Forget Econ Stats, Do Americans Feel Economic Exhuberance or Malaise?

[Dad2three]

I really, really enjoyed the $5 dollar a gallon gas during Boosh....

July 2008’s record $4.11 a gallon

Gas prices could soon break July 2008 record - USATODAY.com

 

[Dad2three]

When a president gets growth roaring to levels almost unmatched....and when that president gets unemployment to almost "full employment" it takes a real dullard to not realize those policies help the middle class more than any other policy impacts.

The very def of low enough unemployment to be called "full employment" means you've created conditions that allows almost everyone who wants to work to work. How can you possibly think that only billionaires benefit from that.

You must be regurgitating some dumbass class out at Berkley. No wonder so many stats are at your fingertips.

So Reagan's policy of ballooning the deficits by cutting taxes while increasing spending was the proper formula in the eighties, because - cause and effect issues aside for the moment -

those policies were followed by greatly improved GDP and unemployment numbers?

Ballooning the deficit? That was nothing compared to the uber-balloon Obama has created. $17 trillion ring a bell? And Reagan got a ton more for his investment. Obama has gotten anemic employment and even worse growth.

Weird conservatives somehow think the debt rung up under Obama, AFTER Dubya put US in a HUGE FKKNG HOLE, is somehow his fault? Yet Ronnie tripled US debt, and that was OK?

At CBPP, Kathy Ruffing and Jim Horney break the spending apart, showing how much went to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, how much went to the stimulus, and so on. When built that way, the Bush tax cuts appear to be the single largest policy contributor the current deficits.

CBPP also projects the numbers forward into the next decade. Because the tax cuts continue to grow in size, but the stimulus and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan end, that further enlarges the role the tax cuts play in the expected deterioration of the budget.

All these analyses tell the same story in one key respect, however. The primary drivers of the debt predate Barack Obama. The post-9/11 wars and security build-up, the Bush tax cuts, and the 2001 and 2008 recessions simply began before Obama became president. You can blame him for extending the Bush tax cuts till 2012, or for the stimulus (though the stimulus would never have happened without the 2008 financial crisis), but the structural of deterioration came in the Bush years.


The three best charts on how Clinton?s surpluses became Bush and Obama?s deficits - The Washington Post

 

[Dad2three]

Policies have a horrendously difficult time of actually producing economic results of significant effect. Washington policies really aren't effective levers which move the economy.

What does have an effect on the economy? Why that's simple - market forces.

What created the middle class boom? That's simple too - rising wages in relation to declining share of National Income which went to corporations. What is National Income? To simplify, when Labor + Capital are combined, we get an output, National Income. All the goods and services we produce. The wealth that is created has to be allocated between Capital and Labor. When Labor is strong, then Capital has a weaker hand. When Capital is strong, then Labor has the weaker hand.

Well, it just so happens that that period had Labor with a very strong hand and, as required by this economic law, Capital saw erosion in how much wealth it could capture to itself. Why did Labor have such a strong hand? That's easy to answer too - labor scarcity. Employers found that there weren't enough employees to hire at low wages so they kept bidding up wages and they had to sacrifice corporate profits in order to hire the needed labor.

What created that labor scarcity? This is what created it. We didn't import people into the US and inject them into the labor market. Any moron should be able to understand that if we allow immigrants into the US they must enter the labor market and as soon as they do so they add to the labor supply, thus cutting out the legs of any developing labor scarcity and, like a steam release valve, they vent the rising pressure for increased wages.

So immigrants didn't come over BECAUSE US Corps needed more labor?

Third World countries. One of the things they all had in common was a small, very rich elite, small middle class, and a large lower class. They also shared very low economic growth as a result. This has been known for at least 50 years. The US has been going in this direction for at least the last 30 years as we have gradually de-industrialized and government policies (such as trickle down economics, 'free trade', etc) have promoted the shift of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the economic elite



Andrew Mellon had a few distinctly progressive ideas. Of particular note, he suggested taxing "earned" income from wages and salaries more lightly that "unearned" income from investments. As he argued:


The fairness of taxing more lightly income from wages, salaries or from investments is beyond question. In the first case, the income is uncertain and limited in duration; sickness or death destroys it and old age diminishes it; in the other, the source of income continues; the income may be disposed of during a man's life and it descends to his heirs.

Surely we can afford to make a distinction between the people whose only capital is their mental and physical energy and the people whose income is derived from investments. Such a distinction would mean much to millions of American workers and would be an added inspiration to the man who must provide a competence during his few productive years to care for himself and his family when his earnings capacity is at an end.



Tax History Project -- The Republican Roots of New Deal Tax Policy

Blah blah blah...can't you piece together a complete fricken sentence?

No one can read your posts. Even the bobble heads that claims they can read it can't. They just recognize the talking points as theirs. If you pulled those bobble heads away from the computer - or you for that matter- and made them debate without notes, their answers would be buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh, uhhhh, uhhhh, buhhhh.

