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Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Economy
So how can we expect him to save it?
After an awful week in the stock market, Team Obama sent its acolytes out to the Sunday morning shows to let everyone know that the president-elect’s campaign promise to impose tax increases on higher-income earners as quickly as possible probably won’t kick in until at least 2011.
By doing so, Obama and his inner circle finally, if only tacitly, acknowledged what they had refused to recognize during the presidential campaign, namely that economic expectations matter in the here and now.
This opens the door to the incoming administration’s next required admission — that their candidate, their party, and the expectations they created during the presidential campaign have been mostly responsible for the steep dive in the equity markets, and, nearly six months ago, put the economy into what will probably officially be declared a recession after this year’s fourth quarter. Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid did this in the areas of energy, taxation, and, with heavy assistance from Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, bailouts. With the exception of forcing, with the help of public opinion, a temporary lifting of the Outer Continental Shelf offshore drilling ban, there is little George Bush or the Republican minorities in Congress have been able to do to stop them, or to manage expectations.
The recession, once it becomes official, will thus richly deserve designation as the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) recession. Further, Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s performance on the economy must be benchmarked from June 1, 2008 — not Election Day, not Inauguration Day, and not, as traditionally has been the case, from October 1 of the new president’s first year in office.
Evidence of the POR triumvirate’s virtually unilateral damage to the economy began appearing as early as the fourth quarter of 2007, the first quarter of negative growth in six years. The POR recession itself began in June. The historically steep downward revision in second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth from an annualized 3.3% to 2.8% in the government’s final September announcement was more than likely due to deterioration that occurred in the final month of the quarter.
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Tom Blumer owns a training and development company based in Mason, Ohio, outside of Cincinnati. He presents personal finance-related workshops and speeches at companies, and runs BizzyBlog.com.
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120 Comments
1. Войска ПВО:Mr Blume,
An excellent article, suitable for cutting and pasting in one’s “Crimestopper’s Textbook”. If the nutless RNC and friends can get off their hands and start building this case, maybe the American [Idol] Public will start realizing Pelosi and Reid — along with Obama and Dodd (and the others in the Senate) and Barney Frank (and the others in the House) have had their hands on the reins of power since 1/15/2007 when this slide began.
However, to be fair, it took an awful lot of complicit, self-serving Republican politicians to turn this engine of destruction into a well-oiled machine.
Nov 26, 2008 - 3:03 am 2. vivo:Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Economy
On the contrary, things are looking up.
And we’re still under Bush’s guard!
Nov 26, 2008 - 3:40 am 3. Barb:Call me silly, but shouldn’t the first thing done be to cut back government at the very least 10% across the board?
Nov 26, 2008 - 4:11 am 4. Alice Finkel:Obama, Pelosi, Boxer, Salazar and company are death to energy. No energy means a dead economy. They don’t care about that. They are ideologues and carbon hysterics. Even though the planet is presently cooling, these zombies are willing to destroy the economy to prove a point: that politics trumps reality in their minds and actions.
Nov 26, 2008 - 4:31 am 5. Die Fledermaus:The Democrats’ primary culpability in the mortgage insanity that precipitated our snowballing financial crisis will be the story of the decade, if not longer. The Jurassic media will lose no opportunity to deny or conceal it, but it will become known, as the truth always does. The “American Idol” public will care only after it’s been made clear that their interests are at stake. No one will escape harsh consequences of this political malfeasance. No one. And Americans will be furious when the facts finally come out about what happened, why it happened, and who was behind it. The Left will lose its credibility and power as a consequence. As a prior poster noted, spineless Republicans are nearly as a bad a choice as Democrats. They may as well be Democrats, in fact, having succumbed to the same re-election-at-all-costs, pork-barrel, big-government, screw-the-taxpayer mentality. Their defeats in 2006 & 2008 were richly deserved. After the Democrats crash and burn, if the Republicans can’t persuade the public that they’ve returned to conservative principles – and there’s little reason to believe so based on the drivel that’s currently being spewed by the RNC and Republican notables – then it’ll be time to embrace a new party that doesn’t have its head up its ***.
I’ve cast my last vote AGAINST a candidate. From here on I’ll be voting FOR somebody, not just against somebody else, and only for candidates who walk the conservative walk. Votes like mine are the only things that have kept the Republican party’s stinking corpse afloat for the last twenty years. It’s time either to resurrect that party’s conservative doctrine or elevate a new party that lives by it. In the wreckage that will be left after BH0’s term in office, four succeeding years of Democrat-light could be, literally, unsurvivable. And there will absolutely be wreckage in his wake. It’s inevitable. It’s also the best we can hope for. When the Democrats’ liberalism or socialism – call it what you like – is in place long enough, the host organism dies. History is replete with examples.
The Democrats’ culpability in this goes well beyond 2007. It began in 1977 with Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act. Clinton expanded that into a heavy political hammer in his first term, and Janet Reno made it plain that she was not only willing but eager to employ it. Thereafter it was used to coerce lenders into financial decisions that defied all convention and logic, and the dead-weight of these irrational acts accumulated steadily for over a decade, into nearly a trillion dollars of loans that would never, ever, be repaid. Democrats nearly exclusively were at the helms of these failed mortgage institutions during the entire time, and congressional Democrats did yeoman’s work in preventing regulatory or public scrutiny of their conduct until these firms’ asset base had been virtually hollowed out. All to appease the Left’s insane, utterly fantastic social engineering delusions. Well, that bill has finally come due. Survival is what it’s about now, sports-fans. And if that’s not clear now, rest assured it’ll be painfully clear by the end of BH0’s term in office.
Nov 26, 2008 - 4:41 am 6. Kirk:The Republicans are too impotent and incompetant to read a street address out loud, let alone communicate the message in this article. So few Americans are are even moderately politically informed, even if they do hear it, it will be like listening to 12 songs at the same time: you don’t hear one of them. American socialism was voted on, we lost. Not one of the VICTORS will be held accountable for their crimes. Why do you think all the people who broke the law and carved up mobile cash buckets are actually in the Obama appointment process? It increases their immunity.
Rush Limbaugh added up the value of the money already stolen, translated it into past dollar values, and illustrated that they have already spent more money than most of the great achievements of the 20th century combined. We’re already done. Trying to smack the average American with a board in the face 20 times until he realizes what has already occured seems a useless effort.
Nov 26, 2008 - 4:50 am 7. fear Obama:The Democrats are happy with the destruction of the Bush economy.
Ask many of them.
Total destruction and crash and burn, down in flames for the Bush Hitler Zionists traitor rich Republicans.
And just think, 75 percent of Jews voted for this man Bambi?
still * Makes my head spin.*
If the ordinary workers and homeowners suffer- no problem, Obama the anointed one will save us.
Whatever it takes to destroy the enemy-
If these sluts had the balls to fight we could have defeated the North Vietnamese, Saddam, Hitler and Stalin all in one year.
Bush tried to save us from terrorists,
Nov 26, 2008 - 5:52 am 8. David Thomson:but didn’t realize terrorists were next door in the congress and senate planning his destruction.
I am admittedly somewhat pleased by Barack Obama’s initial economic decisions. In many respects, it is better if he is a cynical opportunist than a leftist ideologue. Austan Goolsbee more than hinted during the presidential campaign that Obama was lying to the blue collar union workers. He never had any intention to reverse America’s free trade policies. This is reality of today’s mainstream economists: they are secret Republicans! They support the Democratic Party mostly because of the cultural war issues.
