FourBrane

Liars, Damn Liars and Averagers: The Wall Street Journal on Stimulus

Socrateazz, tax cuts are not stimulative. It is shocking to hear so many intelligent people pretend that they are. What happens to tax money? The government spends every dime (and more), so taxed money always returns very quickly to the economy. On the other hand, individuals--most especially the wealthy--will generally "invest" large portions of the savings they get from tax cuts. Money they gamble on Wall Street is seldom productive or stimulative. Very little will ever cause a factory to increase output or a farmer to plant more corn. A significant portion winds up in Goldman-Sachs' shiny pockets or is lost into thin air when valuations decline. High stock prices just mean that the factory management rakes in millions in options money, pour their profits back into Wall Street buying some other company's stock so that a few more executives can pull billions out via their options packages. In short, six or seven thousand individuals get showered with cash beyond anyone's wildest need. It's like pouring all the fertilizer and rain on a ten square yards while the other acreage is left to fend for itself. That's not useful stimulation.

An Oil-Driven Paradigm Shift?

The comments found here are a representative cross section of the idea spectrum, running from right wing drill anywhere and to hell with the damn land people to back to moccasins and bone needles conservationists to the dreaming Polyannas who are certain that Amenrican Inventiveness can cure anything. Three blind men discussing the elephant, each describing their particular guess on what it looks like based on trunk, leg and tail.
Sadly, I doubt that there is a easy way out of this one because the elephant in the room is over-population. Demand for oil, food, water, and every other resource is now or will shortly be approaching asymptote.
Buy oil, natgas, uranium, other metals, water rights...and guns.