43 Months of Depressing Misery
I was briefly tempted to take a tiny bit of pity on the Obama administration after Friday’s awful employment report. After all, one can make a pretty strong case based on the raw (i.e., not seasonally adjusted) figures that the number of jobs added after seasonal adjustment should have been at least 50,000 higher than the official result of 96,000. That still would not have been enough to support a claim that the job market or the economy as a whole are legitimately recovering, but it would have sufficed to prevent the Obama-loving but self-protecting establishment press from reluctantly pouncing on how bad Friday’s news was, and how it will harm Dear Leader’s reelection prospects.
But then I read the reactions of Alan Krueger and Hilda Solis.
Krueger, who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisers and as such is supposed to be financially and statistically literate, was last month seen complaining that July’s reported unemployment rate of 8.3%, unrounded, was “only” 8.254%. Shortly after Friday’s release, he claimed that “today’s employment report provides further evidence that the U.S. economy is continuing to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression.” Solis, the insufferable apparatchik who serves as Obama’s Labor secretary, piled it on even thicker, asking us to believe that “our recovery remains on a stable trajectory of positive job growth. Smart and steady wins the race.”
Forget about the sympathy. If anyone deserves a bad break from seasonal calculations 60 days out from the presidential election and just desserts for avoiding at least three previous months when the seasonal sausage-makers could defensibly have reported initial job losses (August 2011, April 2012, and June 2012), it’s this reality-denying crowd.
Three years and seven months into the Obama administration, there’s no longer any reasonable doubt that we’re living through the worst presidential exercise of economic stewardship since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s rabid progressivism known as the New Deal locked the Federal Reserve-created, Herbert Hoover-enhanced Great Depression into place for eight additional years. In 1932, the year before FDR was inaugurated, the unemployment rate was 23.6%. In 1940, it was still 14.6%. In between, it never fell below 12%. The economy only recovered because of the military build-up required to win World War II.
Today, as Mort Zuckerman accurately contended in a Friday evening Wall Street Journal op-ed, “we are experiencing, in effect, a modern-day depression,” where “dependent millions” relying on food stamps and swelling the disability rolls “are the invisible counterparts of the soup kitchens and bread lines of the 1930s.” Zuckerman, James Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise Institute, and Amy Payne at the Heritage Foundation have accumulated separate litanies of awful statistics, largely focusing on deep drops in labor force participation and sharp increases in discouragement. Collectively, they completely repudiate Krueger’s and Solis’s aforementioned recovery assertions.





For those who would like to argue about the fact that – are we better off now than 4 years ago? I would love to take on this debate anyday of the week, month, or year.
Let me start by stating what the true denial of this country is. The true denial in this country was what happened for 8 years prior to the Obama Administration. That period was the worst disaster that America has ever faced. 4 years later now, are we better off?
4 years ago, the banks were closing and lending were frozen all across the country. Remember people lining up at banks to withdraw their savings to ensure that their banks were not the ones closing?
Today, you don’t hear about banks closing and lending being frozen. Where is the line of people at banks all across the country withdrawing their funds?
4 years ago, the Dow Jones was at 6,547 points at the lowest point in March 2009 shortly after Obama took office.
Today, the Dow Jones is at 13,047 points and steady as she go.
4 years ago, GM and Chrysler was at the brink of bankruptcy and most Republicans, including Romney, said that we should not bail them out. Even most of President Obama’s advisors stated the same case, which he completely ignored and moved forward with saving the auto industry, an extremely risky bet.
Today, Chrysler has completely paid back their debt and GM has paid back $26 billion of the $49.5 billion bailout. GM is back on top as the world’s #1 automaker and both companies have reported record profits in over a decade. Had the auto industry failed, the ripple effect would have been tremendous linking to car dealorships, auto-parts stores, GM and Chrysler service stations, etc., all across America. Millions of jobs would have been instantly lost.
4 years ago, mortgage foreclosures were being reported in the media on a weekly basis all across the country.
