Obama's Economy

In order to fix the economy we must first identify the problem. Obama has come to the conclusion that the problem is that:

a) There has been an increase in prices, but not in wages.
b) Tax cuts for the middle class and not the larger companies or small business.

While I do not necessarily agree on the second issue, I do agree that we either need to raise minimum wage or we need to lower all the prices and as we can see from history usually it is easier to go up and not down as far as money and economy goes. It is easier to inflate the money supply than it is to get everybody to lower the prices of everything. The plan is to “Jumpstart the Economy”. I really like the idea to give the nation a boost to get things going.

“Provide Additional Tax Rebates to American Workers”:

Giving even more of a tax rebate or another stimulus check may not be the best idea because it will be like the subprime loans where everybody takes out huge chunks of money to go spend it on toys and LCD TVs. This time it will be that everybody does not have to give back the money and will just spend it on bigger corporations rather than boosting the general economy by spending the money somewhere in the local city or town.

“Establish a $10 billion Foreclosure Prevention Fund”:

Now this is something I think will work. Offer loans for mortgages that are about to become foreclosures but only for those who need it. Offering loans to everybody will not do much if everybody, including those who by any means should not ever need loans are eligible for a loan.

“Extend and Expand Unemployment Insurance”:

I am not so sure on this one, while I know that the unemployment check does not cover much when it comes down to it, and those months go by very quickly, I also understand that there are going to be the people who abuse the long term unemployment. My opinion is that we need to extend the unemployment insurance, but make it so that you not only have to show proof that you have applied and sent in job applications, but you also have to possibly show some kind of signature from the manager of the company that will be written on a government issued form saying exactly what they are signing. Along with that there should also be some required basic info about the person who signs that, or at least have the people who sign the papers have some kind of unemployment authorize signature person thing at someplace like the post office. This does seem like a lot of work, but it is a very necessary thing to do to prevent from more people who go out on the first of the month and go get there hair and nails done, or buy a carton of cigarettes; rather than getting food for their kids.

“Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families”

I really like this idea. Again limited tax relief for people who work and who are making an effort to earn money.

“Eliminate Income Taxes for Seniors Making Less than $50,000”

I am not so sure that we should completely eliminate taxes for seniors, but rather significantly lower the taxes to a very reasonable amount based on their income, expenses, and other areas that are general looked at for taxes.

“Address Predatory Credit Card Practices”

Absolutely, it is vital that we solve the problem with credit cards, but not the way Obama wants to.

“Obama will establish a five-star rating system so that every consumer knows the risk involved in every credit card. He also will establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights to stop credit card companies from exploiting consumers with unfair practices.”

Indeed, do create a better system that explains things better and is more informative upfront, but don’t make it so the credit card companies can stop “exploting consumers with unfair practices”. All this translates into is people being able to stupidly use a credit card and not have consequenes. I think that credit card companies should be able to charge interest and fees as a consequence to stupid choices, but I do understand that there needs to be some standard or maximum level of fees that can be reached before further consequences are taken. I also think that the first ‘warning’ should be to have to take a class of some sort to educate on good credit card use. This would be similar to the idea of traffic school, but not such an all day activity, 3 hours max.

“Labor Laws”

It is good to let people peacefully strike, I am all for any protest as long as it is orderly and for a valid reason but I do not think that we should promote strickes and other such activities. In every way we do need to support fair labor, but we need not to [ass more laws that may encourage strikes because most people are not going to have a good reason to go on strike. A good example of a valid reason to strike was the writers’ strike of 2007.

Obama has some decent ideas here, but some of them are just not thing that should be taken any farther than an idea or thought. It is almost as if he is taking the ideas he has to repair the economy, but not improving on his thoughts of how they might be carried out so long as it works right now.

Ferrara, Peter J.. Social Security. Cato Institute. 1984

Helpman, Elhanan. The Mystery of Economic Growth. Harvard University Press. 2004

Read More...

Summary only...

Obama McCain Issues: Economy

While Obama and McCain have very different views of how things should be done the one thing they do hold in common is that they want to boost the economy in any way possible. They biggest and most dramatic difference that I noticed overall on any issue was that Obama presented his plan as more of an immediate action. While he may be able to give a boost by giving more tax refunds, I personally would tend to side with McCain that the whole process will not be resolved until 2012 or 2013. Obama has some interesting ideas, but the problem with them is that they all require tons of money to get going. As different as some of these ideas may be, Obama is finding ways to get people interested, and not just people who watch tv or read the newspaper. He is reaching out in more ways than I have ever seen.

