Rescuing the Economy: The U Turn

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/11/restoring_confidence.html

Michael Ettlinger of the Center for American Progress offers his thoughts on the Treasury's about face on the economic rescue plan as President-elect Barack Obama and a new Congress will take office in less than 70 days amid the greatest financial market and economic challenges our nation has faced since the Great Depression. The economy is likely in a recession—one that could be a long and deep. We are engaged in two wars overseas. Skyrocketing health care costs are consuming too great a share of our economy and threatening to create an unsustainable national debt. Our continued heavy reliance on fossil fuels exposes our economy to volatile oil prices and supply disruptions as well as the potentially catastrophic costs of climate change in the coming decades.

Aggressive action is needed to restore economic confidence and growth. We need action now to stimulate the economy, starting at once and lasting as long as necessary. Immediate government investments can put us on a path to recovery while also speeding the arrival of accessible, affordable health care, an economy powered with clean, sustainable, and secure sources of energy, and an education system that prepares our children for good jobs and keeps good jobs in America. These steps will help the economy through a period of economic weakness and lay the foundation for shared economic growth in the decades to come.

These investments in economic stimulus and recovery will contribute to a higher budget deficit in the short term. But we cannot be penny wise and pound foolish. Strong economic growth will do far more to put us on the path of fiscal health than shortchanging needed investments today.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• american
• bush
• credit
• debt
• ettlinger
• greenspan
• invest
• market
• mortgage
• paulson
• progress
• street
• subprime
• treasury
• wall

[markjoachen]

invest in the pound and other currencies then people will visit america and who look growth dumb americans need to invest in other currencies so that they get more tourists specly the pound

[Aryan0137]

Yeah..I have heard that too.

This is real scary man. I'm not a U.S. citizen and have been in the U.S. for only a few months. But I'm concerned..

[sugarpuddin88]

The FED, acting as bartender, gives out free booze to the bankers

The banks in turn have created many fake instruments like derivatives

One quadrillion dollars is the sum of outstanding fake derivatives (fake money pledged by the wealthy banks to buy real things) 1,000,000,000,000,000 on the market, (e.g. a bank with only one real dollar can legally say it owns several billions of real dollars) The total combined assets of the world is only actually a very small fraction of that sum!

[sugarpuddin88]

The office of the Pentagon that was hit held the all the records of where the $3 trillion went!

I'm not making this up!

[Aryan0137]

Plus the Pentagon says that it cannot find the $3 Trillion that went "missing" since 2000. What a joke!

[sugarpuddin88]

I always back up my facts

By the way, the Market Oracle puts it up to 120 trillion, marketoracle(dot)co(dot)uk/Art­icle5879(dot)html

The 10 Trillion in interest debt is available on many online counters I read it in the bottom right hand of my online bank page

Add together the unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security, and it comes to $99.2 trillion over the infinite horizon Richard W. Fisher, President & Chief Exec Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank Dallas

Ill msg you more

[mjamesb2008]

your statements are grossly inflated, you're wrong..period

[JohnMCope]

They only get More Powerful as the Host Dies.

[sugarpuddin88]

The latest bailout package comes to $2.25 trillion, triple the size of the original $700 billion Amazingly the FED has been paying these bankers 188 billion a day all along

Altogether, the worlds markets over the past four weeks saw $11 trillion worth of assets wiped out. This sum corresponds to virtually the entire annual gross national product of the US, or the European Union.

[sugarpuddin88]

Gimme a break!

The USA is bankrupt & Oct 1st US Military troops are training to fight American citizens

US owes 96 trillion it has plundered & pledged to SS & Medicare

US plundered another 53 trillion from other trusts

US owes 10 trillion interest to a bunch of private bankers it allows to print money out of thin air

US owes on 12 trillion Freddie & Fannie; US owes untold to Bernanke's buddies on Wall Street

US is over and done with!

Thank god for my second citizenship!