If you want to be taken seriously, try communicating the way humans are taught to write.

"buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh, uhhhh, uhhhh, buhhhh."

Yes that's about ALL you can do as your entire premise for this thread has been repeatedly debunked!

 

[EconChick]

Lone Laughter, are you ex-military?

Nope. Military brat. Grew up on bases.

Ok, thanks.

Btw, like Deltex pointed out, I don't understand why you subverted the pledge of allegiance, regardless of your religious beliefs?

 

[Dad2three]

The GOP Congress with complaint presidents after 1994 could have altered the emerging problem anytime before 2006.

It did not even try.

The Democrats were just as complicit. Clinton was all for leaving financial derivatives completely unregulated and signed legislation making it so.

After the crash, he admitted he fucked up.

No he didn't

From the September 25 broadcast of NBC's Today:

LAUER: The president said we have time to debate the origins of this crisis, but last night in his speech to the nation, he also said the roots go back more than a decade. You can do the math there, what he was suggesting. He's suggesting the roots that are with your administration. How do you respond to that?

CLINTON: Well, I think he's suggesting that when we -- I signed a bill that the banking industry wanted that let them get into securities issuance. There are some people who believe that that bill enabled them to somehow participate in some of the riskier housing investments. I disagree with that. That bill primarily enabled them to -- like the Bank of America, to buy Merrill Lynch here without a hitch. And I think that helped to stabilize the situation.

I think the main thing that you could blame the Democrats for, maybe, is that we should have made more of the problems of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and maybe the -- and tried more aggressively to regulate derivatives. But this thing really took off when the SEC, under this administration, exercised less oversight and they got rid of something called the uptick rule, which enabled betting down --

LAUER: Right.

CLINTON: -- on housing stocks to go crazy.





The "turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007," the President's Working Group on Financial Markets OCT 2008

 

[g5000]

The GOP Congress with complaint presidents after 1994 could have altered the emerging problem anytime before 2006.

It did not even try.

The Democrats were just as complicit. Clinton was all for leaving financial derivatives completely unregulated and signed legislation making it so.

After the crash, he admitted he fucked up.

No he didn't

From the September 25 broadcast of NBC's Today:

LAUER: The president said we have time to debate the origins of this crisis, but last night in his speech to the nation, he also said the roots go back more than a decade. You can do the math there, what he was suggesting. He's suggesting the roots that are with your administration. How do you respond to that?

CLINTON: Well, I think he's suggesting that when we -- I signed a bill that the banking industry wanted that let them get into securities issuance. There are some people who believe that that bill enabled them to somehow participate in some of the riskier housing investments. I disagree with that. That bill primarily enabled them to -- like the Bank of America, to buy Merrill Lynch here without a hitch. And I think that helped to stabilize the situation.

I think the main thing that you could blame the Democrats for, maybe, is that we should have made more of the problems of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and maybe the -- and tried more aggressively to regulate derivatives. But this thing really took off when the SEC, under this administration, exercised less oversight and they got rid of something called the uptick rule, which enabled betting down --

LAUER: Right.

CLINTON: -- on housing stocks to go crazy.





The "turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007," the President's Working Group on Financial Markets OCT 2008

"I think the main thing that you could blame the Democrats for, maybe, is that we should have made more of the problems of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and maybe the -- and tried more aggressively to regulate derivatives."

That's an admission he fucked up.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Lone Laughter, are you ex-military?

Nope. Military brat. Grew up on bases.

Ok, thanks.

Btw, like Deltex pointed out, I don't understand why you subverted the pledge of allegiance, regardless of your religious beliefs?

I am simply an originalist. The question you should ask is why Christian nutjobs "subverted" the pledge in the first place.

 

[EconChick]

So immigrants didn't come over BECAUSE US Corps needed more labor?

Third World countries. One of the things they all had in common was a small, very rich elite, small middle class, and a large lower class. They also shared very low economic growth as a result. This has been known for at least 50 years. The US has been going in this direction for at least the last 30 years as we have gradually de-industrialized and government policies (such as trickle down economics, 'free trade', etc) have promoted the shift of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the economic elite



Andrew Mellon had a few distinctly progressive ideas. Of particular note, he suggested taxing "earned" income from wages and salaries more lightly that "unearned" income from investments. As he argued:


The fairness of taxing more lightly income from wages, salaries or from investments is beyond question. In the first case, the income is uncertain and limited in duration; sickness or death destroys it and old age diminishes it; in the other, the source of income continues; the income may be disposed of during a man's life and it descends to his heirs.

Surely we can afford to make a distinction between the people whose only capital is their mental and physical energy and the people whose income is derived from investments. Such a distinction would mean much to millions of American workers and would be an added inspiration to the man who must provide a competence during his few productive years to care for himself and his family when his earnings capacity is at an end.



