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Article:

A 'Lost Decade' For U.S. Growth?
Ibd December 1, 2009

"From 2009 through 2012, we will add as much to the nation's debts as we did in the first 234 years of America's existence.

As a recent report from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation notes, just to close this year's expected deficit would require a tripling of tax rates for all taxpayers.

That's right: triple. Today, joint filers face tax rates that range from 10% to 35% of their income. To eliminate the deficit, the tax rates would have to soar to a range of 27.2% to 95.2%.

Some -- like economist Paul Krugman -- say the answer is still more stimulus spending, which would revive the economy, boost government revenues and thereby shrink the deficits. But this has been tried -- and it failed spectacularly.

PeakTrader: How to create a 2.5% real contraction in GDP in 2009:

Spend $787 billion on a stimulus bill that's too slow, $410 billion for an omnibus bill (or pork bill), cash-for-clunkers (destroying assets), cap and trade (raising energy costs), CAFE standards (raising costs), attempting to spend $1 trillion reforming health care (some believe the real cost is over $3 trillion), and basically throw money around at every problem, including low income children, education, wars, etc.

The best outcome will likely be a slow growth recovery, after a deep recession, while taxes eventually rise (regardless of household debt) to maintain the higher level of government spending.

Article: Obamanomics: $1 trillion in lost wages

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/5086

PeakTrader: Government has spent the future. All that's left is to collect the bill.

Another Article:

Congress wants to create more jobs (adding to the government jobs it already created):

Small Traders Fear a Transaction Tax Would Wipe Them Out
By Alain Sherter | Dec 4, 2009

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., on Thursday introduced legislation that would apply a “small” tax on trading in stocks, bonds and other securities. Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin plans to introduce a similar measure in the Senate next week.

DeFazio claims the transaction tax would raise roughly $150 billion in federal revenues. He would put half that money in a fund aimed at creating good-paying jobs.

Methinks:

Small Traders Fear a Transaction Tax Would Wipe Them Out

Market makers don't make 25 basis points per trade. Most markets are a penny wide. The margins are razor thin and a 25 bps tax will immediately make market making losing business. They'll quit.

If this tax comes to pass, liquidity and tight spreads will be a thing of the past in the United States. No way in hell will they collect $150BB from transactions because the number of transactions will drop like a rock. Meanwhile, good market makers will simply go to Hang Seng or some other exchange not ruled by idiots.

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Debate: 40% of Americans Pay No Tax

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=28997633&postID=7241632317369792395

PeakTrader: Obama is taking credit for preventing a deep depression. However, the Fed's quantitative easing and TARP, under Bush, likely put a floor on the downturn. I think, all Obama has done is burn money to mostly spin the economy's wheels.

Consequently, the U.S. will be a much weaker engine of economic growth, pulling the rest of the world's economies, for at least a decade.

Bushisms

"In terms of the economy, look, I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession."

"So I analyzed that and decided I didn't want to be the president during a depression greater than the Great Depression, or the beginning of a depression greater than the Great Depression."

"I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system."

"We're fixing to go down to Galveston and obviously are going to see a devastated part of this fantastic state."

"I think it was in the Rose Garden where I issued this brilliant statement: If I had a magic wand -- but the president doesn't have a magic wand. You just can't say, 'low gas.'"

"The economy is growing, productivity is high, trade is up, people are working. It's not as good as we'd like, but -- and to the extent that we find weakness, we'll move."

"I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office."

"And so the fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there's jobs at the machine-making place."