Just take it. If we're there fighting and dying at least make it worthwhile. Just take it. The Arabs live like kings while the US protects their oil. Remember Kuwait? We say we're taking just payments for our services, amen. We use the oil money to fund our economy as well as Iraq's. We will continue to be Iraq's protectors.

Regulation is a form of making corporations accountable both to share holders, employees and the public.

Corporations are neither responsible nor ethical by choice, their goal regardless of nation or business, or era is to maximize profits.

While it would be incorrect to say that every CEO is inherently evil, nonetheless, there is incredible pressure to do evil because of the nature of capitalism itself. Greed rewarding greed.

Capitalism puts relentless downward pressure on workers salaries, bucks and resists environmental and safety standards, offshores work and imports illegal labor whenever possible to save on slaves, cuts corners on quality wherever it can get away with it, reduces services whenever possible, raises fees and prices whenever it can, reduces and eliminates or consolidates competition to gain an unfair edge, elects "voluntary" regulation to avoid true accountability, and resists paying bonuses and pensions and healthcare costs of the very workers who make a big business possible.

What are the hallmarks of good corporate citizenship?

Corporations do best when they are highly regulated and provide: high paying stable jobs to its employees in a safe workplace.

A corporation that caps its CEO pay at $1 million maximum in order to avoid excessive greed, cheating of share holders and artificial price hikes in its products and services.

A good corporation promotes and protects the environment and does not sully it unnecessarily. That means replanting trees if you are a paper mill using new pulp. That means funding national recycling programs if your auto company uses steel. That means using and preserving resources to not to pollute and preserve the environment for the good of future generations.

A good corporation is one that provides transparency and accountability for all its decisions and can defend and demonstrate the good of their actions as promoting the public good through their products or services.

High regulation helps a corporation avoid the pitfgalls of ccapitalism and brings out the very best charater and qualities it is capable of being.c

Ralph Nader is contemplating a run for president. America's citizen champ is back!

http://www.naderexplore08.org

There is no living American in public life who has done more to promote public health and safety, government accountability, corporate accountability, and citizens' rights than Ralph.
If you know of an American with more than 40 years of public service who has done more for our nation's public good, ask them to run instead.

Communism has failed and will continue to fail as long as men desire to life free and pursue their own self interest.....remember that whole thing right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...in other words don't rain on my parade a@#hole I.E. don't F#@K with my freedoms because you like other socialists/communists will never be able to handle the wrath and violence of free men unleashed on you and others who share your beliefs. LONG LIVE AMERICA, FREE MARKET CAPITALISM AND LIBERTY!!!!!!!!!!

(a) reduce the size of the federal government by 75%
(b) eliminate the Federal Reserve system of fractional reserve central banking
(c) follow Austrian economic principles and return to the gold standard
(d) bring home all American troops and close the 700 military bases in more than 130 countries
(e) live within your means

http://www.forbes.com/home/personalfinance/2008/02/08/budget-deficit-taxes-ii-in_aq_0208soapbox_inl.html

We might hope to see the finances of the Union as clear and intelligible as a merchant's books, so that every member of Congress and every man of any mind in the Union should be able to comprehend them, to investigate abuses and consequently to control them."

So wrote President Thomas Jefferson in an 1802 letter to then Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin. If Jefferson were alive to review the federal government's Dec. 17 report on 2007 results, his hopes for clarity on the financial state of our Union would most certainly have been dashed.

Today, if any man of any mind wanted to construct an income statement, balance sheet and cash flow report for the federal government, he would have tremendous difficulty.
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The annual budget (prepared by the executive branch through the Office of Management and Budget and also calculated by Congress through the Congressional Budget Office) focuses on cash flow, i.e., whether the government ran a surplus or a deficit. While it's useful, because the report is prepared on a cash basis, it does not tell the full story, since billions of dollars are accrued each year for liabilities not yet due but certainly coming due.

The real accrual number, a figure that is almost never reported, can be determined only by analyzing yet another document, one put out by the U.S. Treasury Department. That analysis reveals a startling truth: Not only is the real federal deficit consistently under-reported, it is uncomfortably high, even with the ballooning revenues and improved cash flows in recent years.

Consider the past four years. The federal budget deficits on a cash basis for 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 were reported as $412 billion, $319 billion, $248 billion and $163 billion, respectively. Prepared on an accrual basis, however, which is the way all U.S. public companies report, the deficits for these same years were $616 billion, $760 billion, $450 billion and $276 billion.

