An alternative to Great Depression II: These Two Economic Stimulus Plans Could Stop It

[Better Believe It]

Along with the nationalization of insolvent major banks and Roubini's call for a "face value reduction of debt ....across the board...break every mortgage contract."

Bold actions are required. The timid, half-way measures of the Obama administration will not stop a full-scale economic collapse and depression. If the Obama administration doesn't act soon in a bold and dramatic way, the only thing that can be assured is a Republican take over of Congress and the White House in 2012 with an even more reactionary right-wing ticket than McCain/Palin in 2008!

And don't worry about getting 60 votes in the Senate. It just won't happen with any legislation that is bold and will do the job. The Obama administration and Democratic leaders in the Senate will have to challenge the Republicans to engage in real filibusters (not the phantom fake ones they presently use) until 60 votes are obtained or simply change Senate rules in accordance with the U.S. Constitution in which only 51 votes are required to pass legislation or approve Presidential nominations.


We need a new stimulus/recovery plan that will jolt the economy and actually create many useful jobs in the next two years. The initial stimulus plan is puny and devote only a small portion of funds, about 100 billion a year to schools and infrastructure over the next two years. Most of the "stimulus" won't be spent until after 2010.

The following two recovery plans would do the job.

The first is: "America's Mayors Report to the Nation on Projects to Strengthen Metro Economies and Create Jobs Now".

This "Ready to Go" Public Works Plan Will Cost 149 Billion And Create 1.6 Million useful public works Jobs in 2 Years

The Republican and Democratic mayors released a report on January 17, 2009. It lists 18,750 local infrastructure projects in 779 cities costing 149 billion dollars that will create 1.6 million jobs. All of these projects can be quickly started and be completed by the end of 2010!

Find out exactly what "shovel ready" stimulus projects are ready to be built in your city, how many jobs would be created and how much they would cost under this plan.

It's in PDF format.

Go here:

http://www.usmayors.org/mainstreeteconomicrecovery /

And click on:

Option 1: Download a PDF version of the full report, including the executive summary, list of participating cities and then projects, sorted by project type or by city.
+ Click to download the report (5 MB)

The second plan Is: "The American Institute of Architects Plan For Restoring Our Economy and Greening Our Communities"

As the global financial crisis continues to threaten the livelihood of American businesses and workers, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) strongly urges Congress to support policies that will stimulate and restore confidence in the U.S. economy.

Rebuild & Renew: The AIA Plan
America’s architects believe that this economic crisis presents an opportunity not only to build, but to build better.

Read the Complete AIA Plan at this link:

http://www.aia.org/aiaucmp/groups/aia/documents/pdf/aia ...

[truedelphi]

1. The Democrats are only pretenders

They pretend to not get it. Or else they really are that stupid.

Meanwhile the policies they enact are not really half measures. They are full measures for the elite. Congress is always friendly with the upper 1%. The only way to change things is to have a multi-party system of government. Only the nations of the world with three, four and even five political parties have Univerrsal Health Care. And since itr was Bill Clinton who engaged in bringing about NAFTA, shifting his Camapaign Finance Reform Staffers over to get NAFTA voted through Congress, we cannot hold our breaths hoping that Dems care about jobs going overseas.

Obama, you promised CHANGE. Where is it? Putting another Rahm in the WH is not the change I hoped for. Shoring up AIG is not the change I hoped for.

[vaberella]

5. Don't you get it?!

Imagine what will happen if AIG was to fall apart?! It's basically the insurance company of many of the worlds major banks. It's way too big, Dems and Repubs are to blame for that, if that were to fall apart....lets just say it could cause some serious problems in the long run. It would be like a domino effect. The admin right now is trying to slowly break down it's importance and hence the reason we basically own AIG---80% I believe. I don't see how this is so hard to grasp.

[truedelphi]

12. Okay here is an opportunity to respond to the scenario that I'm seeing

Concerning your point of view.

AIG was the institution that offered the "protection" or insurance for the SIV's and CDO's that were invested in. So now that the losses for those instruments total 550 TRILLION dollars, there is no way in the world that we can back up AIG.

We have 13 Trillion a year as our economy. (In good times. Which these times definitely are not.) If you take 550 TRILLION bucks and divide by 13 T, you will see that even if as a nation we agreed to pay off the insurance on the bad bets, I'm sorry, the bad investments, it would take us as a nation 43 years to do this. Assuming that we were not charged interest on the money. And this means no one can ever buy anything again - our entire economy has to agree to never buy another pencil, apple, newspaper, Computer, etc. We could barter what we have, but that would be it. We will have to keep on ONLY bailing out AIG.

Are you aware that we cannot even print out 550 Trillion dollars in money? Unless we start having two million dollar notes as currency. 550 Trillion is such a huge number that cutting down every tree on earth would not supply enough money to keep the printing presses flush with new twenty dollar bills.