Nov 26, 2008 - 5:53 am 9. dan:none of this is going to start to truly lift until we restore some sense of geostrategic equilibrium, and that cannot happen until we start blowing big genocidal holes in the barbarian populations of the Hindu Kush and their alluvial plains sufficient to erect a permanent collective taboo against these little strategic gambits they occasionally make. this is not to say that afghanistan expenditures caused the crisis or contribute significantly to it. but the basic problem in the markets is fear: fear that the risk isn’t sufficiently known, fear that the underlying properties will be foreclosed in catastrophic numbers, fear that consumer debt will overwhelm Americans’ ability to maintain the spending habits on which the domestic and global market relies.
the fear, at root, is a geostrategic fear. iranian shenanigans provide a pretext for oil futures to rise; russia invades georgia, causing a capital vacuum’s worth of outflows. even pirate hijackings along vital trade arteries ripple prices upward, as they are intended to do. and so on. the fear is magnified by the left’s hysterical campaign of “no fear,” itself predicated on the hysterical inference that incipient fascism is upon us. oil price instability is, of course, at the bottom of this, and there is no more strategically-sensitive or -manipulable commodity.
geostrategic instability also provides the left with its pretext to launch and sustain massive propaganda campaigns, which smooth the way for well-meaning/aggressive idiocies like the CRA and other initiatives.
bah. obama is the apotheosis of all the propositions that make America vulnerable and stupid. how could he possibly save the economy? the economy that exists in his head, like the country, do not exist in reality, and meanwhile the real will suffer.
Nov 26, 2008 - 6:02 am 10. Letters From A Tory:Since when has oil got anything to do with this? It’s the financial services industry that is causing the problems, and unfortunately banks and lenders of all shapes and sizes are still on their knees.
The latest bailout plan is on an enormous scale but at least it should help restore some confidence.
http://www.lettersfromatory.com
Nov 26, 2008 - 6:03 am 11. fear Obama:Democrats are now planning to raise gas taxes 100 percent.
.40 cents per gallon,
because the price is so low.
*WALKS* away, head still spinning*
Nov 26, 2008 - 6:15 am 12. BizzyBlog » Latest Pajamas Media Column (’Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Economy’) Is Up:[...] It’s here. [...]
Nov 26, 2008 - 6:24 am 13. Robert Hurley:It is nice to see that Pajamas media lets any right wing nut with an opinion with no evidence of truth to spout off
Nov 26, 2008 - 6:27 am 14. Jarhead91:Of course the election has wrecked the economy. I work in a corporate headquarters – we have battened down the hatches until we know what how the Dems are going to govern no big domestic investments, no hiring.
Taxes, regulations, union rules, energy (we all use it), accounting rules – if the Dems do what they promised, the economy will really tank and we’ll invest our cash overseas. If they can restrain themselves, the economy will bounce back pretty quick.
As Rich Lowry put it: “If Democrats govern from the center, good for the country. If they govern from their instincts, good for the Republicans.”
Nov 26, 2008 - 6:41 am 15. Pat J:Um, hello? Obama is not President yet. All this bad economic nes happened on Bush’s watch! The econoomy was already tanking before the Democrats too over Congress. And lastly, in the last three days the stock market has risen for the first three day period since August. Great timeing Blumer. Made you look like an asshat! Typical though. Conservative idiots play the blame game when don’t have anything else to work with.
Nov 26, 2008 - 6:54 am 16. wondering?:Pat J: and Robert Hurley:
****************************
Your comments were not very long,
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:06 am 17. anton:just wonder how you feel about this economic mess?
Mr. Hurley, of whom do you speak? Seems that you are just doing a drive-by trolling.
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:06 am 18. David Thomson:“All this bad economic nes happened on Bush’s watch!”
George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” richly deserves severe criticism. Too many of his economic policies are not “conservative.” Still, you conveniently overlook the damage that Democrats did by forcing lending institutions to provide mortgages to minorities possessing poor credit histories. The stock market is recently on the rebound because Barack Obama is essentially promising not to govern as a liberal Democrat! Investors react positively when Democratic politicians behave like conservative Republicans.
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:08 am 19. Войска ПВО:Pat J writes:
“Um, hello? Obama is not President yet. All this bad economic nes happened on Bush’s watch!”
Um, hello yourself. Why not carefully re-read the article, then carefully read the comment that preceded yours from Jarhead91, then follow some of the article’s links; the BEA statistics might be enlightening: ask yourself why the tail-off and first negative quarters since Q4 2004 occurred in since January 2007.
..and then flush out your headgear, new guy!
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:11 am 20. anton:Pat J, businessmen look to the future, they see the storm coming in the shape of the Obama economic plan. Tax success to pay for failure, kill energy production and exploration, force businesses to use union employees, force employees to unionize. And you wonder why the market is tanking? I already took my money out before the collapse, my 401/457 money is safer in a box buried in my backyard than in market under the strangling hand of the Taxinator.
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:11 am 21. Войска ПВО:..er, that should have been “ask yourself why the tail-off and first negative quarters since Q4 2001 occurred in since January 2007.”
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:13 am 22. Susan:I lie awake many nights just staring at the ceiling. Why? How did so many people put Obama/Biden in the White House. My husband and I our probably the only conservatives living in our neighborhood. We live in Takoma Park MD. People here proudly call it “the Berkley of the East”. God help us. We spend an awful lot of time deprogramming our children. I just love it when my 4 year old boy puts on his costume of army fatigues and runs into the local park shooting his toy gun while singig “Onward Christian Soldier”. The other mothers are just apalled. They give me looks like, How could I let my boy play with toy guns… I just smile and proudly say “That’s my Boy!” We are so proud of our kids – our 9 year old who smartly told her clasmates that there is no such thing as global warming.
We are doing our part here by trying to instill good strong conservative and christian values. All I can say is if we all do our part with our kids and grandkids, maybe we can turn the tides.
And during the election we were surrounded by Obama Zombies.
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:15 am 23. Will Sharpe:Войска ПВО:
I’m pretty sure the slide began well before 1/15/07, beginning with the economic policies of Carter in the late 70’s and perpetuated through the next four presidents. This is a wake up to not just politicians, but all Americans that our capitalist system–as it was and is–is a failure. If Obama wants to play partisan games, the situation will only worsen (especially if spending increases occur).
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:21 am 24. Tom Blumer:Per Pat J:
The economy was already tanking before the Democrats too over Congress.
Uh no. Go to the link conveniently provided within the column at “in six years”:
- 2Q07 and 3Q07 growth both came in at an annualized 4.8%. Quite acceptable, I’d say. Actually, more like “to die for.”
- 4Q07, the first quarter of operating under a Democrat-passed budget by Congress, came in at -0.2%.
- The economy was in the process of rebounding (1Q08 at 0.9% and 2Q08 at 3.3% before the final revision) until Pelosi-Obama-Reid started doing their damage and the Democrat-originated mortgage-lending chickens came home to roost.
Facts, and truths, are stubborn things.
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:25 am 25. JED:The ship of state does not turn on a dime. Many of the economic plans put forward in the last month will not take effect for another 9 months.In the meantime, the MSM is bouncing up from the elections by broadcasting more defeatism and panic. Perhaps a market and a media holiday would help the crisis in confidence.
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:30 am 26. Will Sharpe:Tom:
“Facts, and truths, are stubborn things.”
Yes, and you are misleading them because these fallouts do not occur on a dime, no matter who you want to attribute blame to. The fact and truth of the matter is that deregulation policies stimulated a corporate greed and speculative populace that took risky investments during this period of growth and ultimately caused the nose dive were in now.
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:37 am 27. Susan:Sorry never finished my earlier post. Just mad ramblings of a Mom who hasn’t had her coffee yet. I started to comment on the Obama Zombies that would show up at our door during the election year. Maybe these zomies will be awoken once their pocket books are hit. I seriuously doubt it though.
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:39 am 28. Will Sharpe:When are conservatives of the old guard going to realize deregulation in America is dead for the unforeseeable future? For better or worse, I’ll let you be the judge…
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:41 am 29. Robert Hurley:Anton:
I am glad you spoke up and identified yourself a proud member of the rightwingnuts.
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:42 am 30. Robert Hurley:Wondering?
This mess had a lot of fathers. To blame it on Obama is idiocy. The question is how we get out it now. It looks like most ecomomist think we need a massive economic stimulus for the short run. We also need to fix the health care problem and I think that most companies would welcome getting out from under at least part of that burden because it makes them less compeitive in the world markets.
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:47 am 31. Jim Baker:Robert Hurley,
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:48 am 32. Bill:They also let any left wing nut spout off whenever he wants to, which places them head and shoulders above the vast majority of the supposedly progressive left wing nut job sites. Enjoy your freedom even though you have made an increasingly annoying habit of spouting off about everything you please on this far right wing nut site.
