and busy work?
Preventing bridge collapse is busy work?
The only thing I liked about Thompson was he recognized the lousy condition of our infrastructure and was set on doing something to fix it.

Moonshadow, how many accountants and assembly line workers do you know that have the ability to do the manual labor required of bridge repair?
Michigan has the worst single-state economy in the country (and Obama has pointed to the governor who is serving that worst economy and tagged her to be on the economic advising team – I said a year ago…what Granholm has done for Michigan, Obama wants to do for the country).
Factory workers have been hardest hit – our job market sucks sour lemons – we have the highest unemployment rate in the country…so what does our (Democrat) legislature want to do? Why, what democrats usually want to do – raise taxes. They are poised to raise the gasoline tax and to increase auto registration fees by 50% – How this targets the “rich”, I don’t know.
But getting “green” jobs here is a long way off. The folks who have been watching assembly line machines for twice what the foreign-based auto manufacturers are paid…they don’t have the muscles or the skill set needed to build bridges.
When Granholm ran, she promised: give me four more years and we’ll knock your socks off. Consider our socks (and the shirts off our backs) off. And now she’s advising Obama.
yippee.

Suze Orman predicted a Big Three failure would devastate the mid West and all I could think was another dust-bowl.
Everyone else is saying the Big Three did it to themselves.
You and I don’t agree on what sort of economic paradigm will bail America out of this. For instance, I think working folks ought to save a good portion of their money (not invest) and you think they need to spend it to grease the wheels.
I can’t comment on your state politics or economy … I know my own but not yours … beyond hearing it’s really, really bad there. And you have my prayers.

Correction:
Suze Orman predicted a Big Three failure would devastate the mid West and all I could think was dust-bowl.
what Granholm has done for Michigan
Everyone else is saying the Big Three did it to themselves.
I don’t think workers are interchangeable. But even professionals have been asked to “re-tool” now and again.
You and I don’t agree on what sort of economic paradigm will bail America out of this. For instance, I think working folks ought to save a good portion of their money (not invest) and you think they need to spend it to grease the wheels.
I can’t comment on your state politics or economy … I know my own but not yours … beyond hearing that it’s really, really bad there. You have my prayers.

Yes. It is really, really bad here. And if it were only the big 3, I’d blame it on them.
But we have lost factories that made office furniture, heating and cooling equipment, refrigerators, etc.
And companies are not going to be coming to a state where the Democratic legislature keeps raising taxes not only on businesses as well as on doing business.
Such as raising the gasoline tax, as well as on vehicle registration. And raising income taxes on businesses.
Why would a business come here? Thank you, Democrats.

Taxes can always be worked around. Witness the booming economy in Denmark, which has high taxes but even higher productivity. They’re smart enough and work hard enough that paying as they go works for them. Sure a secretary has to pay up to 56% of his income in taxes, but the two secretaries I know personally in Copenhagen both make over the equivalent of $125,000 a year. It’s not like they never complain. But they sure do work.
For a company to set down somewhere in the snow belt in the US there has to be some incentive, some promise of making a buck when it’s all said and done–and who can see that if what you have is seas of whiny, demanding, negative, helpless and hopeless workers? Democrats, Republicans, no difference, if you have states full of hard-drinking, lazy, bigoted ignoramuses. At least down here in Texas our hard-drinking ignoramuses know how to work for a buck.

He’s talking about construction and energy
It’s called infrastructure, Michele. Look into it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure
By funding projects like updating our electrical grids, repaving roads and highways, modernizing our schools, ports, and bridges, and otherwise improving the basic structure of our energy, education, and transportation systems, he’s making a long term investment in this country. It will make America more competitive in the long-run and with the right projects, such as wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources, we could someday even become independent of the Middle East and Venezuela for our energy needs. Those are GOOD things.
Also, from an economic standpoint, what he’s doing makes sense. One of the biggest issues we’re facing right now is lowered demand. People are scared and nervous and aren’t wanting to spend money, and banks are too nervous to lend to people. Enter the government throwing billions into the market, with lots of demand for those construction and energy projects you’re complaining about. Those jobs will inject money into the economy, boost our productivity, and will help us get out of the hole that Bush’s failed economic policies got us into.

