10.2% Unemployment! How’s that Porkulus Workin’ for Ya?
BY: NCViking
Here is the latest underground Porkulus-to-Unemployment Christina Romer-modified graph, showing projections used to sell it against reality, as of October.
Of course the GOP jumped on this and came out with their own version seen here. So how many jobs has the Stimulus saved? Here is one blogger’s analysis:
Now, if you look at recovery.gov, you’ll see that the stimulus has “saved or created” 640,000 jobs. That is only 16% of the promised jobs, but it’s still a pretty big number. I was curious how they got it, so I downloaded the raw data and started sifting through it. This is what I found:
- Over 6,500 of all the “created or saved” jobs are cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), which is really just a raise of about 2% for 6,500 people. That’s not a job saved, no matter how you calculate it.
- Over 6,000 of the jobs are federal work study jobs, which are part time jobs for needy students. As such, they’re not really “jobs” in the sense that most other federal agencies report job statistics (We don’t count full time college students as “unemployed” in the statistics.)
- About half of the jobs (over 300,000) fall under the “State Fiscal Stabilization Fund”, which can be described like so: Your state (perhaps it rhymes with Balicornia) can’t afford all the programs it has running, but when the state government tries to raise taxes, people yell and scream and threaten to move. The federal government comes in with stimulus funds and subsidizes the state programs. Consider this a “reach-around” tax in which the state can’t raise taxes its citizens any more, but the federal government can. So the federal government just gives the state the money to keep running programs they can’t afford on their own.
- There are, scattered hither and non, contracts and grants that state in no unclear language that “This project has no jobs created or retained” but lists dozens, if not hundreds, of jobs that have been “saved or created” by the project. It makes no sense whatsoever.
Finally, there is (also) a statistical problem to the data here that I’ve not heard discussed at all, the problem of job duration.
So how effective has Porkulus been at curbing unemployment? We are at 10.2% now and going up.
Ummm …
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Let me see if I get this straight. President Bush leaves a wrecked economy, created negative jobs in 8 years (less jobs when he left than when he came in), and downward spiral out of control, and all you guys have to say is, geeeeze we were promised no more than 8% unemployment?
Do I have your complaint straight?
Always about Bush with you? Mark Steyn stated that Obama should have named Bush 43 “Blame Czar” since he is already in that role. You seem to agree. When does this become Obama’s presidency? When does he become responsible?
Libs want it both ways… they want to blame George Bush for 9/11 when he was in office for less than 8 months. But Obama, now in office for almost 10 months is not responsible for the economy at all. It is all still Bush’s fault.
You ankle biting post, your entire blog, is all about blame Obama for everything. Now you are trying to blame Obama because his recovery efforts missed some magical 8.0% figure his economists predicted.
There is no question that this recession was created under Bush. He owns all of the blame for whatever unemployment has been created, all of it.
Obama owns the recovery. The absolute reality of the economy is that the stimulus has created somewhere between 300,000 and 600,000 jobs with only about 25% of the funds having been spent.
I would agree with you if the following points had been made, but your cut-and-paste approach to blogging didn’t point these out, so somehow you missed these points,
- 50% of the stimulus were tax cuts and those tax cuts haven’t helped much either.
- it would be better if Obama found a way to spur greater job production, including funding permanent jobs.
- it would be better if Obama found a way to spend all of the 50% allowed for this year. We may have reached the 8.0% instead of the painful 10+%
- we need to soften the pain because we are more likely looking at 11% job loss rate next year, and it could go higher.
Instead, you inner ankle biting ways are complaining about having missed the 8%.
Bush created the greatest recession since the Great Depression. Bush cannot magically be absolved of this great trauma to America.
I won’t use this time to defend Viking’s post (he is a Vikings fan, and obviously an ankle biter by nature), but will say something about the blog. Your comment that this is all about “blame Obama for everything” is so silly, only a Soros backed, spin-meister with the intent of distortion would actually believe that. I assume you are being beyond farcical to prove some point in defense of your own pro-Obama and pro-Democrat leanings.
