Pelosi Front-Runs Obama on the Economic Agenda

I guess the dems will have to decide if we are going to be an isolationist economy. Or still be a part of the global ecomonic community. Obama wants to expand unions, which will increase the cost of goods, and decrease our ability to compete in the global economy. The only way we can compete and actually do what Obama plans on doing is isolationism via heavy tarrifs, or backing out of current trade deals. The WTO won't be happy with that, neither will our current trading partners. Will be interesting to see how this goes... Will green energy jobs fill the void for the loss of manufacturing jobs across seas?

All of these comments are right on the money {no pun intended} I find it interesting that I have been hearing the same thing from Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh almost daily for the past year or so. Why is no one listening. Maybe in the end it will be a good thing Obama got elected {I refrain from using the term won since he won nothing} the damage he is sure to cause, just might be what it takes to make the right people open their eyes and see what is happening to America and our way of life. It may be time to re-invent our system of government, not the way Obama wishes to take us though. I dare say that if something is going to be done to stop the death of America as we know it, it better happen pretty soon or it will be too late. I also find it ironic that Obama ran on a platform of raising taxes and all of a sudden all of his advisors with some savy are advising him to take the path John McCain wanted to take i.e. no tax increases for anyone. It almost sounds like John McCain has become his new secret economic advisor in regard to taxation. Now I have a question for anyone that has the answer. Why in the world have the people of this country allowed Nancy Pelosi to acquire so much power when she has, and has for some time, the lowest approval rating of anyone in our entire government. Given all of the recent events and the questionable means by which some events have occured, one has to wonder if our enemys have not succeded in positioning themselves so as to allow them to collapse our economy and defeat us "without firing a shot". Anyone remember who said that? I do and it scares the H... out of me since I can not find a rational explanation for many things that have unfolded leading up to where we are now.

Who has the scariest-looking face: 1. Jack Nicholson as "The Joker" 2. Michael Jackson 3. Nancy Pelosi?

Brian Shawns reference to the artical below regarding who owns America is well recieved by this conservative. However, who cares whether Pelosi or Obama wins the race to the bully pulpit... either way the markets will crash. What is important is what will America do about it after the collapse. There is a another great depression out there just around the corner and the liberal media is covering it up outright, the conservative media is suspiciously absent. Socialists like Pelosi and Obama are going to kill the free market system and soon folks wont have the luxury of reading comments like this - they will be too busy waiting in bread lines - that is assuming they survive the race riots that certainly will follow an Obama failure. Don't misunderstand me, I don't believe that race should be an issue, I just recognize the likely hood that it will occurr. The only comfort I take from the idea that the world is 'flat' and America is owned by foreigners is the possibility that these foreigners will realize that if America fails, they fail. I have no faith though that Obama and Pelosi have what it takes to manipulate this scenario to our favor. On the contrary, they race to push us over the cliffs edge is too tantalizing to them. Instead of reporting on who wins this race... maybe report on why they are racing and what the consequences are of either one of them winning, or losing, as I look at it. David Aldridge

Comment by a Capitalist, why weren't you nominated??? Very smart!

Gov't stimulus packages are like being forced to go on a shopping spree to buy goods you don't want. They tax you, give you some (not all) of the money back and tell you to spend it. Some get money back that never paid tax. That would be your money the gov't gave to someone else. Now, someone else spends it on things you didn't want. But that's ok, you didn't get to keep what they purchased with your money anyway. This form of gov't stimulus package is nothing but a wealth redistribution combined with a small tax break for some. I say it again. If you want to stimulate the economy, stop the gov't from spending. Gov't stimulus spending just stimulates inflation and wastes resources.

