We've heard plenty this year about "job creators" and why we shouldn't "punish" them. But really, who are these "job creators"? What's the engine that gets this economy moving?
Seattle based venture capitalist Nick Hanauer provides a surprising answer. He says we've had it all wrong in the past three decades. If we really want to boost "job creators", then we must look beyond Wall Street and take a closer look at Main Street.
"This idea is a way of completely misunderstanding how economies truly work," Hanauer said on The Last Word Monday. "The people who create jobs is the middle class. When a middle class consumer buys something from a company, that is what creates jobs. And that's why it doesn't matter very much if rich people pay higher rates of tax, because the true engine of job creation is a thriving middle class."
"A businessperson calling themselves a job creator is like a school claiming to have created evolution," Hanauer added. "It's just not true."
The notion that the rich are "job creators" is at the core of Mitt Romney's economic platform. Like the rest of his party, Romney opposes raising taxes even on the richest 2 percent of Americans, arguing that doing so would stymie job growth.
Think about it. Who buys the bulk of the shiny new electronic gadgets at Fry's? Who buys most of the groceries at Trader Joe's? Who does most of the stocking up at yet another Macy's summer sale? We do! The middle class truly is the engine that drives our economy. We buy most of the consumer goods and services, and that's what fuels job growth.
And in case that wasn't convincing enough for you, Desert Beacon has more facts and figures showing how "trickle down economics" fail to fuel job growth. Since middle class families are the biggest chunk of the population and make most of the consumer purchases, then it makes the most sense to ensure they have money to spend. They need the tax cuts. The super rich don't.
Really, one need not look further than Mitt Romney to see why this doesn't work. Despite all the tax breaks he gets, he's been busy destroying American jobs and hiding his money in offshore bank accounts. If that isn't enough evidence to prove that we've had it all wrong on "job creators", then I don't know what is.
Ummm... How exactly is "Obama destroying the economy"? By ending the Iraq War that Dan Schwartz's G-O-TEA buddies so enthusiastically supported (diverting money that otherwise could have gone toward creating jobs here)?
By making health care more affordable and more accessible to more Americans (which the G-O-TEA still fights tooth and nail)?
By fighting to ensure middle class Americans get a tax cut (that the G-O-TEA nearly killed)?
What am I missing here? Oh yes, Obama's actual record of saving our economy versus this steaming pile of stupid. Oh, and I eagerly await Dan Schwartz and Barbara Cegavske to tell us whether they support their fellow G-O-TEA-nuts Dean Heller and Joe Heck in torpedoing our economic recovery and forcing more pain & suffering on middle class families, all in the name of "austerity".
Earlier this month, Joe Heck slipped this piece of legislation into THOMAS. It's called the "Restoring America's Faith and Trust Act", and it sounds as "American as apple pie!" I mean, come on, who doesn't like "Restoring America's Faith and Trust"?
Yet beneath that "All American" veneer, we discover something quite frightening. But before we take a closer look at Heck's bill, let's remember something Desert Beacon stated last week. This will really come in handy.
We are currently involved in two military operations, only one of which looks to be winding down in real time. These are expensive now in terms of operational expenses, and will continue to add costs as veterans return and we incur expenses for their medical, educational, and economic needs. Broadcast media reporting generally informs us about the strategy, end-game options, and operations in the field, but rarely explores how much this might be costing us on an annual basis, much less what the total expenses might be in the long run.
We have a tax structure that rewards non-work, i.e. the accumulation of capital gains, taxed at 15% and penalizes real work by taxing it at a higher rate, 35%. The lowest the top bracket has ever been came during the 1988 and 1989 tax years (28%), to be increased to 31% in 1990. It has stood at 35% since 2003. Again, broadcast media lets us know that we are “taxed to death” but rarely provides any historical context or economic analysis. The present system rewards those who play the Wall Street Casino games by taxing their income at 15% while those engaged in what most people would call “work” in the higher paid professions are paying 35%. The broadcast media has also been remiss in not providing the context of tax payments — we are paying the lowest actual taxes since Eisenhower was in the Oval Office.
This is the real heart of the current "debt/deficit 'crisis'". Because the economy is still shaky, the military had been overextended when George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq just a year after starting the Afghanistan war, and Bush actually CUT taxes on the super-rich instead of raising taxes to pay for the wars, we now face this huge budget deficit. Long before teabaggers supposedly started fretting about deficits and debt, their future Republican BFFs in Congress were regularly maxing out the nation's credit card when they refused to raise taxes (or cut spending) to pay for what they wanted.
