Christina Romer has come out saying that the unemployment rate is now stable. She said this on ABC’s good morning America. We here in ST would like to put it out to her that her words right now is on our watch-list. If the figures go against her, she should join the unemployed and feel the effects of the numbers that she got so wrong!

Look, I do give credit where it is due. For taking the economy out of recession, I would give President Obama and his administration the credit. America performed more like India and China and was way ahead of the European countries and Canada. So on that, you got my respect.

Whether or not the stimulus package worked, I think I have learned my lesson from the bank bailouts in 2008 and wait till I see the figures in detail. In the case of the bank bailouts. I was initially vehemently against it till about June last year where I changed my mind after seeing the figures.

But one thing nobody should be saying or taking credit for is on jobs. Just like our economic growth betters those of other countries, we are lacking behind when it comes to jobs. We are still bleeding jobs while countries in Europe and Canada enjoy small job growth the last quarter.

So when somebody is in charge or an expert of an area that demonstrates poor figures, comes out and make such an audacious claim that unemployment is stable, her a** got to be stapled on the line. Look, I do not know whether she is right or wrong, but I do know that if she is wrong, she is very, very wrong.

This is the lady that helped shape the stimulus package, though that is mostly done by Congress. Now, after a year, she is coming out with ideas that we gave a year ago, and even then it is not as good as our suggestions! We mentioned that it should be looked at a local level up, rather than a federal level down.

What she is suggesting right now in the new Jobs bill that is going to be passed soon in the House of Representatives (wanna bet that it gets stuck in the Senate?) is that federal aid be given out to states so that they can keep their federal employees like teachers and police(wo)men.

Why this is not good is that Governors has got the right to use the federal money for something else. Why not just stake the claim that the Federal government would pay the wages of these teachers and police(wo)men instead? With that we had a guaranteed 1 million jobs that would be saved!

I am not a fan of this lady’s work. But then again, I am not an expert. I am willing to give her a chance to show her results, but I think like a lot of Americans, my patience is thin with her. She screws up, her head should roll!

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to announce a new fee Thursday on the country’s biggest financial firms to recover up to $120 billion in taxpayers’ money used to prop up corporations during the economic crisis, a senior administration official said.
In proposing a multiyear levy on big banks, Obama is targeting an industry whose political deafness has vexed his administration. The $120 billion recovery goal is the most that administration officials expect to lose from the government’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program that bailed out banks, automakers and other financial firms.
Congress would have to approve any fee plan.
The proposed levy could put Obama on the popular side of public opinion that is decidedly against Wall Street and angry over shortfalls in a $700 billion bank bailout fund.
Obama’s announcement would come one day after the nation’s top bankers testify before the congressionally created Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The hearings come at an ultra-sensitive time for the banking industry. In addition to Obama’s fee proposal, Congress is writing a full-scale overhaul of financial regulations.
The administration official said Obama’s plan has been in the works since August and would seek modifications to the law that sent billions of dollars in bailout money in 2008 and 2009 to a flailing Wall Street that was approaching collapse.
The 2008 law that created the Troubled Asset Relief Program requires the president to seek a way to recoup unrecovered TARP money from financial institutions, but five years after the law was enacted. The administration’s plan raises a series of questions.
Administration officials already have ruled out a fee on financial transactions. An industry official said consideration of a levy now would be premature.
“Current law doesn’t trigger this tax proposal for another four years,” said Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, an industry group for some of the largest financial firms.

Banks have been repaying their infusions, in part to get out from under compensation limits imposed on the bailout recipients. Banks have also paid dividends from the government help.

With public anger over the bailout still strong, Obama has embraced populist rhetoric in an effort to shame bank executives into paying back the government more quickly and their executives less lavishly.

Funds collected from such a levy would go to pay down the $1.4 trillion deficit amid the Obama-backed stimulus package and aid to Detroit’s automakers.

Washington spent about $245 billion to help banks in the Troubled Asset Relief Program, much less than President George W. Bush’s Treasury Department secured to keep financial firms afloat.

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President Obama intends to recycle the TARP profits to convert the savings into “tax-cuts” for small businesses and other infrastructure projects. The tax cuts would be a disastrous mistake and it would be something that would be just adding to the debt that we have.

Let me make this clear, these kind tax cuts would not mean anything to the middle class or the small businesses. I am not saying that I would not appreciate a tax cut, but the fact is, we got so many things to pay for that we do not feel the tax cuts effect at all. It is not like the millions that we would save if we were rich.

To prove my controversial statements above, I would like to point you guys to one example. As part of the Economic Recovery Act, the stimulus package, more than $250 billion dollars was set aside for tax cuts for the lower and upper middle class. How many of the recipients do you think would experience a reprieve or appreciated tax cut? Even today, many years after President Clinton cut taxes for the lower income bracket, people are still asking : Where was my tax cut, President Clinton?

The tax cut does not seem real at all. But what would be real is the debt it brings along with it. Should President Obama carry out his plan to convert the TARP funds to tax cuts, we would see the President cut half a trillion dollars worth of taxes. This half a trillion dollars spent, I am sorry to say, is just a waste of money.

The $200 billion could have been used to pay off the debt; we need to do that. That could have brought the deficit for this year down from $1.4 trillion to $1.2 trillion. It could have meant billions of dollars worth of interest being saved.

Many would bring us back to President’s Reagan presidency to claim that tax cuts would work, less would associate themselves with President Bush’s policies. Yes it worked, at a cost of a trillion 1980 US$! That is when the problem of debt really started in America.

If there is a further need to stimulate the economy, the many can be used in better ways. The money can be invested in infrastructure. This can be used to ensure that all our buildings and bridges are save. Lets build levies all around flood prone areas.

We can invest the money in education. Our kids are falling behind the rest of the world. While there would be people out there that blame the government, I disagree. The countries that have excellent results as of late are China, Hong Kong, Japan,Singapore and South Korea. The governments of these countries are very involved with their systems, so should we. We should meritocratize our system.

We can use the money to develop green energy. It can be seed money to help new green businesses start up. I am sure many would be interested in starting up a green business today especially with the ridiculously rebates that the government is offering in the ACES bill. This would make us very much less dependent on foreign oil.

Use it for these stuff, but please do not use it on tax cuts. It is not beneficial at all. It would just increase the debt! My preference is to use it to lower the debt that we owe China…

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