2.1.09: Head Spin

Like most Americans, all this column knows for certain is that we don't make as much money, things are more expensive, we have more credit debt than we would like, and we don't know if we going to have a job in another month or not. With that said, billions of dollars are needed to correct the trillions of problems and as evidence by today's Meet The Press, there are billions of answers and a trillion angles to go with them.

Today's program was only a microcosm of the collective opinions as to what should be done and if you were looking for a clear perspective of the Republican Opinion versus the Democrat opinion then you sure didn't get it from Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson and her counterpart the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry with the exception of one aspect. How much of the stimulus should be devoted to tax cuts?

Ms. Hutchinson calls for a larger percentage of the stimulus to be devoted for tax cuts, which right now stands are $275 billion of the total $819 billion. The rest would go to spending. She feels that there is not enough tax relief in the bill and too much spending in form of social programs, which she says won't do enough. What does that mean - spending? That means providing money to the states for what have been deemed 'shovel ready' projects to jump start construction with the hopeful residual benefit of creating and improving roads, schools, transit, and energy consumption [think: infrastructure]. That is what the Obama Administration stimulus package proposes - relief down the road and have the tax cuts act as the short term fix. John Kerry didn't exactly inspire confidence in his answers today, but that is basically what he is backing.

Keep in mind that with any stimulus bill passed, the benefits will not be seen for a few years down the road. Not to mention that no one seems to know where we are in this crisis... Are we at the beginning, the middle, the end? Or are we famously at the end of the beginning... what is it?

What matters is the answer to this primal question, which speaks to the above statement of what we know for certain - How does the government get more money into the hands of ordinary Americans without giving them money? In typical fashion, they've given the money to corporations in the hopes that corporations would do the right thing with it. Well, that was the original $700 billion bailout money. This next installment is supposed to get all the rest going.

Now, the Republican perspective, as voiced by Ms. Hutchinson is that there should be more tax cuts and this was brought to be fact as not one House Republican voted for the stimulus bill last week. In explicably, Ms. Hutchinson also stated on today's MTP that spending should be increased - for the military. Granted, our military is broken but not a lack of spending rather a lack of sound judgement [read: unnecessary wars]. Which is to say that Ms. Hutchinson's stance is more tax cuts and further military spending. Haven't we been in the place before - say for the last eight years and look where that has taken us. One can not help but think that the Republicans in the House were playing politics with when it comes to bettering the lives of ordinary citizens. Mr. Kerry made an important point in that President Obama sat down with the Republican caucus to hear them out and try to compromise on some points. We can only assume that the compromise was not anything of the like judging from there vote. And then he pointed out that President Bush never once approached the Democratic caucus in that way. Well, the harsh reality is that he didn't have to. That's what is called the bully pulpit or the power of the majority. The Democrats and President Obama have to be comfortable and willing to pull out that tactic.

The above commentary alone is probably enough to make your head spin and the second half panel of CNBC's Erin Burnett, Forbes' Steve Forbes, and Moody's Economy.com's Mark Zandi didn't do anything but further grease the wheel. In the half an hour, Mr. Zandi tried to explain it to no avail, Mr. Forbes supported the banking industry making the case as well as he did in his Presidential run (not well), and Ms. Burnett tried to provide the affective corporate media sound bite when she could.

One of those sound bites was that the Wall Street vs. Main Street argument is a false choice and she explained it in terms of the corporate bonuses being given out by bailed-out corporations. If, for example, one of these corporate brokers makes the company $10 million dollars and his or her commission structure for making that amount is 10 percent, then that person makes $1 million dollars. Seems square. So if that is what you think then you have to say its only fair when a person makes a billion dollars for the company (regardless of the company losing billions beyond that) he or she is entitled to $100 million in commission.

So do you change the commission structure so that the more money you make for a company, the less your commission will be? Anyone in sales, any kind of sales, wouldn't agree with that. Or do you just change the wording so that when people talk about bonuses, they should simply change the syntax and go with commission? Or do you put a monetary cap on the money someone can make in commissions?

Now what Ms. Burnett is saying is that these bonuses, nay commissions, are part of what the national sales guys get at Citigroup and that they are Main Streeters as well, making the whole argument a moot point. Now that is just adding to the drudgery.

And before your head comes completely off your shoulders, we'll leave you this week with Mr. Forbes summarizing quotation that he who has the money makes the rules. But no one has any money (individuals and see graphic) so we're back to where we were in the first place - no rules. That's just great.




By the way, the grey is what they were worth in 2007, green in 2009.