imo the best way to fix the US economy would be to do two things
1. Stimulus. Not for the banks, GM, etc, but give money to citizens. Then people have money to spend, and it restarts circulation.
2. Cut defense spending. Honestly, does America need 12 carriers when the rest of the world combined doesn't have that many? (correct me if I'm wrong here, and although there may be more then 12 non-american carriers in operation perhaps one or two are supercarriers of Nimitz proportions). Same goes for all other branches, with the Airforce's B-52s/F-22s/B-2s, and the Army's sheer size.
Ok and after Johnny takes that govt check and pisses it away on an Xbox, tattoo, a couple of cases of beer and a penis piercing then what? Have the govt seize more of Bill Gates' money until he's a broke mofo like the rest? How about just print another gazillion bucks to give Johnny more beer money? Hey let's just pay everybody with the game Monopoly and use the money in that because that's how worthless the money is going to be. Oh yeah Johnny's penis piercing has become infected but he has no money anymore so I guess we had better give him free medical care because after all JOHNNYS GOTTA HAVE HIS FUCKIN BEER MONEY.
Besides we are doing that right now, hell we have been doing since the 60's. You have tons of inner city single mom's who get a govt check for every kid they have. Look up The Great Society passed by the democrats in Congress and LBJ signed off on it.
Also if I see another "the US needs to cut defense spending because the defense budget takes up 4,000,000,000,000% of the total US govt budget" I'm gonna puke my guts out! The defense budget isn't even 10% of the federal budget. The waste and corruption is ACROSS THE BOARD in the US govt. I read there are like 80 different federal govt job retraining programs with huge staffs and bloated budgets. You think maybe we should cut a few of those first? FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, NRO, DEA, ATF, INS all various law enforcement, intell agencies that have overlapping ops. Ever since the Dept of Education was created in the 70's under Carter the kids are coming out of public schools dumber and dumber every year and every year there budget goes up and yet schools beg parents for their kids to buy pencils and paper because for some reason the schools can't afford to supply paper and pencils.
Now if there are folks out there who don't like the fact we have so many supercarriers let me tell you some folks who are. The people who surivied the Indonesian quake and tsunami. The US CBG that deployed there was the only fully functioning hospital, the only source of fresh water, the only source of power and the only operational airport in the area to airlift supplies to survivors. We also deployed a CBG to Japan after their quake and tsunami. Meanwhile we had a CBG in the Persian Gulf doing its thing and CBG's ready to keep an eye on China or to go to another crisis and still have carriers in dock so the crews could be with their families and still have carrier in a 2 to 3 year overhaul.
Don't blame the US for our large military when NATO, South Korea, Japan and Australia/New Zealand USED THE US TO BE THEIR ARMED FORCES. While all these regions spend all their money on social programs like healthcare and unlimited unemployment benefits and gutted their own armed forces.
I get the feeling that folks really don't know how big a trillion dollars is so here's an example. NBA Miami Heat player LeBron James gets paid about 40 million dollars a year. Now in order for him to make a trillion dollars on that salary he would have to pay basketball for 25,000 years. Yes 25,000 years, and the US govt is 14 trillion in the hole.
Yeah Dreadnaught's pissed and delivered a full broadside but I'm fed up with this hippy "let's just steal all the money from the rich and everything will be alright" BS.
The problem is that is not how the economy works. First of all, if you're homeless or dirt-broke and the only thing keeping you from being productive (IE in the recovery) is money, giving a few hundred will help. You're assuming all people are piss poor with money. A second point that can be drawn for that is all the money he is "wasting" goes into companies like Microsoft, because he's buying their product. Part of that is sent back to the Government as tax, you need factories to produce the Xbox, etc. The point is you're getting money flowing. As we've seen, giving it to the big banks to have longer vacations on bigger cruise ships for their CEOs isn't helpful and doesn't get the money flowing.
The economy is all about monetary flow. Currently, most of it is "pooled" near the top and not moving at all, and needs a kick start. What you're calling "hippy bullshit" is simply agressive economics with the Government as it's main actor.
And no, I never suggested printing money until it's worthless. Not that it has any worth other then what the Government says it is worth, given that it's purely fiat currency. "Johhny's fucking beer money" is what's keeping the economy alive. Without Johhny buying, nobody's selling, and there's no economy. In your ideal world, you give Gates and Branson all the money in America, leaving the rest as poor as Kenya, and measure your economy by how rich Gates and Branson are.
The defence spending isn't even 10% of the federal government's spending, no. But perhaps you've seen this:
If we assume that defense and deterence against "threats" such as North Korea and Iran takes up half of that, it's still
over double Europe combined that goes to unneeded programs. Yes, American ships are hospitals the world over and I commend them for that. On the other hand, programs that aren't needed are everywhere. Do you need to be developing weapons so powerful there's no known threat that could defeat them, and none conceivable in the near future? Not really. Yes, China is trying desprately to catch up. But America is not at war with any major state actor. Everyone seems to forget that bit. When's the last time you saw an Ohio or Los Angles as a hospital ship? What about a Burke? Do they serve any purpose other then World Stage Dick Measuring?
So to firmly and bluntly retort your closing statement, I'm tired of this Tea Party "let's give 99% of the money to 1% of the population and everything will be all right" bullshit.