More worrisome, while the trend is quite good, the deficits would have been substantially greater if revenue from taxes had not increased more than 46% from $1.8 trillion in 2003 to $2.63 trillion in 2007, more than an average of $200 billion per year.
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Substantial negative cash flow can be acceptable if it is offset by a strong balance sheet. Here the news is quite sobering. The U.S. has $1.6 trillion in assets and $10.8 trillion in liabilities, resulting in a negative net worth of $9.2 trillion as of the end of its Sept. 30, 2007, fiscal year. Of those liabilities, $5.1 trillion is owed to the public. Another $4.8 trillion is owed for federal employees and veteran benefits. The killer item, however, is $45 trillion in off-balance-sheet debt, which is the present value of future benefits owed for Medicare and Social Security.

As Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people ), Merrill Lynch (nyse: MER - news - people ), UBS (nyse: UBS - news - people ), HSBC (nyse: HBC - news - people ) and others recently discovered with their structured investment vehicles, these liabilities should be treated as real balance sheet liabilities. For the U.S., that would mean a net debt of $54 trillion, a figure 3.9 times our revenues, if we consider our $14 trillion economy as our figure for "sales."

The budget report does note that the Treasury's presentation ignores the government's biggest asset, "the sovereign powers to tax, regulate commerce and set monetary policy." More simply put, it means the government can increase our taxes, impose wage and price controls, and inflate our currency.

Thus, to most accurately compute the real balance sheet, one must look at the balance sheet of all American households, since essentially all the government's revenues come from households, either directly (from taxes on individuals) or indirectly (from taxes on corporations, through double taxation). The Treasury report does not account for this. To find the information, one has to review yet another document: the Federal Reserve's "Integrated Macroeconomic Accounts for the United States," last updated by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis in December 2007 for years ending in December 2006.

Interestingly enough, as of the end of 2006, American households collectively have a very strong balance sheet: $69.6 trillion in assets ($42.9 in financial assets and $26.7 trillion in nonfinancial assets, of which $22.6 trillion is real estate) and $13.4 trillion in liabilities ($10.1 trillion of which are mortgages), for a net worth of $56.1 trillion.
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Contrary to popular perception, American households have built up significant net worth and are incredibly productive. During the period of 2004-06, for example, American households increased their net worth by $12.1 trillion, over $1 trillion per quarter. They continue to add to their net worth at a rate of $1 trillion per quarter, so that the net worth of American households at the end of the third quarter 2007 is approximately $58.6 trillion, a truly remarkable feat.

To put this into perspective, the entire gross domestic product of China is $2.7 trillion. The productivity of American households creates $14 trillion in gross domestic product, or an astonishing return on equity, so to speak, of 27%. The assets and productivity are the reasons the American consumer is directly responsible for 70% of our GDP and will continue to keep powering the world economy.
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Much has also been written about the debt American households have incurred over the past five years, with specific focus on the growth in absolute terms of household (consumer) debt. For example, during the three-year period covering 2004-06, net mortgage borrowing averaged almost $1 trillion per year, for a total of almost $3 trillion. But consumer balance sheets remained remarkably stable during this period, as debt as a percentage of assets remained at approximately 19%. Bottom line: American households collectively have been reasonably prudent.

At the same time, American households are entering a perilous financial period. If one accepts the axiom that over time the net worth of Americans will revert to the mean of 3.4 times GDP, a $14 trillion GDP equates to an anticipated $48 trillion net worth for Americans, not $58 trillion. The net worth of Americans has declined for several periods in the past, specifically 2000-02. If home prices decline 20% over the next several years, a reasonable scenario, then American households will see a $4.2 trillion loss in their net worth and have significant difficulty adjusting to this decline.
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Now would be the worst possible time for the government to place undue tax and other financial burdens upon households. In times like these, it is imperative to be able to fall back upon the the federal government's financial strength.

Sadly, irresponsible federal government spending and commitments have nearly wiped out all of Americans' equity. The federal government's net debt and commitments of $54 trillion is nearly equal to the $58 trillion of equity held by American households. It is not axiomatic, however, that governments that are spending "other people's money" need to be fiscally irresponsible. In reviewing the finances of states and local governments, 49 of which are required, in some form, to balance their budgets and where 43 governors have the line item veto, the fiscal news is surprisingly good.

Many may be surprised to hear that our states and municipalities ran a cash surplus of $590 billion and $662 billion in 2005 and 2006, respectively. Thus, all of our "governments," i.e., federal, state and local collectively, were net cash positive of $271 billion and $414 billion, respectively. Accordingly, unlike the federal government's large, negative $9 trillion equity, state and local government have a net worth of $6.8 trillion.

So where does this leave the financial state of our Union? In terrible shape.