So is this what Joe Heck's bill addresses? Nope, far from it! Nowhere in Heck's "Restoring America's Faith and Trust Act" does it address the Bush tax rates, war spending, or economic health. Instead, Heck wants to slash federal investment in our people to 2006 levels and fire more public sector workers! Even though we have more miltary veterans in need of VA care, college students in need of Pell Grants, working poor families in need of Medicaid and food stamps, retirees in need of Medicare and Social Security, and unemployed workers in need of unemployment insurance, Heck refuses to acqknowledge this reality and instead has introduced this bill that would plunge our economy into double-dip recession if enacted!
If we were to slash all these programs and more, we would all pay the price of further suffering. Without unemployment insurance, those without work can't survive. Same goes for seniors on Medicare, working poor families on food stamps and Medicaid, students with Pell Grants, and veterans using VA assistance. If they can't even buy food and basic supplies, let alone purchase anything else, our economy would take a massive hit. Oh, and in the longer term the budget deficit would only worsen as tax revenue plunges because of even more people losing their jobs.
So why is Joe Heck doing this? Why does he want to risk torpedoing our economy into another (and potentially worse) recession? Well, why not ask him? He has to hear from us that the economy can't handle any more petty political games. The deficit that Americans are worrying about the most is the JOBS deficit, and Heck's "bitter pill" that he wants us to swallow would only hurt us more.
That's really the reaction I had after first seeing this.
A large group of Senate Republicans unveiled a jobs bill Thursday, saying they were tired of hearing President Obama assert they had not put forward a plan to spur hiring and jump-start the economy.
The bill is something of a greatest hits of Republican economic proposals. It calls for tax reform that lowers tax rates, repeal of the new healthcare law, a balance budget amendment to the Constitution and expansion of offshore oil drilling.
Seriously? Seriously? Where do I even begin? Perhaps with a quick debunk from Greg Sargent?
The Associated Press recently did a bracing fact check and concluded that Labor Department data show that under Obama, just two-tenths of 1 percent of layoffs have been due to government regulation. McClatchy recently canvassed small businesses across the country and found little evidence that it’s a factor.
And Bruce Bartlett, a top policy adviser in the administrations of Reagan and the elder Bush, recently concluded that worry about regulatory uncertainty “is a canard invented by Republicans” and “not a serious effort to deal with high unemployment.” Bartlett argued that the focus on regulation is rooted in the GOP’s lack of any real ideas to create jobs.
So for all the G-O-TEA talk of "SOE-SHUL-IZM!!!!" destroying any and every job in sight, the facts say otherwise. Actually, government regulation is needed to prevent a market economy from falling apart on its own... As it nearly did in 2008 after the first wave of financial industry turmoil.
And are Republicans serious about using the old Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) trick again? Seriously? Not even Paul Ryan's teabagger fantasy of a budget would be legal under it! No fewer than five Nobel Prize winning economists have begged Congress not to pass it and risk sending America into an even worse recession! The BBA game is really getting old and tiresome. We all know it won't pass, and we all know it would harm, not help, the fragile economy in need of more investment if passed.
And really, another cry for "Drill, Baby, Drill!!!"? What on earth are they thinking?! Desert Beacon explained quite well on Tuesday that future prospects for more and better job creation lie with small and mid-sized renewable energy firms, not with big, fat cat fossil fuel corporations that have misused current subsidies from us the taxpayers for far too long.
“…start-ups across a variety of areas — solar power, biofuels and energy conservation among them — are getting increased financing from venture capitalists and lenders at a time when other small companies are cutting back and being turned away by investors. And many are hiring more staff, boosting marketing efforts and expanding geographically.
Alternative energy “has been the brightest sector in venture capital over the last year,” says Brian Fan, research director at Cleantech Group, an industry trade organization in San Francisco. “Everyone is thinking it’s going to be a big priority of the incoming administration.”
While the overall volume of venture-capital deals sank last year, investments in clean-technology companies totaled $8.4 billion, up nearly 40% from 2007, according to Cleantech Group. In the third quarter alone, venture capitalists poured $2.6 billion into clean technology, a quarterly record. In the fourth quarter, they invested $1.7 billion.]
So what exactly is this "new" "jobs bill" from Senate Republicans held captive by the "tea party" fringe? Well, it just sounds to me like the same old s--t we're used to hearing from them. It's just presented in a "new" shiny package in hopes of distracting us from the increasingly popular American Jobs Act that Senate Republicans voted to kill this week.
