White House Hosts Meeting of World Leaders on the Economy

Of course, the rest of the world had to beg him to do this at first, but now that he gave in, it is all about HIS leadership!

sorry meant to say! Isn’t this what Obama did as well gather the best advisors for the Economy…

John McCain to George Bush:
Will you please stop distracting voters away from my negative attack messages with these trivial announcements about all that economic… stuff?

so this is how Bush is asking for diplomatic exhile?

Well, G. Raye Gnade, don’t you think it is about time? He should NOT be commended for this, he and his cronies created this. When one creates a situation, one just ought to be the front runner in bringing folks together to talk about it now that the issue effects the world as we know/knew it.

Stop complaining, humanity could not have survived throughout the ages without the stock market. Now we need a global economy to survive, growing food and eating it just won’t do the trick. Fortunately Obama is here to usher in the golden age. Shalom.

Bush is a day late and dollar short. Why is it we have heard nothing from this man for 8 years tell our Nation fell? What an Empty Suite, so is McCain.

Bush will go down in history as one of the best presidents.

BUSH’S RESIGNATION SPEECH
The following ‘speech’ was written recently by an ordinary Maine-iac [a resident of the People's Republic of Maine ]. While satirical in nature, all satire must have a basis in fact to be effective. This is an excellent piece by a person who does not write for a living.
The speech George W. Bush might give:
Normally, I start these things out by saying ‘My Fellow Americans.’ Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don’t know who more than half of you are anymore. I do know something terrible has happened, and that you’re really not fellow Americans any longer.
I’ll cut right to the chase here: I quit. Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: There’s been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.
The reason I’m quitting is simple. I’m fed up with you people. I’m fed up because you have no understanding of what’s really going on in the world. Or of what’s going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out.
Let’s start local. You’ve been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media.
Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there’s increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.
We face real threats in the world. Don’t give me this ‘blood for oil’ thing. If I were trading blood for oil I would’ve already seized Iraq ‘s oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don’t give me this ‘Bush Lied… People Died’ crap either. If I were the liar you morons take me for, I could’ve easily had chemical weap ons pl anted in Iraq so they could be ‘discovered.’ Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty.
Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me. Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named ‘ Clinton ‘ established that policy. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?
Now some of you morons want to be led by a junior senator with no understanding of foreign policy or economics, and this nitwit says we should attack Pakistan , a nuclear ally. And then he wants to go to Iran and make peace with a terrorist who says he’s going to destroy us. While he’s doing that, he wants to give Iraq to al Qaeda, Afghanistan to the Taliban, Israel to th e Pale stinians, and your money to the IRS so the government can give welfare to illegal aliens, who he will make into citizens, so they can vote to re-elect him. He also thinks it’s okay for Iran to have nuclear weapons, and we should stop our foreign aid to Israel . Did you sleep through high school?
You idiots need to understand that we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to out spend and out-tech them.
That’s not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don’t care if they survive. In fact, they want to die. That’d be fine, as long as they weren’t also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you, and the bastards are all over the globe.
You should be grateful that they haven’t gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you’re not. That’s because you’ve got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement, and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that. When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I’m disa ppoint ed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of ‘Survivor.’
Instead, you’ve grown impatient. You’re incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.
Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy. Every time you buy the New York Times, every time you send a donation to a cut-and-run Democrat’s political campaign, well, dang it, you might just as well Fed Ex a grenade launcher to a Jihadist. It amounts to the same thing.
In this day and age, it’s easy enough to find the truth. It’s all over the Internet. It just isn’ t on t he pages of the New York Times, USA Today, or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you’d be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch American Idol or Dancing with Stars.
I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you’re too stupid to leave a city that’s below sea level and has a hurricane approaching.
I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from. But I’ve come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.
So I quit. I’m going back to Crawford. I’ve got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient for years. No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I’m done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars of America fall.
Oh, and by the way, Cheney’s quitting too. That means Pelosi is your new President. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there are enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.
So that’s it. God bless what’s left of America .
Some of you know what I mean. The rest of you, kiss off.
PS – You might want to start learning Farsi, and buy a Koran.
IN GOD WE TRUST

This is a big step for Bush because although he has almost single handily drove our country in to the ground he is still concerned in making a plan that will get us out of the hole a little bit. Although I am not so thankful that this major decision is the first thing that the new president does because what if the wrong president get the election and then what will this plan help?….I just don’t think that this meeting should be scheduled only two weeks after the election, not when the new president has only been in charge for officially two weeks.

Idiot Paul,
y did you stop replying to my tax posts? tucked your tail and ran didn’t you?
Fannie and Freddie indirectly enabled banks and mortgage underwriters to make loans that they normally would not make. They accomplished this by providing a market in which, ultimately, subprime and conventional mortgages alike, could be sold off to bondholders; the risk of those making the loans, effectively gone. Paul, do you honestly think that we be in this crisis if they were reigned in earlier, maybe even during the Clinton / Lewinsky administration?
You see, Paul, had they been restricted, with regards to leverage, they would have not been able to bundle up as many mortgages as they did. This means, Paul, that there would not have been as much toxic mortgage backed debt in the market today.
And incidentally, Paul, mortgage backed derivatives sank an entire investment bank in the mid 90s ( Clinton / Lewinsky administration ) as well as nearly collapsing one of America’s wealthiest counties. Why didn’t Bubba propose more oversight then? We wouldn’t be in this pile of Democrat crap if he had.

