Obama supported it whole-heartedly. He’s always told us what he is and it’s not a liberal.

Yes, it’s obvious he’s not Liberal. But, he was the best we could manage to get, so we need to push him Left on some issues. Creative solutions to problems, regardless of Left-Right, would probably have the best chance of getting the administration’s attention. As they claim to be pragmatic and problem solvers, then potential solutions have to interest them.

At the very least, they could bail out the states and muncipalities, who are reeling under the negative shock of collapsing sales tax and property tax revenues, not to mention the income tax witholdings.

Giving it to the states raises some moral hazard problems,

We definitely have to help them and soon. There’s no “moral hazard” to helping a sinking ship full of people.

how do tax cuts help people with no jobs or who don’t pay taxes?

depends on the type of tax cuts: payroll tax cuts for small businesses might help them keep people on instead of “letting them go” (insert image of Sarah Palin smiling as a turkey’s head is sawed clean off).

This would be about a 30% volatility in price due to Israel’s assault on Gaza.

I was told today that OPEC has slowed production. If so then we’ll see gasoline prices going back up JUST at the time we need them to stay low.

This is another great argument to stop wars that waste resources unnecessarily.

A quick and easy way to restore purchasing power in the face of food inflation would be to exempt Social Security benefits from taxation, period. This would prompt spending by the elderly and the disabled, who really really need the relief now.

I’ve never understood giving people money from the government and then taking some back. It’s wacky.

Now go to http://www.change.gov and tell Obama!

Looks like Obama may mess with the “entitlements” that we all paid for. why they call them “entitlements” when we paid for them is beyond me.

I love, love, love Boner saying that “borrow and spend” has to stop now……….But lets’ not rescind the BUSH tax cut ion the rich

I discovered Larry Summers theory on defeating Gibson’s paradox. (In an nutshell the theory is if government could suppress the price of Gold then it could lower interest rates and print as many $’s as so desired). I can appreciate that fact that Larry Summers core belief is he is smarter than the markets and can fool it with government intervention. I think Larry Summers strong dollar II will turn out to be a disaster, possibly here and now. During strong dollar 1 in the 90’s, Americans and the rest of the world had confidence in the U.S. financial system; the belief that Free Market Capitalism is the best economic system discovered by man was at the core of this belief. Liars can get away with lies when they have credibility. Once this credibility has been lost no one will ever believe the lie again. Credibility in Wall Street and Washington is no longer at the level of the 90’s; too many people know and do not trust government intervention. Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Ben Bernanke and the rest of Wall Street are now selling President elect Obama a theory that we can monetize the greatest creation in debt in American history without causing inflation. Without trust this policy is doomed. As investors look at the facts and realize that a 0-2% rate of return on Treasuries is absurd, money will seek better returns. As people lose confidence in the $ they will seek safety. They will quietly begin protecting themselves as they realize this is just one more lie from another administration who believes in deceiving the markets to protect Wall Street. The 15 year social experiment in fooling the markets will blow. As this happens I expect Larry Summers scam based on Gibson’s Paradox will blow; a currency crisis is the logical result of this failure. The charts are saying the $U.S. and U.S. Treasury market are beginning to fail. The strong $ policy has stocks, bonds and the $ rising with Gold and commodities falling. It looks like this is changing. The bottom line is the suppression in Gold, the elevation in Treasury Bonds and the elevation in the $U.S. will all reverse if I am right. It is now a game of musical chairs. Who will be left standing? The question is when? The charts will hold the answer.

My guess is we are going to go through what Russia did. Nationalize everything, give everyone stock, and then allow the oligarchs to fraudulently gain control “in the national interest”. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to build a better mousetrap — i.e., figure out how to stop the oligarchs and protect the common shareholders through orderly, well-regulated financial markets.

And Obama supported it whole-heartedly. He’s always told us what he is and it’s not a liberal.

Anyway, Stiglitz pointed out that the discretionary side of the US budget is small ($250 billion if I remember correctly) This would be including defense with entitlements I think for non-discretionary. So his point was that Obama couldn’t spend a stimulus this size except by passing a lot of it through the states because the federal government didn’t have the resources to do so.