Two-to-one. That's the margin by which Americans are united behind the president's ideas to create jobs - and specifically, to the progressive economic policies. While in last night's debate, Republican candidates did their best to groan and moan and whine that increasing taxes on the rich is a bad idea and we should instead abandon our social compacts, they are demonstrably fighting for the votes of the 30 percent. President Obama and his team has only turned up the heat on the Republican members of Congress, forcing them to choose between a political gamble to intentionally undermine the economy in the hopes that it would hurt the president in 2012 and actually doing something about jobs now.
So why again is anyone taking as "serious" any of the same old lame excuses for "ideas" coming out of the G-O-TEA? When will they agree to any sort of jobs bill that will... You know, create jobs?
Apparently, professional radical right whiners are not happy when the truth is told about Joe Heck and what he's doing in Washington. Apparently I'm "embarrassing myself daily for the entire world to watch".
Wait, so telling the truth is now "embarrassing"? Lordy, someone needs to call the WHAAAAAA-MBULENCE!
They're even taking the crybaby act to the local teabagger propaganda rag "newspaper" to whine about "big, bad, unemployed people stalking!!!" poor little rich Joe Heck. OK, so maybe Heck's feelings are hurt when he sits in his hilltop McMansion and staffers notify him of constituents saying not-so-nice things about him.
Well, guess what? Those "big, bad, unemployed people" have lost their jobs, are losing their (far more modest) homes, and are worried about how they'll put food on the family table in the next week. Nevadans are suffering, yet all Heck and his Republican colleagues in Congress want to do is lie about consumer safeguards...
Politicians and business groups often blame excessive regulation and fear of higher taxes for tepid hiring in the economy. However, little evidence of that emerged when McClatchy canvassed a random sample of small business owners across the nation. [...]
McClatchy reached out to owners of small businesses, many of them mom-and-pop operations, to find out whether they indeed were being choked by regulation, whether uncertainty over taxes affected their hiring plans and whether the health care overhaul was helping or hurting their business.
Their response was surprising.
None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it. Some pointed to the lack of regulation in mortgage lending as a principal cause of the financial crisis that brought about the Great Recession of 2007-09 and its grim aftermath.
On Saturday night, aided by "a nice pinot noir," the tech and business-of-news writer Jeff Jarvis started to tweet.
"Hey, Washington assholes," he wrote, "it's our country, our economy, our money. Stop fucking with it."
He started rolling. Inspiration struck. "Can we start a Twitter chant: FUCK YOU, WASHINGTON! Pass it on." He willed the chant into existence.
Eventually, another tweeter set Jarvis straight and crafted this into a hashtag. We could see where this was going. Jarvis, one of the smartest promoters and meme-catchers out there, cultivated and curated a wave of angry tweets, retweeting the best ones, eventually harshing on the censorship that stopped his Howard Beale hashtag from trending. Most of the tweets came from liberals angry at the debt impasse. A small sample:
@mcullen546: #FuckYouWashington for calling programs that we pay for entitlements
@mwynn: We see through your public pension theft conspiracy so #fuckyouwashington
@Mr_Pettapucci #fuckyouwashington or letting corporations steal our natural resources and sell them back to the people for profit.
@rogldr5 #fuckyouwashington for all this posturing to assure your reelection.
@bguthro: #FuckYouWashington for playing russian roulette with the world's economic stability
The [British] business secretary, Vince Cable, broke the unwritten rule of non-intervention in other countries' domestic disputes on Sunday by describing diehard Republicans as "nutters".
Cable, appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr show, said: "The irony of the situation at the moment, with markets opening tomorrow morning, is that the biggest threat to the world financial system comes from a few rightwing nutters in the American Congress rather than the eurozone."
Until now, market traders had appeared confident that agreement would eventually be reached but US legislators fear that, following the collapse of talks on Friday, there could be the first signs of panic when Wall Street opens on Monday as well as other markets round the world.
And why are Congressional Republicans refusing to Harry Reid's most recent offer that gives them exactly the amount of cuts they've been demanding?
What Harry Reid did yesterday was essentially call the GOP’s bluff by outlining a plan that raises the debt ceiling by $2.7 trillion and includes $2.7 trillion in spending cuts, a healthy share of which comes from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Second, while Reid’s plan doesn’t raise taxes, it also doesn’t take tax increases off the table. Currently, the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire in 2012. If Reid’s all-cuts plan passes, that still leaves the door open to significant revenue increases. Now that doesn’t mean this is brilliant 11-dimensional chess. The Reid Plan is consistent with substantial revenues coming online in 2012, but that will only happen if President Obama and Senate Democrats stand firm and play hardball on the tax issue. Back in December 2010, they utterly failed to do so.
Oh, that's right. This would cut military spending and withdraw our troops from wars we need not fight. We just couldn't possibly do that, not when we can instead threaten Granny's Social Security and Medicare, cut my student financial aid, and really do little, if anything at all, about the deficit. Damn that Harry Reid and his fiscal smarts!