Today, do we hear of these foreclosures in the media on a weekly basis all across the country?
4 years ago, Wall Street was on the verge of a total collapse as I mentioned above with the Dow Jones as low as 6,547 points at one point. Investers were scrambling to salvage whatever stocks that they could turn over immediately.
Today, Wall Street is thriving and investments are safe again. The fear of investments are no longer on consumer minds.
NOW TAKE THAT TO THE BANK BECAUSE THEY ARE NO LONGER CLOSING!!!!!
I’ll take that bet.
“Today, Chrysler has completely paid back their debt and GM has paid back $26 billion of the $49.5 billion bailout. GM is back on top as the world’s #1 automaker and both companies have reported record profits in over a decade.”
Complete and total BULLSHIT. GM has not paid back ONE DIME of the money it owes, the $26 billion is an accounting illusion (it was a form of deferred TAX WRITEOFF), as for record profits that’s bullshit as well.
GM’s share price is cratering and the company is going broke AGAIN. Look at the share price and the actual sales (not the channel stuffing occuring in dealers). By this time next year GM will need ANOTHER bailout provided they don’t go broke sooner.
“Today, Wall Street is thriving…”
No they are not, look at the recent job losses at Goldman Sachs amounst others.
“and your investments are safe.”
HAHAHAAHAHAHA… More bullshit. Ask the account holders of MFGlobal who had their accounts stolen by the CEO John Corzine. You did know that the Obama administration has let him walk away without charges (he is a BIG campaign bundler after all and as such is TBTF). But it was only $1.6B that was looted.
On another hand Dodd-Frank guarantees INFINITE bailouts of the TBTF banks with YOUR money so Goldman exec’s can continue to gamble away with the remains of your net worth safe in the knowledge if they vaporise it again just like 2009 they will still get their million dollar bonuses.
As for the foreclosures, they have stopped because the “chain of title” on most of these properties has actually been “subdivided” between multiple parties (the same title being sold to multiple parties at the same time) violating ~ 400y of property law and in the process creating a system so badly corrupted that everyone and no-one actually owns the properties.
Wall street in effect created “fractional reserve” property titles.
Even better, as a result of this financial innovation those “mortgage backed” securities sold to your 401k are in fact backed by NOTHING and are worth ZERO… Ponder that if you will.
What is really happening is the slow motion economic collapse of the United States into a larger and poorer version of Mexico and Argentina driven and enabled by the lawlessness and corruption of the Obama administration and it’s paymasters.
The Failed States of Mexetina – that’s the change being delivered, 4 more years will bring it to fruition.
“As for the foreclosures, they have stopped because the “chain of title” on most of these properties has actually been “subdivided” between multiple parties (the same title being sold to multiple parties at the same time) violating ~ 400y of property law and in the process creating a system so badly corrupted that everyone and no-one actually owns the properties.”
Could you provide some link to an article that expounds on this. Do you literally mean that properties are being sold now, or do you mean that in cases where loans are made to defaulting parties that titles that were sold in the past are unclear on ownership?
According to my understanding of the issues both scenario’s may be valid.
Google “foreclosure fraud” if you want to dig further and rely on sources far more credible than some Random Blowhard.
The things you’re saying are either wrong, or attributed to the wrong President.
This was NOT “the worst crisis America has ever faced.” As the article indicated, the unemployment rate in 1932 was more than twice as high as the unemployment rate in 2009. Plus back in 1932, the social safety net was much smaller and much less effective. And there was this thing called the Communist Party USA. There were real fears that if FDR didn’t act to put people back to work and strengthen the social safety net, there could be Communist-inspired social unrest. None of that was true in 2008-2009.
Romney did NOT say that nothing should be done about GM. He recommended that the Government oversee a structured bankruptcy of GM. (Whether that would have worked is an open question, given how little private financing was available from the banks and Wall Street at the time. But it should have been tried.)
