obama is going to be the worst prez that is loved by the commoners

[pico]

i think gw can get a better bailout plan than him. his appointees are quitting. rough start. i don't see it getting any better.

i expect liberals to chime in and defend him...

[MilfDriller]

liberals can't defend him right now. they're too busy on their knees in front of 'da prez'

[fiveteamer]

You would think after the past 8 years that retarded neocons, would, y'know, kinda, STFU.

God bless.

[MonkeyF0cker]

I think it's a bit early to judge his legacy...

[wtf]

here is an idea

do nothing

except, just reduce taxes, dramatically for business and consumers alike

[ryanXL977]

yes, we reduced taxes for the last 8 years and...

voila

so keep on doing it! thats the only idea an entire political party has, to reduce taxes

environments bad? reduce taxes
job loss? reduce taxes

thats the answer to everything
reduce taxes
as if this war and country pays for itself thru pixie dust

[Shortstop]

yes, we reduced taxes for the last 8 years and...

voila

so keep on doing it! thats the only idea an entire political party has, to reduce taxes

environments bad? reduce taxes
job loss? reduce taxes

thats the answer to everything
reduce taxes
as if this war and country pays for itself thru pixie dust

Are you Nancy Pelosi's teenage son by any chance?

[pimike]

here is an idea

do nothing

except, just reduce taxes, dramatically for business and consumers alike

[wtf]

america has the highest or second highest average tax rate in the industrialized world

hong kong has HALF THE TAX RATE and has a giant surplus of cash in its coffers

so i dont know what was reduced, if it was it had zero impact

[MilfDriller]

Are you Nancy Pelosi's teenage son by any chance?

dead on

[ryanXL977]

america has the highest or second highest average tax rate in the industrialized world

hong kong has HALF THE TAX RATE and has a giant surplus of cash in its coffers

so i dont know what was reduced, if it was it had zero impact

china isnt ina trillion dollar war and china is the one who lends us money
the average chinese person probably saves 20% of their income, the average american has debt.

[wtf]

well if there was less taxes i am sure americans would save more

you just answered your own question

china has similar burdens , they are not wars, but basically no infrastructure-schools-hospitals

[MilfDriller]

we need Ryan to go 'help out' in illegal ghettos in the US. that is something I'd pay to see. some stupid college kid white guy walking into a ghetto and then getting his throat slashed....

[Hotdiggity11]

Yeah, come back in 2 years when we can actually get a clear view of his presidency.

[MilfDriller]

I'm sorry. that was too tough on the liberal. God bless him. Peace, love and harmony.... and hope and change

[wtf]

by tax reduction it stimulates the EXACT PEOPLE you need, the working class and corporations, the engines of the economy

by printing money and having all this pork creates opportunity to give money where it is least needed

[ryanXL977]

there is no evidence of that though

[MilfDriller]

if we had a succession of 5 Obama presidents, we'd become Haiti

[Hotdiggity11]

if we had a succession of 5 Obama presidents, we'd become Haiti

Even if that was true, that would just mean it would take 3 Palins or 2 GWs to do the same.

[MonkeyF0cker]

america has the highest or second highest average tax rate in the industrialized world

hong kong has HALF THE TAX RATE and has a giant surplus of cash in its coffers

so i dont know what was reduced, if it was it had zero impact

WRONG. Try corporate tax rate. Not income taxes. The U.S. actually has one of the lowest income tax rates among industrialized nations.

[pico]

Are you Nancy Pelosi's teenage son by any chance?

btw, california is now obamaized. good luck finishing school at cal colleges

[curious]

here is an idea

do nothing

except, just reduce taxes, dramatically for business and consumers alike

No, there are things that need to be done. There are some real issues that have to be fixed. Unfortunately, all of these things are the opposite of what Obama is/is not doing.