Like the article "when America no longer owns America" says, we basically have gone from a producing society with the production (ie. jobs) and profits staying here in the U.S. to a bunch of brokers and consumers with a credit card. Wow, that party is over. Ya can't run, on avg. 27 to 1 in derivatives, and expect that to last. Pelosi, I ask you please....please don't try to give the USA any of your "solutions". Your only "solutions" are more debt, more inflation, more subsidies, more redistribution of wealth, more regulation, more govt intervention, and more taxes. These are not answers to a capitalistic society and certainly does not bode well for the stock market. No wonder the companies that have made the USA economically balanced for years have gotten out of dodge. Why would anyone, with the taxes, union control, regulation, and legal risks want to start or invest into a company in the great ol USA? If only they would give incentive for the investors to invest, owners to take risks, and a risk/reward proposition that was worth investing back into America, capital would come on back, but they just don't. They just don't understand. The majority on capital hill are lawyers, and have never took one risk of starting their own company in the USA. Brian, you have on your show these small business owners (ie. car dealers, house builders) that tell us the problem is a credit freeze, yet you don't spend time dealing with the real issues to our economy. Are economy does not need easier credit and forced lending by banks to shove people into homes and cars they can't afford. There is an oversupply of housing and we just have to deal with it. What our economy needs is solid policy making that provides the incentive for capital to flow back and allows the production and profits to stay here in the US. You have the platform Brian, and your smart, and you seem to be an honest guy. We all need to understand what is really wrong before we can fix the problem. You can help America understand.

A stimulus package does little good if consumers do not spend it. So I have devised the ultimate stimulus package. I call it consumer credit roulette. First we get ten economists to agree on what social securities numbers should be included (demographic eligibility). Next we get the same ten economists to decide how much we want to stimulate the economy. Now, in lottery fashion we randomly pick social security numbers and pay off all of their consumer credit: Boats, cars, student loans, credit cards, gas cards, mall cards. Hey if you owe your bookie we will pay him too! We keep picking social security numbers until we run out of money. Check out www.fluetschfinancialservices.com and read all of my blog posts.

T.M.O. Hey I'm right there with you about someone cutting taxes. I don't are who cuts them, just get them cut. What I am concerned about, whether it be a republican or democrat, is increased excessive gov't spending. Gov't can only spend taxpayer's money since gov't does earn a living like you do or a business does. So if at the same time we are cutting taxes (a good thing), we are then turning around and increasing deficit spending, we're still being taxed. How you ask? Because if gov't doesn't have the money, it borrows it into existence off the old printing press. More paper money, means inflation, and that means the dollar in your pocket just went down in value. The value that it went down was the amount you've been taxed. I want the politicians to cut taxes, cut spending, balance the budget, and begin repaying the obscene amount of debt it owes. I want it to get out of our daily lives with a tax on everything we do, electricity tax, gasoline tax, telecomm tax, cable tax, income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, social security tax, medicare tax, unemployment tax, tire tax, sales tax, real estate tax, and on it goes. That would be a real stimulus to the economy. Money would be spent/used by individuals efficiently instead of wasted by gov't. If left to itself, the gov't would spend itself and all of us into the poor house, see the old Soviet Union. We're no where near that bad, but we are slowly moving in that direction. We need to go back the other way, toward Thomas Jefferson's economic ideas.

Pelosi, and not Obama, will run the country. There simply will be more bureaucrats, lobbyists and lawyers, at state and local levels as government grows bigger and bigger.

To Shawn who posted Thom Hartmann and anyone else who is confused by this, I respectfully disagree with Hartmann's analysis. He is confusing monetary GDP with real wealth. For example if the whole world produces $5000 of goods and next year someone in a foreign country produces those same goods for less, and we hold the total money supply constant, more goods will be produced, we'll still have the same $5000, but prices will fall reflecting that more goods were produced. If some foreign country is producing for less, it frees up our labor to work on newer inventions, technology, etc., that can't be easily done elsewhere. This is the same thing that happens when we come up with various capital improvements that elminate labor. For example, it is better to use one extremely large dump truck than hundreds of people and donkeys in a mining operation. His analysis states that we would be better off if no tractors were used on farms, and instead we used oxen to plow the fields. Overall, if Hartmann's analysis was correct, all of us in the U.S. would be better off if each state charged a tariff on any goods imported from across state lines. So while wages may decline, that decline will be offset by lower prices. Now when the prices don't go down, it's generally due to excessive government borrowing/spending which leads to inflation. If you would like a more in-depth understanding and a much more articulately written defense of globalization, go to here: http://www.capitalism.net/articles/Globalization.htm.

Ya! now that the new admin is in-- opps still a few months to go. Lets all jump on board and back them. We can all go down together, United.