Tax History Project -- The Republican Roots of New Deal Tax Policy

Blah blah blah...can't you piece together a complete fricken sentence?

No one can read your posts. Even the bobble heads that claims they can read it can't. They just recognize the talking points as theirs. If you pulled those bobble heads away from the computer - or you for that matter- and made them debate without notes, their answers would be buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh, uhhhh, uhhhh, buhhhh.

If you want to be taken seriously, try communicating the way humans are taught to write.

"buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh, uhhhh, uhhhh, buhhhh."

Yes that's about ALL you can do as your entire premise for this thread has been repeatedly debunked!

You haven't debunked a thing. You know why?

Any one with any common sense that has the smallest handle on middle America knows there is malaise everywhere, especially in the heartland.

I can throw out tons of statistics. They can be found all over the internet to counter your propaganda.

No one knows better than we econ wonks that there are statistics, damn statistics, and lies.

If I wanted to play your game, it would be easy to do exactly what you're doing. Hunt down the partisan links and thhhhhhhstats.

I asked for people to give what they know from the gut, not from endlessly manipulated numbers. I mean some numbers were ok, but you turned this thread into all the other threads in the economy section. Just a bunch of easily contested wonkish links and graphs.

I was asking you to talk about your "sense" of how Americans feel about the direction of the country. The Confidence Index for July is clearly being spun by both sides.

I'm still waiting for you to remove yourself from your crutches and do that.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

When Bush hit a recession, he told everyone to go out and buy stuff.

A society which depends that heavily on internal consumption fueled by credit is doomed.

"Fueled by credit" is the problem. Sorry if you choked when you swallowed my "belt buckle".

A girl in the know once told me a big belt buckle is a tombstone for a dead dick.

A girl in the know?

Code for huge slut?

 

[Dad2three]

I saw both Keynesian policies and Reaganomics as being effective in the beginning but ultimately overcooked as they became entrenched fixtures in Washington, each with zombie-eyed followers, special interest groups, think tanks and intellectuals who had a financial incentive to keep the system going even after it started to fail. Regarding Keynesian stimulus: it was intended to maintain full employment during the downturn of the business cycles. The criticism was that it lead to inflation, which destroyed the very gains of the poor workers it was intended to serve, not only by raising their cost of living but by putting them in a higher tax bracket (i.e., uncle Milty > law of unintended consequences, etc., etc.,). But it should be noted that the left was always willing to accept modest inflation in exchange for full employment. However, in 1973 the Keynesian system fell apart. We had high inflation and high unemployment. This, FYI, was predicted by Milton Friedman, who said there was no long term tradeoff between inflation and unemployment. He and Edmund Phelps wrote a very influential paper claiming that Keynesian stimulus could only sustain employment in the short run but not the long run. When they turned out to be right, the consensus for Keynes was replaced by the 2nd coming of classical liberalism > neoliberalism, which advocated low taxes, deregulation and a "let failures fail" approach to downturns so as not to clog free market incentives with moral hazards. Even worse: it became clear the government was incapable of applying Keynesian policies with competence or honesty. Rather than merely priming the pump during severe downturns, our presidents turned to easy-money-stimulus for political reasons, i.e., whenever they needed a bump in the polls. Presidents like George Bush, in order to prevent a deeper recession, advocated a Fed rate policy that basically dumped liquid on asset markets, including housing. This created a mini-boom which got him past Kerry, but it ultimately did what over-extended credit always does: blow up.

The world benefited greatly because thinkers like Hayek and Friedman helped us see the limitations of government intervention in the economy. Our problem is that the neoliberals have become so powerful and entrenched that they lack a similar counterbalance. Nobody has gained any traction in explaining the conflict between capitalism's desire for ultra cheap labor and its need for robust purchasing power. That conflict was solved by a high wage system from '45-'80, and buffeted by any number of programs which targeted middle-class cost-of-living, especially financial support for public universities. And then... starting in 1980, we started to save our dying middle class with credit cards. Each solution to the conflict has severe limitations that certain special interest groups were/are paid to obscure. The challenge for the neoliberals is to explain why the economic growth from '45-'73 was greater than any other period in our history. This was they heyday of the New Deal and state managed capitalism. They Left has to explain why this system all the sudden stopped working in 1973. What is odd about this stuff is that there actually is an interesting debate here, though you wouldn't know it from how angry people get when they deliver their POV.

"which advocated low taxes, deregulation and a "let failures fail" approach to downturns so as not to clog free market incentives with moral hazards."

Yeah, because THAT always works *shaking head*

As you pointed out, 1946-1980?

Since 'Classical economics' has been in vogue, we've rescued the Banksters with Reagan's S&L crisis, Clinton's Latim America/Asian debt crisis then Dubya's subprime

Where is the corresponding 'growth' from lowest sustained tax burden on the 'job creators' in 90 years?

Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory

The conclusion?

Lowering the tax rates on the wealthy and top earners in America do not appear to have any impact on the nation’s economic growth.

Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory-GOP Suppresses Study - Forbes


DUBYA HAD A REGULATOR FAILURE, NOT A MONEY POLICY FAILURE, BTW

NOT THE FED


I noted earlier that the most important source of lower initial monthly payments, which allowed more people to enter the housing market and bid for properties, was not the general level of short-term interest rates, but the increasing use of more exotic types of mortgages and the associated decline of underwriting standards. That conclusion suggests that the best response to the housing bubble would have been regulatory, not monetary. Stronger regulation and supervision aimed at problems with underwriting practices and lenders' risk management would have been a more effective and surgical approach to constraining the housing bubble than a general increase in interest rates. Moreover, regulators, supervisors, and the private sector could have more effectively addressed building risk concentrations and inadequate risk-management practices without necessarily having had to make a judgment about the sustainability of house price increases.


FRB: Speech--Bernanke, Monetary Policy and the Housing Bubble--January 3, 2010




Did the Fed Cause the housing Bubble?

According to research by Ambrogio Cesa-Bianchi and Alessandro Rebucci, the housing bubble was caused by "regulatory rather than monetary-policy failures":

Economist's View: Did the Fed Cause the housing Bubble?




Was it easy money or easy regulation that caused the housing bubble?


… after the Fed started to tighten its monetary-policy stance and the prime segment of the mortgage market promptly turned around, the subprime segment of the mortgage market continued to boom, with increased perceived risk of loans portfolios and declining lending standards. Despite this evidence, the first regulatory action to rein in those financial excesses was undertaken only in late 2006, after almost two years of steady increases in the federal funds rate. …

When regulators finally decided to act, it was too late:

Was it easy money or easy regulation that caused the housing bubble? | AEIdeas

Instead of constantly regurgitating someone else's view, why don't you try having a conversation based on what YOU think, and what you've internalized, like Londoner.

People like you can't do a debate without constantly quoting from questionable sources making overly simplistic pronouncements.

It makes you look like you're just passing on something else someone gave to you to pass on.

What's there to debate Bubbette?

DUBYA IGNORED REGULATOR WARNINGS THAT STARTED IN 2004 ABOUT HIS SUBPRIME CRISIS, HE IGNORED THEM, GUTTED FBI WHITE COLLAR BY 1,800+ AGENTS AND USED POLICIES LIKE FORCING F/F TO BUY $440 BILLION IN MBS'S AND UPPING THEIR GOALS THAT FED THE PRIVATE MARKETS RUSH TO RAPE US!


The "turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007," the President's Working Group on Financial Markets OCT 2008



WEIRD, Ronnie ignored regulator warnings that started in 1984 that would've stopped 90%+ of his S&L crisis?

Almost like we elect guys to the Executive branch who are in charge of regulatory agencies and they 'believe in' Banksters over regulators! HMM

 

[Dad2three]

There was too much unemployed money looking for work, and too few good borrowers to lend it to. It is as simple as that.

The financial sector found a way to get more money into the hands of borrowers who had no business borrowing that much money. When they ran out of low risk borrowers to throw money at, they had barely put a dent in the pile of cash they wanted to put to work. So they found a way to get that cash working in the hands of high risk borrowers.

If you have a college trained financial professional banker on one side of the table, and a department store clerk who wants a new home for his family on the other side of the table, which one is more culpable for the bad loan being given?

During the recession of 2001, the only business sector that was performing well was the housing sector, and so the big money flowed like a tsunami into housing. Financial derivatives did the heavy lifting.

This was a global phenomena. Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Britain, et al. experienced an explosion of financial speculation in housing. So the idiots who blame the CRA are clueless. I like to ask them to explain how the negroes of Iceland brought down the house.

Just write down all the financial institutions around the planet and the country that failed, and you won't hardly find a single one that was subject to the CRA. Hell, Lehman Brothers bought up several mortgage brokers so they would have an unbroken chain for their CDO assembly line. Lehman was not subject to the CRA.

You won't find a single CEO blaming the CRA. It is a right wing partisan hack media invention that the CRA had anything to do with the global derivatives bubble.

Risk was sold to unsuspecting investors who were assured by the bankers and the ratings agencies that everything was on the up and up. The rubes (you the investor by way of your 401k manager) had no way of knowing the ratings agencies had whored themselves out for fees. Bad ratings meant no fees. Good ratings meant more fees. They murdered their integrity for money.

But they weren't the only ones. Your 401k manager was provided all the hookers and blow he could handle, along with box seats to ball games, in exchange for buying all this toxic shit Wall Street was shoveling at him. As was your city manager. As was your local college endowment fund manager. As was your insurance company.

