullshit partisan talking points?

Oh believe me I remember. It was probably the only thing that made me put my head in my hands during his two terms. I didn’t understand the idea then, and he deserves a huge part of the blame.

I can blame the Democrats as much for being pussies back then as I can for anything else.

NAFTA isn’t perfect, but it’s the right idea. What, specifically, don’t you like about it?

The deindustrialization of America that it’s led to.

It’s a dangerous road to be on when every old factory town begins looking like Youngstown.

Times change.

You change with them or perish.

[/quote]

Yea well we’re perishing. And that ain’t good.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
orion wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Bill Clinton was a huge proponent of NAFTA. Shitty memory? Or just spewing bullshit partisan talking points?

Oh believe me I remember. It was probably the only thing that made me put my head in my hands during his two terms. I didn’t understand the idea then, and he deserves a huge part of the blame.

I can blame the Democrats as much for being pussies back then as I can for anything else.

NAFTA isn’t perfect, but it’s the right idea. What, specifically, don’t you like about it?

The deindustrialization of America that it’s led to.

It’s a dangerous road to be on when every old factory town begins looking like Youngstown.

Times change.

You change with them or perish.

Yea well we’re perishing. And that ain’t good.[/quote]

But that does not mean that you can freeze time or turn back the clock.

No Indian or Chinese goes back to stand knee deep in cow shit just so that Europeans or Americans can sit on their lazy asses.