The media had a hand in this just like the Dems,
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:03 am 33. Tom Blumer:by announcing every day the doom and gloom. I personally think this helped elect so many Dems because people are so ignorant about economics.
Most people do not know the difference between a profit and a profit margin. We need to teach more about economics and capitalism in the schools instead of cultural crap….
Will Sharpe:
Do you mean the deregulation Bill Clinton praised so effusively?
http://clinton5.nara.gov/WH/Accomplishments/eightyears-03.html
“Deregulation” had nothing to do with Fan and Fred, which failed because of their unilateral expansion of their mission, their lowering of credit standards, and crying “racism” at anyone who wanted adequate oversight.
The failures involve lack of oversight. You can have regs til the cows come home, but if you don’t exercise oversight (which is Congress’s responsibility, usually abdicated) they mean nothing.
Expectations can change on a dime with near-immediate economic fallout. Thanks to P-O-R, they did in June, and deteriorated further in subsequent months. I said so in early July, and have been proven right in November. Deal with it.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:04 am 34. Bill:Robert Hurley… What healthcare problem….I am so tired of hearing about the healthcare problem… Get your own healthcare insurance. I do not want to pay for someone else’s healthcare. Let’s see in Briton and other countries the taxes to pay for healthcare are very high, like 61%… I don’t want to give anymore than I have too now.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:09 am 35. Sandy Salt:Robert is right about health care and the fact that this mess has many fathers. You can volly back and forth over how things got this bad, but the truth is that everyone is to blame and it is going to take everyone to dig us out. We need to fix health care, we need to pay off the national debt, we need to cut federal spending, we need to put an end to lobbyists buying our Congress, we need to stop buying on credit, we need to buy houses that we can afford, etc….
The future is not bright and there is a stormy road ahead, but sitting here pointing fingers isn’t going to get us through this mess. Sure POR have done a lot of damage in the last six months, sure the gridlocked congress has screwed us for two years, sure the greedy corrupt politicians have been robbing us blind as long as I can remember (both parties regardless of who is in charge but we keep re-electing them). So the heck what! How is that going to do anything toward putting this country back on sure ground?
Wake up and smell the coffee. We have to come together and force reform and that comes in many forms, such as regulation to prevent fleecing, removal of lobbyists, cutting wasteful spending, stopping earmarks, fixing health care, fixing Social Security, fixing trade issues (stopping the one way flows). These are huge issues that people need to let their congressman/woman know where they stand and that if they don’t get the job done then we will find someone who will. Congress is up for re-election in 2010 and if this bunch of @$$clowns isn’t doing the job then hire a new bunch.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:13 am 36. Rashputin:Obama or not, the democrat control of congress screwed the economy, from forcing lenders to make bad loans, to insisting that not only was three dollar gasoline just fine, but that it was probably not expensive enough. A dollar spent on gasoline is a dollar not available for the mortgage payment or anything else. It became inevitable sometime in mid-summer that the economy would fall. It became inevitable the there would be a complete collapse when it started to look like democrats would have a president that wouldn’t veto anything anyway
Those democrat folk who are looking forward to a wonderful FDR like revamping of the economy and government are in for a huge shock. The real economic goals of this democrat gang of thugs are more like Pol Pots’ agrarian utopia than the socialist goals of FDR.
Regards
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:19 am 37. Will Sharpe:Now you’re mincing words, Tom. Implicit in deregulation is a lack of oversight.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:26 am 38. Retep:Will Sharpe
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:29 am 39. mk:Deregulation? Please. The banks have been over-regulated under democrats Frank & Todd. If they were truly deregulated, the banks would not be forced to make home loans that they know will go bad. As it is now, banks must make loans to unqualified buyers. The policies of Frank & Todd have created this mess.
Retep
“This mess had a lot of fathers. To blame it on Obama is idiocy. The question is how we get out it now. It looks like most ecomomist think we need a massive economic stimulus for the short run. We also need to fix the health care problem and I think that most companies would welcome getting out from under at least part of that burden because it makes them less compeitive in the world markets.”
Economic stimulus by the gov’t is simply kicking the can further down the road. What need to happen is the companies with archane and idiotic business practises need to fail. Then they need to find new and innovative ways to do business. The gov’t running in carrying pity money is not solving this. The burden of paying for the stupidity will now fall squarely on the shoulders of the tax-paying public.
Health care is a monster in and of itself, but there are many many issues that need to be addressed instead of simply promising everyone health care. (I should know, I work in the health care field).
This economic crisis was a long time in coming. And instead of meeting it headon, the gov’t of today is simply trying to buy their way out of it. It didn’t work to stave off or change the depression of the 1930’s. It won’t work now.
Commence with calling me a right wing nutjob, junior.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:30 am 40. Pat J:The Bush administration failed to adequately supervise and manage our financial markets due to the ailing housing market. Housing prices peaked in 2005 before the Democrats took over Congress. High default on subprime and adjustable rate mortgages began approximately 2005-2006. The ailing housing market is the root of our current economic crisis. The warnings were there before the Democrats took over the House and the Senate. The challenge now is how to fix this mess.
Interesting. Today President-elect Obama is holding his third news conference in as many days to discuss ways to combat our economic woes. President Bush, he’s pardoning a turkey.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:31 am 41. Will Sharpe:And yes, I do mean the deregulation that Clinton praised effusively. Unlike you, I choose to look at this matter objectively without partisan bi-focals on. I’m not trying to state I have the answers or solutions to this crisis, I’m trying to be involved–from a moderate perspective–in a dialogue that can attempt to get to the truth of the matter (not confirm my prejudiced viewpoint).
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:31 am 42. Will Sharpe:I agree Retep, yet regulation does not have to mean loans go to unqualified buyers–and certainly we may never see this again (thankfully). Blame should be duly given to those in Congress–Barney Frank in his role is one–who permitted this debacle to unfold. But to hold onto the notion that deregulation is the answer to these problems is a prosaic notion.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:37 am 43. Steve P.:“Yes, and you are misleading them because these fallouts do not occur on a dime, no matter who you want to attribute blame to. The fact and truth of the matter is that deregulation policies stimulated a corporate greed and speculative populace that took risky investments during this period of growth and ultimately caused the nose dive were in now.”
Thank you. The rest of the intelligent world, including Alan Greenspan and others, have already attributed the recession to decades of deregulation policies. Anyone who would argue that the economic crisis we are facing was caused in a matter of a couple of months by Barack Obama either 1) does not have a firm grasp on how the economy functions, or 2) is knowingly spouting false information for the sake of appeasing the brain-dead Obama haters on this board, who will believe practically anything as long as it paints Obama as a terrorist, traitor, socialist, or incompetent. What a joke.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:40 am 44. Steve P.:Pat J: “Interesting. Today President-elect Obama is holding his third news conference in as many days to discuss ways to combat our economic woes. President Bush, he’s pardoning a turkey.”
Interesting. I didn’t know that there was any precedent for a president issuing a pardon to himself? If only Nixon had known…
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:47 am 45. dan:deregulation is not the issue, enforcement of existing regulations is the issue – and a lot of the failure to enforce and oversee resulted from the democrats’ insistence in 2004 that FNMA & Freddie were fine, and that objections by GAO and OFHEO were simply ideological propoganda. don’t take my word for it – you can youtube the actual congressional hearing in which it was determined *not* to create an agency to oversee the capital strategies of these entities. you can read mccain’s 2005 appeal. you can look up the Bush Administration’s attempt to deal with this in 2003.
well, here we are. it is apparent that this problem was well-understood. like the impending social security and medicaire/caid tsunami, people apparently just decided not to notice it and hope it wouldn’t happen.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:51 am 46. Jim Baker:As long as greedy CEOs are the politician’s bogeymen, us losers will not likely suspect that government(politicians)meddling in the marketplace and using it for their social engineering (electioneering) plans is the overriding problem. How many of these nitwits have ever worked in the real world? The USA is imploding on the fairness (socialism)doctrine. Pelosi, Reid, and Obama don’t have a monopoly on stupidity, but they are stupid.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:52 am 47. Robert Hurley:I also work in the healthcare field although that does not make me an expert. I bleieve that healthcare is a moral right for all people and that it makes economic sense to provide it. The question is how to do that in the most economicaly viable way. I get good healthcare under my plan but I can go to Camden where 75% of the kids do not graduate from high school and find many who have not healthcare and end up getting their care in the emergency room which is the most expensive way to get health care. One way or another we will all pay the price
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:55 am 48. Sandy Salt:I’ll say it again it isn’t going to solve anything by trying to play the blame game and trying to avoid taking responsibilty for our own actions. We need to come together to solve this and that isn’t going to happen when every one is pointing fingers. Everyone is to blame, so get over it and move on to something productive. I say we institute a federal sales taxes that is solely for paying off the national debt and nothing else. Some say that it will never work, but it can’t work if we don’t even try. It would prove that there is a better way to do taxes than a bloated government agency. Once the debt started to come down then the benefit of law mandated balanced budget could be seen. This would strengthen the dollar and help the economy recover. If you think that we are going to keep spending our way out of the poor house then you are part of the problem. We need to seriously cut government spending and get the budget back under control and pay of the national debt. If we do those two things than we will once again be a loaner nation and reap billions in foreign interest.
