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little things we could be doing to help fix our economy.
Thrakk
Member Posts: 1,226
I dont know how to fix the economy. In any case, fixing it takes years but it would be better to stimulate (or recover) the economy then waiting even longer for it to fix itself.
I was thinking the other day.. what are little things that we or our government could do, to stimulate the economy (things that wouldn't spark much controversy, and should just be a given idea to go about doing since there is little or no reason not to be going those things)?
I don't have many answers myself since I don't know too much about economics. I thought the brains over at off-topic might have a few ideas that I'm forgetting about. Or mention the basic things we could all be doing.
Comments
Reinvigorate the Economy by Reducing Income Inequality
EDIT: Taking away people's (a) rights and (b) money is NOT going to help. And, for YOU PEOPLE, giving-up your (a) rights and (b) money is NOT going to help.
that looks like a really great answer
THANKS 
do you have any other ideas?
Follow the current events and make an informed decision when casting your vote.
Other than that...
Look for business opportunities that will present themselves during a recession. Start a new business and hire on employees or contractors (create jobs). As a reward for yourself, if you can make a successful business during a recession, you will be in a favorable position for when the boom comes along.
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
We need a new New Deal. The institutions that created the middle-class are weak, dying, and some even dead. We need fiscal policies and health care reform to recreate a sustainable middle-class in this globally competitive world. We, as a country, have not equipped our citizens with the skills or our country with the institutions and infrastructure to prosper in a globally competitive world.
We should unabashedly pursue a new New Deal to re-create, re-secure, and re-build the American middle-class.
Kill the baby boomer generation.
Or else the terrorists..!
I think it's great how my state can't approve a budget and won't pay state employees until they do. Now they know how it feels to be like everyone else for ounce. Everyone is loosing there job or forced to take a cut in pay. Why should i feel bad somone who gets paid 5 times as much as me and only works three months out of the year? I love it!
PSU - Tyez Baylorum Lvl 160 Human Male GM lvl 20 MF lvl 20
Deport politicians.
I will try to:
- Drive less, find more efficient ways to get where I need to go.
- Not buy another car unless I really really need to(my old car dies).
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Removing minimum wage will definetly increase work in the US and decrease costs of manufacturing. The minimum wage has become more a deterrent for unskilled labor then a positive. It will also increase money payable to skilled labor by paying unskilled labor what they are worth.
Changing the Government work practices will also help. Instead of hiring people directly for certain tasks, they should do bids. Like taking bids for transportation, copying, education, construction, and maintenance services. It will decrease costs of running government programs and bolster small businesses.
Healthcare reform. I am not talking about making a public option or government sponsored healthcare. The current government options I think are more the problem then the solution. I mean regulation on pharmecuticals and insurance companies. Also taking Malpractice lawsuits out of the hands of trial lawyers and onto a review board instead. It would give better rewards to the victim and not incur massive costs of lawsuits.
Since we do not control our Federal government, the best things we can do to help stimulate our local economies are in our own communities.
1.Volunteer. Volunteering can help keep your community together during hard times.
You can volunteer to help out with services that may fall to the wayside because of lack of funding. Whether it is picking up trash, planting some landscaping or mowing some grass to help take the pressure off the city, who at this time does not have money for these things anymore.
Help by organizing and running fundraisers for community needs, help out with the schools to get them the necessary things that may have been cut from their budgets. Help out neighbors and friends who may be struggling in these hard times , and donate to your local food pantries. Bring a meal to a family who needs it, donate clothing or even drop off a gift card in their mailbox. There are so many in need right now, any little thing you can do to help makes their life a little easier.
Keeping your community running with good schools, pleasant environment, and reduced crime helps boost your cities desirability to attract new business, and in these times where most city budgets are not covering all needed expenses, you can help keep your city afloat by helping them out. It is YOUR home too, it is where YOU live, and YOU should help take care of it as well.
2.Bring community together.
Find out if your community has a local forum or create a community forum to bring local families and businesses together. Small businesses need to work together to help each other through these hard times, and by pooling supplies and having donated supplies can really help them save some expenses. Here we have started a packaging supplies pool , people donate unwanted packaging such as packing peanuts, bubble wrap, and boxes for the businesses to reuse. Also , free word of mouth local advertising to help each other out really helps when advertising budgets shrink to keep a flow of customers.
3. Invest in yourself, do not keep all of your eggs in one basket.
Learn other skills so that if something happens with your primary income and it shrinks, or disappears you have self reliant skills to fall back on. It is always good to have a side hobby or two to fall back on in times of crisis. It is not hard if you have your own skills to create things and sell them via ebay, local forums or craigslist to get started. This is a good way to earn some extra cash in your own time to make ends meet. Spend money wisely on tools, supplies and such that will allow you to make more $. The best investment you can make long term right now is in yourself.
