There are quite a bit of conflicting reports of a second stimulus in the works.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke was “imprecise” when he said President Barack Obama’s advisers are considering a second stimulus measure, his spokesman said today.
Locke, in an interview with Bloomberg Television, said: “If there is to be another stimulus -- and that’s being hotly discussed and very seriously considered within the administration as well as members of Congress -- it needs to be very targeted, very specific and we need to be very mindful of the deficit as well.”
Kevin Griffis, a Commerce Department spokesman, said in a telephone interview after Locke spoke that the secretary was referring to “all the different job-creating measures being considered” by lawmakers rather than a single stimulus measure.
Calculated Risk quotes other bloggers that the political strategy will be to introduce additional Stimulus measures when the unemployment rate hits the magic number of 10%. This is expected with this Friday's unemployment report.
So, fellow Economic Populists, now is the time to raise up program and policy ideas you would like to see for a second stimulus.
I know what I want. Real jobs with real training, damn the politics. We could effectively rebuild U.S. infrastructure while giving people skills, income and training. None of this private contract awards, no-bid bureaucracy or administrative bloat. Something modeled on the 1930's, even run by the military, to move the American people to real productive jobs. Take the models of the CCC and the WPA and do it.
National Infrastructure Bank
This would be a good time to start one and actually Rep. Rosa DeLauro has introduced legislation.
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First and foremost, real legal law enforcement
A true, honest-to-God national infrastructure-for-the-future project would be miraculous --- which is way I doubt it would ever take place, given present and past administrations (please remember, Secretary Locke was the guy who, when governor of Washington, offshored state jobs at 49 out of the total number of state agencies (maybe 53, or something like that).
First, those corporations and American-based transnationals who signed on to that last letter to kill the "Buy American" clause in the Bretton Woods Committee letter to Reid and Pelosi (dated Feb. 11, 2009), should have all their Offshore Finance Center accounts raided, and all those hundreds of billions, quite possibly trillions, of tax dollars justifiably recovered by the rightful US government! This was promised by President Obama, it is damn well time he began making good on all his campaign promises (including the one regarding changing that tax legislation giving tax breaks to corporations for laying off American workers and offshoring their jobs).
Next, if America can put a man on the moon, it is damn well time it finally built a high-speed bullet train, comparable to what they have in France and Japan. Second, besides the oft-cited point at the Economic Populist about a national industrial policy, likewise we have the need for a national transportation policy: mag-lev or bullet trains with long overdue, upgraded rail lines connecting all major cities, and perhaps minor ones, as well as city-wide monorail systems, etc., etc.
All these phony talking points about the need for better and better education is nonsensical --- without the essential demand for those better educated people. (As in real jobs!)
Innovation should not consist of better ways of scrounging food from dumpsters! Although this appears to be what our corrupt congress believes.
Also, all anti-propaganda laws must be enforced against those thousands upon thousands of phony foundations, "think tanks" (just read the feed from Brookings Institution about their so-called economic "myths" -- the only myth is any worth those fraudulent clowns at Brookings get paid to believe they possess!).
Sorry, off-topic, but had to vent....Oh yeah, one last item: regarding those proposed super-sized wind energy farms --- the two best locations for windiness would be Capitol Hill (Washington, D.C.) and Wall Street --- you won't find any more wind expelled anywhere else in this country!
Locke
Thanks for reminding us, he did promote outsourcing and still is.
Also, Obama admin announced they are not going to do anything about the tax incentives to offshore outsource your job.
As far as projects goes, these are bridges, levies, water treatment plants, running power lines to areas which have wind, for wind farms...
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has a ton of projects that need work, without funding and enough personnel, so the basic structure to start on these major projects, which are prone for disaster and need immediate attention. A program could be created building on current organization, maybe adding the military to organize it or the national guard, but the Society of Civil Engineers has multiple reports on crumbling, dangerous bridges too.
So, this isn't so much high speed rail (but would be nice in congested areas), but just addressing the major infrastructure projects that are in dire need. There are multiple reports many levies and bridges are plain dangerous, an accident waiting to happen.
Idea: Lower Medicare age to 60
Granted I am not sure how much this would cost but I think it is worth looking at considering the number of people who are working now (assuming employed) just for health insurance. This could free up jobs for younger people. Just a thought.
