Is Quality the Answer when it comes to fixing the global economy?

It seems like economic growth is fueled by the belief in something good. Once the good is created, waves of false excitement that lead to false growth get created as cheaper product imitations are made that leave the consumer with the initial belief that they are getting something valuable, for a lot cheaper.

Once the consumer realizes the new cheaper thing is not as good as what it replaced, nor as useful, consumer enthusiam disappears, the value plummets, and the economy crashes.

The initial desire to save the economy is to then try and just get things going again. But if we create things just to get things going again, and the creation isn't based on quality and longevity, there will be nothing to get excited about, hence no real growth, and the economy will just stagnate.

No matter how many times we are led to believe that quality is not the issue, there comes a moment in the economic spin cycle where quality and longevity does matter.

Just recently I read an article about how Detroit had already started retooling some engine plants to make more fuel efficient engines, and now that the price of gasoline was crashing, there was some regret being expressed that maybe Detroit had over reacted to the spike in fuel prices and retooled too quickly.

It will be interesting to see if quality and longevity can make a comeback. Right now it seems the speculators only know how to make a fast buck, which means quality won't make a comeback just yet, and neither will the economy.

George Bush Explains about Credit 101, never Mentioning that cash is a good thing to have.

President Bush explains the economy to everybody during ANOTHER hastily called press conference...."Lets say you have a chair for sale, but the customer doesn't have the credit to buy the chair...."

My question is, why doesn't the customer have the cash to buy the chair? Answer, because taxes, fees, and interest take as much as 60% of a customers income, that's why there is a "need" for credit.

I never realized that the Government and Wall Street was doing everybody a favor by keeping everybody in debt and requiring ever increasing debt loads to pay their monthly bills.

Crikey.

Saturday Night Live Transcript of a CSPAN Spoof involving George Soros, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and the Bailout.

Transcript of Saturday Night Live CSPAN spoof starring "George Bush, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and George Soros" lookalikes. I transcribed this myself, my preference is anyone can put a link to here rather than just cutting and pasting it somewhere else, thanks.

Barney Frank
Many of you are probably wondering where did that 700 billion missing from our economy go. To help answer that, let me introduce our good friend, Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager George Soros.

George Soros
Zo vut became of zat 700 billion dollars. Well, Basically it belongs to me now. Actually, it's not even dollars anymore but Swiss Francs. Since I have taken a short on position against the U.S. Dollar.

George Bush
Oh Really - that's not good.

George Soros
You're not to speak, I don't like you.

George Bush
(nods incoherently)

George Soros
Yes uh, the U.S. Dollar will have to be devalued sometime next week, either Tuesday or Wednesday, I haven't decided which yet, it will depend on how I feel.

Barney Frank
Thank you very much Mr. Soros, You're a great man.

George Soros
Yes, could I just add that even though you know whats coming, you won't be able to do anything about it.

Nancy Pelosi
You're a wise man, Mr. Soros (in awe), and a powerful one.

Barney Frank
You are better than us.

George Soros
(to Anne Hathaway's penniless husband) Your wife is physically attractive, sell her to me please.

Husband
Sure

Hathaway
OK.

End of faux CSPAN conference courtesy of Saturday Night Live.

The video clip has since been removed by NBC. However, you can download it at Saturday Night Live Spoof starring George Soros lookalike. This link automatically downloads a wav file to your computer so don't click on it if you don't want it on your computer. I downloaded it with no problems. If you download the video the George Soros piece is in the final 90 seconds, however I don't think you can fast forward the video to the final 90 seconds.

Consumer Bill of Rights, Does one even Exist?

The Wall Street Bailout masked what is really wrong with economy. We need a consumer Bill of Rights, and we need one now. Additionally, the Federal and State Income Tax Codes MUST be simplified and made fairer to those who are renters.

#1 The right to "OPT OUT" of any financial agreement whenever the loaner changes terms.
#2 Interest free pay down on all credit card debt that is 3 years or older.
#3 40% minimum floor space for products that are actually made in america for businesses such as Target and Walmart.
#4. Government Bailout to Wall Street primarily for U.S. industries that produce products and jobs in America.
#5. The creation of a true Alternative Minimum PERCENTAGE TAX that covers ALL FEDERAL TAXES.
#6 Full Income Tax Deduction for renters, full Income Tax Deduction on the Primary Home Mortgage (with a cap), full income tax deduction on all necessary medical & hospital expenses and on all insurance Premiums.
#7 No change to the current Income Tax Tables.

