Our Lowered Economic Expectations
The stock market reaches an old milestone and the unemployment rate is below 10%. In Obama's America, that's worthy of celebration.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average recently reached 10,000 again, rising 50% since March and reclaiming a major market milestone. September job losses were also less than expected, keeping unemployment under 10%. Moody’s, Google, and even the New York Times say the recession is over.
That means mission accomplished, right? Surely President Obama deserves the Nobel Prize in economics too, or at least a day off from the never-ending criticism spewing forth from far-right outfits like the Atlantic and U.S. News and World Report.
Unfortunately, as usual, reality has to intrude on this president and his cheerleaders. In fact, the DJIA closed over 9,000 on January 2. Then the president came into office, passed the so-called stimulus, and immediately attacked the finance, energy, tourism, health care, and automotive industries — and where did the Dow go? It went to 6,500 by March.
In the 1980s and 2000s, it became part of the narrative to criticize both Reagan and Bush for the slow job growth (exaggerated into the “jobless recovery”) and an unequal distribution of wealth that helped those on Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. Reaganomics was a dirty word among liberals, even as Ronald Reagan’s policies were pulling the country out of Democratic malaise and stagflation.
Now we have Obamanomics, which has no jobs and no recovery. In May, unemployment among adult workers with a high school education was 10.0%. In September, it hit 10.8%. For African-Americans it is up from 14.9% to 15.4%. For Hispanics it is stuck at 12.7%. Nearly one million homes went into foreclosure in Q3, an all-time record.
Dow 10,000 also highlights the disconnect between Main Street and the connected firms on Wall Street. Goldman Sachs, which converted to a bank at the 11th hour to become eligible for bailout funds, is paying out $23 billion in bonuses. JP Morgan Chase, another corporate welfare queen, just had a blowout $3.6 billion quarter. Even the Obama cheerleaders at CBS and AP are raising eyebrows, noting that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner talks to representatives of these and other Wall Street firms on a daily basis.
In early September, Vice President Biden was laughed at when he said the stimulus is working better than expected. Now we have to wonder if he was talking about his friends in the finance industry and their annual bonuses.
Although politics is covered by the media as a horse race, at its heart it is about the choices we make as a society and their consequences. None has stated this better than Charles Krauthammer, whose op-ed titled “Decline Is a Choice” perfectly describes the crossroads we face as a country. America certainly faces challenges, but nothing is inevitable and it is still within our power to arrest our decline or to accelerate it. To quote John McCain’s only good speech in 2008, Americans don’t hide from history; we make history.
Let’s turn the calendar back to January and travel to an America that might have been. President-elect Obama asks his best economic advisors what it will take to get our economy moving again. Then he keeps his campaign promise and listens.
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Tristan Yates is a management and investment analyst and the author of Enhanced Indexing Strategies. His articles and research have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! Finance, and many other publications.
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43 Comments
1. vivo:This article is the usual right-wing banter: point, shout, repeat, repeat, repeat, bang, bang, bang. The poor conservatives are getting their skull cracked by their own ilk.
Oct 27, 2009 - 4:17 am 2. What Hope?:Other than buying gold where beside the stock market can people invest their money?
Answer nowhere. Every normal avenue, asset, methodology, path and street that enables the American; indeed worldwide free market system to grow and profit has been destroyed; obliterated by one thing. Obama.
The world is stuck inside a cocoon of shocked; stunned disbelief looking at the monumental, unbelievable chaos, size and scope of the massive mess Obama has made.
As aggressive and strong as the greed, profit and power stroking machine of the human race is, normalcy will not begin to return until Obama is gone.
That is the clear, certain reality of this election’s consequences. Thing is, no one is able to say with any confidence that it is possible.
Oct 27, 2009 - 5:35 am 3. Old Soldier:Dow 10,000 is an indication that the dollar is going down, not the market going up.
The economy will continue to stumble along until Health Care or Cap & Tax is passed, then this “recovery” is over. If neither of those things happens, the next year will be steady, then the crash will come in 2011 when taxes go way up.
