Saturday, January 22, 2011

A few thoughts on Obama's new economic plan


AP - Under pressure to energize the economy, President Barack Obama will put job creation and American competitiveness at the center of his State of the Union address, promoting spending on education and research while pledging to trim the nation's soaring debt.

...And Obama may have been in better political shape pushing the now defunct (or at least "funct" over) health care program. At least that could justify itself, in spite of any inevitable waste or corruption, on a moral need. Building and economy, however, does inevitably involve a lot of rich types partying at the country club and extending a lot of expensive hospitality to merely possible customers. People already object to the banks' apparently premature spreading of wealth, and such savings institutions are the greatest cause for growth in investment captial.

Worse, with his health care program untested and this an obvious opportunity for media complaint, Obama may end up, in the public mind at least, as a two-time loser in spite of having only one program in place and that one being economic and therefore ambiguous in its end result.

Oddly though, to grow the economy, Obama may just want to bail out the banks again. Of course they're not in trouble currently, but that's not important. Active banking will increase the amount of investment capital available through a process of re-saving. Essentially, two-thirds of every dollar in every bank goes into some investment somewhere and ultimately ends up in the paychecks of the end-recipients on those projects. At least some of those recipients then save at least some of that money, and that point the banks receiving it record that income as part of their investment capital in spite of its presence on the records of the first bank as well. Through this necessary white lie of finance, the total number of dollars available for investment then grows, but in response to the needs of the market rather than any government guess about future markets.

Just a few thoughts.....

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