Economic Stimulus: Not Enough

The United States needs a new economic stimulus plan that pumps billions of dollars into infrastructure projects and budget relief for cash-strapped state and local governments, Democratic lawmakers said on Sunday.

This is why I, as a Capital "S" Socialist, support the Democratic party as the nearest substitute for a full-fledged people's utopia. The Democrats understand that the purpose of collecting billions of dollars of taxes is to provide "relief" for governments.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week said a $150 billion economic stimulus plan was needed to help counteract a faltering economy shaken by a paralyzed banking system and steep stock market falls.

Speaker Pelosi, as a scientific socialist, sure knows her science! As the educated among you know, the purpose of a "stimulus plan" is to unparalyze banks and increase stock prices -- as intermediate steps in the evolution of capitalism's inevitable demise.

Here's how it works: When people pay taxes instead of saving money in banks, the banks shrivel and die. Hence, death replaces paralysis. Furthermore, stock prices (which represent mass opinion of future profitability) would then increase for obvious reasons. You do not agree that the reasons are obvious? Then you are an uneducable Hitler-pig who burns crosses McCain rallies.

The Congress earlier this year passed a $152 billion stimulus package that provided tax rebates of up to $600 per adult to support consumer spending at a time of rising energy and food costs. Most of that money has already been spent, and many economists say financial turmoil will squeeze the economy into recession in the fourth quarter.

"Many economists, indeed!" Here, for example is a sharp analysis from one of my favorite economists:

"Not only is Wall Street frozen, but Main Street is in real trouble. A stimulus aimed at Main Street makes sense," New York Sen. Charles Schumer told CNN.

And he continues with a particularly apt gastrointestinal metaphor, which in fact reminds me of my last night's dinner:

He said the plan should "get into the guts of the economy" by boosting spending on infrastructure such as roads, sewer and water projects.

Of course. And I'm glad that Congress realizes that a mere $152,000,000,000 was not enough taxation to fix our economy. Many economists say that $700,000,000,000 would be better. And many of my professional colleagues say that $2,000,000,000,000 would be closer to the ideal. Of course, these well-intentioned academics and people's representatives are on the right path...but...but...if spending $152,000,000,000 or spending $700,000,000,000, or $2,000,000,000,000 is such a good idea (as it most definitely is), then why not simply take over the entire economy instead?

If public works projects are so helpful (as they absolutely are), then why not simply convert every human activity into a public works project?

Left to their own devices, people are far too inexperienced to manage anything as sophisticated as an economy. That's why experts are required to do the managing, the directing, and the thinking. It's for your own good.

Change.

Cross-posted at The People's Cube

How Wall Street got rich through GREED

Everyone agrees that our financial crisis was caused by greed. Naturally, this is a correct assessment because it was formed by consensus.

But how, you ask, did greed make the Wall Street bankers so rich?

Simple. Greed drives businesses to sell things to customers who cannot afford to pay for them.

Let's look at an example:

Say you want to buy a house, and can only afford $100,000. A rich capitalist might discover this, and the following conversation would ensue:

You: I want to buy a $100,000 house because I can only afford to spend $100,000.

Capitalist: Nonsense, you can afford a $300,000 house, easily, and I can lend you enough money to make it happen.

You: There's no way I can afford a $300,000 house; I'll never have enough money to pay back that loan!

Capitalist: That's a swell haircut you have there.

You: Thank you! Of course I can afford a $300,000 house! Yes I can! Yes we can!

At this point, the capitalist lends you $300,000 -- knowing full well that the loan will never be paid off. You struggle to make payments, but you...just...can't. The greedy capitalist loaned you $300,000 and you only paid back $100,000! Need I elaborate further on how this has made capitalists rich? (And how this further oppresses the Palestinian people?)

It's my understanding that automobiles are sold the same way. Greedy auto salesmen often sell $30,000 cars to people who can only pay $10,000.

Fortunately, the government, which by its very definition cannot ever be greedy, is only asking for a mere $700,000,000,000 contribution to make us all investors in these loans.

I weep at the fairness of this.

God Damn George Bush; he created this mess.

God Damn the U.S. of KKK!

Problem...Housing CRISIS; Solution...More GOVERNMENT

All across this putrid land of Amerikkka, people have been evicted from their homes. By the millions, they waste in the gutters and sewers, their rotting corpses providing food for bloated corporate pigs to feast on, and for zionist bankers to repeatedly rape over and over and over and over.

Do I exaggerate? No, I am understating the horrors of bank foreclosures.

Understand this and never forget: A contract is intended to help the people. And when the banks say that people are "bound" to "contractual obligations" like paying "interest" at "mutually agreed upon" "rates", then that, friends, is all the proof I need to demonstrate that the Nazis were never in fact defeated by the heros of the Soviet Union, but are instead alive and well, and "lending" money to home owners in Amerikkka.

Fortunately, there is a short term solution. (The long term solution, of course, involving the dragging the capitalists into the streets and shooting them like the vultures they are.)

In 1977, Amerikkka's finest President, Jimmy Carter, signed the Community Reinvestment Act.

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was established by Congress in 1977. The Act requires that deposit-taking financial institutions offer equal access to lending, investment and services to all those in an institution's geographic assessment area-at least three to five miles from each branch. In the case of large banks with many branches, the geographic area may encompass an entire county or even a state.

Before the CRA, many bankers excluded low-income neighborhoods and people of color from their lending products, investments, and financial services - a practice known as "redlining". Community activists coined the term when they discovered that the failure of banks to make loans in some low-income neighborhoods was so geographically distinct, that it was easy to draw red lines on maps to delineate the practices.

In the 1970s, activists in Chicago and across the country brought strong pressure on banks to lend equitably to all those in their communities. Since its passage, the CRA has been used across the United States to win tens of billions of dollars in new lending, investments, and services for communities. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition tracks more than $1 trillion dollars in community reinvestment pledges nationally. These pledges are explicit investments in equitable development goals, and finance many tools in this toolkit.

Friends, we need better enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act (and more Nobel prizes for President Jimmy Carter).

We need to force the banks to lend more money to people of low-income and people of color.

And we especially need to lend money to people with no money and no credit, for they will be the underpinning of our new Socialist State.

And we must allow the loan recipients to repay the loans on their terms, and not according to some racist "contract".

More government is better government.