These suggestions ignore reality....

These banking/real estate bubbles are on 20 year cycles....furthermore, the president only cares about one job...his!

Blame Bush and the failed policies of the past decade...and then double down on the same policies.

This reminds me of the weimar republic. Only we have voted to pay "reperations" (interest) to the lenders.

Paper money always winds up blowing around in the streets.

Very few recommend returning to the "taylor rule" for the fed, reducing gov't spending, reducing gov't payrolls. Ben Bernake is the greatest counterfeiter of our time.

I would have much more faith and confidence in our nation's economic leaders if they had a job as a paperboy, lemonade stand, etc on their resum'e.

Economics is known as the "dismal science" for a reason. IMHO its right up there with psyc.

Lenin, quoted loosely, "high taxes and inflation are the grinding stone of the wealthy".

Uh. If the prices of things are going up, you want to have lots of debt and little cash.

hahahahah yeah yeah make ALCOHOL driven cars and get DRUNK with ..................OIL!!!!!

Fantastic suggestion.

Think this or anything like it will pass in America? Not a chance.

The big losers in this equation are also the the ones with the most money to influence policy and debate. They'll have the talking heads screaming 'socialism' before the drafts of this plan have even been drawn up.

I can already picture the Tea Party™ (registered trademark of Koch Industries) bawling about a government takeover of the petrol pump.

You'd think by the description the settler ran down the kids in his car. I don't know if you were watching the same video but the kid ran towards the car and was in mid throw when he was hit, aiming right into the car's windshield. By the way, the settler had his young son in his car with him. You can also clearly see his back window is broken when he stops from the stones that were thrown.
So here are the facts: Settler being stoned, window already broken, his son is in the car with him. Kids charging his car about to throw more stones at the windshield.
I would love to know what you would do in that situation. I don't know if it was an accident or not. It could have been or easily not ( I am no fan of right-wing settlers) but what do you expect? He was clearly in danger and in fact you are supposed to drive towards those threatening you because they should disperse , which obvious didn't work in this situation. If it wasn't an accident, why did he stop after he hit the kids? He only starting driving again after the stones resumed being thrown. He stops again a few dozen feet away from everyone. He is clearly shaken hence why he stopped twice, probably because he realized he just hit two kids with his car and might have killed them.
These are kids. I'm glad they weren't seriously hurt but where are their parents? Why is the press waiting there or something to happen? Would you let your kids play a game of chicken with a car? This is ridiculous and deep down you know this is evidence of nothing.

RE: "The rest of his term should be spent building the institutions of a Palestinian state in the West Bank -- not chasing a dream." - Elliott Abrams
SEE: Palestinian dream city hits snag from Israel, By Ben Hubbard, AP News, 10/11/10
(excerpt) It is billed as a symbol of the future Palestine: a modern, middle-class city of orderly streets, parks and shopping plazas rising in the hills of the West Bank, ready for independence, affluence and peace.
But the $800-million project has hit a snag: Palestinians say construction of the city of Rawabi depends on getting an access road, which can't go ahead without Israeli permission.
At a time when the latest U.S.-brokered peace effort is in crisis, the tussle over road-building is a test of Israel's willingness to give up much of the West Bank and allow Palestinian statehood to move forward.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he supports Rawabi's construction, but Jewish settlers and their supporters in the Israeli government, who oppose the very idea of Palestinian statehood, want the whole project scrapped.
Rawabi, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Jerusalem, is one of many West Bank projects such as job-creating industrial zones and improved water supply that have similarly been held up...
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/10/11/palestinian-dream-city-hits-snag-from-israel-4/

J THOMAS: Your comparison of a Nazi Concentration Camp guard is intentionally provocative and will only appeal tp irrational people like yourself who are already set in their views. How is an armed guard who has the job of organizing forced labor and marching thousands of men woman and children to their death even comparable to someone who is living on land illegally according to international law but beleives he has the right to be there?

Nazi concentration camp? Explain how it is even comparable?

who has never been to Israel. He just makes statements that he pulls out of his a**.

Ah J Thomas,
First of all I said I don't know if he intentionally did hit the kid or not. My point was it's not obvious from the video. In fact, if you read my post I said the reason he probably stopped was that he realized he hit the kid. Why would he stop if he was trying to hit him? It looked like the only reason why he drove away was because people starting pelting his car with stones again. Hence it was probably not his intention to run him over, if you believe the settler himself (which I'm sure you won't) he claimed it was an accident and he was only trying to get out of danger and not trying to hit the kids. This goes back to the greater point of this is evidence of what? That we shouldn't care about non-violent movements to end occupation? That the increase of the GDP in the West Bank and a continued investment in infrastructure and institutions isn't a good thing? The emergence of Salem Fayeed of a leader that could actually do good for his people instead of pocketing their money and allowing militant fractions to escalate a cycle of violence? The idea of Israel and the PA working together to stop attacks coming from the West Bank isn't progress?
Because a settler may or may not have intentionally hit a kid hurling rocks at his car none of this matters? Come on now you're just trying to to show your bias and do away with reason.

You are still equating the "evil" settler with the concentration camp guard. In fact it seems like you are saying the guard has the moral high ground on the settler because the settler had a choice of living there or not. But has the settler intentionally harmed anyone? Most likely not. He has not led anyone to their death (most settlers with a very few exception have not physically harmed anyone, but someone I'm sure you'll try to say they are indirectly committing genocide or some nonsense .) They think they have the right to be there and some are completely misguided but remember the historical presence of Jewish communities in the area before Modern Zionism (most notably Hebron), there is precedent for these communities. You calling this people "evil" is just a disservice to the word itself. Let's reserve that for those who truly are.

