BLOOMFIELD: An economic plan

There is one item left out of the economic plan that Obama or the author has not mentioned and therefore Obama gets and "F" on, that is reduction in government spending. When the economy is going down and the tax burden on the American people is going up, the GNP is not expected to really grow, why should the government spending grow? Any pork at all should be cut from the budget and there should be a committee to evaluate the real, not the hyperreal benefit of existing programs. Real means there should be an independent measure of effectiveness of the program and the progress toward it. Now is not the time to fund a Woodstock memorial that doesn't do anything when people are out of jobs and Texas and New Orleans hurricane disaster rebuilding is all but forgotten.

"Smart meters" can NOT substantially reduce electricity use. Smart meters can provide information on current electricity prices (where real time pricing is in place) which would allow customers, automatically or manually, to shift electricity demand from on-peak periods to off-peak periods, when the price of the electricity was lower. Thus the smart meters could assist customers in reducing their electric bills, without reducing their electricity consumption. However, customer decisions to reduce total electricity consumption, especially on-peak, would further reduce electricity bills.

Soxconn: Yes, Federal spending needs to be reduced to in turn reduce the tax burden. Unfortunately, Obama has already stated publicly that dealing with the economic crisis is of a higher priority that keeping a lid on spending. Whether this was code for increasing taxes or just increasing the size of the deficit remains to be seen. My guess is that it means some of both. Firetoice: Smart meters, can, however, allow the loading of the grid to be more even, thus reducing the need to bring additional plants online. This helps keep the cost of energy low(er). WRT the main article: The low national savings rate has been great for retailers, except that now the party is over. Continued low interest rates may help to promote job growth by reducing the cost of borrowing for the purposes of starting a new business, but it also promotes increases in consumer debt -- an unsustainable condition. Adjustment of interest rates to control the economy is a clumsy and imprecise endeavor; it demonstrates the law of unintended consequences.

Democrat, and especially liberal, demonization of "evil" corporations and "immoral" profits will make it very hard for Obama to lower corporate taxes. The continued existence of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the unholy alliance between the two and the government via the CRA and politicians like Barney Frank, that simply refuse to accept the grave consequences from their forcing banks to make "socially responsible" loans instead of fiscally responsible loans, makes for poor long-term economic prospects. I have not heard a peep from Team Obama regarding fixes for this core issue that has robbed our economy of much of its investment capital. The Wall-street bailout, which is nothing more than Congress restoring to the finanical institutions that which Congress forced them to give away will help in the short term but not in the long term. And of course energy is essential to a growing economy and like it or not, oil and gas are the most economical energy source available. Other than announcing that the recently awarded leases in Utah may be quashed by the incoming administration, I have heard nothing approaching a realistic policy for energy.

Obama doesn't know what to do with the economic crisis, he has left it up to those that created it, the Congress.