Best Way to Stimulate the Economy?

[Nachtengel]

Poll found on some news site. What do you think?

[Freigeistige]

I cannot speak for other countries, but for the United States, the best way to stimulate the economy would be to rid ourselves of the once helpful worker's unions, encourage domestic production, and discourage the importing of products. Most of our companies have their factories in countries like China for the purpose of cheap labour, and when we buy a product from them, some of that money goes out of the country to pay the foreign workers and doesn't come back. Now consider every citizen, every day, buying all of their products that way. That is a large sum of money leaving our country never to return every day.

The poor are forced to contribute to the economic failure, because they must buy from places like Wal-Mart, where all of the products are produced overseas. They cannot afford to buy American made products, because American labour is ridiculously expensive now. It was never a sustainable plan to begin with, but it doesn't seem to me that the CEO's of these companies really care about the economic future of the United States.

[Leonhardt]

Tax increases for wealthy, tax increases for business, elimination of all public works/ wars in the short term, and stimulus checks for mothers of Germanic children.

It would also help if people would choose not to buy any imports. The unions should have all restrictions removed from them so they can become powerful again. I would also like to see the tariffs go back up. Government restrictions on health care and lawyer prices would also be nice.

Governments should print their own money.

[Neophyte]

Most of our companies have their factories in countries like China for the purpose of cheap labour, and when we buy a product from them, some of that money goes out of the country to pay the foreign workers and doesn't come back.

I have always wondered what happens with money that does not come back. Do the Chinese use it as wall paper, or do they simply recycle the paper and use it for newspapers? Of course it comes back. In the case of the US the problem is that it comes back in the form of payment for T-bills etc. and not as payment for US exports.

The poor are forced to contribute to the economic failure, because they must buy from places like Wal-Mart, where all of the products are produced overseas. They cannot afford to buy American made products, because American labour is ridiculously expensive now. It was never a sustainable plan to begin with, but it doesn't seem to me that the CEO's of these companies really care about the economic future of the United States.

American labour is expensive if you think that every family should be able to consume as a rather high level despite an uneven income distribution. If you allow the bulk of income to collect at the higher levels but still want every American to have his very own 50" plasma-TV and SUV, you have a problem. The United States, as an economic-political-social system, solves these inconsistencies through a massive trade deficit funded through the printing press and private and national debt.

A radical part of solution to these problems would be to implement policies leading to a more even income distribution. Above all, though, a responsible government would have to reign in the banking system, and implement controls over the credit expansion in the economy.

The BIG problem for the USA is -- as Obama's economic advisor, who is an expert in exactly these matters, can tell him -- is that responsible and co-operative economic policies seem to require a high degree of union organisation in the society and a high degree of co-operation between different unions. This is something we can see in, e.g., the Scandinavian countries, but not so much in the USA. The type of policies that I am advocating requires a high degree of cooperation and sympathy between different economic groups, and here I do not think that the USA is homogeneous enough to pull that off. It was in the 30s, but not today.

[SpearBrave]

The best way is to:

1. deport all illegal hispanic labor
2. have a balanced trade with nations like China
3. raise tariffs, on low quality goods
4. cut taxes Ronald Reagan used this and it worked. When people are taxed(punished) they do not want to produce.
5. Remove obama from office, the American system does not work well with socialism.
6.down size the Gov. and the federal reserve.
7. end generational welfare.

People are smart enough to take care of themselves if you let them.

[GroeneWolf]

To my opion it would entail the following, wich both are for the short term and long term :

• tax cuts across the entire range
• moving towards a more flat tax
• more tougher immigration rules that only alows intelligent people to enter since they are far less likely to become either welfare dependent or show criminal behauvior
• deporting criminal immigrants let their mother countries take care of them
• raising educational standards
• strenghting our export position

[Patrioten]

Cut taxes for businesses and wage earners (primarily for the middle class and wealthy since they are the ones paying the highest taxes) while simultaneously cutting down on non-essential government spending and wait for the recovery. I don't think there's any foolproof way of doing it but our main priority in a financial crisis should be to keep taxes and government spending low and not borrow ourselves into debt which will come back to haunt us once the recession is over, we should not "rock the boat" but instead weather out the storm.

Once the economy is on the path to recovery the last thing we need is higher taxes to pay off the debt we amassed or be paying for swollen entitlement programs, that will just end up crippling the recovery effort.

[Neophyte]

Cutting taxes and public spending is well and good and a worthy part of any long-term plan to sanitise the economy, but to cut taxes and spending right now would produce catastrophic results. That would only deepen and acerbate the crisis. However, the number one priority for a long-term sanitisation of the economy must be to rein in and regulate the credit expansion.

[þeudiskaz]

Cut taxes, especially on the wealthy. Wealthy people often to a lot to help stimulate the economy, such as often-extravagant purchases, as well as frequent investment. Of course All around tax cuts are a good idea.

Perhaps implement a stimulus plan that doesn't include money for free condoms, more things like the public works, here in MN, we have 5,400 new jobs performing road construction.

Domestic Oil Drilling would be a fantastic idea. Though oil rates in the US would not immediately decrease, it would provide thousands of jobs, as well as supporting a domestic, rather than foreign industry, and, because America has decent environmental standards, such oil production would be better for the environment than many foreign sources.

There are just a few.

[Thusnelda]

One solution could be to raise protectional measures for specific sensitive economical branches within the national economy, to have a shield against several negative streamings of globalism. I´m aware of the fact that Germany benefit from some constellations of the international economy and trade system, like in the automobile and high technology sector, but that doesn´t mean that we profit in all other industries as well.

A further giant source of our economic crisis is the EU. This centralistic and more and more leftwing totalitarian monster guzzles a lot of our money. In fact, Germany is the biggest netto payer within the EU and is enslaved to umpteen economic restrictions and regulations. Honestely spoken, we pay fo the arse-end of Europe and receive nothing but sulky words if we dare to have an own opinion on different matters. Our leading politicians are kneeling down in Brussels and betray most of our national interests since decades.
Switzerland and Norway, who are no members of the EU, do fine in the economical crisis. It´s not a "must" to be in the EU to cope with the crisis. The EU is not the solution but one source of the problems. *sighs*

An other issue is the social welfare: The social welfare system is strongly intertwined with the national economy. Our current social welfare system becomes more and more infinanceable due to the mass of non-working people who exist on the shoulder of the working population! It´s a fact that foreigners, especially from several Balkan countries and Non European countries like Turkey, the Arab states or Africa, are disproportional receivers of social welfare. That´s completely inacceptable and a main reason for the gap in the annual social budget.
What we need is a change of our social welfare system into a welfare system with a folkish fundament. Those who aren´t Germans or those who have a dual citizenship must be excluded from our welfare system, the same counts for most of the people with non German parents. After these necessary changes are done we can drop inordinate hardships for those Germans in real need, like the Hartz IV-reforms. This would give them more money in their hand which would lead to a stronger economical consumption of these social classes, whis could boost our economy further.

On the other hand, I don´t support claims to increase the taxes for the "wealthy population" and the middle-class. They´re already paying taxes to a very high degree. Not less of them have to pay more than 50% of their monthly income for taxes and other mandatory charges here in Germany. Any further raise would be patronizing. One shouldn´t forget that the middle-class is the real motor of our economy, it´s the working population and the sector which creates and upholds most of the jobs. I agree that there´re some criminals within the wealthy population, some of them even responsible for the worldwide financial crisis, but we shouldn´t generalisze here.

It will never work to oppress the middle-class and the rich in favour of the poor, because at the end you´ll achieve that all are equally poor. It´s the error in reasoning of the socialistic and communistic systems.