Oct 27, 2009 - 5:42 am 4. David Thomson:Goldman Sachs is perhaps the number one beneficiary of the new corporatism. Their top executives collude with the Washington political establishment to further enrich themselves. This company is the enemy of the small business community and other decent Americans. As matter of fact, one can also argue that Goldman Sach cooperated with the Obama administration to destroy its competitors! Moreover, these clowns are greatly responsible for the introduction of the cap and trade bills now threatening the United States.
Oct 27, 2009 - 6:04 am 5. venividivici:Answer nowhere. Every normal avenue, asset, methodology, path and street that enables the American; indeed worldwide free market system to grow and profit has been destroyed; obliterated by one thing. Obama.
Sell the market short and use some of the profits to support politicians who won’t kill the golden goose.
Oct 27, 2009 - 6:07 am 6. Paul:WELL SAID, Tristan Yates!!!
Oct 27, 2009 - 6:33 am 7. BackwardsBoy:Obama understands nothing about America: her values and mores, her people nor her economy. He proved this when he and his ACORN cronies sued banks to force them to loan money to people who plainly couldn’t afford to own a home.
Oct 27, 2009 - 6:47 am 8. Moho:Why didn’t he promote the creation of business in those areas instead? He has a direct role in the crushing recession that’s causing great misery and suffering for countless Americans.
And we just elected him president.
Yep, everything was going great until the very day Obama came into office. Its infuriating the way he’s ruined the prosperity left to us by the Bush administration, by igniting the financial crisis on the day he entered office. Where we had eight years of peace and prosperity under Bush–especially how he prevented terrorist attacks in his first year in office–it was Obama with his damn stimulus package that ruined it all by inve4nting Goldman Sachs, and then bailing them out! Bush would have never done anything like that!
Idiot.
Oct 27, 2009 - 7:05 am 9. JED:‘The failed economic policies of the last 9 months has put the American economy on a house of sand.” There, someone said it.
Oct 27, 2009 - 7:18 am 10. ahem:From the WSJ of 10-14-09 Judy Shelton,” With the U.S. debt set to exceed 100% of GDP in 2011, it’s no wonder people are looking for alternative ways to perserve wealth.”
Under Bush the ratio of debt to GDP was 70.2%, this year it will hit 90.4%, and then touch 100% in 2011. That is an increase of 30% more debt before the serious entitlement programs, social experiments, alternative energy gambits, and stealth taxes have been put to ink.
No foreign power could have enslaved us so quickly.
Under 10%? In what universe?
Oct 27, 2009 - 7:27 am 11. Moho:Why didn’t he promote the creation of business in those areas instead?
Are you saying he ran ACORN?
Oct 27, 2009 - 7:48 am 12. David S:Expectations have been getting lower for forty years. Job creation and economic growth have been anemic under GOP stewardship, and income inequality has increased dramatically. Obama’s focus on health care is right on target – health care costs are a primary concern for small businesses and the unemployed, and a major drag on economic growth. He is laying a foundation for long term growth and prosperity.
Obama’s administration has already taken action to make education more affordable and more accessible – and I can’t help but recognize the hypocrisy of the right advocating a focus on education, after decades spent working to destroy the fine public education system built during the mid 20th century. Defunding public education has had the predictable effect of lowering outcomes.
On energy, Obama’s team is also taking important action on climate change legislation, which will help immensely to shape a future energy economy that does not rely on imported fossil fuel sources, and provide more impetus to the development of clean energy sources.
It’s like you didn’t even notice that these issues are being addressed by Obama’s administration. Or just elected to ignore the progress Obama is making in a broad range of policy areas. The focus on health care has not taken away from the other important priorities on the table. The economy is recovering more quickly than would have been possible without the stimulus bill, and jobs are being created all over the country.
Dow 10,000 is a sign that there is hope for Obama, health care reform, cap and trade, and a new, more rational tax policy as well. There is a lot of work to be done to restore America, but Obama is making good progress, despite the obsessive bleating of the GOP sheep.
The party of no has a long way to go.
Peace.