We don’t appologize for having core beliefs. Why should we? It is clear that the four authors of this blog disagree (to various degrees) to the direction that the new Administration and Congress is taking the country. Because of that, it is pretty obvious that we would disagree with the Democrats, and would say so. But to claim that we are strictly anti-Obama avoids the content on this site on a daily basis.
Let’s start by taking a look at our top five commented posts: the number one post was about Republican Governor Mark Sanford, and saying he should resign. I conceed, that is pretty anti-Obama, but only in the most subtle of ways. Next, and most recently was about the WSJ not liking the Pelosi care bill. It, too is not a love fest for Democrats, but it has to do with SOTH Pelosi, not POTUS. Rounding out the top five are a post on Geithner in China, Global Warming, and Keith Olbermann vs. Rush. I guess you can tie the Treasury Secretary one back to Obama, but not exactly a rip fest on his ears or his radical connections.
What about me? In my last eight posts, two are about Joe Wilson, one Mitt Romney, one Pelosi, and one about Obama-hating cranks. Three are about Obama, but one was about a speech he made at the UN, and two were about very topical subjects. One, if I say so myself, was pretty balanced. Not exactly an Obama-hater.
Madman’s last eight posts include six that have nothing to do with Obama. Buzzkill’s last eight have four with nothing to do with Obama. Viking has six of his last eight posts having nothing to do with the President. We are critical of the President, but it is not our central focus here.
It appears your charge falls not on deaf ears, but flat on its face from lack of evidence.
You miss the point. These were Obama’s economists. His economists and, in turn, Obama predicted lowering the unemployment, not some nebulus or mysterious someone.
That is a pretty ridiculous statement, and I think you know it is. Let’s change some words around: “There is no question that
this recessionthe seeds of the 9/11 terrorist attack wascreatedplanned and put into place underBushClinton. He owns all of the blame for whateverunemploymentdeath and war has been created, all of it.”Does that sound silly? Of course George Bush was not responsible for any of 9/11 or the war in Afghanistan or Iraq. That was all Clinton’s fault. Blame Czar!!!!
So you believe the Obama economists when they claim these imaginary job creations, but not when they claim the real job losses. That is awful convenient.
You mean sourcing? Nice to know that does not count for much in your world. We cut and paste in anaylsys and news articles, and we comment on almost everything we post. That is what is called blogging. People who come up with original content every day by themselves are generally journalists. We do this for fun.
They were not tax cuts but rebates. You know that. People who paid no taxes at all got money back. Those who were the most productive got the same size check. No one can make a lick of difference with a $300. They are more likely to put it in the bank or pay off debt. The tax cuts have to go to those who can create jobs. They didn’t. Democrats can not even cut taxes right.
This has been an argument we have made before. A job for a week is not a job.
Perhaps if the Dems spent money in the Stimulus on things that could be implemented right away, like tax cuts. The problem is that the Dems don’t trust the private sector (main street or wall street) but believe more in a central planning. That is why money was allocated to duck ponds, walking paths and other useless, but specific projects that would have been called “Pork” any other time of the year.
And I assume not matter what useless policies that the Congress or the White House implement, it would still be Bush’s fault. Plenty of blame for Bush, but not for Captain Hopey Changy.
Ankle biting, defined as I can read it, is pointing out the President’s case for the stimulus and holding him to it. Hey man, we only said that it was going to be 8% by years end… not my fault that we missed it, but that Cheney guy.
By the way, that “magical” 8% is 2.2% less than the unemployment is today. Those 2.2% are millions of out of work people. I guess we should tell them all to suck it up, that it was just a ficticious number made up to sell pet projects, and that they need to have more hope.
Nor should he be absolved. We know that spending went out of control under Bush and the GOP Congress. Those posers were thrown out of office, and were taken over by the real deal. That does not give Obama and the Democratic Congress blanket absolution in all matters economic. You should not be here making excuses for him either. You should be just as critical of this President as you are of the last one. When Obama is wrong, he is wrong.
We point out GOP faults. You could learn from us.
Every post you make about Obama is anti-Obama. You can’t take the ridiculous position that every post ever about any subject whatsoever is about the president and that it therefore absolves your anti-Obama feelings.
The recession was created under Bush’s watch. There were warnings way back to 2003 that he housing bubble would cause banks to fail and drag the entire economy down. Bush chose to ignore those warnings. The results so far are 10.2% unemployment.
