Obama Visiting Southampton Recreation Association Today
Unless H&H is your only source for news, you know that President Obama will be at the Southampton Recreation Association to meet with residents and discuss the economy. I contacted the RPD to see what streets are going to be closed or restricted. Due to security concerns they were unable to share any specifics. Be prepared for some street closing and detours.
Unfortunately I was not invited to share my insight on the economy. If you or someone you know is attending, please leave your impressions in the comments. Any photos of the goings on would be greatly appreciated.
Local Coverage (more added as I find them);
- Times Dispatch
- NBC12 NBC12 announced that the President will be meeting with Matt Perry and his family. Matt runs Riverside Outfitters. Article that includes more detailed schedule.
- ABC8
Other Coverage
The President needs to restaff his economic team with more advisors who UNDERSTAND BUSINESS!
However, I think we are pretty much fried and on our way to crash part 2.
Actually I would prefer an economic team with advisers who understand economics and how individually logical actions by households and businesses who cut back during a recession leads to collective decline in living standards via the paradox of thrift. Businessmen don’t understand economics and shouldn’t be making economic policy.
I shouldn’t do this, but…if government were to be run by businessmen, then government would be hiring millions of undocumented aliens, paying below minimum wage. Government would layoff sick workers and cancel insurance; government would discriminate in hiring and promotion, and pay women less than men for the same work. Government would lay off American workers and contract with foreign sources for goods and services. Yes sir, that’s the way business would run government. Government would close schools becaue schools don’t affect the bottom line. Government would pay executives salriers that are many multiples higher than the median wage workers. Yes, sir, business in charge.
Thanks Fred and Sundagger. :o)
Business is NOT synonymous with Economics
BTW, over the last weeks and months, quite a few economic indicators are showing signs of improvement in the overall economy, and, given that the data is emerging AFTER the recently announce ‘official’ end of the recession, this is indeed positive news.
To all the doomsdayers out there. My job is currently under the gun, and I am expected to lose it in the next year or two, but I don’t give in to the notion that our best days are behind us. That has never been the case. We’ve come along way in this country and we have a long way to go. BUT, we WILL overcome.
A proud American.
http://gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=352
Green Party leaders called the raids a “police-state” tactic to intimidate those who oppose the Obama Administration’s foreign policies, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan. The activists whose homes were raided had criticized US actions in the Middle East and Colombia.
“We demand that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder order an end to ‘police state’ tactics by the FBI and other security agencies and that the Justice Department investigate the Sept. 24 raids,” said Theresa El-Amin, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. “We demand that grand jury investigations and subpoenas in connection with the raids be canceled immediately. We demand that President Obama restore the rule of law and order all security agencies and police forces to cease spying on citizens without obtaining a warrant. We encourage everyone to protest the FBI’s lawless and outrageous actions as loudly as possible.”
Greens called the raids an indication that suppression of dissent and other serious violations of the US Constitution may be increasing under the Obama Administration. President Obama has maintained the Bush Administration’s warrantless surveillance of US citizens and now seeks legislation that would allow law enforcement and national security agencies to eavesdrop on Internet and e-mail communications (Associated Press, Sept. 27, http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/27-0). The President has also tried to justify allow secret assassinations of US citizens suspected of treason without due process or charges of any kind (see “Obama argues his assassination program is a ‘state secret’” by Glenn Greenwald, http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/25/secrecy/index.html).
Out of all the places in the city, WHY in the world was this held at SRA???
Jeesh Sundagger. How’s that kool-aid taste? Lest we forget, the only way government can be so generous is because it is using other people’s money. Government does not produce anything – it is a service entity completely reliant on the hard work of businesses and the people they employ. Not all government is bad, but not all business is bad either. The problem is, bad businesses go out of business. Bad government just keeps on keeping on – at the peoples’ expense. Oh, and by the way, government already pays salaries that are on average higher than the private sector. That’s my money going to a bunch of bureaucrats who now live better than I do. Sound familiar? Ask Russia.
Jennifer K., I disagree on several of your points.
IMHO, the government has sold out to the corporations to the point that between the government and the corporations, citizens’ interests are lost. The duopoloy of political parties in power cannot be trusted. Support the alternatives and be wary of the corporate money. The dollar is being devalued.