DS
Oct 27, 2009 - 8:14 am 13. Albert:Mr Moho (8), you are in such a twisted state of reality denial, that I fear that your only hope for recovery is a cram course in how to do serious, honest research, or psychiatric intervention
Oct 27, 2009 - 8:19 am 14. goy:- We don’t know why President Obama got stuck on health care …
We can pretend not to know, but the fact is that it’s all part of the collectivist plan. BHO’s determined to try marxism one more time.
Seizing control of 17% of the nation’s economy, and using it to expand control over virtually every aspect of American life that might conceiveably affect the cost of health care is a fascist ideologue’s wet dream. Why do you think the last Narcissist-In-Chief pushed so hard for it.
Put that together with cap-and-tax-and-spend, seizure of the financial sector, seizure of the automotive sector and you don’t even need to neuter the military to enjoy de facto dictatorial power
.
@8. Moho: – … everything was going great until the very day Obama came into office.
No, straw man, everything wasn’t.
Things started going down the tubes as soon as the effects of the Democrat-controlled Congress made themselves felt on the economy. Up to that point, the revenue/spending trends had us on the path toward a balanced budget and we’d had consistent economic growth for years.
BHO inherited the damage done by an unaccountable, increasingly leftist Congress, whose job it is to manage federal finances.
Oct 27, 2009 - 8:30 am 15. goy:@12. David S: – Defunding public education has had the predictable effect of lowering outcomes.
How much crack have you done today, Zippy?
Federal education expenditures have skyrocketed as badly as health care costs, with NO MEASURABLE IMPROVEMENT in education.
Of course, now that the marxist left has turned all educational institutions into activist factories – producing functionally illiterate, morally adolescent, leftist ideologues like yourself – this lack of improvement shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Oct 27, 2009 - 8:40 am 16. Moho:now that the marxist left has turned all educational institutions into activist factories – producing functionally illiterate, morally adolescent, leftist ideologues like yourself – this lack of improvement shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Hallucinogens at this time of day? Are you and the author both dropping acid in the same underground bunker?
Oct 27, 2009 - 10:13 am 17. JED:Quoting further from that same article mentioned above caled ‘The Message of Dollar Distain’ and sourced from the administrations budget numbers, Bush increased the debt to GDP ratio by 9%. When Clinton left office the U.S. federal debt was equal to 61.4% of GDP in 1999.
Further, with this budget “the U.S. is slated to enter the ranks of those countries-Zimbabwe, Japan, Lebanon, Singapore, Jamaica, Italy -with the highest debt burden against a nation’s capacity to to generate sufficient wealth to repay its creditors.”
Where does a deficit neutral government program exist except in the imagination of ambitious politicians?
Oct 27, 2009 - 10:53 am 18. blotto:DS: Do you realize how bizarre you sound? I mean, really. You are two bricks shy a full load, dude.
It is as if, Kos turns you on and downloads every conceivable cliche that even remotely has something to do with a topic and then lets you type. I have never seen, heard or read someone like you who is this well programmed. Even if they pay you to write your vapid drivel, the way you come across is that of an AI robot without the AI.
Goy, I really respect you for fighting the good fight against such a creepy person. DS is the Manchurian poster.
Oct 27, 2009 - 11:43 am 19. Albert:I owe you an apology Moho, I read your #8 out of context, and didn’t really recognize the satire. Actually, my folly indirectly acknowledges how well you crafted your satirical reply. Well done, and again, apologies
Oct 27, 2009 - 12:03 pm 20. Sebastian Shaw:Spin, spin, spin all you President Obama & the MSM; you are no Wonder Woman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ROi9Isk_5I&feature=fvw
Oct 27, 2009 - 1:06 pm 21. venividivici:Obama’s focus on health care is right on target – health care costs are a primary concern for small businesses and the unemployed, and a major drag on economic growth. He is laying a foundation for long term growth and prosperity.
First of all, what cost isn’t a concern of the unemployed? Secondly, a dollar spent on health care is now a dollar in a health care provider’s pocket. Unless they are spending those dollars outside the country, how do those dollars not contribute to GDP growth?
