Is Barack Hussien Obama purposely trying to destroy the US economy?

[Banquo's Ghost]

You're right. That would cause a Fuhrer.

*groan*

Is this ever Göring to stop?

[Subotan]

Speer us!

[Vladimir]

*groan*

Is this ever Göring to stop?

Say again? Your message was Gerboled in transmission.

[Yoyoma1910]

It looks like we might have to Keitel all this punnery, and dig through the Rommel of this thread to find some scrap of its original Manstein... er meaning.

[Subotan]

Say again? Your message was Gerboled in transmission.

GAH
These puns are a Reich mess.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Say again? Your message was Gerboled in transmission.

This sounds like Goebbelsdegook to me. But don't get in a Funk, your keyboard skills are probably just a little Rusty.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Oh, I don't know, Fromm what I saw, he was making a Galland effort.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Oh, I don't know, Fromm what I saw, he was making a Galland effort.

I suppose Hess got some technical difficulties.

[Marshal Murat]

You guys ever Gudering to stop these absurd jokes? Stauffenberg with these puns. Just Gestapo it.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Very well, we'll all just Man a stein and scoot off to the Drunkard's thread.

[Adrian II]

Oh, I don't know, Fromm what I saw, he was making a Galland effort.

It was Freud with errors.

[Kagemusha]

I think this whole depression is caused by speculations of stock market. Stock market is exploiting the efforts of government´s to save companies in their individual countries. This just clearly shows that unregulated capitalism is not working. If investment trends can create world wide depressions, there is something clearly wrong with the system. First i cant understand how stock exchance, which was greated first to support funding companies, has turned in a leech that pumps money in certain target in order to raise its value and when a certain marginal has been reached, the investors sell and create profit out of nothing. That is clearly exploitation of system, which only harms economy. In a global economy, companies are forced to to downgrade the benefits of workers, because there is always another place, where products can be made cheaper and if a company fails to do that, investors withdraw their funding. Basically this kind of system is only an automatic to create mysery.

I think that both US and EU should stamp a healthy tax to any stock exchange, so the leeching and speculating would end and investors would go back on investing money to enterprises in order to gain shares from their profits and not jsut to speculate with margins when to buy and when to sell. Both communism and capitalism fail like any extremes. Only reasonable option is mixed economy.

[Xiahou]

So, speaking of destroying the economy, did anyone take a look at how Obama plans to halve the deficit by the end of his first term? Carbon taxes, higher income taxes, and wishful thinking- otherwise known as unrealistic economic growth.

In its budget, the administration predicted the economy will shrink by 1.2 percent this year but snap back and grow by a solid 3.2 percent in 2010. That would be followed by even stronger increases of 4 percent in 2011, 4.6 percent in 2012 and 4.2 percent in 2013.

By contrast, the consensus of forecasters surveyed by Blue Chip Economic Indicators this month predicted the GDP will fall by a larger 1.9 percent this year and then increase at weaker rates of 2.1 percent in 2010, 2.9 percent in 2011 and 2012 and 2.8 percent in 2013.

The administration needs GDP growth in the 4 percent-plus range for successive years to be able to make its budget math work add up.

Long story short, it's not going to happen.

But, what I really love here is the carbon taxes. What's the idea behind a tax on carbon dioxide? To encourage businesses to produce less of it, yes? Does anyone else see a conflict between trying to tax something to discourage it while at the same time counting on people creating more and more for tax revenue? Further, this is essentially going to be a tax on energy. It's going to make energy more expensive for everyone. The administration claims the increased expenses will be offset by his mid to low income tax credit. If that's the case, please stop bragging about cutting taxes for low income families- the money will likely only be able to partially offset increased energy prices.

Obama has acknowledged it would cause an initial spike in energy costs and is proposing to use $60 billion a year from the auction of carbon trading permits to help finance his “making work pay” tax credit program for lower-income families.

Further, what is this energy tax, along with high income taxes on top earners, and higher capital gains taxes going to do to an economy that is still trying to climb out of recession?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I think this whole depression is caused by speculations of stock market. Stock market is exploiting the efforts of government´s to save companies in their individual countries. This just clearly shows that unregulated capitalism is not working. If investment trends can create world wide depressions, there is something clearly wrong with the system. First i cant understand how stock exchance, which was greated first to support funding companies, has turned in a leech that pumps money in certain target in order to raise its value and when a certain marginal has been reached, the investors sell and create profit out of nothing. That is clearly exploitation of system, which only harms economy. In a global economy, companies are forced to to downgrade the benefits of workers, because there is always another place, where products can be made cheaper and if a company fails to do that, investors withdraw their funding. Basically this kind of system is only an automatic to create mysery.

I think that both US and EU should stamp a healthy tax to any stock exchange, so the leeching and speculating would end and investors would go back on investing money to enterprises in order to gain shares from their profits and not jsut to speculate with margins when to buy and when to sell. Both communism and capitalism fail like any extremes. Only reasonable option is mixed economy.

While, in the short term, speculation can end up distorting stock values, over longer periods of time the process of speculation (as well as the futures markets) serve to stabilize market changes. They are investing in what they think will improve, and stopping that investment when the believe it has peaked.

Example: as oil soared over 140 USD, futures investors and stock investors began to shift funding AWAY from companies that were making profits based on that price. They predicted, accurately, that consumers would shift behavior and moderate their consumption of this product at that price. By shifting their investing, these investors actually cushioned some of the inevitable dropoff by shifting funding to companies which were bound to pick up business from a market looking for less costly energy.

While I think that markets need regulation -- actually not so much in the way of new regulations but more support to actually enforce the ones we have -- I cannot see how taxing market investment does anything but siphon money from consumers. Capital Gains taxes and the like simply let the government "take its cut," while corporate taxes are passed along to consumers as an expense.

The real role of government shouldn't be to manage the market, but to work (and a lot better than it has) to minimize and punish fraud while providing a maximum of transparency. Caveat emptor will always be relevant, but their is nothing wrong with the government making the buyer as informed as possible.