Minnie is right. I’d like to add we once had all we are now seeking to have again. We’ve had too many Republican administrations, and too many Republicans in the House and Senate for too long. We don’t have to figure out anything just watch our new President and his Administration and the people they confer with about economic problems, they are the best. We can make all kinds of senarios and they will be fun or a headache doing, and none of them will probably happen or be used.

Minnie is right. We once had all the things we are seeking to have again. We had too many Republican Adminstrations, and two many Republican House and Senate members in control for too many years. Our new President and his Administration and the people they confer with about our economics will do the right thing. They are all tops in their fields of professions.

“Where does he plan to get the money for these new jobs?”
I believe you misunderstand the idea of fiscal stimulus. If you raise taxes or cut other spending to “pay for” these new jobs, you’re undo-ing any benefit the stimulus would have. It would be like taking water from the deep end of the pool and putting it in the shallow end.
No, the point of a fiscal stimulus is to make sure that you DON’T pay for your spending increases with tax hikes, at least not until the economy is in the boom phase again, by which point the economy will be doing well enough to withstand small tax increases or spending cuts to pay for the stimulus that got it there to begin with.

I am a registered Repubican who voted dem the first time this year and all my republican frieds ask me that. We are spending 10bill a month in iraq and that will end much more quickly under obama than under mccain. He cant undo the admittedly stupid policy of the past 5 years(which both mccain and palin blasted) so he has to dig out of a hole. But without the waste of iraq there will be more free cash

We are spending 10bill a month in iraq …without the waste of iraq there will be more free cash
Hardly since we aren’t spending money in Iraq that we have.

Hey henrietta..the House and Senate have been run by Democrats for the last few years. Tax policy, spending, the direction of the economy have all been entirely set by Democrats. The news media kept that as quiet as possible of course but sheesh…come on. Every American should at least know who is in charge of the government before voting.
And we need more of that?

“Just in time for re-election. Where does he plan to get the money for these new jobs? ”
From me of course. And you (if you have a job). Either through more taxes or just simply inflating away what we have with huge government handouts. Probably both. Barack Hussein’s plan to let the Bush tax cuts expire alone will cost my family 6300.00 per year in extra taxes according to my tax software. Over 500.00 more per month out of my family budget to buy votes with.
“The windfall profit tax is out since oil prices have plummeted ”
Isnt that strange? Just a few short months ago Nancy Pelosi and her party were planning on siezing the earnings of others through a windfall profits tax, nationalizing oil companies and plundering the Strategic Oil Reserve and selling it on the open market.
The Democrats said we would never see oil under 120.00 a bbl again. And we have people with that little grasp of reality now running things? And worse than that we have no national media to at least point and laugh at them for such silly incompetent predictions.
“can’t raise the corporate tax or capital gains tax ?”
No they have already given the US the highest corporate taxes in the world. 39%. The booming economy of Ireland only has 12% corporate taxes fopr comparison. (They seem to want to keep their engines of financial wellbeing intact and healthy obvioulsy).
“and he can’t raise the corporate tax or capital gains tax (and with the down turn in the market, would there be enough gains to tax?”
Maybe…in 401k’s…where greedy pig capitalists were evil enough to defer spending and save instead. There are alrteady rumblings from the Democrats in Congress about how much that tax break “costs” the government.

RE: Barack Hussein
And a final comment….after Obama bankrupts the coal industry, which he has promised to do, and all the industries which depend on it (from transportation to power plants) he will have a huge increase in unemployment.
Same goes for oil which he promised only ten more years of. I know very few of his promises actually mean anything but if he did fulfill that particuklar dream you are looking at tens of millions unemployed.

Funny, but wasn’t Obama sympathetic with the coal and corn industries in Illinois and Iowa?
So why are you saying that if Obama brings in more new green tech jobs it means that oil and coal will be gone? As far as I know, even 8 years isn’t enough for any President to completely convert oil and coal power plants into wind farms…
So stop these “I put fear into people because Obama is unknown” PR stuff, Creedo. If you just hate Obama out of pure hatred, then just say so honestly.