Do you just expect us to read the things you write, nod our heads and not notice the underlying lack of coherence?
Oct 27, 2009 - 1:43 pm 22. venividivici:Yep, everything was going great until the very day Obama came into office. Its infuriating the way he’s ruined the prosperity left to us by the Bush administration, by igniting the financial crisis on the day he entered office. Where we had eight years of peace and prosperity under Bush–especially how he prevented terrorist attacks in his first year in office–it was Obama with his damn stimulus package that ruined it all by inve4nting Goldman Sachs, and then bailing them out! Bush would have never done anything like that!
Everything in this rant is backward-looking. How about dealing with the topic of the article, i.e. “expectations” and how Obama is handling them? Even if I concede that Bush was the worst President in the history of the universe, the stock market is no longer reacting to him, nor were today’s consumer confidence “future expectations” numbers a reflection on Bush.
Oct 27, 2009 - 1:46 pm 23. ETAB:Yes, it’s remarkable how programmed David S is; he’s almost like an automatic template of leftist sophisms.
He has no understanding of basic economics, of the difference between socialism and capitalism, of the role of government in a capitalist republic..etc. Has no understanding of evidence or logic; if you ask for evidence, he’ll provide a link to an equally unsubstantiated and data-biased site.
Brainwashed is too mild a word; braindead might be more accurate. I’m guessing he’s a high school student or first year college.
Oct 27, 2009 - 2:05 pm 24. mark l.:panglossian reality.
why does all this koolaid smell like almonds?
Oct 27, 2009 - 2:42 pm 25. Rick Caird:David S. is so convinced that everything is well on the way to recovery. I suggest he sell his house and put all his assets, plus margin, into the stock market. If he is correct, and he believes he is, he will be wealthy beyond avarice. If he is wrong, though, he will understand the Obama economy all too well.
Rick
Oct 27, 2009 - 2:57 pm 26. Lefty:Quite a few whoppers in here. The recession is most decidedly not over, the National Bureau of Economic Research gets to call that one. I would suggest you try reading Crudelle over in a right wing rag called the New York Post. Their politics suck, but they get business. Krugman is nowhere near done beating the recession drum at the Times.
As for your mortgage proposal, interbank rates are close to nothing. There is no reason banks shouldn’t be lending, but they aren’t. That my friend is the free market. Rewarding responsible borrowers as admirable as it sounds is like demanding healthcare discounts for non-smokers etc. Anyway, the prevailing attitude here seems to be that business needs as little regulation as possible.
On the question of why healthcare now? Well, healthcare costs have ballooned the last ten years. While the bailout package is huge, it is a one-time (we hope) charge. For anyone looking at the budget, medicare and medicaid keep expanding at an alarming rate. Obama is trying to contain the largest problem with our budget.
Oct 27, 2009 - 3:13 pm 27. Nate:If he wanted to contain costs he wouldn’t be expanding the program.
Oct 27, 2009 - 4:25 pm 28. Wiseman:@12 David S. The party of no has a long way to go.
I am the party of NO
No, you can’t have my hard earned money
No, you can’t have my country
No, can’t have control over me
No, you can’t and no you won’t
PERIOD!
Oct 27, 2009 - 6:58 pm 29. Old Soldier:Damn David S. you chugged a whole pitcher of lefty lemonade! You are delusional enough to be Obama’s Press Secretary. Can you deliver that crap with a straight face? And without “Umm”, “Ah” and other verbal crutches every other word? The guys in the job now sound like drug-addled sophomores.
Oct 27, 2009 - 7:46 pm 30. e:I feel Obama’s strategy is clear enough: spend his political capital and rush transformitive laws through before anyone realizes. Unfortunately for him, much of the public has caught onto the ruse.
Oct 27, 2009 - 8:18 pm 31. Richard:Prosperity is not what this Presidency is all about.
It is about Equality.
The only way to achieve that objective is to make us all equally impoverished.
OK, only most of us, not the elected pols.
Oct 27, 2009 - 8:23 pm 32. J:McCain or Obama?
Good thing we elected the one who was strong on the economy.
