Democrats Halted Recovery, Derailed Economy Last Summer
Yet another awful employment report clarifies when the economy really headed south.
January’s Employment Situation Report from Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was even worse than expected. Seasonally adjusted employment fell by 598,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rose to 7.6%.
In his Saturday address that followed this news, President Barack Obama was correct in pointing out that 3.6 million jobs have been lost since the recession, at least as “defined” by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), began. The recession, as normal people define it (”a decline in gross domestic product [GDP] for two or more consecutive quarters”), began in the third quarter of 2008 and became official late last month when the fourth quarter came in negative.
What Mr. Obama “somehow” forgot to tell us is that almost 1.8 million of those seasonally adjusted job losses have occurred since his election, when his non-stop economic no-confidence game went into high gear, and that 2.8 million jobs have gone away during the seven months that began in July 2008, the first full month of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy:
Beyond that, in comparing the raw month-to-month figures, i.e., before seasonal adjustment, it’s clear that conditions on the ground in the real economy are in a worse state of decay than the seasonally adjusted data would indicate. The November 2008 to January 2009 economy underperformed the same months of the previous year by over 2.2 million jobs:
In the same report, the BLS did something else that virtually everyone ignored: it issued its annual comprehensive revision to previously released jobs numbers.
Let’s compare the last two-plus years before and after the revision:
The blue boxes show that BLS’s revision added 259,000 seasonally adjusted jobs to the fourth quarter of 2007 (500,000 vs. 241,000).
Yet the NBER claims that the recession started in December 2007, in a month when the economy added 120,000 jobs.
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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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164 Comments
1. David Thomson:Barack Obama is screwing up the economy. The free market decreasingly decides on the winners and losers. Elected officials and bureaucrats regrettably have this dubious honor. The typical entrepreneur too often must wait and see where they will ultimately be placed on the totem pole. Uncertainty kills markets—and we have plenty of that in the Obama era. It’s only going to get worse.
Feb 12, 2009 - 12:49 am 2. Herb:Nice try, Tom, but I seem to remember the economy starting to crumble as early as last spring, when I got a $600 “stimulus” check from George W. Bush. Keep trying, though.
You just might not want to mention anything that happened BEFORE the election…like the bailouts and bankruptcies that were all the rage in October.
PS. Kudos to David Thomson for NOT mentioning “white guilt.” Although this:
“The free market decreasingly decides on the winners and losers.”
…is definitely true. Unfortunately, the winners are walking away with millions and the losers…well, that’s the rest of us.
Feb 12, 2009 - 1:56 am 3. Войска ПВО:“The mislabeled “stimulus” will, if it passes, almost certainly extend the conditions we saw during the last half of 2008. “
To what end? Would it be to perpetuate themselves in office by instilling this fear and uncertainty? Then they make a big “nanny” government the only salvation anyone can count on, thereby ensuring their re-elections in 2010 and 2012.
But they may be playing with fire. Back in the late seventies the misery index was almost double what it was under George Bush and all of us grew weary of being hectored by the ineffectual, gloom-and-doom-malaise-spreading peanut farmer. By the time November, 1980 rolled around, he was out of office before the polls closed in California in favor of a sunny Ronald Reagan who told us we were to be believed in and not disparaged.
We will, as a people, grow tired of Obama’s HopenChange(tm) fear-mongering and probably throw him out of office as well. But, as most here like to say, it will be after the damage has been done.
Feb 12, 2009 - 2:31 am 4. Войска ПВО:..this is, by the way, one of those clip-and-save posts that oft appear on PJM. It will be useful for whipping out at cocktail parties when one of those insufferabe, chablis-swilling liberals tries to attribute all of this economic mess to BusHitler, his craven puppet master Cheney, and their evil administration.
Feb 12, 2009 - 2:35 am 5. David Thomson:“…when I got a $600 “stimulus” check from George W. Bush.”
It is very fair to compare George W. Bush to Herbert Hoover. He did a number of economically stupid things while in office. The problem is that Barack Obama is another Franklin D. Roosevelt and therefore guarantees to make an already bad situation a hell of a lot worse. Increasing the power of the government during hard times is never the answer. Such policies merely distort the market and retard economic growth. It took years to undo the damage resulting from FDR’s New Deal legislation. Why would we wish to reintroduce the failed polices of the past?
Feb 12, 2009 - 3:05 am 6. formwiz:Herb, as usual misses the point. David is right that, whatever Dubya did, Obambi is making it much worse. When jobs numbers don’t improve by next Thanksgiving (when the recovery is supposed to start), Herb is going to have a hard time blaming it on Puppetmaster Cheney.
Feb 12, 2009 - 3:47 am 7. Yes We Did:When will you racist hatemongers give it up?
We won, you lost, and you will never get another chance. The vast majority of Americans love and respect our new Leader.
Get over it and get with the program.
Praise HIM!
Praise The ONE!
Praise OBAMA!
ALLAHU AKBAR!
Feb 12, 2009 - 3:50 am 8. freetoken:In 2003 I found myself surround in an environment of several young (early 20’s) people, most of whom were what many here would describe as quite “liberal.” One of them, in trying to diss GWB, kept making the claim that the recession in 2001 was due to GWB because… get this, because GWB was talking down the economy by saying how bad it was shortly after taking office! I told that young man it was nonsense because the economic forces that bring about recessions start way before the actual downturn in economic activity.
So here on PJM we have the flip situation, a blogger who is trying to pin the current recession on Obama. To do so, this blogger (T. Blumer) happens to have to get rid of that pesky NBER who wants to date the start of the economic downturn to December 2007.
I’m not buying it Mr. Blumer. Not only that, but I find it sad that PJM is more and more turning towards polemicists whose only role is to try and find something bad to which to pin upon President Obama, and not turn to subject matter experts who hopefully would be serious in discussing issues, as opposed to just throwing political darts.
Mr. Blumer totally ignores the financial industry debacle, and the solvency problems we have today with the banks, as well as the bubble in housing, the extreme price rise in energy and material, and any of a number of important factors in understanding how we got to where we are today.
PJM should do better.
Feb 12, 2009 - 3:54 am 9. quasar:I think that every Obama butt-sniffing Democrat like Herb should be forced [Clockwork Orange style] to watch the Youtube clips of former Bush Treasury Sec. John Snow testifying before Barney Frank and others about the Fannie/Freddie fleacing of Americans. Franks flip dismissal of suggestions of emerging economic peril does have a white guilt, racist flavor to it. Democrats/Acorn/Obama’s fingerprints are all over this one folks. Geniuses all- not only have the sub-primees lost their cribs, they’ve probably lost their jobs too, and taken everyones 401k down with them.
Feb 12, 2009 - 3:56 am 10. Tom Blumer:#8 freetoken:
Bush and Cheney made at most 2-3 relatively mild remarks in late 2000 and early 2001 that the press and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) jumped on to make political points.
Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Reid, and the press have been using fear words on steroids on a daily basis for many months. There a world of difference.
You should know better.
And what about the three specific examples of incipient recovery in Spring 2008 that NBER itself cited don’t you understand?
Feb 12, 2009 - 4:09 am 11. Herb:Clever headline change, Tom. It used to read “Our Recession Began in Earnest After Obama’s Election” but now it reads “Democrats Halted Recovery, Derailed Economy Last Summer.”
Hey, as long as it’s clear that it’s the Democrats’ fault, right?
As to formwiz, who said: “Herb is going to have a hard time blaming it on Puppetmaster Cheney.”
Blaming it on Cheney? When did I do that? I was pointing out the strange counter-factual that said “Our Recession Began in Earnest After Obama’s Election.”
And notice how that is now changed…
Feb 12, 2009 - 4:18 am 12. Terry Gain:If the recovery hasn’t begun by October 2009 then Obama needs to set a date certain for his withdrawal from the U.S. Presidency.
Feb 12, 2009 - 4:31 am 13. RE:8. freetoken
I think you tend to overlook the fact that markets and investment are based upon the outlook for the future. The Democrats have created an atmosphere that is extremely hostile to success and risk taking. With this business climate, it is perfectly understandable that businesses and individual are increasing adopting a bunker mentality.
With threats of increased taxation, increased regulatory burdens, and energy starvation, the Obama Administration is driving the economy down and creating an ‘Atlas Shrugged’ effect.
Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Alan Greenspan monetary policy, and government coercing banks into making bad loans got us to the point we were at in September. But it’s the Democrats that have driven the economy down since November by thoroughly intent on squelching any potential for a recovery.
The risks are simply not worth the rewards with Obama, Reid, and Pelosi at the helm. The economy is going to be down for a long, long time.
Feb 12, 2009 - 4:39 am 14. Valerie:I dunno about the rest of you folks, but there is a housing renovation contract that I wanted to let in November. I didn’t do it, because Barack Obama had already promised that all that money would be needed to pay taxes, instead. I happen to know that building contractors have been scrambling to keep enough work to keep their crews paid, and some just did not get the work.
Feb 12, 2009 - 4:51 am 15. Jarhead:I work for a big, still profitable company. As soon as it became obvious Obama was going to win, a hiring freeze was put in place and most domestic projects were put on hold. Until he and the Dems are done screwing with the economy, all our growth and investments will be abroad.
Feb 12, 2009 - 5:28 am 16. Herb:To Re: “The Democrats have created an atmosphere that is extremely hostile to success and risk taking.”
The Democrats??? I don’t know, man. The other day I watched the CEOs of the big banks testify to Congress.
Are you saying that the feckless Democrats are more responsible for the hostile atmosphere than these guys, who not only lost billions in the market, but also took billions of tax payer money?
I’m sorry, bud, but the Democrats are not that powerful or influential. And there are many more responsible parties to point our fingers at.
Starting with the Wall Street schemers who are more Chuck Ponzi than John Galt.
Feb 12, 2009 - 6:25 am 17. RE:When I look at Obama, what I see is a prosperity assassin. Pelosi and Reid are force multipliers.
Feb 12, 2009 - 6:26 am 18. Blake:Jarhead – Just a question: Are you sure it was because Obama was obviously going to win, or because at the exact same time (late september), it was obvious the economy was going to tank?
The fact is, Obama won by the margins he did, because the economic recession and the Republicans, including McCain, took the blame for it. McCain lead up until the last week before the bank fiascos by some pretty confortable margins, with Obama leading only in that last week of semi-economic bliss by an average of 1-2 points in the polls. A week after everyone learned the banks were in a mess, Obama’s lead jumped to almost a double digits in all polls (I mean every one, by checking poll data sites rather than letting the media spin it) and pretty much stayed that way until election day.
The fact is the way he won allows conservatives to rewrite history, since Obama’s good fortune (or bad fortune, depending on how you judge issues), became intermingled with the economy. So when bad things happened, good things happened to Obama. Basically he’s a product of the recession, not the cause of it. I think we can all agree that President Obama will be judged not by the cause of the recession, but how quickly the economy recovers and if it recovers at all after all the spending. I also think a lot of people here and around the US wouldn’t acknowledge it, even if he did fix the economy.
Feb 12, 2009 - 6:28 am 19. ama:What I really wish is we would get honest reporting. You can go to all sites. Some choose to put what is really in the package and others just worry about Obama and his first 100 days. Get to the real guts of this. Our money is gone. But our lovely President throws a party last night with more of our money. I am sick and tired of the fear tactics this man puts on everyone everyday. When I read or hear the news I am only hearing what certain media agencies choose to put on because they are afraid of this man and how to ask the tough questions.
Feb 12, 2009 - 6:34 am 20. Kevin:As a sole proprietor , I can assure you that a hiring decision to add a staff member was put on hold until I see clarification on payroll taxes and general confidence in our tax/economic policies. I do not.
Feb 12, 2009 - 6:39 am 21. RE:A credit contraction was in the cards regardless of the “POR” triumvirate of naked incompetence. They have made it worse, but to be fair, our nation was at the tipping point due to a 300% debt/GDP ratio. Should the gov’t do everything right (lower cap gains tax; make div taxation permanent; ban naked CDS; reinstitute Glass-Steagall; wipe out the living dead and insolvent banks;et al) we recover by 2014. If they continue down the path they are on, then recovery stalls until the sooner of 2020 and/or WWIII.
16. Herb
You might want to put a little more effort into your root cause analysis. Symptoms are not causes. What you see in congressional hearings are politicians in full blown CYA scapegoating mode, deflecting attention away from their own dereliction of duty.
And Ponzi schemes? Social Security is the ultimate Ponzi scheme.
Feb 12, 2009 - 6:44 am 22. Jarhead91:Herb:I don’t know how those CEO’s did it without physicaly attacking Barney Frank. The “Mark to Market” rule destroyed their Balance Sheets. CRA strong-armed them into making high-risk loans, and Fannie and Freddie pretended to gaurantee them.
The people responsible were in the room and they are not bank execs.
Feb 12, 2009 - 6:45 am 23. michael hoskins:I know where there are 8 to 10 million jobs to be had in less than 30 days. Total cost, one way bus ticket south for each one.
Even if we front Mexico the unemployment $, it is a lot less than a trillion $.
Feb 12, 2009 - 6:58 am 24. Daniel:So let’s see- the economy tanking this time is the fault of the guy when he was elected and physically unable to do anything about it? Not even slightly the fault of the people who allowed the banks to run wild and do whatever they liked?
It was absurd when Republicans blamed the new Democrat administrations after they completely crapped the bed- now they’re blaming guys before they even take office!
What else would you expect from a party who doesn’t like to look at cause and effect and doesn’t care to evaluate their own decisions? You know, the party who puts political gains over economic prosperity?
Man, I really hope we don’t go back to the booming Clinton economy. Those were 8 terrible, terrible years. Let’s go back to that fearmongering house of cards economy that Bush Jr built for us all! Weren’t those glorious years, when people were so afraid to speak up or go out and there was absolutely no one to keep anyone in government in check while we blew billions on nothing?
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:02 am 25. Bilgeman:Tom Blumer:
Okay, Goodfella Pelosi and Reid the reptile took a “correction” and made it into a recession.
And now those two, along with the fellow who claims to have been born in Hawaii are possibly mishandling a recession into a depression.
But let’s go back a little bit further, and see what caused that initial correction that all this stemmed from.
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2006/1106/essentials/p36.htm
The Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005, which took effect in 2006.
See, people who didn’t own homes were living on unsustainable amounts of credit card debt,(and had no recourse to the “HELOC Lifeboat”), and then were declaring bankruptcy under the old rules and giving “What’s in YOUR wallet?” a big shit sandwich to eat.
So these outfits, which to this day will slap a 29% interest rate on you in the blink of an eye,(know any mortgage companies that charge that much?), cranked up the lobbyists and made it harder to declare skint.
All it takes in an over-leveraged economy is two or three outfits that are hard-asses about getting their principal, interest, and vigorish repaid, and the whole thing starts cascading to circle the drain.
The BRA took effect in ‘06, and with the lag time it takes for us proles to get into bankruptcy, the wounds didn’t get inflicted until about a year later…in ‘07.
Kinda tracks the timeline pretty well, doesn’t it?
When did home sales top out nationally and begin their inexorable decline?
August/september of 2007.
http://www.passion-trading.com/news/2008/12/26/us-housing-makes-multi-year-lows-new-and-existing-home-sales-plummet/
Look further at the correction in the existing homes sales graphic.
Occurred September of ‘08, but didn’t inch back up as had followed other declines.
October went south, as did November, and i don’t think anyone has any illusions about what December’s figures were,(who moves during Christmas season?).
I use the home sales figures because I’m familiar with them, and these aren’t “political decisions”, (except in the metro DC market); people need places to live.
The point I want to make here is that in my view it was the credit card companies and their bankruptcy reform that was the first log in the jam.
They shouldn’t be given a pass while there’s poo to be flung about.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:03 am 26. Mongoose:Herb, those guys in those banks are mostly Democrats. Look at Rubin and Weill over at Citi. Look and Goldman Sach or Lehman.
Aside form that, these bankers in that testimony said that they were giving the money back, and did not really want it in the first place. There seems to be a misconception of what has happened here. There was a credit market problem. In any event, those bail out funds were secured in most cases, they were not “given the money”, they were, after a fashion, lent it.
In any event, how do assaults on capital, property and liberty as embodied in the “stimulus bill” equate to bad business decisions? How are bad business decisions “hostile” to to prosperity? They may be regrettable, they may be obstacles, but they are hardly hostile. Google around and find that weird psychotic break of Maxine Water in Congress that happened the other day–when she was questioning those very bank CEO–where she is just spewing out incoherently Marxist rhetoric and fantasies about “Capitalists.
Now that is hostile.
Promoting the same old Union BS is hostile. Widening scope for litigation against businesses is hostile. Creating more BS regulations is hostile. Getting up on the podium and pounding out that rabid class rhetoric is hostile. Destroying the dollar is hostile. The list could go on and on.
As usual, you beat a straw man to deflect and distract.
It is a typical left wing inversion of reality.