So why are we even here? Why are we edging closer and closer toward complete economic ruin? Why are Republican leaders so willing to flirt with committing the ultimate economic murder-suicide on the entire world (Note: linked article is in French)?
Why are we here? Why are we on the brink of economic collapse? Why are we on the verge of crashing the global economy along with our own? And why can't we agree on any sort of sensible solution to this uniquely political problem?
This is the unfortunate reality. Common sense macroeconomics would lead us to recognize we need more public sector investment to stimulate economic growth and job creation. However House Republican leaders refuse to recognize common sense macroeconomics, and House & Senate Democratic leaders worry over the effects of a protracted debt fight that would lead to debt default. So how do we want our pain? Do we want a little hurt or a lot? Do we want to counteract past stimulus efforts, or do we just want to blow up the entire world economy?
This is the madness our federal government has descended into. So what can we do about it? Well, maybe we need to think twice about just "throwing the bums out", and think more about why we really need people in Congress who are willing to look at "the big picture" and pass smart policy.
Last week, Reno News & Review had an interesting article on Nevada experiencing more of the dangerous effects of climate change without us previously realizing it.
A string of tornados. Major international floods. Record-breaking wildfires across the Southwest. And—far less destructive but more noticeable to Northern Nevada residents—a freakishly wet and chilly May, making it the spring that never was. It’s left many to scratch their heads and say, “Maybe there’s something to this climate change thing.” If climate change were happening in Nevada, what would it look like, and are we seeing it now?
To the second question, the Desert Research Institute’s Dr. Kelly Redmond, says, “Yes, I think we probably are.” Redmond is deputy director of the Western Regional Climate Center. He compares recognizing climate change to noticing signs of aging. Every once in awhile, we have some episode—we discover we can’t party as hard as we used to, or we have a wrinkle, a gray hair, an illness—and we realize that while we don’t see it every day, we are undoubtedly aging. We don’t notice global warming every day, either, but a vast amount of data shows the Earth is warming, and the effects of it are both subtle and blunt. Sometimes climate change looks like a raging wildfire, sometimes like a butterfly where it never was before. [...]
Redmond says everybody should be skeptical of data by itself. When he first saw temperatures on research thermometers rising, he thought something was wrong with the thermometers. But even with new thermometers and placement of them, evidence of warming remained. He’s also seen evidence of snowmelt occurring one to three weeks earlier than it did 50 years ago. Lilacs and honeysuckles are blooming earlier. The biggest fires in the history of the Western U.S. have been in the past 10 years. Pine beetles in Canada, previously kept in check by cold snaps, have jumped the continental divide and are headed down the East coast. Chipmunks, mice and voles have moved up in elevation from where they lived 100 years ago. Most butterflies are also slowly moving north.
“All these bits and pieces of evidence, all these compasses, are basically pointing in the same direction. Maybe one or two of the compasses are broken. But if they’re all pointing in the same direction, you pay attention. This is very much like solving a crime. There’s a standard of proof in criminology, and we should have some kind of standard of proof in our head for when we decide to believe something or not. And then, are you willing to change your mind based on the evidence you see? I think most people’s minds can be changed by what they see. If we listen to what the world’s telling us, we’ll get it. The question is, will we get it fast enough?”
It's becoming increasingly difficult to deny the sobering reality of the coming climate crisis... Except apparently if one wants the endorsement of the Nevada Republican Party. If we're to accept the "energy policy" prescriptions coming from the Republicans (including Nevada Republican Party endorsed candidate, Mark Amodei) running in Nevada's 2nd Congressional District, we may actually never get it! Go ahead and listen for yourself as they refuse to even acknowledge the realities of climate change and deride "green energy" as "not responsible".
[...] The candidates differed in no appreciable way on issues. They predictably answered litmus questions from the party faithful on the gamut of right wing nut job topics, but I found their comments on “Green Energy” the most telling. Here is the exact question: “It is often touted that Nevada is the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy. Address the cost to the consumer and reconcile the political versus that cost.” What’s not well hidden in this poorly worded question is an inherent denial of human caused climate change. There is no reason to develop more expensive renewable energy if climate change is a myth concocted by left wing scientists. We want the cheapest energy source possible to be most economically competitive. Corporations can be trusted to not grossly pollute for profit, can’t they? [...]