Those facts cannot be ignored or dismissed, not even by you.
And there is no magic bullet that can be applied in February 2009 that would have stopped unemployment cold. I though the 8% and 9.5% projections were seriously wrong. You can blame Obama, or his economists, for not understanding the deep nature of the economy. Any economy that has been given several trillion dollars of priming and is still failing is is deep serious trouble. This should be a forewarning even for ankle biting conservatives like you.
That is one of the major reasons why the recovery hasn’t been going very well. We are still nose diving – all a result of Bush’s failed policies. Instead of saying I can’t believe such a statement, which I clearly do, we can have a fact based argument of why you think differently.
I can tell you numerically why it is all related to the housing and credit bubble. I can also tell you why the stimulus so far has helped far more than you realize. It has probably saved your job.
One more historical point, way back when Bush took office in 2001 we were in the mist of a recession. In March 2000 the high tech bubble burst. No one blamed Bush for the recession in 2001. I think it’s time you owned up to the role of the housing bubble and what could have been done to prevent it — under Bush.
Lots of ankle biting going on ’round here. I’ll make sure to wear my boots today.
Really? Every post about Obama is negative? Each and every one? Really?
if you want to find a blog that agrees with the President’s policies and supports everything he does, this is the wrong blog. We welcome debate, and we do so all the time. You comment here and we never cut you off. I think are plenty of pro-Obama words allowed on this site.
And Viking has been pretty good at pointing out a fair and balanced way of where the housing crisis had its seeds sown. You don’t want any responsiblity for Dems forcing Fannie and Freddie into qualifying unqualifiable buyers, and unqualified buyers for getting in over their head. It’s all Bush’s fault… the Blame Czar!!!!
We don’t dismiss facts here. We put them in perspecitve along with other facts. You ignore facts or try to funnel them to the Blame Czar. President Obama has done nothing wrong, and all is perfect. All Bush’s fault!!!!!
There you go again. Dismissing any fault of Obama and his staff. It is all Bush’s fault. Never mind that they got the projections so wrong. Don’t worry that the whole bill of sale on the gazillion dollar Stimulus was its job creation that never materialized. We can’t expect the guy running the economy to understand it at all. Never mind all of it. Those are just words… just numbers… just Bush’s fault. He should have understood the economy. The whole thing. The Blame Czar!!!!!
Or maybe taking the People’s money (or their grandchildrens) away to buy duck ponds was not the wisest use of our money. Bush’s fault, I know. It was his fault that the Democratic Congress and the Democratic President passed the Stimulus in its current form, and then moved on to the gazillion dollar health care issue. It’s Bush’s fault. Blame Czar!!!!!! Or is it Blame Tsar?
Chomp chomp. Is that mature debating skills you are talking about? Last time I heard, it is a sign of my immaturity when I do silly things, like call someone an ankle biter several times.
Bush had several policies that went against conservative principles. He allowed spending to go way over the line and set up huge government programs. I have no problem criticizing Bush for where he went wrong. But it is also time for Obama to accept responsiblity for his actions, and stop blaming others. I have heard him and his staff personally say over and over again that he inherited a mess. He claims it on every aspect of government, from the economy to foreign policy. No President in modern history has spent this much time blaming that past guy in public. It is one thing to grumble about it in private, but this guy can not help himself. He has to “ankle bite” every chance he gets.
You claimed that Obama and his economic advisors could not be held to understand how complicated this economy is, but you are ready to give me numbers explaining it and how it is the Blame Czar’s fault??? Am I missing something here in your logic?
HA!!!! Now that is a good line. Your memory does not serve you well. Once the Left of the nation stopped actively bemoaning the “stolen election” of 2000, the lie began that it was Bush’s fault that the country was in recession. Although Obama moans about Bush constantly, there is no evidence that Bush bemoaned Clinton at all. In fact, he rarely even mentioned it, and when he did, it was always in passing, and never by name.
I hear Democratic politicians still claim that Bush inherited a surplus and destroyed it with his policies that caused the 2001 recession. They blame him for 9/11, and they blame him for the new crisis. In essense, the boogie man who “stole the election” is for blame for all our woes… even the dragging of a man from the bumper of the car in Texas. It is sad. Blame Czar may not be a high enough position for a man with such experience.