Jennifer, I agree and disagree. If you will forgive a stylistic point, Business has few positive lessons for us. But there are individual businesses who are important citizens, creating jobs and opportunities, and are strong financial and volunteer members of the community. Likewise, Government, with a capital G, has let us down too often. But I know the government workers who are in on the weekends and nights, without overtime, who simply keep our water flowing, provide national defense, work to keep the environment in an improving condition.
But I must say, I have found very few public salaries to match those offered in the private sector. The tradeoff has always been that government retirement plans are better. But with defined benefits, even that is no longer true.
Government is not a business and should not be compared to one. That is not to say that Government should not be conducted in a more business-like manner, but, because it is not a business it should not focus entirely on the bottom line.
Bad businesses do NOT always go out of business: some very notable ones benefit from direct or indirect government intervention on a regular basis.
Scott makes a more salient point.
@Sundagger. Thank you for meeting me halfway. The truth is alawys in between, right? In case you are interested, link to an article regarding Federal salaries (not state or local) as compared to the private sector.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-04-federal-pay_N.htm
@Stuffa – agree with you as well but from a different angle. Bad businesses SHOULD BE ALLOWED to go out of business. I assume this means you were not a supporter of the recent bailouts? Neither was I. However, keep in mind that sooner or later the music stops, politics change, and those companies with their hands in the government’s pockets can just as easily be cut off – thereby ending what was their solvency at the taxpayer’s expense.
@Scott, I am curious to know which of my “several points” you disagree with. I only had about 3. Do you feel that government does produce something? If so, what is it that actually generates wealth? (and please don’t say the Chevy Volt). Do you think that government salaries are lower than the private sector (see above article for evidence to the contrary). Does government run on money that it makes or money that it confiscates from the working people in this country? And I’m not talking about their printing press either.
And before I am discounted as a raving anti-government lunatic, I understand very well that there are some services that government must (by law) and should provide. But what we have today is nothing short of a bloated, inefficient monstrosity that costs the taxpayer far more than what he/she gets in return – currently about $43,000 per person above and beyond what we each already pay in taxes. If this were not the truth, we would not be in DEBT (not deficit) to the tune of $14 trillion.
“Government does not produce anything”
vs.
“I understand very well that there are some services that government must (by law) and should provide.”
Contradiction.
“The problem is, bad businesses go out of business.”
Really?
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/business/business/2010/sep/30/2/aig-reaches-deal-repay-government-ar-533671/
“government already pays salaries that are on average higher than the private sector.”
Not always true.
“And I’m not talking about their printing press either.”
Maybe you should. Its very timely.
Jennifer, I don’t mean to pick on you as I have my own anti-government concerns-
http://dailyreckoning.com/house-passes-protectionism-measure/
“And this came across my desk, and I promised you that I would keep you up to date on any news regarding the rumor that the government would confiscate our IRAs… I’m told that the meeting to discuss this was held on September 13th and 14th. The agenda was called “Lifetime Income Options for Retirement Plans.” Now… I don’t know for a fact that IRA confiscation was discussed here… But the rumors are flying… And you know me… Where there’s smoke…
So, when you Senator comes home to campaign, you might want to ask him or her, just what the heck is going on here? And if the government is NOT going to confiscate IRAs, they might just want to make an announcement saying just that, to squash these rumors…
Remember, the rumor was that the government would require us to buy Treasuries only (talk about a stock market crash), which takes care of their need to have the deficit financed… And the fund would be run by the government, probably as well as they ran the Social Security fund! But remember! This is just a rumor right now! But there’s smoke…”
Scott,
I appreciate your willingness to dialogue and do not feel picked on – I am happy to engage in this discourse, yet restate my original points and affirm there is no contradiction. Clearly stated, services do not equal production. If that were the case, we would not be so panicked about the staggering loss of manufacturing jobs as we morph into a services-only economic model. The government does not make anything. Providing services, albeit some of them valuable, does not run an economy. To use one of Sundagger’s examples, delivering your water has to be done via pipelines, sewer systems, electricity – all require infrastructure and materials that are made by entities in the private sector. Who builds those VDOT trucks? Who makes the materials for the courthouse buildings? the phones government employees use to answer our calls? The paper they use to print our tax bills? The chairs they plop their plump bureaucratic bums in from whence they “enforce” their regulations? I could go on and on and on… As far as AIG and the others – as mentioned in my reply, I was no fan of the bailouts, but there is precious little we can do about that now – except perhaps pressure Congress to force Treasury to be transparent about its payouts.
