Quote Originally Posted by maladroit
here's the tricky bit:
if pot were legalized completely, the corporations would move in and take over the market with mass production and existing distribution networks...
Big business would undoubtedly reduce the price. What is more important in your eyes??? Mom and Pop shops making profits, or overall lower prices to the consumer?


it would be harder for the average mom and pop operation to make a profit...if pot were merely decriminalized, the corporations wouldn't be able to participate, and the little privately owned neighbourhood cafes would dominate the market...i'm hoping for dutch-style decriminalization/tolerance
Mass production was a tool for dominance in the past. Now everything is different, as communication has taken great leaps forward. If a company produces a bad product early in its existence, unless they sell it at next to nothing (which does much more good for all consumers of that type good) there will be very low demand in the future until competition brings the appropriate balance of price and quality.



back to obama:
it does seem like every politician has to promise to cut taxes and increase spending to bribe their way into power...at least obama was honest about raising taxes on rich people, but he's still going to add trillions to the national debt in his first term of office...the president might not run the country but he's more than a figurehead...he prepares the annual budget and makes executive decisions that can cost the taxpayers a LOT of money...i doubt very much that the national debt would have doubled over the past 8 years under a different fiscally responsible president even with the same congress...in george bush's first state of the union speech, he promised to pay off all the national debt that is available to retire over the coming decade, and the congressional budget office projected an annual federal government $500 billion surplus (serious real true events - no joke!)...that's going to go down as the most expensive broken promise in history...whatever fiscal damage obama does after that performance is going to look like a dog and pony show!
You are aware of the possibility for an even larger deficit to exist during the first year of Obama's presidency? Lower GDP will produce lower tax revenue, as in-discretionary spending will rise on its own due to other market factors (inflation, population increase), and cyciclal spending will increase due to higher unemployment etc....

We are prime for a quality stimulus to boost the economy.