Your 401k plummet? Your local taxes skyrocket? College tuition skyrocket? Insurance rates skyrocket? Yeah...the common man is being robbed blind.

One of the greatest and sweetest ironies of all time was that after being instrumental in Bill Clinton's administration at getting derivatives deregulated, Larry Summers went on to manage Harvard's endowment fund, where he lost them $2 billion by investing in those same derivatives! BWA-HA-HA-HA!

More people got into houses, and the politicians were more than happy to line up at the microphones to take the credit. And thanks for the campaign cash, by the way!

Just get out of Wall Street's way, they believed, and everyone will have a two car garage and a unicorn in every pot.

In the beginning, derivatives functioned exactly the way they were intended. But then the bankers got greedy. It was all about the service fees they earned as middle men. If the music stopped, the fees stopped, and so for God's sake keep the music going even if it means throwing the underwriting laws of the Universe learned over centuries right out the window.

When AIG FP finally realized they were insuring toxic CDOs that were going to blow up, they announced they were shutting off the credit default swap music.

Oh, hells noes, sez Wall Street. Wall Street then started up the CDS music again, and then the defrauding of investors really took off.

I can give you a list of names and their crimes. No problem.

ALL very true, BUT who was in charge of the Banksters and ignored the regulator warnings when the Subprime bubble was going nuts?



The FBI correctly identified the epidemic of mortgage control fraud at such an early point that the financial crisis could have been averted had the Bush administration acted with even minimal competence.

To understand the crisis we have to focus on how the mortgage fraud epidemic produced widespread accounting fraud.



William K. Black: The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis

Regulators and policymakers enabled this process at virtually every turn. Part of the reason they failed to understand the housing bubble was willful ignorance: they bought into the argument that the market would equilibrate itself. In particular, financial actors and regulatory officials both believed that secondary and tertiary markets could effectively control risk through pricing.


http://www.tobinproject.org/sites/tobinproject.org/files/assets/Fligstein_Catalyst of Disaster_0.pdf

 

[Dad2three]

Blah blah blah...can't you piece together a complete fricken sentence?

No one can read your posts. Even the bobble heads that claims they can read it can't. They just recognize the talking points as theirs. If you pulled those bobble heads away from the computer - or you for that matter- and made them debate without notes, their answers would be buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh, uhhhh, uhhhh, buhhhh.

If you want to be taken seriously, try communicating the way humans are taught to write.

"buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh, uhhhh, uhhhh, buhhhh."

Yes that's about ALL you can do as your entire premise for this thread has been repeatedly debunked!

You haven't debunked a thing. You know why?

Any one with any common sense that has the smallest handle on middle America knows there is malaise everywhere, especially in the heartland.

I can throw out tons of statistics. They can be found all over the internet to counter your propaganda.

No one knows better than we econ wonks that there are statistics, damn statistics, and lies.

If I wanted to play your game, it would be easy to do exactly what you're doing. Hunt down the partisan links and thhhhhhhstats.

I asked for people to give what they know from the gut, not from endlessly manipulated numbers. I mean some numbers were ok, but you turned this thread into all the other threads in the economy section. Just a bunch of easily contested wonkish links and graphs.

I was asking you to talk about your "sense" of how Americans feel about the direction of the country. The Confidence Index for July is clearly being spun by both sides.

I'm still waiting for you to remove yourself from your crutches and do that.

YES, BUSH AND COMP LEFT US IN A WIDE AND DEEP HOLE


Dubya lost 1.2+ million PRIVATE sector jobs in 8 years

Obama has 10+ million PRIVATE sector jobs created since hitting Bush's bottom March 2010

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data


DEC 2007

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush

The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, sees a generation-long struggle to recoup.

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush | Vanity Fair

WEIRD YOU'D THINK 8 YEARS OF DUBYA/GOP 'JOB CREATOR' POLICIES THE US ECONOMY WOULD'VE BEEN BOOMING? LOL

 

[EconChick]

So Reagan's policy of ballooning the deficits by cutting taxes while increasing spending was the proper formula in the eighties, because - cause and effect issues aside for the moment -

those policies were followed by greatly improved GDP and unemployment numbers?

Ballooning the deficit? That was nothing compared to the uber-balloon Obama has created. $17 trillion ring a bell? And Reagan got a ton more for his investment. Obama has gotten anemic employment and even worse growth.

Weird conservatives somehow think the debt rung up under Obama, AFTER Dubya put US in a HUGE FKKNG HOLE, is somehow his fault? Yet Ronnie tripled US debt, and that was OK?

]

Great example of twisting, manipulating, disingenuous talk of numbers.

Reagan added about 1.7 trillion of debt himself over his 8 years. Obama has already added 5.8 trillion of debt over his tenure. By the time he leaves it will probably be at least 6.5 trillion that just he himself added to the current 17 trillion. But I'll go with the more conservative number for you.

