DustyFrank.com – Interactive Blog

Obama’s $830 billion economic stimulus package was approved by Congress in February, 2009. The package was designed to quickly jumpstart economic growth, and save between 900,000-2.3 million jobs. The result after 2+ years? Nothing. In fact the economy has gotten worse and continues to decline.

Nowhere in that Stimulous package was there anything addressing the core issue of our economic meltdown which is our nearly non-existent U.S. Industrial Production.

As my previous post “Crippled Economy – No end in sight” clearly points out, the economic woes of the U.S. are due to lack of employment, no jobs. And the reason there are no jobs in America is because virtually all of our manufacturing infrastructure has moved overseas.

Since 2001, the nation has lost more than 3.5 million manufacturing jobs and more than 1 million professional service and information sector jobs. Various independent estimates indicate the number of white-collar jobs lost to shipping work overseas over the past few years is in the hundreds of thousands and millions are at risk in the next five to ten years. Increased overseas outsourcing also undermines wages and working conditions in those jobs left behind and threatens the long-term health of the economy.

Manufacturing facilities (factories) once existed in virtually every American city, big and small. Jobs were plentiful and diversified. But today, mere ghost towns of boarded up decaying former factories are all that’s left behind to remind us of just how great our country once was.

NAFTA is largely responsible for the shift in manufacturing to overseas production. As I mentioned in my previous post, NAFTA has failed! And until the free trade agreements are torn up or stiff tarriffs are imposed on all imported goods, the U.S. economy cannot improve!

Now Obama has a $440 billion “New Jobs Plan”. But again, within it not one iota of reference is made to the issue of lost manufacturing jobs in America much less a plan to right the wrong. American’s are great people but they are gullible and they apparently forget all too soon. They subscribe completely and follow blindly the corrupt and out of control politicians leading their political parties who are destroying our once great country.

As my previous post says, unless and until someone steps up to the plate and addresses this very crucial issue, not only will America not recover from this terminal economic condition, but we will continue to digress, decline and ultimately fall.

A recent news story read:  “Economists Stunned by Stagnant Economy”.  The story went on to say that economists were “stunned” because their predictions that the economy would be rebounding by the 2nd quarter of 2011 didn’t come true. What were these fools expecting, that the Economy Fairy was going to appear and wave her magic wand? I mean really, what did these jackals think was going to happen by the 2nd quarter of 2011?

Nothing has changed since the 2nd quarter of 2010 or the 2nd quarter of 2009 or 2008! NAFTA is still intact, huge corporations are still manufacturing their goods overseas, no tarriffs have been imposed for foreign made goods being imported from overseas and American factories are all still boarded up. So what would make an economist, or anyone else for that matter expect to see an economic rebound during the 2nd quarter of this year?

No one anywhere is even addressing the source of the problem much less suggesting ways to remedy it. The issue that needs to be addressed is that there are no jobs in America. And there are no jobs in America because factories in the U.S.A have closed down. And these factories didn’t just lay off their workforce temporarily due to a slow-down in the economy, they’ve closed up shop permanently.

There’s not a city in America that didn’t once have factories. Some cities were founded on manufacturing. But today practically every one of these factories have closed down, boarded up and  left to decay. Former industrial areas of America are now literal ghost towns.

Practically all of the USA’s manufacturing infrastructure has transplanted itself overseas, primarily in Asia. NAFTA and other Free Trade Agreements have enabled Corporate America to make record profits by benefiting from slave labor work forces and lax environmental regulation. But no U.S. politician from either Party is mentioning the causes of our crippled economy. Why? Because Corporate America has both political parties in it’s hip pocket by means of mega campaign contributions and other abhorable bribes and payoffs.

The only REAL solution to the massive unemployment we are seeing now must include what is never mentioned in talk about jobs creations in the USA. That would be tearing up our so-called Free Trade Agreements and Favored Nation Status with China, Mexico, etc, and then implementing new tariffs and trade policies that would make it unprofitable for American corporate giants to import goods not manufactured in the USA.

This evisceration of the USA’s manufacturing base was an incredibly short-sighted experiment that has gone on too long and has miserably failed. Protectionism IS a national good when it keeps jobs and the ability to produce our own basic needs here within our own borders. National security depends upon it, and there really is NO other solution that will bring back jobs to the USA without instituting some harsher new trade laws that insist upon production being done HERE in the USA. Only then will we see the boards come off the windows and doors of our factories so our idle work force can begin collecting pay checks again instead of unemployment and welfare checks.