Don’t join the silly chorus. Bush was not perfect. Heck, you may an idealogical difference in his core beliefs, from economic, to foreign policy, to religion. But this tremendously silly, blame him for everything approach is not gaining any converts. Bush’s reputation is already healing. My prediction: years from now, when we are all long dead, he will be remembered NOT as a Jimmy Carter or James Buchannan… but as a Harry Truman.
Your excuse for the economy tanking is that Bush, the executive, couldn’t reign in the financial sector or Fannie and Freddie. Bush was the executive. There are at least 100 things he could have done to stem Fannie and Freddie. After all, he had both the House and the Senate.
Following your logic, if the executive cannot be blamed under Bush, why is the executive being blamed under Obama. The only right is to blame the executive on both. Obama was wrong, as I pointed out repeatedly, to have missed the 8%.
I noted facts and figures in my earlier reply, and here is the one you should focus on: if you pump trillions into an economy and it barely moves, you are in some deep dodo. That’s where we are now.
Bush will most likely be remembered as Herbert Hoover, plus two losing unfinished wars.
I’ve said repeatedly (and I have) that Bush has plenty of blame. I also see there are two branches of government that oversee agencies and execute policy and laws. Congress is part of that. We have blamed the GOP Congress and a GOP President for many things on this blog. We have pulled no punches.
I (we) never said that Bush cannot be blamed. You are either making that up to try to fit some preconceived argument, or you did not read my responses. I have yet to see real criticism from you about Obama.
Here is what you said once: “And there is no magic bullet that can be applied in February 2009 that would have stopped unemployment cold. I though (sic) the 8% and 9.5% projections were seriously wrong. You can blame Obama, or his economists, for not understanding the deep nature of the economy. Any economy that has been given several trillion dollars of priming and is still failing is is deep serious trouble. This should be a forewarning even for ankle biting conservatives like you.”
You did not say he was wrong repeatedly. You said I could blame them. Not exactly the same.
And we disagree that pumping billions of dollars into an economy by a government is a solution that should necessarily work. I think that it is the wrong move because I don’t think it works at all. FDR proved that you can not spend and centrally manage your way out of a recession.
Unlikely. Hoover was an interventionist who failed. So was FDR, but was fortunate enough to have a war to bail him out. Both tried big government to solve the problem, and likely prolonged the recession they were trying to dig us out of. Bush stimulated the economy with tax cuts in 2001, and again in 2002. We got out of the 9/11 attack quickly because there was dollars to power the private economy.
When Truman left office, the Korean War was still going on. He is not remembered for that action at all, but for the Atomic Bomb, “the buck stops here”, and standing firm against communism. Presidents are normally remembered for one or two major things. Bush will be remembered for his actions after 9/11, and if radical Islam is contained, he will also be remembered for standing pat on that… just like Truman. Historians will note his failure on Social Secuirty, the passing of Senior r/x and No Child Left Behind, but no one will remember that in 5o years, just like no one remembers the little crap that Truman did.
You’ve bought into post revisionist conservative or Republican lore about the economy. By 1933, the economy had shrank to about 70% of its pre 1929 value. FDR’s policies caused 8-10% growth each and every year since up and until 1941.
All you need to look at is this chart
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GDP_depression.svg
Money pumped into the economy is like heat into a cooking pan. You can certainly overcook the economy and in our case soften the fall, but you can’t argue that all of that money in circulation hasn’t helped.
The stimulus had so far only pumped about $150B. It has stabilized, perhaps too artificially, home prices. Without the stimulus homes would be in free fall. I know because I have been involved in several projects related to this exact area.
Without purchasing GM, unemployment today would be 11%.
I’ll post what I know to be true. You post what you like. You can stop with the constant requests to post anti-Obama stuff. I’ll post what I know and we can discuss the merits of it. Anything else and you are smoking medicinal pot.
As for Bush’s legacy, all he has managed to do is to disperse AQ into Pakistan — hardly containing anything. If anyone will get credit for containing AQ it will be Obama — if he does it. More than likely, radical Islam is hardly going to be remembered as an issue in 25 years.