Today, the Government remains the largest single shareholder in GM. The Government is stuck with GM stock they can’t sell, because at today’s stock price it would mean taking a $26 billion loss. Obama is trying to avoid that embarrassment until after he wins re-election (if he does). It’s quite possible that Obama will never sell the stock at a loss, meaning that GM will remain permanently nationalized.
I won’t consider GM to be a viable company until the Government no longer needs to own GM stock. Then once again, investors will or will not invest in GM based on its economic merits, not based on Democratic Party politics. America is not Chavez’s Venezuela or Britain with its government-owned British Leyland Motors. We never nationalized companies in America until Obama came along.
Finally, the reason that the financial industry is recovering is due to TARP (which was initiated by Bush, not Obama) and the Federal Reserve’s loose money policies (which were initiated by Bernanke, a Bush appointee).
You’ve said much of what I wanted to say, but let me point out one more thing.
George W Bush initiated the bailout, giving bridge financing to keep the companies alive until the Obama Administration took over. From this, we can reasonably say that any President, Republican or Democratic, would have taken steps to make sure GM did not vanish from the earth.
There is a huge difference between what Bush or Romney would have done and what Obama did, however, Obama’s team manipulated the system to help their cronies at the UAW. Normal bankruptcy would have invalidated all union contracts and given the companies a clean slate. GM’s pseudo bankruptcy preserved union contracts and wages, which sounds great until you realize it kept the company uncompetitive. That’s why it’s slowly slipping back into another bankruptcy.
It’s interesting to note, though, that Obama did not save GM from bankruptcy. Much of their recovery was done under court supervision, just like any other bankrtupcy. The real difference is that Obama’s political pals got saved, at the expense of bondholders and non-labor stakeholders.
GM has been saved, at enormous expense. To be fair,our pals at Ford, Toyota, Honda and other non-bankrupt automakers lobbied for the bailout to preserve our highly interdependent network of parts suppliers, many of who would have vanished with a GM liquidation. So really, any President would have bailed out GM.
But there were plenty of flaws in how it was done, and I think the Romney approach, a standard bankruptcy including government supplied or subsidized debtor in possession financing if it could not be otherwise obtained, would have been better for the companies and the country.
D
re “Obama’s team manipulated the system to help their cronies at the UAW. Normal bankruptcy would have invalidated all union contracts and given the companies a clean slate.”
My retirement account held GM bonds. I got 10 cents on the dollar.
I am nobody, and I suspect you are nobody too. If Obama’s lawyers gleefully took my money and gave it to their cronies (UAW), what makes you think it won’t happen to you?
I’m saddened to hear of your losses. All I can say is the Obama administration is as lawless and corrupt as any African dictator or failing state third world country, that is why the depression continues.
During Obama’s second term he WILL confiscate everyone’s 401k to bail out his cronies and supporters again.
After all if you “belong to the government” so do any assets you have accumulated as a result of your own hard work and determination.
May God help us all if Obama is re-elected…
Actually, unemployment is at around 20%, not the innocent 8.3% that is touted. Thus, we are well in line for the depression numbers on the 30′s. In addition, we are broke, due to constant infusions of TARP and bailouts, our dollar is worthless. The only thing that keeps it on par with Europe is that they are broke as well. As in 1930, we are also looking at a WWIII in the near future due to the weakness of this president.
As to who started the problem, I name Barney Frank. He almost single handed gave us the collaspe with his push on housing. Then we had a Democratic control congress before O. Add this to Bush’s stupidity (I know of the man from personal friends so can make that claim) and we have a horrible situation. Now we can not move forward due to Obamacare, the EPA, green initiatives, O’s killing of fossil fuels, and the lack of a plan, any plan by O.
Many are getting ready for the second civil war.
I had GM bonds in my retirement savings. I got 10 cents on the dollar.
It’s like the godfather(Obama)used his consiglieris (Obama’s “car” lawyers) to send me a smelly fish in a wrapper. They were whispering: “We’re giving your money to our friends and donors. Kiss it good-bye, sucker.” I get the idea. Corporations with friends in high places are the new thugs of the United States economy.
Wake up America. Competitive Capitalism is dead.