Here you go Paul…Princeton Paul?….read it and then, with a straight face, blog that the junior senator from Illinois’ socialist tax plan will make our economy recover:
A message to the Kool-Aid drunk Obama Nation (hereafter KADON)
Understand that the only track record Senator Obama has is a track record of failing to deliver on campaign promises, like the tax cuts he promised the voters of Illinois. So know this: he will cut no taxes, never has, never will. That aside:
KADON, I think that you might be able to grasp the idea that few earn over $250,000 without a little help, a little help from, well, employees. Now, for simplicity, lets refer to those as employers, whether they be rich individuals or corporations. Enterprises run by employers, KADON, may well, not be the only supplier of the products/services they offer. They may well compete against many suppliers, even some from abroad, even some from abroad having certain cost advantages. These cost advantages, KADON, could be wages, raw material prices or, they could be tax expenses. That is right taxes are expenses, to employers, wealthy or not. Now, lets think about those U.S. corporations that are fighting for their life (please read this also to be fighting for the existence of the jobs that they offer, to employees, in the U.S.). Many corporations maintain physical presence in both the U.S. and the abroad. Now, hypothetically, if, their operations in the U.S. face an 80% tax rate on profits, while their Malaysian operations face only a 15% tax rate, then do you see, how it makes economic sense, for the employer, to think it is likely a very good decision to move operations from Ohio to Malaysia? Now, it will be more subtle, the tax rates aren’t nearly as different, but they are different. Then, they might just stop hiring in Ohio and hire only in Malaysia. In any case, there are some in Ohio who might either be laid off or not hired.
Regardless, even though your dear candidate will offer 95% of all Americans a lower tax rate, those laid off because their rich employer had to shift jobs overseas, still have no job. They’ll be baffled 3 years from now. Maybe they’ll say, I should have said thanks, but no thanks Senator on that tax plan to nowhere.
So KADON, understand this simple lesson. The wealthy employ. If changes occur to the cost structure in their operations, including tax expenses, they will be incented to react, if they don’t they may find themselves at a cost advantage sufficient to erode their economic viability on a permanent basis, or at least until they cease to exist, in which case, nobody has a paycheck from them.
Ok, rich American corporations, lets assume that our above corporation is not struggling, lets say that it is called Exxon. Well, KADON, Exxon produces some energy in America, using American employees to do so. America is not a cheap place to produce energy. What, do you think Exxon will do, when President Obamba raises, as he likes to say so often, taxes on corporations that export jobs overseas? You got it! They’ll divest (reads: send to the unemployment lines) their American energy production operations.
This is an important concept, about wealth redistribution, that I want you to grasp KADON. When President Obama puts millions of Americans, formerly employed by ‘wealthy corporations that export jobs overseas’, onto the unemployment line, they will not, unless Ms. Pelosi redistributes wealth and gives them a nice fat Socialist welfare check, have any money to buy the goods and services offered by all small businesses, including those that the young Senator claims he will not tax additionally. Small business owners will be baffled too. “President Obama, thanks for not taxing my income additionally, thanks for going after the evil rich, but, my profit is nowhere near $232k, as it was before you took office, it is $104k, what happened? I drank the Kook-aid! I promise I did. I had to lay off 2 employees because demand is so weak for my products, because so many corporate types have been laid off and have no money to buy my products. I feel like a wealthy employer, please help”…
Is it sinking in?
One final thing, I hate to burst the bubble of all of you out there that have drank Mr. Obama’s Kool-aid, but when he says “tax cuts for employers that export jobs overseas”, he isn’t really referring to Republican led legislation that actually instructed the IRS to give a tax credit to all corporations that actually did export jobs. What he is really referring to is Republican led legislation that incented corporations to not export jobs, by giving them a tax cut, but, even though the tax cuts were given, jobs were still exported, because the tax cuts weren’t sufficient, for some, to allow them to maintain their U.S. employment. This is yet another aspect that Mr. Gibson, Ms. Couric, MSNBC, etc. have failed to present to the American public. Shame on them!
I hope that this helps you all with your future pOstings, here and elsewhere.

seems like the the republican party is getting more vile as each day passes,even the rich republican fatcats quit giving money to the McCain campaign,knowing it is a lost cause,no more good money after bad.the calvery can’t save him now so maybe we can dispence with the character assasination.

Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and education: Fund fringe ideas, neglect performance.
The 3 Rs: Redistributionism, Revisionism, and Radicalism.
The Obama-led foundation funneled more than $200,000 to an outfit called the Coalition for Improved Education in South Shore.
Its mission: training public-school teachers in “Afrocentric” education, a pseudo-scientific movement that (as a trainer brought in with CAC funds put it) rejects Western civilization, and America in particular, as “white supremacist” and seeks to “recover our disrupted ancestral culture.”
Reading, writing and ‘rithmetic this isn’t. All of which gives the lie to Obama’s breezy assertion in last week’s debate that his CAC activities were somehow bipartisan or mainstream.
It also certainly explains why schools chosen for the foundation’s largesse showed NO gains in student performance.

