Obama pitches his plan to reverse economic slide (radio address)

[cal04]

Source: Associated Press

President Barack Obama took to the airwaves Saturday to promote his economic aid plan in what's-it-mean-to-me terms: thousands of better schools, lower electricity bills, health coverage for millions who lose insurance.

It was the latest appeal from the new president for a massive spending bill designed to inject almost $1 trillion into the economy and fulfill campaign pledges. As lawmakers consider an $825 billion plan and Obama woos them, he used his first radio and Internet address from the White House to update the public about his goals.

"Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four. And we could lose a generation of potential, as more young Americans are forced to forgo college dreams or the chance to train for the jobs of the future," Obama said in a five-minute address.

"In short, if we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090124/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_economy

---

radio address
http://www.whitehouse.gov/

[fasttense]

1. The America and world economy is on the brink of another Republicon Great Depression.

If we don't act now, swiftly and often, things will get very, very, bad for everyone.

[Tansy_Gold]

2. So, what did he say about jobs? Long-term jobs, not CCC/WPA jobs

That's what we need.

Real jobs.

Jobs that make things. Steel. Plumbing fixtures. Refrigerators. Sewing machines. Clothes. Shoes. Wallets. Staplers.

Giving people "make work" jobs is fine. It puts money in their pockets. It allows them to pay down their bills.

Giving people CCC/WPA jobs is fine. It fixes our roads and our schools, our bridges and our power grid.

But it ain't enough.

If the people who get these jobs end up spending their wages on shoes made in Vietnam and shirts made in Guatemala and TVs made in China and cars made in Mexico, EVENTUALLY we're gonna be right back where we started from. We'll have nice schools and smooth roads, BUT NO FUCKIN' JOBS.

It's nice that you're a lawyer, Mr. Obama. It's great that you're a constitutional scholar, Mr. Obama. But you need to get in touch with the reality of economics.

IF YOU DON'T INSTITUTE POLICIES THAT PROVIDE JOBS, you've only postponed the inevitable. Worse, however, Mr. Obama, that postponement means that The Inevitable will be That Much Worse.

You talked about making tough decisions. Well, sir, one of the toughest you may ever have to make is the decision to RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH. On the Wall Street thieves who have looted not only their own companies and the stock market but now the very Treasury of the United States of America. YOUR Treasury. OUR Treasury. On the corporate executives who have made themselves filthy rich on the slavery of third world workers while relegating American workers to 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. On the millionaires and billionaires who are buying up our foreclosed homes for a fraction of their value and throwing us, the workers and our families and our pets, onto the streets.

You weren't elected by the upper 1% of the income level. You were elected by 53% of the VOTERS. Start acting like it.


Sincerely,


Tansy Gold

[Demeter]

3. I've Said It Before, and I'll Say It Again

Tansy Gold for President!

[Tansy_Gold]

5. . . . .

:hi:

and


:blush:


Aw, damnit, Demeter, I sometimes feel like I'm shrieking into a wilderness wind. And I know you know the feeling, because you're doin' the same damn thing.

I've got too many skeletons in my closet to get into politics. Unlike some people who seem to think their peccadilloes don't matter, I don't feel like I want to subject my children and grandchildren to the embarrassment of the truth.

But that doesn't mean I'm stupid or that I don't count. You know that. All of us over on SMW and WEE know that. WE are the smartest folks in the room.


Tansy Gold, who will only run for President if the whole SMW/WEE crew will be her cabinet

[Hugin]

21. Then I'm your guy!

"Unlike some people who seem to think their peccadilloes don't matter, I don't feel like I want to subject my children and grandchildren to the embarrassment of the truth."

Since I am childless my peccadilloes really don't matter.

Other than as they unearth my co-sinners, I ask that the PIs give me their phone numbers...
It's been a long time and I'd like to see how they're doing and what they're up to.

[tclambert]

26. I agree the top three answers are jobs, jobs, and jobs.

I'm not so sure make-work jobs are a bad idea. Useful jobs would be better. Jobs that make the future brighter. But I read somewhere that ANY jobs program helps the economy. For instance, a lot of economists and historians, including Krugman, say it was the giant jobs program called WW II that really ended the Great Depression. Yet war has got to be one of the most inefficient economic programs a government could launch.

Big fan of Stock Market Watch (as you know). But what is WEE? If you're recommending it, I gotta check it out. I'm gonna guess one of the E's is for Economy or Economics.