-The rising cost of gasoline
-Taxes
-Unemployment
-The Housing crisis
-Foreign Trade.

McCain has the less presidential image here. He is not offering “McCain Ringtones” but he seems to have somewhat more realizstic and better palnned ideas when it comes down to the find details. I really like the way that he gives information of how we would obtain everything that is promised where as Obama says that we will get stuff, but has no exact plan of how he is going to provide these billions of dollars that he promises to use to raise the economy. The general approach for McCain is that we need to use what we have and improve what we have instead of just getting new stuff and leaving the old stuff the way it is. I do like the way Obama has more immediate plans, and he does seem to be making a stronger effort to get out his message, which may result in a stronger effort to get things done in Washington, but I am just not sure that we can change something so big that quick.

-The Rising Cost of Gasoline

“The only way to over the long term reduce gas process, is to reduce demand, and the only way to reduce demand, the only way to reduce demand, is if we are creating more fuel efficient cars, increasing gas mileage…” (Obama) I personally like this idea, however as seen lately, the price of gas did go down, but it does seem it is only to get people to start driving again. Though this may be the case, the other half of this idea involves investing in better public transportation, which in every way would be better. Public transportation both lowers emissions and traffic, as well as it often helps promote a city as somewhere where foreign countries can go to do business. It is now often seen that public transportation in the form of subway, ICE (Intercity Express), or any other train, are only thing big or well-established cities get. Now here is the problem, if we give every city this mark of establishment, then no one is special.

As for McCain, his strategy is not so much to lower the demand of fuel in general, but to lower the demand of foreign oil by actually using the reserves that are saved for this sort of situation. His general strategy, though quite the contraire to Obama, however does share the similarity that both candidates are looking to get away from such a dependence on foreign oil. McCain wants to also help lower emissions, and better develop the battery that can be used in cars. However, he is not going to go to the extent that while we work on this battery we will at the time take immediate action by switching to ethanol based cars, and both deplete the supply of corn as well as increase the price of food as we see now.

-Taxes

The big difference between the candidates, one wants to lower the taxes on small business companies, and the other would rather tax the big companies at a higher rate to be able to lower taxes for the lower and middle class. I think that this would make sense, but as the McCain strategy seems to point out, when the tax rate for large businesses is high, it discourages foreign trade or establishment in the United States. I agree more with Obama on this one that the higher class should have to pay more, but I do realize that it can be a possible factor that may discourage other foreign businesses from forming in America, but if the potential business is really big enough to consider working in another country (Untied States), and they are willing to make the investment to do such a thing, I don’t think they will mind a higher tax rate enough to discourage them, especially if they can be assured that the US market will be strong.

-Unemployment

The problem of unemployment does not see to be that there are not enough jobs, but rather there are not enough well paying jobs. Regardless of if Obama is elected or not, we need to raise the minimum wage once again because it is not enough anymore as other prices have gone up. I don’t agree with Obama in the idea that we should create new jobs, but I understand why he says to raise the minimum wage, as well as create different jobs that pay better. The problem is that a better paying job would translate into more skill. Personally not everybody should have the opportunity to, nor will they be able to work at a solar plant if they have no knowledge or interest in solar energy. It would be like having the guy at McDonalds fly the plane just because it pays better to be a pilot. Specifically the idea here would be to create good new jobs by creating a new job field in solar energy because solar energy is something that would grow to support and lower the rising gas prices. It would seem that the best idea would be to allow the small independent businesses grow.

-The Housing Crisis

How do you prevent people from loosing their house or going homeless altogether? You can do like Obama and just build new affordable houses, which is a a good idea for areas that don’t have house yet, unfortunately this is not the case for most of the areas where foreclosures are rising. Again, the concept of creating new things and avoiding the old is seen here. The alternative for areas that don’t have foreclosures without any newer homes is to instead extend the loans an additional 30 years with a flat rate. In areas like Harlem, Obama seems to have the best plan, but many areas where many new homes are being built such as in California, McCain may have the best plan if the people who are about to loose the house are not fraudulent in any way, and would otherwise be able to pay their mortgage despite the economy. For those who did buy houses they could not afford, the Obama strategy would be the most effective method to getting them back into a house they can afford.

-Foreign Trade.

'
One issue that seems quite similar between Obama and McCain is trade. Both candidates want to make it easier for foreign markets to support American jobs by expanding their business into the United States. McCain is more focused on using this as a way to create new jobs, and Obama is as well, but it seems that Obama also hopes that this will increase the amount of items sold from the united states to other countries.