Aside from that, we must remember that the CRA created a regulatory frame work to force banks to make loans, particular big money banks with markets in major Democrat”fiefdoms”.
In particular, Citi was sued, and one of the people involved was none other than Obama himself. they had to come up with some method. Did those bankers create Fannie or Freddie?
So at best we can say that there was collusion between the Democrat party and big money banks, Ibanks, some insurance corps and hedgies. But the Democrats on the hill got the ball rolling with their stealth Marxist redistributionist policies. I will point out again that the pleyers on wall street tend to be of the Democrat elites. The Financial world is certainly not a bastion of the GOP, whose voters tend to be of the middle class.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:17 am 27. Steve P.:Jarhead91 says: “The people responsible were in the room and they are not bank execs.”
The Federal Reserve and the FDIC maintain that empirical research has not validated any relationship between the CRA and the 2008 financial crisis. Excesses came mainly from institutions not regulated by the CRA. 50% of the subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies that were not regulated by the CRA, and another 25% to 30% came from only partially CRA regulated bank subsidiaries and affiliates. Institutions fully regulated by CRA made about 1 in 4 sub-prime loans. The most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight.
But keep trying.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:17 am 28. goy:@16. Herb – the billions in losses were due to government meddling, which tanked the housing market and the securities that market supported. It was a house of cards the Democrats built and then blew down by forcing paper to be written which they knew would drive housing into a bubble and then become toxic as soon as normative interest rates returned. 17 rate increases later, that stack of cards miraculously hit the floor at precisely the moment when BHO’s poll numbers were dropping. Almost like an act of God, huh.
Oh, and don’t bother with any noise about deregulation, non-CRA sub-prime, Alt-A or any other deflections. Loans based on those rates, but written according to sane lending rules, would NOT have instantly become toxic assets at the drop of a hat. Those rules were in place to avoid that very problem. Fifteen years of the Dems’ CRA-driven “affordable mortgage” insanity, based on rules that guaranteed foreclosures under any normal market fluctuation, is what gave us the securities devaluation and the ensuing credit meltdown.
There’s no mystery behind why the facts in your article(s) aren’t common knowledge, Tom: Bush’s, pathological ‘civility’ (read: total lack of leadership) in response to 8 straight years of fifth column treason and mendacity spewing from the Democrats and their wholly-owned entrenched media. We saw the result of this lack of leadership when the electorate turned in blind adulation to someone who’s never done anything but run for office.
BHO’s attack on CEOs is simply an extension of the demonization phenomenon that worked so well against Bush and the GOP. We know this because the “salary caps” he made so much noise about are coupled with so many loopholes that they’re really no cap at all – they’re just bread for the mob he’s inciting. The mob – absent any voice of reason – then simply runs in the direction they’re told to run. Much easier to do when the electorate is as ignorant, apathetic and entitlement-minded as Americans have become. These tactics are as old as the French Revolution and have been exploited by every despot from Stalin to Che to Mossadegh to Castro to Mao to Pol Pot.
And folks should realize that “I won” is the language of a despot, not that of a leader.
Private enterprise business began to tank as soon as the Democrats took over Congress in 2006. Prior to January of 2007, the economy was experiencing steady recovery from the Clinton recession of 2000/01 (even though hampered by unnecessary rate hikes) and was driving a trend that had the federal government on track for a balanced budget by October of last year.
One thing changed that trend: no market confidence in what the Democrats were going to do to taxes, and no confidence in Bush’s leadership due to his near-socialist second-term domestic policies and relentless silence in response to constant attacks by the disloyal opposition and the press, which any fool could see was going to guarantee us a Democrat sweep in November (and gee, isn’t that just what we were saddled with).
The situation worsened thanks to the Democrat Congress’ suicidal energy policies, which allowed oil prices to skyrocket until the day Bush reversed the executive ban on domestic offshore drilling. But by that point it was too late – CRA had done its damage and firms heavily leveraging Franklin Raines’ Riskless Real Estate Securities™ were already starting to fail. Then FM/FM crumbled after Dem interference prevented oversight enforcement and revamping of management practices in 2004 that would have prevented it.
Yes, Herb, this economic trouble is entirely the Democrats’ doing. And they’re making exactly the same mistakes FDR made, which prolonged the Depression by almost a decade.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:21 am 29. Bodhi:I think I speak for alot of Americans when I say I am tired of hearing Republicans play the blame game after continuously denying there was a problem brewing from the beginning. And now that the recession has been called out by its name, all those that were in denial want to start pointing fingers out of embarassment. Well its too late. We already knew you were lying while we listened to Bush proclaim the economy was as strong as ever and there was no recession on the horizon. And we are not buying this crap either.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:22 am 30. JohnRJ08:This recession began in 2007. And the things that caused this recession started about 5 years before that. The wild-eyed inference that Obama is somehow responsible for this recession is more demagoguery and raging ideology than fact. Furthermore, Nobel Prize-winning economists are lining up to say that the country needs government intervention to prevent an even worse financial debacle, while a few intellectual giants in the Republican party are insisting that the government will only make things worse and that it should do nothing but cut taxes… again. Who ya’ gonna believe? I find it quite amusing that right-wing anti-Obama ideologues are calling the crucial stimulus package a “spending bill” and “pork”. Now, that’s irony, considering what the national debt was back in 2000 and where it was on January 20, 2009.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:32 am 31. tyates:It is clearly the Democratic congress. In Dec 2007, the Republicans issued a report listing a dozen Democratic anti-business pieces of legislation pushing or pushed through congress and adding up that it will cost millions of jobs. When business realized that Obama was going to get elected, they cut back hard. During the campaign season you could even see that when Obama’s poll numbers rose, the Dow would fall.
Example: In January 2007, the Dems took control of congress and immediately pushed through the largest minimum wage increase in history – from $5.15 to $7.25 over two years! That one piece of legislation is expected to cost the economy 1.6 million jobs. Add in the energy plan (or lack thereof) with no domestic production and new carbon taxes, a lawsuit-friendly business environment (Lily Ledbetter and more), and the planned expiry of the Bush tax cuts, and you can easily get to 5m lost jobs just on a handful of Pelosi-Reid policies.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:33 am 32. Mongoose:goy: you said it much better than I did. That one is a keeper. Thanks.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:34 am 33. mister man:This just in from THE ROTUND ONE – your fearless leader, head of the Republican Party (and we liberals couldn’t be happier about that) EL RUSHBO . . .
We’re going to treat them the same way they have been treating us for years. We are going to subject them to the same things they have subjected us to, and we are going to have a big and strong and powerful government to wield against them because they’re in the process of building it. And we’re going to win it back one day, and when we win this country back, and this government back, we are going to deploy government against them the way they have been deploying it against us, and let them find out what it’s like, and they’re not going to be able to stop it, because they will not have a power base anywhere that will let them stop it. . . . We’re going to do exactly to them what they have done to us. We’re going to build and use the Big Government that they have built and turn it right against them. . . . They will not know what hit them. They are using the law. They are using government to advance a cause that is un-American.. . . It’s time for tit-for-tat. Nice guy playing by the rules when they don’t, is over. It’s time they got a taste of their own medicine, and it’s going to happen, folks, because they’re not going to hold power forever.
Just so you all know it, this was the Democratic platform in 2008. And it worked. And we’re glad. And you should get ready. Because we’re coming for you with pitchforks and hanging ropes and a big pot o’ tar and a big bag o’ feathers, and we’re gonna leave them on your doorstep for you to do with what you want while we repair the economy and the military and America’s standing in the world and rebuild trust in what the future can bring rather than the revenge for what Conservatives have wrought. (OK, maybe a little revenge with Cheney, but that’ll probably be it.) So, lineup up behind your man, god knows there’s plenty of room. I’m sure you’ll be organized by 2024 . . . from Senecea to Cahoga Falls.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:35 am 34. Tom Blumer:#11 Herb, the headline was changed at my suggestion by PJM, which is responsible for headlining, to better reflect the underlying content.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:39 am 35. Jim Baker:Until the current buffoon was put into office, Presidents have never been able to have much influence on the normal cycles of the economy. This guy is attempting to destroy the economy and replace it with a scheme that he imagines will work better. We have only seen the tip of this iceburg.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:41 am 36. Mongoose:All one as to do is look at States that have been long controlled by the Democrats to see the truth that their policies destroy prosperity.
Now they are going to nationalize this immiseration, and in the process bailout those bad states and bad cities that have so squandered the resources of their citizens. You might as well burn the money for it will have just disappeared and the black holes of those governments will still be there. It will not stimulate a thing but growth of decrat controlled government and the poverty and oppression associated with it.
What people like Herb do not understand is that wealth is destroyed. It is gone. You just cannot pass a law and get it back. The wealth has to in good measure created all over again, and that will take decades. Oh, and much of that wealth is not owned by the “Rich” it is owned by the middle class in aggregate. but even if it was owned by the “rich” taking it means that they wil just invest less, and so there will be less economic opportunites. If we could tax and spend our way out of economic problems, we would never have economic problems.
But that is not what this is really about. It is about keeping the Democrats in power, and one way they do that is to impoverish us to the point that we are dependent on government for our very existance.
This really what they want. Just masters and serf. They may get it. In the end thus about power lust and pure greed, and they do not care about anything else at all.
It is this predilection to greed and power that drew them to Marx in the first place.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:47 am 37. No taxation without representation:POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/our-recession-began-…http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/our-recession-began-in-earnest-after-obamas-election
——————————-
HOW ABOUT PORR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid Recession) that was caused by the Democrat “leadership” at the direction of their puppet master.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:53 am 38. Meryl:The danger that obama poses to the future of the United States of America would not be one ounce less even if everything they say about President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney were 100% true.
So for 10 seconds I’ll cede all of that. If they really want to have that conversation, I would phrase it this way: If you are in the clutches of a rapist, do you want an ax murderer coming to your rescue?
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:53 am 39. Michael:Bodhi we only learned it from Democrats over the last 8 years.
Congress has been controlled by Democrats and they stone walled Republican calls for investigation into the problems with Fanny, Freddy, AIG and other banks. They killed the last hope of getting a handle on things early enough to do something positive about it. But hey, Barney’s close personal friend is doing just fine.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:54 am 40. Enough:These fools should be run out of office and out of the country. Might be time to heat up the tar and gather the feathers!
IMPEACH THESE CROOKS, CONS AND COMMUNISTS!
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:55 am 41. Mongoose:Bohdi, then you are being played for a fool. And it is amazing coming from a Democrat. All they have down for the last 8 years is to shift blame and to attack the GOP and Conservatives.
Do get over it. We do not care what you think. You will hear what we have to say just as we had to put up with you. The difference is that we are right.
This is just an attempt to duck and place it on someone else. Do you let people do this to you in your personal live? Of course not. You are being hypocritical.
You certainly do not speak for “a lot of Americans”. You really do not even speak for your self. You are just mouthing Democrat propdanda that have been put in your mouth.
How are we to fix this if we do not find out why it happened? It was caused by overnment messing with business, not “Capitalism”. The Democrats are squarely to blame, and they are running the show. How can the possibly fix it? The Communists in the WH and Congress want you to think that this is a “failure of capitalism” so they can push us further into a socialist totalitarian nightmare. You will not like it should it come.
It will be the end of this country. It will be slavery for all but a few.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:57 am 42. Herb:To RE who wrote: “What you see in congressional hearings are politicians in full blown CYA scapegoating mode, deflecting attention away from their own dereliction of duty.
And Ponzi schemes? Social Security is the ultimate Ponzi scheme.”
What “duty” are you referring to? Surely you’re not going to argue that they didn’t regulate enough, are you?
As for the Social Security non sequitur… What’s your point? That Ponzi schemes are good???? That they’re bad when they’re done by the government, but okay when run by Wall Street types pocketing more money in a minute than you’ll ever see in your life? That the Ponzi schemes run by the government (social security) and Wall Street are equally bad???
I’m confused as to how that fits in logically with the topic at hand. As it stands, it sounds a little like “I know you are, but what am I?”
To Mongoose, You make some but I think you underestimate how low wages, unscrupulous businessmen (Salmonella flavored peanut butter anyone?), or selling your countrymen down the river with cheap foreign labor or offshore tax shelters can also be considered “hostile.” There is no lack of hostility in today’s world, we know that for a fact.
There is, however, a lack of clear thinking, as evidenced by this throwaway remark: “Aside from that, we must remember that the CRA created a regulatory frame work to force banks to make loans, particular big money banks with markets in major Democrat”fiefdoms”.”
Forcing banks to make loans? Isn’t that what banks do anyway???
At any rate, I believe the “ownership society” that CRA was designed to help create (and that George Bush endlessly promoted) is still a noble and attainable goal.
And let’s not forget that it was the banks, not the government, who had a fiduciary duty to ensure their loans were solid, a duty in which they obviously failed. But I guess we could blame the government anyway…and specifically, those damn Democrats.
To Goy…who wrote:
“the billions in losses were due to government meddling, which tanked the housing market and the securities that market supported. It was a house of cards the Democrats built and then blew down by forcing paper to be written which they knew would drive housing into a bubble and then become toxic as soon as normative interest rates returned. 17 rate increases later, that stack of cards miraculously hit the floor at precisely the moment when BHO’s poll numbers were dropping. Almost like an act of God, huh.”
Well, what can I say to that? You have no clue what you’re talking about, that’s clear, and the conspiracies that float in your mind apparently have no boundaries.
The rest of your comment could have come, word for word, from your local wingnut radio talk show. It has no bearing outside the bubble.
See, I thought the Democrats were effectively powerless fringe annoyances for the last eight years, only coming to power through the follies of the previous administration and their unfortunate successor nominee…
But no, this whole time they’ve been all-powerful manipulators of the global economy who have been alternatively A) blundering their way to another Depression or B) setting the stage for a permanent Democratic majority for a generation.
C’mon. Pinning this on the Democrats is giving them way too much credit. Don’t believe the hype.
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:07 am 43. Right Far Right:You need to file this column under fiction in the fantasy section
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:08 am 44. Kevin:mister man,
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:09 am 45. Mongoose:Pitchforks will do you commie rats little good against buckshot. Enjoy the depression; revel in America’s weakness; relish the better standing America has in the eyes of Commie dictators everywhere. Finish your doctoral thesis in transgender studies. Refill your hooka pipe. Take your weekly shower. But know that none of this makes up for you having been picked on in school as a child; for having been very unaccomplished athletically; for never ever getting the pretty girl to dance with you; for never getting the respect from peers that you think you have earned; for not having contributed a thing to this country’s GDP. Deep down, you know how mentally disturbed and twisted you are – liberalism is a manifestation of built up failure in one’s life. It is the ultimate defense mechanism for those who who are afraid to take risks. You have been measured and you have been found wanting. As usual.
mister man: You are being used. Just you wait until your “round two” happens. It will destroy your opportunities and steal your freedoms. You will be stuck at that low level job of yours forever.
You have let yourself think that this is some sort of football game where it is some team that you root for against another team. It is not. It is life. You cannot go home form it.
The Democrats are just using you. They have used your youth, gullibity and ignorance against you. They are stealing your fututre from you.
Round two is going to be coming make for another couple of trillion.
Round three is going to be attacking extremely totalitarian laws.
Round 4 is going to be the destruction of the dollar.
You will find yourself without liberty or a chance at prosperity at all.
How do you think that you can have a society were property and liberty is held in contempt? How can we survive as a nation where our laws are shredded? Where all is at the whims of government officials?
You think that the Democrats are going to cut you in on the action. That is not happening. You have served your purpose already.
The next election will be about massive election fraud and around 40 million new Hispanic voters. They do not need the the 20 year, dumb, white liberal crowd any more.
Crumbs for you.
Mister man, you live in a fantasy world. The real world is about to introduce itself to you. It will not be an pleasant meeting for you.
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:09 am 46. Rawsnacks:Seems to me that the economy started really to tank not the day after Obama got elected, but in the weeks after the Democrats took a majority in the House. Is my memory off?
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:16 am 47. mister man:44 Kevin . . . That’s some pretty impressive deep-seated resentment. I think psychologists call it transference. Now, before you go off half-cocked (maybe that should be on your list), you might want to know who you’re dealing with here. I saw Mongoose and Bilgeman up there. I’m sure CoCo and Mr Nipple will be along directly. You might want to ask them before fully engaging. Just a heads-up. Consider this a favor . . . and your last warning.
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:26 am 48. Rod:My thanks to HErb for restating THE FACTS: ie. the economy going south before the election, the country receiveing stimiulus checks last spring. My consevative friends cannot rewrite history because they hate Obama,
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:28 am 49. Delia:Read the reports this morning….retail sales up 1% foreclosure down, and umemployment benefits requests down. THOSE ARE THE FACTS
Ha! Just wait until the “shovel ready” jobs go to ‘Skilled workers’ and not the machinists and small business owners etc. who don’t have the qualifications to do construction work. Who’s going to train the people into the new Gov. Sponsored jobs and WHO is going to PAY for that? 0bama and his lot remind me of the saying, “Throw as much shit at the wall and see how much sticks” mentality. -And, can we here in the 0-bot world hear an “AMEN” amongst our brethren of Amerikkka haterz? Yup. Tag-team time and be sure to surround your hiney with the slickest, vilest, IRS squirmin’, dodgin’ worms so that your OWN illegality doesn’t seem quite so freakishly, embarrassingly, blatantly OBVIOUS.
