Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Biggest Legislation of Our Generation

Obama's Stimulus Plan Passes in House

Obama's proposed stimulus plan has officially passed in the House and is moving to the Senate on an expedited schedule. Some high level details are outlined in the following link:

Stimulus 101

This blog is short, but simply pointing out that the summary of the proposed stimulus package is worth a read (if you haven't already). Another thing is to point out that contrary to the claims to "reach across the isle" and run a bi-partisan government, the stimulus package received zero (READ: NONE) Republican votes. It was opposed by 11 Democrats to end up at a vote of 244 to 188. Fear not Boski, your socialist government has arrived!!!!

The two items in the stimulus package that I most disagree with (beside the $819b being spent, $1.2 trillion interest adjusted) are:

1) 6.2% of the infrastructure investment goes to computerizing health care records. IMO, America needs investments in BUSINESSES/MANUFACTURING that have LONG-TERM economic benefits. This also applies to the renewable energy investment as well: this better apply to PROVEN renewable energy that is SUSTAINABLE with LONG TERM RETURNS. I would approve of this type of investment in proven, efficient technology. I hope its not some super bogus energy technology that will turn out to be nothing except appealing to the hippie masses. I do approve of the majority of the money going to education, though.

2) Tax breaks for small companies and companies 'affected by the downturn.' Small companies employ small amounts of workers; not going to save the US. A majority of the companies included in the 'affected by downturn' were probably poorly managed to begin with (hi auto and banks). News flash: every company is affected. The good ones just manage it better. But I guess it makes sense to reward the companies who are performing the worst!!!!!

"Increase weekly unemployment benefits by $25, and provide incentives for states to expand unemployment coverage" falls along the same lines. Lets reward states for giving money away!

Thoughts?

P.S- Cara said it was straight for you to visit Boz. Cleared it last night. Just book the flight.

23 comments:

Poorman said...

man i wish it wasnt so late so i could break this piece of crap "stimulus plan" down. i havent finished the articles yet, but basically this seems like he is just throwing around a bunch of big numbers which will appease the average nub in this country. 819 billion in spending, really? cmon now

cant agree more with helping the struggling businesses out. why do we continue to help businesses out who suck? i have no sympathy with these companies that have crumbled because of the "recession", because their are plenty of businesses still making it. take one of these automobile companies for instance. blah blah we need help we arent selling cars. heres an idea, how about you lower the price of your ridiculously jacked up rates and just try and break even and stay afloat until the economy turns around? and now were going to increase incentives for unemployment? cmon now

term said...

Just shows the kind of legislation that can be pushed through due to the bad economy and an all-Democrat Congress + Pres.

Staboski said...

I mean does it really cost $20 billion to computerize health care records? We are doing that right now at my work, its just some nubs in a room with a scanner. We pay them nothing to do this. I was listening to a Senator this morning on C-Span radio talking about this. He said he can't wait because his water treatment plants in his state are terrible...or so he says. I'm all for renewable energy, anything to get us less dependent of importing fuel. Can't we get solar power right??? What about geo-thermal?

The only part of the Safety Net items I approve of is the $39 billion to COBRA. Just to help those who get fired to keep their health care. But to those that are unemployed, its time to find a job, swallow your pride and go work at 7-11 or Burger King. I don't agree with Tax cuts for business that are going under either.

I've got my own stimulus plan...anyone want to hear it?

pex said...

I would love to hear your stimulus plan BOZ

pex said...

I was just thinking about the computerized medical records thing. Why do we need government money, especially $20 billion, to convert these records. Obviously this will streamline things in the healthcare system, but shouldnt that burden be put on the hospitals and clinics themselves?

I believe that most hospitals are run for profit by companies, and I know that private clinics are run for profit. To stay with the times and run your business more efficiently, because when it comes down to it healthcare is a business, you need to stay with the times and upgrade your shit when it needs upgrading. In the end it will be more efficient and thus more profitable to have everything computerized, why do we need government money for this again? I guess its the first step in nationalizing healthcare, so that when it takes over everything will go more smoothly.

Staboski said...