Your notes about IRA confiscation are frightening but not wholly unexpected. Ever since the birth of the Roth, I have been waiting for the Feds to renege on their end of the deal. This is that scenario magnified.
While I would not characterize the relationship between public and private sectors as genuinely symbiotic, there is a necessity to work together regardless. That being said, private enterprise (and private citizens for that matter) is more often than not at the mercy of government, and particularly whatever poltitical party is in power – witness the lobbying feeding frenzy and that should answer any questions about who is truly in control. This imbalance is what needs to be addressed, a partial solution to which may possibly lie in term limits and tort reform.
Government is at the mercy of corporate America these days, not vice-versa.
Passing along a rumor about IRA confiscation serves no purpose whatsoever…come back when the rumor is either substantiated or de-bunked.
Oh wait, don’t bother:
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/are_congressional_democrats_talking_about_confiscating_ira.html
Fred, businesses and individuals cutting back on spending and decreasing their debt are the only ones taking the proper steps toward long-term recovery. Artificial stimuli via loaned Chinese money is short-term thinking. The economy can’t grow at rates we’ve seen in the past because that growth rate depended on a continued increase in debt which is completely unsustainable. Once debt fears are allayed, THEN the economy can begin to grow again but hopefully at more sustainable levels with people buying houses and cars more in line with their actual income.
Your first point to me is more semantic than anything else. We could argue about production vs. services (and what about assets like public parks?), but in the end its not that germane. You do acknowledge we need government in some capacity.
The slide of the dollar goes hand in hand with confiscation of wealth. We could go into a discussion of class and wealth, but ultimately that is not very satisfying either. The upshot of it all is that the national currency, like other institutions, is being debased.
Related:
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2010/09/journal-notes-from-underground.html
My main point to you is that the corporations span public and private sectors’ to the detriment of plain ol’ citizens. Locally, check out who is is taking up the previous Richmond Renaissance role of deciding the local priorities- hint, its the same ol’ suits behind the scenes.
Nationally, the corporations are in control, with the duopoly as the bit, and they cannot be trusted to act in citizens’ interests. They do not need to ‘work together’ with private citizens because they do not need citizens as much as they want simple consumers.
I do like the idea of term limits.
Stuffa, the info from your link is scary enough:
“What has been discussed is changing 401(k) and Individual Retirement Accounts in the future by limiting the deductibility of donations, and offering as an alternative a $600 tax credit and a new type of account with an annual return guaranteed by the government.”
Btw, are we all on the same page as recognizing the unsustainability of Social Security?
I am really not interested in scaring people as much as making sure that citizens are aware of what is going on and why they should take more interest in government. I recognize that this conversation may be have outsized its venue, this neighborhood blog.
Everybody is remaining civil so I have no issues with the discussion. Carry on if you so desire.
Did you read on?
“What Ghilarducci proposes is to pay for her proposed $600 tax credit by taking away the deductibility of money put into an IRA or 401(k) over $5,000 per individual, per year. (IRAs for those under age 50 would actually not be affected, since the current limit for them is $5,000 anyway.) This would certainly reduce the incentive for upper-income workers to put more than $5,000 into such accounts in future years, but it would in no way reduce the tax advantage of keeping money already in those accounts. All interest, dividends and capital gains realized inside those accounts would continue to go untaxed until the account holder withdraws the money.”
And did you note the date of this discussion? 2008. Where is this meme now?
On Social Security:
As long as the federal government has, under the Constitution, “Power To Lay and collect Taxes” and the authority to issue and sell Treasury bonds, it and its programs will not go bankrupt. It is instructive to note that the reference to potential bankruptcy would be impossible to claim if Congress simply reinstated the authorization, present in the law from 1943 to 1950, to pay any shortfall in Social Security out of general revenue. Another option would be to raise the wage limit (SS maximum)or do away with the wage limit altogether.
Given that income taxes are at their lowest levels since 1970 what do you think the options are.
“…it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes…”
George Washington 1796
“Where is this meme now?”
Yes, where is it now? The Chuck Butler column I linked to was published today.
So I guess we do not all agree that Social Security as it is now is unsustainable? Oh well…
So it is still just a rumor. Serving no purpose.
Beware the zombie rumor…it never dies!
Your original question was whether or not we agreed that Social Security was sustainable, not whether it was sustainable as it is now.
It is as sustainable as we want it to be.
http://socialsecurity-works.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/senate_social_security_resolution.pdf