Doug had a woman from EPI on this morning. What's her name? She outlined a WPA styled plan that dealt directly with job creation, infrastructure development, and some kind of relief for state budgets. The programs were paid for by transaction tax on short term trading. There were more elements, but I can remember them all at the moment. It sounded great. However, I don't expect any of that to happen. The main reason I say that is because most of the elements sound too direct.
I think it's neoliberal or freemarket wisdom to use indirect means like business tax credits, home improvement tax credits, business start up credits, and other empty gestures.
(IMHO the fastest way to get jobs started again is to re-populate the previously gutted civil service system of federal agencies, and provide direct federal support to states to increase their public employment systems. So that's a shovel ready set of systems. Just shovel in the cash for an employment bloom.)
I am now pretty certain Obama is not going to anything to force banks to do anything, but what they please. I don't know the legal issues, but it seems to me, some combination of regulatory agencies could impose a temporary surchage or transaction tax without going to congress. I am sure the excuse for not doing that, is we don't want to hurt the `recovery' --- a concept I still don't understand.
I want to get back to this jobless recovery. What recovers, seriously? What it sounds like is a number of statistical measures recover.
Doug and others say that job creation follows late as the economy improves. I assume that's been true in the past. But it seems to me we are in a different situation. Previous recoveries were lead with expanded credit systems of some sort to businesses and consumers. In turn consumers start buying again and businesses expand and started hiring again. But as far as I know, banks are not extending their money anywhere in the economy except in more financial sector games.
I think most consumers like me cleared their credit card balances as fast as possible and stopped using the damned things. I switched to a straight debit card. The credit card company as a thank you gesture installed a series of rate hikes with a 30-day notice and the only option was clear the balance lose the card. Take it or leave.
As the little I saved from a small inheritance bleeds away spent on necessities, I'll be forced to use the credit card again. Except for my very low-end position, I think this is a pretty typical pattern. I checked what my unemployment benefits would be last year as I was getting force out of work. They were slightly lower than my SS check. What that means is I would be in worse shape, Other households with unemployment are making up the difference on nothing or their credit cards.
I don't know if any of this over simplified sketch is true. I assume it is. If that is so, what's to prevent another financial crash and one coming pretty soon, as credit remains tight, while jobs just continue to bleed out, faster or slower, and people at the bottom and middle just go slowly into the debit night of the downward bound.
CG