So let me spell it out again.

Reagan = 1.7 T
Obama = 5.8T

This isn't like comparing 1.7 million dollars and 5.8 million dollars.

We're talking about trillions!!!!


It is an unrefuted, unequivocal, undeniable fact that Obama is the biggest fucking spender in our history.

So stop trying to lie about it.

 

[Dad2three]

The Democrats were just as complicit. Clinton was all for leaving financial derivatives completely unregulated and signed legislation making it so.

After the crash, he admitted he fucked up.

No he didn't

From the September 25 broadcast of NBC's Today:

LAUER: The president said we have time to debate the origins of this crisis, but last night in his speech to the nation, he also said the roots go back more than a decade. You can do the math there, what he was suggesting. He's suggesting the roots that are with your administration. How do you respond to that?

CLINTON: Well, I think he's suggesting that when we -- I signed a bill that the banking industry wanted that let them get into securities issuance. There are some people who believe that that bill enabled them to somehow participate in some of the riskier housing investments. I disagree with that. That bill primarily enabled them to -- like the Bank of America, to buy Merrill Lynch here without a hitch. And I think that helped to stabilize the situation.

I think the main thing that you could blame the Democrats for, maybe, is that we should have made more of the problems of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and maybe the -- and tried more aggressively to regulate derivatives. But this thing really took off when the SEC, under this administration, exercised less oversight and they got rid of something called the uptick rule, which enabled betting down --

LAUER: Right.

CLINTON: -- on housing stocks to go crazy.





The "turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007," the President's Working Group on Financial Markets OCT 2008

"I think the main thing that you could blame the Democrats for, maybe, is that we should have made more of the problems of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and maybe the -- and tried more aggressively to regulate derivatives."

That's an admission he fucked up.

But this thing really took off when the SEC, under this administration, exercised less oversight and they got rid of something called the uptick rule, which enabled betting down -


PLEASE show me the bill in the GOP Congress Clinton could've signed ? lol

 

[Rikurzhen]

I certainly agree with you on this part, Rikurzhen. I agree with some of your subsequent posts about labor too, but I think your explanation is too labor-centric.

What we need to keep in the forefront of an analysis is the Power of the Variable. Not every policy has the same effect size. When wealth is created it takes a combination of capital and labor. How that wealth is apportioned between capital and labor has a hugely powerful effect on issues like income inequality and wage levels. It has far lower effect size on factors like GDP growth and labor force growth, for instance.

 

[Dad2three]

Ballooning the deficit? That was nothing compared to the uber-balloon Obama has created. $17 trillion ring a bell? And Reagan got a ton more for his investment. Obama has gotten anemic employment and even worse growth.

Weird conservatives somehow think the debt rung up under Obama, AFTER Dubya put US in a HUGE FKKNG HOLE, is somehow his fault? Yet Ronnie tripled US debt, and that was OK?

]

Great example of twisting, manipulating, disingenuous talk of numbers.

Reagan added about 1.7 trillion of debt himself over his 8 years. Obama has already added 5.8 trillion of debt over his tenure. By the time he leaves it will probably be at least 6.5 trillion that just he himself added to the current 17 trillion. But I'll go with the more conservative number for you.

So let me spell it out again.

Reagan = 1.7 T
Obama = 5.8T

This isn't like comparing 1.7 million dollars and 5.8 million dollars.

We're talking about trillions!!!!


It is an unrefuted, unequivocal, undeniable fact that Obama is the biggest fucking spender in our history.

So stop trying to lie about it.

Yes, Reagan tripled US debt and Bush's policies weill be responsible for most of 'Obama's debt'. Be honest ONCE?

Bush Policies Continue to Drive Large Projected Deficits

Tax Cuts, War Costs Do Lasting Harm to Budget Outlook

Some commentators blame major legislation adopted since 2008 — the stimulus bill and other recovery measures and the financial rescues — for today’s record deficits. Yet those costs pale next to other policies enacted since 2001 that have swollen the deficit and that have lasting effects.

Just two policies dating from the Bush Administration — tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — accounted for over $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 and will account for nearly $6 trillion in deficits in 2009 through 2019 (including associated debt-service costs of $1.4 trillion). By 2019, we estimate that these two policies will account for almost half — over $8 trillion — of the $17 trillion in debt that will be owed under current policies.

Economic Downturn and Legacy of Bush Policies Continue to Drive Large Deficits ? Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

IDEOLOGUE POS

 

[Dad2three]

Ballooning the deficit? That was nothing compared to the uber-balloon Obama has created. $17 trillion ring a bell? And Reagan got a ton more for his investment. Obama has gotten anemic employment and even worse growth.