I believe many Americans have good ideas to create good paying jobs or reduce health care costs (thus creating the opportunity for small companies to hire.) If only there was a mechanism for Americans to propose and receive funding to get some of those ideas off the ground. The economic summit should include ways for average people to submit ideas to grow jobs.
I thought I once read that 70 percent of all illnesses are caused by life style. If we can find creative ways to get people to lose some weight, quit smoking, drink less and wear their seat belts more, we could reduce everyone’s health care expenses. Therefore, we increase the American economic pie.
You may never know where the best ideas may come from. It may be from someone who is homeless;
It may come from someone who does not have much formal education. If people realize they could win a big prize for just submitting an idea. Hope could be breathed into every corner of this great nation. Perhaps with hope, vices such as gambling may be reduced. Then perhaps we may all win with new ideas to create good paying jobs we all desperately need.
I believe many Americans may have good ideas, but do not know how to put it in writing or apply for a grant.
If we are going to organize an economic summit, we need to organize a way for the average American to submit ideas and possibly win grant money to get ideas off the ground.

Taxes Economy 101 for those looking through the Kool-aid
Unemployment benefits is not welfare. Economics 101. During the boom times of the 1950′s and 60′s US corporations paid over 50% of the tax bill in the United States. Since that time we have continuously cut corporate taxes and they took those tax savings and bought out the competition instead of making their business more competitive. They did not rebuild like Reagan suggested, but instead purchased overseas companies and moved their workforce overseas.They also purchased to competition to reduce their competition. Econ 101 as you descripted it does not exist.

Taxes
The wealthy don’t only “employ;” they also exploit. Our job is to protect ourselves from too much exploitation. Sometimes we need the government to help us with that.

Mccain’s erratic and impulsive actions and campaign shows the kind of president he would be. We cannot afford the ineptitude of Sarah Palin and John McCain after eight years of George W. Bush.Over the past few weeks we have had the opportunity to see the real John McCain—irrational, hateful and just plain out of touch with reality. This isn’t the person whom we need to lead our nation.If the man is this angry, what would he do in a crisis? God forbid.McCain’s anger is telling about his history of a lack of judgment. He’s a good poster child for an anger-management class. he is so out of touch , when people are loosing their jobs and homes in bad economy,he still supports the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy while ignoring low income people.His latest proposal of the day, an “only” $300 billion bailout for the gamblers or idiots (or at best,those caught up in a national “pay later” mindset) who bought house than they afford.How can McCain call himself a fiscal conservative, and not a socialist, with a straight face? I am conservative republican and will vote for Obama.

Bush hosting a summit on the economy is kinda like the KKK hosting a summit on tolerance!!! Neither know anything about the topic!!!

To “Obama it won’t work” Thank you for that awesome letter. It was a refreshing change from the garbage I am used to reading on this site. Most people that I know that are voting for Obama are doing it because they have no idea what is really going on. They don’t like Bush but they can’t tell you why.

He’s just going through the motions at this point.

Please, Please, Please keep this IDIOT out of it !!!

Don’t whine and complain about “there are no jobs out there”… “I can’t find a job”…… If you are unemployed for more than 2 days…it’s because you WANT to be unemployed!!! There are all kinds of jobs out there!!! Available today!!! OHHHHHH…… they’re just not the jobs you WANT!!! I see…. you’re too good for those jobs, right??? Those jobs are below you, right??? Get off your a$$ and go make some money you freeloader!!!

George W. Bush has been revealed for his incompetence at home, so now he is trying to get the rest of the world to prop him up by declaring that he is their savior. Bush is a selfish traitor to his own country and its people, and will ruin the whole world too if he gets the chance.

OF COURSE BUSH SHOULD TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS AND HOST THE ECONOMIC SUMMIT… AFTER ALL HE’S THE ONE WHO STARTED THIS MESS WHEN HE, MCCAIN, AND THE REST OF THE GREEDY REPUBLICANS DECIDED TO DEREGULATE WALL STREET… BUT HE DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE “COMMENDED” FOR THIS!!! SINCE WHEN DO YOU EARN BROWNIE POINTS FOR TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS??!!! THAT’S WHY WE’RE IN THIS MESS RIGHT NOW BECAUSE NO ONE IS BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE!!!!

At least the repubicans are making an effort to try to contain the economic chaos caused by the Democrats. Obama’s ideas are nil and none that will work. He will simply take from the hard working, hard saving and give to the free spending lazy irresponsibles. That is called “SHARE THE WEALTH” He lost 11% of the jobs in his state senate district and created very few. An economic expert, he is not.

Obama it won’t work – excellent!….absolutely excellent! All democrats want something for nothing. Why else would they take from hard working, legal Americans and give it to the illigal, uneducated and too lazy to work? My first guess is so they would be re-elected. By the way folks America has FREE education up thru the 12th grade – if you’re stupid it’s you own lazy fault and I don’t want to pay for you.
———
I am a Dem, my guess is that America is, or was, viewed as a country that supported families, and family values. We once was a strong country that offered good jobs, and we could feed our children and live in nice homes. So illigals saw us as an opportunity to be free, and to be able to feed their families. My guess is also, that this is way my God would want it to be. One of the Ten commandments is Love thy neighbor. I don’t think he just meant the ones who live right next door to you. I believe every person has a right to a better life, I also believe that we have a right to make sure everyone does.

