Stimulus/Response

[vovat]

I saw a sign at a RV sales lot the other day saying that, if you spend your stimulus check there, you can get an additional 10% off. Is it just me, or does anyone else find the stimulus sales to be pretty amusing? While I'm not about to turn down the money (assuming I get any; if what I hear about the system they're using is accurate, I won't know for a while yet), isn't it kind of a stupid system to give people money and then HOPE they spend it on the right things? If they really want people to spend it on RVs and big-screen TVs, why don't they just give the money directly to the manufacturers of such products? Not that I'm recommending that course of action by any means, just that it would cut out the unpredictable middleman. It's sort of like the whole supply-side (AKA trickle-down) economics system, which trusts that corporations will use the money they save from tax cuts to benefit the workers, rather than to send their executives on expensive vacations or something. Dropping dollar bills out of an airplane would probably be about as effective as far as aiding the economy as a whole goes. Also, I hear that the stimulus package is actually a rebate on a person's 2008 taxes. I don't think that means it comes out of our refunds for next year, but I can't say I really understand how that is supposed to work. Of course, tax cuts are the Bush administration's answer to everything. Well, tax cuts and faith-based initiatives. Maybe they think God will make sure the money is distributed properly. Oh, and speaking of dumb tax cuts, what about that gas tax break some politicians are talking about? Aside from the fact that it apparently wouldn't actually save anyone much of anything, notice how it only affects the small part of what we pay that DOESN'T go to the oil companies, which is pretty much the opposite of what I would want. Anything to get out of increasing wages, helping people to find jobs, and regulating corporations, right?

Comments

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I think the public transportation problem is a vicious circle. People don't want to take public transit, so the system is gutted, which leads to people not wanting to use it, which...well, you get the idea.

Metered parking scares me, not only because I'm not very good at parallel parking, but because I'm usually not sure how long I'm going to be parked in a particular place.