The first lesson every President learns is that in trying to please all his constituents he pleases no one, including himself.
President Obama sold the $800 billion Stimulus Plan to the American people as a strategy to create untold
infrastructure jobs. If fact, President Obama said the stimulus plan would save or create 3.5 million jobs in the next two years and that he hoped to limit the unemployment rate to a peak of 8% this summer. In typical political bait and switch fashion his democratic Congress allocated 8% of the stimulus money to infrastructure projects. Instead of infrasturture jobs Congress gave us cornucopia of social programs that have been on their wish list for decades, leaving the President with egg on his face.
The
unemployment rate has already reached…
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From the beginning of our republic, immigration has played a critical role in the vibrant United States economy. Diversity and innovation are the very hallmark of our nation. That is not to say that immigration has not sparked controversy in every generation. Today, no one would critique mainstream German and Irish immigrants, but only a century ago they were looked upon as "Papist" invaders. Similarly today's immigrants will be tomorrows all-Americans.
There are 12 million or so undocumented
immigrants already living in the U.S. In addition it is estimated that 400,000 people enter the country illegally each year -- a direct consequence of the fact that our current policy is to make available only 5,000 visas annually for low-skilled workers.
We need a plan to legalize this group while at the…
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Tax havens! Greedy Wall Street bankers! Hedge fund money lenders! Speculators! Shameful profiteers! President Obama's populist demagogic outcries against America's 200-year history of free market capitalism seem limitless. My immigrant grandparents are undoubtedly turning over in their graves to hear such blasphemy from the mouth of the President of the United States.
Obama's most recent target - those evil Caribbean tax havens. The current tax-deferral system is merely a ban-aid on a tax system that is openly hostile to American multinational companies. No other major industrial country treats its international business interests with such disdain and puts its companies at such a competitive disadvantage in the global economy. Then we wonder why we have such a large trade deficit.
A German firm doing
business in Ireland, say, pays no German income…
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Obamanomics - a "Bush" league plan for job creation. Job creation was tepid during the Bush years and it is likely to be even less robust in the Obama years.
The respected
Blue Chip economic forecasters, expect the unemployment rate, which surged to 8.5% last month, to peak at 9.6% in first quarter 2010. For the unemployment rate to fall, we must not only increase the number of
jobs, but that increase must exceed the expected increase in the size of the
labor force. In other words, merely increasing the number of Americans working will not necessarily decrease the unemployment rate. Today there are
154 million Americans in the labor force and just to maintain the
status quo, 2.0 million new jobs must be created annually…
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After reading that one percent of the households in New York City, roughly
40,000 people, pay 50% of the income taxes in this city of more than 8 million inhabitants, it made be begin to wonder where we were headed as a nation. This astonishing figure brings home the practical consequences of relying on taxes from a small group of high-earners to fund city, state and national budgets. In the case of New York City, the Mayor can only hope that this small group does not become weary of their burden and move to Connecticut or West Palm Beach. If even only a small percentage does, the financial impact on New York in a recession would be devastating. If that problem isn't enough New York City and State will…
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Ideology to the left of us, ideology to the right of us -- boldly they rode into the jaws of the unknown, into the mouth of financial hell -- rode the five hundred and thirty five. Theirs is not to reason why; theirs is but vote and whine...
For the political class who see the current recession as harbinger of depression, embracing an incomprehensible stimulus plan provides the irrational exuberance of hope. Better to have relied on reason than a potpourri of repackaged old and tired ideas.
To argue with either side is a waste of time, as each will abandon reason at the first challenge. As John Locke succinctly put it: "Every sect, as far as reason will help them, gladly use it; when it fails them, they cry out it…
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As the world's
most inventive country we have the unique opportunity to patent our way out of the current recession and thrive in the 21st century global economy. What should we export to create high paying permanent jobs and redress our balance of payments? Ideas. It's what we do better than any other country. One country, the United States, accounts for more than one-third of
international patent applications. It's time to leverage what we do best, innovate, and create the jobs we need for today, tomorrow, and decades to come.
In hard economic times we should be looking ever more closely at our export markets and ask ourselves the basic question: What innovative products can we sell to the nearly 500 million inhabitants of the European Union, the…
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