Stimulate, Stimulate Wisely!

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We need to stimulate more now; however we must do it wisely. Today is not like the Great Depression. We stimulated then because we had no choice.

  1. As war was approaching we had no choice but to prepare for it. We would have had no future if we hadn't.
  2. After the war we were the last industrialized nation standing and the result was our economy boomed with no competition as the rest of the world was rebuilding and we were doing the building.

Today, the answer to the question of whether we should stimulate is less clear. Further, there is much more competition than after World War II and therefore, we cannot expect today's recovery to be as quick as the forties and fifties of the last century. This does not mean we should't try on three fronts.

  1. Implement a stimulus package that focuses on investing in things that will help us compete in the future, like transportation infrastructure and upgrading the internet.
  2. Address the debt problem. This would be a confidence builder. The American public watched as our leaders could not reach agreement on a long-term plan to solve the debt problem. Our citizenry are now doubting whether it will ever be fixed. This "confidence boogeyman" must be put to rest
  3. We must do more concerning the mortgage crisis and the precipitous drop in home prices. As home prices fell, so did the net worth of a large portion of our population. This should be addressed using very little of the tax payers money. More: Retribution

Comments

  1. DeckardMay 13, 2012 at 11:58 PM

    And you call yourselves free marketeers???

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMay 14, 2012 at 7:09 AM

    Being in favor of free markets does not mean you do not take action when the market is weak.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousAugust 8, 2012 at 2:20 PM

    Read a column recently on where you can get the fastest internet connections in the nation...
    Chattanooga, TN, where the city spent the money to provide fiber-optic links literally city wide. You can now get internet speed measured in gigs, not megs, and for less than almost any private company offers it. They did it because they couldn't get the commercial providers to expand to certain neighborhoods, nor would they upgrade.
    Meanwhile, the state of North Dakota (a "red" state) has copied FDR's old Rural Electrification program to expand internet to ALL homes in the state, no matter how remote or rural, at affordable prices.
    The column then went on to point out in the '90s we were number one in the world for fastest, cheapest, most widely available 'net access. Now? We're down around 25-30th in the world, surpassed by nations that have invested in their infrastructure. Meanwhile, here in the US, the companies who've collected the extra tax for years intended to help pay for upgrades and improvements have seen that money go to corporate bottom-line improvement, not product improvement. And in some rural areas, Verizon has been caught literlly stripping their own landlines of copper (to sell off at a huge profit) and requiring those previously served by old land lines to sign up for more expensive cell service (and even more expensive data download for the internet) if they want phone service at all...

    Sometimes government MUST spend to keep a nation competitive and improving, as the free market (an oxymoronic term if ever there was one, as no such thing has existed since the end of the barter system...and even then it was questionable if it was a "free" market) doesn't always do what is in the best interest of the nation and it's people.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Stephen BanickiAugust 8, 2012 at 2:32 PM

    Anonymous said...August 8, 2012 2:20 PM

    Now that is what is needed! Forward thinking

    ReplyDelete

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