Herbert Hoover wasn’t responsible for the Great Depression, but he mismanaged his way into a deeper hole. It was new territory for economics, and he favored what conservatives favor then and now — just let it all work it’s way out. It took FDR to raise the economy.
Hoover’s policies were isolationalist and non-confrontational of threats – hardly modern conservatism. Stupid decisions with tariffs and money supply sealed the deal during the Great Depression. New Deal programs helped alleviate pain, but in no way brought us out of it. Business and economic activity from producing vast amounts of war goods for WWII is what brought America out of it. Then a big wave of soldiers coming home ready to spend, buy houses and start families helped kick it in the 1950’s. FDR’s best gift was hope in the face of misery and good leadership in the time of crisis.
George W. Bush is not to blame for the economic crisis. It was a perfect storm of over-speculation on energy and housing, highly leveraged by the financial sector. Both parties are culpable going back many administrations. Everyone was drunk on it, just like in the 1990’s stock boom. It was the ultimate culmination of bubble-bust economic trends as of late. The Stimulus did not stimulate. 1.) The markets openly hated it and tanked. 2.) The explosion of budgetary irresponsibility weakened the dollar. 3.) The money trickled out at typical GovCo pace, exasperating a situation needing relief. 4.) Don’t confuse the Stimulus with TARP, which was a good thing (though not transparent enough) to infuse money into the system and is being paid back (both administrations deserve credit for this) – this is what kept the system from collapsing, not the Recovery Act. 5.) As I said in our debate back when the Stimulus was being pitched, the recession was in line with others then. I along with most conservatives believed that targeted tax cuts, meaning targeted for ’stimulus’ which includes capital gains cuts, payroll tax cuts, increased write offs, accounting rules changes, special hastened depreciation of assets or equipment purchased in 2009, capital gains tax holidays for buyers of foreclosed homes, etc. would’ve been the best means for immediately stimulating the economy and halting unemployment, which has worked in the past. Slow to realize GovCo spending for duck ponds, runways to nowhere and other goofy projects are not. I also recommended bridge loans to states to help them overcome short-term budgetary short falls. I stand by this and time is proving myself and other conservatives that shared this view at the time right.
Conservatives believe in keeping more money in the hands of the private sector because they know how better to invest and create jobs than GovCo. Tampering with 1/6th of the economy, increasing taxes everywhere for health care, busting the budget further with programs, and pushing increased regulations and taxes on energy and businesses for CO2 nonsense are exasperating this situation to the Nth degree. I bet if Obama and Democrats decided to do some pro-business things to help kick-start the economy and said they would put off their big plans until the economy was humming again and the budget was under control, just this announcement would give a nice kick to the economy! But alas, with Capitalism so despised around the world, opinions which Obama and Democrats take great credence in, I don’t see this happening anytime soon.
In late 1940, about a year before Pearl Harbor, the US GDP stood at the highest point in the ten US History. That means that under FDR, his policies regained and then expanded on the US recovery.
You could have gathered that just by looking at the chart I linked. Instead, you tried to cover up actual facts and press your conservative philosophy. Facts, and facts alone, dispute the commonly expounded belief that FDR’s policies failed. To say that, that they failed, is a lie – one that you repeated here, and one that I expect you will continue to promote. I hope that will not be an example of your conservative values.
After WWII the US grew significantly, a period not matched again until the Clinton presidency. Both periods had low inflation, low interest rates, and lower spending on military as a percentage of GDP.
You are also incorrect in other facts:
- You said 1.) The markets openly hated it [stimulus] and tanked.
Fact: the DOW stands today at 10,000. Teh lowest point in the DOW was in March. Within weeks of signing the stimulus, the DOW moved up and has been climbing ever since, adding 3500 points in value. Now that is confidence.
- You said 2.) The explosion of budgetary irresponsibility weakened the dollar.
Fact: the US Dollar has been sliding since March 2002. Today it is exactly the same as to where it was in March 1992, after other Republican presidents who ran terrific deficits. The only president who strengthened the dollar in modern times is Bill Clinton.
