Who could possibly expect Ben Stein to Understand what Paul McCartney was talking about in Let It Be

[ddeclue]

My rebuttal at the CBSNews.com website for Ben Stein's deceitful op-ed on CBS News Sunday Morning program:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6160081n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

Please DU their response page on this sleazy Ben Stein op-ed!

My response:

Who could possibly expect Ben Stein, a Nixon speechwriter, to understand what Paul McCartney was talking about in Let It Be?

For that matter who could expect Ben Stein to talk intelligently about what is wrong with our economy?

He is being very deceitful in blaming government for why companies aren't hiring. Indeed if his reasoning were correct, hiring would have gone ballistic under the previous administration - it did not. Instead, companies took advantage of Ben Stein's buddies in the Bush administration to ship our jobs overseas where they could exploit third world workers at slave wage rates.

If you could be HONEST about it BEN, the reason that companies won't hire anyone is that they've realized that there is no longer any demand for their products. They have laid off American workers who could afford to buy the products and shipped the jobs off to third world slaves who can NOT afford to buy the products. The end result is that NEITHER the Americans NOR the third world slaves they are exploiting can afford to buy the products. In short, in their avarice, they have killed the goose that laid their golden eggs: DEMAND.

Companies don't invest first and hope demand shows up later. They wait for a demand to develop and THEN they chase that demand. Only a fool would do otherwise.

The companies are NOT hiring because they fear "regulation" - there is very little of that anyways. They fear hiring because there is no DEMAND to support the additional employees.

The fix is to force these companies to start paying a living minimum wage - $12 to $15 /hour and to force them to do so world wide. If they want to make slave made goods in China, then tax the hell out of those goods at our borders to force them to pay those Chinese a decent non slave wage or bring the jobs back here.

The fix is ALSO to RAISE taxes on the rich and on businesses to lower their disincentive to hire people. After all, employee salary comes out of the bottom line and is not part of their taxable profits. If they hire more workers, their taxable profits go down. If the tax on those taxable profits was HIGHER, then they'd have more incentive to hire someone with that money instead of giving it up in taxes to the government.

Finally the fix is to use the government to DIRECTLY employ large numbers of workers in FDR style work programs to rebuild our national infrastructure at a living wage. If the government were to use the 787 BILLION dollars of the TARP on hiring people and let that money "trickle up" in our economy then it would have a MUCH GREATER impact on "monetary velocity" than giving it to a few rich bankers who in turn declare record profits, pay themselves bonuses and then sit on the rest of the money instead of loaning it out to anyone. Those hired government workers would spend that money back into the economy and restart the DEMAND engine which drives our economy.

As I said though, leave it to Ben Stein to not understand either the Beatles OR the economy.

Douglas J. De Clue
Orlando, Florida

[onehandle]

1. Stupid little troll. nt

[glitch]

22. Ben Stein posts here? nt

[timeforpeace]

2. What was Sir Paul talking about in Let It Be? Never really paid attention.

[ddeclue]

13. Paul's explanation:

http://mattandjojang.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/the-story-behind-paul-mccartneys-song-let-it-be/

[NYC_SKP]

3. I watched that little bit of "wisdom". It was full of fail.

Ben likes some of the things Obama is doing to help businesses, but when it came to Health Care Reform and responsible environmental steps, he's all:

"Whoa, Let it Be".

and, "If it was good enough for the Beatles, well it should be good enough for Obama."

It was below juvenile, utterly senseless and stupid.

[SharonAnn]

4. That's Ben Stein,"below juvenile, utterly senseless and stupid."

[Greybnk48]

5. Ben Stein is a douche bag of the highest order. How he continues to be taken

seriously about anything of import is one of life's mysteries.

[Hannah Bell]

7. another child of privilege. like tucker carlson, rich people's sons get gigs

even when they're stupid, talentless, vile & ugly.

[zeemike]

6. When that song came out Ben Stine was still trying to learn

how to do the Madison.
Conservatives like him are always at least 20 years behind any cultural revolution.

[Gregorian]

8. I love that!

I'll bet that would really hurt old Stein.

[KonaKane]

9. Stupid bastard needs to go back to his ClearEyes commercials

At least those were tolerable without feeling the urge to vomit.

[annabanana]

10. He should stick to whack-a-borrower...

It's his forte.

[Skittles]

11. AWESOME DDECLUE

you are someone who TRULY GETS IT - I am fed up with the bandaid fixes being offered with on one addressing the REAL CAUSES

[sendero]

12. I can anticipate that idiot's response already..

... "oh no you are advocating PROTECTIONISM, that's bad for EVERYONE!"