First, Mr McCain should point out that his opponent is one of the least business-friendly Democratic candidates in a generation. The great Calvin Coolidge once said that “the business of America is business”–and that means job creation. For Mr Obama the business of America seems to be anything but. His experience of it is limited to spending a year working for Business International, a consultancy firm subsequently bought by The Economist Group. But he quickly abandoned the commercial world because he wanted to do something nobler. Since then his experience has been limited to the world of non-profits, law firms, universities and politics.
More significant, though, is that Mr Obama has always been particularly close to two groups that are the bane of most businesspeople’s lives—lawyers and trade unionists. Both Mr and Mrs Obama are lawyers. In a speech to a group of trial lawyers on September 23rd Joe Biden, Mr Obama’s running-mate (and yet another lawyer) thanked God that lawyers are “corporate America’s problem” and declared that there are only two groups of people that stand between “us and the barbarians at the gate—you and organised labour”.
Second, Mr McCain should hammer away at the dangers of SIMGLE-PARTY RULE in Washington, DC. The Democrats are likely to add at least another ten seats, and perhaps as many as 20, to their majority in the House. There is a real possibility that they may attain a 60-seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (Democrats are leading in eight Senate seats currently held by Republicans and are close in a couple of others; they control 51 of the 100 seats already). This will allow them to push through a wish-list of Democratic proposals on everything from card check to socialized medicine to the “fairness doctrine.” The Republicans have only just started to point this out.
But Americans have a strong preference for divided government. America has only had one-party rule (with the same party controlling the White House and both chambers) for six years out of the 28 since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980—two years under Bill Clinton and four and a bit under George Bush. Mr McCain should argue forcefully that, as an experienced legislator who has worked with left-wing Democrats as well as right-wing Republicans, he will be the perfect man to check Congress where necessary and work with it where desirable.
Third, Mr McCain should point out that his opponent has never once in his career deviated from the Democratic party line. In Chicago he got on well with everybody, from the local teachers’ unions to the Daley political machine. In the Senate he has voted with his party 97% OF THE TIME. He toes the most liberal line on late-term and partial-birth abortion. Even a highly experienced Democratic president with a record of bucking his party would find it hard to tame a large Democratic majority in Congress. A NEOPHYTE with a record of going along to get along could find it impossible.

Chad – calm down. I encourage you to check the non-partisan Tax Policy Center (TPC) for comparisons of McCain vs. Obama tax plans (www.taxpolicycenter.org) within the “Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Tax Plans: Executive Summary – Revised September 15, 2008”. Yep, either way America is in for a long recession. But there are proven ways to pull our country up – such as spending on infrastructure, education, technology, and energy efficiency. Supply Side Economics failed us over the past 8 years – time for fundamental reforms to grow jobs from the ground up. Your clients who are nimble companies will take advantage of these opportunities.

In large cities like Chicago and Detroit, 50% the AA students are dropping out of highschool before graduation. These are the very same people who are voting for Obama by 98%. The college educated people I know will not vote for him. Even Colin Powell voted for skin color, not integrity and good judgment. Those two people who signed 20 or 70 voter registration forms put forward by ACORN are his class of voters. Perhaps before voting an IQ test and proven identity is needed. One girl is gonna vote cause he has sexy butt. WOW. LOL.

can we vote to not let bush do anything else as president except babysit the white house, and maybe pack his bags?

Hey there “earthisnotflat…” THAT’S A GOOD IDEA… YES LET’S VOTE ON THAT… MAYBE HE COULD LEAVE WASHINGTON JUST THAT MUCH QUICKER… AND HE’S DEFINITELY GOING TO PACK HIS BAGS… I’M MORE CONCERNED IN WHO’S GOING TO MOVE IN AFTER HIM! LOL!

George W. Bush hosting a world conference on the economy now is like Adolph Hitler hosting a conference on World Peace in the early spring of 1945!

Idaho girl iam familiar with the TPC and there are many,many oversights and variables simply not included in their bulletins as they pertain to major American industry….The simple fact is that Mr.Obamas tax policies, and more importantly what his relationship with said companies will be, is not inspiring most of the captains of industry in our country……BOTTOM LINE AGAIN….Americas work force does not and is not employed by the bottom 30 percent of our country,which Mr. Obama is primarily interested in…..

apparently Obama’s plan is to ultimately have one class, POOR. The government will not stop until we are all dependent on it. we have both political parties to blame. If we keep voting for the lesser of 2 evil’s and not demand that they reign in spending and start working for the people, we deserve what we get. sometimes you have to tell your kids no. we need to tell the government no. Tax only spending and stay out of my earnings (property)

chad: “Americas work force does not and is not employed by the bottom 30 percent of our country,which Mr. Obama is primarily interested in.”
True enough, Chad. America’s work force is employed by those who own businesses, and the fastest way to stifle business growth is to give owners an additional incentive to take money out of the business… like lowering taxes on the wealthy.
If the incentive is to hide profits, some will, by keeping the cash in the types of things that cause business growth and create jobs.

Yeah, I can sum this up pretty quick,We,re filthy rich, and every one else is SCR#WED !