Plus, we need to get serious about energy independence and new agriculture that can be exported around the world vice being wasted in our gas tanks. Car companies need to realize that the party is over and that the UAW adds nothing to the bottom line. If you want to compete in the world economy then the government has to take on the cost of health care in some form. It is a fact of life and isn’t going to change because we wish it so.
Keep kicking the ball back and forth. We will find real solutions while we are pointing fingers, right! The election is over and whether your side won or lost is now completely irrelavent and we must play the hand we’ve been dealt and try to fix this country. Stay on the sidelines and cry if you must but get the heck out of the way of people trying to make a difference.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:58 am 49. Will Sharpe:That’s what I’m talking about Sandy! Something substantive that makes us think!
Nov 26, 2008 - 9:05 am 50. k. pablo:I am far to the right of many of you, but I have to agree with Robert Hurley: this is a pretty piss-poor article. While it would comfort me to plame Pelosi-Obama-Reid for the condition of the economy, this exercise in apportioning blame is pretty useless, even as a rhetorical exercise. Tom Blumer’s central contention, that P-O-R “have been mostly responsible for the steep dive in the equity markets, and, nearly six months ago, put the economy into what will probably officially be declared a recession after this year’s fourth quarter” is basically an unprovable assertion.
Nov 26, 2008 - 9:18 am 51. Michael:Robert H, conservatives are just rookies at making statments with no backing compared to liberals. No one is as good as a liberal at ignoring evidence that they don’t like.
Nov 26, 2008 - 9:31 am 52. INDY:Let’s not forget Barney Frank and Cris Dodd who really kicked off this mess by pushing Fanny and Freddy into bogus loans and then not “doing dilligence” telling the world “all is well”
Nov 26, 2008 - 9:54 am 53. Rick Cain:Bush is still in power, let us not forget this.
Nov 26, 2008 - 10:00 am 54. INDY:Let’s not forget Barney Frank and Cris Dodd who really kicked off this mess by pushing Fanny and Freddy into bogus loans and then not “doing diligence” telling the world “all is well”.
Nov 26, 2008 - 10:01 am 55. Herb:Curious how that “government is the problem” trope has been bandied about these last few months. Where were you in 2003? 2005?
Oh, wait…I forgot. Government’s only a problem when it’s in the hands of Democrats.
(And sorry, I can’t take anyone seriously who tries to lay the blame at the feet of the Pelosi-Obama-Reid axis of liberalism without mentioning Anthony Mozillo, Edward Liddy, or Richard Fuld. Our economic troubles weren’t caused by Democrats. They were caused by businessmen running their companies into the ground. Unless, that is, you expect me to believe that when Barney Frank says jump, Wall Street says how high. Riiight. Tell me another one, Pinocchio.)
Nov 26, 2008 - 10:29 am 56. Tom Blumer:#50 K Pablo, #43 Sandy P, and others:
What about the sequence of event noted in my comment 24 don’t you understand?
#37 Will Sharpe, if you don’t understand the difference between having regulations (deregulation has meant “no remaining regulation”) and overseeing whether whatever regulations exist to see that they are being followed, I can’t help you.
Nov 26, 2008 - 10:42 am 57. Tom Blumer:Correct #56 — Deregulation has NEVER meant “no remaining regulation.” Zheesh.
Nov 26, 2008 - 10:59 am 58. JED:One needs to remember that the current financial crisis is global and not local, except that it hurts more locally. The red and the blue state people can blast each other until they turn purple, but the problem is much larger than personality.
Nov 26, 2008 - 11:28 am 59. Someone75:Sometimes the problem seems like too many chefs throwing ingredients into the fiscal pot. Do you wonder why it tastes worse after every billion?
The banking and credit rules are 1930 technology which supported ticker tape, being forced to work at fiber optic speed and engaged with trillions internationally. It had to break down someday. Let cooler heads prevail because it can get worse.
Weird – I didn’t realize Obama had been making the high level policy decisions that led to our financial ruin all these years. Silly me – I thought the republicans had been in charge!
Nov 26, 2008 - 11:40 am 60. JL:It’s not that complicated. The democrat lawmakers provided the gun and ammo to kill the economy by making it to easy to get mortgages. Ben Bernanke pulled the tricker by raising the interest rate too much and to fast. Those actions combined probably sucked out half of all available cash from the economy in a very short time.
Nov 26, 2008 - 11:42 am 61. Will Sharpe:I’m just glad I managed to have some ultra conservatives support oversight; who would have imagined the day? I pretty sure you cannot nor do I want you to help me, Tom.
Nov 26, 2008 - 12:11 pm 62. Will Sharpe:I’m glad you’ve resorted to supporting your own statements, though Tom. It takes a big man to do so.
Nov 26, 2008 - 12:13 pm 63. Beth:Someone75 is most likely one of those Obama supporters who believe that the Republicans are running the Congress.
Nov 26, 2008 - 12:31 pm 64. misanthropicus:RE #8/David Thomson: “[...] I am admittedly somewhat pleased by Barack Obama’s initial economic decisions. In many respects, it is better if he is a cynical opportunist than a leftist ideologue. {…}”
You will long, happy and fruitful years, David Thomson, and you sure deserve this for your optimism that allows to see a silver lining even this creep’s gross triangulations.
Myself, I already had it. This dude is conceited, so full of selfsatisfaction – it looks to me that the actual purpose of Soetero’s electoral effort is just to be on camera, grinning, 7/24.
Nov 26, 2008 - 12:35 pm 65. misanthropicus:Re #13/Broken Record dba Robert Hurley: “[...] It is nice to see that Pajamas media lets any right wing nut with an opinion with no evidence of truth to spout off [..]‘
Man! Can’t you come with something else than “no evidence of truth” blah, blah blah? Since the sad day I came upon your sorry trolling this is the level of argumentation you keep oozing.
Nov 26, 2008 - 12:39 pm 66. fred:I work in the investment business as an analyst. For the past two weeks we’ve been teleconferencing with many economists and money managers talking about the economy, U.S. and global. I agree with the view that the recession started in January or February. That this one will be more like a 1973-75 or 19880-82 type of recession. Both kinds were primarily driven by steep rises in energy costs. The Fed did not fight the energy costs in ‘73-75 by raising interest rates steeply to cut demand. Demand kind of collapsed on its own, because the sharp increases in oil swooped in and took enormous amounts of discretionary spending. Stagflation built into the system and more or less would remain for the entire decade. When Carter appointed Paul Volker in 1978, he saw this inflationary expectation already built into the economy and embarked on a course of raising interest rates to kill demand and cause prices to fall. It took awhile for this to work. The medicine had to be as harsh as the symptoms were. Today we have historically low interest rates in an environment were we saw a tremendous rise in energy costs – and those costs were already eating into discretionary spending in 2007. It accelerated even more in 2008 and oil prices peaked this summer. Right as the recession was setting in, which was why oil prices fell so quickly.