If the above Consumer Bill of Rights were implemented, the U.S. Economy would rebound.

Are there any downsides? A possibly weakened international military presence and ironically, a rapid and large influx of immigrants who would want to live here.

If we continue on with a strong international military while our own country's insides rot out, one must ask just who does this benefit?

If we put the military to work inside of our own borders, doing things like dredging the Mississippi river and installing underwater hydroelectric turbines, or rebuilding our country's infrastructure of bridges and railways, our own economy will improve. I prefer a consumer bailout versus a Wall Street Bailout.

Consumer Debt, Why are we not talking about Consumer Debt?

Over the years we have heard about stock market corrections. Stock Market corrections restabilize the market and allow for a new run of success to occur.

Then there is consumer debt. For some reason, the media, the government, nor Wall Street ever states that reducing consumer debt is actually a good thing.

Has consumer debt ever decreased in the past 20 years? Shouldn't consumer debt periodically decrease so the Financial Industry can again entice us to go more in debt? Shouldn't there be an up and down cycle to consumer debt totals?

Consumer Debt Reduction cannot occur with so many hands inside the consumers wallet. Government taxes, state taxes, questionable interest rate charges on credit card debt, not allowing full medical deductions off of our income taxes, and not allowing full rental deductions to those who don't own property are the primary reasons that consumer debt continues to rise every year.

Until consumer debt is reversed and lowered, nothing can be done to fix the economy that will actually work. The Bailout is evil and was rejected, but until the elite in our society acknowledge that the consumer is overleveraged in debt, nothing will change for the better.

The Media, Banks, and the U.S. government are either slow to figure out an economic solution, or they have a master plan to keep us Fearful.

Solution 101. If I could wave a magic wand and do one thing for the economy, it would be to allow for an immediate implementation of a full income tax deduction for both renters and property owners.

"Preposterous", the wall street muckety mucks would say, "that is double dipping"! Lol, and just what does the government do every second of every day when it comes to taxation, they double and triple and quadruple dip. The government taxes money coming and going, every which way they can.

Hospitalization costs (including insurance premiums), monthly apartment rental costs and monthly mortgage payments should ALL be completely deducted from a person's income prior to calculating income tax, and the income tax tables WOULD NOT be adjusted to anticipate this real deduction.

Is the government being honest, or is the government trying to trick us by blaming the economy on higher fuel prices and the sub prime mortgage fiasco?

The reason I ask is, if the average consumer is paying $2,500 dollars a year in all kinds of interest & finance charges, and considerably more than that in all kinds of state and federal taxes, why would paying an extra $600 dollars a year on gasoline be destroying the economy?

Wouldn't it make more sense to "re-evaluate" just what kind of interest and finance charges are being charged on the consumer, rather than blaming the economy on the price of oil?

Wouldn't it also make more sense to re-evaluate the fairness of state and federal taxation as well when it comes to assessing taxes on the place we call home, be it rental or otherwise?

If the government wants to blame the economy on the sub prime mortgage debacle, why not acknowledge that peoples' desire to own their own living space for just a few hundred more dollars a month than renting was too good to pass up! Once the home interest deduction was added in, it may actually have cost less to own a home then rent from someone else!

The government needs to make it economically sensible to pay rent or the economic instability that is taking over will continue. Some people may choose to own a home and have less money in the bank as a result, others may choose to pay rent and with the money they save per month, actually have a savings account. Both living methods should be equally honored by the government. As it stands, renters are being discriminated against.

If this idea were to be implemented, it is possible that those who rent properties may raise their rates because they know that their tenants will now be getting income tax deductions. However, that would just be ethically wrong.

Once the renters deduction is incorporated into the income tax code, the government could set up an escalating tax on a building owner to prevent the owner from overcharging.

These steps would allow all people to take a huge, deep breath, one that they deserve. People are entitled to reasonable deductions, whether they are home owners, renters or have serious medical issues.