My stimulus plan is actually already rolling to a certain extent. Its called WAR. One of the many reasons I think we are still in Iraq is to keep defense contractors in business. I know they say it cost "$10billion a day to fight the war". Lets take this into a new direction, based on old ideals. Lets invade Iraq and Iran and conquer. They become the 51st and 52nd states. We achieve multiple goals in this. First up war stimulates the economy, its been proven. From food production to oil refining. Second it takes care of two big problems, Iraq even with its new government will never be right and Iran is a threat. We push the bulk of these people out of the countries and we attain all of their natural resources. We eliminate the "terrorist cells" that remain in them. We can then also consolidate all of our random military bases that are in other countries into these new states. Navy bases in Japan, Air Force stations in Germany, etc. All will go into these new states. Its a centralized location to get to Europe and Asia quickly. The world already thinks we stick our fingers in other people's issues we might as well just make them our (domestic) issues. And to think we could gain oil, now that middle east oil is US oil, free of Middle east mark up.

booncakes said...

let the gov't pay for computerizing health care records so they can gradually weasel their way into ownership of our health care system.

term said...

Boski's plan was probably the worst idea I have ever heard come out of his mouth. We have been in a war for 6 years and it hasn't done anything for the economy. Wanna know why? Because war isn't what it used to be. It isn't like we have to mass produce tanks and planes and guns to participate in a war like WWII. We just fire long range missiles, etc. from hundreds of miles away and watch things go BOOM. Add on the now increased price of fuel, war turns out to be quite an expensive task now and days. We are in a war now; how many people do you know working in A TANK FACTORY? NONE BECAUSE HARDLY ANY TANKS ARE DESTROYED AND THESE TANKS CAN BE BUILT ON ROBOTIC ASSEMBLY LINES NOW.

Another point on 'taking over their resources.' I do not favor government owned resources, so I cannot favor this part of the plan. If the US owned the land, it would be more accessible for US companies, but let’s face it. A large minority of people don't really like US oil/gas companies.

Third point: if we go to war with Iran, we will lose. That place has Vietnam II written all over it.

Fourth point: China generally favors Iran more than the US. They can get cheap oil there and don't care that it is from Iran (like we do). And that is a BIG reason for China to like them. We go to war with Iran. China then says, "HAI GUYS! NOT ONLY ARE WE GOING TO STOP GIVING YOU MONEY FOR UR LEETZ STIMULUS PLANZ, BUT WE WANTS ALL YOUR DEBTS TO US REPAID NOW OR WE WILL TAINT ALL OUR PRODUCTZ WITH LEAD THEN YOU HAVE NNTHING TO BUY CAUSE EVERYTHING IS MADE HERE ALREADY."

Not to mention, who is going to live in these 'additional states?' YOU? I doubt it.

The key to getting back on top is focusing on the US. Centralize most funds back to the States. Reduce military occupancy around the world. Start to invest in reliable manufacturing businesses to provide jobs for the lower-middle class while investing in education so companies don't have to outsource engineering/software development (HIGH PAYING JOBS) out to places that can do it cheaper than us.

nt boz

term said...

typo: "large majority" instead of "large minoritiy"

Poorman said...

oh my...whats BOZ say???

Staboski said...

Term seems to be flip flopping a bit here. I believe it was you who a while ago scoffed when boski was talking about building a wall around the country because the US is too dependent on other countries. Yet you now want to build the wall? Your reliable manufacturing plants will be staffed with illegal labor.

And on a slight deviation from the debat how about exxon cashing in a $45 billion profit when, according to CNN
"Analysts have credited the company for a shrewd, if controversial, management style - avoiding lots of spending on expensive projects to find and develop oil when prices were high."

Poorman said...

oh my....what EVT say???

pex said...

looks like term is fighting an uphill battle here

term said...

First of all, the fact that you completely avoided a rebuttle to the war comment just points out how retarded it really was.

No where in my comment do I mention building a wall around the border. I talked about reducing investments in MILITARY in other parts of the world. And why does illegal labor come into this kind of conversation? When the overall workforce expands for a given job, companies end up picking actual citizens of the country because employing them is legal.

