I support HR-676…a full extension of Medicare to cover ALL American citizens. Check out the details, as proposed by Rep. Conyers of Michigan, here:
I will be back to discuss more details on this soon.
A Great Idea
I am all about people thinking creatively and outside-the-box, especially right now. We need all the creative ideas we can get about how to stimulate our economy.
I was delighted to read about such an idea in the New York Times today. Ruth Y. Goldway, a member of the United States Postal Regulatory Commission, laid out a way to use some of the stimulus money to fit all the postal vehicles to electric. Although this may not be a new idea, she expanded by saying that the customers could plug their own vehicles in at their community offices when they mail parcels, etc. Great idea!
Additionally, she correctly identified that “Green jobs — outfitting buildings, converting trucks — would be created in neighborhoods nationwide. Converting just its 142,000 standard delivery trucks would reduce gasoline consumption by up to 68 million gallons a year and save the Postal Service millions of dollars.” Saving the Postal Service money would be a wise move, since mail delivery has seen some decreases.
This is the kind of change I was thinking about. This is the kind of change I can believe in.
Stimulus, Shimulus…Do It Right
So the stimulus is in trouble. I’m not surprised in the least. There’s too much stuff in this bill in the first place. I attribute this to Democrats not being able to spend on anything for eight years, but this is not the time to cram everything in. So here are the 4 parts that I believe should be the TOTAL stimulus bill of right now.
Break the stimulus into the following parts:
1. Repairing bridges, roads, etc. throughout the country. Hire those laid-off autoworkers, hire engineers and project managers.
2. Give an enormous amount of money to green industry…solar panels, wind power and mass transportation. don’t just give enough for states to keep their existing transit systems…give them more to make the expansion they need due to increased ridership.
3. Restructure the electrical grid. Help fund and give contracts to companies like Better Place, which will send a message to Detroit that there WILL be an infrastructure in place to support the Chevy Volt and other cars when they come out. Oil will only go up.
4. Increase unemployment benefits and let the unemployed go onto Medicare for a time. Find a way to help those who are self-employed and independent contractors…many of whom are illegally paid in this fashion and suffer from extraordinarily high taxes.
This is ALL that should be in this bill. Of course, education reform and health care, etc. are important. My fear is that if we only do half of what is needed in these areas in this bill, when we try to do more, the Republicans will scream “We already spent money on these programs” and we’ll never get it done right.
Democrats, save some bargaining room. Health Care and Education should be addressed later (even in a few months, just to separate from this current bill) and if you dont spend anything on them now, you will have a better place to argue from when you need complete spending to do them right.
Also, let’s get this thing done without the Republicans. Obama needs to stand up to them more…they were not voted in. We wanted a bold, daring stimulus-and this is not it-this is a hodgepodge. It looks like a pot-luck dinner when we wanted and needed 5-star dining. We dont want more tax cuts or credits, either.
America Must Produce…a Story
” John Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock
(MADE IN JAPAN ) for 6am .
While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA ) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG ).
He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA ),
designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE )
and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA )
After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA )
he sat down with his calculator
(MADE IN MEXICO ) to see how much he could spend today.
After setting his watch
(MADE IN TAIWAN )
filled it with GAS
(from Saudi Arabia )
to the radio
(MADE IN INDIA )
he got in his car
(MADE IN GERMANY )
and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.
At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his
Computer
(Made In Malaysia ),
Joe decided to relax for a while.
He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL )
poured himself a glass of wine
(MADE IN FRANCE )
and turned on his TV
(MADE IN INDONESIA ),
and then wondered why he can’t find a good paying job in AMERICA .”
I think we know what the point of this story is. Competition is good, but it needs to include American competition. Lets get our act together.
Election Day 2008
Wow, its finally here. Funny, I’m not as euphoric as I have imagined I’d be over the last four years. Probably because there is so much to do. As I’ve said before, no matter what we find out tonight, Bush is done on Jan 20th (although he’s trying to do as much damage in the next few weeks as possible, big surprise)
I voted about a week and a half ago, so i wont be standing in lines today but my experience voting this year has just been amazing. In March, I voted for a woman to be the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States, Hillary Clinton. It was an absolutely amazing feeling and I was a little teary-eyed. And now, I am in Georgia, not Ohio and I got to vote for an African-America as President of the United States, Barack Obama. I’ve spent alot of time in Europe and although I enjoy their democratic socialist policies, many of these fabulously liberal nations would not be able to elect a minority as a major party nominee. Good for us, it truly is an amazing thing and is definitely the reason I love this country. Because we are all Americans and now we are showing that to the rest of the world.
Let’s get back to doing what we do best: leading the way.
Bush Countdown
With all the election madness, I forget how excited I am that Dubya’s reign is almost over. Here is a gadget so we can all keep track and be a little happier every day from now till January 20th 2009!
Dont forget to vote Obama/Biden Nov. 4th! (and if you’re not voting Obama, make sure you vote-we have troops overseas fighting for this country and all our rights and privileges!)
Click below and enjoy =)
Get the Bush’s Last Day Countdown Clock widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox!