Gee, if Al Franken squeaks in we'll have a professional added to the comedy act. Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Harry Reid, Chuckie Schumer, Chuckie Rangel, yea that's the brain trust that will save us.

Does anyone think for themselves any more -- as opposed to what you perceive is the position of the party to which you belong? Any one who agrees with (1) most economists, (2)republican economic principles, should be thrilled that Nancy Pelosi is talking about permanent tax cuts, and capital gains tax cuts at that. It is nothing short of pathetic that she is now being denounced for those positions. It won't help this country or this economy to view her (one of our most powerful leaders, whether we like it or not) in a purely cynical manner. Come on! If she wants to cut taxes, let's get on board!

It's high time for the government to get out of funding and running American businesses AND replacing the losses of theose on Wall St. PERIOD!

"If America had mandatory drug testing for politicians,people like Pelosi, Reid and Franks,might never have got sworn into office,I think mandatory drug testing for all politicians is the answer" Nice thought, B Scott, but B.O. would have been elected even if he still smoked crack. Moral standards are for Republicans, not Democrats.

We are going to borrow more money from the Chinese to give to people so they can go to Wal-Mart to by goods from China. Brilliant

I really wish you guys would quit referring to these tax incentives as tax cuts. It confuses the issue. This isn't a tax cut. This is a tax credit based upon the qualification that you buy a car, and this sort of thing is exactly why I said that the media (not referring to this article but rather the general reporting on the Election) was seriously misleading people where Obama's tax policies were concerned. If people had been informed of all of the loops they were going to have to jump through to get their own money back - they'd likely not have been so ecstatic about the so-called "tax cuts" Obama was proposing. These tax credits are nothing more than a cheep ploy to micromanage the American's spending habits. The government doesn't need to tell me how to spend my dollars. It needs to quit taking my dollars so I can spend them on what I see fit to buy. Just my two cents. Good article by the way.

Pelosi is on another fishing expedition.... tryting to say something popular in order to boost her popluarity and indicate that she might know something about anything. Remember, this is the same woman who told us Catholics have been unsure about their position on abortion for centuries. Like Dodd, Franks, and Reid, she is merely out for herself and hasen't a clue.

Our new President should take her to the side and tell her in so many words to shut up She is either with the program or against it-- Education teaches policy starts at the top- not with lietenents RG

B Scott...I concur, BRILLIANT IDEA!!!

I think as long as the Democrats spend, spend, spend; in the words of Barney Franks. We will certainly be taxed, taxed, taxed; also in the words of Barney Franks. Nothing will be fixed except that large corporations and prominent people like Saint Warren will have tax dollars to work with instead of their own capital. What a sweet deal huh? America wake up and enjoy your screwing.

If America had mandatory drug testing for politicians,people like Pelosi, Reid and Franks,might never have got sworn into office,I think mandatory drug testing for all politicians is the answer.

Republicans should be absolutely elated that Nancy Pelosi thinks that a bail out of a company once great is dead in the water with it's only hope of recovering is based on the Volt a car that goes 40 miles on a charge and will cost upwards of $35,000. This type of policy will be just the thing to make Americans crazy and if President elect goes along with this proposal the honeymoon is over. Change we can believe in is the same old answer. Let the markets work themselves out, Republicans might have it right and but they were bullied out of probably what made the most economic sense. The capitalist system is designed to correct itself. A whole new industry is about to unfurl that is an automobile that is electric/Hydrogen powered and no longer a gas combustion engine, making the preexisting factories of GM, Ford, Chrysler, etc obsolite. What are you going to save President elect Obama's promise was a promise to look forward but folks like Nancy Pelosi apparently clings to the old ways of addressing problems faced by large American companies. The list of faltering companies is unfortunately going to grow. What in God's name is she thinking about can't someone take a deep breath and allow the economy to do what it needs to do. Government intervention at this point doesn't make much sense.

" Comment by Dave Nov 6th, 2008 at 6:20 pm It doesn’t matter how much tax credit the government gives to buy a car or truck. Unless financing is available sales will be very slow. The economy will not recover until business credit to all size businesses is again available." The problem is not that there is too little credit available, the problem is that there are two few potential customers available that are credit-worthy. No subsidies, gimmicks, rebates, stimuluses, Fed gushing, or other artifices will really change that.