Media Afraid to Tread where this Article Dared to go a year and a half ago.

This is my second reprint of this article. I warned about what was happening to the United States economy back in February of 2007. Pretty much everyone of my complaints has come home to roost.
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Here is a link to the end of the United States as we know it. Home Depot to sell Supply Services Division to make Wall Street "Happy." Below is the article with my comments interspersed.

News Story posted below with responding commentary by Alessandro Machi.
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Posted on Tue, Feb. 13, 2007

Home Depot to consider sale of division

HOME DEPOT SUPPLY SERVES CONTRACTORS, OTHERS; NEW CEO REVIEWING OPTIONS FOR CHAIN

By Harry R. Weber
Associated Press
ATLANTA - Home Depot, the world's largest home-improvement store chain, distanced itself further from the strategies advanced by former Chief Executive Bob Nardelli as it said Monday it will consider shedding its division serving contractors, home builders and other business customers.

The company's shares rose on the news.
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Home Depot's stock market "value" has risen because Wall Street has approved of a strategy that minimizes the value of American Citizens who do blue collar jobs such as carpentry, plumbing, landscaping and general home improvement for a living.
-A.M.
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Some analysts said the decision to possibly sell Home Depot Supply could benefit the company by allowing it to focus on generating value for shareholders, while others suggested it could put the onus back on the company's retail side, where it faces tough competition from Lowe's.
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How does one "generate value" for Wall Street stockholders? It appears that the Wall Street investment community sees the disenfranchising of Blue Collar American Workers who work in America for other American Citizens as having inferior "value" when compared to businesses such as WalMart that sell retail products imported from other countries.
-A.M.
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The announcement followed a decision earlier this month by the Atlanta company to give a seat on its board to an investment group that wants Home Depot to consider, among other things, a leveraged buyout of the entire company as a way to generate shareholder value.

The group, Relational Investors, had threatened a proxy fight over the home-improvement company's strategic direction, part of an undercurrent that led to Nardelli's resignation in early January after six years at the helm of the company.
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According to Wall Street "experts" it was unnacceptable for Home Depot to have a "supply division" that enabled skilled American Citizens who work with their hands to have a place to go to buy the products they need to do work for other Americans. Because Home Depot Supply Division could not create the kind of immediate profit that importing from other countries can create, Wall Street thinks the division should be sold off.
-A.M.
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Frank Blake, who replaced Nardelli as CEO, said Monday's announcement regarding Home Depot Supply was part of a strategic review the company conducted in November.
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What Mr. Blake calls a "strategic review" I call a sucide bomb placed directly into the heart and soul of the American Blue Collar worker. Wall Street supports the premise that it is not preferrable to sell supplies to American skilled labor because that will generate a smaller profit margin than selling product that is imported from other countries.
-A.M.
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Nardelli had said repeatedly that he believed the company's strategy under his watch did not need changing.
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Mr. Nardelli appears to be a controversial figure. While I wholeheartedly agree with his position that Home Depot should not shed it's Supply Division, Mr. Nardelli just received a huge, really huge severance package for his tenure at Home Depot. It appears that Mr. Nardelli understands that without a strong local economy which the Supply Division of Home Depot helps nurture; local community economies would stagnate. It just seems a shame Mr. Nardelli was paid so much darn money for that basic understanding. Home Depot Supply is the seed that bears fruit for local communities throughout the United States yet Wall Street seems to focus solely on quarterly profit margin reports and is unwilling to acknowledge that long term stability matters just as much.
-A.M.
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Blake said the company wants to concentrate more on its retail business.
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Retail business means the importing of product from other countries at the loss of local blue collar jobs, that's what is Good for Wall Street, but is that what is good for your local community?
-A.M.
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The company said it would ''evaluate strategic alternatives'' that also could include an initial public offering of the supply business. Home Depot did not say how much it could fetch for HD Supply, but some analysts valued it at $5 billion to $7.5 billion.
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Strategic alternatives is a code word for outsourcing, for buying as much product from other countries as possible at the expense of the local communities ability to create skilled labor jobs.
-A.M.
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Analysts had mixed reactions.