The Need for the Bailout
We do need the bailout. I am in no way supportive of an average CEO compensation package being, according to SEC Commissioner Roel C. Campos, 400 times more than the average employee’s compensation. We know now that the bailout comes with limits on this, as well as giving the taxpayers a chance to get back money or make a profit in the future when the government buys up these bad debts. The government will be taking a stake in these companies who seek the help of the government. I am a huge fan of this because it is regulation and we need it. Bad.
Time for Regulation
Call me a socialist, I probably am, at least comparable to what Europeans are. I liked economics in school and I did well at it and the one thing I remember very clearly were the “sterile” models that were used for, well, everything. “All other things being equal” sound familiar? In real life, everything happens at once, its not standing still. The formulas used to calculate the derivatives, and indeed derivatives themselves, have been criticized by Warren Buffet as “financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal.”
Derivatives, according to the New York Times, are “exotic contracts that promised to protect investors from losses, thereby stimulating riskier practices that led to the financial crisis.” Alan Greenspan and other members of the Fed fought for years against any kind of regulation for these derivatives, with their rationale being the private sector and the markets would act responsibly and that Wall Street could be trusted. Really?
My issue with so much of this stems from one very, very, painfully basic concept of free trade that you learn in basic microeconomics: Once government is introduced, free markets no longer exisit. No country on the planet has free markets; tariffs, taxes, social programs, tax breaks, tax cuts, tax credits…these all mean NO FREE MARKETS. The simple supply and demand graph gets all crazy when government is thrown in, meaning things cannot reach equilibrium. Equilibrium is the lifeline and purpose of free markets.
I don’t understand how so many people can preach about free markets without realizing that our (foolish) commitment to them is actually hurting us. Other countries are taking advantage of our low tariffs (such as Honda and Toyota selling their cars here at very low prices) and then putting high tariffs on the goods we send (our cars in Japan are much higher in price because of Japan’s tariffs). This is not free trade, free markets or competition. Look what this has done to the auto industry.
Moderation vs. Excess
Obviously, our point in this country with regard to free markets is to lead by example. But with the European Union growing substantially and having a higher GDP and population than the US, how can we continue to do this? Maybe its time to get in and play the game. Get some money, reap the benefits of being a big player. Dont’t let other countries take advantage of us. Let’s regulate some, protect what’s ours and encourage true competition by working to set even tariffs or be prepared to raise ours in certain cases.
The Bailout is the first step to regulation and I really hope that it is done in moderation, because as much as de-regualtion has been loved by most in this country, we will all now suffer because of the excess of the elite few. Moderation is key. Its time to get in and play the game.
College Debt: Consuming Young Americans
I want to talk about some of the enormous issues we, the young Americans, are facing today (and have actually been facing for awhile now) and, in later posts, write about some things that we can do to change things.
College and Student Loans
Alot of us have gone to college or are currently attending college and the belief was (and still is) that we would pay exorbitant sums of money for our degrees and get good-paying jobs with growth potential once we graduated. But, according to Marcy Gordon and The Seattle Times, the reality is that those good entry-level jobs are drying up.
Other people I know are also struggling to find the jobs that pay off those loans or are taking out more loans to go on to graduate school. My question is…What effect is all this debt going to have on our generation? Liz Pulliam Weston of MSN Money says that, on average, students have well over $20,000 in debt from loans at the age of 23 or 24 and most people I know have far more debt than that. If your total debt is, say $40,000….thats a down payment on a house, a new car, savings for a young child’s college education, etc.
This debt truly limits our buying power when we can’t find the jobs we thought we would be that would enable us to pay down these loans. No one seems to be talking about this though. When the baby boomers are retired and the country is looking to us to invest, buy homes, take vacations, spur spending, we will still be paying hundreds of dollars in student loans a month.
The Economy
The economy at present is in bad shape and some predictions have it being very slow for 5-10 years. Many writers and reporters are talking about lost jobs in the American economy but almost no one talks about what it means for us, the young Americans. Let’s face it people: if a company is cutting back, going under or merging, what are the first jobs to go in most cases? The entry-level jobs and the early career jobs. These are OUR career paths and they are disappearing and no one is really talking about it. The Seattle TImes did put a couple of good articles in there about the absolutely paralyzing amount of college debt young people have and the drying up of good job prospects.
Ms. Pulliam’s articles from MSN Money on the subject, however, only acknowledge the debt and then go on to give ways to get out of it and stay out of it. Good advice, but if your loan payment is $300 per month (or more), your rent and utilites are, say, $800 a month, car insurance at $80 a month, health care monthly costs around $100 per month, groceries at $200 a month, most of us have credit cards too… how exactly are we supposed to put away for retirement, begin to diversify our portfolios, save for a down payment on a house and also have a “rainy day” type of savings making an average graduate salary of $30,000 per year????!!!! I want to know if other recent graduates are experiencing these kinds of realities!
I also want to discuss what we can do to change it. Obviously, voting is a huge aspect of this and I know we most likely wont see the changes for ourselves. I’m still ready to try to change things for us. I want America, the land of opportunity. I want the chance to apply my hard work and knowledge from my education to this country and make it better and I have some ideas which I will share in another post. What do you think?