One of the most urgent priorities of our federal government must be to address our perilous financial condition, upon which so much of our ability to defend against terrorism, wage wars, provide safety nets and educate our people depends. In doing so, the government must first recognize the fundamental interrelationship between the finances of the Union and those of American households and then act in a way that does not negatively affect the net worth and productivity of American households, upon which all of the Union's finances depend.
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Higher taxes and currency inflation, for example, will be counterproductive. In addition, tackling Social Security and Medicare without imposing greater financial burdens on American households is an urgent task. This can only be done by allowing American households to take responsibility for their own health care while the government focuses on a cost-efficient safety net.

The 112 million American households are, as a group, the critical engine of both the U.S. and world economy and have consistently controlled their personal finances in a responsible way. In determining tax, environmental, entitlement, education, energy and other important policies, the federal government needs to view American families as managing partners, not pawns. The federal government must also make good on Jefferson's request to allow all Americans to comprehend the Union's finances and appropriately control them.

Alan G. Quasha is founder, president and CEO of Quadrant Management, which invests in midsized, underperforming companies as well as emerging businesses, often serving in active management roles. He also serves as chairman of Carret Asset Management Group, a money management firm, and chairman of investment banking firm Brean Murray Carret & Co.

Force back to America all US companies overseas..PERIOD...NOW

The editor mentions a couple good points: especially balancing the trade deficit and ending free trade which has been an unprcedented disaster for the USA.

But....he does not go nearly far enough. To restore America to economic health and prosperity, huge changes are needed in the very economic system that has created the problems in the first place.

90% of the American population are caught in the jaws of Predatory Capitalism which operates continuously to lower wages, reduce benefits, weaken job security and increase duties and responsibilities upon the worker.This is aggravated by the rising costs of healthcare, fuel, food, education and a falling dollar which harms the poor and middle classes most of all. When Predatory Capitalism cannot turn Americans into slaves it either deports the job to a poorer country, finds an illegal alien to undercut the American or brings in a legal immigrant who was trained for far less than the American and can be paid far less as a result.
Worst of all this is not an accident of Darwinian markets, but a deliberate plan by the wealthy and their lobbyists to topple American Democracy and replace it with an economic system of two classes: The billionaire elites, and those millions of indebted serfs who toil for the wealthy even as their lives and living standards decline and become hopeless.
What is needed to help correct this problem:
*Deportation of all illegal aliens
*Salary caps of $1 million on CEOs.
*A mandatory living wage ($25 per hour) for American workers
*Universally government funded medicine
*Universally government funded education
*Immediate end to all discretionary foreign wars such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran.
*National Independence Project (A government program) to develop natural sustainable energy production through wind, water, solar and geothermal sources.

This is one of the most hilarious sites on the whole internet! I really hope no-one believes this crap?

An economic czar (AKA dictator) sounds like a GREAT idea, i think they tried that in the USSR and it worked so well. We need LESS government not more.

When the government reports employment figures, corporations are now allowed to count overeas employees in the tally.

This helps reduce unemployment (numbers) in the USA and allows the government to claim rising employment even when falling national employment is the reality.
Also the figures do not reflect quality of work. Recently the government trumpeted the creation of 166,000 new jobs. Buried in the figures was the loss of 21,000 quality manufacturing jobs.
What we should ask of our government is: "Are you producing shit jobs to marginalize our country or are you producing quality jobs to build our future?"

Shit jobs=Shit Nation
Quality jobs=Quality Nation

Folks this is basic.

What are some of the hallmarks of a Quality job?

*Employer offers full time employment with a living wage or better w/full benefits, perks and a pension or (at least a 401 K). The work environment is safe and discrimination fre and has opportunities for future advancement.

What are some of the hallmarks of a shit job?
Low pay (less than $25 per hour), full time unavailable, no benefits or limited benefits, no pension or 401 K plan, a hazardous work environment, marginal advancement opportunities, workplace discrimination.

Examples of shit jobs, Store 24, McDonalds, walmart, and many retail stores.

We can do better in our nation, but the government must actively create quality jobs for each and every worker or mandate and regulate private employers to do the same.

If such an economic czar were appointed with the power to pick winners and losers by the measures mentioned, he would be under extreme pressure from the losers and winners for favorable legislation. The losers would support the winners in the quest for winner subsidies while the winners would support the losers in their quest for higher tariffs. The real loser would be the American consumer. The idea reminds me of the formerly vaunted Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry. While that route was cheered by the democrat party and Walter Mondale in l984 and such economists as Robert Reich and Lester Thurow the election result made the idea fade away and none too soon.

If we don't take immediate action we're doomed to fail