Assadourian, Erik and the Worldwatch Institute. State of the World. W. W. Norton & Company. 2007


Trent, Judith S. and Friedenberg, Robert V. Political Campaign Communication. Rowman & Littlefield. 2008

Read More...

Summary only...

Response to Paul

Overall I would agree with the post, but I would have to say that I think there are some things missing that could make it a stronger (or weaker) argument.

When one thinks of a killing machine, they would most likely think of a high powered gun or a couple megaton bomb. Rarely would most people think that something small could kill millions of people. That is however, the truth as can be seen from the influenza pandemic in 1918. Bullets can be dodged, and people can hide from bombs, but how do you fight something that is too small to be seen, and that can be carried by a pet, a friend, or a family member?

Good point, most people do think of killing by means of mechanical weapons.

This was the problem that the world faced in 1918. The Great War was beginning to come to a close and then a virus erupted in parts of the world. Normally this would have only effected pockets of the globe, but the world was at war. Troops were being mobilized and traveling across the globe as countries sought to spread their influence over new territories. What they did not realize, is that they were also spreading a virus that was more deadly than the Bubonic Plague. As soldiers marched through towns they spread the virus throughout the entire world. "Rampant overcrowding in the nations bases worried U.S. Surgeon General Gorgas... Gorgas warned that widespread overcrowding was creating conditions ripe for the spread of infectious disease." (Iezzoni)The world was not ready to handle such a deadly outburst, especially since people were still dying by the thousands from the Great War.

You may want to include the fact that the virus had already had its outbreaks before the nearing end of the war. The outbreaks had been seen especial in Spain, but also had been seen in some small American towns. I am not eactly sure the timing as far as the US. Although I do know that the first outbreak occured in Sebastian Spain in March-April (Early Spring)...Hence the name the Spanish Flu.

This strain of influenza was much more aggressive than previously observed viruses. It had a mortality rate of 2.5%. "not a single chemotherapy regimen had ever been shown to prolong their lives for one day" (Barry)This may have been attributed to the close proximity of the soldiers living in trenches, and from the use of mustard gas on the front lines. 28% of Americans by the influenza virus, and 675,000 Americans are estimated to have died due to the pandemic. The disease was most deadly to people between the ages of 20 and 40.

I agree with your information but I do not think that the 2.5% was the biggest attribute to the number of deaths. I agree with you that "This may have been attributed to the close proximity of the soldiers living in trenches"...but I am really not to sure on how the mustard gas would add to the number of deaths from the virus. Was it that mustard gas caused respiratory problems?

Although the deaths in America happened on a gruesome scale, it is not much compared to the effects of the virus in more densely populated regions of the planet. Spain is said to have lost 8 million of its citizens to the influenza virus. Over one-fifth of the entire planet was infected with the influenza virus, many of which suffered its deadly consequences.

About how many people lived in America at the time, and about how many people had lived in Spain? The reason why I ask is because this could beimportant to understanding what this mean population wise. If Spain only had 9 million people...but if they had 25 million, there are huge differences in population per area/community/city.

With the Great War continuing to be fought throughout Europe, the response to the epidemic was not nearly as good as what it should have been. When Influenza first appeared in America, the outbreak was ignored to concentrate on fighting the war in Europe. When it was brought back for a second wave, the outbreak could no longer be ignored. Even though it was not being ignored, the world was still ill-equipped to deal with the outbreak. Doctors were in short supply thanks to the war. This meant that the epidemic was allowed to continue, which in turn meant that America could not dig graves fast enough. The entire world was hit with the same problem of not being able to keep up with the massive death toll due to the Great War and the virus. However, now it seems that with advances in technology people would be able to more quickly isolate a virus such as this and immunize the population.

I do agree with this. Despite what is said in class about the fact that it would be just as deadly I would agree with you. We would have a way better chance of fighting it off becasue we have a much better knowledge of microbiology than we did 90 years ago.

See the original post...
My "1918 Influenza Pandemic"

Read More...

Summary only...

Stability In Iraq

I find it interesting that those who once criticized Bush are now saying that the effort which he has made is actually working. I would say that in any way this shows how it is worth while to see the final or at least close to final effect before criticizing the plan behind that effect. Does this mean that time is a measure of success? I would say not, but I would say that success should not be judged by those who are not in any way in the right position to be judging the actions of the President.