Weird conservatives somehow think the debt rung up under Obama, AFTER Dubya put US in a HUGE FKKNG HOLE, is somehow his fault? Yet Ronnie tripled US debt, and that was OK?

]

Great example of twisting, manipulating, disingenuous talk of numbers.

Reagan added about 1.7 trillion of debt himself over his 8 years. Obama has already added 5.8 trillion of debt over his tenure. By the time he leaves it will probably be at least 6.5 trillion that just he himself added to the current 17 trillion. But I'll go with the more conservative number for you.

So let me spell it out again.

Reagan = 1.7 T
Obama = 5.8T

This isn't like comparing 1.7 million dollars and 5.8 million dollars.

We're talking about trillions!!!!


It is an unrefuted, unequivocal, undeniable fact that Obama is the biggest fucking spender in our history.

So stop trying to lie about it.

Doctorate huh? Static dollars? lol

Ronnie tripled US debt, thanks to him in 12 years, Poppy Bush/Reagan quadrupled debt


We already know what economic policies work best for our country. Clinton knew that we had to cut spending and increase revenues. We had revenues of 20.6% of GDP and a surplus in 2000. Then something terrible happened, the Republicans gained complete control in 2001 and instead of sticking with what was working they decided that their ideology was more important. The debt has gone up $12 trillion since then.

 

[Siete]

Weird conservatives somehow think the debt rung up under Obama, AFTER Dubya put US in a HUGE FKKNG HOLE, is somehow his fault? Yet Ronnie tripled US debt, and that was OK?

]

Great example of twisting, manipulating, disingenuous talk of numbers.

Reagan added about 1.7 trillion of debt himself over his 8 years. Obama has already added 5.8 trillion of debt over his tenure. By the time he leaves it will probably be at least 6.5 trillion that just he himself added to the current 17 trillion. But I'll go with the more conservative number for you.

So let me spell it out again.

Reagan = 1.7 T
Obama = 5.8T

This isn't like comparing 1.7 million dollars and 5.8 million dollars.

We're talking about trillions!!!!


It is an unrefuted, unequivocal, undeniable fact that Obama is the biggest fucking spender in our history.

So stop trying to lie about it.

Yes, Reagan tripled US debt and Bush's policies weill be responsible for most of 'Obama's debt'. Be honest ONCE?

Bush Policies Continue to Drive Large Projected Deficits

Tax Cuts, War Costs Do Lasting Harm to Budget Outlook

Some commentators blame major legislation adopted since 2008 — the stimulus bill and other recovery measures and the financial rescues — for today’s record deficits. Yet those costs pale next to other policies enacted since 2001 that have swollen the deficit and that have lasting effects.

Just two policies dating from the Bush Administration — tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — accounted for over $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 and will account for nearly $6 trillion in deficits in 2009 through 2019 (including associated debt-service costs of $1.4 trillion). By 2019, we estimate that these two policies will account for almost half — over $8 trillion — of the $17 trillion in debt that will be owed under current policies.

Economic Downturn and Legacy of Bush Policies Continue to Drive Large Deficits ? Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

IDEOLOGUE POS

Ronnie raised the debt 189% ..


http://www.skymachines.com/US-National-Debt-Per-Capita-Percent-of-GDP-and-by-Presidental-Term.htm

 

[Dad2three]

As for the GSEs, yes George Bush did try to get Congress to force the GSEs to shrink their portfolios. He sure did. And yes the Democrats stopped him, even though they were a minority party at the time.

It's funny how some right wingers can't see how the minority Republicans in the Senate can totally deadlock our government, but scream from the rooftops about how Barney Frank and Chris Dodd stopped George Bush from saving the GSEs.

It is absolutely true Frank and Dodd killed the GSE portfolio shrinkage. Yes, indeedy.

But there was a reason Bush wanted to shrink the GSEs, you see. Wall Street wanted that action. Wall Street was moving into the secondary market in a big way and wanted the GSEs market share.

By 2006, the GSE market share had shrank from about 90 percent to less than 50 percent of the secondary market. This was not so much due to them buying and selling less, but more because of the supernova explosion of Wall Street's action.

So Bush's motives were not pure, kids. If he was truly worried about systemic risk, he would not have shrunk the SEC or allowed them to unanimously approve the lowering of capital reserve requirements for the five biggest Wall Street broker-dealers, see? He would have been making less noise about the GSEs and raising all kinds of alarms about the explosion on Wall Street.

But complaining about more people being able to borrow money to buy houses would not have been popular at the Wall Street fundraising trough, now would it.

Did you know that Bush grew every single government agency while in office? He even created a massive new Cabinet department so as to create a surveillance State that spies on every Merkan.

He grew every agency...except two.

Guess which two he shrank. I already told you one.


The SEC. The other one was the EPA.


Bush was not about saving us from systemic risk in the financial services sector. He was about throwing GSE market share to the big donors on Wall Street.