Thanks MSM idiots.
Oct 27, 2009 - 8:54 pm 33. goy:@26. Lefty: – Quite a few whoppers in here. The recession is most decidedly not over, …
Gee… y’think? Looks like the whopper would be the NYT’s false claim then, doesn’t it.
- …the National Bureau of Economic Research gets to call that one.
Anyone who understands the difference between successive quarters of growth vs. decline can make that call, actually.
- Krugman is nowhere near done beating the recession drum at the Times.
He’s also nowhere near done beating the Keynesian More Stimulus! drum either.
– … interbank rates are close to nothing. There is no reason banks shouldn’t be lending, but they aren’t.
No surprise. The last time banks complied with government regulations to allow borrowers to take advantage of unnaturally low interest rates, they were accused of “predatory lending” when the rates inevitably increased. The result, ultimately, was demonization of the banking / mortgage industry and seizure of major portions of the financial sector by an increasingly corporatist government. No bank CEO with more than half a brain is going to fall for that scam twice.
Also, the financial sector knows that with the unprecedented increase in federal debt created by this administration (that is – unprecedented in all of human history), we’re guaranteed another serious dip of recession and possibly hyperinflation leading to extended depression – just like back in the ’30s, when the feds couldn’t resist trying to “fix” the economy. Given that reality, it makes no sense to be lending money out just for the sake of lending.
- Rewarding responsible borrowers as admirable as it sounds is like demanding healthcare discounts for non-smokers etc.
Demanding? That sounds like your straw man. Health care discounts for non-smokers are already a reality. But you think it makes more sense to reward irresponsible, individually and socially destructive behavior? Interesting.
Anyway, the prevailing attitude here seems to be that business needs as little regulation as possible.
On that you would probably be correct, since government has proven for a century that it is incapable of sensibly regulating business that is better left to the free market to sort out. Most of the sectors in trouble right now – automotive, health care, finance – have been regulated and manipulated by the federal government to the point of dysfunction, which of course is then blamed on capitalism. The government has no business dictating market factors, insuring people against routine costs of living or lending out money it creates from thin air.
On the question of why healthcare now? Well, healthcare costs have ballooned the last ten years.
Healthcare costs have been ballooning since the mid-70s. Every single action the government has taken regarding health care has been followed by increases in health care costs at rates exceeding inflation.
While the bailout package is huge, it is a one-time (we hope) charge.
Krugman doesn’t hope so. And neither the bailouts nor the Spendulus have had any substantive effect on the economy. At the same time we’re learning that the administration of these programs and distribution of funds has been inept (at best).
- For anyone looking at the budget, medicare and medicaid keep expanding at an alarming rate.
Exactly. Which is why they should be phased out and those portions of the economy returned to the private sector. The federal government is incapable of efficiently providing such services. Its very manipulation of the market is what has contributed to skyrocketing health care costs in the first place. Increased costs due to government meddling won’t be corrected by more government meddling. After 50 years of failure in this area, only an insane person would insist on doing more of the same over and over, expecting something different to happen.
- Obama is trying to contain the largest problem with our budget.
Oct 27, 2009 - 8:56 pm 34. Moho:BHO is trying to seize control over a significant portion of the economy and at the same time procure the leverage needed to pass subsequent legislation that is in any way related to the cost of health care: what we eat, what jobs we do, how much we’re allowed to weigh, what businesses we can pursue, where we travel, etc. Control over health care is a leftist ideologue’s wet dream. With health care added to the list of industries under federal control – automotive, finance, energy, etc. – government will have de facto dictatorial powers and never need bother neutering the military to get it.
Everything in this rant is backward-looking.
You really are stupid.
Oct 27, 2009 - 9:08 pm 35. Kersplat:Dow 10,000 is an indicator of how the banksters and government are looting American taxpayers so that they can line their own personal pockets while blowing a new equities bubble.
Dow 10,000 is an indicator of systemic fraud, corruption, criminal activity and manipulation perpetrated by Wall Street.
