Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Obama's New Plan!

Vox Day lists the stuff Obama will propose.

a tax cut that would directly reward companies for hiring new workers

new spending for environmentally friendly construction and for rehabilitating schools

clean-energy tax cuts

programs to target long-term unemployment, potentially including a version of a Georgia unemployment insurance program that pays employers to hire workers who have been unemployed and provides funding for training

new programs to lift the housing market, such as a refinancing initiative that could pump tens of billions of dollars into the economy.

renewing — and potentially expanding — ongoing efforts, such as a two-percentage-point cut in the payroll tax.

Vox has comments on each element which are worth reading.

3 comments:

J. Strupp said...

Sounds about right. Waste of time for the most part.

INSTEAD, how about using Fannie and Freddie to refinance everyone in the country that has made their regular mortgage payments regardless of LTV? This doesn't require writedowns and pumps tens of billions of dollars into the economy via direct mortgage relief for the American consumer.

THAT would make a difference. This bullshit Obama is purposing is too insignificant to move employment and growth (especially the corporate tax cut element).

Again, DO SOMETHING Obama.

Dad29 said...

Well, that would be interesting. For practical purposes, they already hold most of the paper.

Obviously, you're talking about a very favorable rate--like, say, 4%APR. So what happens when Fan/Fred are paying 8% on their bonds?

J. Strupp said...

They aren't.

And if bond yields increase, that would be a good indicator of normalizing economic conditions.

Of course, that's from a guy that doesn't believe that hyperinflation (or even moderate inflation unfortunately) is right around the corner.