Hey all! it's been a while. We're doing good on the house, I plan to post some more pictures soon, but first a bit of politics.

If you're looking for the economy, you'll find it in the crapper. We've got lots of unemployment, less credit, less spending, less confidence, and less consumption.

Everyone agrees that something needs to be done to boost the economy before it gets worse. So what will get us the "most bang for our buck"? Is it tax cuts, spending on public works projects, aid to the states? What is the most effective use of dollars. We already have a trillion dollar deficit, so it'd be nice if we could avoid simply throwing money at the thing, like we did with the banks. We should be making targeted investments, and we should be able to see exactly where that money is going.

Tax cuts work different for different groups. For the working class it's supposed to encourage us to buy stuff. Pay down our debt, and get a new laptop or something. It's real similar to the rebate checks we got last time around, except it comes out of our payroll taxes instead.

Tax cuts on the upper classes, that's where we expect tax cuts to do the most good, because if they have more money it inspires them to go ahead and create more jobs for us poor working stiffs... right? I doubt it, if people aren't buying their product they're not hiring. If you sell fewer cars this year, why hire new people? And when people don't have decent jobs, then they can't buy your cars... we're still broke.

I think tax cuts are the equivalent of throwing money at the thing... "Here, everyone have a little cash, go spend it, and this will probably work itself out." Sounds like a faith based economic philosophy to me. I don't have any confidence that the invisible hand of the market will save us. I'd rather a more practical approach.

You know what inspires companies to create jobs? Better sales!!!! Increase demand, and guess what, they'll increase the size of their workforce.

If we want this recovery package to work, the government needs to buy stuff, lots of it, because that creates demand. Buy new computers for the schools, fix roads and bridges, make government buildings more energy efficient, buy some hybrid cars for the postal service, modernize some hospitals...

There are a million things in this country that have been neglected because of an anti-spending attitude in Washington. We live in Buffalo right, we've got a hundred plans and a hundred projects that are ready to go, if we just had the cash to go ahead and build. You don't even have to be creative just give states, counties and cities the money they've been waiting for. But remember, local governments can be just as corrupt as the Feds, make sure that we know exactly where the money is being spent. I love Obama's idea of making all this information public online. Transparency in government is so important.


Article supporting tax cuts


US News article


NY times roundup

I got a bum middle finger on my left hand doing some house repair. We opened up the window seat this weekend, and I poked the tip of my finger pretty bad.

I want to write about the senate elections in Minnesota and Georgia, cause I think it proves my point about Instant Runoff Voting. it'll take a lot of words though, so I'll have to wait.

Happy shoveling everyone.

In relation to my last post: "Bailout ignores homeowners"

Home Foreclosures have officially been suspended through the holidays.


Merry Christmas everybody. Fannie and Freddie don't want to ruin the Christmas Shopping Spirit by throwing you out on your ass.

I'm a little cynical here, because this type of action was not hard. The government Owns Fannie and Freddie now, and it costs zero dollars to issue a moratorium on foreclosures. The only excuse for waiting a month is confusion, incompetence and ignorance to the problems average people face.

I know not everybody can afford their mortgages, I'm sure some did get in over their head. But 279,561 people lost their homes this past month, that's 25% higher than last October, that's an increase of 70,000 people, I'll bet some were victims of adjustable rates, predatory schemes, crappy real estate markets, etc.

I guess I'm glad they're doing something.

Bailout ignores homeowners.

Remember when we passed the bailout everyone thought it was a good idea to keep people in their homes. Banks made bad loans to people who couldn't pay them back, but we could renegotiate those loans into something people can afford. If people can pay something toward their mortgage the loans are not as worthless or "toxic" as they called them in the news. It's a bottom up approach, don't just buy garbage loans from the banks, make it so borrowers can pay the banks back and keep those mortgages from defaulting.

Well, that didn't happen and in October 279,561 people lost their homes. That is a failure of government. We never set up a system to deal with foreclosures. It's not like this was sudden, it takes a few months to kick somebody out of their home. I'm sure many many of those people were trying to play by the rules, and could have renegotiated their loans and paid them off. That's a 5% increase from the previous month and a 25% increase from October 2007. Every month that we let 'loans' become 'bad debt' we are just draining money out of the economy and creating more uncertainty.

Party First or Country First
The Bush years were ruled by party politics. After Every crisis, the first question they asked was "How can we use this to make the Republicans look good and the Democrats look bad". And there was a dogmatic reliance on conservative ideals (like private mercenaries in Iraq who get paid more than our military)

I hope moving forward we can build consensus instead of battling over turf wars. Because that's why people disapprove of congress more than bush, because there's always some ideological stalemate, and some party line rivalry. And nothing got done. We need solutions, this is not a game. Let's agree where we can.

The Economy Grows Like Crazy Amid High Taxes

Not that taxes should be raised in an economic depression, but the idea that lower taxes makes the economy better is false.

"High taxes create an incentive to reinvest profits into the business for long-term growth. With high taxes, the only way to retain the bulk of the wealth created by a business is by reinvesting it in the business -- in plants, equipment, staff, research and development, new products and all the rest."


It's a simple argument, based on historical trends in the US. It makes perfect logical sense. The 'trickle-down' idea of cutting taxes and giving benefits to the rich just encourages saving and stockpiling cash, while higher tax rates encourages reinvestment in the business and writing it off on your taxes.

Drew said something along these lines in a previous post, and I see the same situation since I'm self-employed.

I just don't think taxes as the root of all evil, especially when healthcare is a bigger problem and expense for me and my business. And I do think it's patriotic to pitch in and help the country as a whole.