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	Name:	MrHodja -
	Subject:	If he can
	Date:	3/21/2009 8:57:37 AM

I hear you L&C.

For one, if we are truly going to get the economy restarted we need to get the investment directly into the taxpayer's hands. And not in a lump sum, but a recurring increase in disposable income. As an example, if I knew that my paychecks were to increase a hundred bucks on a recurring basis for the foreseeable future due to a tax reduction, then I would be more likely to go out and buy something that I could pay for over time. That wouldn't happen with a lump sum payment. If that increase in disposable income were to be coupled with a tax rebate for purchasing an automobile with at least X percent domestic content (it is really hard to find a truly "American" car these days, and I am not particularly keen on rewarding GM's arrogance and mismanagement and Chrysler's ineptitude), then I might be inclined to buy one of those cars rather than a Toyota.

I have a real problem with the size of the porkulus spending too. I think they lost their minds and just went way overboard, possibly because they didn't see another golden opportunity like this coming down the pike any time soon. They, to put it in the White House Chief of Staff's terms, definitely did not waste a "good crisis".

My personal opinion, expressed a few weeks ago, is that we as a country got away from being a manufacturing and agricultural-based economy and became primarily a service-based economy, and I just don't see how we can sustain a service-based economy where nothing of real value is produced. Maybe I am old-fashioned (some say reactionary), but I think we'd be better off if we had more of our economy based on taking raw materials, adding labor and process, resulting of something more valuable than the total of labor and materials that went into it. Surely seemed to work when we were cranking out washing machines, refrigerators, tools, and the like.

But times do change, and automation reduces the viability of that type of economy - unless you happen to be China, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Korea, and so forth. Seems to be working for them now - and maybe it is because they do not yet have the expectations of a level of wealth similar to what we expect.

Others say tax breaks for small business is a key ingredient to recovery. I agree, as long as we figure out a way to ensure those tax breaks don't just go into the proprietors/entrepreneurs' pockets. I have struggled with coming up with a way to do that. Have thought about a tax break for creating jobs - but haven't been able yet to formulate a way to ensure unscrupulous small business owners don't create sham jobs just to get the tax breaks. Maybe other more educated in the ways of the business world could help out there.

One of the things that also bothers me about the big ticket items like building roads and bridges is that the money for those primarily goes into raw materials and very specialized equipment -- not into labor. They talk about "shovel-ready" projects, yet these projects use few shovels (i.e., labor), and unless we solve the illegal immigrant problem they will end up getting a fair number of the worker-bee jobs that are created.

Sorry for the long-winded response, but I am holed up in a hotel room in Charleston waiting to attend a birthday party for my main customer tonight - and am looking for anything to do other than the work stuff that I need to be doing...:>).

So there is a start....I would encourage others to chime in with suggestions as to how to do it better. Maybe my suggestions are unworkable, but in my mind they are a he!! of a lot more palatable than just throwing money down the drain with absolutely no plan for how that money might actually do some good )other than solidifying the democratic hold on power).

Cheers,

Nasreddin Hodja