tagged w/ Robert Pollin
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Just this week, the PERI institute in Boston released a study showing that there is a tremendous amount of excess dollars sitting around in bank accounts doing nothing, something the campaign to elect Mike Ballantine 2012 has been saying for months. In fact, they identify roughly the same amount as we do and propose providing incentives to get banks to invest $1.4 trillion in the economy to create 19 million jobs. That is more aggressive than our plan which stipulates an investment of $2 trillion to create 20 million jobs. Either way, both plans show a reasonable approach to the unemployment problem facing our nation. Both plans follow the same approach and would not only reduce unemployment but also restore tax revenues to pre-recession levels. Unless we choose to adopt this type of approach our nation will continue to languish in insolvency. Those that argue that we cannot afford to borrow, fail to grasp the enormity of creating 20 million jobs and what is required. As long as the free-market is going to remain on the sidelines, the needs of the American worker will go unmet. Please read this plan and listen to Bob Pollin explain it to Paul Jay at the Real News.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OIbTSAGPOM)
http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/published_study/PERI_19Million.pdf
http://www.scribd.com/doc/75296147/Ending-the-American-Winter-Ver-2-0
www.mikeballantine2012.orgJust this week, the PERI institute in Boston released a study showing that there is a... more
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REDUCING MILITARY SPENDING ALONE WILL ELIMINATE THE LONG TERM DEFICIT.
Per the MilitaryIndustrialComplex.com, you contributed to $246,876,+ billion dollars of military contracts for the year of 2010, ALONE!. You contributed to $70,601, billion dollars of military contracts in the first three months of 2011, ALONE! And this only represents contracts reported, not all of the other military spending not related to corporate contracts! Is it any wonder we're broke now?
( A great tool for counting the money being made by corporations off of your military budget money. ): http://www.militaryindustrialcomplex.com/2011-totals.asp
"if all we were to do was to bring the military budget back down to the Clinton-era level, that alone would essentially solve the long-term deficit problem. That alone.", states U. of Mass., at Amherst, professor Robert Pollin, in an interview with Paul Jay of theREALnews network.
"In the year 2000, it ( the military budget ) was 3 percent of GDP. And now it's 4.8 percent." " If we say the problem, again, the long-term problem, is that we project out a deficit at 5 percent of GDP, and we need to get it in the range of 2 to 3 percent, at least you could pull half of that out of the military budget, and you'd still be way beyond where the military budget was at the end of the Clinton administration.
JAY: And still be the country that spends more on weapons [crosstalk]
POLLIN: Than all the other countries of the world, yes.
JAY: --rest of the world put together, yeah."
Once we recognize that our military currently functions as a money making business for already rich corporations, creating foreign threats to our nation in order to justify military action and supporting budgets; which in turn feed the industrial war machine, we can intelligently pare it down to a level only necessary to TRULY insure our national security.
"people say, well, you can't do that, because we'd lose jobs if we cut the military. But that's also false, because the military per dollar of expenditure creates far fewer jobs than, for example, putting the money in education or putting the money in clean energy. We create more jobs. If we moved it out of the public military and just incentivized private green investors, we would create about 50 percent more jobs."
CONCLUSION? Reduce military spending and create more jobs! Just the facts, if you please!
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6649
And here is a terrific tool for keeping track of it yourself:
2010 Military-Industrial Complex Totals
Total Contracts Recorded: 3,834
Total Contracts Dollar Value: $246,876,980,742
A visual representation of Defense Spending growth and decrease by month throughout 2010.
Total Contracts Recorded by Month:
January: 168
February: 171
March: 330
April: 374
May: 272
June: 330
July: 306
August: 327
September: 704
October: 273
November: 224
December: 355
Total Contracts Dollar Value by Month:
January: $8,107,922,646
February: $11,540,170,777
March: $13,677,787,653
April: $20,284,801,491
May: $25,567,713,470
June: $22,596,147,257
July: $19,415,424,453
August: $16,792,242,962
September: $46,498,184,935
October: $9,565,043,473
November: $28,206,122,771
December: $24,625,418,854
http://www.militaryindustrialcomplex.com/2011-totals.aspREDUCING MILITARY SPENDING ALONE WILL ELIMINATE THE LONG TERM DEFICIT.
Per the... more
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Robert Pollin is Professor of Economics and founding Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His research centers on macroeconomics, conditions for low-wage workers in the U.S. and globally, the analysis of financial markets, and the economics of building a clean-energy economy in the U.S. Most recently, he co-authored the reports “Job Opportunities for the Green Economy” (June 2008) and “Green Recovery” (September 2008), exploring the broader economic benefits of large-scale investments in a clean-energy economy in the U.S. He has worked with the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa on policies to promote to promote decent employment expansion and poverty reduction in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. He has also worked with the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and as a member of the Capital Formation Subcouncil of the U.S. Competiveness Policy Council.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4853&updaterx=2010-03-07+01%3A47%3A39Robert Pollin is Professor of Economics and founding Co-Director of the Political... more
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Robert Pollin: It's not war that creates technological development, it's the state investmentRobert Pollin: It's not war that creates technological development, it's the... more
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Robert Pollin: It wasn't war that ended the 1930s Depression, it was massive government spendingRobert Pollin: It wasn't war that ended the 1930s Depression, it was massive... more
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