will it end – my solution in the near-term, like say the next 13 days, is to elect Obama.
That said, I’m not a Democrat. Actually more of a libertarian. I noticed one of your posts above which seemed to point to a national sales tax. I’m intrigued by the idea, though want to hear why they wouldn’t cause an inflationary spiral.
But my solution, hmmmm. This has nothing to do with Obama of course. Just my thoughts. We need to slash discretionary spending, which unfortunately means slashing military spending. And I say that as a retired Marine officer.
Discretionary spending is dominated by defense spending. Right now we’re spending over a half trillion a year on it. No one else in the world comes close. In fact, I think we outspend the next 14 big defense spenders combined, and something like 10 of them are formal allies of ours. Another is Switzerland.
How to slash Defense? I’d go with a smaller active duty structure and larger reserve structure. I’d scale back tactical air purchases significantly. We still want to feed the R&D cycles, but we’re spending money on new fighters when there’s still no one who can fly against our existing fighters. I’d significantly reduce the civilian bureacracy associated with DoD. All in all, I think we can get $150 to $200 billion a year out of that budget, and still be more than prepared to do things we might have to do.
I’d end the drug war. Between interdiction ops and court costs – 70 percent of it for marijuana cases – we’re spending about $60 billion a year. Much of that is state and local funding, but remember the federal government sends these states money for drug task forces, not to mention other things. Anything that reduces state expenses eventually ought to save the federal government money.
I’d up the age on Social Security benefits. When the plan began – whether it was a good idea then or not – the age to collect benefits was only like a couple years before the average life expectancy. One of the strains is that now its like 10-15 years before.
All in all, I’d try to get our federal budget down to where its first balanced – even factoring in what we rob from the Social Security Trust – and then even to a real surplus.
Once there, I’d look at addressing taxes.

I like your plan, but i dont see how either of these candidates give us a choice for any of that. Now that said I really dont know how the majority of either party automatically cancels out any of what the other “brings” to the table.

Also, will it end, I’d look at a major consolidation of the Executive Branch.
I’d roll up several departments into HHS, and several into Interior. Then along with Defense, State and Justice, that would be it.
Let’s take Education, for instance. Why is it its own department? It only runs something like seven programs. Can’t those programs be run out of HHS?
Then once we have things consolidated, we need to do a true cost-benefit analysis on everything the Executive Branch does.
For instance, Agriculture now funds a soil chemist in every U.S. county. Somewhere where you live, there’s a guy who’s paid for by federal dollars just waiting for you to bring in a sample of garden soil. He’ll analyze it for you, and tell you what’s in it.
This is a throwback to a time when everywhere pretty much was farmland.
So things like that, I’d look at making some cuts.
With regard to taxes, I do think I’d have to up the rates on the higher brackets. This would be a temporary (as in 20 years or so) until we can pay down the debt some. As its being paid down, the finance charges lesson, and that’s the amount I’d put back into tax relief.

paul-I see your point is very well thought out. However, I disagree with you thought about increasing taxes. I would be for reducing spending to allow the current tax rates to stay and decrease as we go, say in 20 years or whatnot. With tax increases you will have more government. but other than that I can agree

paul-I see your point is very well thought out. However, I disagree with you thought about increasing taxes. I would be for reducing spending to allow the current tax rates to stay and decrease as we go, say in 20 years or whatnot. With tax increases you will have more government. but other than that I can agree

Interesting read Paul.. your ideas mirror many of mine.. for example, having worked in the court system for many years, I’m well aware of how much strain our so called ‘war on drugs’ has overburdened the system, not just in costs, but in time and effort distracted from other more serious cases. Along with mandatory sentencing laws, we have situations where many people who commit violent crimes are basically getting a slap on the wrist, while people who are arrested for personal use possession charges are getting maximum sentences and hard time. Not to mention the overcrowding caused which are letting real criminals out on early release to ease space requirements.

For decades Republicans promoted concentrating wealth for the very wealthiest of our citizens as somehow a fixed “Natural Order” of Capitalism, and nothing else will work.
The reality is that we’ve just lived through 8 years of Supply Side Economics. “Trickle Down” did not result in businesses re-investing in Middle-Class jobs. The 21st century global economy is forcing an evolution.
Many economists believe a Keynesian Economic style kick-start is justified in these difficult times. For example, NYU economist Nouriel Roubini states the US needs radical policies to prevent a 2-year recession from turning into a systemic meltdown and a decade long global economic Depression. Roubini says the federal government should have a plan to immediately spend on projects such as infrastructures and new green technologies – this infusion would create jobs across the spectrum.
The stock market rose 270 percent in the decade following Ronald Reagan’s increase of the capital gains rate to 28 percent, and the economy created 23 million jobs in the 1990s, a period when capital gains and dividend taxes were well ABOVE the levels that Obama proposes.
We face a choice: allow our policies to be shaped by those who got us here, or strike a new balance between the Market and government.

Read what the media is NOT saying about the financial crisis:
http://www.vaboomer.com/the_portal_to_boomeranger/2008/10/mortgage-crisis-the-history.html

Jim – I know, buddy. I’ve been hearing those kinds of stories for a while.
We’ve got the highest incarceration rates in the Western world, all because of a prohibition that doesn’t seem to keep anyone from actually doing the prohibited actions.
Marijuana now is the top industry in a bunch of states. Its bigger than tobacco in Virginia. Bigger than dairy in Vermont. And we’re not getting any tax benefits from all this business.
Plus, because of Republicans and their fear of anything cannibis related, we’re not even getting the benefits of growing industrial hemp. There’s hemp in one form or another in every car sold in the U.S. Most of the plastic trim parts in cars is a hemp based polymer. And all of that hemp is imported from Canada or China.
Just think… the Land of the Free… and our farmers aren’t allowed to grow the same crops as Chinese farmers.

Paul, it is unfortunate that the US didn’t start the move back in the 70′s when the handwriting was already written on the wall (and in the long gas lines and rationing we experienced). I have been very disappointed in the government for not increasing incentives for alternative forms of energy, particularly in the last two Bush energy policies. Of course, big oil has played a large part in much of that, to the detriment of even our national security. By simply making it easier for them to build more refineries and drill for more oil, we only prolong our reliance and allow more money to be poured into an infrastructure that we are trying to shift away from. In the last energy policy, the only government incentives I saw were some modest tax cuts for electric generation production using alternative fuels, which does little to address the major consumers of oil and natural gas.