Pelosi and Reid did not help matters any by charting a course away from increasing the supply of oil by removing restrictions and legal hurdles for domestic drilling. That sent a signal to the markets and to consumers that the future would see more energy price spikes upward. Now that they have firmly entrenched themselves in power, they have no inclination to curb their ideological pigheadedness. Economic policy is being driven by energy policy which is being driven by JUNK SCIENCE. I agree that we do need to wean ourselves away from gargantuan use of oil, but there is NOTHING IN THE PIPELINE for at least decades that will make it happen. Wind and solar will not take up most of the grid’s demands. They are niche players in the market and always will be unless something dramatic happens on that front. In the intermediate term we need to use more of our own fossil fuel resources and build more nuclear power plants. The consensus among the people I rub elbows with is that we should try to enhance the efficiency of our cars, our homes, and other items. In fact, we should be doing all of these things. It’s just that my colleagues and I do not see a ton of green jobs and green technologies magically appearing out of the miasma in Washington. We have to get through the intermediate term with the technologies and fuels we currently employ.
I don’t see any evidence right now that the Democrats and their voting constituents are anchored to reality. So, investors and businesses are going to batten down the hatches and wait to see if reality bitch slaps them out of their ideological somnolence.
Nov 26, 2008 - 1:06 pm 67. Mandy:No wonder the so-called ‘right” refuses to deal in reality and prefers to create its owhn reality! Obama is not even President but he somehow has created the economic crisis brought on by eight years of the Bush kakistocracy? Is “Tom Blumer” the nom de plume of Joe the Dumber, er, Plumber?
Nov 26, 2008 - 1:42 pm 68. Paul_Unalaska:Great piece, Fred (comment #66).
Working in the meteorological field it pains me to see ’sheep’le buying into, as you’d mentioned, JUNK SCIENCE.
I was not a fan of McCain. A man who’d given so much to his country is a catalyst in its demise (’immigration reform’ failed bills thanks to the American public decrying that crapola and the latter being a supporter of combating ‘global warming’)
I’ve read numerous books both supporting and opposing man-made climate change. I’ve found the rationale supporting Al Gore, U N ‘Scientists’ (right there alone depicts their agenda) claims to be utterly ridiculous. Insulting, actually.
Attached is an article (1 page, though ‘2′ pages with advertisements appended) written by Mr. Evans. If you’ve a moment, please take the 1-2 minutes to read. I’m not trying to bring those who believe in man-made climate change to my team but to look at both sides. SOmething which Pelosi, Reid, Boxer, etc., haven’t. Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving to you all..
Nov 26, 2008 - 1:44 pm 69. dan:so what was that steep spike in energy prices all about, anyway? how’d it happen? since all the people saying “say goodbye forever to $3.00 gas” were wrong, i guess it isn’t the rise in industrial activity in Asia that caused the price rise.
someone help me out.
Nov 26, 2008 - 1:44 pm 70. fred:Mandy,
You need to get an education in economics and finance. Stock prices and the prices of commodities on the exchanges reflect expectations of future cash flows, earnings, and demand. The markets’ pullbacks this fall reflect the fears that investors have vis-a-vis taxes, energy policy, and economic policy. This is not a recession created by George Bush. Moreover, the collapse of the derivatives’ markets for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac strips has to do with the recognition of the almost non-existent underwriting standards for low-income housing loans from 1995 on. At least before that, the 1977 CRA allowed banks (the language was sufficiently broad enough)some leeway in imposing some rational lending standards. But Clinton and Reno decided the Act had to be more expansively applied, and there went any modicum of lending standards.
So, when it was discovered that there was no way to value those securitized mortgages and the derivative instruments related to them, the market began to implode. President Bush and John McCain repeatedly warned that this would happen. They wanted to enact reforms for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, but Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Frank, and Jaime Gorelich would have none of it.
Wake the f**k up and get a clue. Instead of posting drivelous nonsense.
Nov 26, 2008 - 1:53 pm 71. Anonymous - San Francisco:I have a question about the Glass-Steagull act. Many people say that repealing this act caused many of the economic problems we have now. I know it allowed commercial banks and investment banks to merge but did the Glass-Steagull act prevent mortgage securitization or could banks have done that anyway? If they hadn’t repealed Glass-Steagull wouldn’t commercial banks still have been able to sell mortgages to investment banks which then proceeded to chop them and sell them with good loans to investors?
Also if Glass-Steagull hadn’t been repealed JPM and other investment banks wouldn’t have been able to buy commercial banks that were failing.
Also I know that some people in the banking industry knew the loans were bad and would never be paid back yet not the government is making taxpayers buy those toxic assets which will be worthless – isn’t that illegal? Why can’t the Treasury department LOAN the banks billions on the condition that they have to pay it back. It might take them many years but they have to make payments on loans – they would still be getting money now. Why do they have to GIVE them money instead of LOANING them money?
Maybe I should go to a bank and tell them I can’t pay my bills but I don’t want a loan – they have to just give me the money and make taxpayers pay for it.
Nov 26, 2008 - 1:54 pm 72. dan:or, alternatively, why can’t the government just step in and guarantee, or insure, the derivatives and risky mortgages? this downturn is fueled more by risk-aversion than by actual foreclosures. only some % of the risky assets are going to fail; it makes more sense to me that the government offer to cover the loss rather than fork over a humungous amount – almost a hypothetical amount – of actual taxpayer money. it seems as though such a promise could have arrested the problem near the start. no?
Nov 26, 2008 - 2:00 pm 73. Pajamas Media » Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Economy:[...] Pajamas Media » Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Economy Votes like mine are the only things that have kept the Republican party’s stinking corpse afloat for the last twenty years. It’s time either to resurrect that party’s conservative doctrine or elevate a new party that lives by it. … [...]
Nov 26, 2008 - 2:50 pm 74. fear Obama:Jaime Gorelich, the mistress of disaster.
She refused to listen to the FBI and CIA and built a wall of STUPID around the 9/11 terrorists- Remember, the ones that hijacked 4 aircraft and killed 3000+ Americans? The first stock market crash 2001.
Then she sits on the 9/11 commission- like a fox in the hen house- Then,
What the Hell?-
She winds up in charge of Fannie Mae.
President Bush was trying to get rid of the wrong terrorists!
He should have put Jaime Gorelich in ‘Gitmo’ years ago.
Nov 26, 2008 - 3:09 pm 75. Steynian 290 « Free Canuckistan!:[...] OF COURSE, Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Economy.. So how can we expect him to save it? …. [...]
Nov 26, 2008 - 3:39 pm 76. fred:#71 Anonymous San Francisco,
There was derivative business going on before the repeal of Glass-Steagall. The investment banks did the initial underwriting and sales of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac strips. Anyone could buy these derivatives, including ordinary banks. They could have some of these in their portfolios, subject to restrictions as to whatever percent of the overall portfolio.
The repeal of Glass-Steagall, which I professionally and personally was not in favor of, actually had nothing to do with the financial crisis we now face. Again, let me restate: one of the characteristics of RISK is that there are uncertainties about the value of something. Glass-Steagall mainly had to do with separating investment banking from commercial and consumer banking. Banks that wanted to get into the underwriting business had to have separate subsidiaries that were capitalized with money entirely separated from the normal reserves in their normal banking activities. But once the Act was repealed (which, I must stress, happened under a DEMOCRAT’s watch and directive, Clinton)banks could use capital from their normal businesses to back up their investment banking activities.
Glass-Steagall HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE UNDERWRITING AND LENDING STANDARDS of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act. As long as there were SOME standards for who could get a home loan and who couldn’t, the program’s risks were manageable and indeed the program was working quite well for awhile. But Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, and Jaime Gorelick, for political purposes, insisted on opening up the spigot wide. They threw out any semblance of reasonable lending standards. From there, it all went to shit.
And the excrement that resulted is being unfairly thrown at Republicans and President Bush. The real malfeasants are the Democrats, especially: Clinton, Reno, Gorelick, Dodd, Frank, Raines, et al.
The bankers who made the fees on the loans were the middle men collecting their rents. And in the case of those who oversaw Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, bonuses were tied to the volume ($$$$)of loans the program granted. The impetus was to push money out the door. And they did.
Nov 26, 2008 - 4:03 pm 77. elvis:Obama is a TURKEY.
