Saturday, October 22, 2011

Its All Down Hill From Here...

...as far as the US economy goes, I think we hit bottom.  Wait.

With unemployment at 9.1%, and some projections of 10% or more by election time, Obama and the democrats proposed a $447,000,000,000-ish spending bill.  If passed, its possible that it would create temporary jobs so 8% unemployment at election time won't look so bad.

The obstructionist Republicans in the House wouldn't let that happen.  

...oh wait, this just in, the Senate failed to pass the bill, not the House.  Two Democrat Senators who are up for re-election in 2012, didn't vote for it.  Another Democrat said he voted for it because he didn't believe in the Republicans voting against it, but he would not vote for its final passing.  Yes, he was elected as a Senator.

So, the President said he wanted to at least save teachers', firefighters' and cops' jobs by having the Federal Government give money to the cities.  A mere $30,000,000,000. 





The Republicans blocked it again (with the two Democrats...again)...in the Senate.

(Didn't those two Dem's know it had no chance at all of passing the House?  Politics - they're betting on voters in their states won't knowing much).

Republicans want to protect millionaires - and they don't want to pay teachers (they probably hate puppies too!)


Biden's Fourth-Grade Economics by Mark Steyn

"Here in this school, your school, you’ve had a lot of teachers who used to work here, but because there’s no money for them in the city, they’re not working. And so what happens is, when that occurs, each of the teachers that stays have more kids to teach. And they don’t get to spend as much time with you as they did when your classes were smaller. We think the federal government in Washington, D.C., should say to the cities and states, look, we’re going to give you some money so that you can hire back all those people. And the way we’re going to do it, we’re going to ask people who have a lot of money to pay just a little bit more in taxes."  - Slow Joe

but...

"...Washington, D.C., is also broke — way broker than York City School District. In fact, the government of the United States is broker than any entity has ever been in the history of the planet. Officially, Washington has to return 15,000,000,000,000 dollars just to get back to having nothing at all. And that 15,000,000,000,000 dollars is a very lowball figure that conveniently ignores another $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities that the government, unlike private businesses, is able to keep off the books...

...Kevin Williamson pointed out that, in order to balance the budget of the United States, you would have to increase the taxes of people earning more than $250,000 a year by $500,000 a year...

...As Kevin Williamson also pointed out, to balance the budget of the United States on the backs of millionaires you would have to increase the taxes of those earning more than 1 million a year by 6 million a year...

...Since 1970, public-school employment has increased ten times faster than public-school enrollment. In 2008, the United States spent more per student on K–12 education than any other developed nation except Switzerland...

...In 2008, York City School District spent $12,691 per pupil...the district had 440 teachers but 295 administrative and support staff....

...America placed 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in math..."




...I think we are still headed downhill, and their may be a cliff at the bottom.


...and a big pile of money won't cushion our fall.

4 comments:

LL said...

Frankly, I thought that the economy would have hit bottom before now. That was presuming that we would take prudent measures to try and crawl out of the pit.

But we clearly have not hit bottom, and I don't know when we will. We have to find the bottom before we can make meaningful moves to fix things.

Race said...

Any austerity measures (to use the phrase dejour) are going to take time to begin to work (Reagan 1981-1982) ...this delay is thowing off my short term plans, as I thought I bought low...didn't believe we were going lower. My bad.

LL said...

The problem with the mandatory moves in your line of work seems to create more problems than it solves unless you rent. I've seen some people take it in the neck big-time in the past. Others do ok, but there is clearly no way to know where the housing market is headed. I thought that it wouldn't go lower but at least in SoCal, numbers are still going down.

Eventually the death spiral has to stop because real estate won't be worth "0". However those downward numbers are all relative to what you're into it for.

It makes that resident job in Durango look just that much better...IMHO

Mrs. K said...

Here comes the teacher in me again. Their means people, there means place, etc. See you sentence about the warning sign.

Frankly my dear I don't give a damn...there is nothing I can do about their stupidity and selfishness.