miércoles, 28 de enero de 2009

What’s Missing in the Stimulus Plan


Érase un hombre a un plan pegado... Ese es, ahora mismo, el Presidente Obama. Todavía no nos consideramos en este blog "preparados" para dedicarle su primer post como Presidente, dejaremos que avance el tiempo un poco, pero si traemos el enlace de un fantástico "Room for Debate" del NY Times, formado por media docena de excelentes plumas como Oppenheimer o Galbraith, poniendo las comas al Plan de Estímulo de Obama que es, básicamente, el primer "hecho" de la nueva Administración (lo de Guantánamo estaba cantado y, además, está en proceso, no culminado). Buena ocasión para que los novatos en la lengua de Shakespeare y Herman Melville se entrenen con este enlace IM-PRES-CIN-DI-BLE, breve, directo y certero en su análisis. Enjoy it!

Aquí el enlace:



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La voz fundamental del Mike Oppenhemier nos dice:
"Only a complete overhaul of our electricity grid will make renewable energy a reality. Here we have a classic chicken-and-egg problem: without the new sources of energy, there’s less need for the modernized grid but without the new grid to distribute it, many entrepreneurs will think twice about investing in solar or wind power. It’s the government’s job to jump start the process."


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Una selección de Highlights, del señor Galbraith, en clave New Deal:


"Another package will be needed, and here’s what it should include:
– Open-ended support for the current operations of state and local governments for the duration of the crisis, including open-ended support for public capital investment. All the resources being released from residential and commercial construction should be taken up in public building. At the federal level, strategic investments in mass transit and other long-term improvements — largely omitted from the current package — should be authorized via a permanent National Infrastructure Fund.
– Comprehensive foreclosure relief, through a 90-day moratorium followed by restructuring except in cases of demonstrable borrower fraud.
– Increase Social Security benefits, say by 30 percent, and a lower the eligibility age of Medicare to (say) 55 years of age. This would offset the deep drop in equity wealth of the elderly population, while favoring the poor. Expanding Medicare eligibility would permit more workers to retire, freeing firms from carrying health care costs for older workers.
– A payroll tax holiday to restore the purchasing power of working families. By setting the payroll tax rate at zero (and letting the government write a check to the Social Security Trust Fund for the uncollected sums), tax relief can be delivered at large scale and with immediate effect. Later, if growth resumes rapidly, this measure could be scaled back.
– A Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to meet industrial needs for credit and to help with restructuring and modernization.
– Jobs programs, in the spirit of the New Deal, to hire people to do what they do best, including art, letters, drama, dance, music, scientific research, university teaching and the work of the non-profit sector — including for community organizations.
– An energy program with a framework adequate to meet the climate crisis and sufficient to reduce demand for oil and quell speculation as the economy recovers."



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Y una Gran Verdad, por Will Gale:


"There are no really good options here, only more or less successful efforts to stave off the major economic downturn that would result from doing nothing. But it should be apparent that even if the stimulus succeeds in turning the economy around over the next few years, it will have done so at the cost of making our medium- and longer-term over-consumption and over-borrowing problems even worse than they already are".

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"That's all, folks!". Porky Pig

1 comentario:

  1. PS: plan aprobado (¿alguien dudaba?)

    http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Camara/Representantes/EE/UU/aprueba/plan/estimulo/economico/Obama/elpepuint/20090129elpepuint_2/Tes

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