If you can explain to me how my math on this is bad, I am willing to hear about it. Also, before you respond, pls take the time to watch Bernie Saunders of Vermont discuss the additional 2- something trillion that Bernacke offered an undisclosed number of undisclosed banks, above and beyond all the other Bailouts. Another DU'er posted it to the political videos earlier today.

Keep in mind that the financial experts and the bankers all wanted to turn the banks and investment institutions into such unregulated instruments of finance that they were nothing more than casinos. They made their choices. They broke the economy. Somewhere we have to realize that we cannot keep pouring good money after bad. (Although the money we are handing out as BailOut monies is not even good money - it is fiat money. And for every dollar of it printed, a sum X comes into play as an inflationary item. Experts are now saying that after the first Oct '08 Bailout Monies were handed out, every man, woman and child in this country would have to make at least $ 750 bucks more over the next twelve months to offset the inflation that is going to result just fro mt hat one instance of seven hundred billion.)

A medical analogy would be if you had a patient who was hemorrhaging and for whatever reason you did not apply a tourniquet but did start a blood transfusion.

You'd end up wasting a lot of blood but the patient would still die.

The reason that the media doesn't talk about this si that our media is in the total control of the Big Money, Big Defense, Big Oil, Big Pharmacy etc. The Wall Street Journal for instance, keeps saying that it is not possible to understand what is happening. Of course it is possible to understand, I just explained it.

But it is important to the upper .01% of our society to keep this myth going - "Hey Citizen Taxpayer, we just need this one more <wink wink <nudge nudge Tranch of Bailout Monies and then everything will be okay." So the media relies on how we swallow whatever they spew out. By the time that the country is dead broke and buried, the rich will have gotten every penny they could have gotten fromus. And we will be wheel barrowing our two million dollars worth of currency into the grocery store to buy bread. (assuming there is a grocery store.)

[damntexdem]

2. No, the alternative to Depression II.

When WWII came along, the world didn't rename the Great War as Great War I.

[truedelphi]

13. Funny you bring that up. As a little tiny tyke

My dad used to take me to the park and tell me WWII stories. Those tales are among my earliest memories. They always began with this sentence as introduction "A long time ago there was The Great World War." Then he would go on with his view of history: How The Great War was a huge effort that had gotten sold to the People as "The War to End All Wars"

Funny isn't it, my dad would say, I used to wonder what the heck I was doing int the trenches of Germany in the forties, if the Great War had been to end all wars."

Now we as a nation are told that the Big Corporations and their billionaire owners just need one more set of BailOut Monies. Just one more set of 30 Billion or Two Hundred Billion or whatever. Then everything will all be great.

And when we end up living in trenches, we'll probably be as cynical as my Old Man.

[joeglow3]

3. I don't want my contract broken

I am quite happy with my house & the rate I have (5.5%)

[Better Believe It]

8. Fine: Why do you think the interest rate you pay to the actual owners will go up?

The proposal is not intended for house users who have almost paid off those who actually own the house. If the "worth" of the investors house you live in goes down, with or without Roubini's plan how will that hurt you? I don't think you're 5.5% rate would at all be affected. In fact, combined with other measures it will probably go down.

If you haven't paid off your mortgage you don't own a house! Did someone convince you that you're a home owner?

Without setting a reasonable floor under Roubini's proposal the current "worth" of house users like yourself could very easily decline another 50% of more. Have you reached negative equity yet?

[joeglow3]

9. Did I say I am a home owner?

Actually I did not.

However, I consider myself a homeowner because I have more than my mortgage saved up, so I could pay it off at anytime.

That said, how do you create a floor? The reason we are in this mess (at least a part of it) is because home prices shot up past what they were really worth. What does keeping these prices inflated accomplish? I certainly am not going to trade up (which I hope to do in the next couple years) if the homes are worth 20% more than the market dictates they should be. If I did, I would then be the one making a stupid decision, by paying much more than a house is worth.

[Better Believe It]

10. Until you pay off the mortgage you're a house user, not a homeowner.

And without bold actions of kind recommended by Roubini you'll lose your savings, your job and might have to start looking around for a nice tent!

Do you think this is a recession?

[vaberella]

4. I definitely will make it a point to be ware of your posts.

It seems to always be in the same vein of posting right-wing meme's that are found to be an epidemic within the corporate media.

[FrenchieCat]

6. Naw. To poster, Obama is never doing enough, or doing it right.....

It's not right wing related,

it's the "Obama isn't perfect, is really the wrong president,
so here is what he needs to do if he expects me to be happy,
cause he's obviously not as smart as me" Meme.

At some point it gets boring, since of course,
voters already know that Obama isn't going to be perfect
per what one smart ass decides is perfection.

[vaberella]

7. Ahhh....one of the Les Petite Poulets. Understood.

[Better Believe It]

11. The National Conference of Mayors and Architects organizations are right-wing???!!!

Oh please, please show us how the AIA and National Conference of Mayors are right-wing organizations.

Now this ought to be entertaining!

I'm listening!

We're all listening!