[xchrom]

6. you don't have to worry too much --

only 18% of the stimulus -- as it stands now -- goes to infrastucture spending.

a huge chunk in tax reductions -- and the rest in 'bail-out' monies.

not what i was looking for.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. ????

Did you forget about that other branch of the government that would actually create the legislation that authorizes the executive branch to carry out the "policies" or do you actually believe that Shrub's "Unitary Executive" bullshit was legal and the way things are supposed to be? Did you also forget the future intention to essentially punish industries that offshore and reward those who keep and/or create jobs here? Just based on the value of the dollar, industries are finding it more expensive to offshore of late and their overseas businesses are closing like mad as I type.

I agree that we need to start our manufacturing base up again right here in the U.S. and if this country can finally get healthcare out of the corporate equation, then it puts us on a level playing field with the rest of the world by phasing out the failed for-profit healthcare model and provides for a "cheaper" American worker (from the corporate persepctive). In essence, the U.S, must end the business-obsessed, for-profit capitalist model that it has imposed on every single function in this country - whether corporate or government - and go "hybrid". The for-profit model will never be the solution for everything and inherently governmental functions as well as healthcare are prime examples of things that should never apply or use "business models".

IMHO, the man has been officially in office for 4 days and a whole lot of people are overly frustrated including myself. But things are not going to change instantly with the snap of a finger or even the swipe of a pen. Obama really isn't "the messiah" although so many people seem to think that he is and people need to start "acting like" he is a human being and not a god who can wave his hand and make things all better "now". I personally believe we need to go isolationalist but know that in reality, that will never happen in the immediate or near future. If at some point, the economy stabilizes, then perhaps the government can "invest" (front money) in industries that start manufacturing goods here (as opposed to the initial intent to give tax breaks for doing the same). The "service economy" propaganda spouted by the lunatic fringe reich wing must be drowned out once and for all so that the populace will finally denounce "service" as the be-all end-all to aspire to.

[Tansy_Gold]

8. I don't expect miracles. I haven't forgotten Congress.

But now that I've read the text of the address, I can say that

HE DIDN'T MENTION JOBS in the context of restoring a functioning manufacturing economy.

Yes, he talked about creating (or saving) 3 to 4 million jobs via his ARRP. That's not enough. Not even close.

He talked about saving health insurance for those who already have it but might lose it. That's not enough either. Not even close.

He's said nothing about how this going to be paid for, and he's said nothing about how it's going to be sustained.

Let's see: Are we going to put 4 million people back to work for a couple of years on infrastructure repair and home weatherizing, and are the income taxes they pay on their wages going to fund the program? Uh, no.

What about all the additional manufacturing jobs that are going to be lost? What about the teachers and nurses who are being laid off even as we speak because the state budgets are going negative and the hospitals have fewer paying patients?

What would fucking happen if Barack Obama got on the radio and said "My fellow Americans, the time has come to face a bitter truth. The very very rich in this country, the people my predecessor called his 'base,' have had it very good for a very long time. The rest of us haven't had it so good. Worker productivity is up, but worker compensation is down. I'm going to propose to Congress that the tax code be changed to rectify that situation. I'm going to propose tax increases on the very very wealthy. Individuals. Estates. Corporations. Limited Liability Companies. The top 1%. The top 5%. They didn't elect me. You did."



Dreaming,


Tansy Gold

[BumRushDaShow]

10. I listened to the address this morning

and I never had any expectation that anyone could distill down the details of what will be a multi-year if not multi-term plan in 5 minutes. This was his FIRST "official" radio address as President.

His plan has been common knowledge for some time - essentially taking the top tax rate back to where it was under Clinton (39%) - that's a 4% increase for the wealthy. IMHO, it needs to go back up to where it was before Raygun gutted it (in the 70% range), but that ain't going to happen with this Congress.

He can say exactly what you indicate until he turns purple but unless the useless Democratic Congress run by the shyster Pelosi and the undertaker Reid actually grows several hundred pair, tells the repukes to fuck off, and enacts these types of reforms, then Obama might as well be talking in outer space.

This country is NOT run by a Unitary Executive. Obama should not, cannot, and will not create signing statements or Executive Orders to generate reform legislation that would become the law of the land. He can state his desires and intentions and visions of what ought to be and he can use his pen to agree or disagree with the ultimate product that comes out of Congress. But ultimately, the onus is on Congress... And sadly, our own elected idiots put the same failed leadership back into place.

Yes, we'll all be dreaming but the better thing to do is to demand that our Congress makes the dream a reality.

