16 thoughts on “A Real Jobs Plan”

    1. No, Glass-Stegall shouldn’t be reinstated, corporate governance should be improved and the Fed should be abolished. Both would involve repealing existing legislation, not adding more.

        1. The “logic” is that investment banks are inherently “casino-like” and that savers’ deposits need to be protected from risky operations.

          1. Exactly. If you’re going to run a fiat currency confidence game, by shit, do it right, and don’t do anything to make folks nervous about their “money” deposits.

          3. MPM is absolutely right to put quotes around political ‘logic.’ Which is always about playing to the crowd. The only regulations banks (of any kind) need is transparency so those lending the banks their money have some idea of the risk and will more effectively regulate them than any written laws ever could.

            And to add to Titus; doing it right means anyone offering an ounce of silver for trade may be a domestic terrorist and his assets that fully back certificates may be stolen while he goes to jail. We can’t have real assets competing with fiat money which would blow away all that smoke from all those mirrors.

        2. I could argue the fine points of banking regulation and whether contrary to the Right Blogosphere talking points some regulation is a Good Thing ™. But I will talk about the Big Picture.

          Mr. Obama has been under withering criticism from the Right for a long time. With OWS, however indirectly, he is under criticism from the Left, essentially, for being in the hip pocket of Wall Street cronies.

          The tone of OWS is to make the usual demands of the Left, tax “the rich! the rich!”. In other words, their grievance is that Mr. Obama has not kept his promises of raising taxes and implementing Socialism and “ending the War”, whereas our criticism of Mr. Obama is that he has not broken enough of his promises by extending tax cuts, giving Wall Street a free hand to line their pockets with the TARP money, and starting new wars.

          We are even more critical of OWS than Mr. Obama, why? Because OWS will give Mr. Obama the political support to be true to his Leftie rhetoric? Because OWS is more extreme that Mr. Obama and we need to oppose them more? Because we are afraid that anti-Obama folks will cross over to OWS as the pretty-new-girl-in-town instead of go out with us?

          Let me put it another way. When the Leftie Coalition starts showing cracks, I am thinking we should not get in the way of it crumbling, and we should certainly not being choosing sides, even if it means not defending “Sensible Obama” for breaking his Leftie promises.

          I say, let OWS be OWS and let the Games begin.

  2. “Restoring Glass-Stegall might also be in order”

    smoot-hartley too. we need a man like herbert hoover again. those were days.

  4. I disagree that reducing the tax on foreign earnings returning to the US will create 2.9 million jobs. In fact, I’m not sure it would create any jobs directly.

    My reasoning is that corporations that don’t have overseas earnings aren’t hiring either. A corporation with overseas earnings might return more money to the US if such taxes are reduced, perhaps boosting the markets, but they won’t start hiring workers until they’re confident that they can make a long-term profit on each worker hired. So like the rest of the business community, they’ll sit on the money, using it as insurance against a very uncertain future, until Obamacare gets resolved, Obama gets thrown out of office, and radicals quit calling for crazy tax hikes.

    1. George,

      I agree with you IF you mean (as I presume that you do) that without OTHER reforms, reducing the tax on foreign investment earnings returning to the US will not produce 2.9 million jobs. In isolation, this specific reform is somewhat oversold, though I should point out that it is a good idea in and of itself. Why companies doing buisness overseas should be given an extra incentive to keep their capital parked out there is entirely beyond me, and strikes me as a bad idea on general principles.

  5. All good points but not radical enough. Of course they need to repeal SarbOx but how about eliminating entire Cabinet departments? If your opening position is moderate the end result will probably be more moderate and you piss away your political capital. But stake out a serious reformist position and you shift the debate in the right direction and may even get some of what you ask for. The unwillingness of many Republicans to call for significant government downsizing and spending cuts shows that they are at best inept and in many cases part of the problem.

  6. I wished Boehner had some stones. When Obama came out with that stupid Jobs bill, Boehner said there was some common ground there.

    If He liked, say, 7 out of 20 proposals in the jobs bill, then, the day it came out, he should have written 7, one page, bills – one for each – and gotten each one passed in the House the same day. Let the Dem Senate squash them. Let the Dem Senate take the heat for “Saying No”.

    But instead, Boehner simply says there’s common ground.

    1. Those with stones should be privately mapping out a plan which would be flexible enough to include what you describe and just do it. The leader of the tea party caucus, while having some good ideas, is a bit distracted by her run for president.

      The left is very good at marching in step. The right just doesn’t seem to understand how to do that. Gingrich might be an exception, but comes with a ton of his own baggage.

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