5 Economic Flubs That Will Cost Democrats Most

"Tis a shame that Dems did not deal with extending the low end Bush (and Obama) tax cuts early in 2009 and DO AWAY WITH the high-end tax cuts. They would have had the populace behind them all the way, THEN.

Now, it looks very inept that this is not long since done, AND, worse, we lost the national confidence and resultant job creation that would have resulted from high end tax hikes.

Yes, you heard that right. High taxes at the high end do not destroy jobs. They actually insure jobs. You don't "know" that because you have been listening to liars since Ronald Reagan made it popular to be one.

Muser of NM 11:11PM October 02, 2010

The federal tax credit was the big reason that put me over the edge and is why I decided to build a new house. I probably wouldn't have done it othewise. So, it was a completely new purchase that wouldn't have happened otherwise. In addition, I bought a house full of new furniture.

So, be careful with your criticisms.

Bottom line -> Incentives work!

Marty Moran of TX 10:23PM September 20, 2010

We are missing the boat here. Higher levels of education are great, but, we completely forget the person who has experience as education, which is a much more valuable education.

By requiring that employees must have a certain level of education for any given postion at a company, we exclude the gifted who have not gone to college, yet can out do any college graduate in many things.

Of the many employees I have had to terminate over the years, the majority are college grads as opposed to those with high school diplomas who had better work ethics and a yearning to learn and grow in my business. Of the college grads you would think invaluable, were two MIT grads employed at different times, both of which did not know what end of a screw driver to hold.

Bill of CA 11:24PM September 08, 2010

According to a National Bureau of Economic Research study released in April 2010, the United states is the only nation in the world whose achieved educational level for adults over age 25 has NOT risen over the past 15 years.

Whatever your educational level is, and the job it enables you to do, since we've been standing still for over 15 years while everyone else has been gaining ground, there are more foreigners today with the same skills you have who want your job than there were 15 years ago. In simpler words, there are more competitors for your job than ever before.

Newly minted engineers in China make less than $2,000 a month. There's no American engineering graduate who can survive on only $2,000 a month. The American expects full benefits as well and the Chinese engineer none.

Here's the big surprise -- the Chinese engineer reads and writes English, especially engineering English, just fine. English is a required subject in Chinese schools.

This is why wages in America are going down. It's really simple -- there are more competitors at every level, for every job, than ever before and many or even most of them are very happy to get a lot lower wages than Americans.

Since, like most humans, Americans resist reducing their wages, the alternative way producing corporations can reduce costs to match those of foreign competitors is by laying off American workers and hiring foreign workers instead.

Let me give you a clue -- the foreign competitors aren't going away. In fact, there are more of them than ever and their market success is growing.

Until Americans once again offer the world labor markets something that just can't be gotten anywhere else [best trained workers] at the optimal price, one of two things has to happen -- Americans will accept lower and lower wages, or America will suffer from higher and higher unemployment. [Or the value of the American dollar will fall -- which implicitly lowers the wages of Americans and raises the cost of living here in America because all imported items' prices will go UP as the dollar falls. That's oil, tvs, computers, automobiles, clothing, shoes, and everything else that America mostly imports.]

You can't stop learning and educating yourself at age 25 -- or whenever you stopped -- and maintain your standard of living. There are tens to thousands of competitors out there who aren't stopping their learning and they all want your job. When their cost per unit of output is lower than yours -- you'll be told, like the UAW was told, that it is either wage cuts or job cuts.

For the sake of fairness, if for no other reason, our politicians need to stop glossing over the real problem. they also need to grow backbones and tell the government employees and their unions that the gravy train has gone off the tracks and it is time for either across the board wage cuts or jobs will be eliminated wholesale.

cheery thoughts, eh?

Spock_(rhp) of FL 9:19PM September 03, 2010