its a good idea on paper, but if the government actually tried to do it there would be major problems.

for one, many unemployed people's skills dont match up well with public services that are needed. You can't have a system that just teachers & health care & construction workers have to work for money while fast food cooks dont. So putting "all" people to work, your talking about training people to do jobs they may not be physically or mentally suited for. If such people got injured doing a job, the government would be footing the bill. So the added costs of training & health insurance would make the unemployment system 3 times more expensive then it already is.

Then theres the problem where people get trained to do a job, maybe they do it well, but because the benefit is limited, they have to be fired & replaced with a new trainee. So the labor pool will be unreliable with high turnover. I don't think i would want to drive over a bridge built by people with questionable skillsets, doing the work temporarily, for low pay, & where good workers get fired solely because their benefit expired.

The system is far from perfect, but really the best answer to the unemployment problem is for government to encourage corporations to bring jobs that have been sent overseas back to america, to enforce immigration law & get the illegals outta here, & to encourage US consumers to buy american goods & services. None of these things are even close to happening.

Oh our Gov earns money... a shit ton of it from business then it is setup as a Corporation and doing business as one, which is why legally it's allowed to tax you.

Moving money around, through banks, the gov, taxes, buying crap, etc... is how the economy works. It is without question impossible to create wealth without moving money. And simply relying on peoples or corps purchasing power to move money simply isn't enough movement.

It's not redistribution of wealth, you still have your wealth - which cycles back to you as well. If they redistribute something you have, you would have equal parts as others, and that clearly isn't the case. As well, your entire tax fund, doesn't go to others welfare, only a minor part of it does - so even further from redistribution of wealth.

I can double mine and your business this year if you like, simply by moving money. Money flow creates wealth, a few of us exchanging 'money' is all that is needed. We could easily double our corporate sizes, if not triple it. Then profit from the interest, bigger investments, money exchanges, and so on. As one minor example... nothing was ever produced, made, created or worked for - yet we all created more wealth. If one of us bottle necked the money, it breaks the flow - no wealth is created.

That's what not having federal taxes does to money flow, it kills it because people bottle neck the money without it. And that kills the ability to create wealth.

Hmmm....let me think about that for a minute. OKAY! Let's move some money and get rich!

Lets try this, ok everyone move your money to me, HEHE

Can you clarify how wealth is created when nothing is "produced, made, created or worked for"? there are 3 parties, alice, bob, and charlie, all start off with $100...
then:
A gives $100 to B
B gives $100 to C
C gives $100 back to A

All end up with $100, just like they started, no useful goods or services were exchanged, money was simply moved around, where/how exactly was the wealth created?

If you move money around AND create some useful good/service while you are at it, then yea, wealth is created... but if you JUST move money around without creating anything I don't see how wealth would be created...

and actually, in the example above wealth is lost, because you waste time and energy pointlessly moving $$ around..:2 cents:

Commodities trading.

Stock trading.

A few other things of that nature that make and lose fortunes.

If say 5 of us come together, decide we're going to do business together with a focus of helping each other... we could easily create a money flow chain that would allow us to move larger sums of money, benefit from a wider range of investments, purchasing power, exchanges of money, or say sharing of traffic flow purchased as the volume of money is moved and replaced, benefiting each persons Company before they money flow happens to them and during. As the various money/business is exchanged, wealth is instantly created.

Think about how the Gov gives money to loan and they charge interest, and takes back it's own money as payment for interest when it didn't give out enough to pay back both. It's not possible and it's not like the fed reserve actually prints all that money..... Simply by the money moving around, it creates more money, it creates wealth.

With your example, it's too small but it does apply some what. As a Corporation, if I only have $100, we all trade I then I have $300, I earn 1 cent interest per 100 lets say, we exchange back. I have $100 and 3 new pennies - instead of one. All from doing nothing but moving money, and that's only looking at one aspect of it.

QFT.... Was waiting for someone with economic knowledge to come into this thread.

Wealth isn't "created" in the economic sense when you "trade", because it's just transferred from A to B.

That's not true. If I do commodities, I'm a middle man.
You have 100 truckloads of oranges. You want $1000 per truckload.
I sell your 100 truckloads to Tropicana for $1500 per truckload.
I just "created" $50,000 without touching a thing or doing anything except picking up the telephone. :)

In our business, I've also sold many text links for $6000 a pop cash only. Nothing was "produced, made, created or worked for". I just put up a text link on the main page of a tgp and walked away.

Not saying that everybody can do either of those two things. I was just answering woj with some examples of how it can be done under the right circumstances.