Big donors or bundlers can steal, embezzle, or otherwise cheat the United States’ laws and citizens and walk out laughing – see Jon Corzine, who “lost” $1.4 billion in customer money. He led his company MF Global into one of the 10 biggest bankruptcies in US history.
Luckily, he has friends in high places. Eric Holder is one. Also, the president. Mr. Corzine has bundled hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions for the president.
Mr. Corzine, looter and political bundler, ought to be on the front page of the NY Times in a cartoon showing him in criminal striped pajamas, but it hasn’t happened. The NY Times likes leaked stories too much to write an unflattering story about a close associate of the White House family.
Nice try there, Dave! Apparently, according to you, the cumulative failures of Progressive economic policy which goes back to at least Wilson has had no “chickens have come home to roost” result. For example, the Community Reinvestment Act and the subsequent “derivatives” that were developed from that fiasco all came about during the administration of George W. Bush….right? Also, the market tanked not partly as a result of that government generated failure and the anticipation of the election of a leftist radical but because we had just experienced “That period was (which was) the worst disaster that America has ever faced” according to Dave. Fact is, by all measures it was a mediocre recession that had been experienced many times in our history. You do your Democrat hyperbole quite well, Dave. As to lending being “frozen” try a little research into the result of artificially low interest rate policy on the part of the Fed and the role that such action has regarding lending practices.
Had GM and Chrysler gone thru normal structured bankruptcy procedures, as have the airlines on numerous occasions, solvency could have returned to those companies. Of course, that would not have created the illegal subordination of bondholders to the UAW, so the Obama criminal class could not have seized upon the opportunity to buy a voting constituency and payoff union thugs. (Don’t youb just hate Ford?). You mention the “ripple effect” but not the closing of thousands of dealerships and the subsequent job loss. The “Volt” just fizzled. Where are those jobs going? Elsewhere, The Keystone pipeline denial and the thousands of jobs lost there? Or the Gulf drilling moratorium and the thousands of jobs lost? Or Northeast commercial fishing? Or the ethanol fiasco? And on and on. Space prevents getting even started.
For many of us who initially supported Bush he proved to be a disappointment. However, the election of a Progressive radical who has magnified his failures by many times has been the real disaster and will only be a feat equaled by Dave should he attempt to successfully debate the issues. You have to do a lot better than the party-line talking-points “Bush did it” hack routine to compete here. Oh Dave, how will your grandkids pay down the massive debt accrued during the Obama administration? Something to ponder instead of debate success illusions.
It is going to be interesting to see how the GM Secure Bond Holders make out in court. They just got a court date and they are asking to unravel the whole mess and start over. This is really going to be someting to watch.
If we had a Supreme Court as a active branch of our government none of this could have happened. But the SC gave up it position to FDR long ago and they never have stepped up again.
re: “Of course, that would not have created the illegal subordination of bondholders to the UAW, so the Obama criminal class could not have seized upon the opportunity to buy a voting constituency and payoff union thugs.”
I had GM bonds in my retirement account. I got 10 cents on the dollar.
The UAW waltzed out of the Obama lawyer’s backroom “bankruptcy” with 40% of the new GM.
I ask you: Who, in their right mind, would ever lend money to a union company? You might as well flush your savings down the sewer!
The United States is finished as a manufacturing country. The unions, with their Dem politicos, have made investing in a union company a sucker bet.
Sucker, sucker, sucker, if you invest one cent in a union company.
Hey Dave. Buy any food lately? How about gas? Did your healthcare improve, and go down in price? Locked into a job somewhere, can’t leave because because the risk is too much? Print any money lately, so stocks could rise in “value”?
Looks like OWS failed to bring enough attention to the “success” on Wall St, to you at least.
Why does Mr. President need 4 more years to “fix” all this Wonder Recovery?
No, Dave is gone. No need to return and answer questions that do not exist in a reality bounded by I’m told what to say and think walls.
Besides, boot licking is counted as a “job” added, even if Dave is an intern.