Will it end wrote: “Big oil is a big problem. but if gas prices hadn’t skyrocketed like they have, Would the most of us even care?”
I think many still would, not just due to costs, but due to the fact that it is a limited resource, its effect on the environment, and the very real threat to our country due to our lack of a fuel that we have become so dependent upon.
As for costs, consider natural gas, which due to transportation restraints has its prices controlled regionally rather than globally (85% of our natural gas is produced domestically, and the rest comes from Canada). Its price remained flat for nearly 15 years, and then the year the Enron loophole was enacted, prices increased 320%, even though consumption only increased by 5% between 1987 and 2000.
http://www.energy.gov/about/nationalenergypolicy.htm

jim I agree. Maybe I was unclear, but my point was that i would hope all markets would allow the type affordabilty, convenience, etc. with such a stranglehold like big oil has it will be an uphill battle. a fight worth fighting. But we need to keep vigilant to make other fuels a viable source to compete

Planting Seeds of Disaster
ACORN, Barack Obama, and the Democratic party.
By Stanley Kurtz, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Institute
‘You’ve got only a couple thousand bucks in the bank. Your job pays you dog-food wages. Your credit history has been bent, stapled, and mutilated. You declared bankruptcy in 1989. Don’t despair: You can still buy a house.” So began an April 1995 article in the Chicago Sun-Times that went on to direct prospective home-buyers fitting this profile to a group of far-left “community organizers” called ACORN, for assistance. In retrospect, of course, encouraging customers like this to buy homes seems little short of madness.
Militant ACORN
At the time, however, that 1995 Chicago newspaper article represented something of a triumph for Barack Obama. That same year, as a director at Chicago’s Woods Fund, Obama was successfully pushing for a major expansion of assistance to ACORN, and sending still more money ACORN’s way from his post as board chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Through both funding and personal-leadership training, Obama supported ACORN. And ACORN, far more than we’ve recognized up to now, had a major role in precipitating the subprime crisis.
I’ve already told the story of Obama’s close ties to ACORN leader Madeline Talbott, who personally led Chicago ACORN’s campaign to intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to low-credit customers. Using provisions of a 1977 law called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), Chicago ACORN was able to delay and halt the efforts of banks to merge or expand until they had agreed to lower their credit standards — and to fill ACORN’s coffers to finance “counseling” operations like the one touted in that Sun-Times article. This much we’ve known. Yet these local, CRA-based pressure-campaigns fit into a broader, more disturbing, and still under-appreciated national picture. Far more than we’ve recognized, ACORN’s local, CRA-enabled pressure tactics served to entangle the financial system as a whole in the subprime mess. ACORN was no side-show. On the contrary, using CRA and ties to sympathetic congressional Democrats, ACORN succeeded in drawing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the very policies that led to the current disaster.
In one of the first book-length scholarly studies of ACORN, Organizing Urban America, Rutgers University political scientist Heidi Swarts describes this group, so dear to Barack Obama, as “oppositional outlaws.” Swarts, a strong supporter of ACORN, has no qualms about stating that its members think of themselves as “militants unafraid to confront the powers that be.” “This identity as a uniquely militant organization,” says Swarts, “is reinforced by contentious action.” ACORN protesters will break into private offices, show up at a banker’s home to intimidate his family, or pour protesters into bank lobbies to scare away customers, all in an effort to force a lowering of credit standards for poor and minority customers. According to Swarts, long-term ACORN organizers “tend to see the organization as a solitary vanguard of principled leftists…the only truly radical community organization.”
ACORN’s Inside Strategy
Yet ACORN’s entirely deserved reputation for militance is balanced by its less-well-known “inside strategy.” ACORN has long employed Washington-based lobbyists who understand very well how the legislative game is played. ACORN’s national lobbyists may encourage and benefit from the militant tactics of their base, but in the halls of congress they play the game with smooth sophistication. The untold story of ACORN’s central role in the financial meltdown is about the one-two punch to the banking system administered by this outside/inside strategy.
Critics of the notion that CRA had a major impact on the subprime crisis ask how a law passed in 1977 could have caused a crisis in 2008? The answer has a lot to do with ACORN — and the critical years of 1990-1995. While the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act did call on banks to increase lending in poor and minority neighborhoods, its exact requirements were vague, and therefore open to a good deal of regulatory interpretation. Banks merger or expansion plans were rarely held up under CRA until the late 1980s, when ACORN perfected its technique of filing CRA complaints in tandem with the sort of intimidation tactics perfected by that original “community organizer” (and Obama idol), Saul Alinsky.
At first, ACORN’s anti-bank actions were relatively few in number. However, under a provision of the 1989 savings and loan bailout pushed by liberal Democratic legislators, like Massachusetts Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy, lenders were required to compile public records of mortgage applicants by race, gender, and income. Although the statistics produced by these studies were presented in highly misleading ways, groups like ACORN were able to use them to embarrass banks into lowering credit standards. At the same time, a wave of banking mergers in the early 1990′s provided an opening for ACORN to use CRA to force lending changes. Any merger could be blocked under CRA, and once ACORN began systematically filing protests over minority lending, a formerly toothless set of regulations began to bite.
ACORN’s efforts to undermine credit standards in the late 1980s taught it a valuable lesson. However much pressure ACORN put on banks to lower credit standards, tough requirements in the “secondary market” run by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac served as a barrier to change. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy up mortgages en masse, bundle them, and sell them to investors on the world market. Back then, Fannie and Freddie refused to buy loans that failed to meet high credit standards. If, for example, a local bank buckled to ACORN pressure and agreed to offer poor or minority applicants a 5-percent down-payment rate, instead of the normal 10-20 percent, Fannie and Freddie would refuse to buy up those mortgages. That would leave all the risk of these shaky loans with the local bank. So again and again, local banks would tell ACORN that, because of standards imposed by Fannie and Freddie, they could lower their credit standards by only a little.