If the scientific realty of human caused climate change is not front and center when setting energy policy and priorities, these are not the people we should be sending to Washington, at least to represent me. From their “green energy” responses we do not know how the candidates stand on climate change, but apparently these fellows need to pander to flat earth Nevada Republicans who are still in a tizzy President Obama was not actually born in this country. All three candidates seem to value science if it makes money or war, but not when science points out pollution and environmental destruction on a global scale.
Clearly Mark Amodei, Kirk Lippold, and Greg Brower don't want to recognize real science. So instead, they run to the hocus pocus "magic" of dirty coal, oil, nuclear, and the rest of the failed fossil fuel industry. Lovely.
Retailers said Thursday that store sales rose in February by the largest amount since November 2007. And orders to U.S. factories in January posted their sharpest rise in four months. It was another sign that manufacturing is helping drive the economic recovery.
The upbeat reports followed other encouraging signs this week: The service sector grew last month at its fastest pace in more than two years, according to a private survey of purchasing executives released Wednesday. And a similar survey on Monday found that manufacturers are also growing.
"We're going from a narrow recovery" led by manufacturing "to something much broader," said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight.
The American economy lost fewer jobs than expected last month and the unemployment rate remained steady at 9.7 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday, bolstering hopes that a still-tenuous recovery may be starting to gain momentum.
The government’s monthly snapshot of the job market found that another 36,000 jobs disappeared in February — hardly cause for a celebration.
Yet compared to the monthly losses of more than 650,000 jobs a year ago, and against a backdrop of recent news that increased the possibility of a slide back into recession, most economists construed the report as a sign of improvement.
“It’s strikingly good,” said Dean Baker, a director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, who has been notably skeptical of signs of recovery in recent months. “It’s much better than it had been looking.”
Some economists suggested that the report would look even better were it not for heavy snowstorms that blanketed major cities in February, keeping would-be job seekers at home. Most experts now expect losses in the job market will give way to gains during the spring, as still cautious American employers edge gingerly back toward hiring.
“We’re still losing jobs in the economy, but it’s down to a trickle,” said Stuart G. Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh. “We’re finally going to reach the turning point where we go from job losses to job gains.”
I get it. You get it. All of us with functioning brains get it. It's horrible to see any more job losses. I have friends who are unemployed, and I can tell you that it really sucks to see them struggle.
However compared to last year's and 2008's massive job losses, the overall jobs picture is looking much better. But of course, when Harry Reid tries to say this Republicans jump all over him. And of course, Shermie has to make a snide remark about it. Whatever.
Now I don't expect GOP operatives to be all that interested in the details of economic data and economic policy. That's not their job. However, I do have to say something when they twist the facts and twist Harry Reid's words to make him sound like someone he's not.
But then again, when have we ever expected better from them? They're actually still trying to make us believe Karl Rove's lies.
What is it about Mr. ELV's blog that always gets me thinking? Today, he talked about how he hasn't gone out for dinner in five days. I can see how this is shocking news for a restaurant critic, but this is pretty much my ordinary life. And worse yet, I know people who haven't gone out to eat in months!
Sometimes, it really sucks when I plan weeks ahead for a glorious night out with someone special... Only for it to be taken away when the someone special is hurt and in a wheelchair and/or a friend calls to borrow money from me because the bank screwed with his account. It really sucks that I can't eat out that often these days because I may be only one broken leg or one broken window away from financial ruin. And yes, it really sucks when my next great vacation full of culinary bliss is always at risk of vanishing away if I ever lose the roommate at the house or my dad needs money to pay for my grandmother's next trip to the hospital.
Let's face it, this rotten economy is ruining a good night out for all of us. So what do we do?
Fortunately, I still enjoy the privilege of eating out at restaurants about once or twice a week. The rest of the time, I've been eating in. Yes, I'm learning to cook more and more... And I don't feel sad or frustrated about it.
Last weekend, my dad was pretty wowed when I turned his beloved “eggs & potatoes” (yes, he really isn’t into “fancy food” like I am) into a breakfast frittata that had his taste buds singing. Let’s see, I also think my “Mexitalianese” stir fry with extra firm tofu strips, shredded carrots, sundried tomatoes, and Parmigiano Reggiano for dinner recently was another winner. I just can’t wait until tomorrow when I’ll have time to make my signature gnocchi dish (with crimini mushrooms, shittake mushrooms, and Manchego cream sauce) for dinner!
Maybe I’m weird, but I feel most comfortable when I’m in my home kitchen. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy eating out. I guess I just feel like I’ve accomplished something truly meaningful when I eat something that I cooked myself from scratch or near-scratch.
Perhaps this is looking on the bright side of the recession, but I feel glad in a way that I do more of my own cooking these days. And maybe by cutting out so much driving and by using "local" (or as close as we can get to it in Vegas) and organic ingredients in my own home cooking, I'm doing my part to reduce my carbon footprint and help save the planet. Ironically, living green also saves serious "green".
