econimic stimulus package?
am I the only one who thinks this whole idea is a farce?
I mean, the main thing being toted is something to do with a one-time tax rebate to individuals, with little being said about sustainability or long-term stimulation.
the best I can figure, they are hoping that by giving all hard working americans extra money ONE TIME ONLY will some how jump start the economy back to where it needs to be through consumer spending.
it's a little like using electricity to jump start a heart when it's stopped beating. with about the same concerns.
you have a limited amount of time to re-start a heart before it either a: won't restart or b: won't do any good to beat because of the damage cause to other areas.
same idea with the economy. if you wait to long, either it won't start back up that easily, or the damage will be too severe for the consumer spending to be enough.
another thing about a heart, if you don't fix the problem that cause it to go in the first place, it'll just go again.
economy? if you haven't bothered fixing the cause of the economic decline and pending resession, then a little tax benefit isn't going to make those things go away and the economy will just crash again.
so, what I want to know, is what have they (the governement/people of power) done to ensure that the cause of the initial decline is repaired so that we don't go back down?
I mean, oil is what, $100/barrel right now? lets see...that increases cost of living & cost of doing business with regards to electricity, heat, gas, the production of oil based materials used in other areas of life. The cost of living eats at your income just on the increase of your utility bills/gas prices.
Consumers are trying to make sure they keep paying their bills right now and aren't exactly trying to go out and fly to aruba, or buy that big pretty new mazda 3 they were looking at. so demand goes down. the cost of business goes up, and that cost is passed to the consumer, increasing their cost to eat, drink, travel, spend.
there is a mild arguement that the drop in demand will off-set the rise of prices due to opperating costs, but I think that a stalled economy (as hopefuls will call our situation) is already suffering from low demand, and it is reasonable to believe that suppliers can't drop their prices lower at this point or suffer losses of their own.
(this is also assuming that free market rules still apply to the american economy, which has been opperating as the largest developed nation for so long, our suppliers could just be ignoring our economic plight and figuring we'll get back on the wagon without their help eventually).
then there's the decline of the dollar's purchasing power on the international market (which means we have to pay more for our imports than we're use to thereby increasing production/domestic consumer costs), our drop in global appeal (which means international consumers/investors are not necessarily banging down our door to do business with us when there are other appealing options out there and not feeding us their money), and our extreme spending on a war that is running up our national debt. some of this is inter-related, but all of it contributes to us putting out more money and not getting a whole lot back in.
and I still say that when we participate in a global economy, it doesn't do us any good to piss that economy off.
there's also the contributing factors that china and japan are battling their own economic crises right now, and other countries aren't doing so hot, so they aren't exactly spending/producing the way we would like/need.
so, with regards to those factors which we could control through our diplomatic/political/economic policies, what have we done to ensure that this one time shock to our economic system will be enough to get it going?
'cause really, I feel like we need an economic life support system the way things stand now. and I just wonder how much this tax thing is going to do.
not that I'm complaining about the extra money, but lord knows i'm going to use it to pay off my debt and not go running out to buy a new motorcycle, or do heavy spending on my wardrobe.
I mean, the main thing being toted is something to do with a one-time tax rebate to individuals, with little being said about sustainability or long-term stimulation.
the best I can figure, they are hoping that by giving all hard working americans extra money ONE TIME ONLY will some how jump start the economy back to where it needs to be through consumer spending.
it's a little like using electricity to jump start a heart when it's stopped beating. with about the same concerns.
you have a limited amount of time to re-start a heart before it either a: won't restart or b: won't do any good to beat because of the damage cause to other areas.
same idea with the economy. if you wait to long, either it won't start back up that easily, or the damage will be too severe for the consumer spending to be enough.
another thing about a heart, if you don't fix the problem that cause it to go in the first place, it'll just go again.
economy? if you haven't bothered fixing the cause of the economic decline and pending resession, then a little tax benefit isn't going to make those things go away and the economy will just crash again.
so, what I want to know, is what have they (the governement/people of power) done to ensure that the cause of the initial decline is repaired so that we don't go back down?
I mean, oil is what, $100/barrel right now? lets see...that increases cost of living & cost of doing business with regards to electricity, heat, gas, the production of oil based materials used in other areas of life. The cost of living eats at your income just on the increase of your utility bills/gas prices.
Consumers are trying to make sure they keep paying their bills right now and aren't exactly trying to go out and fly to aruba, or buy that big pretty new mazda 3 they were looking at. so demand goes down. the cost of business goes up, and that cost is passed to the consumer, increasing their cost to eat, drink, travel, spend.
there is a mild arguement that the drop in demand will off-set the rise of prices due to opperating costs, but I think that a stalled economy (as hopefuls will call our situation) is already suffering from low demand, and it is reasonable to believe that suppliers can't drop their prices lower at this point or suffer losses of their own.
(this is also assuming that free market rules still apply to the american economy, which has been opperating as the largest developed nation for so long, our suppliers could just be ignoring our economic plight and figuring we'll get back on the wagon without their help eventually).
then there's the decline of the dollar's purchasing power on the international market (which means we have to pay more for our imports than we're use to thereby increasing production/domestic consumer costs), our drop in global appeal (which means international consumers/investors are not necessarily banging down our door to do business with us when there are other appealing options out there and not feeding us their money), and our extreme spending on a war that is running up our national debt. some of this is inter-related, but all of it contributes to us putting out more money and not getting a whole lot back in.
and I still say that when we participate in a global economy, it doesn't do us any good to piss that economy off.
there's also the contributing factors that china and japan are battling their own economic crises right now, and other countries aren't doing so hot, so they aren't exactly spending/producing the way we would like/need.
so, with regards to those factors which we could control through our diplomatic/political/economic policies, what have we done to ensure that this one time shock to our economic system will be enough to get it going?
'cause really, I feel like we need an economic life support system the way things stand now. and I just wonder how much this tax thing is going to do.
not that I'm complaining about the extra money, but lord knows i'm going to use it to pay off my debt and not go running out to buy a new motorcycle, or do heavy spending on my wardrobe.