So the eighties taught ACORN that a high-pressure, Alinskyite outside strategy wouldn’t be enough. Their Washington lobbyists would have to bring inside pressure on the government to undercut credit standards at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Only then would local banks consider making loans available to customers with bad credit histories, low wages, virtually nothing in the bank, and even bankruptcies on record.
Democrats and ACORN
As early as 1987, ACORN began pressuring Fannie and Freddie to review their standards, with modest results. By 1989, ACORN had lured Fannie Mae into the first of many “pilot projects” designed to help local banks lower credit standards. But it was all small potatoes until the serious pressure began in early 1991. At that point, Democratic Senator Allan Dixon convened a Senate subcommittee hearing at which an ACORN representative gave key testimony. It’s probably not a coincidence that Dixon, like Obama, was an Illinois Democrat, since Chicago has long been a stronghold of ACORN influence.
Dixon gave credibility to ACORN’s accusations of loan bias, although these claims of racism were disputed by Missouri Republican, Christopher Bond. ACORN’s spokesman strenuously complained that his organization’s efforts to relax local credit standards were being blocked by requirements set by the secondary market. Dixon responded by pressing Fannie and Freddie to do more to relax those standards — and by promising to introduce legislation that would ensure it. At this early stage, Fannie and Freddie walked a fine line between promising to do more, while protesting any wholesale reduction of credit requirements.
By July of 1991, ACORN’s legislative campaign began to bear fruit. As the Chicago Tribune put it, “Housing activists have been pushing hard to improve housing for the poor by extracting greater financial support from the country’s two highly profitable secondary mortgage-market companies. Thanks to the help of sympathetic lawmakers, it appeared…that they may succeed.” The Tribune went on to explain that House Democrat Henry Gonzales had announced that Fannie and Freddie had agreed to commit $3.5 billion to low-income housing in 1992 and 1993, in addition to a just-announced $10 billion “affordable housing loan program” by Fannie Mae. The article emphasizes ACORN pressure and notes that Fannie and Freddie had been fighting against the plan as recently as a week before agreement was reached. Fannie and Freddie gave in only to stave off even more restrictive legislation floated by congressional Democrats.
A mere month later, ACORN Housing Corporation president, George Butts made news by complaining to a House Banking subcommittee that ACORN’s efforts to pressure banks using CRA were still being hamstrung by Fannie and Freddie. Butts also demanded still more data on the race, gender, and income of loan applicants. Many news reports over the ensuing months point to ACORN as the key source of pressure on congress for a further reduction of credit standards at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a result of this pressure, ACORN was eventually permitted to redraft many of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s loan guideline.
Clinton and ACORN
ACORN’s progress through 1992 depended on its Democratic allies. Whatever ACORN managed to squeeze out of the George H. W. Bush administration came under congressional pressure. With the advent of the Clinton administration, however, ACORN’s fortunes took a positive turn. Clinton Housing Secretary Henry Cisnersos pledged to meet monthly with ACORN representatives. For ACORN, those meetings bore fruit.
Another factor working in ACORN’s favor was that its increasing success with local banks turned those banks into allies in the battle with Fannie and Freddie. Precisely because ACORN’s local pressure tactics were working, banks themselves now wanted Fannie and Freddie to loosen their standards still further, so as to buy up still more of the high-risk loans they’d made at ACORN’s insistence. So by the 1993, a grand alliance of ACORN, national Democrats, and local bankers looking for someone to lessen the risks imposed on them by CRA and ACORN were uniting to pressure Fannie and Freddie to loosen credit standards still further.
At this point, both ACORN and the Clinton administration were working together to impose large numerical targets or “set asides” (really a sort of poor and minority loan quota system) on Fannie and Freddie. ACORN called for at least half of Fannie and Freddie loans to go to low-income customers. At first the Clinton administration offered a set-aside of 30 percent. But eventually ACORN got what it wanted. In early 1994, the Clinton administration floated plans for committing $1 trillion in loans to low- and moderate-income home-buyers, which would amount to about half of Fannie Mae’s business by the end of the decade. Wall Street Analysts attributed Fannie Mae’s willingness to go along with the change to the need to protect itself against still more severe “congressional attack.” News reports also highlighted praise for the change from ACORN’s head lobbyist, Deepak Bhargava.
This sweeping debasement of credit standards was touted by Fannie Mae’s chairman, chief executive officer, and now prominent Obama adviser James A. Johnson. This is also the period when Fannie Mae ramped up its pilot programs and local partnerships with ACORN, all of which became precedents and models for the pattern of risky subprime mortgages at the root of today’s crisis. During these years, Obama’s Chicago ACORN ally, Madeline Talbott, was at the forefront of participation in those pilot programs, and her activities were consistently supported by Obama through both foundation funding and personal leadership training for her top organizers.
Finally, in June of 1995, President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Secretary Cisneros announced the administration’s comprehensive new strategy for raising home-ownership in America to an all-time high. Representatives from ACORN were guests of honor at the ceremony. In his remarks, Clinton emphasized that: “Out homeownership strategy will not cost the taxpayers one extra cent. It will not require legislation.” Clinton meant that informal partnerships between Fannie and Freddie and groups like ACORN would make mortgages available to customers “who have historically been excluded from homeownership.”
Disaster
In the end of course, Clinton’s plan cost taxpayers an almost unimaginable amount of money. And it was just around the time of his 1995 announcement that the Chicago papers started encouraging bad-credit customers with “dog-food” wages, little money in the bank, and even histories of bankruptcy to apply for home loans with the help of ACORN. At both the local and national levels, then, ACORN served as the critical catalyst, levering pressure created by the Community Reinvestment Act and pull with Democratic politicians to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into a pattern of high-risk loans.
Up to now, conventional wisdom on the financial meltdown has relegated ACORN and the CRA to bit parts. The real problem, we’ve been told, lay with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, however, ACORN is at the base of the whole mess. ACORN used CRA and Democratic sympathizers to entangle Fannie and Freddie and the entire financial system in a disastrous disregard of the most basic financial standards. And Barack Obama cut his teeth as an organizer and politician backing up ACORN’s economic madness every step of the way.

