If the rich make 5% on a $100,000 investment they make $5,000. They scale of their investments are larger so they are looked at having all the benefits but they are playing for the most part by the same rules. Just because making $50 on a $1000 investment doesn’t sound as good or worth it. It is necessary to develop the scale and develop discipline to get there. The “rags to riches” stories that are so prevalent in America isn’t because our journalists work so hard to dig up these hard to find stories, it is because people do it so often. If people continue to cry for government help and say everything is so unfair to them it will never work. People need to not blame others and they must accept that they are the only ones to get them out. Then they can face it and develope are workable solution. Then if outside help does come they will be even better off.

The top 50% of wage earners in America pay for 97% of the income taxes, the top 5% around 40%. Why do liberals seem to insist on demonizing the wealthy, those who have used the rules that we all play by, risking thier own money and taking chances to achieve wealth which in turn creates jobs and grows the economy!!!

Because they have kept everyone else from improving their standard of living and their economic security. People produce more and are more efficient, particularly when they can use new computer technologies, and yet their incomes, adjusted for inflation, have been flat for about 30 years.

Is it fair for some to benefit so much and others, who produced the wealth with their own hands, should receive no more than families did 30 years ago?

The best way to stimulate the economy is to put a $5,000 (or more) check in the hands of those making less than $250,000 for them to spend.

Tax holiday?

Government doesn’t have a standing way to just hand out money to individuals — they’ve always given it to businesses (ha!).

What’s the best way to get it out there?

As Joseph Stiglitz has said explicitly, the unregulated and opaque ultra-free capital markets have done a lousy job of allocating capital since the last years of the Clinton administration.

I think what happened was that the Goopers helped Wall Street dig this hole to win their favor and to make profits. But, in so doing, they increased money supply far beyond what our real economy was producing. It wasn’t seen as price inflation because it stayed in investments. But, a lot of it was on paper and has now vanished. So, we have a fluffed economy going flat as a souffle, a banking system not loaning money properly, oil price spikes last summer which drained many home bank accounts, wars and a continuing growth in cost of health care and credit card debt.

If a lot of that money growth had stayed with individuals, then they could withstand this current problem a lot better. But, of course, there would be price inflation too.

So, we have two economies in a sense: the financial economy which has gone flat, but with many keeping the profits of the last decade or two; the real economy which has trudged along on zero profit growth and families sinking slowly into the mire.

The financial economy is further along in getting fixed. Price deflation happened, scandals have been revealed and regulation is (and hopefully some prosecutions are) on the way.

The real economy is still deflating (along with housing prices) and we need to push money into that area to enable businesses to keep on employees and to simply do business in a normal way and that includes state & local governments which have been hit by decreased tax revenues.

People want to work. Businesses want to make and sell. The cash has to be there like so much gasoline or oil running through the system.

Extend food stamp eligibility upwards for two years.
Un-tax Social Security old-age and disability benefits.
Make immediate grants to states to balance their budgets for two years.
Broaden and extend unemployment benefits
Halt foreclosures; forgive all student loans; grant 6-month FICA tax holiday.

These steps aren’t hard, but they are all courageous and non-Republican. They will all put money in the hands of Americans who will spend it tomorrow. And there won’t be GOP votes for it.

All those except student loans look like good ideas. And, if BO has an Ed plan which helps students, then the loans might get paid for anyway.

All around it sounds pretty good to me. Those ideas are all worth having and the stimulus is here to make things happen.

I don’t know the numbers on the “loan states money to balance their budgets”, but I do like the idea — and it’s a new one I hadn’t seen before.

To save money? Cut NASA’s budget, as well as, Israel’s. LOL If anything, it would make me feel better knowing our money wasn’t be wasted.

Hey, why not?