You can pile on all of the lettuce, tomato, fried taters, gravy and chocolate sprinkles on a feces sandwich and it’s still gonna stink like CRAP. The ‘bill’ *cough* that the Dems want to pass is rife with the biggest piles [plural] of bull pucky with so many hidden agendas buried deep within it that I can see the steam coming off this load like a fresh cow patty.
Being in the Construction and Carpentry business I can guaranF*CKINGtee you we don’t want to be building for the BigBruthaGov’ment no matter HOW desperate we get.
The wealth of stupid is sucking the life and backbone out of the USA.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
~end rant~
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:29 am 50. Mongoose:Herb: you are in denial, you do not understand this crisis at all. You are just falling for the Democrats smoke screen and their con games.
Take for for example the business about the loans, You say “is that not what banks do?”.
The Democrats created laws that required them to give bad loans, loans that could not be considered anything but bad loans. They had to find a way to not go out of business over this. The Democrats greatly expanded Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac.
Banker the created new classes of derivatives, loosely called “Mortgage Back securities” in prder to handle the risk. Then these were insured by another sort of quasi-derivative called a CDS.
It was all a ponzi scheme create by government regulation, and it came down when the market put pressure on it. It was caused by too much regulation not too little.
The Finance world is one of the most regulated sectors in the world, BTW.
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:29 am 51. Delia:46. Rawsnacks:
“Seems to me that the economy started really to tank not the day after Obama got elected, but in the weeks after the Democrats took a majority in the House. Is my memory off?”
~
You’re exactly right and people here say it time and again but the people with their heads up Empty 0’s arse don’t like the TRUTH too much because it hurts their little, teensy brains that barely have a pea rattling around in their empty noggins.
Shame that the dumbing down finally had a MASSIVE result.
ugh.
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:33 am 52. David S:Tom,
You really need to do a better job if you want to deflect the blame for our failing economy to Obama. Such a “Big Lie” is going to take a lot more than an easily rebutted opinion piece.
I see this same argument repeated over and over by right wing blogs. It’s almost like you didn’t even read the revised employment figures you posted. The first half of 2008 we lost almost 800,000 jobs. A little GDP growth means nothing when the “fundamentals” are dropping through the floor. You note revised figures show that “the NBER claims that the recession started in December 2007, in a month when the economy added 120,000 jobs.” What you fail to take into account is that the revised numbers also show larger job losses before and after the 4Q2007.
Somehow I am inclined to believe the Congressional Budget Office is a more neutral source on how well the stimulus will work:
By CBO’s estimation, in the short run the stimulus legislation would raise GDP
and increase employment by adding to aggregate demand and thereby boosting the
utilization of labor and capital that would otherwise be unused because the economy is
in recession.
…
Taking all of the short- and long-run effects into account, CBO estimates that the
legislation implies an increase in GDP relative to the agency’s baseline forecast of
between 1.4 percent and 3.8 percent by the fourth quarter of 2009, between 1.1 percent
and 3.3 percent by the fourth quarter of 2010, between 0.4 percent and 1.3 percent by
the fourth quarter of 2011
…
Correspondingly, the legislation would increase employment by 0.8 million to 2.3
million by the fourth quarter of 2009, by 1.2 million to 3.6 million by the fourth quarter
of 2010, by 0.6 million to 1.9 million by the fourth quarter of 2011
…
I hope this information is helpful to you. If you have any further questions, I
would be glad to answer them. The staff contacts for the analysis are Ben Page
and Robert Arnold, who may be reached at (202) 226-2750.
From NBER:
You claim that “Democrats Halted Recovery”, but there was never any recovery to halt. The housing market is in freefall because of the bubble that grew under Bush & Greenspan’s easy money policies, and the credit markets have seized up for much the same reason. The large bulk of the economic damage was due to holding interest rates below historically verified optimums, driving an over-investment in real estate. The period 2003-2005 is where this policy did the most damage. To prove that the economy was derailed in the summer of 2008, you would need to show that it was getting back on track – but there is no evidence here to show that. In fact, the revised figures point to a more severe downturn in employment in mid-2007, and accelerated losses throughout 2008.
Revisionist history is all the rage on the right these days, but trying to revise history less than two years old is asinine.
Peace.
DS
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:39 am 53. Saltherring:goy @ 28 provides the specifics and Mongoose @ 36 the motivation behind the Democrat-induced economic crash, which will succeed in buttoning the wallets of investors/entrepreneurs until sane, adult leadership once again takes the reins of government.
While pondering America’s present situation this AM I recalled a quotation attributed to Sir Edward Grey, Britain’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in August, 1914. Speaking to his contemporaries just prior to the outbreak of World War I, Grey is said to have stated, “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.” I felt much the same regarding America on Nov 4, 2008…and even more so this morning.
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:40 am 54. Chuckt:Obama must keep telling us how bad things are – ” . . . worst economic crisis since the Great Depression”, X millions of jobs lost, it’s going to get worse before it gets better” and so nauseatingly on, b/c if things are going good, the people don’t need him. The plan is to make the masses believe that government will straighten things out – it’s the oldest political game going. If things are great – who needs politicians?
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:46 am 55. Saltherring:Mongoose @ 45 hits the jackpot again! Swindle-Us I will breed Swindle-Us II…and so forth. It is written.
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:56 am 56. Bilgeman:#33 mister man:
“This just in from THE ROTUND ONE – your fearless leader, head of the Republican Party (and we liberals couldn’t be happier about that) EL RUSHBO . .”
Why I haven’t worn my Rush Limbaugh Mind Control Satellite Receiver Helmet since the mid-90’s,although it was very useful in it’s day. (Rush had the goods on the kind of scoundrel Clinton was from Jump Street), despite having to run in circles during a thunderstorm to keep the dish focused on the bird.
The dental implant receivers are MUCH more cosmetically pleasing.
Did someone up there mention refilling a hookah?
Can y’all save me some for when I retire? I’m in the transportation industry, and have to fill urinalysis cups on a random and regular basis.
Once I pension off, though, It’s dreadlocks and a 3-foot long double-chambered Tokemaster for ME.
I plan to have my future Golf Course Condo in that Boca Raton Retirement community look like Spicolli’s Van from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”.
Yessiree…”Foghat” at volume “11″ and bitching about Social Security and Medicare until I gakk it.
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:01 am 57. Wally Lind:Like most Americans, I don’t understand economics, and there is no large media outlet left with the credibilty to explain it to us. Several online and cable outlets seem to get it and can explain it in understandable terms, but they hit, at most, 8,000,000 viewers per day. Maybe Rush and Hannity get to more, but they are such RINOs, after failing to fully support the GOP nominee, that I don’t believe a word they say. We are left with waiting to see what happens. As Obama said yesterday, he gets the credit if the stimulus works, and the blame if it doesn’t. If Mr. Blumer is right, the downturn won’t end until the end of 2009, at the earliest. If the actions of the new administration prolong the downturn, it might not end until 2011. That will be very bad for the democrats, on all levels. If spending doesn’t bring us out os this, they will have spent their political capitol right along with our money.
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:05 am 58. Jarhead:Blake – Our business is far more sensitive to the regulatory environment than the ups and downs of the economy.
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:07 am 59. Mongoose:Dave S: once again you have it wrong. The CBO reports in the short term there will be an effect but that in the mid term it would actually cause damage because of missallocation of capital to to funding priorities, the debt service clicking in and hampering of investment due tothe the redirection of capital for that service.
here is an oveview
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/04/cbo-obama-stimulus-harmful-over-long-haul/
However, it is worse than that for the CBO does not take into accoutnt eh damage that will happen to the dollar, and does not take into account that they will have to create this mney by printing it rather than through debt. They will also force through new taxes, massive one, either directly or indirectly.
If the Dollar is devalued enough relative to uther currencies, the you will see the cost of oil skyrocket in the US.
It also does not tke into account the other very damaging legislation that is coming down the pike in energy, labor, regulation, etc.
Not to mention national security issues that are being blown off. A major incident could send international trade further off the rope.
You are just cherry picking out of that report, and not telling the whole truth.
Again, Dave S, you seem not to understand how the real world works, and what the real consequences of the Obama’s action or what the Democarts’ actual intent is. These are not good people, Dave S. they mean us harm, and you need to see that. All they care about is staying in power and never having to work a day in their lives. You will be their slave. You need to stop believing them.
They do not want to fix anything. That is just a lie. They want to grab as much power as possible and push us as far to a totalitarian socialist state as they can get us.
You need to start analyzing what they say. You are young, it is your future that they are stealing from you.
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:07 am 60. AlexinCT:David S is a liar. Here is the real housing debacle story. Note that the bulk of the high risk expansion in home ownerships happened during the Clinton years where it jumped from 63% to 68% (a full 5%). The Bush years saw a 1% growth, and by then most of the toxic stuff was already on the books. Both parties are to blame for our economic crisis: republicans for not stopping the democrats, and democrats for ignoring the real world in favor of their PC ideology. But the underlying bubble was done by democrats and their policies. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:10 am 61. Freddie Funky:Let’s use a household finance analogy. When Bush was in charge, he maxed out the credit card and handed the mess off to Obama.
Obama says, jeez.. this isn’t fair.. I inherited this mess and didn’t even spend the money. So the stimulus plan is: to apply for more credit cards over the next 3 years and pull out cash advances to max out the cards as soon as they are approved.
You can’t blame the recession on Obama.. However, you can blame him for pouring gas on the fire.
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:15 am 62. Mongoose:Wally, except they now have more than a trillion dollars in a slush fund. They can buy all the votes they want with it. The nation has not seen anything like this since FDR, and, though I do not know the inflation adjusted figures, I’d bet that they end up wth more money than he did for vote buying. This stimulus will not be the last looting of the Treasury, you can count on that.
They will be throwing billions to people like Acorn to support vote fraud, and they are politicizing the census toward the same end.
You can count on massive injection od Democrat voters after illegals are granted amnesty, maybe 15 million votes (or more).
You can also count on a politicization of the DoJ like we have never, ever seen in this country. They will just go after every Republican they can. Obama will make Clinton look like he was an honest man.
And of course there is the media.
We may not ever have another reasonable fair election ever again in this country.
You inderstand that in the USSR they still had elections, right? they were just all rigged, one way or another. The PRI in Mexico held on to power for all but a few years with similar tactics.
There would have to be a massive shift in the electorate to cover this, you would have to get a huge block just to counter voter fraud. Th illegals may be impossible to overcome.
So this may not be like the Clinton years at all. It looks grim.
What some of these trolls here do not realize is the Democrats do not need them any more–the next elections will have a completely different voter coalition. The young white liberals are screwed,and it wil be to late for them to do anything about it.
The Democrats are just laughing at them. They know what they are doing.
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:21 am 63. goy:@42. Herb: - Forcing banks to make loans? Isn’t that what banks do anyway??? … And let’s not forget that it was the banks, not the government, who had a fiduciary duty to ensure their loans were solid, a duty in which they obviously failed.
100% wrong. You’re willfully avoiding the point on this issue, Herb. And you know it.
Standard lending rules are designed specifically to avoid defaults – let alone toxic asset losses – when markets and interest rates fluctuate. That’s the whole purpose of the rules. Sub-prime and ARM loans written based on sane rules don’t present a danger to the credit market, let alone the economy, if rates go up.
The historical, documented fact you’re actively avoiding here is that banks regulated by the social engineering ideology built into CRA were forced – in some cases at legal gunpoint by shyster attorneys like BHO himself – to write loans based on insane “affordable mortgage” lending rules. These government regulations forced banks to take risks they would not normally have taken, based on the government’s “guarantee” that they’d cover any attendant losses. So your insipid claim about the banks’ “fiduciary duty” is simply hogwash. Their fiduciary duty was superseded by the Democrats’ insane banking regulations, which coincidentally just so happened most to benefit the demographic most easily duped into supporting them: minorities and the so-called “poor”.
When that demographic started losing their homes, the Democrat/media successfully deflected blame onto “predatory lending practices” – a flat out lie. We now know that these practices were forced by government regulations in CRA. The Democrats/media also successfully deflected blame onto the one guy who happened to be holding the bag – Bush – because they knew he either didn’t have the stones to call them on it, or would just go along with it. Either way, Bush just let the lie fester. So did McCain. So did the entire GOP. All in the name of “bipartisanship” and “civility”. That’s the biggest part of how BHO got elected. That’s the biggest part of why you are laboring under the illusions you nurture – they were handed to you by the people responsible for the mess in the first place. Realizing that will be a bitter pill to swallow, which is why you work so hard to avoid seeing the truth and ridicule those who try to explain it to you. Yet you keep coming back to a site where you know that’s the main response you’re going to see. Hmmmmm…
- Well, what can I say to that?
You can’t say anything substantial Herb, obviously. So you fall back on Rule #5 and ridicule those who point out the undeniable facts with baseless comments about “conspiracy” or “wingnut radio” (which I don’t and have never listened to). I know that tactic may be comforting for you and the rest of your morally adolescent leftist ilk, but it doesn’t carry much weight outside that bubble.
I thought the Democrats were effectively powerless fringe annoyances for the last eight years…
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:30 am 64. Mongoose:Well that’s YOUR error, Herb. The Democrats and their propaganda mill in the entrenched media have been demonizing Bush, the GOP and conservatives since the day Al Gore failed to carry his own home state in November of 2000. They have virtually paralyzed the federal government with their ensuing vendetta. They have worked relentlessly to destroy public confidence in the Presidency and get back power regardless of how much damage they do to the country or, more specifically, to the people they laughingly claim to represent. The point at which the Democrats took control of Congress is exactly the point at which the economy started to go south. They’ve attempted to change the definition of “recession” to hide this fact, and largely succeeded in the public’s mind. So they’re obviously not as “powerless” as they so easily duped you into believing.
Wally, more about vote fraud,
here
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/vernon/081215
and here
http://www.dcexaminer.com/politics/Who-will-investigate-the-Obama-administration-39457567.html
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:37 am 65. David S:@38. Meryl:
Why, yes, thanks. That sounds great. Someone with a weapon to help remove the present danger sounds quite nice. Thanks!
Peace.
DS
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:38 am 66. AlexinCT:Mongoose you have it right. This bill’s primary function has nothing to do with the economy. It was always intended to give democrats a massive financial advantage – look at how much money democrat politicians will have come the next election and you can bet the money will come from all the people they paid off with tax payer money from this bill – for the next election cycle. This bill gives donors (past and present), lobbyists, operatives, and politicians a huge chunk of change to give back to the party as campaign funds and creates a ton of new government jobs whom are guaranteed to give democrats more votes. That’s why they defend it so hard and need it passed so fast: time will allow people to figure this out. Next year they will claim they need another $2 trillion because things are worse.
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:39 am 67. Terry Gain:David S is a lying cherry picker.
War.
TG
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:41 am 68. Joey:Dave S, he wasn’t ignoring the jobs figures, he was merely saying that they don’t paint the whole picture. If they did, there would have been other times, such as 2002, where numbers were virtually the same and, as a matter of fact, were the beginning of an upswing. He’s not acting as if we were in the best economic time ever, he’s merely saying that we made things much worse by telling everyone to panic.
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:41 am 69. David S:@44. Kevin:
Thanks for the reminder – I almost forgot. Don’t forget to take the red pill.
Peace.
DS
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:44 am 70. Tully:The NBER definition of recession is different than the one used by most economists. Textbook is an actual decline in real GDP growth for two or more quarters. NBER doesn’t wait for GDP to actually contract, only for it to decline from previous growth levels. This makes their call of “recession” rather subjective.
As you note, the recession (classic definition) did not begin until the second half of 2008.
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:54 am 71. Tully:Er, I meant “actual decline in real GDP for two or more quarters.” Curse that Koolaid.
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:55 am 72. goy:@57. Wally Lind: - As Obama said yesterday, he gets the credit if the stimulus works, and the blame if it doesn’t. … [the Democrats] will have spent their political capitol right along with our money.
The problem, Wally, is that you have to take our Brave New World into account here. We’ve already seen how the public’s perception is being distorted through redefinition of the ground rules. The definition of “recession” is a perfect example, as Tom points out – we now have one long-standing rule used by us mere mortals and another newer, “better” rule handed down to us by our betters. We see the same distortion in lies about “predatory lending practices”, “salary caps” and “Wall Street vs. Main Street”.
Perception of the outcome from this vote-buying spending spree will be managed in the same way, by simply redefining what “works” means. No different from multiple definitions of the word “is”. No different from redefining the term “salary cap” (i.e., one with numerous loopholes).
