Ok, so the economy has been doing bad. We can go on for hours on the causes, the culprits and the results of many of the actions taken. One action trying to be done will automatically prevent new jobs, destroy thousands of current ones and cause any type of recovery we see now to go out the window. It's a law that would force you to pay sales tax on say anime figures you buy outside your own state.
I'm talking about the tired case of Quill vs. North Dakota, aka the e-commerce tax, or the "amazon tax." Looks as if two moronic politicians, Senator Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Representative Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) want to try to unconstitutionally break a Supreme Court ruling that clearly states that you only pay sales tax if the business you purchase from is in the state you reside. I've already made my point clear and as of today, the great editors and staff at BusinessWeek.com put my comment on the front page for today.
Many Internet businesses have grown despite what the economy has thrown at them. My anime business has grown steadily as well despite me starting it in late 2006 and throughout this whole recession, my customer service has been creating a thriving company that hopefully soon I can create jobs with. New York already broke the laws of the land by having it where you have to pay the already inflated New York sales tax even if you don't live in NY!!
Because many rich scammers out there can't run their hedge funds anymore, the states are strapping for cash they once had from these legal Ponzi Schemes and that means your anime items, not just from me, but from every anime business or all products from all e-commerce businesses will cost more for you. Instead of doing the right thing, many states want to steal money from the average citizen by imposing this tax. Granted a very small universal tax should be a solution to accommodate the state's need and ours but...we all know that won't happen either because of states like New York who can't balance their budget even in an utopian society.
I know I'm sounding much like Code Geass's Lelouche but fighting this is a must for anyone who wants to see the economy continue to recover from such idiotic actions. Call your state representative or aid ebay.com and overstock.com in their fight against this. You can also add to the discussion on BusinessWeek.com along with me. Despite what naysayers think, many e-commerce sites, including my own already pay enough taxes to our state government. I cringe every time I have to impose the Suffolk County 8.625% sales tax on anime figures bought by my fellow New Yorkers. An besides, if my company grows and I add more employees, income tax comes into play and that's where the money should come from! Its a crime to begin with and there is no way this crime should be allowed to expand.
Submitted this to Business Week as a solution to the economic issues the US faces. I'll admit, my anime business is doing just fine in this economy, even with a much stronger yen so I'm not really feeling what everyone else is crying about. Yet, the economy needs help and it sure as hell doesn't involve what has been done; feeding the rich morons who started this mess in the first place. Here's what I suggested:
"If you think of the economy as a plant, its roots have been shortened and its sunlight has been taken away by the economies of India and China, excessive credit lifestyles fronted by the financial and educational system and the obviously pointless raise in home prices over the past 10 years. Thus, causing a dying "plant". Granted, parts of the economy are still growing and much of this is panic but there is a lot of work to be done. All the government has done is water the top of this "plant" by feeding the financial industry in hopes it will all trickle down. An obvious fail since all the banks have done is profit from the money and buy out their dying competitors (like my bank, WaMu, being bought out by Chase ).
Though I feel the basic fundamentals of capitalism is lost by ANY bailout, the bailouts will and have happened. Thus, to fix this mess with a bailout we must fix from the bottom, up.
Instead of giving the money directly to the banks, the people in foreclosure should be given the money to keep their homes for at least one year but as a lesson learned in the needless housing price increase and terrible credit lifestyle, the value of their homes and all homes should be then dropped back to their real values. For example, a home here on Long Island went for $90K in 1998, it now costs $300K. Chances are the current owners bought it for about $300K and are risking foreclosure. The value of their home and homes in the area should be then dropped back to say $100K but they can still live in it. No more should they be allowed to refinance, a price to pay to keep their homes. T he money given to this group obviously goes back to the banks since that's who the money is owed to, thus ending the financial industry's complaints about not getting their money. This also restarts the dead residential real-estate industry since the average income should be able to now afford the average house with at least some sort of decent down payment.
Like any extra income that comes to any company, it gets taxed. This should be the same for banks and the financial industry. They should be taxed heavily on this "extra money" if they do nothing with it. The same would go for me if my company's profits increased. If the extra cash flow is simply held by the banks and not put into loans for businesses, payrolls, new home owner loans and new industries, then most if it needs to go right back to the government to use for Health Care and local government infrastructure. The same tax burden should come down to companies that continue to outsource, manage horribly and those who give their execs far too much bonuses. Those bonuses along with dividends should be taxed more. This allows the money to boomerang back to government to lessen the burden on the value of the US dollar and the overall taxpayer burden.