4. buy local.
buy products made in your country, your state, and sold in your community to provide jobs where you live.
Guessing you voted for Obama?
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5 and 10 would not work together simultaneously. Small business owners often fall into that top 1% income earners and giving them grants at the same time that you have "enormous tax increases" doesn't seem to make sense.
6 as you wrote it doesn't make sense. Well, in order for it to make sense, I have to make assumptions about what you are implying. And frankly I don't feel those assumptions are accurate.
1 works, but doesn't. Our fastest growing industry is healthcare. Turning that industry into government owned is asking for problems. But okay, if we could do it in an efficient way, yeah, it would do wonders. I just don't think anyone has honestly come up with a working solution that would get through the politics, lobbies, and Obama.
Lastly, you say: "Reinvigorate the Economy by Reducing Income Inequality" at the same time you say, "Taking away people's... money is NOT going to help." Those two comments do not compute. How do you reduce income inequality without taking money away from those that have the money?
Yeah. Wrong.
A single digit percentage amount of small business owners qualify as "top earners". Theres over 20 million small business owners, yet only 1 or 2 million people in the country period fall into the margin of "1% income earners". So why would making such a claim come across as remotely true to you?
We know for a fact things like earned income credit expansion benefit small business owners moreso than tax cuts to the rich.
Just one more reason to focus entirely on not burdening middle incomer workers in our country anymore for the sake of making the rich richer.
Yeah. Wrong.
A single digit percentage amount of small business owners qualify as "top earners". Theres over 20 million small business owners, yet only 1 or 2 million people in the country period fall into the margin of "1% income earners". So why would making such a claim come across as remotely true to you?
We know for a fact things like earned income credit expansion benefit small business owners moreso than tax cuts to the rich.
Just one more reason to focus entirely on not burdening middle incomer workers in our country anymore for the sake of making the rich richer.
Okay. Let me put it a different way:
Giving benefits to small business owners which pushes them into the top 5% or top 1% and then taxing them doesn't make sense. Bear with me here. I am not in any way saying it wouldn't be good for the economy or workers. I am saying it doesn't make sense to the owners. Say you have a small business, but household income sits around the threshold of the top 1%, intentionally. Why would you take benefits from the government for your small business that could push you into that top 1% when the business can remain profitable and you can remain outside that "super-rich" catagory. You have to remember that around 60% of small businesses do not have a payroll.
Also note that I am not advocating cutting taxes on the rich. All I am saying is that the way declaredemer stated those to points do not add up well. I am sure he meant more than he wrote though.
Middle income earners deserve to take on their share of the burden just as much as everyone else.
Rich, poor, it makes no difference, everyone across the board in society has benefited from the boomtimes. The dangerous thing about overtaxing the rich, "just because they are richer", is that it reduces the incentive to become rich. If becoming successful, working harder or just earning more money earns you the moral reward of state victimisation, then the incentive to do so is curtailed.
Further to this, rich people are upwardly mobile. They can afford to leave. Keeping rich people in your country is a competative business, if they feel you are treating them unfairly, they will leave. Many many other countries and societies are falling over themselves to offer them a better deal.
If you do not offer the kind of enviroment in which rich people can get richer, then rich people will migrate to somewhere that does.
Given that rich people already pay the bulk of the nations taxes, this is not in the best intrests of middle income earners anymore than it is low income earners.
Getting rich is the American dream.
I'm bumping this thread. the previous argument within the last few posts above me is quite stimulating
also, I'm going to change my mmorpg.com setting to show 20 post per page when logged in... I should have done that a long time ago
There are several programs for student loan forgiveness including, but not limited to:
Obama initiated a new student loan payback option based upon income. Now, this is not your standard income-based repayment, this offers a lower payment (based upon 150% of poverty guidelines for family size) with the incentive of loan forgiveness after 120 payments.
I hate these options of complete forgiveness. A loan was taken from the taxpayers and it should be paid back. Everyone expects the companies who received TARP funds to pay it back, why not this taxpayer loan? There should be incentives essentially lowering the principal by a small percentage or eliminating interest, but never (unless one dies) completely forgive the principal.
Eliminating interest during this recession would provide a bit of boost of income to those who actually pay the bill. The average default rate for schools is 6% and the current loan debt is over $600 billion for student loans. Forgiving that would be a ridiculous option.
Yeah. Wrong.