When you have an electorate that can no longer think for itself in the aggregate, “success” will be whatever the entrenched media tells them it is. And the cause, either way, will be whatever they’re told as well. The readily available deflection of blame onto “eight years of failed policies” doesn’t make it clear at all that a repeat of FDR’s mistakes will damage the donkeys in any way. At least not in the next 4 years.
We have known for years that FDR’s largely unconstitutional New Deal prolonged the Depression. Yet in his day he might have been re-elected indefinitely as long as his health had held out. As someone here said: people get the government they deserve. And if they insist on being ignorant, gullible and naive enough to buy a pig in a poke, then they’ll get home and find the scrawny cat.
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:58 am 73. Right Far Right:A new Rasmussen poll suggests that support for the stimulus plan has picked up again, after it had previously fallen last week.
The numbers: 44% favor the package, 40% oppose it, and the remainder are undecided. The margin of error is ±3%.
Last week, Rasmussen showed support at an upside-down 37%-43%
Feb 12, 2009 - 10:05 am 74. Kevin:mister man,
Feb 12, 2009 - 10:07 am 75. David S:I ridicule you to impress the blog-chicks. You may now return to your collectivist stupor. Oh, and get the chicken fettucine to table 12, pronto.
@60. AlexinCT:
“The Bush years saw a 1% growth, and by then most of the toxic stuff was already on the books.”
It’s telling that you can’t even parse your own sources.
Clinton can’t be blamed for this, because the expansion of housing on his watch was based on sound policy. Cheap money provided by Greenspan’s Fed, and lax oversight provided by Bush and the GOP are a large part of why this crisis occurred. The underlying bubble would not have happened without historically low interest rates.
You are very good at parroting the talking points from right wing sources, but you have not demonstrated any competence when it comes to economic analysis.
Peace.
DS
Feb 12, 2009 - 10:08 am 76. Objective:Wrap around these numbers. The financial crisis debt goes out as a 30 year note at 3% for 3 trillion dollars. Does anyone want to buy into that investment? The national debt is over 10 trillion. The toxic loans have been estimated at 20 trillion. The GDP is about 15 trillion. The loans are leveraged at about 30:01. Foul play is suspected. I could not run my household or business with the ratio of those figures.
Feb 12, 2009 - 10:11 am 77. TL:To the comment moderators, see “#7 Yes We Did.” This person has made this same post, verbatim, to mutliple articles. The text is totally non-substantive and shows no hint that the person has even read the article let alone any of the comments. It may well be a computer generated post that someone has put on auto-pilot. This kind of junk should probably be filterd out if possible.
Feb 12, 2009 - 10:11 am 78. Kevin:goy,
Feb 12, 2009 - 10:43 am 79. AlexinCT:Perfect point. FDR’s treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr himself admitted in 1939 that ““We are spending more money than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job…We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt, to boot.”
We could get 30% unemployment, a debased currency, and live like Zimbabwe and the Fearful Leader will still win in 2012. What people must understand is that the Facebook/High Self Esteem Millenial generation just had their first election. Millenials by and large are a collectivist/community oriented generation raised on teamwork. While a very spirited and talented group, they are susceptible to Cults of Personality. They will die for their leaders, just as the collectivist gen of GIs did on the beaches of Normandy and Guadalcanal. The trouble is that if the cause is rubbish (New World Socialist Order) and the leader is an inexperienced douchebag, we are in deep doo-doo. See Dave S, mister man above for example. They are either washed up ,failed Boomers or are idealistic Millenials showing their feathers.
As a Jeffersonian conservative, I will be the first to admit that it was Republicans who repealed Glass-Steagall and failed to bar the door when the Wall Street jackals came begging for leverage ratios to be raised. It was Republicans who should have forcefully grabbed Barney Frank by the scruff of his neck and demand better oversight. Democrats are certainly to blame as well, but it has always fallen on Republicans to be the adults in the room. I no more expect a Democrat to root out corruption than I expect an alcoholic to pass up a stiff drink. But unfair as it may be, Republicans will always suffer disproportionately at the polls when they fail to be fiscally conservative and moral.
David S do you read? Let me quote the article I linked.
Maybe I have my dates a bit off, but the practices where government “encouraged” (forced at legal gun point) these toxic loans start in 1992 and run all through 2001 according to this article. My math does not add up, but correct me if I am wrong. The Constitution allows 8 years. Bush was elected in 2000. And yet you claim Bush was president and Clinton innocent during this mess? And you know what follows? These laws mandated (not to guys going out on a date) that Freddie and Fannie take even more risk:
The critical point here is that there where no changes to the laws regulating this stuff during those years. All the regulation around this was stuff created back during the Clinton years. One must be some kind of serious hypocrite to blame Bush for Clinton era regulations, but here you are doing so. In fact when anyone brought up the problem with these regulations and tried to alter them, they where silenced with accusations of racism. Remember Franks & Dodd telling everyone that Freddie & Fannie where A-OK and that the people complaining where just greedy bastards trying to prevent minorities from getting in on the American dream? I certainly do.
You are a damned liar David S. Willing to continue lying even when you are exposed! I do not pretend to be an economist, but I am also not championing the collectivist economics like you. And we all know how well collectivist economics work. Nice try, but no cigar.
Feb 12, 2009 - 10:50 am 80. goy:@75. David S: - The underlying bubble would not have happened without historically low interest rates.
LOL!!!! This is nothing more than your delusional opinion based on facts not in evidence, Zippy.
The facts are that insane lending rules required by CRA banking regulations artificially lowered the bar and created millions of newly “qualified” home buyers that would not have existed in a market-driven economy. And of course, purely coincidentally, these newly “qualified” buyers were created primarily among Democrat constituencies.
Normative lending rules would have disqualified these buyers REGARDLESS of the prevailing rate. That’s because normative lending rules are designed to avoid defaults by taking into account normal fluctuations in the rate. You’d know this if you’d ever, say, purchased a home or shouldered any sort of substantial financial responsibility at any point in your life.
These millions of new buyers helped to create a seller’s market, where housing prices were artificially inflated, again, beyond levels that would have been supported by an economy solely driven by the market and its prevailing interest rates.
The critical point you’re missing here Zippy is that past bubbles have not taken out the credit sector in one fell swoop. That happens when the market is flooded with toxic assets based on defaults. CRA was a critical force multiplier for the housing bubble but, more importantly, guaranteed millions of defaulted mortgages, totaling hundreds of billions of dollars, when interest rates fluctuated – as they always do (and not just under Republican administrations, as your leftist fantasies tell you). This is because CRA – and BHO, personally – forced banks to write bad loans. Whether they did this do destroy the credit markets on purpose or did it out of abject, oblivious ignorance doesn’t matter. The fact is that CRA provided the mechanism by which the real damage was done. Clinton was responsible for this – his expansion of CRA rules was anything but “sound policy”. And last I checked, Bush didn’t have any more direct control over Fed rate policies than his predecessors.
So the fact – as opposed to your leftist talking point fantasy – is that the credit sector would not have been torpedoed if millions of unqualified borrowers hadn’t been allowed – through leftist social engineering – to purchase homes at prices in excess of their true market value, leaving the financial sector with hundreds of billion$ in toxic real estate assets and attendant devaluation of the securities on which they were based.
You are very good at slinging adolescent, passive-aggressive sarcasm, but you have not demonstrated any competence when it comes to, well, much of anything else. Looking around, I’m finding that I’m not the only one who’s noticed this.
@78. Kevin: I agree 1000%. Which is why I bristle at the notion of being labeled a Republican (when it happens), have only grudgingly voted for them recently, and feel a tad bit conflicted when I find myself forced to defend the things they’ve done correctly (or, at least within the limits imposed and spirit expressed in the Constitution) against the lies and propaganda relentlessly spewed by the left.
Feb 12, 2009 - 10:57 am 81. Saltherring:The video clip that was not allowed in the USA – Pass this on to everyone. This video proves that Former President Bush tried to warn Congress starting in 2001 that this economic crisis was coming, if something was not done. But Congress refused to listen, most notably Barney Frank. This video says it all. The AMERICAN media did not want this video on You Tube, so they had Time Warner threaten a law suit (proprietary rights) if it was not taken off. This link is of the same video but is routed through CANADA . Everyone in America needs to see this!
http://WWWyoutube.Com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM&NR=1
Feb 12, 2009 - 11:03 am 82. goy:@79. AlexinCT: excellent points. I think we were remotely mind-melding.
BTW – you’ve got mail.
Feb 12, 2009 - 11:04 am 83. Carolb:“Read the reports this morning….retail sales up 1% foreclosure down, and umemployment benefits requests down.”
Wow, sounds like the economy is starting to recover on its own. No wonder Obama wanted to have the stimulus package passed so quickly. The only way he could get it passed was to make people think the sky was falling.
Feb 12, 2009 - 11:05 am 84. David S:@59. Mongoose:
Actually, the latest CBO analysis projects that it might cause a slight reduction in GDP:
Feb 12, 2009 - 11:17 am 85. Delia:83. Carolb:
“Read the reports this morning….retail sales up 1% foreclosure down, and umemployment benefits requests down.”
Wow, sounds like the economy is starting to recover on its own. No wonder Obama wanted to have the stimulus package passed so quickly. The only way he could get it passed was to make people think the sky was falling.
~
Exactly. The economy and the will and power of America CAN recover and bounce back…we are no conceivable place NEAR an economic disaster or financial collapse or a DEPRESSION yet. HARDLY but the way 0bama preaches the panic button it’s no wonder we are all hunkering down in fear mode. The only way to sell a bull-sh*t-filled bill down someone’s throat is by lots of deflective ’stump speeching’ and fear-mongering.
The people who are blind to this truly worry me.
Feb 12, 2009 - 11:27 am 86. David S:@79. AlexinCT:
Don’t worry about my reading. It’s your comprehension of reality that we’re working on here.
“In 2005, faced with ominous signs the housing market was in jeopardy, bank regulators proposed new guidelines for banks writing risky loans. “
The problem was not with the CRA – it was with an administration that refused to address the facts on the ground, living instead in ideological la-la land as you seem inclined to.
Actually, the critical point is that the Bush Administration had all the power it needed to make adjustments to the rules that would have prevented this debacle, but refused to act.
If you had exposed any lies, you’d have a leg to stand on. Too bad I cite my sources, eh? Thank heavens you aren’t an economist – then I would be really worried.
Again, take a close look at who was in power from 2001-2006. I know it’s not pretty for a Republican to admit, but if you don’t get past the “denial” stage, it’s going to be a long time in the desert.
Peace.
DS
Feb 12, 2009 - 11:35 am 87. steve8714:This is a rare recession in that it was caused by the rapid multiplying of make-believe financial devices (derivatives) and the unfortunate explosion of financial GSE’s. The fundamentals were weak but theft and incompetence from Congress to the boardroom took what could have been a mild downturn and turned it into a potential cataclysm. The main blame is in the second tier of party apparatchiks (Gorelick, Raines) and funders of both parties.
Feb 12, 2009 - 11:39 am 88. Steve P.:Let ‘em fail.
Saltherring: The video clip that was not allowed in the USA – Pass this on to everyone. This video proves that Former President Bush tried to warn Congress starting in 2001 that this economic crisis was coming, if something was not done. But Congress refused to listen, most notably Barney Frank.
Uhhhh…you mean the Republican majority Congress refused to listen? Nice try, though.
Feb 12, 2009 - 11:40 am 89. Войска ПВО:Saltherring, your link seems to be broken.
Feb 12, 2009 - 11:42 am 90. Steve P.:Delia says: “83. Carolb: “Read the reports this morning….retail sales up 1% foreclosure down, and umemployment benefits requests down.”
Wow, sounds like the economy is starting to recover on its own. No wonder Obama wanted to have the stimulus package passed so quickly. The only way he could get it passed was to make people think the sky was falling.
Exactly. The economy and the will and power of America CAN recover and bounce back…we are no conceivable place NEAR an economic disaster or financial collapse or a DEPRESSION yet. HARDLY but the way 0bama preaches the panic button it’s no wonder we are all hunkering down in fear mode. The only way to sell a bull-sh*t-filled bill down someone’s throat is by lots of deflective ’stump speeching’ and fear-mongering.
The people who are blind to this truly worry me.
Do you not remember Bush standing at a podium all crazy eyed and cracked out scaring the hell out of everyone on September 24, saying that “”Without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic and a distressing scenario would unfold.” Do you remember that? Nice try, though!
Feb 12, 2009 - 11:46 am 91. Saltherring:89: Sorry. It was sent to me in an e-mail. I copied and pasted the entire e-mail. Would doing the same with the link into your browser work? The link is a Fox News report showing video of George Bush, Alan Greenspan and John McCain registering concern over out-of -control Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac and two clips of Barney Frank defending policies of same. Bush’s ‘01 legislation requiring oversight was blocked by Democrats. McCain’s ‘06 legislation never made it to a vote.
And Steve P. at 88: Ever heard of filibuster? And there are idiots on both sides of the aisle, most recently 2 Rino senators from ME and one from PA, who joined Senate Dimocrats voting in favor of the Swindle Us bill..
Feb 12, 2009 - 12:04 pm 92. Mongoose:David S.
David. I swear David, you cannot get anything right.
First of all , it is specious to mix reports, which is what you just did.
The bill is changing by the hour anyway. Have you seen what they put back in?
Have you seen the real tax relief they have taken out? today?
Second, you do not account for the other points i mentioned outside of the CBO reports metrics and inputs, all of which are certainly more than likely to happen than not.
Let me add once more: The increases to the programs like head start will never be decreased.
This CBO report does not account for all of this at all either.
The Heritage foundation asked for another estimate out of the CBO were only the top 20 programs are calculated as continuing abd permanent at the rate in the stimulus bill.
The result: 3.5 trillion, including debt service. This obviously is <i at least what will happen. Probably more for this is just the top 20, and they will not freeze rate increases. The Democrats will never roll back any funding all on any one of their patronage programs.
So you evaded my points altogether, the CBO estimation is dubious, and your notion that we should be assured by it is absurd.
As for “us vs, them”, you are first being hypocritical, as that is what democrat alway do, and you almost always do. What you mean is you want us to lie down and take it. We will not.
But it is not Dems vs the GOP that I mean. It is the Dems vs. the rest of the nation.
You are thoroughly wrong to side with the Democrats. And I do not mean people who vote democrat, I mean party members. I actually was in the Democrat party when I was your age, I know all about them. They are even worse now for they are almost al leftists. You think that you are a Democrat, but you are not. you are a Democrat voter, which to the insiders means that you are a chump, and that is the way they talk about people like you behind closed doors. The Democrats, the real democrats, are not good people. They seek to undermne the nation in order to rule it. They are of the Hard left. There is not a valid opinion among them when you get them talking about their core beliefs. They are Marxist/Leninists.
They are making war on us, war on you, and you are too lost in your weird indoctrination to see it. This indoctrination is just part of the war. They have actually deprived you of common sense. One day, when you realize how they have limited you and your options you will see this. Decent people do not believe that partial birth abortion is a right, they know it is murder. That is how vile they are, they would cheat the innocent out of decent education just for the vote. They would cheat the innocent out of life itself. Cannot get much more evil than that.You are completely wrong. You seem not to understand the simplest thing about the political history of the last 80 years.
This stimulus will not work. It doss not address the issues. It will not benefit you personally. It will harm you.
You think that they are on your side. You have a childish faith in them. They will just use you.
Lastly, i doubt the methodolgy of this last report. I believe that they were pressured by the administration. Have you seen the retail figures today? uneployment readjustments? Why the sudden change to the report? What is it, the 3rd report i three weeks?
This latest CBO has Gregg caring water for them.
I am telling you and I will keep telling you. they are using your youth against you. In a few years time you will wake up and see.
All of the things that you say will be proven wrong. They always are. The democrats alway lie about what is important. And I will wager that you still will not see the truth even if I were to save what you said and then show it to you down the road when I am proven right.
We have been through this so many times before with the Dems, but never on this scale. It always turns out badly.
This is the biggest power grab in our history since the civil war. It will destroy the nation. Nothing good will come of it at all.
You cannot add 20 to 30% of to the national debt in this amount of time. It will crash the dollar. Then what $25 a gallon gas? Russian missile bases in Venezuela? Health care rationed to the point the life expectancy actually goes down?
When that happens they will have to crack down on the people so hard that the Republic will be a thing of history.
Feb 12, 2009 - 12:25 pm 93. Mongoose:David S: you conclusions about CRA do not logically follow. You are just making irrational statements, or parroting someone else evasion. Why cannot you admit that you do not understand the issues. You just want to think that the Democrats are right.
Yes,CRA ia fundamentally the problem.
You cannot make loans to people who cannot pay them back. It will not work.
use your head. It is just silly your refusal to look the truth in the face.
you are being manipulated. my goodness.
people go over this stuff with you over, and over, and you never get the point at all.
