How would you turn the economy around?

[clambake]

we already fund them. have been for years. they get all the breaks.

you got this weird idea in your head that the oil would be ours.

[ElNono]

i'd like to see more research put into uses for natural gas as well. the middle east, those assholes, and the rest of the world. we have everything we need right here in america, let's start focusing our resources on things that are going to bring us future prosperity.

While I agree about putting our tax dollars to help ourselves first, what normally happens is the government funds either a company or university project, then they turn around and claim the patents on them.
But even if a company would license tech from the government, the government just can't force the licensees to sell stuff at below market value (well, they could, but I doubt there would be any takers). For example, oil is much more expensive in Europe. A company simply won't put Amurica first , they'll sell their product to the highest bidder (ie: Europe). Companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. They don't give a about the country.

[mavs>spurs]

so tell me this..who owns the oil right now where it sits then? and how would any oil company purchase it or sell it without first gaining access? if there was say a patent for such a method..someone would pay top dollar for that right?

[mavs>spurs]

While I agree about putting our tax dollars to help ourselves first, what normally happens is the government funds either a company or university project, then they turn around and claim the patents on them.
But even if a company would license tech from the government, the government just can't force the licensees to sell stuff at below market value (well, they could, but I doubt there would be any takers). For example, oil is much more expensive in Europe. A company simply won't put Amurica first , they'll sell their product to the highest bidder (ie: Europe). Companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. They don't give a about the country.

cool, then america gets a cut of all the oil sold to europe.

[ElNono]

cool, then america gets a cut of all the oil sold to europe.

Right, but gas is still $4/gallon...

[mavs>spurs]

...and the government gains another source of revenue other than taxing it away from us or borrowing it and ing us up with the debt.

[ElNono]

...and the government gains another source of revenue other than taxing it away from us or borrowing it and ing us up with the debt.

No argument there. Probably gain jobs too.

That said, we then would be discussing if the government shouldn't be running the business instead a private company.

[Borat Sagyidev]

This is pointless.

The final solution involves deporting sit on ass conservatives like WC into the Gulf and replacing them with hardworking immigrants from south of the border to get production going again.

[clambake]

No argument there. Probably gain jobs too.

That said, we then would be discussing if the government shouldn't be running the business instead a private company.

you commie bas !

[mavs>spurs]

This is pointless.

The final solution involves deporting sit on ass conservatives like WC into the Gulf and replacing them with hardworking immigrants from south of the border to get production going again.

...and create a bunch of low paying slave wage jobs? that's just a race to the bottom. manufacturing is gone and it ain't coming back. our only hope is innovation...the same thing that's always kept us ahead of the pack. something we've stopped doing. this country places no value in learning any more..the kids look up to rappers and athletes not great leaders.

[mavs>spurs]

as far as that goes, if we brought in even more be@ners than we already have they'd never be able to earn enough money to pay back what they take in the form of social services. they'd all be on food stamps, and every time they go to the hospital it would cost a month's pay. thinking bean3rs are going to fix the economy is only going to set us back. remember, low wage workers and impoverished are less healthy on average in a country with skyrocketing medical costs.

[boutons_deux]

as has happened in other agricultural areas, WA state apple crop is a good one, while other apple regions had middling or bad years.

So what's the problem? no enough migrant workers to pick the apples. One farmer on NPR said he'd been in the business since 1965 and never saw one white person, Euro-American, last more than an hour, gone before he could even comlete the worker's paperwork.

[Das Texan]

double post

[Das Texan]

so tell me this..who owns the oil right now where it sits then? and how would any oil company purchase it or sell it without first gaining access? if there was say a patent for such a method..someone would pay top dollar for that right?

What oil formation are you even talking about?

[MannyIsGod]

it's simple, put funding into ways to get at it. start by taking that trillion dollars we spend playing world police and use it to actually pull up something of value out of the ground under our fat stupid asses.

it can be done, the methods just haven't been invented yet.

Yeah - oil companies have no resources into doing this right now. We need American taxpayer money to fund it.