See for yourself
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/chartdl.aspx?Symbol=%2fEURUS&ShowChtBt=Refresh+Chart&DateRangeForm=1&C9=2&ComparisonsForm=1&CE=0&DisplayForm=1&D4=1&D5=0&D3=0&ViewType=0&CP=0&PT=11
- I can agree with 3.) The money tricked out at typical GovCo pace, exasperating a situation needing relief.
- You said 4.) Don’t confuse the Stimulus with TARP, which was a good thing (though not transparent enough) to infuse money into the system and is being paid back (both administrations deserve credit for this) – this is what kept the system from collapsing, not the Recovery Act.
Fact: The $150B is stimulus money isn’t TARP money. It’s clunkers which you support and it’s road works. A separate program is supporting mortgages. Today, all mortgages are bought in the secondary market by teh Fed government, a TARP like program providing a life line support to home values through sales.
- You said 5.) As I said in our debate back when the Stimulus was being pitched, the recession was in line with others then.
Fact: You are smoking medicinal pot if you think this recession, already 22 months old will be fixed shortly. It’s only because of the stimulus that it hasn’t been much worse. Of course, you want to believe that money pumped into the economy has no effect whatsoever. I’ll let readers decide.
- You said: “targeted tax cuts …”
Fact: economists haven’t made much of a public case. I am sure you guys know much more than economists on this issue.
- You said: “I also recommended bridge loans to states to help them overcome short-term budgetary short falls. I stand by this and time is proving myself and other conservatives that shared this view at the time right.” Really? What evidence? I haven’t seen any.
Democrats don’t hate capitalism. This is a ridiculous statement. Clinton was exceptionally pro business, disproving any notion you may put forth about democrats. Obama is hardly a socialist. He has intervened because a lot of big sized companies were going under: Citi, B of A, GM, etc… That doesn’t make him a socialist, He does not advocate socialist policies. None of them (we’ll get to health care). Bank intervention is under TARP, which you already said was a good thing (and we’ll agree). Obama’s intervention of GM is TARP-like. Own stock, don’t meddle with products, let them recover.
Now on to health care. A lot of conservatives feel that health care is now socialized, meaning the government supports funding of health care. Fact is that Obama’s plan is not like UK, or Canada. It is very much like Switzerland’s or France’s mixed model.
The vision is people are given choices and buy whichever plan best suits their needs. The central point of the plan is competition in order to drive efficiencies and cost reduction.
I know you disagree. You think that the government plan will destroy all other plans, will force cost and payment controls, and the entire US health system will go down the tubes.
I doubt your outcome. Rhetoric aside, Obama’s plan is hardly socialist.
This was about whether Bush is at fault for his non-intervention of the economy, so I’ll leave you with one question. The signs of excess were everywhere in 2003. How come he and both the Republican House and Senate did nothing to intervene?
In late 1940, about a year before Pearl Harbor, the US GDP stood at the highest point in the ten US History. That means that under FDR, his policies regained and then expanded on the US recovery.
You could have gathered that just by looking at the chart I linked. Instead, you tried to cover up actual facts and press your conservative philosophy. Facts, and facts alone, dispute the commonly expounded belief that FDR’s policies failed. To say that, that they failed, is a lie – one that you repeated here, and one that I expect you will continue to promote. I hope that will not be an example of your conservative values.
After WWII the US grew significantly, a period not matched again until the Clinton presidency. Both periods had low inflation, low interest rates, and lower spending on military as a percentage of GDP.
You are also incorrect in other facts:
- You said 1.) The markets openly hated it [stimulus] and tanked.
Fact: the DOW stands today at 10,000. The lowest point in the DOW was in March. Within weeks of signing the stimulus, the DOW moved up and has been climbing ever since, adding 3500 points in value. Now that is confidence.
- You said 2.) The explosion of budgetary irresponsibility weakened the dollar.
Fact: the US Dollar has been sliding since March 2002. Today it is exactly the same as to where it was in March 1992, after other Republican presidents who ran terrific deficits. The only president who strengthened the dollar in modern times is Bill Clinton.
(link post to follow)
- I can agree with 3.) The money tricked out at typical GovCo pace, exasperating a situation needing relief.