Feb 12, 2009 - 12:31 pm 94. always right:Mr. Blumer,
Sad to say not very many citizens have a rudimentary grasp of Economics 101 nowadays. Myself included, too complicated an explanation, and my eyes probably glass over. We can assign blames to a lot of sources, be it either Republican or Democrat party.
However, the ONE telling sign (to me) is the complete lack of interest in journalists to dig into the largest financial meltdown story in our time, except for anecdotal stories of how bad Suzy the waitress or Granma is suffering.
And we are talking about the same journalists zealously reporting any leaked personal information regarding the Mayor of Wasilla or Joe the Plumber here.
Feb 12, 2009 - 12:32 pm 95. ReConUSMC:Too 2. Herb:
Nice try, Tom, but I seem to remember the economy starting to crumble as early as last spring, when I got a $600 “stimulus” check from George W. Bush. Keep trying, though.
_______________________________________________
*****Poor uninformed Herb …… you watch to much CNN ..NBC … AND NSNBC …. Gas was $ 4.00 a Gallon
(Libs would not let us drill ) …..And since the GREENS wanted “Corn ” Gas …… the Comities on all Grains went up 1000 % on some Grains and Tripled over night on others . NOW THAT DON’T WANT CORN AS GAS ! DUH !
_____________________
You just might not want to mention anything that happened BEFORE the election…like the bailouts and bankruptcies that were all the rage in October.
___________________________________________________
What are you smoking ? 7 huge Banks had fell because of being made to lend money by LibeLiberals in Congress to close that didn’t ”deserve ” the Loans ………. sub prime loans ….. Your Boy Shummer outed in Calif . then the rest fell quickly
____________________
PS. Kudos to David Thomson for NOT mentioning “white guilt.” Although this:
_____________________________
You muct be a Brother ….. He should have plus a lot of very stupid White people are sold Obama …… free is free….. of course the media helped that huge Lie win for The One .
__________________________________
“The free market decreasingly decides on the winners and losers.”
Feb 12, 2009 - 12:43 pm 96. goy:_______________________________
Under Capitalism it does but not under Socialism where we are quickly headed .
________________________
…is definitely true. Unfortunately, the winners are walking away with millions and the losers…well, that’s the rest of us._
___________________________
The libearls caused the Sub prime Hoax ……no drilling and the Price of Comities to kill the market .
@86. David S: - It’s your comprehension of reality that we’re working on here.
Best work on your own comprehension first, Zippy. Copying and pasting (once again) cherry-picked lines from a leftist blog’s excerpts of AP propaganda hardly demonstrates comprehension of reality.
AP called Sarah Palin’s efforts to raise public funding “politics as usual” while giving a complete pass to BHO’s outright lie about accepting such funding if his opponent did. AP also completely ignored BHO’s proven-fraudulent online campaign finance collection scam. They’ve been attacking the Republicans and running interference for the Dems for over 8 years.
Also, in your zeal to get back here and (once again) paste someone else’s work to support your own fantasies, maybe you didn’t read the comment on that blog post you linked to which, uhm, completely destroys your little theory.
All you’re trying – and failing – to do is to deflect blame to the Bush administration for not fixing the problems created by Carter, Clinton and criminals like Frank, Dodd and Raines. That’s about the definition of Lame.
Feb 12, 2009 - 12:51 pm 97. Marc Malone:I really enjoyed the dialogue here. Most people tried to use some actual facts to bolster their arguments, and most also made some good points. Everyone seems guilty of attributing too much weight to certain contributing factors. Therein lie the fallacies.
David S – You’re sourcing from the summary, but the devil is in the details. This bill is expected to create some serious inflation in a couple years. This is extremely significant.
One thing I’d like to refute; the idea that the attempt to create greater home ownership among the lower classes is a “noble” thing. Balderdash! I remember all the arguments being profferred back in ‘77 (Carter) and again in ‘95 (Clinton). The idea was that those neighborhoods with high ownership levels were always much better off. Properties were maintained. Crime was down. Schools were better. So, if we increase home ownership among the lower classes, things will improve.
Typical Lib thinking. They confuse cause and effect. The fact is that those neighborhoods are better because the people in them are better. They have better life skills. They have better self-discipline. They have higher standards. Home ownership does not build character. Character builds home ownership. Libs refuse to believe that these “poor, down-trodden people” are responsible for their own mess. They lack life skills. So, the Libs try to lift them out of it. It can’t be done. If a person won’t stand and walk on his own, you can’t do his standing and walking for him.
This misunderstanding is the essence of everything that came afterwards. It is also the underpinning of class-warfare. Someone must be doing it to them. They’re not at fault. It is also the basis for the racial and gender divides. This whole idea is the difference between Libs and Cons. Victimhood versus personal responsibility.
The CRA had its effect. Clinton lowered the FHA standards. Banks were required to make loans to underqualified people or face sanctions. Fed rates below inflation contributed. Repealing Glass-Steagall contributed. Dems blocking reform and Pubs allowing it contributed. Robber-Baron/Beggar-Capitalism spurred by Congressional corruption contributed. Mark-to-market exacerbated the problem by magnifying the potential of the boom/bust cycle. Lax immigration control championed by the Dems contributed, because proof of citizenship, and even income, was no longer required. The common theme of all these factors is governmental malfeasance; mostly by the Dems, but the Pubs bear some of the blame.
The media also bears much of the blame, because they are supposed to be the watchdogs of government; our Fourth Estate. Instead, they took a hand in the game. They became partisan and forfeited their responsibility. The spike in oil prices lit the fuse. The result was magnified by Dem demagoguery, talking down the economy. “Worst economy since the Great Depression.”
These same things are now interfering in the recovery, because nothing’s really changed, except the price of oil, which is the only reason we’re recovering at all. Oil’s down. All else is the same.
Feb 12, 2009 - 1:11 pm 98. fear Obama:Commerce secretary Gregg is resigning because he cant stomach Bambi’s polices.
Only 203 more weeks of this crap.
Feb 12, 2009 - 1:32 pm 99. Delia:Ahem.
The twin towers coming down by planes taken over by Muslim terrorists on live news was enough to make my knickers wet with adrenaline and Bush didn’t need to push many fear buttons after that because the FEAR was evidenced by 20/20 VISION.
0bama’s drama has rhetoric to back up his fear mongering and his empty suit bully pulpit speeches of desperation are just that… EMPTY.
-And, for those of you idiot freaks who think Bush PLANNED 9/11… Please, put down the bong.
Feb 12, 2009 - 1:54 pm 100. AlexinCT:David S @ 86, Are you going to continue, with a serious face mind you, to make the claim that somehow it was Bush or republicans that blocked regulatory changes proposed by republicans? Are you purposefully lying? Never mind I know the answer. That blog you linked to uses the same logic & facts you do: none.
Any and every request for changes related to the Freddie & Fannie in the last 8 years have come from or been backed by republicans. The people that controlled Freddie & Fannie, democrats (one was Barney Frank’s gay lover for Christ’s sake!) all of them, with help from congressional democrats, blocked all attempts to change the rules. Now you have the damned gall to pretend it was the other way around? have liberals like you no shame???
How many times do people have to point out that the request for changes to the existing regulations where supported by republicans, Bush, McCain, and a few others, whom where then promptly shut down with accusations of being motivated by racism? Even if republicans had 99% of Congress, with the MSM and democrats lying that they did this for racist reasons, making these changes would have been politically disastrous. Franks & Dodd banked on that. Republican squishes, afraid of really taking on the campaign of lies, chose to back down. For that they deserve to be blamed and criticized. But to blame them for the collapse and exonerate democrats you have to be an ideological hack twisting facts and truth for political reasons. Like you are doing.
I mean, damn dude, do you suffer no shame? You are not just wrong, but proven to be lying, and yet you continue to argue and expect others to argue with you in good faith. You might do a good job hiding the BDS man, but it is now obvious to me you have no scruples or morals. Are you paid by MoveOn.org or the DNC to come to conservative blogs and spread lies or something? I am trying to understand your psychosis. Or is it really that you are a collectivist agitator & propagandist?
Why is it that every one of you seems to have a problem with facts, logic, and truth? You recoil from these like vampires from holy symbols. The fact is the current economic crisis is a direct result of the Freddie & Fannie collapse. That was collapse was unavoidable because democrats, whom used the power of government to force banks to give loans nobody in their right mind would with government guaranteeing their risk, rigged the whole thing. When the whole house of cards came apart, and one can make the case that it was done on purpose by the media and democrats to win an election, an orchestrated campaign of lies and deflection was used to confuse the people. These liars blamed Wall Street (whom is predominantly in the pocket of democrats since they get special favors from democrats for big campaign donations, ask Obama), deregulation (when it was lack of the right regulation they blocked) and, of course, republicans. Now, collectivist pushers took advantage of the climate of doom they created with their lies. They have hijacked the country, straddled it with a now estimated $3.27 trillion dollar debt in the next 10 years (and they will likely need to borrow more as the economy implodes), and plan to spend and direct that money to buy the next elections for democrats.
Feb 12, 2009 - 2:06 pm 101. AlexinCT:Goy, where did you send me that mail?
And I am starting to think David S is a paid leftist propagandist by the amount of time & effort he spends here repeating the same old talking points and lies, only to be smacked down by those that know the truth, hoping to confuse or convince people he has a case. I have wrangled with some tough BDS infected fools before. But none have been as incapable of absorbing the fact that they have been exposed as liars and continued to repeat the lying and bull like he does. I am worrying he is psychotic or something. Maybe he fantasizes about Obama too. Creepy..
Feb 12, 2009 - 2:43 pm 102. goy:AlexinCT – sent to the gmail address linked to the Contact tab on your site.
Dave’s “point” appears to be that Bush and the GOP couldn’t overcome the obstructionist Dem criminals in Congress.
You have to remember that the adolescent liberal/leftist mind believes the end justifies the means. Lying, cheating, fraud, changing the rules, redefining terminology, ignoring their own double standards, actively engaging in hypocrisy and relentlessly deflecting blame for anything bad onto others sums up the actions justifiable to the socialist mindset. It’s all for the “greater good” don’t you know.
Have pity on the poor guy. When you’re surrounded by this insanity for six straight years in college it takes a long time to shake off the brainwashing. He wouldn’t be spending so much time at this site if he weren’t looking for someone to help him do that.
Feb 12, 2009 - 3:14 pm 103. Cybergeezer:Where’s the “Flag as Offensive” button? That butt head “Yes We Did” is offending any one here with any intelligence. He has only cut and pasted the same comment to at least four articles.
Feb 12, 2009 - 3:32 pm 104. AlexinCT:I’d be flagged too, but at least I could have some recourse to this deranged drivel.
Goy, would you please try again. That e-mail address on my blog is one I no longer monitor. Changed it to the right one however.
And you are correct: David is trying his best to make the case that we should blame republicans, and Bush in particular, for the corrupt things democrats do. Republicans are not without blame, but the key people and policies behind this economic collapse are democrats & their ideology. This is all smoke an mirrors. The agenda is to confuse the people into believing their power grab is really intended to help them, and hope that by the time people figure out they have been had, it is too late.
Feb 12, 2009 - 4:00 pm 105. Jerry:There are facts of the matter of this crisis that still require clarification.
1) Why were oil prices high before the election and low afterwards?
2) Why have the Democrats not taken responsibility for the below-prime mortgage scandal, since it was they who insisted that all people in America deserve homes not matter that they could not maintain their payments. They encouraged the raging speculation that finally burst the housing bubble. That is what cheap money does no matter where the government shoves it.
3) Most suspicious and most important to the future of a viable America, why is it that on September 15th, the day the banking crisis occurred, $550,000,000 was suddently withdrawn from the banking system. America needs to know which parties took that money out on the same day, thus precipitating the bank meltdown requiring the injection of funds. I speculate that it will be traced in some shape or form to Soros, who has been known to manipulate currencies to enrich himself.
If the Government of the United States fails to determine who undermined the banking system and fails to bring them to justice, then America is doomed, doomed, do you hear me. I want those people drawn and quartered, pilloried, and tarred and feathered publicly, or at least stripped of their wealth and exiled to an area north of the Arctic Circle. I would also be nice to know what their motives were.
Feb 12, 2009 - 4:35 pm 106. Sherwood:Hearing on Lou Dobbs tonight that Congress and the Senate stripped E Verify out of the Stimulus Bill, it is obvious that Barack OBama and our government to not care a hoot about the American Worker, or protecting our jobs from Illegal Aliens. The guantlet has been thrown down, and it is US (Average American Workers) against them, them being the National Chamber of Commerce and Illegal Aliens. The E Verify would have meant Stimulus jobs would have gone to LEGAL citizens, and LEGAL immigrants…removing it means companies can and will hire illegal alien scum vermin…yes, I said it. Anyone here illegally IS A CRIMINAL, has broken our laws, and is STEALING FOOD OFF OF THE TABLES OF AMERICAN WORKERS.
It is time that the press including CNN start reporting this truth, start giving coverage to the Americans in the Middle Class who are being hurt by illegal aliens in our work force, and our governments refusal to ENFORCE OUR LAWS AS WRITTEN.
Feb 12, 2009 - 5:33 pm 107. Kevin:mister man,
Feb 12, 2009 - 6:01 pm 108. mister man:yoo-hoo! you gave me final warning. where are you? Please come back so that [in outrageous french accent].
“No, no, no, your truth is lies. My truth is true.” And then you all post a URL and say “See! See! It’s a diagram! It proves you’re wrong! You only believe your URL because it supports what you already think.” Far as I can tell, most of these strident opinions here aren’t coming from trained economists. You may as well be debating the nature of dark matter or the Big Bang or why the British build such shitty cars. Who REALLY knows? I don’t think any of you do.
I just got back from WEF at Davos, and not one of the 2,000 heads of state, business leaders, economists, or Swiss hookers could say definitively what caused this or how we’re going to get out. Most point to emerging markets leading the way – China and India specifically, followed by the U.S. as the first established market to recover. But things will never be the same. The one guy everyone was pointing to was Chinese Prime Minster Wen Jiabao. He is directing a stimulus plan that makes Obama’s look like lunch money. And they’re going to implement it through a centralized government. and they’re going to direct people to spend money,and when they tell people to do something, they do it. Of course, they will have to adjust their resistance to Western influences, which they are willing to do. You see, it doesn’t really matter what Bush did. And despite the paranoia so rampant around here, Obama is not trying not destroy America. But the best he or anybody else will be able to do is fight for parity with China. The age of unchallenged American dominance is over. China will be the largest, most powerful economic nation on earth by 2020. And the way you all behave is only contributing to that. Personally, I’m not that scared of it. Every empire so far has risen and fallen. America is no different. Take the universal view. Oh . . . I almost forgot . . . dog turd.
Feb 12, 2009 - 6:02 pm 109. goy:mister man, when you write, “China will be the largest, most powerful economic nation on earth by 2020. And the way you all behave is only contributing to that,” it sounds just like the IPCC telling us that global warming can’t be stopped by humans… but we somehow caused it – all while temperatures keep dropping in correlation with solar activity (or, specifically, lack thereof). Gave me a chuckle. I think you’re right about China, but there’s nothing we (all) can do to affect that either way.
And speaking of hookers and dog turds, it would appear that Gregg has no interest in being anyone’s lapdog.
Translation: “Barry sprung this unconstitutional Census crap on me AFTER I accepted his offer. I’m not interested in playing his stooge.”
Feb 12, 2009 - 6:19 pm 110. red:—-Just so you all know it, this was the Democratic platform in 2008. And it worked. And we’re glad. And you should get ready. Because we’re coming for you with pitchforks and hanging ropes and a big pot o’ tar and a big bag o’ feathers, and we’re gonna leave them on your doorstep for you to do with what you want while we repair the economy and the military and America’s standing in the world and rebuild trust in what the future can bring rather than the revenge for what Conservatives have wrought. (OK, maybe a little revenge with Cheney, but that’ll probably be it.) So, lineup up behind your man, god knows there’s plenty of room. I’m sure you’ll be organized by 2024 . . . from Senecea to Cahoga Falls.—
And this is why we have the second ammendment and why there is an ammunition shortage.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:01 pm 111. Delia:Mister girly man needs a new platform and by shuck by jove by gosh by darn…apparently WE is it. What, Mister Girly man? HuffPo too namby pamby for ya? Gotsa try and rile up the conservatives cuz winnin’ ain’t ’nuff fer ya? Gotsa stand up for your homey da clown in an empty suit?
Welcome to the real world, Mister Girly Man. Homey don’t play dat.
Awwwwwwwwww. *dabs crocodile tear*
Hmm. I DO believe [iffin' I may ponder] that Mister Girly Man is skeered o’ sumpin’? What…could…that…be? I mean, haven’t the Dems trumped the Pubs already? What gives, Girly Man? What gives?
You look-a-lika-girly mannnnnnnnnnnn.
Yes, I’m being chirlish.
