Felons Voting Illegally May Have Put Franken Over the Top in Minnesota, Study Finds

[Vteckidd]

you should read more closely then i guess. They were comparing Ford/Carter with Bush/Clinton (2 presidents before 2 presidents after.)

i challenge anyone to refute the information, regardless of who reports it

[Vteckidd]

i would say follow your own advice and show me where the cold war really contributed to our economic expansion

[BanginJimmy]

You are correct that we are in a recession, but a recession is not created overnight. As you say, its because of several extremely far reaching pieces of legislation, meaning that it started before Pres. Obama, before Pres. Bush, this is a recession nearly 40 years in the making, look at the legislation around those years via the Library of Congress.

I didnt mean that Obama was the only president or this congress was the only congress to pass far reaching legislation. I meant only that with the 3 major pieces of legislation, cap and trade, financial reform, health care reform, are as of yet undefined. Until business learns exactly what these laws will entail and how it will affect them, they will be hesitant to expand.

I believe the factors that caused the recession have been corrected for over a year now. What is driving the current soft economy and job market is the fear of the unknown.

Second, you proved that point with the Clark Howard piece that many Americans are saving more for the first time in decade, thus giving the answer to Total Blender's assumption that just giving people money doesn't guarantee they will spend it.

Again, I attribute that to uncertainty. Most people that have attained any measure of success in life are expecting their taxes to go up. Most people are now expecting their health insurance premiums to go up. They are watching climate legislation and expecting their utility rates to go up. Add to those factors and there are a great many people that learned the lessons of this recession and are simply getting rid of debt and/or increasing savings to be better prepared in case things take a turn for the worse.

Concurrent to the first sentence, a company's growth will not guarantee they will hire more individuals either, that is purely speculation based on ideas from Adam Smith in "Wealth of Nations".

I understand that. I have also seen companies that contract out increased labor needs if they dont believe those needs will be long term.

You are right about company's being afraid to hire because of the uncertainty, but when you allocute that belief to a company's decision based upon legislation, why do you think a company willreduce payroll at the lowest instead of at the highest? Based upon the business practices within the country over the last few decades, there are very few businesses who have executives willing to take a pay cut to save jobs within their company.

A company's payroll structure is like a pyramid. The far larger base, typically hourly workers, are much easier to hire and fire than a mid to high level executive. There are also far more of them so an increased workload can be spread over a much larger pool than at the upper levels. Now if a company eliminates an entire line or division, then you can expect layoffs among executives also.

If you were faced as an executive ($9.25mil per year) with a payroll decision, let's say you have to fire 10 workers who work in the mail room, whose combined salary ($20k per year per individual) would equal $200k, would you fire them or would you take a pay cut to save their jobs? How about 100 workers ($2mil)? How many CEO's and/or executives would be willing to take a pay cut to save their employees? There are a few. Would you be one of them? Does that mean a CEO or executive is bad for not taking the pay cut? IMO, no. But, if I were in that position, I would take the pay cut because it would hurt me less as opposed to the low income worker living paycheck to paycheck. As you asked Mike and I will invert your question, in this case, who stands to lose more, the CEO or the mail room worker?

I cant say whether I would be willing to take the cut or not. I guess it would depend on company needs. If a company truely needs that 100 workers then maybe they find other areas to make the cuts. Maybe offer early retirement and bring in younger, lower paid employees or work a 4 day, 10hr work schedule to save 10% or so on utility costs.

[bafbrian]

you should read more closely then i guess. They were comparing Ford/Carter with Bush/Clinton (2 presidents before 2 presidents after.)

i challenge anyone to refute the information, regardless of who reports it

I am not denying they compared presidencies, but let's be realistic, 3 years for Pres. Ford , 4 years for Pres. Carter, 4 years for Pres. Bush versus 8 years for Pres. Reagan. In all honesty, one can only truly compare Reagan vs Clinton. They are the only two amongst that comparison who served two terms. Furthermore, I don't think anyone will deny the fact that one can accomplish more tasks in two terms as opposed to one. Otherwise, the comparison needs to include more data from more presidencies.

i would say follow your own advice and show me where the cold war really contributed to our economic expansion

As far as sources, A Rendezvous with Destiny, The Reagan Diaries, Reagan In His Own Hand, and several other books in which it is chronicled that the Cold War helped the economy. I got a million books as they relate to policy, economics, various presidencies, and such, including a sizable number on Reagan if you want me to name more, give me enough time, I will whip a thesis I wrote to give you page numbers for faster, easier searches. I personally liked Pres. Reagan and think he did a lot of good for the country, but he was not without his faults. Like was said with cutting taxes and business expansion, the same follows suit for the Cold War, it is a small piece of the pie as it relates to the economy growth under Pres. Reagan.