A single digit percentage amount of small business owners qualify as "top earners". Theres over 20 million small business owners, yet only 1 or 2 million people in the country period fall into the margin of "1% income earners". So why would making such a claim come across as remotely true to you?
We know for a fact things like earned income credit expansion benefit small business owners moreso than tax cuts to the rich.
Just one more reason to focus entirely on not burdening middle incomer workers in our country anymore for the sake of making the rich richer.
Okay. Let me put it a different way:
Giving benefits to small business owners which pushes them into the top 5% or top 1% and then taxing them doesn't make sense. Bear with me here. I am not in any way saying it wouldn't be good for the economy or workers. I am saying it doesn't make sense to the owners. Say you have a small business, but household income sits around the threshold of the top 1%, intentionally. Why would you take benefits from the government for your small business that could push you into that top 1% when the business can remain profitable and you can remain outside that "super-rich" catagory. You have to remember that around 60% of small businesses do not have a payroll.
Also note that I am not advocating cutting taxes on the rich. All I am saying is that the way declaredemer stated those to points do not add up well. I am sure he meant more than he wrote though.
Why even make that argument? That's a Joe the Plumber angle that makes absolutely no sense.
Have you ever refused a raise at work because it'd push you into a higher tax bracket? Who do you know is seeking a part-time job at Wendy's to try to opt into the lowest of tax rates?
It's essentially a question that makes zero sense; why would I not want to make more money? You speak as if the new tax rates would negate any extra earnings, and that'd only happen if income was absolutely marginal where the tax rates change.
That argument is credible only when you yourself can honestly say you wouldn't want your own salary quadrupled for whatever reason. Otherwise I'd suggest not assume you're defending people out there who're dumb enough to want protecting from taking in more money a year.
I don't think you need to worry about eliminating intrest in the recession. That bit has already been addressed.
My ex-sister-in-law. She refused to get a job and lived off of child support, food stamps, medicaid, and subsidized housing.
"If I work and make too much, I will lose my benefits."
Now, she lives off of food stamps, medicaid, and subsidized housing.
The courts deemed her an unfit parent and awarded full custody to my brother.
Middle income earners deserve to take on their share of the burden just as much as everyone else.
Rich, poor, it makes no difference, everyone across the board in society has benefited from the boomtimes. The dangerous thing about overtaxing the rich, "just because they are richer", is that it reduces the incentive to become rich. If becoming successful, working harder or just earning more money earns you the moral reward of state victimisation, then the incentive to do so is curtailed.
Further to this, rich people are upwardly mobile. They can afford to leave. Keeping rich people in your country is a competative business, if they feel you are treating them unfairly, they will leave. Many many other countries and societies are falling over themselves to offer them a better deal.
If you do not offer the kind of enviroment in which rich people can get richer, then rich people will migrate to somewhere that does.
Given that rich people already pay the bulk of the nations taxes, this is not in the best intrests of middle income earners anymore than it is low income earners.
Getting rich is the American dream.
"everyone across the board in society has benefited from the boomtimes."
Yeah, that's not true: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=623
Median income fell and poverty grew as we favored the rich this last go around. It's unfortunate that beliefs about top earners are tainted with the ideas that economic boom equate to everyone doing good. The rich getting richer does NOT equate to more jobs, higher salaries and lowered prices for common things.
My ex-sister-in-law. She refused to get a job and lived off of child support, food stamps, medicaid, and subsidized housing.
"If I work and make too much, I will lose my benefits."
Now, she lives off of food stamps, medicaid, and subsidized housing.
The courts deemed her an unfit parent and awarded full custody to my brother.
Would you prefer to live on welfare? Why or why not?
My ex-sister-in-law. She refused to get a job and lived off of child support, food stamps, medicaid, and subsidized housing.
"If I work and make too much, I will lose my benefits."
Now, she lives off of food stamps, medicaid, and subsidized housing.
The courts deemed her an unfit parent and awarded full custody to my brother.
I lived next to a woman who every time she wanted more money, would get pregnant. She had four kids from three different guys. A few years back she moved away. Probably into a nicer neighborhood. Who knows how many kids she has now. Thank you welfare.
No, I prefer to work and support myself, not be dependent upon a government entity for support.
I think welfare is necessary as a temporary solution, not the allowance of individuals to make it their sole support.
No, I prefer to work and support myself, not be dependent upon a government entity for support.
I think welfare is necessary as a temporary solution, not the allowance of individuals to make it their sole support.
Awesome. Would you agree that the majority of America feels the same as you, that we rather work and support ourselves? That'd be a much greater point to bring up than the exceptionally lazy.