August 2006 Weddings
KateAggie
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081020/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown
.Ok.
.Please
.Show
.The
.Link
.Stupid Nest!
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Re: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Meh. I want to be stimulated too. If Wall Street and errant homeowners get a cookie, I deserve a cookie too.
I say, bring it on!
LOL, BM.
"With the economy likely to be weak for several quarters, and with some risk of a protracted slowdown, consideration of a fiscal package by the Congress at this juncture seems appropriate," Bernanke said in prepared testimony to the panel."
No. No. It seems quite INappropriate.
I think I need a "days until Congress takes over all credit card debt" ticker.
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ha! Super Stimulus Check will save us!!
Okay, I like the idea. And I'm probably the only one outside the beltway that feels this way, but a stimulus timed around holiday shopping seems like a good way to boost an otherwise estimated poor holiday shopping season.
Economists can commence laughing at me.
I don't even know if I have the energy anymore to continue being outraged at Washington's irresponsibility with taxpayer money.
Obviously it's a horrible idea, but did anyone seriously think Bush was a real fiscal conservative? He approved the first stimulus package and led the way with the current bailout(s). He lost his conservative credentials long ago, my friends.
I think he's just saying this b/c the Dems are saying they want another stimulus package. If he's willing to go along with it then they should get moving on it. But we know they won't b/c it's just politicking.
There's no bill.
Bingo!
And if surveys suggest that people will be spending the check this time rather than banking it or paying off bills, maybe retailers will be more willing to increase holiday hires, etc. Truly a "trickle down" plan.
That would make it a trickle up plan. A trickle down plan would be to encourage the businesses directly, not in some round about way of giving potential customers money. Employment is a lagging indicator. There is no way an expectation of potential sales for one month would lead to widespread increased employment, especially after the doomsday scenarios we are barraged with on a daily basis.
So, basically, my great-great-great grandkids will be paying for MY Christmas shopping this year?
Sweet!
Although, I'm very sorry, great-great-great grandkids. I'll buy some toys and put them in reserve for you.
Yeah, my first thought was - 'hey, at least they'll spend it, like they would with bonus checks!'
But then I remembered that typically, that boosts the extra jobs that prop up from late-nov to early-jan. You know, those jobs held by high school and college students at retail stores during breaks than subsequently end after the holiday season.
It's a very short term solution...and I hesitate to even say solution in the same breath.
Basically, it'll just get us all a little more useless stuff. It's giving us fish, not teaching us to fish, to use the age-old metaphor.
Yeah, I really know nothing about the nuances of micro/macro economics. But, I do know that employers are scaling back holiday hires over fears of stagnant holiday sales. If true, doesn't it seem likely that if everyone had an extra $1k hanging around during the month of December that employers would be more likely to hire holiday staff? It's a stimulus; not a cure all. It may work. It may not. Now if the govt. did this around the month of January, I'd say BS! Again, I know nothing.
Yay, let's add to the national debt!!!!
Well, first, there's more than just the extra jobs they have during that time. Retailers plan their year around Christmas sales, so it does have a wider impact than simply high school kids making a few extra hundred bucks to buy beer with (or whatever non-prudish high school kids spend their money on...).
But let's think about it for a second. If we get this stimulus before Christmas shopping (which is possible, but I don't know if it's likely), then we'll probably have an average Christmas shopping season.
Then what? We won't have any extra jobs, we'll only have slighly fewer homes in foreclosure (you know, for those people with the $300 mortgage payments...?) What will we have?
We'll have distorted numbers when planning for next year's holiday earnings, that's what we'll have. And some stuff. More stuff.
Best case scenario - a few big box retail chains assume everyone will spend their stimulus checks there and hire a few thousand more people for a month. But even that best case scenario leaves off what happens to the rest of the economy. The money the gov't spent on that stimulus package was taken out of the economy before it was injected back in. All they're doing is reallocating money from one sector to another. That doesn't make the economy as a whole any better off. There's no growth beyond even one quarter, if that. Not only will we punish other sectors to gratify a few retail chains, we will probably borrow the money which makes it much, much more expensive than any supposed short-term benefits we may or may not derive. Those negatives will be with us for the long-term, the opposite of what we all really want.
ETA: If we're going to spend billions of dollars there are solutions that have short-term and long-term benefits. There is no reason we should jump off the cliff together b/c there's an easy solution that gives us short-term benefits and long-term problems. What's the cliche- there's no free lunch? There's no free Christmas either.
Sorry, all I can picture is the scene from Wizard of Oz when Dorothy enters the Emerald City and all the workers are singing and laughing and working. That's how I view the stimulus. That's how I see the end result.
Lol.
And that movie was a dream.
Or, how about people save their damn money.
Cutting back at Christmas isn't the worst idea for a country that has spent itself into oblivion.
I can't take a second round of stimulus checks where we again see nothing. That's crap.
I think the second stimulus is completely necessary. Unemployment rates, in particular, are higher than they have been in years and are only expected to rise. The democrats are proposing 6 billion to extend jobless benefits, 3 billion in food stamp assistance to the poor, and, the least important, IMO, is the individual checks of 600 - 1200 per couple to just *help*.
To someone that is truly, definitely struggling with day to day expenses, that could be a life saver. Pelosi is calling on Bush and congress to heed Bernanke's advise and enact a job creation plan. As someone who's H has been laid off for 11 months, I KNOW we need more jobs.
Bernanke is also suggesting improving access to credit by consumers. I can't even get Sallie Mae to approve a student loan this semester for one course, so the credit crunch is CRAZY. I personally feel hit by everything this *recession* has to offer. These aren't just fuzzy demographics to me, this is, unfortunately, my life. A lot of people just like me need some help.
So question: do ex pats get stimulus checks? I mean, I still pay taxes...but my money would go to stimulate the UK.