The silent majority:
Have you ever asked yourself why can’t I see any
MC Cain posters on lawns in the inner cities and urban areas?
How about car stickers “saying im for Mc Cain”
Because the silent majority is being “INTIMIDATED” by the
Aggressive obama followers and sympatizers,
I am a new U.S.A. citizen.
And I saw “ intimidation “ in politics when I see one.
Back in the old country,
When Politics were down right dirty and “deadly”
And when people show their true colors and affilation
They get injured or killed.
Not unless the elections were rigged
And in some places the ballot boxes were stolen before the canvassing
And switched by the intimidators.
The silent majorities candidates “ALWAYS WINS”
I think every one who follows the polls is in for a big surprise.
When the silent majority “speaks out”.
On election day.
As I said unless the election is rigged.
But I have faith that the U.S.A.,
Is not in the level of the third world politics yet.
Where POLITICS IS DIRTY AND DEADLY.
AND HOPEFULLY NOT EVER.
MAY THE BEST MAN WINS.
JUST MY OBSERVATION.

I’m Montreville Blakely / Post War Korean VETERAN (RA)HONORABLE- and I play a mean but gentle guitar!I’m Natalie Merchant’s Blues Guitarist Singer Songwriter c/o ww w.giveusyourpoor.o rg , in a song titled, ” THERE IS NO GOOD REASON ” by Nicole L. Cooper – The album is:GIVE US YOUR POOR / – with world class stars such as; BONNIE RAITT, KEB MO”,-JON BON JOVI, PETE SEEGER, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, WEEPIN’ WILLIE ROBINSON, NATALIE MERCHANT and FRIENDS/(myself and others), and more-etc.,Go to ww w.nataliemerchant.o rg and click on the cursor/ Give Us Your Poor recording session.Give Us Your Poor is a non-profit 501-C3 / for helping AMERICA’S HOMELESS and POOR, Berkley Center of SOCIAL POLICIES, Ma. John McGah is my friend and producer of the Album and a movie with all of us/ titled- IT FEELS LIKE HOMEFEAST YOUR EYES ON THIS/:Hey Friend…, GOOGLE this: Sara Palin’s SECRET SOCIETY RITE GOOGLE this: TRUTH John McCain CENSOR POW’s Everyone pass this on to everyone you meet; as this has Senators and Congressmen addressing Mr. McCain’s ties with collaborating with the enemy in a time of war, Censoring AMERICAN POW’s. – REAL STUFF – it’s all there.The other thing is ; Palin is in the( Masonic Secret Order as an Eastern Star) and also (3rd Rite Christain World Order member)! compare notes

Tell your friends, and show them the proof.
Adolf Hitler was well-known to have used hypnosis on crowds to gain power in Germany. (Just Google it if you doubt it.) So why cant this happen in America? It is happening.
Now, this document, An Examination of Obama’s Use of Hidden Hypnosis Techniques in His Speeches is really spreading. Many people, including young people, are starting to wake up.
Young people have come up with a saying, “Don’t drink the kool-aid Obama is pushing on you.”
Obama has no accomplishments, we don’t know him, he wrote a memoir, he has racist connections, he is using hypnosis, and he thinks he’s the Messiah and that he should be in control of the world. We’ve seen this story before in Germany in the 1930′s, haven’t we? We know what happened there.
Obama’s use of hypnosis in speeches is why:
-nothing sticks to him
-the huge crowds
-the huge money contributions
-the mesmerized effect, especially in young people, who, because of their imaginations are more susceptible to hypnosis (read the document)
-the exorbitant election fraud, rule-breaking and bias in the media
-he gets away with changing every position
-people are calling him the “greatest leader of a generation” with no accomplishments
You have to read this document to understand how his hypnosis works. Logically and rationally, why not get to know this guy a little more before handing the world over to him? Why not wait?
An Examination of Obama’s use of Hidden Hypnosis Techniques in His Speeches can be found at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7470439/Obamas-Use-of-Hidden-Hypnosis-Techniques-in-His-Speeches
The media must feel compelled to cover this information and decide to let informed people decide.
PS – “Dont drink Obama’s Kool-Aid”