Yes, I guess I have channeled my inner "no really, she's for real housewife!" and I don't feel bad about it at all. ;-)
Yep, Joel Stein feels a little sorry for us... OK, he really doesn't. But still, the latest Time cover story on Las Vegas isn't too flattering. But hey, I can't help it. I still have hope we'll turn the corner.
I hardly ever agree with Sheldon Adelson on anything, but I hope (to a certain extent) he's right when he says:
"There's no way this world will change. There's no way people are going to stop doing things they want to do ... People aren't going to say, 'I'm going to see Old Faithful or the redwoods instead of taking a trip to Vegas. Or I'll go to Cape Cod with a book.' I don't think they're going to do that. I used to fish. I don't want to go back," he says. "That's the nature of people. It's like the old song, How you going to keep them down on the farm once they've been to gay Paris?"
Hey, a lot of people have lost money in the past when betting against Vegas. Let's hope this old adage holds true.
I'm about to step out the door to see a movie. But before I do, I want to share with you something I just read in today's Sun about the casinos. They asked three retired casino executives about what went wrong in recent years, and what may be done now to get back on track. I don't know if I completely agree with what they say, but it's certainly interesting to see how we got where we are now.
I must say it's been interesting seeing "what happens in Vegas" in the last month. However, I don't really get this.
Are California’s lawmakers pigs?
A new video campaign designed to draw businesses unhappy with California to relocate to Southern Nevada portrays lawmakers as morphing into pigs.
It is being launched by Nevada Development Authority, which has tried other ad campaigns in the past with the same goal, but not featuring the actions of the California Legislature.
The NDA says it’s sure many California businesses are considering relocation due to the state's current troubles.
The campaign stresses that business owners pay no corporate or personal income tax in Nevada and have much lower workers' compensation rates.
According to The Las Vegas Sun, our local ABC station (KABC 7) has already refused to run any of the Nevada Development Authority ads. (Btw, The Sun also has all the ad videos should you want to watch them.) I wouldn't be surprised if more California stations also turn down these ads. While it may be a great PR stunt to lure businesses from one troubled state to another, it does both a great disservice.
Why? It continues to push the false meme of "overtaxed businesses needing to flee California". It's offensive enough for the NDA to call California lawmakers "pigs" and "monkeys", but I'm even further offended by their lack of knowledge on the real reasons why the state is failing. All they had to do was read here or Calitics to see that corporate tax loopholes, property tax laws that favor big corporations, 2/3 budget rules, and other fiscal deforms are the culprits bringing the state down! Trust me. I just moved here from California, so I know what's really wrong with the state.
And frankly, they're not doing Nevada a favor, either. Yes, I said it. Nevada is also victim to a failed tax structure that depends on regressive sales taxes (especially in times like these with casino revenue down) as the big corporations enjoy even more tax loopholes and the mining industry pays virtually no taxes! Nevada has suffered massive budget woes this year, so it baffles me why the state development agency would want to continue on this failed path by begging businesses to come here and perpetuate what's throwing us into fiscal chaos.
So kiss my assets goodbye? Nope, more like I'd rather not kiss a fool by buying into this unsustainable model of "no bidness taxes". It doesn't work in California and it doesn't work in Nevada, and both states really need to rethink their fiscal thinking.
Wow. Harry Reid just gave me another sweet surprise. Let's hope he can get this good program extended so more working families can afford to buy that first home... And stimulate our economy a little more.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today he expects Congress by year’s end to extend the $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers.
The program was launched as part of the economic recovery act, and is set to expire Dec. 1. Those eligible are first-time homebuyers in primary residences.
Reid said the program has support from both Democrats and Republicans, and continuing it would be on the agenda before Congress adjourns in December.
“We are going to extend that,” Reid said during a conference call with Nevada reporters.
“It’s something we can get done,” he said. “We have to do it by the end of the year.”
The sharp downturn in home sales, especially in hard hit Nevada, has continued to be a drag on the economy. Home buying is one of the best ways to stimulate economic activity, as new homeowners seek other goods and services, he said.
Sorry, but he doesn't. Yes, he runs two beautiful casinos on The Strip. Yes, I love to visit them, gamble in them, and dine at the wonderful restaurants in them. Yes, Wynn runs a very LGBT-friendly company and I thank him for that. However, he just doesn't get what's going on in Washington.
Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn today used the forum of a telephone conference call about his company's quarterly finances to criticize President Obama.
Critical of the current presidential administration for months, Wynn, chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, voiced more criticism today in a conference call to investors, analysts and reporters.
