Diggapedia

24 hours after most Congressional Republicans came to their senses we have effectively kicked the can into early 2014.   The president is feeling a little cocky, Boehner is holding on, the GOP is ruing the day it hooked up with the Tea Party, and many in the Tea Party are upping their Thorazine dosages. But what is in store for America?   The economic recovery is sputtering, labor markets are anemic, political will is absent, fiscal policy is missing, and too many of our representatives are preoccupied with re-election.   So how do we get this ship righted? For starters, fix immigration now.   It is the single biggest reason why we have few start-ups today than before 2001.   Start-ups become small businesses and small businesses are the labor engine of America.   According to The Economist , start-ups created 2.7m new jobs in the 2012 financial year compared with 4.7m in 1999 .   The Republicans need to accept that they have no one to blame but t...

I am part of the 2% and I am not the enemy.   Further, for those on the left that want to use stereotypes that the 2% are not job creators or do not pay their fair share I suggest you pay attention.   Not all of us inherited wealth.   Our wealth comes from hard work.   We are fortunate, but not lucky per se.   And yes many of us understand the need to raise taxes.   Some of us even voted for President Obama. I was fortunate to have parents that understood the importance of education, even though I may have not at times.   They were proponents of education and hard work, and made sure college education was paid for.   Me and my siblings all had jobs when we were young and we understood the value of money, the need to save, and the concept of staying within one’s means.   I parlayed that stable loving upbringing with an engineering degree to get my first professional job as an engineer at Eastman Kodak.   In the 27 years hence I hav...

Economists suck at predictions.   Economist Kevin Hassett, and former Romney economic advisor, said in 1999 “Stocks are now, we believe, in the midst of a one-time-only rise to much higher ground—to the neighborhood of 36,000.” Of course there was President Obama’s own Christine Romer who predicted that unemployment would never pass 8% if the stimulus was passed.   We know how that turned out.   How many economists predicted the 2008 economic collapse?   I can only think of one: Nouriel “Dr. Doom” Roubini.   Roubini now warns of a perfect storm recession in 2013:   “Everybody’s kicking the can down the road of too much public and private debt. The can is becoming heavier and heavier, and bigger on debt, and all these problems may come to a head by 2013 at the latest.”    Meanwhile Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman says “ So yes, debt matters. But right now, other things matter more. We need more, not less, government spending to get us out of our un...