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:18 pm 112. Kevin:mister man,
Feb 12, 2009 - 7:43 pm 113. Kevin:do you mean to imply that we are debating one of the elite attendees at the Davos Forum? Seriously? Or by getting back from Davos, you mean you were one of the pot-smoking vagrants lurking in the public squares mumbling incoherently about the Next Great Leap Forward? Please clarify…
China will be the next great economic power? Hah! Piracy and graft will get you in the leagues with the G8, but it won’t get you to the top. Their exports are slowing dramatically and their job growth is grinding to a halt. Civil unrest is rearing its ugly head. Without great infrastructure and with a young male-skewed population (thanks to the one-child policy), blood may well be in the streets in the next few years. There may not be enough tanks to squish enough of em’ when the disorder really gets going. They are nowhere close to “decoupling” from our economy. Hell’s bells, there economy is smaller than that of the state of Texas! You give those Commie pirates too much credit. When our economy slides further towards depression by 2010, they may be in for a revolution! If the revolution breaks the right way and a more liberal culture emerges (classical liberal, not the half-cocked fascistic Western variety) at that point we may be able to state that their economy will overtake ours. Heck, even with our Fearful Leader at the helm for a probable eight years, doing his best impression of Jimmy Carter with a little Alfred E Newman mixed in for giggles, we will still be well ahead of the faux-capitalists. Besides making crappy dollar store goodies and bootleg DVDs, what exactly is the Chinese advantage? Their language alone is a barrier to dominance. Until their citizens are free to express themselves and the state stops meddling in every industry, it ain’t going to happen. Their meddling makes Obama look like Adam Smith.
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:04 pm 114. Mongoose:red: Hope you come banging on my door with that filthy communist trash. Try it. See what you get.
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:19 pm 115. zanne:Dear Friend, Thank you for your message. On behalf of President Obama, we appreciate hearing from you. The President has promised the most transparent administration in history, and we’re committed to listening to and responding to you. In order to better handle the millions of electronic messages we’re receiving and respond more quickly, we’ve implemented a new contact form on our website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ Please note that this web form has replaced comments@whitehouse.gov. That email address is no longer monitored, so we encourage you to resubmit your message through the link above. Thank you for using the web form and helping us improve communications with you. Sincerely, The Presidential Correspondence Team/////
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:21 pm 116. joe:I sent my objections. Please note the wording about being the most “transparent administration in history”. We have been punked folks.
Based on the posts of mr man he should be a sure pick to be part of Mr Tambourine Man’s Washington team. He is a lot smarter than most of those chosen so far.
Feb 12, 2009 - 8:27 pm 117. BC:Ummm….no, they didn’t. These things have their own inertia — that little wink-wink attitude towards bad big business and finance by Bush and the Republicans is what got the ball rolling down the slippery slope, and it’s a mighty big ball. The general consensus by top tier economists is that a stimulus package is indeed what’s needed and their main concern is actually whether this recently passed one is large enough.
Since it’s safe the say that none of the people trashing the stimulus package on conservative blogs are even second tier economists, I guess the proper term for articles like this is: Next….
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:33 pm 118. myth buster:The economy isn’t recovering. Initial jobless claims may be down, but they’re still over 600,000. They need to drop to 300,000 before we can talk about a recovery.
Feb 12, 2009 - 9:40 pm 119. fred:I am a professional investor and analyst. Let me tell you all what is killing the economy: the uncertainty about where taxation and spending are going to line up and who is going to be the winner in this and who the losers are going to be. I talk to companies all the time and they are not hiring primarily because they cannot plan what their capital budgets are going to look like.
Plus, we have this steady drumbeat from the President and his people about how dire things are. Let me tell you that these people do not know history. The recessions of 1973-75 and 1980-82 were worse. But with every negative pronouncement made from on high, investors get nervous and they simply do not trust that this guy and his team are doing the right things.
Most of all, Pelosi has been stating that she wants the 2003 Bush Tax Cuts gone in the 2009 filing year, not waiting until 2010 when they sunset out. That kind of message freezes the markets and convinces employers that significant tax hikes are coming.
There it is, in a nutshell. The retarded energy opinions and positions of Pelosi and her party are major contributors to the recession. It was energy prices that really deepened and lengthened this thing. That and the market finally getting very skittish about that questionable Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae derivative paper out there. I do indeed blame the Democrats for this. FYI, during the Nineties I was a Democrat and Clinton voter. I switched parties in 2002. The Democrats today are significantly more Leftist than they were during the Clinton days. These are not pragmatic people at the helm, boys and girls. And those “centrist” cabinet appointments were just window dressing. The real policy makers are the 2nd tier of Obama people underneath the Congressionally approved cabinet people. Sen. Judd Gregg deciding he cannot work with these people says a lot about what’s really going on.
The kiddies and lassies who weren’t around for the ride during the late Seventies when we got our Jimmy Carter lesson are about to get theirs. I hope the under-30 enjoy the shit sandwich they clamored for. Savor every bite!
Feb 12, 2009 - 10:08 pm 120. paul_unalaska:Fred, long time no blog. Good to read you. Your posts and the other, many level headed bloggers, too numerous to mention at this hour give me a lot of clarity, optimism in this day and age. I can’t use ‘*ope’ or ‘Change’, or Obama receives 6 cents a pop in royalties.. lucky dog!
Delia, your last comment had me chuckling so much my wife looked over my shoulder to see if I was receiving dirty jokes from my friends!
Feb 12, 2009 - 10:32 pm 121. David S:@109. goy:
Wrong on global warming again.
“all of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1997.”
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Peace.
DS
Feb 12, 2009 - 10:46 pm 122. David S:100. AlexinCT:
David S @ 86,
If you had visited the link, you would know that the regulatory changes were requested by bank regulators, not partisan Republicans, and that Congress was not the party responsible for writing these rules – it was solely a task for the Executive branch under Bush’s direction. “Those proposals all were stripped from the final rules. None required congressional approval or the president’s signature.”
That is a very poor excuse. Not making these changes was politically disastrous. Bush must be pretty dense.
Speaking the truth brings me no shame.
Peace.
DS
Feb 12, 2009 - 10:57 pm 123. David S:@105. Jerry:
That’s the beauty of speculation in a free market – you don’t really need a reason. There has been talk that refiners, bankers, hedge funds or even the government was involved in pushing the price up, but most likely it was a combination of factors reinforcing each other. It might also be a little profit taking for the oil companies – you might have noticed it was a record year for profits in the oil industry, while the real economy has been in recession.
The Democrats don’t bear primary responsibility for the problems. Most of the blame lies squarely with the Bush administration for rejection of proposed bank regulations. CRA operated for decades without any trouble until the cheap money policy of the Fed built this bubble. You are right that cheap money makes a bubble, and that is exactly what happened when Greenspan kept the Fed rate at 1% for an unprecedented period, in an attempt to get the real economy moving. Unfortunately all that really moved was real estate prices – a perfect tax deductible vehicle for small-time home-ownership speculators easily sopped up all that cheap money.
If this is in fact true, it may be that money market managers had set up automatic withdrawals that triggered a domino effect. Electronic banking is still young, and carries dangers like this. It could also have been the Chinese. Without more details, it’s all speculation. Interesting that Soros was your first thought.
I hear you. I’ll be happy to help with the feathering.
Peace.
DS
Feb 12, 2009 - 11:17 pm 124. John Burke:The author has done a lot of number crunching but I’m not sure to what end. In his effort to debunk the National Bureau of Economic Research’s “call” of the recession having started in December 2007, he seems not to know that the NBER is actually identifying a business cycle by looking at a wide range of data and fixing the peaks and troughs of economic activity. It defines a “recession” as the period beginning when a new peak is reached and economic activity begins to decline toward a new trough. Data is often revised numerous times long after the event, so that an upward revision of employment data for December 2007 is not surprising. In any case, the fact that the employment picture then was better than the NBER thought a while ago doesn’t mean it was not the peak. Maybe they’ll revise their fixing of the peak a bit; maybe not.
The NBER sais this in its announcement of the timing of the current recession:
“The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research met by conference call on Friday, November 28. The committee maintains a chronology of the beginning and ending dates (months and quarters) of U.S. recessions. The committee determined that a peak in economic activity occurred in the U.S. economy in December 2007. The peak marks the end of the expansion that began in November 2001 and the beginning of a recession. The expansion lasted 73 months; the previous expansion of the 1990s lasted 120 months.
“The committee identified December 2007 as the peak month, after determining that the subsequent decline in economic activity was large enough to qualify as a recession.”
The announcement then reviewed the various data NBER had taken into account, noting that some of the measures customarily used — GDP, employment, personal incoems, etc. — were not unambiguous but all pointed to a downward slope having started somewhere around the end of 2007 or early 2008. Then came this:
“Payroll employment, the number of filled jobs in the economy based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ large survey of employers, reached a peak in December 2007 and has declined in every month since then.”
Total payroll employment reached a peak — not fewer jobs were added in December 2007 than in previous months.
http://thepurplecenter.blogspot.com/
Feb 13, 2009 - 12:09 am 125. mister man:Kevin, Kevin, Kevin . . . that’s a Biblical name, isn’t it? I believe it’s one of the lost gospels. Yes, I’m sure I heard that somewhere . . . The Gospel According to Kevin. Written some 2009 years after the death of Jeezy, son of Yahoo, it details the advent of ignorance in the land of Canaan. Not content living a life of manger boy, Kevin kissed his sheep goodbye and set out on the Silk Road in search of someone who would believe him to be a prophet. And yet Kevin had no message.”I must predict the future,” he said to himself, after which he immediately said, “Who said that?” Yes, Kevin was truly gifted with the ears of a saint, the soul of a seer, and the mind of a Jiffy Lube tech. The world was his oyster, but seafood gave him hives so he settled for a Ding Dong.
Coming into the small village of Canker near the River Sore, Kevin approached an older, portly man and inquired about shelter for the night. “You can stay in my house with my unmarried daughter Delia,” said the old man. “She smells of yeast but is a fine cook. But first you must tell me of the future.” Kevin, never the fool, saw an opportunity to bargain with the man who so obviously was seeking a son-in-law to help till the soil and maybe do a little laundry on rainy days. “A generous offer, sir, but tell me, might you also have a son?” The old man sighed and thought, I thought all these guys hung out in Gomorrah. “Yes, I have a son, quite young, with an air of musk and shiny with sweat from tending the mill stone.” Kevin felt the scratch of his sack cloth and knew his reward was near.
“Then I shall tell you of the future,” Kevin said, “There will come a day in the land to the west in a place called Texas, a land plain to gaze upon but rich in buckshot and dickweed. Many will come to her fertile fields, but all will not be honorable. There will rise a pair of cowardly heroes, Joe and Horn, who will confuse the smaller minded among them known as the Mongeese. But one day Joe and Horn will shoot each other in the back, and this land will be blessed with great wealth far greater even that that of China.”
The old man blinked, “Wait, wait, wait a second. Did you just say what I think you said?” Kevin smiled proudly, “Such is the power of my vision. Yes.” At that moment Delia turned the corner of their home and stopped, surprised to see a visitor. “Why, father, who do we have here?” she asked. “Nobody” he said, “Just some dipshit who thinks the Texas economy is bigger than China’s.” . . . So it is written in the Gospel of Kevin. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Feb 13, 2009 - 12:47 am 126. sbourg55:Herb #2 and # 11, etc:
Feb 13, 2009 - 2:50 am 127. AlexinCT:Yes, the Dems ARE & HAVE BEEN that powerful. 41 of them in Senate have stopped increases in drilling for 30 years, and building of more nuclear plants……we’re still stuck at 100, no more than France. And yes the Dems in ‘95 (mainly Clinton/Frank/Cuomo) put real teeth into Carter’s CRA, by writing Treasury Regs to REQUIRE HUGE fractions of loans by banks and S&Ls to poor people in each community……the exact folks who couldn’t repay loans over time. Duh…..big disaster, wasn’t it/that, esp with the power of Freddie/Fannie to buy up junk in the late ’90s. And then the goal by the lenders was to sell the junk, which became difficult Herb, thus the crazy creativity that became necessary. But this was the RESULT, not the cause. See Herb, the Dems have been destroying Capitalism since FDR’s 90% federal income tax rates, thus crushing incentives for high-earners. Herb, you can’t blame anything on the natural greed in human nature. That doesn’t destroy Capitalism. That makes it work (and sometimes hurts businesses by excess pay, but that doesn’t often “kill” a company). And small company owners now going out of business are NOT walking away with millions. Herb, the biggest problem we have is that govt workers (25million total of them) are USUALLY working with far too high pay and benefits structure…….and they’re consuming 35%-40% of our GDP. That’s unsustainable, but it’s not enough for Obama. Norway gets away with it because they mine the living hell out of their natural resources. Unfortunately, the Dems won’t even let us do that, which is now quite necessary, given the rest of our problems. I think what most of us free-thinkers conclude, is that the Dems usually do the opposite of what our Capitalism needs to be vibrant.
David S @ 122,
I visited your link and called your blatantly false assertion that republicans did not back these claims by the banking industry up, or bring them up in Congress also, as another idiotic lie. I would do it again, and again, because you are either lying or deranged. Likely both. There is video proof of several republicans bringing up the problems with Fannie & Freddie and being shouted down by democrats with accusations of racism. McCain & Bush both prominently. There is also videos of Franks and Dodd calling them racist and claiming Fannie & Freddie where A OK even as far as 2007! And yet, here you are lying your ass off trying to convince people that was not the case? And you expect people to ever believe anything you say again? Why don’t you go back to telling us all how great China is because their evil government controls their economy and that we should get that same kind of arrangement back here in the US?
This economic crisis was caused by the banking regulation problems caused by started in the Carter years, exacerbated during the Clinton years, and was wholly owned by democrats. Attempts to point out these problems where shut down by invoking PC accusations of racist motives (guess by who?). Then come the 2008 election with the surge basically neutralizing Iraq, democrats decided to simply implode the economy to grab the WH. You can continue to dispute these facts at the risk of whatever meager credibility you might have had (none in my book anymore).
And I find it quite telling that you now are claiming republicans, whom play by a completely different set of rules when it comes to the MSM (just the accusation is enough to destroy them) than democrats (innocent even when proven guilty), did not face the destruction of their careers with the racism accusations. You and I both know that all a republican must do to be labeled a racist is have a leftist twit accuse them of it. Proof is not necessary for the label to stick.
And please David, stop confusing your fantasies with the truth. People like you do not much care about the truth. If they did the country would not be where we are right now.
Feb 13, 2009 - 3:36 am 128. Tom Blumer:#25 Bilgeman,
Your point about the bankruptcy law change that was called “reform” is very valid.
The requirement that people in trouble have to schedule and get pre-bankruptcy counseling, and the more onerous filing requirements, and the effective muzzling of those providing bankruptcy services, have caused many situations that would have gone to bankruptcy to go into foreclosure instead.
I can’t get my arms around the impact, but I have noticed that BK filings are getting close to where they were before the law.
It’s also worth looking into (but how?) the number of people who decided that they had to accept foreclosure as the lesser of two evils when they figured out that the bankruptcy means test (for households with incomes above the state medians) would force them into an unfairly painful, poorly structured, asset-confiscating, expenses-of-life ignoring, almost designed-to-fail Chapter 13 regime. Those are the very people who might have kept their homes and received a fresh start under the old law, and were perhaps in nicer homes in nicer neighborhoods.
FWIW, I bitterly opposed Bankruptcy “Reform” in 2005.
There is no way reform helped the situation. The only question is how much it hurt.
And we should NEVER forget that one of the biggest fans of “reform” (maybe a sponsor) was VP Joe Biden (D-MBNA, currently D-Bank of America), now the head of Obama’s so-called “Middle Class Task Force.” They could have forced the lending industry to accept common-sense reforms (limits on penalty fees and interest rates, no over-limit fees if interest was the only reason you went over, no double-dips on over-limit fees, etc.), but they didn’t. They said they’d “get around to it later.” They never had any intent to do that.
Feb 13, 2009 - 4:12 am 129. Tom Blumer:#124 John Burke, please re-read the bullet points under the chart that shows the four difference six-month recessionary periods according to NBER.
The first half of 2008 is the only period of the four with job losses and real economic growth. The other three have job losses and NEGATIVE economic growth. The job losses in the first half of 2008 as a % of the labor force are the lowest of the four. I think NBER has a very heavy burden of proof to meet in calling the first half of ‘08 a recession when growth was not only positive, but in the case of the second quarter, pretty darned decent. I don’t think they’ve met it.
IMO, The best NBER can claim, given the three examples THEY cited of improvement taking place in the second quarter, is that there was a very, very short and very, very mild recession of a few months in early 2008 (January through March or April), followed by a nascent recovery, followed in roughly July by the clear recession we’re in now. Given the data, even claiming the mini-recession is IMO a stretch.
