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What's the better plan than this?
Above all else, the 11.6 million people out of work need to be employed, or at least a good chunk of them. Employment is what will hold the line on foreclosures, on decreasing business output, on declining retail sales, etc. Without jobs, nothing else matters.
The basic formula for growth - GDP - is C+I+G+(X-M). Consumers can't buy without jobs. Investors won't invest in businesses with no productivity. Exports are in the toilet, as are imports. That leaves the big G - government - as the catalyst to reverse the vicious circle into a virtuous one.
If you oppose this or any other stimulus plan, that's fine - what's your proposed solution to 11.6 million people out of work?
My tax dollars are not here to subsidize failure. Where in the hell did we as a culture decide that it was fine and dandy to just take taxpayer money, give it away, and expect nothing in return?
Your "solution" assumes that the basic principle -- taking someone else's money and giving nothing in return -- is acceptable. Your argument is simply for a better method to give away our money -- you clearly have no problem with the underlying principle that it's fine to give it away.
The point is that free money is not free. Who holds the final bill? Every tax dollar you take is a dollar I can't spend to buy products and contribute to the GDP.
A stimulus plan shouldn't be a blank check. Money isn't free. I pay over 50% of my income to federal, state, local and sales taxes. That means I work -- for FREE -- until July of each year before I make a penny for my own family. The cavalier attitude that it's fine to give that money away and expect nothing in return shows a basic misunderstanding of how business works.
You want money? Let's make that happen. Let's get your business to be successful so you can pay it back. You want free money? Go be the panhandler that you really are.
Your money, such as it is, does not exist beyond the faith you place in it.
That said, I still want to hear what YOUR idea is to rein in rampant unemployment, declining wages, and all the other crap that's occurring now. With or without taxpayer money, what is your idea?
If my money does not exist, then why are you taking it? That's a rhetorical argument that has nothing to do with a discussion on how to spend said money.,
How about we simply modify your idea to make it have some basic business sense. You need an employee? You need to pay that employee $100k? Then borrow the money to hire that employee from this bottomless pool drawn from people who work for a living. What's the free market interest rate? Cut that in half. Now you get the money to build your business if you meed the qualifications you listed, and you get it a below-market rate.
Will some of those loans go unpaid because that business fails? Of course. But some of the businesses will not fail, and will pay the money back. Net result, far less "imaginary money" taken away from the taxpayer.
So, same play you've created, with the exception that we change it from welfare to an actual business relationship.
The important thing here, however, is that the money gets paid back. Everyone wins. Businesses can grow and hire employees courtesy of Joe Taxpayer, and the money gets paid back -- it's not "free."
However, some students simply will never earn enough to pay back massive debts. If there is a looming student debt crisis (as Suze Orman predicts), then we are all in big trouble. Furthermore, a crisis of that proportion cannot be explained by recourse to "deadbeat students". Something larger is happening: We have been sold the idea that education equals security, and that is no longer the case.
This is not about deadbeats, this is about a societal shift, and we had best recognize that fact.
20,000 x 3.5 million jobs = roughly 60 billion
same for folks who purchase and close homes for the 2009 calendar year
first one will get people working and second will do the same. not my idea heard it on the dave ramsey show
One, people can't find jobs to make your dollar worth it's value. They can't make money, they can't spend money, they can't drive the economy. What's your money going to be worth if the US financial system collapses? As trust dwindles down, nothing.
Two, those "deadbeat" students graduated with debt they can't pay because the current market is dumping jobs in the thousands daily.
I'd really rather not crash and burn. I'd really rather those people that NEED to feed their families be able to find a job to do so. Right now they can't. Something's gotta give.
There are basic principles at stake here. What you're saying is that as soon as times are hard, the government should step in and pay your debts.
It's not a pay/don't pay situation. That's simplistic. Delay repayment if you don't want to "crash and burn," but no, you don't get a free ride. These students made an agreement, to repay the money they borrowed. They need to live up to that agreement, if not now, then farther down the road.
Someone is paying for it. Shouldn't that someone be the person that borrowed it?
I did ask HOW they are expected to when we're tanking jobs day after day in the thousands. If you want to delay, sure, that's reasonable. Let's talk about what's going to start happening soon.
What happens when a family runs out of unemployment benefits because the providers can't find jobs because there are no jobs? A few weeks ago a man killed himself and his family. Right or wrong, he did that because he looked a future and saw nothing hopeful about the situation he was in.
That is the reality that we're facing right now. There isn't enough to go around. Even if people aren't killing themselves left and right, they won't have food or heat or electricity if they can't find a job. Which is again, becoming even harder by the day.
You have to make the economy's wheels turn, they are stuck in mud right now. Your money? It's going to banks exec who want their comfy little vacations and bonuses. Does that really make you feel better? If so, more power to you for being angry at the people who need to feed themselves.
The fact still remains that unless something rational is done with the stimulus that the government is going to take out of our pockets like it or not, then we're going to continue down the path we're currently on.
It won't matter if your money is blown, it won't have any value anymore. Then you face the question of how can you repay something when you can't determine the value? So the point will be moot.
So please, tell me what it is that is a better idea. Because G*d knows we need them.
That's the topic sentence of this comment thread. I attacked that statement, you defended it. But now you're saying that you do not agree with the topic sentence that you defended? You agree with me, that we not forgive the debt, but instead delay repayment? Please clarify, because you're covering both sides of the discussion. Do you agree with me or not?
If you agree, then "how" they repay isn't the question. The question is "when" will they repay.
The rest of your comment has nothing do to with the discussion, and is a fallacy of logic known as "an appeal to emotion." Was the man that killed his family trying to repay a student loan? If not, then you are using the appeal to emotion to confuse cause and effect.
I don't believe that we should randomly forgive student loans. That's not what Chris proposed. What he is proposing I agree with but agree further with your conclusion in the thread above. THAT is a workable solution that doesn't take money without giving it back.
The confusion is a result of me talking about two different things, student loans and the market as it stands and it's effects. I'm sorry for not making it abundantly clear that I was speaking about both students repaying their loans and unemployment of everyone, as well as money, it's value and current trust levels.
There are so many things at play here, so many pieces of the puzzle.
I do want to drive home the point that money has value sure, it has less value right now because trust has been ditched. What's going on now is an attempt to find a solution to fix both. Unless all the wheels start turning again we're going to keep heading down the crash and burn path where it won't matter what the dollar was worth but what currency we'll trust next.
FWIW, I'm writing this in the dark right before bed, but I wanted to send you a response tonight.
Are the businesses getting the bailout money required to pay it back? I'm assuming so. If not, then inflation should be through the roof. Or.. are we assuming that many of these businesses will fail anyway, and the government never gets back the money?
I totally understand the employment side of things though. Anything that creates jobs, and increases consumer confidence is a good thing.