Nov 26, 2008 - 4:04 pm 78. Ms Attitude:I made B’s in economics in college many years ago. I find reading the comments on articles about the economy very educational. Those that are entrenched in the banking industry (Jarhead91, Fred, and some others) really know their stuff. You guys have done a great job explaining how the economy works! I wish some others would pull their heads out of their tailends then I wouldn’t have to read through their BS nonsense!! Isn’t it amazing that those who really understand economics are Republicans?
Nov 26, 2008 - 4:26 pm 79. venividivici:Isn’t it amazing that those who really understand economics are Republicans?
I know you’re being facetious, but of course it isn’t. Those who want to work and get ahead need to understand how the economy works, so they can have a bit of an edge over the other guy or at least be at parity with whoever is sitting across the table in a business context.
Those who want to strut and preen about how moral they are while giving away other people’s money have no such practical need for understanding. Thus, the disparity in knowledge.
To paraphrase Caligula, “I wish that all Democrats had but one neck!”
Nov 26, 2008 - 4:49 pm 80. Anonymous:Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, we won’t be fixing the economy working with the socialist communist enemy’s, who indeed had started all this, the one’s who blithly say it happened on Bush’s watch, you don’t want to see any of the truths. Many people who have already posted, revealed a whole bunch of those truth’s.
As did the one who wrote the article.
Yes, George Bush is still in power, and the only one who can stop those who have destroyed our economy, and to keep them from destroying our nation as America, and turning it into their socialist communist fife. obama is only president elect, we can’t allow him to be sworn into office, and we don’t have to, he is’nt a citizen, if we do, then we will go down in flames as America, turned into a communist dictator nation. Look to all the pre positioning that has gone on overseas under cover of the islamic threat by the socialist communists, under cover of religion/racial intolerance. For any who think he never could have gotten as far as he has without being a citizen, do some real researce, as to who has been covering for him.
Anybody who poopoo’s conspiracy are not seeing/thinking clearly either, all you have to do is rethink the presidental race, and see all the clinton administartion pinheads being given positions of power now. Just because they are currently seeming to distance themselves from horrors like pelosies personal leftists, does’nt make them centrists. They invalidated Hillary/Bill, and brought her to their camp by covering up her illegal use of funds for her own campaign, and bailing her out with finances, she is a tool only now, obediant to the communists/progressives/democrats.
This was preplanned, and executed by both the democrats/progressives {another word for communist’s today} Think about who was at the newyork dinner, except for John mcCain, they are all people who influenced most of what was used to supplant the republican party from both within/without. or as the cardinal said, this is the capital of the world, and we all know who rules newyork, and was able to influence wallstreet for the ups/downs in response to events.
There can be no bi- partision peace between party’s, or even whole segments of America’s current population, which has even more immigrants from the efforts of the leftists/communists under cover of their religious front groups, which has sucked more and more from the public kitty for many decades now.
The only way to save it is to reboot.
Nov 26, 2008 - 4:56 pm 81. Robert:America is dead, and so is the core population who helped to build it, all gone because of idealogical scumbags who are communists, and call themselves democrats, and used religion/racial issues to get as far as they have. The America they want to create now that they are seemingly about to take power, will burn, as they want our America to burn through their efforts.
There will be no quarter.
Nov 26, 2008 - 5:01 pm 82. Anonymous - San Francisco:Fred: Thank you for the explanation. I knew people who were working in banks and it seems that a major problem was that people had higher sales goals every quarter and if they didn’t meet those goals they would lose their jobs so they continued to give people loans that they knew would never be paid back because if they didn’t then someone else at the bank would. I asked someone once why they weren’t more worried that the loans would be paid back and they said it didn’t matter because the loans were sold to investment banks so they weren’t on the books of the original bank anymore.
I agree with you that Democrats should be blamed for changing lending standards but I think lots of other people should share responsibility for the problem.
1) Although the Democrats did encourage banks to give loans to people who couldn’t afford it, many banks were taking loan applications without any documentation of income at all. They were also letting people refinance their loans so they could use the equity like an ATM machine – most of those loans weren’t to lower income people. I’m sure that investment banks knew these loans were bad when they bought them from commercial banks.
2) That still doesn’t explain wny investment banks were leveraged too much and how they bundled the bad loans with the good loans and sold them in packages so investors didn’t realize what they were buying. That should not have happened. The worst part is that the Fed is not supposed to bailout out investment banks – only banks with consumer deposits. Many people are angry that we’re bailing out companies that don’t have consumer deposits – the people working there made millions taking major risks with money but we shouldn’t have to pay for that.
3) I believe Bush said that he thought it was important that everyone in the country owned a home so he encouraged irresponsible behavior also.
4) There are many people who should be blamed but Greenspan is probably the person most responsible for this mess.
The part I don’t understand is why we can’t just loan the banks billions instead of giving them money from taxpayers – the bailout is wrong and it’s unfair. They could have a payment plan where they pay the government back in installments if they can’t afford it but right now we’re just giving them money.
But it’s time for me to go now – I hope everyone has a peaceful holiday tomorrow.
Nov 26, 2008 - 6:51 pm 83. Dave:“Isn’t it amazing that those who really understand economics are Republicans?”
>I know you’re being facetious, but of course it isn’t. Those who want to work and get ahead need to understand how the economy works, so they can have a bit of an edge over the other guy or at least be at parity with whoever is sitting across the table in a business context.<
Oh, well it’s so good to know that Republicans aren’t hurting in this current economic mess (and I’m being sarcastic). They’re so smart, imagine how much worse off we’d all be right now if only they were in charge of the country.
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:06 pm 84. fred:#82 Anonymous San Francisco,
Who do you think has had the most influence over the regulatory mechanisms and the political clout behind the way the banks have to comply with the 1977 CRA since 1995? Look at the key people on the banking committees. Who are they? What party?
What recourse do loan officers and mortgage bankers have to complain if they are only following orders that ultimately come from the Justice Department guidelines and the Banking Committee people?
I’m not being partisan. I took the time to understand the important contours of this thing. The institutional incentives all flowed logically from the way the Act was interpreted. The banks were under threat of prosecution if they did not get with the program.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:06 pm 85. venividivici:Dave,
Of course Republicans are hurting, but the reason is because of two stupid policies that can’t realistically be described as Republican:
1. Keeping interest rates artificially low by the Greenspan Fed
2. Forcing banks to underwrite loans made to people who couldn’t realistically repay them
So, as it is, my earlier point isn’t invalidated by your stupid interjection into the conversation.
Maybe you should think before you speak? Unless your goal is to make yourself look like a retard, in which case, you’ve accomplished it.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:08 pm 86. thegr8_1:It is time to stop penalizing success and rewarding failure. We will go into another depression if we do not do so. I sat this as an American not a Republican or Democrat.
Nov 26, 2008 - 8:25 pm 87. Jason Sieckmann:What crap; and they know it. See how they line up for their various agendas. It wasn’t enough to steal our votes through lobbying, but now they want a piece of the money we already don’t have.
Where is this money coming from? YOU, are working for it. Nothing else gives our money value but the labor and spending habits of our citizens. Yet, we are always driven further into debt like we have an estranged husband with our credit cards.
And then there’s that whole sneaky bill the banks slipped in for themselves with the original bailout here: http://mediacondom.com/?p=234
Nov 26, 2008 - 10:08 pm 88. Paul_Unalaska:Fred, again great commentary. To better understand your comments ont his thread I’d spoken with my broker, my father’s college buddy to go to pajamasmedia and read what you’ve spoken on and the legitimacy. He gave me a call back recently and said, ‘I couldn’t have put it more clearly myself’.
It’s refreshing to have folks such as yourself, Dan, jarhead91 and a slew of others to comment with fact rather than animosity, name calling. Commenters SteveP and PatJ – you’re apt to point out ones lack of ‘intellect.’ Yet, you continue to roam the ‘halls’ of us knuckle dragers. C’est la vie..
Nov 26, 2008 - 11:26 pm 89. Pajamas Media » Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Economy:[...] Pajamas Media » Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Economy Further, Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s performance on the economy must be benchmarked from June 1, 2008 — not Election Day, not Inauguration Day, and not, as traditionally has been the case, from October 1 of the new president’s … [...]