“Right now we are more afraid of Washington than we are of the economy. We’ve got people on our backs saying don’t go to Las Vegas which is preposterous,” Wynn said. “People are beginning to ignore some of this bombastic rhetoric from the White House and that’s encouraging.” [...]
“We’ve got the government on our back. Not just Las Vegas but all business. There’s a very definite bias in this administration that business is bad,” Wynn said. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take for them to get over this but it’s awful.” [...]
“In America, we have a government that has decided anybody who creates jobs must be bad; that the job creators must have a target on their back. What a remarkable misunderstanding,” Wynn said. “That’s not the case in Macau and it’s not the case in The People’s Republic of China and maybe we can all learn a lesson on what happens there.”
Wynn was also critical of President Obama’s health care proposal, calling the plan a “train wreck.”
Excuse me, but... HUH??!! First off, need we still talk about President Obama's critique of Wall Street bailouts gone amok from last February? That speech was NOT saying "don't go to Las Vegas", but rather telling corporate executives to stop wasting our tax dollars on their pleasure trips to wherever! I'm sorry, but I'd rather have my tax money be spent on our health care and our economic recovery than giving some stupid, overpaid MBA jocks "play money" to waste at The Palazzo.
And really, does Steve Wynn want to be US President? What are his ideas for tackling corporate corruption (which was what that Obama speech was really about) or getting health care reform passed?
Now don't get me wrong, President Obama has irritated me at times for being overly conciliatory with Republicans and "Blue Dog" Democrats(?) and allowing Wall Street to continue pillaging our Treasury as they whine about how we can't "afford health care". However, I'd still take him any day over someone who messes with card dealers' tips while claiming that he can't afford to pay them all fair wages.
I really don't know if Steve Wynn is deliberately trying to mislead people or if he's so distraught over his new divorce from Elaine that he can't think clearly. Whatever it is, he needs to think twice before putting his foot in his mouth (again!). I really wish Wynn can focus on what he does best, which is running fine Vegas casinos, because he obviously doesn't know much about politics.
That is, Station is going bankrupt. However, they insist it will only be "reorganization" and it won't affect employees or gamblers.
Station officials today said the company's casino operating subsidiaries did not file for bankruptcy and that the company will continue normal operations at all of its properties under the direction of its existing management. In addition to cash generated from its operating subsidiaries and affiliates, the company has in place an agreement with its senior secured lenders that, subject to court approval, permits it to borrow, as needed, up to $150 million of cash from one of its non-operating subsidiaries. [...]
"All of our casinos will continue to operate as usual and we will continue to provide our guests with the same great value and entertainment choices they have always enjoyed at our properties," said Kevin Kelley, chief operating officer of Station Casinos. "From our loose slots, to honoring points earned in our Boarding Pass program, to our great promotions and contests ... it’s business as usual at Station Casinos."
Because of reductions in cash flow tied to the recession, the company is having difficulty serving its debt load of $5.74 billion and in February started negotiating with key bondholders regarding a proposed prepackaged bankruptcy filing in which bondholders would have made concessions and Station's owners, the Fertitta family and Colony Capital, would invest another $244 million in the company and remain in control of Station.
So for now, I guess I won't have to worry about the points I earn at Green Valley Ranch or my friend who works at Sunset Station. However, we'll probably need to keep a close eye on this one. Bondholders and others have been pressuring the Fertitta family for quite a while to sell some or all Station properties to Boyd Gaming. One bondholder even tried suing Station executives over possible debt restructuring. I don't know how likely it is that the Fertittas will keep their hold on this company, but I guess this is their last chance to keep the company in their family.
Hopefully whatever comes out of bankruptcy, it won't cause any more pain to Greater Las Vegas.
Maybe... But not so fast. Remember that this is being fueled by "bargain hunters" looking for deeply discounted foreclosure and short sale homes. Hopefully the buying spree will continue, but I don't know how it can if unemployment goes higher and wages fall lower.
The Commerce Department reported that sales of new single-family homes rose 11 percent in June, an increase that dwarfed economists’ expectations of a 3 percent increase. The pace of home sales rose to a seasonally adjusted rate of 384,000 a year, the highest level since November.
But the figures offered no sign that the housing market had returned to health.
Despite the monthly increase, sales of new homes were still down 21 percent from June 2008. The market is still swamped by a glut of for-sale houses. And new homes, facing competition from cheap foreclosures, are sitting on the market for close to a year before they sell, compared with a median time of six months on the market in 2007.
I guess that's how I feel right now about the federal stimulus. I'm still not sure we're actually spending enough on job creation. I still think too much was spent on corporate tax breaks and not enough on direct aid.