RE: "The rest of his term should be spent building the institutions of a Palestinian state in the West Bank -- not chasing a dream." - Elliott Abrams
MY COMMENT: There is nothing quite like a warmed-over load of BS being excreted by the world’s foremost purveyor of BS, Elliott Abrams!

SEE: "Jordan Valley joins list of peace obstacles" ~ By Karin Laub, Associated Press, 10/12/10
(excerpts)...The Palestinians say they can't give up an inch of the fertile valley, which makes up a quarter of the West Bank and would be one of the few largely undeveloped territories of their crowded future state, a place to build new cities and settle refugees.
With an eye to the future, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad broke ground Monday on an agroindustrial park in the valley that, with funding and technical help from Japan, is to create 10,000 Palestinian jobs one day and transform the sleepy area into an economic hub...
...Starting on the $30 million project is a huge gamble, though, because after four years of negotiations, Israel has yet to issue key permits, such as permission to link the park's access road to a nearby highway leading to the Jordanian border, Palestinian officials say...
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/12/AR2010101203992.html

Hasbara? "You guys"? Who said I was Israeli or even Jewish? Caught up in my own evil? I don't support the far right settler movement because I think they are an obstacle to the peace process and are very stubborn. I don't support them. How many times must I say that.
There is nothing worst than a well read (or self-proclaimed educated) person who is so caught up in their own world and so closed minded that they use the education only to prove to themselves what they already believe and nothing beyond it. Open up your world and enlighten yourself.
You assume that I am an Israeli and Jewish. Why? It shows your own bias and what's the point of arguing with someone who can never be more than radical in their views.
Considering I have expressed my distaste for settlers, support for peace and the current Palestinian leadership while still supporting the existence of the state of Israel I would say I am moderate in my views. It would be an absolute waste of my time to continue further as a moderate arguing with a radical (read: rational arguing with irrational) Hence while I'm not even going to bother anymore.

It is J Thomas who argues for evil.

In 1967, the Israelis assumed that after their stunning victory, the Arabs would agree to a peace that accorded to Jews the rights Palestinians continue to claim for themselves. No such luck. Instead, we got the three "nos" from Khartoum. While some Jews returned shortly thereafter to places from which they had been ethnically cleansed after the 1948 war ( pace J Thomas: *some* Arabs were forcibly displaced during the war, while *all* Jews on the wrong side of the armistice line were), settlement began in earnest when Israelis began to believe that there was little likelihood the Palestinian Arabs would ever accept that Jews have rights. If the self-declared widely-read J Thomas is paying attention he may be aware that the Palestinians have refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state, something essential to any potentially viable solution, even to get the settlement construction freeze extended as they now demand.

To see why opposition to settlements is evil, just substitute Black for Jews and White for Palestinian in any discussion about those communities. The world would be appalled if there were areas where Black people weren't allowed to live; would J Thomas accuse a Black person who wanted to live in a previously all-white area of being evil? Why should it be any different for Jews? Except, of course, that the world endorses anti-Semitism as the only form of acceptable racism. So, J Thomas, are you a racist?

Nor do the settlements interfere with a viable solution: In the 1980s Israel removed the town of Yamit from the Sinai in conjunction with the peace treaty with Egypt. And if the Palestinians weren't so insistent on their right to deny any rights to Jews, there is no obvious reason why Jews could not live in a Palestinian state; there are more than a million Arabs living in peaceably in Israel. So, again, J Thomas, are you a racist? Are you the evil one here?

As for the auto-into-children situation: this is part of an ongoing confrontation in which the first violence was perpetrated against Jews by Muslims who insisted it was their right as Muslims to engage in violence against Jews. I can't think of any reason anyone, even an evil settler, would want to harm a child who wasn't threatening him in any way.

We can infer from his postings that J Thomas supports the use of violence against Jews; does he also support KKK action against Black people who want to live in "white" neighborhoods? The "logic" he employs requires that he do so.

Ok this is new...Build west bank?? like USA is BUILDING Afghanistan and before that Iraq? I think building along with deciding the fate is best left to the individual states all USA needs to worry right now is get its act together coz CHINESE ARE COMING to get their loaned money back.

ARTICLE: "Israel blocks Palestinian premier from Jerusalem road opening" ~ Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 11/02/10

(excerpt) Jerusalem - Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad was forced Tuesday to cancel his attendance at a road inauguration in East Jerusalem after Israel instructed its police to prevent any Palestinian political activity there.
Fayyad had been due to attend the opening of a Palestinian Authority-funded road in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Anata.
But Israeli Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich signed the orders preventing his visit late Tuesday...

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1595881.php/Israel-blocks-Palestinian-premier-from-Jerusalem-road-opening

The biggest budget item should be the military. For in the preamble, the purpose of the federal government is stated as follows "provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare..." True enough that it does not say provide for the defense of the world. However, with the immediate reach and consequence of weaponry, both military and economic, there is no choice but to defend the world and, yes, even preemptorily defuse situations that could bring the world economy to a sudden halt. For, when the world economy is brought to a halt, so too will ours.

But, while military spending should be the largest part of federal government spending, it is not even close:
http://www.heritage.org/BudgetChartbook/defense-entitlement-spending

No matter how one slices or dices the issue, it is entitlements that are proving our ruination, not military spending. And, as entitlement spending undermines military spending, it makes the world much less safe for our children and grandchildren. It was nonsense to conceive of "wide oceans" being a form of defense 70 years ago. It is beyond ridiculous, to the point of intellectual bankruptcy, to even bring it up in today's world!

More info: http://www.heritage.org/BudgetChartbook/contents