[geckosfeet]

9. I would suggest, humbly, that in a world economy spending money

on imported goods is not necessarily a bad thing, and that a national policy of buy American is not a long term economic solution.

We must trade with other countries because we simply so not have the capability or capacity to make everything in the US. We must import raw materials, sub-assemblies, finished products, and fuel (read that last one as gasoline).

I buy American when it makes sense and I can see that I am getting quality goods. I don't buy junk just because it was made in America.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. Actually we DO have the capability and capacity

to make or grow almost everything in the world right here in the U.S. (including in our tropical state of Hawai'i and tropical territories like Puerto Rico, Guam, V.I., etc). That is the beauty of this country - because each of our states is like a country in size, and our territory offers land, water resources (in certain parts), and climates from polar to tropical. I.e., we really DON'T have to import anything outside of the exotic. There used to be acres and acres of pineapple and sugar cane fields in Hawai'i... now gone as we import these things because of cheap labor elsewhere. We have capped our oil wells and closed our silver mines. We have allowed farms to go fallow and subsidize those farmers BECAUSE they produced SO MUCH (thus deflating the price).

In essence, the American worker HAS BEEN the most productive in the world and that productivity has actually killed us due to the economic system that this country chose to adopt - capitalism. And thanks to unfair trade policies, our exports have essentially been dwindled down to guns, bombs, and trash. No one wants our beef (cattle grazing land being another benefit of this beautiful land) or our grain.

Outside of the cost of investing anew - we at one time HAD all of these types of manufacturing facilities. I live in a city that has the largest gasoline refinery on the east coast (Philadelphia metro). There's nothing stopping the creation of more refineries in the U.S. except the "not in my backyard" argument, that has torpedoed almost everything newly industrial of late, and this includes power plants. The very real concerns of toxic manufacturing processes and their effects on the environment has contributed to this hardened position, which has lead to this decline here. But rethinking these processes to contain the negative impacts must happen in order to reboot an industrial U.S. Inovation in manufacturing processes has essentially taken a back seat to the easier "solution" of offshoring the "problem" overseas and eating the cost of shipping the finished goods back here.

The other problem is that greed and expectation for generating a "profit" have been indoctrinated into the U.S. business school psyche and "cheap labor" to maximize profits has effectively helped our industries to disappear.

[Waiting For Everyman]

17. Exactly right BRDS. It's weird that you even have to point that out.

Geez we did exist before this Reagan idiocy started, and we did actually do some things right. We do have a model that worked before. And yes, we have the ability to be more independent than any other country in the WORLD. It's time we started using our strengths instead of throwing them away or turning them into weaknesses for no reason.

We need to re-industrialize badly. Only do it using cleaner methods this time.

[Tansy_Gold]

15. Not only do we have the capacity and capability; what we don't have is . . . .

. . . ."a global economy."

If ever there were a puke meme, that's it.

We have "global corporations," but we don't have a "global economy."

We have lots of national economies that are linked by global corporations, trade agreements, treaties, contracts, etc., but we do not have a single global economy.

Because of that fact, the corporations are able to shop their jobs around to the lowest bidder, pocket the profits, distribute them to the wealthy wherever they may be, and exploit the workers.

We do have the capacity and the capability. We have the know-how. We have the facilities (or did have and/or could have again.)

I had a conversation with an acquaintance this morning. She's a puke, proudly voted for McCain/Failin', loves to shop at Wal-Mart. But when I told her Hartmarx (formerly Hart Schaffner & Marx) had filed for bankruptcy, she was outraged. I just shrugged and told her well, when "good" Americans continue to support the Chinese garment industry, continue to buy boatloads of imported sneakers and tools and electronics, they're supporting slave-based economies. And this is a woman who had just told me she HAD to have TWO NEW pairs of sneakers. "Well, if I had to pay the price to support American workers, I could only afford one pair," she whined.

Now, why does she need two pair? "I like to keep one pair that I never wear outside and get dirty."

Gee, sounds like a plantation mindset to me.

Now, before someone goes off on me and shrieks "But but but you'd put all those poor Chinese workers/Taiwanese workers/Marianas Islanders/Guatemaltecas/Maquiladoras out of work!" let me say that yes, I'd be delighted to put them out of work, out of the exploitive slavery that they've been forced into. Given the resources they now have in terms of capacity and capability to manufacture goods for their own consumption instead of solely for export to America, maybe they can develop their own economy so that the revenues flow to them, to their fellow citizens, and not solely to the corporate owners.

