I like to help my children with their homework, whenever I have time. (And since January, I've had more time.) It's great to help them -- I know all the answers, and I never have to take the exams.
Last night, we tried something different. They helped me with my homework. A math problem:
"We are spending $159,000,000,000.00 on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. If we ended the wars, brought the troops home, took that money, and created decent jobs paying $30,000 apiece in the United States, then how many jobs would we create?"
Skye, the 16-year-old, took out her phone, clicked on the calculator app, and gave the answer:
"5,300,000 jobs."
Correct.
I asked the 12-year-old, Star, and the 10-year-old, Sage. Both gave me the right answer:
"5,300,000 jobs."
Then I asked the 6-year-old twins, Storm and Stone. Storm said "thirty hundred and five." Stone agreed.
OK, so we have a jobs program that a 10-year-old can understand. But, admittedly, not a six-year-old.
And what would that jobs program do to the unemployment rate? The math is a little more complicated, but the answer is that it would drop the unemployment rate from 9 percent to 5.5 percent. Immediately.
It's actually better than that, because money that is spent hiring Americans, in America, then circulates in America. Economists tell us that every new job like that creates as many as five other jobs -- the employee then pays his rent, the landlord then goes to the restaurant, the waiter then gets his hair cut, and so on. Unemployment, goodbye.
As opposed to spending our money in Iraq, on Iraq. Have you ever been in the desert when it rains? The water runs through the sand so fast that 15 minutes after the rain is over, it's as though it never rained at all.
That's what happens to our tax dollars spent in Iraq. The term "bottomless pit" is an understatement.
And what would all those employees do? Well, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky has figured that out. She has introduced a bill to hire 2.2 million people, and her bill breaks down this way:
Or, alternatively, we can have all those millions of people, our fellow Americans, do nothing all day, as they lose their jobs, lose their homes, and slide slowly into poverty and bankruptcy.
And I'll tell you one thing for sure: more corporate welfare will not create jobs. In the past ten years, we have crammed trillions of dollars into the pockets of Big Business, through bailouts, tax breaks, subsidies, no-bid government contracts, grants, cheap mining and drilling licenses, etc., etc. Do you know how many jobs in America the private sector has created during that time?
Zero.
Actually, less than zero. There are around one million fewer private sector jobs today than there were ten years ago.
We keep handing our money over to the rich, in the vain hope that they will give some of it back. That hasn't worked, and it won't work.
So which do you prefer: war or jobs -- jobs for all Americans? I want jobs.
We want jobs. Jobs, health and peace.
Courage,
Alan Grayson
Follow Alan Grayson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/alangrayson
174 Fans
Become a fan
.
1 hour ago (5:11 PM)
First, I'll acknowledge that those meany, greedy corporations do what their owners (shareholders...possibly you if you own an equity mutual fund) want them to do: maximize profits. If they thought they could make more profit repatriating jobs that cost more but would increase sales, they'd do it. They're not...
“Presently, our economy is in a low-level Nash equilibrium where consumers are reluctant to spend because corporations are reluctant to hire; while corporations are reluctant to hire because consumers are reluctant to spend. Unfortunately, simply offering consumers some tax relief, or trying to create hiring incentives in a vacuum, will not change this equilibrium because it does not address the underlying problem. Consumers are reluctant to spend because they continue to be overburdened by debt, with a significant proportion of mortgages underwater, fiscal policy that leans toward austerity, and monetary policy that distorts financial markets in a way that encourages further misallocation of capital while at the same time starving savers of any interest earnings at all.
We can't simply shift to a high-level equilibrium (consumers spend because employers hire, employers hire because consumers spend) until the balance sheet problem is addressed. This requires debt restructuring and mortgage restructuring.
That help?
Nice plagerism there chief http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=21147 trying to pass this off as your own words.
Graphs matter. Numbers matter. Facts matter. Rhetoric is important, but its probably not going to expand the economy, which is what most people want.
That said, we should still do it. I'd predict something more along the lines of a 0.5-1% drop in unemployment, but that is a worthwhile goal.
Please run again !!!!
I live out of your state but I will support you.
Those 200+ useless bases are on land, much of it prime real estate. We could make a nice pile of cash selling it. Cause WWII is over and we don't need 200+ bases in Germany to stop WWIII.
Same goes for the 100+ bases left over in Japan. But more so for the profit from selling it as Japan has the most expensive real estate in the world.
Then there are the over 200 overseas golf courses maintained by the pentagon. Selling them will, again, make a lot of money and not hurt our defensive readiness one bit. As well as save us the maintenence costs in the future.
Military bases and resorts in countries that are no threat to us are the kinds of Government assets that are perfect for selling off in tight times because they give us money now and dumping them *saves* rather than costs, future money. Part of the Clinton surplus came from quietly starting to shut down these WOMBATS ( wastes of money, brains, and time ).
And why is it our job to "support" nasty mean dictators over there? The arab spring is tossing down our puppets and you want to what, stomp those people down and install new ones?
I don't think America owns the land; I'm pretty sure you only lease it from the German and Japanese governments. You'll just have to return it to them when you leave.
Oh, you don't have a plan for that. I bet even your kids can see that plan would be DOA.