Palin to quit
#121
We're getting another version of the "TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMY" and it's already been proven to be a "FAIRY TALE". The water from the Mississippi does not "trickle" back to the small creeks and streams and neither does the cash in the economy. What brought the economy to this point is... $102 a year for car insurance in 1985 $27,000 wages in 1985 $2004 a year for car insurance in 2009 $530,550 income in 2009 Increase in car insurance premiums over the last 25 years is 1965% To keep up with the percentage increase over the last 25 years in car insurance... Are you making more than half a million dollars a year??? I don't think so. Now, look at the percentage of increase in property tax, health insurance, rent, utilities, fuel, and food. Has your income kept up with any one of them? It's the same with most Americans. Expenses have gone up, but the income has not kept up with them. In the 1950s, The man was the "breadwinner", the woman was a housewife. In the 1970s, Both had to work to make ends meet. In 2000s, it takes the man and TWO WIVES working to make ends meet. By the year 2015, he'll have to have THREE WIVES working to make ends meet. Across the country, people do not have the money to spend like they once did. For decades now, the income has been narrowed down to essentials, rather than the extras in life. Over the last ten years, it's been kept, almost exclusively, to essentials and even at that, it's reached the breaking point. It doesn't stretch anymore. And, that is not the fault of either the Bushes, and that's why the current administration will have no more luck than the previous. Until they ALL realize that the cash MUST flow from the bottom to the top, nothing is going to turn around. And, to do that, it's going to take far more than a Presidential Administration. It's going to take a dose of reality at the corporate executive levels across the country. And, by the time that happens, someone else is going to own us. Just too bad it's going to take the balance of this four year for you to gain that experience and learn from it.
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YES ! ! ! There is life after trucking. a GOOD life
#122
One reason products and services are so much higher than 40 years ago is due to increased government regulations increasing operating costs and so many new and increased taxes. Both need to be passed on to the consumer in higher prices. Many of the taxes we have today didn't exist 40 years ago. Under the current administration we pay approximately 60% of our earnings in taxes. That means that if you earn $50,000, $30,000 goes to pay taxes of one type or another. That leaves you with $20,000 to spend as you wish. There is no telling how much more that will rise with the healthcare tax.
#124
Rookie
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Central AZ
Posts: 33
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No load is worth your life. Or anyone else's.
#125
There is only one way to produce a durable economic recovery that does not involve massive contraction in GDP - We must find a way to boost actual personal incomes dramatically so as to free up additional spending power. (Ths does not happen by AIG, giving out nearly $2 billion in "bailout money as executive bonuses) This means dramatically expanding the labor participation rate, which in turn means bringing jobs home rather than offshoring them. In short, we must increase PRODUCTION, not paper-pushing
All their formulas that were put into effect after the Great Depression in order to prevent this do not apply to the current situation.
We have a long way to go folks, and further attempts out of the government to "pump" the economy and markets, while certainly making the stock market feel good in the short term, are unlikely to be able to turn around the credit demand picture, which is in fact the backbone of our economic engine.
Absent that turn-around the only paths forward are to either dramatically increase taxes (which will hammer consumption and thus stocks) or force repatriation of labor so we produce more (which will lead to nasty tariff wars ala The Great Depression.) Attempting more and more fiscal stimulus to prop up a consumer with no more true borrowing or production capacity is a path that will produce "feel good" response only for the duration of the spending, the ability of the government to continue down that path is not indefinite in duration. Care to take a guess how many times I've heard people saying; "I'm not borrowing money to buy a toothpick, much less a car." Consumer income is low, and consumer confidence is even lower.
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( R E T I R E D , and glad of it)
YES ! ! ! There is life after trucking. a GOOD life
#126
That where you got your avatar????:smokin:
__________________
( R E T I R E D , and glad of it)
YES ! ! ! There is life after trucking. a GOOD life |