Am I angry? Yep yep, you betcha. Am I a Marxist/socialist? You betcha again. Because what we're seeing now, both domestically and globally, is the end result of corporate capitalism as it was designed to function. This is not an aberration; it's perfectly normal for the system as it's designed to operate.

If we want a different result, then we have to have a different system.



The always different


Tansy Gold

[geckosfeet]

18. I disagree. You have some valid thoughts but we cannot provide all the raw materials for every

manufacturing sector in required quantities. We don't have the natural resources.

Capability can be developed - but it is not a given and we simply don't have the manufacturing resources. You are right - we need the investment from corporate entities to develop here. But that's not on my back to do. I am wearing a pair of slippers made in the US, my cpu was made in California, my home theater system was made in MA. I refuse to buy an American car but my Honda was built here, has been serviced here many times, and runs on gas that I buy here.

But it is a global economy. To deny that is simple headed. It may be a puke talking point, and I agree that it's simply their way of saying that we are going to build factories offshore for the tax benefits, lax labor laws and cheap labor.

The reality is we buy things from other countries all the time. They provide foods, clothes, culture, educational opportunities that we don't have here.

[Hannah Bell]

24. The majority of global trade is intra-firm trade: trade between units of the same

mega-corp. as in when gm produces designs here, has pieces manufactured in mexico, then ships them to the US for assembly.

It's not "trade" at all. It's pure labor arbitrage.

and yes, the US could make most of what it consumed using its own resources. Especially food.

[geckosfeet]

25. And therin lies the rub.

We do need to trade with other countries.

Regulating or taxing corps that build factories out of country to exploit lax labor, accounting, or environmental regulations makes some sense.

[SlowDownFast]

29. BLAMMO! Again, you nail it out of the stadium! Good work. n/t

[TrogL]

14. Who do you think's gonna build all those schools, administer health plans

[Tansy_Gold]

19. I said it wasn't enough.

it has to go further, much further.

yes, we need the infrastructure rebuilding

yes, we need the green technology.

but if we don't ALSO restart the fundamentals of the economy, all the rest is just a temporary fix.

it's no more than boooooosh's stimulus writ large. we all saw how effective THAT was. it didn't address the fundamentals. and if obama's doesn't either, then it will accomplish little more.



TG

[Hannah Bell]

23. thanks for that.

[ryanmuegge]

27. Certainly all of those Ph.D economists on his team know that jobs are the answer.

Yet they refuse to implement policies that create higher paying jobs. They also refuse to change policies that are at fault for the massive job losses we have seen in the past few years. The only realistic conclusion is that Obama and his team have no intention of helping the economy. Perhaps they see the root of our economic problems as something other than weak consumer spending. If that's the case, I'm not sure what the Obama team's plan is designed to address. I find it very hard to believe that, with all of those Ph.D economists on Obama's panel, none have recognized that people must first have money before they can buy things (and, presumably, the only way that most people can acquire money in a capitalist economy is by being paid for producing a good or service of value). They obviously have no intention of stimulating consumer demand in any meaningful way. I'm not sure what their intentions are, but they are not good for the vast majority of us poor folk.

This sick, cruel experiment of "globalization" must end.

[SlowDownFast]

28. Well said! Wish I could rec this post. n/t

[Acadia Blue]

30. Ditto.

[OhioChick]

31. Great Post!

Let's not forget our technology jobs, either.

Your post should have a thread of it's own. :thumbsup:

[acmavm]

4. His 'pitch'? Why do they always make him sound so cynical, so flip?

If it was bush** it would be 'makes his case for' or 'outlines his policy'. And that is a BIG difference with BIG ramifications. The first instance is less likely to be seen as statecraft, as serious political policy. It's being equated with an attempt to sell something, as spiel.

I think language counts in cases like this. I think that even amongst those seen as 'less educated' it is apparent, by the language that is used, as to how serious the speaker should be taken. For example, George Will is a cretinous asswipe, but he can turn a phrase that'll impress even us knuckle-draggers. And a lot of the respect people have for him is based on that ability. It sure ain't because of whatever function it is that goes on between his ears (which in normal people it would generally describe as the 'thought' process). Same for Krauthammer.

[NeoConsSuck]

16. You bring up an excellent point

they make it sound like he is a door to door vacumn cleaner salesman.