Feb 13, 2009 - 4:28 am 130. Herb:To Mongoose, please tell me more about these “laws that required them to give bad loans,” because I think you actually pulled that out of thin air.
Careful not to go too far down the “Post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy road. That the banks, as rational market-players operating in their own interests, made a bunch of bad loans does not mean that there were laws requiring banks to give out bad loans. A more likely scenario is that they were just wrong. An even likelier scenario is that they were blinded by greed (high interest rates!) that they couldn’t see just how vastly wrong they were.
If you’re thinking about the CRA, as mentioned by Goy, then sit up straight and pay attention to this next bit.
Goy, please explain to me how the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 caused the recession of 2007-Now.
Also, please explain how the CRA of 1977 was seemingly NOT a factor in the recessions of 1980, 1991, 2001, and is only now, some thirty years later, affecting us now.
Don’t believe everything you hear on AM radio, people. (Or read on PJM, for that matter.)
Feb 13, 2009 - 5:20 am 131. Herb:To those who harp on CRA, words from Ben Bernanke:
“Bankers were also gaining experience in underwriting and managing the risk of lending in lower-income communities. After years of experimentation, the managers of financial institutions found that these loan portfolios, if properly underwritten and managed, could be profitable. In fact, a Federal Reserve study found that, generally, CRA-related lending activity was at least somewhat profitable and usually did not involve disproportionately higher levels of default (Avery, Bostic, and Canner, 2000; see also Board of Governors, 1993). Moreover, community groups and nonprofit organizations began to take a more businesslike, market-oriented approach to local economic development, leading them to establish more-formalized and more-productive partnerships with banks. Community groups provided information to financial institutions on the needs of lower-income communities for credit and services, offered financial education and counseling services to community members, and referred “bankable” customers to partner banks. Specialized community development banks and financial institutions with the mission of providing financial services and credit to lower-income communities and families emerged and grew.”
That’s Ben Bernanke in March of 07.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/Bernanke20070330a.htm
There’s more:
“The CRA is clearly far from perfect. Although its objectives are broad and ambitious, its net effects on lower-income neighborhoods are difficult to measure with precision. Addressing CRA responsibilities also imposes costs on financial institutions. It appears that, at least in some instances, the CRA has served as a catalyst, inducing banks to enter underserved markets that they might otherwise have ignored. At its most successful, the CRA may have had a multiplier effect, supplementing its direct impact by stimulating new market-based, profit-driven economic activity in lower-income neighborhoods.”
In 2007, the CRA was “stimulating new market-based profit-drive economic activity in lower-income neighborhoods,” but in 2009, it’s “forcing banks to give out bad loans.”
Only if you’re a talk radio stooge!
Feb 13, 2009 - 6:06 am 132. Cybergeezer:“Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” being practiced in Congress.
Feb 13, 2009 - 6:36 am 133. mister man:Dems are using this to keep Repubs out of conference. “Don’t ask if you can attend, and don’t tell us what you want.
Too bad Abraham Lincoln isn’t around today; He’d put these idiots in jail for High Treason. We are being governed by traitors, felons, and pantywaists.
To Herb . . . You’re confusin’ the herd. These fellas – likes o Bilge Pump and Cybercoot and Boy Goy and others like ‘em – you see they gots themselves some proof. Seems back a ways, oh probably a couple two or three months, they offered up all their private personal info to the Heritage Foundation in exchange for TOTALLY FREE copy of The Constitution. Durn thing fits right in your own pocket. It’s the damnedest thing you ever did see. Anyway, tucked inside that pocket Constitution was a chart and it had all the numbers and arrows you’d ever want. I ain’t never made no claim to bein’ book smart, but I could cipher me enough of them letters to read “It’s the Democrats Fault.” Said so right there on the page. And the Heritage Foundation, that ain’t no partyson outfit. Nope. And they play this real folksy music, if you ever heared them ads on the radidio . . . it’s like that baby flute music. It’s nice and all but I gotta admit I like my tunes a bit more ruggeder, though. Play me some Montogmery Gentry and, BOY HOWDY, I’m ready to go buy me a bear, put it in a pen, load me up some double O buckshot and go shoot him down cuz you know what, a country boy can survive.
So listen, Herb, seriously son, don’t go stirrin’ the pot round here with facts. It just confuses the hill folk. Don’t make me go all Ned Beatty on your ass. Not that I’d like that or nothin, you know, cuz I got me a passel of young ‘uns and that should ell you what you need to know about me. Heh heh. How ’bout you passin’ me one of them beezers. Yeah, that’s it . . . that’s a time. So whaddya think, cold enough for ya?
Feb 13, 2009 - 7:38 am 134. Herb:Mister Man, that was the funniest thing I’ve heard all day. Hilarious!
Rule #1 of American politics: It’s always the Democrats’ fault.
Feb 13, 2009 - 8:43 am 135. David S:@127. AlexinCT:
You seem confused. Nobody in Congress blocked the regulatory action. It was solely an internal Bush administration decision to water down the regulations to provide their banking buddies with more filthy lucre. Democrats had absolutely nothing to do with this decision. I don’t expect people to believe it because I say it (that’s your technique), but because I provided evidence. Putting words in my mouth on the subject of China is another juvenile ploy, which I suppose I should expect from you at this point.
I challenge you to prove this statement – it’s a bold accusation to level without any evidence.
It’s true that there are many people in the world that care not about the truth, but I do not number myself among them. If Bush & Cheney cared about the truth, “the country would not be where we are right now” for certain.
Looking forward to your clear and convincing evidence that Democrats caused the credit crisis. Not holding my breath.
Peace.
DS
Feb 13, 2009 - 9:17 am 136. Delia:Mister Girly Man, you have issues that require tissues or maybe a towel.
While I celebrate my 22nd anniversary with my husband tomorrow I have a feeling you’ll be sitting in a dark room watching “Monika does Willy” and crying into a warm beer er ‘brewsky’.
-And, how in heckies did you know I smell of yeast? I’m pretty sure I never mentioned I’m a master-baker or my blue ribbon dill dough. Nyuck-Nyuck!
The economy is still holding strong on my end, Bucko.
Now, hike up your girly man knickers and go back to HuffPo where your feelings will be greeted with mutual enthusiasm.
Feb 13, 2009 - 10:03 am 137. Kevin:mister man,
Feb 13, 2009 - 10:03 am 138. cocollins:That was it? An old testament parable? It was decent, I’ll give you that – though perhaps it suffers from what one would call “metaphorical conceit.” And you certainly made a fair point – one must combine the GSP of New York, Florida, AND Texas to surpass China’s. What deflated the whole thing was the “dip@#$!” Trite and unsophisticated. Also, you still haven’t responded to my query on your claim to have returned from Davos. Are you an elite trust-funder? A pothead hangers-on? Or delusional? Perhaps a combo of the three? Does dropping the “I just returned from Davos..” supposed to make us fly-over rubes cower in front of your intellectual firepower? Curious.
Kevin & Delia,
I find these economic articles stuffy but I decided to look in and whew, what a stench. Then I saw your tête-à-tête with the big bad bear boy and understood why. You really shouldn’t feed the animals. Plus, he’s such a scary wary foe. Let me share my tragic tale:
Thanks to the mediocrity and just plain falseness of what comes out of television and print media these days, I started looking at what was available online for news and opinion. Among other places, I found PJM and enjoyed the articles. After that, I began reading the comments to find other’s opinions and thoughts on the same articles. Deciding to add my two cents, I found how easy it is to get sidetracked and lost in obtuse arguments and immature rants. I noticed that very little of worth comes from playing in other people’s inner child games; especially those people who hide behind a pseudonym and false biography, snidely claiming an intellectual and literary superiority which is not their due. And if what I just said should bring a shrill shout of “Oh yeah, well where’s your brilliant literary body of work?” let me point out that unlike others, I’ve never made the unsupported claims that I have such a past or present. That would be stupid and untrue among other things.
I’ve read some articles recently on whether the anonymity afforded to those on blogs and online forums is a good or bad thing. I’d say it’s mostly a bad thing. I don’t think personal and private information need be revealed, but a little civility such as knowing each others names so that we’re not so apt to treat the other guy with absolute contempt couldn’t hurt – okay, maybe a little contempt, but not absolute; and, if asserting differing points of view, the factual background that went into the formation of that person’s opinion would also be helpful. It’s just a thought. But, if all some people are looking for is spiffy liberal ranting and the art of snark for snark’s sake, they might try the links below. Somebody referred them to me as no less than the next best thing to sliced cheese.
http://petehumes.wordpress.com/
http://bonfireoftheinanities.wordpress.com/
http://rvanews.com/author/Pete.Humes/
http://rvanews.com/columns/pete-humes/how-barack-obama-will-ruin-america/
Feb 13, 2009 - 1:10 pm 139. Delia:138. cocollins,
Why, I do declare! Should I rename myself “MisBehavin’”?
Sometimes the trolls are amusing to toy with but yes, feeding them can spiral out of control.
I’m not sure if I’m brave enough to check out those links you shared. he-he
Well, we are FINALLY getting some work trickling in even though the type of work stinks [remodel and repair jobs]. I’m just hoping the real estate market unteeters from the totter so we can get back to building a few homes a year like we were. Unfortunately, we had a HUGE glut of BIG home builders who built whole neighborhoods of cheap housing which really messed up the market. Oy vey!
-But, hey. We’re hangin’ in there. All is not lost… YET. *gulp*
Feb 13, 2009 - 1:54 pm 140. cocollins:139. Delia,
Glad to hear about the work. The links aren’t anything nasty, just somebody else who goes by “mister man” and sounds just like him. I figured if some people are enamored of that type of tripe then I’d make it easier for them to feed from the trough. Have a good weekend.
Feb 13, 2009 - 2:50 pm 141. mister man:Kevin . . . or as you are now known, Ding Dong . . . this won’t take long.
#1 My parable suffers from metaphorical conceit . . . well, yeah, that’s kind of what a parable is, a metaphorical conceit. You say that like it’s a bad thing. For the readers on this board (flyover rubes as you call them, which I think is kind of harsh, but I’ll leave you to make amends), I want them to understand the issue, so I offer a definition of metaphorical conceit. It’s not my own lest I be accused of feathering my own nest but from Wikipedia, a reasonably objective source for such innocuous matters:
” . . . in literary terms, a conceit is an extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs an entire poem or poetic passage. By juxtaposing, usurping and manipulating images and ideas in surprising ways, a conceit invites the reader into a more sophisticated understanding of an object of comparison.”
Yep, that’s exactly what I did. Far from suffering, it soars as a result.
#2 The “dipshit is trite and unsophisticated” . . . Right again! It was no accident that I exited the language of the parable to use a word that tied directly to my estimation of your posts – trite and unsophisticated. It’s a form of punch line. It’s a pretty nuanced technique, and I don’t expect many people to catch such a thing. You came close. Missed it by THAT much.
#3 Finally, I told you everything I wanted to tell you about Davos. The how and why and who and where of my trip is none of your business. I happened to have the opportunity to engage with people at there. That’s all. Don’t be bitter.
If you feel the need to cower as a result, be my guest, but beware, it’s crowded down there.
OK, so . . . there you go. Feel free to continue with “bong . . . pothead . . . bong head” . . . and whatever other derivative half-thoughts you choose. I hear blog chicks dig that. It’s a three-day weekend and I’m hopping off the grid. Continue your group therapy, everybody. Here’s hoping you have a breakthrough. If you’re close and can’t quite push through, just think of Gary Busey. He’s a worthy role model for you . . . baby steps, Ding Dong, baby steps.
Feb 13, 2009 - 5:57 pm 142. Delia:140. cocollins,
You have a great weekend too, hon and thank you for the kind words. I enjoy your posts [figured I'd throw that in there].
So THAT is what the links were about. *Tee-hee* I’ll spare my gray matter but thank you just the same.
Kevin, wherever you are… Don’t FEED! Don’t FEED! The trouble with tribbles is they multiply and masterbatorily [yes, I just made that word up] display mind-numbing prolix. Oops. I just exposed my dorky geek side. I might as well confess that I heart Vulcans! ha-ha *blush*
The death-nell for the economy is our own “PrezzyDunce” hyping how horrible it is [as someone else pretty much said in different words] and how desperate and dire and ‘in emergency-mode’ we are.
Feb 13, 2009 - 7:46 pm 143. Kevin:mister man,
Feb 13, 2009 - 7:47 pm 144. HawkWatcher:Thank you. Metaphorical conceit may also, mon ami, signify “an elaborate metaphor, often STRAINED and FAR-FETCHED…often an ILLOGICAL turn of mind.” Three-day weekend, my arse. I bet you WILL read this. This board is, after all, your raison d’etre!
Instead of embracing the fruitless wheel of partisan finger-pointing, we could be constructively debating some recent polling and survey results that may reflect our common interests.
From Feb. 6, 2009: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/06/stimulus.polls/
“In the CBS News poll, eight out of 10 believe the economic recovery bill should be a bipartisan effort, with only 13 percent saying it would be all right for the legislation to pass with support only from the Democrats who control Congress.”
“The CBS News poll suggests that Americans may be agreeing with Republican arguments on the stimulus when it comes to a choice between tax cuts or increased government spending. Fifty-nine percent of those questioned say tax cuts for business are the best way to end the recession, with 22 percent feeling that more government spending is the way to go.”
From Feb. 4, 2009: Paragraph 9 is telling.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/economic_stimulus_package/support_for_stimulus_package_falls_to_37
If we can get past the blame game focus, we may find that most of us want our representatives to work together to encourage business growth with little government spending. The stimulus bill does not reflect what most of us want. Wasting time arguing over who to blame won’t stop the current federal boondoggle from dragging down the next generation of taxpayers. What are you doing to fight this?
Feb 13, 2009 - 8:00 pm 145. Delia:144. HawkWatcher,
Excellent post. THANK YOU for steering us back on topic.
Is the wakep-up a little too late though? The Dems don’t care. THEY DO NOT CARE! The caca-sammie is going to be shoved no matter what it seems. I’m seriously so disgusted and dismayed and I feel completely impotent. What to do? Indeed. :\
Feb 13, 2009 - 8:22 pm 146. Delia:Just a little something to lighten the Friday 13th mood:
“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwVWXN0Pyq4
“Barney Frank as ‘The banking Queen’ via Rush radio”
rotfl!
Feb 13, 2009 - 8:43 pm 147. Bilgeman:#138 Tom Blumer:
“Your point about the bankruptcy law change that was called “reform” is very valid.”
Thanks, man, I keep throwing these messages in a bottle over the side and in my wake. It’s nice to get a postcard back once in awhile to know that someone is reading ‘em.
“I can’t get my arms around the impact, but I have noticed that BK filings are getting close to where they were before the law.”
What happens when you squeeze one end of an underinflated balloon?
Bankruptcy lawyers aren’t exactly a pack of mouth-breathing dirt merchants, and they’ve a direct financial interest in doping out how to steer a course back to the status quo ante, (or something close to it).
I reckon that they acquired interest in the “Credit Counseling” firms as “rainmakers”…the mandated credit counseling can then serve as the “lobby” right into the law firm, now, yes?
“And we should NEVER forget that one of the biggest fans of “reform” (maybe a sponsor) was VP Joe Biden (D-MBNA, currently D-Bank of America), ”
Gee, you don’t say?
Actually, with the kind of ready cash the legalized loan sharks have to throw around, this really ceases to be so much a partisan issue. For that much money, they can, and do,find politicians willing to prostitute themselves on either side of the aisle.
The only gang that has more ducats to hand than they would be the insurance industry.
Feb 13, 2009 - 8:46 pm 148. goy:@121. David S: - Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Yes, you sure are sorry. And of course you couldn’t resist… lying. Again. And rather than address the point you couldn’t resist… irrelevant thesis. Again.
The “record” mentioned in the outdated AP propaganda you copy/pasted (again) only goes back to 1880, Zippy. Your cite also fails to mention that the last two years have seen record-setting cold. But I’m sure that doesn’t strike you as the least bit intellectually dishonest.
If you’re going to insist on copy/pasting, maybe you should try using BBC propaganda instead…
Here’s a slightly more honest bit *cough*: “…1997, 1998 and 2002 were the hottest years since worldwide weather records were first collated in 1860.” [emph. added for Zippy]
Greenland ice core data shows that the global temp. is currently at one of the lowest levels in the last 10,000 years.
@130: Herb: - … please explain to me how the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 caused the recession of 2007-Now.
Why? I haven’t asserted that it caused any such thing. That’s your straw man. There was no recession in 2007, or last year either for that matter. Only as of last month – thanks to the manufactured credit “crisis” and market fears of impending economic damage by a single-party Democrat government – do we find ourselves in a recession. And, historically, not a very severe one as yet.
- please explain how the CRA of 1977 was seemingly NOT a factor in the recessions of 1980, 1991, 2001, and is only now, some thirty years later, affecting us now.
Why? I haven’t asserted that CRA had anything to do with these recessions either way. That’s also your straw man.
