The Problem with the Economy

Alan Greenspan said that he would not put him money on the U.S. economy escaping a recession in the short term. He told George Stephanopoulos, ABC This Week, on Sunday that he would place the risk as higher then 50% for a recession this year.

Mr. Greenspan the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank said that this is a once in a life time correction which has much to do with the inter-connectness of major financial institutions with the global economy. While the inventory for the housing market does not have to be at zero it should balance out by early next year if all goes well over the next few months.

In My View:

What should the next president of the United States do to improve the market during the first quarter of next year so that the economy stabilizes? This country can not bail out every large financial institution. There are a few large ones that could cause problems for the national economy so those should be stabilized over the next year. They should use as much private funding as possible to achieve these results. More sticker supervision should be placed on institutions that clearly can have a huge effect on our economy. Even the republicans admit that it has been a lack of control in these institutions which has lead to such a large correction in the market place at present.

We as a country should clamp down on companies moving jobs overseas and south of the border because it only harms our economy in the short run. What we should do is put more funding into higher education and require continuing education credits for our national workforce so that they do not fall behind other individuals in other countries. At one point in history we said that a worker in our country should be well rounded in their educational skills so as to be able to move if their current job no longer supported our economy’s needs. This view of business should be encouraged in our present day society.

Pension plans and healthcare plans should be moveable with the employee instead of being tied to just one company this would encourage employees to move to the areas where more employees are needed. A national standard should be set where people pay in a base rate for retirement and then the employer matches that amount for as long as the employee is employed at any one company. I personally pay social society and pay into a pension play at my current job. This would result in putting an end to the republican talk of making social security private. Far too many individuals simple don’t understand how to invest money for retirement. Investment groups that are required to file reports with the federal government would do a much better job and it would help the overall economy to have more money invested into retirement funds. As a country we invest very little of our present income into retirement as compared with other countries in the world.

We need to encourage the development of small businesses in this country which would result in an increase in gross domestic product. Minimum wages should be set at a realistic level which maximizes a workers ability to achieve the goals of employers and also provides a base level of life style for all individuals. Different cities have different level of cost related to basic standards of living and this should be taken into account when setting minimum wages for employees. If an employee can not afford to engage in taking further college level credits then it defeats the argument that we should have a better educated workforce.

Employers should be made to understand their responsibility in our national economy when it comes to our workforce. They can not continue to give double digit salaries increases to themselves while forcing their wage earners into lower and lower economic standards of living. Employers have a responsibility to be ethical in their dealings with those people that they employee. Too many large companies are not following this philosophy and the end result is that it is harming our overall economy and the standard of living in this country. The answer is not to allow large companies to point to countries that have a history of human right violation and say see they do it to their employees so we should also be engaged in those types of business practices to compete in the global economy because the end result will harm our people and our country.