To break down my point: the reason illegal immigrants get a lot of jobs is because they have no qualms about doing the brute force labor or mundane jobs just to make money. It is only when the country enters a true recession that the citizens of the US will begin to accept these lower paying jobs just to make a buck. Then the employer will end up choosing the LEGAL citizen for the same wages because they no there is no risk in losing the worker to deportation. Now that people are losing their jobs left and right, there will be more competition for these lower-paying, manufacturing jobs and it won't just be handed over to illegal immigrants. Simple example of supply/demand.

And lastly, simple LOL to the attempt to bash XOM. If you actually read the quote, it says that analysts have CREDITED Exxon, meaning good. Exxon's profits were 9cents on the dollar spent, which is slightly above normal for industry(also commented on in the article).

It flat out pisses me off when all of us march up and down this blog saying how "POORLY MANAGED COMPANIES DESERVE TO GO DOWN" and when a well managed company makes a large profit, you want to bash them. XOM makes the money they make because they don't over extend themselves. They are disciplined. That is why when many large chemical companies are beginning to file for bankruptcy, that is no where in sight for XOM. It appears you are the hypocrite: once bashing poorly managed companies and now whinning that a well managed company is actually succeeding, not to mention employing thousands of Americans even in a time of recession. Yes, they are still hiring. And they are paying more money in taxes to YOUR socialist government than probably any other in the nation.

Stop appealing to emotion and use logic or GTFO.

pex said...

wow, boski better do some research next time.

cus you got served

term said...

<3 u boski

term said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
term said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
pex said...

looks like some choice words were deleted, guess you didnt wanna make boski cry

Poorman said...

hahahahah wow, boski got a GTFO out of his own blog...

Staboski said...

First lets address Exxon. I put a quote from another source and term lauches an attack. Was that a quote from boz? Nope. For any company to make a profit in this time is an accomplishment so I'm not knocking them. Although why are we at war? Some like to think a big reason is because of oil. Are we for company or for country here? Term also obviously took my war suggestion a bit to literally. It was boski thinking outside of the box, I mean its wrong on so many diffrent levels. I agree with Term's idea as being the most logical, there are however faults and risks with it. If you withdraw military from other coutries you bring all those troops back and they will get discharged, adding to our already high number of unemployeed. That leads to a reduction in military equipment, thus hurting military countractors. Lockheed Martin, Northrup Gruman, huge companies will be forced to lay off workers and scale back operations (and possibly get bailed out). We can spend all sorts of money on building manufacturing plants here and hire legal workers and we will still get owned by other coutries. We will have to pay our workers at the least min. wage. Where in China they get paid 35 cents an hour or some shit. And if China jacks up their min wage we'll move production to another country. Its all about cause and effect. The main thing to realize is there is no right choice, no perfect solution. How about this stimulus plan...take $800 billion dollars and spread to each person in the US who files their tax return. Say around 100 million people or so...you do the math. And side note I read all the comments before they got removed. Its all good.

<3 Term

pex said...

$800b spread to people who file tax returns would probably amount to a few thousand per person because if that was the plan you better believe everyone would fill one out. Few thousand per person doesn't seem like it would mean much. I'm not an economist so I don't know how the effect of people collectively spending $800b would turn out. Could help boost the economy who knows.

term said...

I would probably leave a majority of the military employed as normal. I think the cost reduction in just having them in the US would alone save a lot of money.

The war is because of oil IMO, but not because we want more access to it. The reason we are there is simply because Iraq was planning to switch to buying oil in Euros versus dollars. If every country in the world started buying oil in Euros, our economy would flat out die. For the same reason gold used to back our dollar, many feel that oil is the only thing that keeps our dollar afloat now. As soon as countries aren't required to use our currency for oil, no one wants our dollar anymore. That was a big drive for the Iraq war. Of course it is a largely debatable topic and I could be swayed to a different reason easily.

The global recession actually helped ease some of that stress because both the British Pound and the Euro are currently very low as well as the dollar.