Romney vs. BO - Saddo's kids race mongering thread

[VictorCharlie]

America doesn't have a spending problem. It has a depressed economy problem. If the economy was returned to normal growth revenues would increase and wipe out the deficit. Since 2008 there's been an almost trillion dollar a year drop in demand caused by the 2008 bursting of the housing bubble. Replace that demand and you end the deficit toat least a level that is infinitely sustainable.

And that's why Obama's soon-to-be-revealed plan to keep all current spending unchanged and to spend an extra few trillion dollars over the next four years is such a good thing. The private sector aren't going to invest as there's already massiver existing overcapacity in the economy so they don't need to. The only thing that can return the exconmy to normal growth and end the deficit problem is massive extra government sdpending.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't "bubble" suggest an artificial/unsastainable level? Wasn't the burst a market correction of tons of sub-prime loans being packaged into investments and then fast and loose work in the derivatives market? Even if I agreed that large deficit spening was the answer it would seem unwise to try to boost the economy back to a level it couldn't sustain before, especially to try to do it in a short timeframe. I don't think there is a fast or easy way back to 2007 revenues or debt/deficit reduction.

[Kirkland Laing]

America doesn't have a spending problem. It has a depressed economy problem. If the economy was returned to normal growth revenues would increase and wipe out the deficit. Since 2008 there's been an almost trillion dollar a year drop in demand caused by the 2008 bursting of the housing bubble. Replace that demand and you end the deficit toat least a level that is infinitely sustainable.

And that's why Obama's soon-to-be-revealed plan to keep all current spending unchanged and to spend an extra few trillion dollars over the next four years is such a good thing. The private sector aren't going to invest as there's already massiver existing overcapacity in the economy so they don't need to. The only thing that can return the exconmy to normal growth and end the deficit problem is massive extra government sdpending.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't "bubble" suggest an artificial/unsastainable level? Wasn't the burst a market correction of tons of sub-prime loans being packaged into investments and then fast and loose work in the derivatives market? Even if I agreed that large deficit spening was the answer it would seem unwise to try to boost the economy back to a level it couldn't sustain before, especially to try to do it in a short timeframe. I don't think there is a fast or easy way back to 2007 revenues or debt/deficit reduction.

Subprime was only a small part of it. It was prime and everything else as well. Basically the Fed stopped all oversight of the mortgage industry and the derivatives markets and the people who run them pulled off the biggest fraud/bank robbery in history.

Yes, it was an artificial level. But the only way to get out of the current situation is via economic growth. Tax increases and spending cuts aren't going to help at all, see how well it's working in Europe.

So America needs to spend a few trillion dollars over the next few years to boost economic growth. While the government is spending, people will continue to pay down the debt that they're in and in a few years will start spending again which is when the government can stop spending.

Of course the second thing that needs to happen is a large redistribution of income from corporations and top earners down to low/middle income people. If this doesn't happen it doesn't matter what economic policies you have, the economy isn't going to work very well.

Reshore some jobs, stop giving corporations tax breaks to outsource jobs and get decent paying jobs back to America. Say bollocks to the "free trade" stuff and globalisation and let wealthy economies protect themselves from having their peoples' living standards arbitraged down to Asian levels. And financial regulation to stop the financial industry robbing the system.