Economics to you is the ABC's?

Was it free to do that trade? Bam!

Btw, the idea of looking at this from money flow is about the global economy and even our own. If the money stops moving, business stops, jobs stop, investing stops, nothing is happening, no wealth can be created at any point by anyone.

If money is moving, we can actually create things or whatever with the money to make more money. Banks do it when they move money, we can do it through investing or lots of ways, corporations can do it... all of this creates new markets, with new b.s. money values. It's the huge ass mixture of everything, even taxes taking it back out is all part of it.

Or you can look at our current stock market, if people quit investing the money flow stops and the market fails. It literally can't sit still or all hell breaks loose.

In that example, useful "work/service" is performed, you found a buyer willing to pay $1500... it's not like the guy selling oranges just "moved" $50k to you, you performed a service of selling his oranges, you got compensated $50k for doing the work, taking on the risk, etc...

That isn't true at all. You did produce, create, and work for. You would not have been able to sell those links had you not had a product. You work hard, take your credit for it. ;-)

I sell a lot of links myself. You can bet your ass I worked, produced, and created this site that I sold those links from. The links are simply another advertising medium. Not much different from selling a TGP listing.

You are right, but you are phrasing it wrong... wealth isn't created by just moving money, it's created by doing something useful..

Like for example "benefit from a wider range of investments"... investing is no doubt a useful activity, but it's clearly not as simple as just "moving money around"... investing takes effort, takes planning, risk is undertaken, useful goods/services are purchased in the investing process, etc...


We would have made 3 cents anyway (1 cent each) :2 cents:

I prob used a few terms, incorrectly :)

I think they used the term, Money flow. It's the flow of money that allows the wealth to be created (up and down flow). Even in say the investment example, if money can't be moved no money can be made. For sure going to take some work either way...




Correct, 1 cent each doing nothing vs. 2 cents profit 'each' by moving money.

1.2 Million people will not buy anything this month.

- Does retail sales affect the economy?

- Do unemployment benefits help the economy?

Fact : The more unemployed people without any income, the less local business
earns from sales and the more they layoff more people which makes even more
unemployed without income.

The "spiral down effect".

Thank you.

I tend to agree with this, but I always wondered if there was any real data that teased this out.

Anyone know of any credible studies on this?

The results were published in the "Captain Obvious Journal", along with other breakthrough discoveries such as "water is wet" and "sky is blue"... :winkwink:

There is no doubt that there is abuse in all these social programs such as unemployment, welfare, etc... the only debatable point is whether the benefits outweigh the costs...

milking the system is par for the course... it basically goes down like this:

first 2 months: "this is great man, I'm basically on a paid vacation, I make few bucks cash helping my cousin on the weekends, I work 4 days a month, and make about the same what I did before"

next 2 months: "nah, not really looking for a job, but if some good opportunity comes along, why not?"

last 2 months: "hey dude, know any job openings? my unemployment benefits are about to run out"

The other debatable point is if the opposition party actually gives a shit. They had 11 years in control and did jack squat about it. Now in 18 months its suddenly a huge fucking issue that must be dealt with. My ass. Carry on :)

Surely you have more to contribute than "the Republicans are hypocrites and it's all their fault."

Yep... I don't think anyone has a problem coming up with examples for either side.

If it was obvious, then I wouldn't be interested in the data. :winkwink:

What do you want from me when all the republican supporters do is throw mud and repeat party buzzwords? I've posted links when asked, I've made my cases.

Also Sly, you know how it is. If they dont see they have a problem, they'll never think to try to solve anything. Their minority leader came out the other day with a statement in opposition to a moritorium on deep water drilling, and at the first question admitted that it might be a good idea to temporarily pause deep water drilling. The absurdity is transparent so thats what it gets in return.

you know its easy to bash the republicans.

problem is, they're not in charge, dont have 60 votes in the senate. Maybe you should focus your anger on why democrats cant pass extensions.

Give me a reasonable argument why democrats can't produce an unemployment bill thats paid for with spending cuts. If these benefits are so important, cut something out of the 3 trillion budget to pay for it. How about keeping the senate in session through the holiday to get the bill passed. Oh wait, vacation is more important then unemployed people.

sorry but democrats are just as indefensible as the republicans. But you attack the party that has no power.

I also meant to add Sly, that my proposed solution is to vote out all incumbents come november. These assholes all know the game too well, they seem to forget that their constituents are individual citizens. They are not there to fight for corporations or religious groups or gun clubs or tree hugging clubs. It's the individuals and all they want to do is win one for the R team or the D team. It's enough already. The one side will only complain when they're not in power. It's pure shit and people should be able to see through it at ALL times. Not just when you're out of power. The disingenous fake arguments by these assholes with money busting out of their suit pockets is just sickening.

