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President Obama coulda shoulda
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during an address to the 2011 American Legion National Convention at the Minneapolis Convention Center Aug. 30, 2011.
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Steve Chiotakis: President Obama tonight goes before Congress to lay out his plans to reduce unemployment. But the president's been in office
for more than 2.5 years. So this morning we ask, was there anything Mr. Obama could've done earlier to spark a more robust recovery?
From Washington, here's Marketplace's John Dimsdale.
John Dimsdale: When he arrived at the White House, President Obama continued the bailout of big banks. He also propped up the auto industry and spent $800 billion to stimulate the economy.
Jared Bernstein was a White House economic adviser at the time. He says all those measures worked well.
Jared Bernstein: They just didn't last long enough. So if there was anything that was kind of missed, it was the length and depth of this kind of a recession.
What made this recession deeper and longer, economists say, is the bursting of the housing bubble. That left many consumers a lot poorer and unwilling to spend money.
William Galston is a former policy adviser for President Clinton.
William Galston: The home mortgage crisis isn't just a piece of the problem, it's the nub of the problem.
Galston says in exchange for the government bailout, Congress should have required the banks to write down some of the principal and interest on troubled mortgages. He says the White House could have forced that through -- if the president's team hadn't been so focused on other issues.
Galston: If you spend a lot of time in the midst of an economic emergency on issues like health care reform and climate change, that's time that you don't have to spend on the economic crisis.
Galston says the president should have created an infrastructure bank, in addition to housing reforms. Both, he says, would have paid longer-term dividends in reversing a deeper downturn than the president realized in the beginning.
In Washington, I'm John Dimsdale for Marketplace.
If my own situation is any indication, the housing crisis "nub" of the recession was just the tip of the iceberg. I have an interest only Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) which is maxed out and will mature in 2013. I will not be able to refi because the HELOC balance plus my first mortgage is more than the value of my home. I am not spending in 2011 because I am trying to put my affairs in order and save to pay off the balance because I do not want to lose my house. Force the banks to forgive some of the principal balance? Damn Right! Mr. President, you bailed out the banks and now it is time to bail me out! I can only imagine how many Americans are like me in a similar situation. What is going to happen when the 2nd mortgage/HELOC wave begins to hit?
Obama should have fought for the interests of US Citizens, and NOT for the interests and greed of Corporations, shareholders and top executives!
I really thought Obama was going to be a good President, and really wanted to help the country. At this point, it will be really hard to believe again in the claims of the new Presidential candidates. All of them say lies, just to get into the presidency, and then forget how and why they got elected.
Good comments about the same topic, and some of the issues Obama should have fixed from the beginning:
What is the point of throwing more billions in stimulus packages? Obama keeps allowing Corporations to ship US jobs overseas, and allows millions of foreign workers (most of the time unqualified) to come to the US and take the jobs of US Citizens which only creates more unemployment. Foreign workers create jobs for their own race (ie: Indians), so that they can bring their families and friends, foreign workers do not create jobs for US Citizens.
Just go to the Silicon Valley and you'll see the unfair reality by yourself, most of the employees in all those companies are from India!!
Then when they get tired of the US they go back to India. Some of them end up working for other Indian companies and others create their own companies with the knowledge and experience acquired in the US!! Is that beneficial for the USA? NOO! the only country that is getting huge benefits from all this corruption and crisis is: India.
Excellent post about some of the reasons why the country is in this jobs crisis:
" How is College going to pay off if all foreign workers with their work visas are taking most if not all the jobs of US Citizens and legal residents!!! Do Universities care about this, NO!! will they ever care? probably not, otherwise Corporations and Colleges profits will decrease in the short term. All Universities care about is: enrolling as much students as they can to increase their profits, even if Colleges have to lie to students of the reality of what really happens after graduation, and the job market. It does not matter what gets in the way of these for profit educational Corps, ultimately they don't care if students find jobs or not!
Also most Universities and Colleges get $ full tuition paid from foreign workers/students = more $$. In other words is a cycle of corruption:
These paragraphs caught my attention as well:
Obama or whoever wants to be US President: their plans of creating new jobs must include to take back all the jobs which were replaced by foreign workers who are still unemployed. Many of them were asked to train their replacements before loosing jobs. They need to address the misuse and fraud of foreign work visas such as: H1b, H2b, L1 visa. Thanks to the US Govt, which created these work visas: these US Jobs are given to foreign workers (most times unqualified) allowing US companies to hire this group of people instead of qualified US legal residents and citizens causing our unemployment rate to continue to increase on a daily basis! For creating infrastructure we have best brains and best educational centers and must utilize our work source.
If people want the economy to get better, people should vote for those who are really working for the interest of the American people and not for the lobbyist and corporations who import workers to fill jobs and outsource jobs and technology for greed, increase their profits no matter what gets in their way, keep shareholders happy, and pay Top executives as much as possible.
Good examples of this sad and unfair reality are the movies: The Company Men (2010) and parts of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
This is the current reality of the job market in the USA:
Top 100 H1B Visa Sponsors -2011 H1B Visa Report:
http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/Top-Visa-Sponsor-2011.aspx
Rank H1B Visa Sponsor H1B Visa Petitions Average Salary
1 Microsoft 2,505 $96,497
2 IBM 1,263 $80,908
11 Intel 404 $95,714
14 Oracle 376 $104,080
16 Google 355 $103,129
17 Hewlett Packard 340 $99,344
21 Yahoo 308 $105,112
26 Amazon com 255 $99,459
27 Motorola 249 $95,861
45 Apple 175 $110,987
47 Cisco Systems 169 $117,662
84 SAP America 102 $105,498
91 PayPal 98 $105,008
185 AT&T 91 Sign In
3 Facebook 86 Sign In
These companies don't give a s* if mergers cause mass layoffs, higher prices for consumers, or if thousands of US legal families are having a hard time (thanks to their "hiring practices"), America's Unemployment Rate, new graduates unemployment rate etc..
*** Important *** Please see link below about an important Bill Congress is planning to pass. Your support on this is imperative for everyone who has been affected / displaced by people with foreign work visas, H1B visas, or the unemployed, or the ones who do not have a solid full-time employment history in their resume.
Please take action, vote and share your comments at: "
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h2501/comments