There should be one more, slightly bigger stimulus package like we had. The average person who qualified for the first one should be given on average of $500 a person (instead of the $300 of the first one). This will give a boost to all areas but like with the money given to those in foreclosure and then the banks, if it's not used for any growth by the receiving people or businesses, it should be taxed more.
One other area that needs to be taxed heavily is the college education system. Most people are forced into a debt lifestyle that starts with a college education that as of lately doesn't return its overpriced value. College is needed of course but tuition needs to be dropped across the board and the truth that you can make money with and without college should be more common knowledge. Heads of college administrations who have been living very fine off the overpriced and underachieving education should see their days in heaven come to a stop by being taxed for their extremely hurtful wealth.
Last but not least is indeed more spending in the green industry movement. America needs to be the forefront of invention and innovation and we are sitting on a gold mine that just needs to be dug. Industries heavily outsourced need to be heavily taxed and if they join in with new green companies in keeping workers here, keeping innovations here and the re-installment of quality in US products, then the economy will flourish and they should then be rewarded with tax breaks, the incentive that got them outsourcing in the first place. The national debt should then be tackled. Once that is done, the US dollar should be backed by gold again and the FED should be abolished with all the banks and companies given their own chance to succeed or fail without the strings of the hard working American citizen attached.
In short, the solution is to feed the economy from the bottom up and those at the top who do not utilize the help given should be taxed to make sure the ends justify the means and all areas benefit. Trickle-down economics has been long dead and in a world where one's say and presence is more available in the age of the Internet, more can be done if the average person is given the torch and not the wealthy who have obviously tried to set the whole place on fire. "
There is more that could be said and can be done to fix the economy, but most of us can agree the actions done thus far is just the rich covering their own asses. I'm someone with a good chance of being rich with all that's on my plate at the moment but I know I wouldn't mind giving a bit more back to the average income earner since it is the average consumer who fuels my business in the first place! Other companies and the rich should realize that if the average middle class consumer goes, so too does their businesses and their wealth. The economy only works if all the cogs in the system are working.
Not much of a surprise to many, all colleges in 49 out of all 50 states got a big "F" for lack of affordability. The only state to pass was California with a pathetic C-. One of the cogs in the current financial/economic meltdown is indeed the ridiculously priced college education. There is a serious problem when the cost of "higher-education" is practically a mortgage without a house. My previous posts about college shows that I'm not too fond of the terrible ROI and over-exaggeration of college's importance in our society but there is many good that a college education can do. That potential is completely shattered by the same greed that realtors and banks had over the past decade in which has absolutely decimated our economy. The blatant theft done by the housing and financial industry has only crept up over the past 30 years and of course rushed on up in the past 5 years; but college education's thievery has been in a constant grow for over 80 years.
Many news stations have been reporting this and there are many numbers that are going around but this can be certain; the pricing of homes, oil, electricity and college education MUST drop to accommodate the average working salary or no amount of bailouts will be enough to fix the economy because the cause of it, seen right here is just simply pampered by bailouts.
Looks like as of a few minutes ago, the House of Representatives passed the new, revised $700 Billion bailout plan 263-171. Though much better than the ridiculous plan proposed by Paulson and Bush, still I bet some people will be questioning if this will be a plan for them or just the 1% of the country that has more than $100,000 in the bank. I listened in to the hearing and I was glad to hear the house actually bashing Wall Street CEOs for their obvious mess ups (lets not forget the greedy Realtors who bumped up house prices beyond anyone's reach). I didn't get to read the entire new bill that I believe can be read at house.gov but stuff like pushing for more money into green businesses for new jobs, the hope of credit flow to small and private businesses (not just the idiots on Wall Street), tax breaks for business owners who keep jobs here, tax breaks for many homeowners, and renegotiations for homeowners in trouble seem to be what is needed. Thankfully they claimed that this will erase those CEO "golden parachutes" but we'll see about that in the coming months. The FDIC limit increase I feel is not really necessary since again, only 1% of Americans even reach the old $100,000 mark in the bank, but at least the horrible bottle-feeding, trickle down economics plans of Bush and Paulson was somewhat stopped. This maybe shows that this country is not a communist/socialist country as of yet but it sure is coming close to with the minority rich still having too much of a say over everyone else. I'll admit I got a bit of worries about this but I was about to pack my bags for Japan if the first bill passed. If McCain comes into office or if Obama blows it...I'll have to rethink that plan again.
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