SMH

[Clipper Nation]

- End the Federal Reserve, allow competing currencies, bring back the gold standard
- Abolish the IRS and the income tax, and stop wasting the taxpayer money that comes in from user fees, tariffs, highway fees, excise taxes, etc.
- Get the out of NAFTA immediately and actually engage in free trade
- Stop the endless, expensive nation-building abroad and surveillance at home, no more foreign aid
- Cut government spending and run government in line with the Cons ution
- Shut down unnecessary bureaucracies that waste taxpayer money and drive up costs for small business owners

[Heath Ledger]

Cut military spending in half right off the bat perhaps more. Eliminate forreign aid, its time get our ship in order the rest.... We have been too generous for far too long.

[DMC]

Unlike WC who could have kept Jesus alive and still saved mankind, I don't feel qualified to offer solutions to national fiscal issues. I simply don't have enough information, don't care enough to learn it, and don't need to feel like I know everything under the Sun in order to exist.

[johnsmith]

Unlike WC who could have kept Jesus alive and still saved mankind, I don't feel qualified to offer solutions to national fiscal issues. I simply don't have enough information, don't care enough to learn it, and don't need to feel like I know everything under the Sun in order to exist.

[Stringer_Bell]

Let's cut spending in half across the board, except for military. I would invade resource-rich countries, not apologize for while taking their land away - and turn those countries into massive call-centers for the companies that sell goods manufactured (in the USA, of ing course!) using those resources. We need to stay #1 in the world, and by golly we can - just gotta stay dedicated to sticking our s in every -hole country that can't fight back.

Oh yea, and I'd cut medicare and social security completely cuz old people aren't doing anyway - 'em.

Also, I feel like having a Reagan-like President would help a lot. Dunno why, just makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I just feel like anyone that has problems with my vision would have a hard time arguing with a Reagan-like President.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

A national sales tax with no income tax is a hugely regressive tax plan that's extremely re ed and would completely destroy the middle class in due time.

[Nbadan]

Cut military spending in half right off the bat perhaps more. Eliminate forreign aid, its time get our ship in order the rest.... We have been too generous for far too long.

Ok, but cutting military spending and eliminating foreign aid means less US jobs...while I think that we can certainly control our spending...or rather, be more efficient in military spending..a more efficient military does not necessarily have to equal a more vulnerable world...

[Jacob1983]

I somewhat agree with the tough love approach. It would probably save a lot of money. Handouts and en lement programs from cradle to crave take a huge chunk out of the budget and there are too many freeloaders and lazy asses. But yeah, America needs to cut back dramatically on building the empire, nation building, wars, handouts, and en lement programs. If a president and congress do that, then America will be on the right track.

[velik_m]

I think the primary thing we need to do, is to return manufacturing jobs to our nation. If I were in power to do so, I would change our way of taxation. A national sales tax, no income tax, and tariffs.

The chinese are already working on bringing manufacturing jobs back to america: http://www.extremetech.com/computing...back-to-the-us

All kidding aside: simplified and unifed taxation rules are always a win, especially for the small businesses. Tariffs are a bad idea, besides high oil prices will rise the price of transportation and act as a kind of pro-local tariff anyway.

As far as jobs go - i think manufacturing and non-manufacturing jobs is a wrong mindset. What we're seeing in this crisis is a result of technical boom of 90s - it just took a while for a full effect to set in. This crisis we're experiencing is the dying of boring jobs - you know the jobs that can be automated by a computer. It will just take a while to settle, but in the future only three kinds of jobs will be left - the arhitects (who build automated processes), the techs (who keep things running and fix things - aka "the dirty jobs") and specialist (people with top notch skill in theri field who handle cases that cannot be automated). There is no simple way to fix the economy until all the boring jobs are gone and people are all settled in their new jobs, so we're better off just leaving things to play out. (You could probably speed up the process, but that involves doing unpopular things and no politican would do that).

[z0sa]

Fix the tax code's many issues
Greatly reduce prison and military spending
Legalize pot and cocaine and amnesty all prisoners/convicts who have been busted for these drug-related charges
Greatly reduce sentences across the board for anything but violent crime



then see what happens and work from there.