Yes Ben and the SHIT the libtards (not liberals, libertarians) have shoved down our throats is working OH SO WELL.

Don't expect a libtard to ever get it, they are mentally defective.

[comrade snarky]

14. People still listen to Ben Stein?

Wow... who would do that?

Shouldn't he be off making another movie about how evolution is Nazi propaganda or something?

[Warren DeMontague]

15. Ben Stein is a creationist nitwit.

Really, why anyone gives that idiot airtime, I have no idea.

[bik0]

16. I saw Stein's op-ed and that's not what he said

The companies are NOT hiring because they fear "regulation" - there is very little of that anyways. They fear hiring because there is no DEMAND to support the additional employees.

Stein said businesses are not hiring because they can't PLAN with an uncertain future of health care and cap and trade legislation hanging over the economy. There's no way to know how it will effect their costs going forward until the legislation is passed. Stein was suggesting that health care and cap & trade be put on the back burner for 2 yrs until the employment situation gets better – to let it be.

[ddeclue]

19. No he said they fear regulation and referred to health care and cap and trade as examples.

it was totally disingenuous and ignored the obvious 10,000 pound elephant in the room: DEMAND. There is NO demand because people don't have jobs in this country and can't afford to buy things any more now that easy credit has dried up. There is no demand in the third world countries where our jobs have been exported either because they pay slave wages.

[bik0]

20. Credit has dried up - exactly

Banks have tightened their lending standards because of the uncertainty of legislation. There is a lot of demand in China - their economy is growing on a 10% clip. There's just not as big of demand for U.S. products as the other way around. There's no way the U.S. can dictate to another country how much to pay their workers. It just won't happen.

[ddeclue]

23. It has NOTHING to do with "uncertainty of legislation" that's a cynical ploy

to keep Democrats from passing legislation.

Credit has dried up because banks don't lend money to the unemployed and to businesses who can't demonstrated demand for their products.

There's NOT a lot of demand in China.. it's a serf economy where the vast majority work for slave wages. The increase in production in China is the result of opening more slave labor factories to produce goods for discount stores like Walmart in the U.S.A.

And OF COURSE the U.S. can dictate to another country how much to pay their workers. It's really quite simple: You don't follow our rules you don't get to sell in OUR country. It's really that simple.

:eyes:

[bik0]

24. Why Are the Banks Not Lending More?

(snip)

The White House realizes that the voting public is furious about the bank bailout. To remove the issue from public view, therefore, the Obama Treasury has pushed the big banks to repay the federal loans before the end of 2009. By year's end, the 22 biggest recipients will have fully repaid their loans to the Treasury ($185 billion), though most will still owe unknown billions to the Federal Reserve System.

The banks are anxious to comply with the Administration's prodding because a total repayment frees them from federal oversight of their salaries and bonuses. Consequently, the same bankers who created the global financial crisis and destroyed millions of jobs are now legally able to take billions of dollars in 2009 as bonuses. Wall Street reportedly has set aside more than $140 billion for this.
Therefore, the arithmetic of the decline in bank loans is that the banks are using $325 billion of what otherwise would be their capital ($185 billion plus $140 billion) to repay the Treasury and to reward their executives.

The harm to the economy and job creation is already enormous. Consider this: the Treasury reports that the average balance of loans made by all these 22 banks in October 2009 was $4.1 trillion, a decline of almost one percent from September. If that $325 billion had been used as capital for loans at a conservative four-to-one reserve, the banks could have easily and safely loaned another $1.3 trillion -- that is, about 30 percent more than they did.

Because of the repayments and bonuses, bank lending in 2010 will continue to be tight. And tight capital means that many potential borrowers will be unable to get the monies they need to expand, unemployment is likely remain at double-digit levels, and the demands for unemployment insurance, Medicaid and other public services will rise even further.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pat-choate/why-are-the-banks-not-len_b_394340.html

FHA Will Tighten Credit Standards
The Federal Housing Administration, which insures lenders against losses on home mortgages, announced Friday that it would tighten credit requirements but said it has enough reserves to handle expected claims.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125328361187423115.html


And OF COURSE the U.S. can dictate to another country how much to pay their workers. It's really quite simple: You don't follow our rules you don't get to sell in OUR country. It's really that simple.

Good way to start a trade war - not a good idea. Do some research on the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act. It made the depression of the 30's much worse.

[H2O Man]

17. Let It Be

is about a plant.

[unblock]

18. now, now, ben stein DID teach a business class once upon a time

... in a movie....

[amborin]

21. he's an idiot; and

either a denier or a believer in intelligent design, i forget which....either way, a total cretin