Nov 26, 2008 - 11:58 pm 90. fear Obama:Dave, I see and feel your hatred of the so called Bush economy.
Read my comments above- About asking any Democrat how good it feels trying to destroy the Bush economy?
Well, You democrat dingbats are going down also.
Trillions of dollars are being spent by your beloved leaders to save the Bush stock market.
How does it feel?
Trillions of dollars that could have been mailed to you along with the Treasury check you probably are already getting.
And that check is probably in danger also- think about it?
Trillions of dollars that could have been spent to encourage your Green Economy. Dumped into the salvation of the toxic Markets just these last few weeks. Trillions of dollars Democrats will never get to taste, touch, feel or spend.
Trillions of dollars that could have been used to fill your gas tank and pay your mortgage or your child’s, or grandchild’s college education.
Hell- they even want to raise your gas tax!
Dave is one of those Democrats that wanted to see Bush’s economy Crash and Burn-
But he didn’t realize he was flying the plane!
Nov 27, 2008 - 2:56 am 91. G-Ma:Wow!! I got an economics refresher/education reading these comments. Thanks
Nov 27, 2008 - 5:35 am 92. Will Becker:to Fred for his knowledge and his detailed comments.
The “green” economy being crammed down our throats by the liberals, also, is more of the same. 25 billion was approved for the auto industry to
retool for “green” technology in September. President Bush requested that
the restrictions on this money be removed to help the autos, now. The
Democrate controlled Congress refuse to bring it up for a vote. (Think Nancy
and Harry) Instead, Nancy and Harry want to approve another 25+ for the
autos. I have to redirect my money when I have an emergency, why can’t the
government?? Oh! I guess they did, see BANKS.
And the worse is yet to come sheeple.He’s not even president yet.
Nov 27, 2008 - 6:42 am 93. Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Econom - Conservative Republican Discussion Forums:[...] Has Already Helped Wreck the Econom Pajamas Media
Nov 27, 2008 - 7:56 am 94. Rashputin:thegr8_1 – “It is time to stop penalizing success and rewarding failure. We will go into another depression if we do not do so. I sat this as an American not a Republican or Democrat.”
While you personally may be that rare exception, the line of thought you post is typical of the democrats who so often screw things up for democrat political gain and victory at the polls, then insist that we all work as one when the chickens come home to roost. I am not falling for that one ever again. The democrats brought this on, and the democrats most responsible need to be in prison. Yes, in prison, since that’s a reasonable penalty for a reporter they chose to attack, it’s a reasonable penalty for those who undermined the whole damn economy.
I want Republicans in the House bring everything to a halt until those responsible for this mess are at least forced out of office by their peers. Given that the Senate will instantly bristle at the very idea that the House can tell them what to do, that means the House Republicans can effectively halt everything until they get what they want. That’s exactly the way the democrats have consistently done during the fleeting few years the Republicans were in the majority. It’s stupid to argue that “the people” will take revenge on them for gridlock now that the democrats have been so richly rewarded for causing gridlock. Maybe they should try the same kind of political hardball as their opponents for a change rather than drifting further and further towards them in hopes that everyone will play nice. They won’t, we shouldn’t, and the guilty need to be punished.
No Justice, No Congress, that’s what I say. If we manage to keep enough Senate seats to deny the democrats a veto proof majority, we should do the same thing there. The rewards for demanding that those who engineered this economic mess be punished will without a doubt be gains in both the House and Senate down the road. The Republicans need to get over giving a damn what the media say about them and worry about what they can deliver by being as obstinate as the democrats always are. Minority or not, they can call the tune and force the democrat thugs to dance if they have enough brains to improvise, adapt, and overcome. That’s what’s expected of the lowest grunt, why shouldn’t we demand it of those elected to represent us?
The House originates money bills, and with the House tied in a knot, Obama will have a tough time delivering on his many promises. As unlikely as it seems, Obama may side with the Republicans in such a situation as a way to break the deadlock. That would make him look bipartisan, buy him favors in return down the road, and rid him of a few committee chairman who promise to be a thorn in his side. It would also serve as a warning to the Senate that he’s going to be setting the agenda, not them.
Regards
Nov 27, 2008 - 8:50 am 95. JIM:The premiss of Blumer’s article is correct. Markets respond to expectation of future actions. Beginning in the 1930’s we began to move to a nation where equality of results is replacing the founding fathers national objective of equality of opportunity. This change in cultural outlook is the root cause of the legislative excesses we have seem. It is also the root cause of the personal credit excesses that fueled the economic growth and is at the core of the current credit crisis. Until the body politic understands the implications, we are doomed to move toward the European style stagnation and ultimately to the social degeneration and corruption of the Soviet Union, still in place in Russia. We fail to learn from history.
Nov 27, 2008 - 9:55 am 96. BBC Decide It’s No Interest To You- Rioting In Iceland…. « uk1884:[...] lastly: Did The One already wreck the US economy? The recession, once it becomes official, will thus richly deserve designation as the POR [...]
Nov 27, 2008 - 10:32 am 97. Thanks’ Again BBC- Icelanders are Rioting-Unreported here. « Centurean2’s Weblog:[...] lastly: Did The One already wreck the US economy? The recession, once it becomes official, will thus richly deserve designation as the POR [...]
Nov 27, 2008 - 10:32 am 98. TruthHurts:Gee, let’s pick an arbitrary date and make a case for Obama’s “wreck”…Let’s keep up the GOP (and Banking Lobbyists) “talking points” about the fiscal crisis being tied to Fannie and Freddie…Let’s continue to try to make a case, WITH A STRAIGHT FACE!, that the Wall St Invesment Banking model crashed because of Congress and the actions of two inside-the-beltway, government backed, mortgage investors. (As if!)..Let’s forget that the word “subprime” was first used to define high-risk loans that were non-conforming. A non-conforming loan was any loan that was NOT backed by Fannie and Freddie…Fannie Mae petitioned Congress to loosen underwriting standards because they were losing mortgage share (and securitization profits) to the Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers of the world…Yes, let’s make it all up and get the usual suspects to sell it to us…Better still, let’s just blame everything on the Community Reinvestment Act, Circa 1977, for the world financial crisis…Gee, I get it now. Let’s just use whatever statistical model and selected data, that we can. We’ll use it to “paint” our cause in the most positive light that we can…This guy’s already “raising the bar” before the next guy takes office!…Happy Thanksgiving Tom…Lighten up and have an eggnog….Here’s what I learned in Econ 101: Stats can be manipulated to make any point that you want. In other words: Stats are for losers!…So is this column.
Nov 27, 2008 - 10:42 am 99. Bambi Has Already Helped Wreck The Economy « Centurean2’s Weblog:[...] Pages: 12Next [...]
Nov 27, 2008 - 11:14 am 100. Bambi Has Already Helped Wreck The Economy… « uk1884:[...] Pages: 12Next [...]
Nov 27, 2008 - 11:15 am 101. Liberty:In order to survive we must attack the a highly visible, vulnerable target: global warming. The data is there. Three immediate threats 1) Currently accepting comments, EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0318 will require EPA permits for CO2 emissions from BUILDINGS; 2) cap & trade 3) bankrupting coal industry. Winning this argument will instill doubts about the soundness of other proposals. This can be done.
Nov 27, 2008 - 11:33 am 102. Rashputin:<>
ROTFLMAO … Do your share, stop breathing, it’s only fair that the far sighted folks like yourself set an example.
Nov 27, 2008 - 12:46 pm 103. Horace Wells:This is a bunch of trash, none of it means a thing nor is there one shred of proof. Obama hasn;t even taken office and this blogger has him wrecking things from Chicago. Yet, he and his ilk are the first to cry media bias, like a thief accusing someone of stealing.
Nov 27, 2008 - 5:25 pm 104. myth buster:Sandy, under no circumstances should we enact a Federal Sales Tax while maintaining the income tax. That is madness of the highest order. Either replace the Income tax system entirely or do not enact a sales tax.