Here is a short list:
1. Outlaw derivatives that are too complicated to accurately determine risk. This is pretty much all derivitaves. Derivatives are extremely dangerous and are the big reason for the mortgage meltdown.
2. Force corporations to make their tax returns and their financial statements agree. Best way to do this is to have the IRS use the higher of the two. Corporations are allowed to keep two sets of books, one for the IRS and one for investors to "prove" how profitable they are. Part of the problem in the banking industry right now is that these "profits" are totally imaginary. And investors don't know this because corporations are allowed to play so many games with their financial statements. Also force corporations to use a very simple cash on cash accounting system for reporting revenue. Cash in is income, cash out is expense, what is left is profit.
3. Outlaw the practice of paying _EO level executives huge "performance" bonuses when there is no performance. The libertarians will say it is no one's business and you can't interfere, blah blah blah. But, it is someone's business, the shareholders and one of government's duties has to be to protect the shareholders' interests. "Performance" would be easy to measure. Using the cash on cash accounting system how much profit was there at the end of the year?
4. Outlaw under threat of execution the practice of "off the books" liabilities. Part of the reason for the financial meltdown was that these financial corporations were allowed to move liabilities into wholly owned subsidiaries so the true financial health of the company could not be determined.
5. Force corporations to have complete transparency on financial dealings and their balance sheets so that investors can easily determine the true financial picture of the corporation. Your company cannot do this because of trade secrets and remain competitive? Fine, then you can no longer be a publicly traded corporation. So, buy up all your stock and go private. Problem solved.
6. Have the FDIC take over the insolvent financial institutions. Give capital to financially strong financial institutions so that they can increase the size and number of loans they make. We have several regional banks in my area who are financially strong and did not get involved in the risky practices that led to the financial meltdown. Yet, they are being penalized competetively because the large national banks like Wachovia that caused this mess got financial rewards for bad loan practices and are able to unfairly compete with the regional banks.
7. No more of this "XYZ" is too big to fail. Part of the problem in the financial markets is the size of some of these corporations. When they adopt bad business practices it hurts the entire economy. Break these monstrosities up under the anti-trust laws (remember them?). Why was AIG allowed to continue as an organization? Its assets should have been sized and sold to smaller, regional companies which are financially strong and did not mis-manage their business so incredibly incompetently. Disband Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and put mortgages back in the hands of local banks and savings and loans and make it so that to make a mortgage you have to use your own money. The mortgage meltdown happened in part because the people who made loans did not take on the risk of the life time of the loan so what did they care if it was a bad loan.
8. Change the tax laws so that foreign earnings are taxed at very high rates and US earnings are taxed at much lower rates. Make the rate for repatriated profits zero. This will cause a large number of jobs to be repatriated to the US. Right now the way the law is written, foreign earnings are NOT taxed UNTIL they are repatriated.
9. Tax foreign corporations on world wide income. Foreign corporations play games like this one. Toyota USA buys cars from Toyota Malaysia. (The cars are not in Malaysia and never go to Malaysia, only the paperwork). Toyota Malaysia buys cars from Toyota Japan. Toyota USA then claims to make zero profit on the cars they sell in the USA that come from Japan. And the IRS allows them to get away with this bullshit. All foreign corporations play this game. So, just tax them on world wide income. Problem solved.
10. Drastically cut government spending at all levels. Eliminate anything that is not absolutely necessary.
11. Institute a new tax system. It is very simple. Everyone pays X% on all income from all sources - no exemptions, no exclusions, no deductions, no write offs, no set asides, companies have to use a cash on cash accounting system. Make the tax rate very low. Eliminate all other taxes. Eliminate the concept of non-taxable entities. Harvard and Yale have to start paying taxes on their $4 billion income. There are churches where I live that run for profit day care centers, schools, stores, etc, that have lavish building complexes taking up 10s of acres, and they pay no property tax and no income tax and these "churches" have incomes in the hundreds of millions of $. Tax the mo fos. 10% will probably work. The net effect of drastically reducing government spending and taxing all income from everywhere at a much lower rate will be an INCREASE in net revenues to the government. More importantly this will give EVERYONE a stake in sound fiscal policy at all levels of government and EVERYONE will be opposed to pork barrel projects because they will view it as their money.


Well, this list could go on and on, but these are a few basics.

[MilfDriller]

nope. you're wrong

[MonkeyF0cker]

nope. you're wrong

If you're speaking to me, please tell me the average income tax rates in Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, and Canada (to name just a few that are higher) versus the United States. Thanks.

[MilfDriller]

Monkey, that was meant for somebody else. Anyways, it doesn't matter.

I'm thinking about setting Ryan up on a date with Rogue Scholar.

[Slim]

china isnt ina trillion dollar war and china is the one who lends us money
the average chinese person probably saves 20% of their income, the average american has debt.

Hong Kong and China are different countries.

[reno cool]

Look, any meaningful change in policy is asking a lot from any president. People, organizations have to create a culture to drive change. However, the fact that when he talks the word "baboon" isn't the first thing that pops into my mind is already a refreshing change from the last 30 years.

[JBC77]

The "stimulus" if thats what you want to call it is an abomination. It's Nancy Pelosi's bastard child. They voted on it and didn't even read it, we're in the Banana Republic now. How 4 billion for ACORN will stimulate the economy is beyond me. This is going to fail miserably for Obama. He went from saying he's going to create 2 million jobs, to create and save 2 million jobs then it was 3 million and in his last speech/press conference it became 4 million. More of the same folks.

"What do you think a stimulus is? It's spending"

[wtf]

1) curious has some wonderful points, in particular number 11, that is exactly how hong kong does it. plus the tax is paid at the END OF THE YEAR, not taken from your salary. you receive an invoice from the government for tax.

2) hong kong is still separate and has autonomy till 2047

3) taxes to individuals in hong kong is 17% max, even if you make a billion dollars

4) this program of printing money was recently tried in a country called zimbabwe, which used to be a very prosperous nation

[MonkeyF0cker]

Awesome. Can we implement Hong Kong's sweat shop industry too? They do everything right in Hong Kong.

[wtf]

havent been sweatshops here since the sixties , when everything was a sweatshop

you have no idea what your talking about

hong kong is more advanced than probably any american city

for example a super clean reliable prompt ubiquitous underground train system

not one american city has this-you have not traveled much i can see, please dont mention the vile new york train system

[Shortstop]

Nancy Pelosi has said at least twice in public that the United States is losing "500 Million Jobs Per Month"

Pelosi is lost. Obama is lost. We are going to hell in a bucket.

[Slim]

I watched a show about Hong Kong. The stuff they have there is very high tech. Problem is there's way too many people over there.

[pico]

hong kong is so rich because it was the only free port before deng xiao ping opened up china. shanghai is taking over. all these hong kong people are looking for jobs in mainland.

[MonkeyF0cker]

havent been sweatshops here since the sixties , when everything was a sweatshop

you have no idea what your talking about

hong kong is more advanced than probably any american city

for example a super clean reliable prompt ubiquitous underground train system

not one american city has this-you have not traveled much i can see, please dont mention the vile new york train system

It's called sarcasm, genius. I have travelled plenty. I haven't been to Hong Kong, however. But I don't have much interest in going at this point either. There is good reason no American city has public transportation systems like that. It's called the automobile.