You’re confusing recession with the credit sector meltdown. The former was a myth until this last month. The latter was caused by the factors I noted up above.
- Don’t believe everything you hear on AM radio…
Try re-reading what I wrote again – this time for comprehension.
Also, your cherry-picked Bernanke quote is not only riddled with equivocation, but that speech was made before the avalanche of loan defaults, triggered by the Fed’s 17 successive rate hikes (from 6/03 to 6/06) which doubled interest rates in less than three years. Millions of CRA borrowers defaulted because they were unqualified to handle the resulting ARM payment increases – a failure that sane, non-CRA lending rules had previously helped to avoid. This burst the housing bubble (discussed up above in the post you failed to read) and simultaneously turned hundreds of billion$ in foreclosed properties into toxic assets which strained the credit market to the breaking point.
There’s no question that low interest rates coupled with sub-prime lending would have increased real estate prices. This sort of thing happens all the time. Real estate values rise and fall every year due to changes in the rate. But CRA artificially added millions of buyers to a market in which – under lending rules cognizant of normal rate fluctuations – they would not have been qualified to participate. These millions of additional buyers helped push price increases into a genuine, unsustainable bubble. These same underqualified borrowers later defaulted almost en masse due to the precipitous rate increase. Without CRA, defaults would not have occurred at the rate they did and upside-down mortgage-to-value ratios wouldn’t have been nearly as high. These two factors – which provided the breadth and depth of the toxic asset problem – are what devastated the credit sector.
@144. HawkWatcher: In spirit I completely agree with your point.
However, knowing what to do next depends not only on understanding the exact circumstances of the current situation, but how it got that way, so we can avoid repeating any mistakes discovered. It isn’t so much a question of “who” is to blame as much as a question of “what” is the cause.
It’s clear who is to blame – overweening politicians who are not held accountable for their actions.
The “what” is also clear, and has been clear for months now. The problem is that those responsible for that “what” don’t want to start being held accountable because it will cost them political power, not to mention potential jail time. Those in the entrenched media with a vested interest in seeing these same people remain in control aren’t going expose the facts. Rather, they deflect blame onto someone/something else.
This clouds the issues, by design. But the larger problem is that those issues are effectively moot, as Delia correctly points out, because the Democrat Plutocracy is not going to miss this chance to implement everything they’ve been bottling up for the last 8 years. They have a lock on Congress and a ready rubber stamp in the White House. Other than continually publishing the facts that demonstrate why the Democrats’ proposal is dead wrong, what would you suggest we do?
Feb 13, 2009 - 9:05 pm 149. Tom Blumer:#52 David S:
It’s almost as if you didn’t look at the chart of the last four recessions in the article.
If you had, you wouldn’t have written “It’s almost like you didn’t even read the revised employment figures you posted. The first half of 2008 we lost almost 800,000 jobs.”
Geez David S, it’s in the chart (796,000 jobs), and it’s explained as not being as bad as a % of the workforce as the other three recessionary periods (by NBER’s definition), all of which had negative growth, unlike the first half of 2008, which had 1.85% average growth, and 2.8% in the second quarter.
It’s almost as if, when you wrote “but there was never any recovery to halt,” that you didn’t read my three examples of recovery or stability CITED BY NBER.
In fact, it’s almost as if you didn’t read the article or look at the charts at all but just decided to spout off for the heck of it.
2.8% for a quarter is not “A little GDP growth.” And for cryin’ out loud, whether a recession exists is primarily about the presence or absence of real economic growth. If GDP growth is present, as it was during the first half of 2008, someone claiming recession has to make an OVERWHELMING case with the other factors involved that a recession was nevertheless in progress. NBER in my opinion simply has not done that, both for reasons I’ve cited and other reasons I’m saving for another time.
Feb 13, 2009 - 9:13 pm 150. Herb:Goy who wrote:
“There was no recession in 2007, or last year either for that matter.”
The National Bureau of Economic Research begs to differ, but hey…they’re only “a private economic group accepted as the official arbiter of business cycles” and you’re a blog commenter. Obviously you’re right…
http://www.nber.org/cycles/dec2008.html
As for this: “Millions of CRA borrowers defaulted because they were unqualified to handle the resulting ARM payment increases – a failure that sane, non-CRA lending rules had previously helped to avoid.”
What the F? Your understanding of the CRA is stunningly superficial.
While I’m willing to accept your opinion that CRA lending rules are “insane,” it is not true that the CRA requires bad lending practices from banks.
You’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.
Feb 14, 2009 - 3:55 am 151. goy:150. Herb: - The National Bureau of Economic Research begs to differ, …
Wow, you didn’t even bother to read Tom’s article before you started running off at the mouth in the comments section, did you.
To correctly apply your misplaced sentiment: the NBER think tank is entitled to their opinion, they’re not entitled to their own (re)definitions.
- While I’m willing to accept your opinion that CRA lending rules are “insane,” it is not true that the CRA requires bad lending practices from banks.
Self-contradict much? Semantically, your assertion is correct. In practice, however, with the pressure applied by organizations like ACORN and shyster attorneys like BHO, your understanding of the effects of CRA is stunningly superficial.
Take a look at the record. Get back to us when you understand the facts. CRA placed quotas on minority lending, aka affirmative action mortgages. These quotas could not be achieved without lending practices which left borrowers – who would NOT have received loans outside the constraints of CRA – at the mercy of rate fluctuations. They defaulted by the millions, which proves that the lending practices used in order to comply with CRA were dangerous (i.e., bad).
Feb 14, 2009 - 10:04 am 152. Bilgeman:#128 Tom Blumer:
“It’s also worth looking into (but how?) the number of people who decided that they had to accept foreclosure as the lesser of two evils when they figured out that the bankruptcy means test (for households with incomes above the state medians) would force them into an unfairly painful, poorly structured, asset-confiscating, expenses-of-life ignoring, almost designed-to-fail Chapter 13 regime.”
I’d pick a state, and then try cross-indexing people who had begun filing for bankruptcy and then subsequently suffered foreclosure.
Then check the dates that each was executed.
I realize that this would mean a Herculean research effort, digging through the records of Bankrupcy courts and Property Tax Records, but I’m sure the information, if it’s there, is there.
Feb 14, 2009 - 1:43 pm 153. mr. burns:Steve P.:
The Federal Reserve and the FDIC maintain that empirical research has not validated any relationship between the CRA and the 2008 financial crisis.
Since it was a federal reserve study (with seriously flawed=phony methodology) that was used to justify strong arm enforcement of the CRA during the Clinton administration it is unlikely that the Fed would to admit just how culpable (and incompetent) they are.
federal reserve delendum est
Feb 14, 2009 - 2:29 pm 154. Hank Reardon:I read about 80 or so of the comments and various arguments and wanted to add my two cents: I am a real estate person. It took ten years, but I built about 1500 apartment units, only to lose them when Congress passed Tax Reform and killed the economy. Congress came up with the RTC and managed to sell $1 trillion dollars of S&L assets for a loss. Although I personally lost $15,000,000 I said, well I’m young and can do it again. So I worked another ten years and got back to being somewhat wealthy building custom homes and townhouses. Then the FED said “irrational exuberance” and I lost everything again. Thought, well, I’ve learned my lesson but it took twice as long to recover but I did, buying land, getting entitlements (zoning) and selling it. Then the Fed raised interest rates 17 straight times. The Wall Street kids had come up with a new, better way to add cheap credit enhancement (credit swaps, ie, derivatives) and they were all computer analyzed to prevent collapse…until the time they collapsed……
Feb 14, 2009 - 2:39 pm 155. Oscar the Grump:I am broke, 25 years of hard work and effort gone again. The point is this; everyone here is missing the fact that the political parties are playing against each other (mostly trying to kill the others donors) and WE the people are the losers. One party wants to have and keep money, the other party wants to give it to those who won’t work to get it. They are both our enemies and they control us through money, ie the FED. We never got to vote for the FED, we don’t get to have any say in it’s policies and I’am damned tired of it. Instead of taking the time to nail the opposing party. You dumb asses should realize we are being had! Between Congress and the FED, we will never have anything.
The CRA is almost entirely responsible to for the current banking mess. Carter pushed through the Community Redevelopment Act in 1977. Little was done with it then. Clinton put the teeth into the CRA. He forced banks into making sub prime loans. This was because a study had confirmed that African American and Hispanics had a hard time getting good credit ratings. Being that this was a major sector of his support, he acted on the study. Clinton opened everything up for advocacy to target banks that they deemed discriminatory. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition was formed. All of a sudden they could rate banks. The Banks themselves were going through massive mergers and jockeying for market share. Approval of such mergers depended on the CRA ratings which were in turn influenced by the NCRC recommendations. Groups such as ACORN suddenly were able to rate banks. In addition these same groups were able to market these new loans and were paid for it.
this was so profitable for them that community redevelopment became a nonissue. Their loans went everywhere and it quickly got out of hand. The first wave of foreclosures was about one trillion dollars.
The second is due to hit this year at another trillion. Another wave is due to hit next year for about 500 billion.
Guys go ahead and blame GWB if you want. However, he couldn’t undo established loans. He didn’t create the legislation. He didn’t give it the teeth and means to grow uncontrollably. You can thank Clinton and Barnie Frank for that.
Feb 14, 2009 - 6:17 pm 156. David S:@149. Tom Blumer:
That’s a pretty silly thought, since I was commenting on that chart.
You know as well as I that GDP is not the be-all of economic indicators, and that employment is a more rational measure of the economy’s health. What’s more, the GDP “growth” in the first half of 2008 can be attributed almost entirely to the inflated price of oil during the 2 quarters in question. There was no indication of a “recovery” anywhere to be found.
Really, it isn’t that much growth, and it isn’t “real economic growth” – it’s predominantly ‘paper’ growth, just like much of the imaginary GDP growth under Bush.
GDP growth alone is not enough to indicate that the trough has reached bottom. Claiming that a recession has ended when the trough has not been reached requires OVERWHELMING evidence, because to do so clearly eviscerates the definition of a recession.
Really, I have no problem with questioning the data, but look at the big picture – there is a simple and logical explanation for the increase in GDP numbers, and it is not “recovery”. I’m not a trained economist, and even I can see it. I don’t mean to disrespect the hard work that went into writing your column, but if you are going to claim that the Democrats derailed the economy or halted a recovery you have to make an OVERWHELMING case. I don’t see it. Maybe those reasons you are saving for another time can save your hypothesis?
Peace.
DS
Feb 14, 2009 - 6:26 pm 157. kiwikit:If only we could have elected George W Bush for another term! I’d gladly take his few mis-steps if I could get his economic brain. Remember when our economy was at its best: January 2007, right before Nancy and Reid took over. They’ve been destroying it, with the help of the DNCmedia bad-mouthing, ever since!
Feb 15, 2009 - 7:43 am 158. Tom Blumer:DS:
The burden of proof is on NBER to show why there was, for the first time EVER, a recession with two quarters of positive growth. They haven’t met the burden. They may eventually, but they haven’t yet.
There is NO doubt that the economy tanked in June/July, and that it has continued to do so since then at an accelerating rate. The two quarters of negative and worsening economic growth (3Q08 and 4Q08), i.e., a recession as normal people define it, demonstrate that. I think my explanations as to the causes of the second-half crumble are far more sensible than anyone else’s alternative explanations. Not to mention that I called it when it started, and cited why it had started.
As to your claim that 2.8% “isn’t that much growth,” surely you jest —
- in 62 years, my rough count is that 107, or about 43% of all quarters out of 248, have had growth of less than 2.8%. That’s not too far from the middle. I’m all for high standards, but we’re talking about whether a quarter that was better than 43% of those previously and since is recessionary. The very idea is almost laughable.
- Average reported quarterly growth in the 30 years that ended in 2007 was 3.04%. 2Q08 came in lower than that by a “whopping” 0.24%.
- If continued, 2.8% growth would lead to the real value of an economy’s output doubling in just over 25 years.
At any rate, the issue isn’t whether it “isn’t that much growth,” it’s whether you can legitimately talk about the occurrence of a recession when there’s that much growth. If you want to, you better have a heck of a case. NBER hasn’t made it yet, and I’ve cited three instances relayed by them that contradict such a case.
As to your claim that the Bush years were predominantly “paper growth,” on what basis? There is a case that the last year or two of the Clinton economy was “paper growth,” given how much money was dumped into worthless dot-coms that weren’t real businesses and had no idea of how they would ever sell anything of value (and most didn’t. I don’t see a basis for building a similar case for 2003-2007. The housing runup was nowhere near as overheated as the 75%-plus declining dot-com bubble.
And no, employment is NOT a more rational measure of an economy’s health. If that were the case, Cuba, where Fidel has virtually everyone of working age “employed” doing something, would be the greatest economy in the world. The total value of goods and services produced in an economy, and whether that total value is rising or falling, is much more rational.
Feb 15, 2009 - 5:11 pm 159. David S:@158. Tom Blumer:
The NBER uses more than one factor to determine recession. Past recessions have included individual quarters of positive GDP growth. Why would it be categorically different to have two quarters of GDP growth rather than one? This is an arbitrary measure that does not meet the definition NBER uses for recession. Furthermore, GDP growth in this case does not reflect actual economic output, but rather a change in the underlying deflation calculations due to extremely high oil prices. A point you failed to address.
No, I’m quite serious. 2.8% growth for one quarter isn’t that much growth, especially when you consider how that number is calculated – and realize that without the run-up in oil prices, the number would be negative. 2.8% growth sustained over time can be a lot of growth, but for an isolated quarter isn’t that much – heck, this ‘growth’ was more than reversed by the end of the year.
Aside from the collapse of the stock and housing markets? The whole Bush economy was based on inflated asset valuation. No significant job growth, worsening long term unemployment, falling wages, and far below normal GDP growth. Much consumption was financed through home equity, which has now been undermined.
I will grant you that dot-com devaluations were even more dramatic than the housing collapse has been, but keep in mind that the sheer size of the housing market makes it much more significant. Comparing the two as if they were equivalent would be foolish – the housing collapse is much worse.
I didn’t say the only rational measure was employment – just that it is probably more important than GDP. Consider if our GDP were shrinking, but median income was rising and employment was rising toward 100%. Why would we focus on GDP growth as the most important factor? An economy’s health can be measured in many ways – and GDP is a very flawed measure to use as your sole determinant. If you want to debate the merits of the Cuban economy, that is an entirely different topic.
Again, the GDP numbers from last year don’t indicate a recovery – they are the odd consequence of the inflated price of oil at the time. No recovery occurred to be halted by Democrats. Despite your insistence that GDP is the most meaningful indicator of economic activity, the NBER makes the call based on the big picture, not your favorite statistic.
Peace.
DS
Feb 15, 2009 - 10:39 pm 160. Tom Blumer:159 DS:
Sorry, the measurement that directly relates to economic growth (GDP) is more important than the measurement you like that doesn’t directly relate to economic growth (employment). I can’t believe I’m even having to make that point.
The other point you attempt to make — that the change in oil prices was a big factor in the pretty decent 2Q08 GDP number isn’t supported by the facts. It’s not there, and you’re repeating it doesn’t make it so.
In fact, the worry at the time was that the growth was inflationary.
Oil, schmoil. 2Q08 was pretty decent, and absent evidence NBER has not presented, sure as bleep wasn’t recessionary.
Feb 16, 2009 - 8:15 pm 161. David S:@160. Tom Blumer:
Even Dick Cheney said “jobs, in a fundamental sense, are the basic measure of how well the economy is serving people.”
The link you shared does not provide any insight into the impact of oil prices on GDP calculations. Try this one.
Q2 GDP Is Mostly Inflation
Q2 GDP: GROSS LEVERAGED LIE
Other than getting that formula backwards, you are right on. The inflation and a run-up in oil prices were misrepresented as growth.
You can go your own way, Tom, but you are arguing against the facts, and against the NBER. As I said before, I am no economist, but even I can see that oil prices were a factor in the inflated GDP statistics. If you aren’t convinced, you can do the math yourself.
Peace.
DS
Feb 17, 2009 - 8:45 am 162. Willie:It real funny how people can look at situtation that is happening now. What started this whole problem. Can be Obama nor the election in 2008. It all started in 2000 when Bill Clinton stepped out of office. That when the economy started going down hill. Ya’ll have a great day
Feb 25, 2009 - 7:05 pm 163. handbasket:http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16
Willie, have yourself a good read ^
Mar 28, 2009 - 9:48 am 164. Tom Blumer:#161, did the geniuses at Seeking Alpha update their work when the final revision for 2Q08 came down to 2.8% and compare it to prior quarters of 2.5%-3.0% …. (crickets chirp) …..?
They looked at previous quarters whether they were in an up-phase, down-phase, or treading-water phase of the business cycle.
It’s a long, long way from their conclusion to one that says we’re in a recession …. which they didn’t say, because the evidence wasn’t there. It still isn’t.
Jun 3, 2009 - 7:51 pm