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that entire idea of committing age discrimination
in order to "free up jobs for young people" is really ridiculous frankly. I know it came "from the left" and does anyone realize what they speak? We already have institutionalized age discrimination in this country. If anything we should be rehiring the older people and how it used to be, younger people were trained, mentored by the older people. We had in house training as well as external training, paid for by the corporations.
Fine to lower Medicare to age 60, but frankly if they want to "free up jobs for younger people" they should plain kick out all of the guest workers and illegals in the country first and foremost. That's about 1.5M plus 10+ million jobs.
The reality is older workers have been wiped out and they need jobs. It's really bad for older workers for many of them had their entire retirement funds wiped out, many foreclosed upon, plus facing massive age discrimination.
They are not just working for health insurance, they are working to pay their rent, eat, pay bills. I forget the percentages but an astounding number of workers, over 50 have zero, count 'em, zero retirement funds.
Acting like older workers should just go "retire" is ridiculous. Retire on what?
It's also a complete waste. Older workers have life experience in a lot of career areas. That's an entire workforce who knows what they are doing, who could kick start the U.S. economy if enabled...because they have lifetime skills.
Sorry but those are the statistics and this concept that somehow the U.S. should commit even more atrocities against the U.S. worker, i.e. even more age discrimination drives me up the wall.
First and foremost we should be taking care of our citizens, not flooding the labor market with guest workers and illegal workers if you want to look at just supply/demand snapshots of the labor market right at this point.
Seriously. Illegals cost CA alone $10.5B a year. They repress wages too and increase the massive underground economy. We have guest workers undercutting U.S. wages, displacing U.S. workers and enabling technology transfer out of the U.S. on top of it. The H-1B Visa is called the outsourcing Visa for this reason. And they are using it in jobs one would not expect, things like insurance back office work, even teachers, they are hiring teachers on H-1B instead of U.S. workers. Part of this is a bureaucratic nightmare education has become. Teaching requirements are a ridiculous bunch of busy work certifications....so in the Philippines for example, they do all of the "certifications" there and then import cheap teachers....instead of bypassing or funding all of these certifications and using displaced U.S. workers to teach.
I apologize for any age insensitivity and
don't mean to start any inter-generational battles and withdrawal my idea.
What is needed a stronger social safety net and a better jobs strategy. We have generations on both ends basically screwed - younger people with no jobs (18.5% unemployment as of July 2009) and older people with jobs who need them to survive.
I know such a plan would help people very close to me. One person who recently lost her job at the age of 62 and probably won't be able to find another one who is getting COBRA that will run out shortly.
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sorry Rebel, not directed at your comment
I think the idea of moving the age limits for Medicare, considering how unaffordable premiums get when one hits 50 is a good idea.
The entire "force early retirement" was some sort of idea from Thomas Hartman and this was "Progressive". I swear people don't have much common sense. They will defend flooding the labor market regardless claiming illegals need those jobs (they do need jobs, but not "those" jobs)....yet when it comes to Americans, will claim you're a racist when you want Americans taken care of, first and foremost...
I mean it's really nuts. The U.S. cannot be the world's employer, it's pretty obvious from falling wages, the middle class implosion, we're not even taking care of our own citizens....yet you'll see stuff, coming from the left where standing up for Americans, wanting Americans employed, Americans "1st" basically, you'll be called a racist...
to the point we get endorsed discrimination against Americans, i.e. Thomas Hartman's "proposal" and coming from groups who used to stand for equality/diversity. It's like all values are turned upside down upon their heads.
Yeah, considering people live until 80, age discrimination is a major, major problem in the U.S. at this point. Also, people who work, pay taxes....they don't even contemplate that idea with anyone over 40.
I say fu*k it - Medicare for all.
Why pit one generation against another - that makes it easy on policy makers? The better solution is for having a strategy and economic policies that preserve the jobs we have and create new jobs for all Americans
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yeah, well, I wanted some form of universial single payer
Maybe a system like Finland which does allow for profit, private along side their universal health care.
NC, other bloggers invited to Treas. meeting
NC details here.
Note, we, or I did not get invited to much of anything on this front.
But, I would say this implies bloggers are having enough of an impact some at the Treasury paid attention to them...
now if bloggers could get real policy change which all are criticizing, that would be true influence, instead of being invited to just hear the same rhetoric on TARP on steroids and no breaking up the banks, Fed as super regulator, etc.
Maybe if we keep at the analysis we'll grow to the level of NC and an get more influence.