Jim Cramer on "Hardball"...talking about the alleged stimulus package

Jim Cramer was on "Hardball" yesterday, and was asked by Chris Matthews to talk about the stimulus package. It's pretty interesting...he hates it. Basically, he says:

It's not enough
It goes to the wrong things (crazy stuff that won't stimulate the economy)
There aren't enough tax cuts

I pretty much agree. I thought it was fascinating that he talked about how, at a time when we have city infrastructure crumbling all around us, Caterpillar is doing layoffs. He was noticing the total lack of logic in this, and wondering why we can't get the road and bridge work that needs to be done together with the companies and individuals that need work.

Makes sense to me.

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U.S. Tax Rates Compared to the rest of the world–a.k.a “U.S. Corporations are not the evil empire”

Below is a graph showing our tax rates compared to the rest of the industrialized world (taken from Wikipedia): Two things to note: Our personal income taxes are not as bad as some anti-tax zealots would have you believe…they are lower than most. Our corporate rates, however, are horrific. They are higher than any other industrialized country save Japan. Lesson to be learned: it’s easy for politicians to sell lower taxes for individuals. Much harder to sell lower rates for corporations. And very easy for liberals to paint corporations as getting off easy (the “big, bad conglomerate” schtick). However, it’s just not true. “Facts are stubborn things.” - John Adams

Negative ads

Questioner mentioned Gordon Smith's offer to stop negative ads on both sides. Merkley - "I don't have negative ads, I have ISSUE ads." Audience laughed - I don't think Merkley was trying to be funny. Bad moment for Merkley.

Gov. Kulongoski wants to make a "green school" in Vernonia...hopefully the kids will get taught, also

Governor Ted is assembling a team to ask the feds for stimulus money to rebuild a school in Vernonia, damaged by the flooding in 2007. I think this is great - schools are a good thing to spend stimulus money on. But...then his train goes off the tracks... He wants to make the main thrust of the request that we will build a "green school"...now, I'm not opposed to doing responsible things to care for the environment, but I'm guessing doing extra stuff out of the ordinary, would make it much more expensive. With our economy the way it is, I just think that the people in charge of giving the money out are going to look at what can be done in a state, and how cost-effectively it can be done. If Oregon wants $5 million (I'm just making these numbers up) for a school to teach 1000 students, and Arizona will build a school, with the same facilities, same everything else, except they can do it for $3 million becuase it isn't a "green" school, and that m...

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