''While we had long been advocates of the Home Depot Supply business, the market never seemed to warm up to the strategy, viewing it more as a lower-margin, lower-return distraction from retail,'' David Strasser, an analyst with Banc of America Securities, said in a research note.
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Lower profit margin does not mean the Home Depot Supply division was losing money, it just means that it was making less money than Home Depot could allegedly make if it were to simply focus on importing products from other countries.

Do you see a dangerous pattern emerging here? No new United States business can be created that uses United States Labor and United States resources and still score as high a rating with Wall Street as a U.S. business that imports products and/or services from other countries.

At some point, do we dare ask if Wall Street's institutional practices and objectives are violating the constitution of the United States by aggressively advocating the outsourcing of all goods and services to other countries over the blue collar citizens of the United States?
-A.M.
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Strasser said Home Depot's stock should react positively to the news.

''This tells us new CEO Frank Blake is focused on value, and taking a fresh look at every aspect of the business,'' Strasser wrote.
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Increased value for whom? Perhaps increased value for those who are already worth millions and salivate for millions more from their Wall Street Stock holdings. How is this "fresh look" achieved, by focusing on the import retail business while downgrading the importance of the local blue collar worker.
-A.M.
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But Mark Rowen, an analyst with Prudential Equity Group, said in a research note of his own that without HD Supply as a growth vehicle, investors soon could start to focus more intensely on Home Depot's core retail segment, which he believes is close to reaching store saturation in the United States.
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Mark Rowen is a smart person. What Mr. Rowen is saying is the diversity of products and services Home Depot provides all over the United States fuels a huge amount of local economies by serving both the consumer with goods they can immediately use, and the blue collar worker with core products they require to do skilled labor, to have a job!

Home Depot is a company that has become an essential economic cog and valued member of local communities throughout the United States, whereas the same cannot be said of Walmart, which actually assisted in the rise and fall of a small town rubbermaid plant located in Wooster, Ohio several years ago. The rubbermaid plant was disassembled and the assembly line manufacturing components were sold to China, over a thousand workers in Wooster Ohio lost their jobs.

What Wall Street is saying to Home Depot is, "Be like Walmart and offer retail only products made from other countries or we will downgrade your Wall Street Value". What Mr. Rowen has intelligently pointed out is that companies that help the local community create and maintain jobs have an intrinsic value that cannot be easily measured by Wall Street. Ironically, it's smaller profit divisions within a company like Home Depot Supply that actually help stabilize a local communities economy and as a result help other Wall Street Stocks meet their bottom line because the local economy sustains more jobs, which results in more overall spendable income.
-A.M.
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''We believe that Home Depot will continue to struggle with the effects of a difficult housing market in the near term, as well as intense competition from archrival Lowe's longer term,'' Rowen wrote.
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Another excellent point by Mr. Rowen. Home Depot has a competitive edge because it offers a diversity of goods and services. Once Home Depot "cuts and runs", they may gain an instant increase in stockholder value for the investors who want to make a quick buck by selling their Home Depot stock. Afterwards Home Depot will simply blend in with their competition and most likely no longer hold any advantage. Meanwhile the blue collar workers who lose their jobs because of less supply availability won't be able to buy any product from Home Depot at all.
-A.M.
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Overall, Home Depot currently operates 2,159 stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico and China.
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Let us not forget, Home Depot not only sells products to consumers, but Home Depot Supply currently sells product to creators, innovators and blue collar people who use Home Depot Supply product in their own line of work. These jobs fuel the local economy so people have money to spend in their own community. Wall Street is insidiously proposing that it's always better to import product and services from other countries rather than creating the product in the United States. Wall Street is advocating an outsourcing paradigm because it will always create a larger profit margin than can be created with United States skilled labor. Wall Street is advocating this outsourcing motiff at the loss of blue collar jobs in the United States.

In a related scenario, since Wall Street has decided to completely embrace the importation industry over blue collar American Made Jobs, the War in Iraq takes on added significance. Having access to the worlds oil supply is imperative for any country intent on creating an import economy because it takes petroleum to fuel the huge number of ships that bring product from all over the world to our own ports. Yes, Wall Street, whether they realize it or not, appears to be a war mongering institution as well.

-Alessandro Machi