Recovery my ass

[AllentownJake]

First of all saying we are in a depression is not a slur against President Obama. I worked 8 months for free for the man, registered 100s of voters, knocked on thousands of doors, and trained 100s of volunteers in the effort to make him President of the United States. I gave him $1000 of my own money. He did not cause this mess. 30 years of awful economic policy created by the conservative movement caused this mess.


1) From anecdotal evidence and from my own experience banks are becoming nastier in their collection efforts. There is little being done to keep people in their homes who can't afford to pay their mortgages. Banks are betting against a recovery and trying to get their hands on as many assets as they can. Banks for the most part aren't investing in new businesses.

2) The bailout money was not used in new lending to start-up businesses. It was used to re-open the casino and continue to pay outrageous bonuses. Trading is what most of these "banks" are engaged in right now. Want to know why gas continues to fluctuate ridiculously. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.

3) The stimulus bill had some and I emphasize the word some economic stimulus in it. Most of the bill however was to manage the depression in the short term. (Unemployment, Medicaid, state assistance, etc). Shovel Ready projects means projects that the states had already planned and might have cut with their own budget crisis. The stimulus bill was more of a keep the system functioning till we can figure out what to do next. It is doing its job but calling the stimulus bill a stimulus bill is like calling the Patriot Act a patriotic bill.

4) A service based economy is bullshit. It only works on debt and trade deficits. Neither which are sustainable. Our economic system in the United States resembles a ponzi scheme that is dependent on our trading partners lending us back the money we spend in order to keep the system going.

5) Our national debt including consumer debt is now approaching 100% of GDP. This is unsustainable. Eventually that chicken is going to come home to roost.

6) Commercial Real Estate continues to be vacated.

7) Our trade policies continue to be suicidal. We allow free trade with nations that do not share our values. We have two options either abandon our values on safe working conditions, workers rights and the environment or increase our tariffs to level the playing field.

8) The healthcare bill will not go as far as it needs to and we will still be stuck with a system where administrative and executive pay bleeds money needlessly from the system. Our system of employer provided healthcare makes us less competitive. We have a system that amounts to economic serfdom and health care is a giant part of that.

9) The States are on the verge of bankruptcy. They have declining revenues and increasing cost from their required entitlement benefits. Add into this the disaster that is going to hit with the declining revenues for Social Security and Medicare taxes and an aging population on the federal level.

10) We are currently involved in two wars. We are ramping down on the one but ramping up in the other. The wars are not something our economy can afford right now. Every $ spent on these wars is a $ not spent here at home to rebuild our economy. The military industrial complex has bankrupted our nation.


This is the reality we are in. Our economy was unsustainable. We need a new NEW DEAL to restore America to the once great economic powerhouse it was. Trying to bring back the old system will only result in a temporary recovery followed by a worse depression 3-5 years down the line.

Saying that we are in a recovery means for the above problems means the junkie just found a new source to fuel its addiction. The economic system of the past 30 years was what George H.W. Bush correctly called "voodoo economics." Time for our nation to return to what it once was.