Nov 27, 2008 - 10:11 pm 105. Joe C.:We have essentially had one-party rule (Democrat) since 2006. Bush being the President but adopting Democrat policies has worsened the economy. Everyone seemes to forget that the first policy enacted by the Dem Congress (signed by Bush) was the increased federal minimum wage, which signaled the intention to tank the economy.
The Dems purposely ignored the wholly manufactured “credit crisis” to create this economic downturn. Paulson’s “gun-to-the-head” ultimatum was timed to affect the election just as McCain was surging. Schumer’s Indy Bank leak was a dry run just as any terrorist would do. Bush being a Republican is no more relevant than Bernie Sanders being an Independent. It is the policies not the party.
Nov 28, 2008 - 3:58 am 106. BizzyBlog » Pelosi-Obama-Reid Accountability for the Economy Goes Back to June 1:[...] article originally appeared at Pajamas Media on Wednesday under the title “Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Economy.” [...]
Nov 28, 2008 - 5:35 am 107. Will Sharpe:Here’s a great article about the corporate greed that led to our financial meltdown as a result of subprime lending/speculative practices (none of which support Tom’s postulations):
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?print=true
Nov 28, 2008 - 6:11 am 108. Joe C.:Actually it supports it perfectly. Not surprisingly, the article skips from 1987 to 2001, and doesn’t give any analysis of the root causes (i.e. regulations, lack of enforcement, politics). It is a simply an allegory of financial effects without ellucidating the causes (other than blaming persistent “greed” from the 80’s). Tom’s analysis is by far more explanatory. As usual TB, you’re right on target.
Nov 28, 2008 - 9:48 am 109. Joey:There is some truth to this article, but I’m more concerned with what the Obama team is admitting by laying off on the tax increases. He is openly admitting that his ideas are bad for the economy, despite saying that it’s better to spread the wealth around. I actually just wrote about this same subject today on my site and tried to explain why he still would increase taxes down the road even after admitting (indirectly) that they are bad for the economy. What a slouch.
Nov 28, 2008 - 12:59 pm 110. Kathryn (Petition: We Demand True Conservative Leadership):My concern is that, as usual, weak and inarticulate Republicans will not correct the Left’s false narrative that it’s all Bush’s fault and that deregulation was the problem.
Republicans have GOT to be proactive about correcting the record. This is a great article. Republican should be repeating it over and over again.
Nov 29, 2008 - 1:26 am 111. The Absurd Report » Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Economy by Tom Blumer:[...] Read more from Pajamas Media Social Networking: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
Nov 29, 2008 - 2:59 am 112. Israpundit » Blog Archive » Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Economy:[...] By Tom Blumer, Pyjamas Media [...]
Nov 29, 2008 - 8:37 am 113. venividivici:TruthHurts,
First off, how would you know if truth hurts, since your post comes nowhere near the truth? But I digress.
If Fannie and Freddie hadn’t gone into “subprime” mortgages, the market would have been much smaller and more contained and we’d have a much more limited crisis on our hands, perhaps one that didn’t even register beyond the equityholders of the banks that invested in subprime mortgages.
Congress is to blame in the sense that they didn’t more clearly define Fannie and Freddie’s mission and let the market believe (correctly, I guess, as it turned out) that the government would bail out those entities, even though they were not truly government entities and had outside shareholders. Fannie and Freddie were the perfect place for people who like the security of public jobs with the pay of private industry (Hello, Franklin Raines, I’m looking at you), in other words, who wanted their cake and to eat it too.
Add to that Democrats throwing around the word “racism” like it was going out of style, whenever anyone tried to reform the F&F mission statement or limit the types of loans they would back, and you’ve got like 80% of the cause of the mortgage meltdown right there, all laid at the feet of Democrats.
The main thing you can blame the Republicans for is not having the courage to stand up to the cries of racism and put in place the safeguards they should have. That’s a lesser failing than the Democrats failings, although still a failing.
Nov 29, 2008 - 12:01 pm 114. Herb:Wow, so if a guy who’s not even president can help “wreck the economy,” what does that say about the last eight years of Bush?
Nov 29, 2008 - 4:43 pm 115. Someone75:Beth:
I know very well who controls congress. Just as I know very well that the last eight years have been dominated by republicans. It will take more than two years of a democratic majority to undo Bush’s disastrous policy.
Nice try though.
Nov 29, 2008 - 8:03 pm 116. venividivici:It will take more than two years of a democratic majority to undo Bush’s disastrous policy.
You know what’d be nice? Some actual content to these accusations. It’s all generic BS. People have been citing actual chapter and verse on the question of how Obama and the Democratic Congress have helped put us in the situation we are now, and how the market views the situation moving forward, and all the other side has is, as I said, generic stuff like “Bush was against regulations and that’s how we got here” (OK, which specific regulations) or “Bush’s disastrous policies got us here” (OK, which specific policies?).
It’s almost as if you have no actual information at all, just accusations based on partisan affiliation.
One last point: The funny thing is, Beth, it doesn’t look like Obama’s actually going to try to undo “Bush’s disastrous policy”, whatever that is in your mind, and I would speculate that the reason is that he knows that the general thrust of Bush’s policies are the only rational policies given current global economic configurations. The real economic record of the Bush years is actually quite similar to the Clinton years, if you look at the data, rather than just screaming like a chicken with your head cut off, although I know the latter is the easier course of action for someone who seems to be a cognitively challenged as you are.
I personally wish that the role of the Federal government in the economy were so small that there was never any question of how the government helped or hurt the economy. As long as we keep voting in economic illiterates, that’s probably not going to happen. We need a Hippocratic Oath for the economy at this point. “First do no harm”. That’d be Utopia.
Nov 30, 2008 - 7:15 am 117. Someone75:venividivici:
I would WELCOME the chance to talk substantive issues and engage in true intellectual discourse. The trouble is, anytime I say anything, partisan wackjobs like Beth (and lets face it- most of the people who post here) launch these petty, personal attacks. All my time is wasted on things that don’t even matter.
In this case, I was merely correcting a drastically reductionist view that Beth seems to hold of anyone who voted for Obama. Who is the true partisan? It is not me, sir.
Nov 30, 2008 - 1:53 pm 118. venividivici:Someone75,
As I said, the Democrats, while actually in the minority over the past decade until recently, have used the “bully pulpit” of “racism” accusations to stop Republicans in their tracks when it came to reforming the main culprits in the subprime mortgage crash, Fannie and Freddie. Fannie and Freddie became virtual revolving doors for Democratic operatives who wished to get a little taste of what it’s like to make private sector money with government sector job security.
The economy definitely faces other issues outside of subprime, but that was the first shoe to drop, domino to fall, whatever metaphor you want to use, and the majority of the blame can be laid at the doorstep of the Democrats. And Obama got money from these people during his tenure, short though it was, in the Senate, so he is not immune from the blame.
In addition, some of Obama’s energy platform statements, such as cutting back electricity use to 1990’s levels while increasing the number of electric cars, break the laws of physics, as currently formulated. The man is a whackjob himself and I’m glad to see the investor class (of which I am but a small part) voting “no confidence” in his hare-brained schemes. I saw that the Obama team was “gratified” when their naming of Geinther(sp?) as Treasury Sec was greeted by a market rally. Good, may they do many more things that make the market rally.
If you’re a moderate Democrat and don’t have any truck with those who would ruin our economy, fine, but there are few ways in which the Obama who was on the campaign trail DIDN’T put free-marketeers on edge as he tried to satisfy one interest group after another.
Nov 30, 2008 - 5:42 pm 119. BizzyBlog » Will Obama’s Next ‘Betrayal’ Be of His Environmentalist Supporters?:[...] any further without risking a brutal backlash. Any efforts at blaming Bush will likely be futile. As I showed last week, the POR Triumvirate and their party are primarily responsible for what has happened in the economy [...]
Dec 5, 2008 - 7:50 am 120. BizzyBlog » Could It Be ….. Recovery? If So, Hurry Up Already:[...] shown to be recovering in spite of the Terrible Triumvirate’s attempts to talk it down and/or wreck it in the name of electoral success, the air will or should go out of the idea that a massive New Deal [...]
Dec 18, 2008 - 9:30 am