And joshgirls, you can click my name and go back in time to the Bush presidency and see me saying the same sort of thing about the democrats. If it's bullshit, it's bullshit, no matter what scarlet letter they're labeled with. They're both as bad.

It will get Extended again, the house already passed it.

What you want is the bubble effect, all sounds good, till they decide to collect on all the money they are handing out!

Wait, Let's tax the Rich, that will fix everything.

OK all stuff aside, everything we are talking about is not the problem, it is BOTH sides of Politics.

sales will bl*w for the new few days because of this type of news, but things will go back to normal.
That 1.2 million people will start looking for jobs SERIOUSLY now, which is good for the economy after all.

I don't know how many times I was told that when the Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the presidency... things would change. It happened. All of it. They are just shy of a complete 60 vote majority of the Senate. And they still blame the Republicans. Seriously? What do they want? 100%? I am too young to remember but I'm sure the Republicans did this too, I'm not saying this is a Democrat monopoly.

It goes back and forth. It always has and it always will. Politicians have one thing in mind, and that is getting reelected. Each party caters to a specific group of people in order to get money so they can go out and get reelected again. If they would stop the rhetoric, cut out the bull shit, and actually sit down and chat and try to hash out some problems without worrying about getting reelected next term... we might actually make some progress.

The funniest part to me is Republicans and Democrats aren't all that different. Americans in general aren't all that different. Humans in general aren't all that different. We all have basic wants, basic needs, basic desires. You hear a Democrat stand up and give a speech about a topic... two days later a Republican will stand up and give a speech about the same topic, blasting the Democrat and calling them names... while in the end, they both want the same thing.

I would say that I am borderline Republican, I'm actually pretty in the middle overall, but typically I lean right slightly. I tell this to people and they get all upset, start calling names, saying nasty things. Then we chat a little bit. And this big pretty light flashes out of the sky... "hey, we aren't all that different after all." No, we are not. We get stamped with these silly labels that create awful assumptions and help us go nowhere.

We all want to eliminate fraud. Nobody wants to see homeless children running out on the streets. Claiming that the Democrats want to shield the fraudsters is as silly as claiming that Republicans want people running around homeless. They are both nonsensical, rhetorical arguments that people create in order to fuel hate. Both issues could be addressed and maybe even resolved if they would quit worrying about what the Tea Party or the Left Flank is doing in their home district.

Alas... this will never change. Save us all.

thats fair enough. the game is that the party out of power tries to stop the agenda of the party in power. After the recent comments of the texas republican apologizing to BP for a shakedown, i shudder at the idea of palins party back in power. But them dems are handing the independent vote right back over to them with their nonstop spending. Thats why the nebraska democrat voted down the unemployment extension paid for with deficit spending. Attacking republicans is easy, but its the party in power thats fucking shit up now.

Ahaha. See that? While writing out my post, Tom posted pretty much the same damn thing.

We have senators and representatives dying in office due to old age. We have had at least three in the past year (Murtha due to complications but he was getting up there.) Surely I can't be the only one that has an issue with that!?

But the cycle will never stop. Whenever the economy goes bad the fat cats will always get whatever assistance they need and the ordinary citizens will always get thrown to the curb.

That's the cycle as it already is.

Today, tomorrow, next year and forevermore, that's how it will always be.

And that is what is really shameful.

We would be better off if the public sector did not have lavish pay & benefits that make working for the government the best job in america. Pols just sell their votes to campaign donors, take all expenses paid vacations on their dole, then pocket a six figure salary & get benefits that rival corporate CEOs. The best place to work in america is for the public sector now. Its one of the biggest perversions in a country supposed to be based on private sector wealth creation.

Because they (and lots of Democrats too) see people only as potential votes.

Whether those same people happen to be suffering or living productive lives matters not in the least.

Politics 101

Yeah these people dying of old age while still in office is really something else. Votes can be easy to keep once you get them evidently. Some of them even busted with hookers and casholla and what not.. but they're still there because we.... like their name? Who knows, but they should get a vacation.

ouch, thats gonna hurt

Ignore Tom, he never has a point. It's always "blame Republicans". A stupid, broken record.

You won't get very far with that line of reasoning.

I mean, your post actually makes sense.


I wouldn't advise holding your breath waiting for the country to do the right thing however.

Because there's a difference between offering realistic solutions and just being naive.