Dow 10,000 is an indicator of the extent to which the US has become the bankster-owned banana
republicoligarchy it is, which is why the dollar is falling.Wall Street hopes that Dow 10,000 is a flashing green go-light for all those useful idiots who think recovery is around the corner and that investing in the stock market is a good idea. Dow 10,000 is an indicator of Pump’n'Dump.
The only actions taken by our government (Obama, Bush and BOTH parties) is covering up this reeking pile of dog squeeze so the public doesn’t see the train wreck that is our economy. Add to that, I’m still gobsmacked there are conservatives out there who think the current administration, who’ve consistently demonstrated that they are American-hating, anti-capitalist fascists (as in a “merger of state and corporate power” — Mussolini), has any interest whatsoever in reversing and/or fixing our economy.
I sure hope “Dow 10,000 is just faith in the American people descending on Washington with pitchforks.” But I don’t see many Americans, outside of those who are financial types, yammering/upset about the looting of the American taxpayer and the corresponding destruction of our economy by our oligarchy.
Oct 27, 2009 - 10:46 pm 36. bandit:If Bush were still POTUS 10% unemployment would be a crime against humanity.
Oct 28, 2009 - 5:30 am 37. John "birther" Samford:“how do those dollars not contribute to GDP growth?”
Simple. Recirculating wealth does NOT create more wealth. Investing wealth creates more wealth.
Investing and recirculating are NOT the same thing.
There is overlap, but it is one sided. Investing money puts it into circulation, but putting wealth in circulation is NOT automatically investing.
If I go down to the store and buy a case of beer for 10.99US$, take that beer to the ball park and sell those beers for 3.50US$ each, I have made an investment. If I sit in the parking lot and drink them,I have put that 10.99 in circulation, or will have as soon as I find the Men’s room.
Big difference there, one you don’t seem to be aware of. You must have a PhD. in Economics, right?
Actually, what you are doing is inflationary, since you are putting wealth in circulation without increasing production. So you have more dollars chasing fewer goods. There are other models, of course.
Milton Friedman, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”
Ol’ Milton isn’t perfectly correct, but he is closer then most. Keynesian died when Carter tried to apply it and it didn’t work. The academic world tried ‘adjusting’ his theory. Which is evidence that Economics isn’t a science. In Science, when a theory is proven wrong, it is discarded. In academics a theory is discarded only after all it’s supporters have died. Witness AGW.
Oct 28, 2009 - 9:08 am 38. venividivici:Now you can argue that all my business of one is doing is re-distributing the wealth, since I haven’t actually produced anything. You would be half right. That is because the brewery did all the production, I’m just nicking a piece of the wealth they are creating. The half you are wrong about is not counting my labor.
Production is a function of labor. Anyone doing labor is producing something. That is what makes it labor and not a hobby.
34
Oh, boy, my self-esteem is being wounded over here.
Again, the topic is “expectations” and why Obama can’t seem to raise people’s.
Got anything to say about that, jackhole?
Oct 28, 2009 - 1:33 pm 39. venividivici:Simple. Recirculating wealth does NOT create more wealth. Investing wealth creates more wealth.
Who’s talking about “recirculating” anything? What do you think was used to create the medical technology used to serve patients, if not “investments”? Those medical technologies didn’t just fall out of the sky.
Speaking of beers, were you drunk when you wrote that? Even in your beer example, the money you used to pay for the beers goes to pay the ballplayers who are playing in the game your watching, as well as goes into the building materials to build the urinal you’re using.
Oct 28, 2009 - 1:41 pm 40. venividivici:Speaking of beers, were you drunk when you wrote that? Even in your beer example, the money you used to pay for the beers goes to pay the ballplayers who are playing in the game your watching, as well as goes into the building materials to build the urinal you’re using.
Didn’t read your post as closely as I should have. Even so, all you are saying is that there is a difference between consumption and investment. OK, so in a health care context, are you saying that when someone takes a drug and pays 10.99 for it, they are doing the equivalent of drinking 10.99 worth of beer? After all, they will just piss out most of the drug’s inactive ingredients. However, you still have to go back further in the production cycle and look at the money you’re spending on beer as recouping an original investment in beer-making equipment.
