What will stimulate the economy?

Newt has got it wrong. He and fellow conservatives think that we should continue to let big banks spend exorbitant amounts of money on jets and CEO compensation. He says that if the government is allowed to cap pay then the best and the brightest will go work elsewhere… and that young entrepreneurs will decide to work for the government instead.

Normally I think Newt is one of the smarter conservatives out there… but this thinking is outdated hogwash and this is why:

First of all, I’m a “young entrepreneur” just like Newt is professing to understand, and nothing about the current economic crisis, the bank bailout, or even the stimulus bill makes me want to work for someone else, not even a little bit! If I worked for someone else (including the government), I would probably have been laid off by now. There is plenty of money to be made in a slow economy and as a small business, I can adapt to the changing times faster than a bigger company or government that might hire me. That means I’ll have a better chance at getting ahead. That fact has not changed since the economic disaster… instead it’s gotten more pronounced.

Secondly, to call the CEO of a big bank an “entrepreneur” is a misnomer of epic proportions. None of these guys started the banks they work for, and most probably never started any company. They’re usually career bankers or executives sucking the silver spoon as they work their way up the ladder until they, too, can get a $1.2 million office. How nice for them. It was their stupidity (in the dubious forms of credit default swaps and mortgage derivatives) that got us into this mess and they should be held accountable! Since these aren’t just companies anymore and have become “institutions that are too big to fail” (hardly a place for an entrepreneur) we were forced to bail them out and take on a nanny role. Newt, would you rather we not have any oversight of the federal dollars? Oh, wait, you’d rather have the banks fail and experience another great depression under the new democratic administration… oh yeah, now I get it.

And lastly, Obama wants to help jump start a new economy… a green one where there is boatloads of money to be made. Your sacred free market has been extremely slow to innovate with new energy technologies because we’ve had cheap energy for so long. Well, the market doesn’t work in these circumstances, and it’s government’s job to point the free market in the right direction (in a macro way) and encourage innovation with tax credits and government grants and contracts.

So to all of you “conservatives” that think spending billions on tax cuts is better than rebuilding our ailing infrastructure, preventing mounting foreclosures, modernizing our schools, and funding alternative energy (none of which is “pork” by the way)… I say get out of the way while we clean up the mess that you created!

Get over yourself and let us try to fix the last 8 years of damage your president created!

justin

PS: stay tuned, because a new video skull session with Justin and Joel should be coming soon!