1st Question - Job Creation and the Economy

[Bester]

The United States has been going through an extended period of job loss and experiencing a poor economy. Some will say that the Iraq war was started to help stimulate the poor US economy. While there has been a slight improvement, the economic situation of the nation remains bleak.

What would you do to improve the job market and the economy?

 

[rmcrobertson]

Impeach, and remove from office, George Bush.

 

[Bester]

He just won election. It is too early to impeach.
Now, do you have a viable solution to the question or are you just going to spit out more anti-Bush mantras and disrupt this topic further?

 

[Darksoul]

-Bush is evil. But, having said that, I think a good place to start would be Americans taking a good look at their lifestyles. Talk about excess! Indirectly, I think it would help if we learned to do with less. That way, maybe money wouldn't burn the proverbial hole in the pocket. Of course, it would be easier with lower taxes and cheaper health insurance. Though for actual policy, I have absolutely no idea. Close the borders?


A---)

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Much of my position is here: http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17662

American companies need to stop shipping our jobs overseas. We've lost a good amount of our manufacturing, skilled trade, and technical jobs, as well as almost our entire textile industry. Businesses that export their labor force should be charged import tarrifs on those products, and otherwise penalized if tarrifs are not applicable.

I lost my job in 2002. I am a (former) network administrator, programmer and hardware tech. The best jobs I could find in my area paid 1/4 of what I had been making...McDonalds paid better than the tech-jobs I found then. It's why I'm not self employeed. The government needs to do things that will stimulate the small businesss of this nation as they are the ones that create the vast majority of new jobs. Give me a paulty $50k a year gov. grant to run my business for a few years and I can hire 2 people to really grow fast. Within 4 years I should have been able to expand to a staff of 10, all supported by business generated by the initial small cash influx. That is 2-10 people, earning decent wages, ALL paying taxes.

 

[rmcrobertson]

More anti-Bush mantras, actually, considering that he's here to preside over the exportation of American jobs, the dismantling of Social Security, the removal of any and all barriers to corporatism.

We could, of course, pass laws and tax codes that disincentivize job exports. We could throw a lot of money into infrastructure and retooling our manufacturing systems. We could push for so-called, "green," technologies. We could pump up Social Security rather than turning the whole thing over to the tender mercies of Wall Street and Enron's accountants. We could throw money at the inner cities, rather than on military toys. We could force honest accounting on corporations and on government.

We aren't going to. We're going to stick it to workers, old people and minorities. We're going to blow off the environmental costs, the health costs, all the costs, by leaving our kids stuck with the bills. We're going to let corporations do what they want, then stand around and wring our hands during the next Wall Street crash, the next five Enrons, the next Bhopals.

That's what's going to happen.

Oh, well. So it goes.

 

[Rich Parsons]

The United States has been going through an extended period of job loss and experiencing a poor economy. Some will say that the Iraq war was started to help stimulate the poor US economy. While there has been a slight improvement, the economic situation of the nation remains bleak.

What would you do to improve the job market and the economy?

Bester good question. Only do not let the answers "Fester" or get to you.

I quote a magazine a while ago that talked about more jobs being lost do to efficiency then to exporting, by over a magnitude of 30.

Now what is driving this?

Everyone wants to make more money in the stock market, and then the companies develop plans to make mroe money for the stock owners. A new technology while costing upfront for the capital investment, will save over time in efficiency and lost time of existing workers. Or the mantra I here all the time, "We need to do more with less".

This better defines the problem.

Now for solutions. As this econmics and involved humans the variables are astronomical. One might give ideas that might be executed and might or might not help locally or nationally or globally.

The economy always does better when the people feel good and invest and buy things. By buying things, it creates more demand and this demand geenrates more jobs, if you are a producer. Only our economy is becomming more and more service based, yet if there is a demand then there should be people there to fill the service. A few things that destabilize teh economy with no predictors, are Presidential elections and wars. During an election everyone gets cautious and hedges their bet just in case. This causes a slow down of the economy. And while in the past, wars may have generated more jobs, they really do not force more manufacturing jobs. Not one new naval vessle or tank or airplane has been ordered, that was not already in the plans to be ordered. Does it put some people in jobs overseas with the US Military? Yes it does, only many of those jobs are Reservists, which means that the company they left has to hold their jobs until the return. So no new hires, you will only have to lay-off anyways, because the training is too expensive. Also with the reservists gone, this means more people are out of the active economy as well. And their loved ones left behind are not spending as freely as they are concerned over the future and worried that someone may not come home and there by spend more cautiously. Also as proved by the media and the gulf war, if you tell everyone that there will be a recession after a war, everyone gets cautious. Which in turn causes a slow down of the economy. So you have a recession or slow down. So, I do not think the war has helped or would help the economy. As to why the war was started, I cannot say. That is another thread and topic.


My thoughts and not yours


PS: I voted by the way.