Credit Where Credit is Due | GM's unlikely (but very real) rescue

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Voting the Facts | Bloomberg Businessweek Sets the Record Straight

…by a two-to-one margin, likely voters in the Nov. 2 midterm elections think taxes have gone up, the economy has shrunk, and the billions lent to banks as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program won’t be recovered. 

 — Bloomberg Businessweek, 29 October, 2010

In fact, none of that is true.

Bloomberg Businessweek sets the record straight:

Fact: The Obama administration has cut taxes — largely for the middle class — by $240 billion since taking office on Jan. 20, 2009. 

Fact: The U.S. economy grew at a 2 percent annual rate in the third quarter as consumer spending climbed the most in almost four years.

Fact: In the past year, the economy has grown 3.1 percent.

Fact: The U.S. Treasury has recovered most of the $245 billion spent on the Wall Street bank part of the rescue, and expects to turn a $16 billion profit. 

Taxes have gone down not up, the economy is growing not shrinking, the TARP funds are mostly recovered; some at a respectable profit to the American people.

You Must Be At Least This Tall To Take This $700B Ride

A picture worth 700 Billion Dollars for folks making more than a million dollars a year — paid for by...no one...by your grand children... Is this your father's Republican Party?

Cash for Clunkers: don't listen to the knuckleheads

Unsolicited Advice Alert: You did not ask my opinion about what follows. Here it is anyway.

If you need a new vehicle and if you can afford a new vehicle, the Cash for Clunkers program is a decent piece of economic stimulus.

The numbers are simple. You'll get $3500 - $4500 credit for getting rid of (and thus permanently disabling) a gas-guzzler and replacing it with a vehicle that gets at least ten miles per gallon better fuel economy.

In addition to that new car smell, you'll save something on the order of $800 a year on fuel costs and contribute to a culture less dependent on oil, with all the benefits that accrue to that shift.

Upstream from you, people keep working and adding value to the economy (and, maybe, hang onto their health coverage).

Downstream from you, people keep working and the mandatory scrapping of your old vehicle produces reclaimed steel that can be repurposed for far less than producing new metal from the ground up.

This is exactly the kind of systemic benefit the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is designed to produce—which is why the money comes from the $787 stimulus package passed by the congress and signed by the president in February.

Don't listen to the knuckleheads. They're not trying to help you.

[photo by ThreadedThoughts]