So, again, I’m not really sure what your point was in response to my point that “economic growth” is a generic category and can encompass health care spending (and the investments necessary to make health care possible) just as well as any other kind of spending (and the investments that make those products/services possible). About the only real distinction I would make is between high value-add products/services and commodities. But, since health care products/services are primarily high value-add, as measured by the amount of intellectual property embedded in them, I would argue that more health care spending is actually a good thing for an economy, so long as that spending is on high value-add aspects of health care. Just like, in your beer example, it would be better for the economy if we were able to product high-quality beers, as opposed to cheap swill.
Oct 28, 2009 - 1:52 pm 41. Lefty:goy – Sometimes I have to take the Path train over to Jersey for work. I dread this because whenever I walk past Ground Zero there’s usually some guy trying to convince me that 9/11 was an inside job and that George Bush behind this conspiracy.
I bet if we got to talking he and I might have common ground. We both want better healthcare and hate the way banks are being rewarded for their failure. Heck, neither of us like Bush. But we remain divided because this man is a paranoid conspiracy nut.
When you speak of Obama wanting to become Dictator for life and control your healthcare in order to ultimately control our life. Well, you don’t sound very different from the man I avoid at Ground Zero.
Oct 29, 2009 - 7:07 am 42. goy:41. Lefty: – When you speak of Obama wanting to become Dictator for life…
Funny… I didn’t speak of that. At all.
When you join Moho in stooping to the use of a straw man, just to avoid responding to valid criticism, you’ve already lost claim to being taken as a serious person – especially when you do so using Rule #5 ridicule of a notion that is fully supported by ALL of BHO’s past and every single one of the actions he’s taken as POTUS.
Oct 29, 2009 - 8:39 am 43. Tristan Yates:Thanks for the comments – is why I enjoy writing for Pajamas. As always, events don’t wait for publishing queues, and the biggest one in the US politically-driven economy is the White House attack on the US Chamber of Commerce. I’m prepping for a presentation and can’t do the topic justice in an article, but will add a few thoughts here.
1. The White House attacked the US Chamber for its lobbying against health care, cap and trade, and financial sector reform. To me that says that the lobbying has been effective – perhaps its why there’s been such difficulty making “progress” on these issues.
2. Maybe you can be skeptical when Steve Forbes or Mitt Romney or Stephen Moore (or me although I’m not in that company) say that this administration is anti-business. When the White House actually attacks the leading organization of US businesses, that’s pretty damning evidence.
3. Whether the Chamber is a friend or foe is open to debate – they supported immigration reform and probably would support moderate health care reform. Like most business organizations, they are center-right with the emphasis on center.
4. In effect, the Chamber’s dream world is one in which companies have free reign to make profits while all expenses are picked up by the taxpayer via social services. That world can not exist – you have to tax someone to pay for all of this stuff, and one by one industries will be targeted. Yesterday its finance, today its sodas, tomorrow its health care, etc. US industry via the chamber is compromising itself to oblivion, like a moderate Republican. Conservatives should not consider the chamber an ally because they will fold at the drop of a hat in an effort to be “reasonable” with unreasonable demands.
5. And let’s put this in perspective – the government is demanding that every American buy health care insurance while the it heavily subsidizes a low-cost provider and taxes everyone else. That is an unreasonable demand.
6. However the fact that the US chamber is centrist is a good thing politically right now, because when President Obama attacks them, he looks more like the far-left anti-business idealist that we know he is. The attack on Fox News was ineffective – this attack will be even worse, because in some ways you are defined by your enemies.
So that’s the chamber – don’t assume they are allies, but this may be an indication that the moderates are breaking our way on some issues.
One other point that didn’t quite make it into the article. The reason the government can print more money and inflation is still low is because inflation is not just money supply but money velocity. Velocity is how fast you spend the money in your pocket, and in a recession (depression?) velocity plummets. In some ways, Obama’s anti-business rhetoric helps to keep inflation low and the government’s borrowing and purchasing power intact so long as our expectations remain low.
Oct 29, 2009 - 8:40 am