If you think Yahoo is bad, look at CNN.COM:

Obama's week 1: Sales pitch begins

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/23/news/economy/obama_first_week/index.htm?cnn=yes

[whistle]

11. Paul Krugman anticipated this three weeks ago in his NYT Op-Ed

<snip>
Fighting Off Depression
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: January 4, 2009

“If we don’t act swiftly and boldly,” declared President-elect Barack Obama in his latest weekly address, “we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment.” If you ask me, he was understating the case.

The fact is that recent economic numbers have been terrifying, not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing, in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren’t lending; businesses and consumers aren’t spending. Let’s not mince words: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression.

So will we “act swiftly and boldly” enough to stop that from happening? We’ll soon find out.
We weren’t supposed to find ourselves in this situation. For many years most economists believed that preventing another Great Depression would be easy. In 2003, Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago, in his presidential address to the American Economic Association, declared that the “central problem of depression-prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes, and has in fact been solved for many decades.”

Milton Friedman, in particular, persuaded many economists that the Federal Reserve could have stopped the Depression in its tracks simply by providing banks with more liquidity, which would have prevented a sharp fall in the money supply. Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, famously apologized to Friedman on his institution’s behalf: “You’re right. We did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.”

It turns out, however, that preventing depressions isn’t that easy after all. Under Mr. Bernanke’s leadership, the Fed has been supplying liquidity like an engine crew trying to put out a five-alarm fire, and the money supply has been rising rapidly. Yet credit remains scarce, and the economy is still in free fall.

Friedman’s claim that monetary policy could have prevented the Great Depression was an attempt to refute the analysis of John Maynard Keynes, who argued that monetary policy is ineffective under depression conditions and that fiscal policy — large-scale deficit spending by the government — is needed to fight mass unemployment. The failure of monetary policy in the current crisis shows that Keynes had it right the first time. And Keynesian thinking lies behind Mr. Obama’s plans to rescue the economy.

But these plans may turn out to be a hard sell.
News reports say that Democrats hope to pass an economic plan with broad bipartisan support. Good luck with that.

In reality, the political posturing has already started, with Republican leaders setting up roadblocks to stimulus legislation while posing as the champions of careful Congressional deliberation — which is pretty rich considering their party’s behavior over the past eight years.
More broadly, after decades of declaring that government is the problem, not the solution, not to mention reviling both Keynesian economics and the New Deal, most Republicans aren’t going to accept the need for a big-spending, F.D.R.-type solution to the economic crisis.

The biggest problem facing the Obama plan, however, is likely to be the demand of many politicians for proof that the benefits of the proposed public spending justify its costs — a burden of proof never imposed on proposals for tax cuts.

This is a problem with which Keynes was familiar: giving money away, he pointed out, tends to be met with fewer objections than plans for public investment “which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict ‘business’ principles.” What gets lost in such discussions is the key argument for economic stimulus — namely, that under current conditions, a surge in public spending would employ Americans who would otherwise be unemployed and money that would otherwise be sitting idle, and put both to work producing something useful.

All of this leaves me concerned about the prospects for the Obama plan. I’m sure that Congress will pass a stimulus plan, but I worry that the plan may be delayed and/or downsized. And Mr. Obama is right: We really do need swift, bold action.

Here’s my nightmare scenario: It takes Congress months to pass a stimulus plan, and the legislation that actually emerges is too cautious. As a result, the economy plunges for most of 2009, and when the plan finally starts to kick in, it’s only enough to slow the descent, not stop it. Meanwhile, deflation is setting in, while businesses and consumers start to base their spending plans on the expectation of a permanently depressed economy — well, you can see where this is going.

So this is our moment of truth. Will we in fact do what’s necessary to prevent Great Depression II?

<link> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05krugman.html

Well, let's just kick the republicans in the nuts right away and do what is right for the country. Put the Federal Reserve Bank into bankruptcy. Have congress take back their constitutional power to create money based on uttering credit, begin immediate fiscal long term investment programs and put all Americans back to work FDR style. Republicans will be left in the dust and the country can get moving again.

[Robb]

13. Republicans waded right into this

Out of the gate this morning, they said they wanted to give "fast tax relief" to people instead of "slow government programs."

God forbid we build anything that could last.

(edited to actually conform to the English language :D )

[earth mom]

20. Show us peons the money, Obama. That's what we ALL need right now.

Some cold hard cash-just like Wall St. got.

[whistle]

22. You'll have to work for it, it's coming to us peons as tax cuts

[Azlady]

32. JOBS JOBS JOBS -

WE NEED J O B S OMG! A four letter word! J O B S