- You said 4.) Don’t confuse the Stimulus with TARP, which was a good thing (though not transparent enough) to infuse money into the system and is being paid back (both administrations deserve credit for this) – this is what kept the system from collapsing, not the Recovery Act.
Fact: The $150B is stimulus money isn’t TARP money. It’s clunkers which you support and it’s road works. A separate program is supporting mortgages. Today, all mortgages are bought in the secondary market by the Fed government, a TARP like program providing a life line support to home values through sales.
- You said 5.) As I said in our debate back when the Stimulus was being pitched, the recession was in line with others then.
Fact: You are smoking medicinal pot if you think this recession, already 22 months old will be fixed shortly. It’s only because of the stimulus that it hasn’t been much worse. Of course, you want to believe that money pumped into the economy has no effect whatsoever. I’ll let readers decide.
- You said: “targeted tax cuts …”
Fact: economists haven’t made much of a public case. I am sure you guys know much more than economists on this issue.
- You said: “I also recommended bridge loans to states to help them overcome short-term budgetary short falls. I stand by this and time is proving myself and other conservatives that shared this view at the time right.” Really? What evidence? I haven’t seen any.
Democrats don’t hate capitalism. This is a ridiculous statement. Clinton was exceptionally pro business, disproving any notion you may put forth about democrats. Obama is hardly a socialist. He has intervened because a lot of big sized companies were going under: Citi, B of A, GM, etc… That doesn’t make him a socialist, He does not advocate socialist policies. None of them (we’ll get to health care). Bank intervention is under TARP, which you already said was a good thing (and we’ll agree). Obama’s intervention of GM is TARP-like. Own stock, don’t meddle with products, let them recover.
Now on to health care. A lot of conservatives feel that health care is now socialized, meaning the government supports funding of health care. Fact is that Obama’s plan is not like UK, or Canada. It is very much like Switzerland’s or France’s mixed model.
The vision is people are given choices and buy whichever plan best suits their needs. The central point of the plan is competition in order to drive efficiencies and cost reduction.
I know you disagree. You think that the government plan will destroy all other plans, will force cost and payment controls, and the entire US health system will go down the tubes.
I doubt your outcome. Rhetoric aside, Obama’s plan is hardly socialist.
This was about whether Bush is at fault for his non-intervention of the economy, so I’ll leave you with one question. The signs of excess were everywhere in 2003. How come he and both the Republican House and Senate did nothing to intervene?
link to DOW, 2009
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/chartdl.aspx?Symbol=%2fEURUS&ShowChtBt=Refresh+Chart&DateRangeForm=1&C9=2&ComparisonsForm=1&CE=0&DisplayForm=1&D4=1&D5=0&D3=0&ViewType=0&CP=0&PT=11
The United States was already supplying allies in Europe with armaments.
Never said they failed – that is a lie. Quite belligerent you are in your debate techniques lately. I said they helped alleviate pain but did not bring the economy out of the depression, that was WW2.
Hardly. I posted article after article after article that the markets hated it – right from the mouths of traders.
Exactly – budget irresponsibility, regardless of administration. Piling it on has exasperated the situation. Obama is not being “Clinton-like”, nor was Bush or the Republican congress being “Contract with America-like” in this regard. Clinton also supported a cut of the capital gains tax that lead to some robust times.
Obviously. TARP is what saved the markets from collapsing. Cash for Clunkers was good in my opinion – an incentive, which you had argued against things like this as not being effective. It was (proven right again). The only downfall of the program was the gross mismanagement of it by GovCo.
I don’t smoke pot. Your argument is anecdotal at best with no evidence to back it up. What we do know is that the evidence seems to show it has done little to stem the tide of unemployment, or boost the economy in any significant way and in some ways may have exasperated it. The evidence supports this, as opposed to baseless speculation. Obama bought the solution with the Stimulus and its weak results. Blaming Bush is a cop out.
Plenty of economists at the time indicated real stimulus required tax cuts; I even posted a long list of them in protest somewhere. History has proven it to be effective many times.
For my statement on bridge loans, read our debate under “Not the Worst Recession …”
The current Democrats in power have leaned more towards the socialist side of things, their actions and words back this up. Clinton was a good centrist Democrat (though slimy), Obama is not.