I would not go as far as saying that the opinions of the country should be silenced, but I do say lets at least let what supposable was "An non-effective Strategy" finish so we can say it is bad rather than having to second guess ourselves later after we have changed strategies to the supposable "better strategy", and are now looking back wondering if we the original "bad strategy" might have worked. As seen in this situation, things do seem to have worked out after all. As for the country it would have been a possible regret had we changed our minds halfway through. Let’s fall strong, rather than second guessing ourselves and falling without any idea as to what exactly went wrong.

Another concern which by the looks of this article seem to have been address is the problem of us trying to see where everybody else on the battlefield is when we to are infantryman, and not able to get an aerial view of the battle plan. It is impossible to see the complete idea of the event when we are in the middle of it.

To the credibility of the President, I would say that indeed he is trustworthy and has the best view of what is happening over any of us. It is interesting how to think what we as individuals might actually do if we were in his position. Sure we say that we would make way better choices, but I give the President credibility as he too is part of the show and may or may not know exactly what is coming but is going to the best of his extent figure out what the rest of the script is before the play ends. As seen from the article, he has guessed right, and gained the trust of his nation, or at least from what it looks like...

Stability in Iraq: A War We Just Might Win

Read More...

Summary only...

The Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is one of the most unique things built even today. Without it, ships would have to travel an extra 8,000 miles around the tip of South America in order to get from the Pacific to the Atlantic. 32 Years from blueprints to opening, built by French, American, and Spanish, with an estimated death toll of 22,000. For hundreds of years different people had surveyed the land or considered creating some type of route such as the Panama Canal. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V(Charles I of Spain)(1513) was the first to actually propose a canal. Once again in 1852, General Ulysses S. Grant made the next proposal, this time through a slightly different route. The problem was that at the time it was literally an impossible task financially, legally, and physically! Even during the actual construction it proved to be a very difficult construction.

Though the French originally had began construction when Panama was still part of Columbia, the US did not have permission to continue that project after the French were no longer able to continue the construction to the thousands of deaths due to malaria or yellow fever. Along with that the French had by far run out of money they could use on the canal. The project was at a stop. For 14 years, nothing was physically done to the to be canal. The work at this point seemed to be pointless. What needed to be done, and was in the process was the emancipation of Panama from Columbia. Panama wanted to continue the construction, while Columbia was the only thing stopping this, Panama finally became independent and the canal could finally be resumed. On May 4th, 1904 the construction began once more, this time by the United States who ended up spending over $300 million for land rights and construction. Originally the project was initiated by Count Ferdinand de Lesseps on January 10th, 1880, starting in Culebra. This time the project was started under the power of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt made sure the protect was completed, and was able to provide the necessary funding.

Due to the fact that the canal was going to need to be created through a rain forest, the workers also faced the problem of high humidity and extremely difficult task when it came to clearing out the 238,845,587 cubic yards of earth that were removed. That is the equivalent to 135,707.72 cubic miles! The process of construction by the US was finally finished on August 15th, 1914. The locks that were built were the largest ever. There had never been the need to build such a large canal. Currently, there is the need and already the project for the expansion of the canal as the canal can only fit ships that are 106 feet wide or less, 965 feet long or less, and go 39.5 feet below water or less. This means that most modern ships cannot fit through. The largest ship to ever go through the canal and set what is called the panamax was a Disney Cruise liner.

Years later the rights for the canal were changed all the way up until 1999. This was due to may problems in the Panamanian governments such as tyrants overthrowing the government, and riots that involved the US base. Other things such as passage rights, and student rebellions against the US at the canal have created many legal problems concerning the land rights. As well as disputes as to who should have what passage rights. Finally in 1999, George H. W. Bush signed over what was owned by the US and released all of the rights the US had to Panama. Of course, this was not before capturing the major Tyrant of Panama.

Currently there are about 9,000 people employed at the Panama Canal. The canal has received some major upgrades since the day it opened. Some of which include new safety features, newer trains to pull the ships or boats along, and also some reinforcements. The new expansion would enable the ships to pass through quicker as the canal's locks would have a larger capacity due to an extra set of locks. On average it takes anywhere from 8-10 hours to pass through the canal.

Bennett, Ira Elbert. History of the Panama Canal: Its Construction and Builders. Historival Publishing Company. 1915.

LaFeber, Walter. The Panama Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective. Offord University Press US. 1989

Mann, Elizabeth. Rangel, Fernando. The Panama Canal. Mikaya Press. 1998

McCullough, David. The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914. Simon and Schuster. 1977.

Read More...

Summary only...