To put it bluntly, the real estate market cannot get back on track as long as there are foreclosed homes all across America being sold for pennies on the dollar, bringing the value of median home prices down. There are so many defaulted mortgages that have resulted in foreclosures and short-sales that it has affected the overall condition of our economy. In a significant way, we have a colossal Catch-22 situation going on.
How did it all start? Who is to blame? Let’s start with the Bush Administration’s idea of the “American Dream Down Payment Act” of 2003. That’s what lit the fuse for the disaster that followed. With this Act, basically anyone who could fog a mirror qualified for a mortgage. There were even methods around having to make down payments and closing costs for most.

Banks soon began seeing the value of writing mortgages in sheer volume which, on paper, appeared to show huge profits. It was then big banking greed that took over from there. I remember seeing billboards along I-75 in Southwest Florida in 2005 stating “Think you can’t afford a million dollar home? Think again!” Banks were financing high end million dollar plus homes to basically anyone who wanted one, with ridiculously top heavy Jumbo Loans and impossible Adjustable Rate Mortgages which, in many cases, were constructed whereby payments would quadruple after 24-48 months leaving the homeowner with an inevitably impossible situation.

It wasn’t just limited to high end homes with impossible terms. Average people buying average homes were affected too. It became very disheartening for families who bought a median priced home, ranging approximately $200,000.00 in 2003 to find out 3 years later that the value of their home was now about half of what they paid for it. Due to the real estate down spiraling,  millions of jobs were lost in the finance, real estate and construction industries. Incomes had ceased for many Americans. Millions of mortgages were quickly in default.

Again, Bush, a man who has now proven himself to be nothing more than a functioning moron, came up with yet another ingenious plan. Bank bailouts! Any bank that wanted money to cover their greedy mistakes got all they needed. And there were practically no conditions set to qualify for this money. I would think that a mandate should have been invoked in that any bank who accepts bail out money must place an immediate moratorium on foreclosures, and all existing mortgages in default must be recalculated and re-written. In other words, it should have been a condition that if we bail the banks out, then the banks must in turn bail out the poor homeowners to prevent them from losing their homes.

Instead, the banks got all the money they needed, after which they began the biggest wave of home foreclosures in American history! For the past 3 years home foreclosures exceeded the year before. The banks took their bailout money and socked it away and then began yanking homes out from under American families who fell victim to the fractured economy. Banks are taking these foreclosed homes and selling them for pennies on the dollar, causing every other home in America to plummet in value. In perspective, why should a prospective home buyer pay full market price for your home if the one just down the street is selling as a foreclosure for about half the price?

So with all their losses made up for by bailouts, any money that banks get for these foreclosures is just gravy money for them. The banking industry is the only industry in America that has profited so heavily from this recession/depression, and they will continue to do so! 2010 had more foreclosures than the preceding two years and 2011 will see more yet. The housing disaster has affected every industry in America and there is no end in sight. So, unless and until the federal government steps in and forces these banks to cease foreclosing on American homes and begin rewriting existing mortgages, the real estate market will not only not improve, but will only continue to get worse.

Almost daily I read in the news about police stepping up action against “aggressive drivers”. For years I’ve been saying that “aggressive driving” is only a symptom of the underlying problem. In my opinion,“aggressive driving” in 80% of cases is simply people who are on a time schedule, such as trying to get to work on time, making attempts to get around the arrogant jackasses cruising at or below speed limit in the left hand passing lane on the highways.

These people take it upon themselves to set the speed limit at whatever speed they deem proper thereby impeding the flow of traffic and preventing anyone from passing them. On Interstate highways it’s rare for police to ticket anyone traveling 5-10 mph over the speed limit, yet these left lane road hogs persist in lollygagging in the left lane clogging the flow of traffic.

As taught in all Driver Education classes, one of the rules of the road is “keep right except to pass”. Many states have signs posted on the highways stating this. Yet police don’t enforce this law. Instead, they go after the people who out of necessity and sheer frustration perform risky maneuvers (labeled aggressive driving) in trying to get around these arrogant slobs who hold up the flow of traffic by driving slow in the hammer lane!

This problem is widespread and constant and getting worse. If the cops would smarten up and realize that “aggressive driving” is the symptom/result of people breaking the law of “keep right except to pass” and begin aggressively ticketing these left lane hogging jackals who “fail to keep right”, the “aggressive driving” aspect of the situation would dramatically diminish.

So come on law makers and enforcers, “aggressive driving” is not the problem, it’s a symptom of the problem. Let’s work on eliminating the problem!

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dusty frank ~