Plenty of meddling, dubious and political shenanigans have gone along with the auto industry forced bankruptcies.
I never said anything about the current bill being socialized medicine. I called it a big, expensive GovCo. ‘Frankenstein’ program that will bust the budget at a time when we need fiscal restraint.
Blaming one man is misguided and likely fueled by your personal hatred of him, so it holds little water. This question could be applied to each president and congress going back to Bush Sr. because the roots of all of this are deeper than ‘Bush is a Dumb Chimp’ pyromaniac rhetoric.
Viking – you are trying to push a dead horse on us now.
Any look at GDP growth between 1933 and 1940 shows that there was 8% growth each year of FDR’s policies.
1933 – 1934, 2% GDP growth
1934 – 1935, 8% GDP growth
1935 – 1936, 10% GDP growth
1936 – 1937, 8% GDP growth
and so on…
There is a very telling drop in 1937 when FDR slowed down his policies. Growth when FDR rekicked in his policies. There is no uptick in 1939 or 1940 for armaments to Europe.
Again with the dead horse when you say WWII pulled the US out of the recession. I have stated and showed that GDP had been restored by 1940. No WWII, nor, as you stated was the growth all in the last year. It was constant throughout the recession.
More dead horse with the DOW. I posted a link to a chart that shows the DOW growing steadily from March 2009. Who are we to believe, the DOW history or a few cherry picked traders you blogged about?
I don’t have a hatred of Bush. What I have is a reasoned conclusion that he accomplished nothing useful, didn’t act on advice, and followed blindly the belief that economies fix themselves.
I still believe Bush was a disaster. Strange how this blog is mostly about Obama and how wrong his policies are, but yet ignore just how wrong Bush has been.
The only one beating dead horses is you, especially when it comes to the ex-POTUS.
Great, but that doesn’t equal jobs. The intent of New Deal programs was to provide a safety net (OK) and get American’s back to work (like Obama’s stimulus). Both were touted as the answers for jobs and both failed. The war effort got people back to work and turned the economy around.
Here is analysis from the Wall Street Journal, two economics professors one even from the best business school in the nation … uh, I mean from Rush …
After the Stimulus passed the House in late January, the Dow lost over 9% of its value until final signing, not a glowing endorsement of what was transpiring. It then soon after bottomed in the 6,000’s before slowly recovering. Here is an explanation as to why it has been recovering per Forbes … uh … I mean Glenn Beck.
Nope and nope. We have taken Bush to the woodshed many times, but we don’t consider everything he did as a failure. That’s foolish and inaccurate. The reason you don’t see many posts here about him is that he is at home in Dallas or hanging out at his Crawford ranch – not too blogworthy. Obama is president, so he will be criticized for things that he does that the conservative authors here disagree with or object to. I think Windy gave a nice breakdown of our posts topics earlier.
You forgot to source the last comments to Sarah Palin. I think I saw some Karl Rove ideas in there also.
I can’t believe you are using unreputable sources like WSJ and Forbes. How can you live with youself Viking? For shame.
Your evidence is an article written for the WSJ, always a partisan newspaper, coming out at the time of the stimulus debate in Feb 09 – not years before and open to peer review. In fact the quote no major studies, just their opinion.
The article is bogus in a number of respects. They should have mentioned GDP was restored; they should have mentioned that 50% of the jobs were restored.
The fact that the DOW has restored since the stimulus went into effect says it all – I don’t have to defend it further.
The subject matter is whether Bush was wrong. Whether he now lives in Crawford is little comfort to those unemployed and totally fair game to analyze his disastrous culpability. I’ll let readers interested in facts and not pushing politics decide for themselves.
Be my guest and have the last word.
Certainly will. The WSJ is one of the most prestigious sources for economic news and thought in the world. I will not even justify your partisan rant on it. The authors actually conducted a four-year study on the subject and are extremely qualified, light years over anything anecdotal you have presented.
The fact the Dow has recovered some does not say it all – the Forbes article, another very prestigious source provides significantly more insight.
Perspective on Bush.
Unemployment is finally trimming. It seems like a very fast turnaround to me, but a highly welcomed one.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/04/news/economy/jobs_november/index.htm
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