"As for the GSEs, yes George Bush did try to get Congress to force the GSEs to shrink their portfolios. He sure did. And yes the Democrats stopped him, even though they were a minority party at the time."

HOW?


BARNEY FRANK? MINORITY MEMBER OF THE GOP HOUSE WHERE MAJORITY RULES LIKE TODAY? LOL

PLEASE tell me what super powers Barney had?

2003

Strong opposition by the Bush administration forced a top Republican congressman to delay a vote on a bill that would create a new regulator for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.


Oxley pulls Fannie, Freddie bill under heat from Bush - MarketWatch



The critics have forgotten that the House passed a GSE reform bill in 2005 that could well have prevented the current crisis, says Mr Oxley(R), now vice-chairman of Nasdaq.”

“What did we get from the White House? We got a one-finger salute.”



Oxley was Chairman of the House Financial Services committee and sponsor of the only reform bill to pass any chamber of the republican controlled congress




STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

The Administration strongly believes that the housing GSEs should be focused on their core housing mission, particularly with respect to low-income Americans and first-time homebuyers. Instead, provisions of H.R. 1461 that expand mortgage purchasing authority would lessen the housing GSEs' commitment to low-income homebuyers.

George W. Bush: Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1461 - Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005

Yes, he said he was against it because it "would lessen the housing GSEs' commitment to low-income homebuyers".



Bush talked about reform. He talked and he talked. And then he stopped reform. (read that as many times as necessary. Bush stopped reform). And then he stopped it again


Bush forced Freddie and Fannie to purchase more low income home loans, $440 billion in MBSs and then reversed the Clinton rule that actually reigned in Freddie and Fannie


"(In 2000, CLINTON) HUD restricted Freddie and Fannie, saying it would not credit them for loans they purchased that had abusively high costs or that were granted without regard to the borrower's ability to repay."

How BUSH HUD Mortgage Policy Fed The Crisis

"In 2004 (BUSH) , the 2000 rules were dropped and high‐risk loans were again counted toward affordable housing goals."

http://www.prmia.org/sites/default/files/references/Fannie_Mae_and_Freddie_Mac_090911_v2.pdf


June 17, 2004


Home builders, realtors and others are preparing to fight a Bush administration plan that would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase financing of homes for low-income people, a home builder group said Thursday.


Home builders fight Bush's low-income housing - Jun. 17, 2004



June 17th, 2004


Fannie, Freddie to Suffer Under New Rule, Frank Says

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would suffer financially under a Bush administration requirement that they channel more mortgage financing to people with low incomes, said the senior Democrat on a congressional panel that sets regulations for the companies.


So if your narrative is "GSEs are to blame" then you have to blame bush


http://democrats.financialservices....s/112/06-17-04-new-Fannie-goals-Bloomberg.pdf

 

[EconChick]

"buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh buhhh, uhhhh, uhhhh, buhhhh."

Yes that's about ALL you can do as your entire premise for this thread has been repeatedly debunked!

You haven't debunked a thing. You know why?

Any one with any common sense that has the smallest handle on middle America knows there is malaise everywhere, especially in the heartland.

I can throw out tons of statistics. They can be found all over the internet to counter your propaganda.

No one knows better than we econ wonks that there are statistics, damn statistics, and lies.

If I wanted to play your game, it would be easy to do exactly what you're doing. Hunt down the partisan links and thhhhhhhstats.

I asked for people to give what they know from the gut, not from endlessly manipulated numbers. I mean some numbers were ok, but you turned this thread into all the other threads in the economy section. Just a bunch of easily contested wonkish links and graphs.

I was asking you to talk about your "sense" of how Americans feel about the direction of the country. The Confidence Index for July is clearly being spun by both sides.

I'm still waiting for you to remove yourself from your crutches and do that.

YES, BUSH AND COMP LEFT US IN A WIDE AND DEEP HOLE


Dubya lost 1.2+ million PRIVATE sector jobs in 8 years

Obama has 10+ million PRIVATE sector jobs created since hitting Bush's bottom March 2010

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data


DEC 2007

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush

The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, sees a generation-long struggle to recoup.

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush | Vanity Fair

WEIRD YOU'D THINK 8 YEARS OF DUBYA/GOP 'JOB CREATOR' POLICIES THE US ECONOMY WOULD'VE BEEN BOOMING? LOL

Well thank you for at least making that readable, Dad2three.

I can finally read your post.

As for the numbers, the crash that happened in 2008 is separate from the earlier years of Bush's presidency. As G50000 has said, everyone was to blame for the crash.

Yes, it's true that we can't all of a sudden not hold Bush responsible at all for the jobs lost during the crash just because it was everyone's fault.

But the way you're reporting the numbers is you're giving Bush 100% of the blame for the crash.

Therefore your numbers are totally skewed....and in a massive way.