However, there's at least some direct aid and it looks like Nevada will get at least 34,000 saved or newly created jobs out of it. Hey, it's better than nothing.
[...] Nevada has the most “distressed economy” in the nation. The measure, done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, combines the number of foreclosures per housing unit (one in 64), the increase in unemployment and the growth in numbers of people on food stamps. In the last measure, Nevada was the second fastest-growing.
David Rousseau, director of statehealthfacts.org, said Nevada has topped the list since January, when it bumped Florida from the No. 1 position.
Service providers, meanwhile, are being stretched between falling tax revenues and budget cuts on one side and the increase in demand on the other. They worry how governments will pay for these services if the numbers needing them continue to grow.
Those seeking services are increasing faster than the recent grim projections made during the legislative session, according to Mike Willden, director of the state Health and Human Services Department.
About 209,000 Nevadans were on Medicaid in May, almost 5,000 more than the Legislature had approved funding for.
“If our assumptions all remain the same, and the caseloads are running higher, we’re obviously in extreme trouble,” Willden said.
This is just sad. And if there were any sense of justice here, social justice, we wouldn't have allowed those deep budget cuts that passed earlier this year and are already starting to cause extra pain to the "newly working poor" who now need that social safety net more than ever before. I know, I know, Gibbons wanted more and this was "the best we could get" with Raggio still pulling strings in the State Senate. But still, it sucks that we couldn't get real, progressive budget reform, and instead all we got was a little less distress than we otherwise would have had under Gibbons' plan.
Well, this still looks like a whole lot of distress to me.
Yes, believe it or not, we're at 12% unemployment (link will be provided as soon as everyone else catches up with me- KLAS TV just reported it on air). This is depression level. I'm not kidding.
And again, this is what I was talking about yesterday about the need for more stimulus. With this much pain and suffering, the last thing we need is a pullout of public investment akin to what Republicans are calling for.
Freshman Democrats, worried that the ballooning budget deficit is stoking voter anxiety, are urging House leaders to put forward a “credible” plan this year to cut it.
They say the need is urgent and a serious deficit-reduction measure must be added by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other leaders to an already jam-packed legislative agenda.
“My constituents are very concerned about the deficit,” said freshman Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.), elected with 47 percent of the vote in a swing district last year. “This is really starting to resonate.”
The corporate media are relentlessly pushing this story about "big government spending". And of course, the Republicans are trying to make "The Obama Recession Debt Deficit Enslavement" into some political boon in 2010 and 2012.
If we were to believe them, then all this "big government spending" is really scary business. But in reality, it's not. In fact, we need this government investment in our economy to offset all the money that the private sector's been pulling out and stimulate economic activity. While I've had my own critiques of President Obama's stimulus package (mainly that it wasn't big enough and overloaded with too many corporate tax cuts), I just can't overlook that we will have been far worse off by the end of this year without it.
So maybe, just maybe, this may be the one time I'll criticize Dina Titus. I know she needs to "talk tough on deficit spending" to sound "moderate" enough to keep winning over voters next year. And yes, I do think reducing deficit spending should be an important priority once our economic house was back in order. If President Clinton could do it 15 years ago, we can do it again! However, the last thing our economy needs right now is any further loss of investment.
Policymakers in Washington should thus not be fooled by the slowed increase in unemployment numbers; they have to keep doing things that will get people back to work. The most important trigger for economic recovery over the last century has been the growth of aggregate demand for consumer goods--which comes primarily from employed workers. If the number of employed workers declines, then there is a corresponding decline in income and demand. In a recession, that kind of decline can degenerate into a vicious spiral, as those who are still employed, seeing the threat of unemployment looming, choose to save rather than spend. As a result, demand is further reduced, more people are laid off, and the downward spiral continues.
So employment numbers aren't just a good sign of whether we are headed upwards or downwards; increasing employment through government spending is the most important way that the White House and Congress can get us out of this slump. That's worth remembering as Republicans and renegade Democrats call for budget cuts. This is not a time for cuts--it's time to begin thinking about whether a second stimulus program will be necessary.
As long as people keep losing their homes and their jobs, we shouldn't be talking about counteracting the good benefits we're just starting to see from increased government investment by pulling back some of that very needed investment. Again, we can talk about deficit reduction when unemployment's back below 5%, the foreclosure crisis has become a thing of the past, and most working families are no longer worrying over whether they have enough money to pay the bills. But until then, we need more stimulus, not less, (along with many more needed reforms, like universal health care and re-regulation of the financial industry) to get this nation out of this horrid Great Recession.
