Ex-Chairman Greenspan talks on CNBC about his research and findings on the current uncertainties in the economy and the impacts it has on corporate and household decision making and implications is has for growth and government policy makers.....a must see for the administration and policy makers on Capitol Hill. It's a bit long, but if you have the time to get through it, it provides some valuable insights.... <object id="cnbcplayer" height="380" width="400" classid="clsid27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0"> <param name="type" value="application/x-shockwave-flash"> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <param name="quality" value="best"> <param name="scale" value="noscale"> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"> <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000"> <param name="salign" value="lt"> <param name="movie" value="http://plus.cnbc.com/rssvideosearch/action/player/id/1680587782/code/cnbcplayershare"> <embed name="cnbcplayer" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" bgcolor="#000000" height="380" width="400" quality="best" wmode="transparent" scale="noscale" salign="lt" src="http://plus.cnbc.com/rssvideosearch/action/player/id/1680587782/code/cnbcplayershare" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> </object> The Cliff Notes version taken from his recent piece in Financial Times....
And business ( including mine ) continues to languish while partisan politics trumps common sense. As long as this tax uncertainty looms absolutely nothing positive will occur. Today they announced that the national unemployment rate increased to 9.8% in November. They need to at least freeze taxes at their current levels for two or more years and begin slashing government spending drastically including getting out of these two loser wars. There are entire departments in Washington that would never be missed. They should also immediately begin a complete overhaul of the current tax code. Get rid of all the exemptions and lower the bracket rates significantly. [/i]
Incredible that Obama who campaigned on getting out of Iraq in 90 days and shutting down Gitmo, took longer on Iraq and is getting more mired down in Afghanistan that Bush did ....he should get the hell out of there. Those people don't want democracy, they want to grow heroin, live in a 12th century feudal system, oppress their women and praise Allah. Nothing we are going to do will change that.
In between appointments yesterday I channel surfed Rush Limbaugh. I have not listened to him much over the last couple of years but I tuned in just in time to hear his cure for reducing or eliminating over time the federal deficit and balancing the budget. His idea is to cut the budget of every department in the federal governemnt 10%... across the board. Then let them figure out how to run their depts and service their customers ( us ) more efficiently on 10% less. I have done this or more in each of the last four years in my company.
Let's first level set the departmental budgets to where they were prior to the Obama "stimulus".....which was not about stimulus but inflated - better yet - artificially engorged the budgets of many federal agencies with pork. Let's not forget that as we go forward.....we must not lose those Billions to the whim of federal bureaucrats and out of the private sector job creation machine FOREVER...... In concept Krebsie I can agree given the lack of executive skills and leadership in the White House. If we had some degree of leadership, I believe it makes more sense to have them direct cuts consistent with national priorities -v- an across the board reduction. However, at present we have as massive a leadership vacuum in every Cabinet position as I can ever remember.....tell me, somebody, where is the leadership?
.....elected by no one, accountable to no one but yet omnipotent within their own fiefdoms with authority over entire industries. Nice concept.....is there any question how effective that will be?
I find across the board cuts to be a problem...but maybe they should be the solution because nobody has the cajones to take a hard look at priorities. The problem is always that some programs are doing the best they can, just scraping by...while others are so bloated that they could be cut 20% or more and not notice the difference. And what about some of the programs that could just be cut out altogether?
I think that was Limbaugh's point. Make an arbitrary cut of 10% to take discussion out of the equation and force the department heads to actually manage rather than be caretakers of tax dollars. For instance, if you slash defense by 10% while fighting two wars you may have to get out of one immediately. Or close down some of the useless facilities we have around the world. If we are shutting down whole departments what better place to start than the Dept of Education?
:idea: The Dept. of Education should be abolished. There's nothing in the Constitution that allows the federal government to create a Dept. of Education anyway. Our schools were fine until the federal government began "improving" them by sending tax money to teacher's unions. While they're at it, they can abolish Health, Housing and Energy too. All of those belong to the states anyway...
George...I know that was the point but it is the easy way out... Some department heads may be wasting money hand over fist and need cut 30% but can easily meet the 10% and still be overfunded...while other department heads get rewarded for pinching pennies by getting cut another 10%. That kind of lazy-ass thinking by upper mgt. is what keeps lower departments pushing their budget and spending all of the time to leave wiggle room...it's why they dare not leave any money unspent at the end of the year because it will lead to lower budgets next year.
Well said Stu....indeed it in effect serves to penalize those that have been efficient managers and good stewards of the peoples money.....that said, it is better than doing nothing and something must be done.