Good posts MO, and you are right the strong must stand taller than ever right now helping in whatever way we can so that this great country will not fall to the ignorant who are willing to throw everything of value away like a spoilt child who doesn't like that his new toy has a speck of dust on it and so trashes it rather than just cleaning off the dust. Yes I still believe in the innovation and ingenuity that this country provide fertile ground for. I see it aroudn me on a daily basis here in Boston with guys from MIT and other area schools coming up with stuff that blows your mind and others in the business world coming up with novel entreprenuerial ideas to tackle all sorts of problems or simply coming up with better simpler smarter mousetraps. It is these guys with their enthusiasm, their willingness to put their family at financial risk for thier ideas, their countless hours of sweat and effort to bring their fledgling companies and ideas to fruition that I don't want to see discouraged (it is already happening to some extent as people are pulling back on plans and projects due to the uncertainty of what is to come) by the growing mantra that sees penalizing productivity as the solution.
There also needs to be some BIGGER solutions for the BIGGEST problem....... http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=154464
a job saved is a job created. now with this new transaction tax will destroy jobs in the financial sector. companies are laying off workers from decreased in consumer spending.
Transaction tax is a terrible idea and am hearing that many in the NE dem caucus that are against it too. The more I think about it and the longer things are allowed to deteriorate the closer I come to Disciplinedhedger's position that this plan would not create that many jobs. It would likely save a lot of jobs that will otherwise be lost but probably wouldn't create more than a million or two at the most. I think that those that say that we need to take our medicine and there is really no softening of the blow that will be effective or at least cost effective are right.