Does it really matter what Dave says? It is quite clear after reading the message boards on PJ Media for some time that the vast majority of posters do not accept anything that does not comport with what they are already inclined to believe. When they hear something they don’t like they retreat into the Fox News or Glenn Beck echo chamber and hit the rewind button.
A good example of this is the indisputable bounce President Obama is getting out of his convention. Even pollsters like rasmussen, who you people were clinging to just a week or so ago, are now part of a media conspiracy. How long the bounce will last is anyone’s guess, but to just flat out deny what is obvious is beyond immature, it borders on the thinking of a sociopath. That seems to be what is the matter with the contemporary GOP, they suffer from mass sociopathic derangement syndrome.
“How long the bounce will last is anyone’s guess, but to just flat out deny what is obvious is beyond immature, it borders on the thinking of a sociopath.”
Post something worthy of a debate instead of being a punk, day after day over here posting crap.
It isn’t crap, but thanks for proving my point. Even, dyed in the wool fire breathing conservative Eric Erickson over at RedState, said the same thing in his piece today, “Sometimes a Cake Really Is A Cake. Sometimes a Polling Trend Really is Accurate”:
“Back in August, when David Axelrod and the Democrats were highly critical of the Gallup poll, the right loved the drama. Clearly there were problems with Team Obama and the polling accurately reflected it. Now, however, the trend is against Mitt Romney. Suddenly, those damn dirty pollsters are rigging the race against Mitt Romney.
What was good for Team Obama must be good for Team Romney. If the polling was accurate then, there is nothing to suggest it is somehow inaccurate now.”
It must really sting when one of your own smack you down, huh? Time to grow up old punk and quit being a bitter clinger.
http://www.redstate.com/2012/09/10/sometimes-a-cake-really-is-a-cake-sometimes-a-polling-trend-really-is-accurate/
Look at this angry little piss-pot posting nonsense. blah,blah,blah….so you take what Red State says as gospel, eh punk?……seems as thought the huff po is all lies now, I suppose
“Does it really matter what Dave says?”
If you believe perception IS reality then NO. If you regard the truth as irrelevant if if contradicts the political narrative of the moment then the answer is also NO.
Just remember that denial of reality does not make it go away and that the laws of nature and mathematics will not be denied forever.
Just remember CW, the “usefull idiots” who carry water for the regime are the FIRST to be fed through the woodchipper when the time comes…
Maybe Romney will sic the DOJ on pollsters he doesn’t like…
And then there’s that *trifling* matter of our $16 trillion (and growing… nay, skyrocketing) in national debt. Funny how your side never seems to talk much about that, Dave. The DNC platform contained two or three throwaway lines on the matter (some boilerplate about “cutting government waste” and “making the rich pay their fair share”). Your side of the political aisle are not even pretending to act like grownups when it comes to the greatest existential threat facing our economy; indeed, facing our country. How’s that make you feel?
The financial crisis that broke in 2008 was caused by the Clinton administration pushing the banks to support questionable home loans. You can see the result by looking at the housing bubble, which began in ’96 / ’97 and popped in 2005.
It isn’t the worst disaster we have faced or will face, but it is another disaster brought to you by the intervention of Democrat politicians.
Obama himself, as a young lawyer, helped push the bubble, taking advantage of Clinton administration rules to force Citibank into providing loans to people who couldn’t afford them. Obama retains the full set of bad rules that caused the crisis in the first place.
None of this explains the persistence of the bad economy. Economic recovery should be rapid. Yet we remain stagnet. That is due to Obama administration policies.
Also, 8 years ago, when Bush left office, we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. Deficit financed tax cuts for, so called, “job creators,” and two unfunded wars that were never put on the books, was a dagger through the heart of the American middle class and our economy. We won’t be returning to a repeat of these failed policies.
Not to mention the fact that those who want a job fare much better under Democratic presidents than republican presidents: Since 1961 Democratic presidents have created 42 million jobs as compared to 24 million under the republicans.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-08/private-jobs-increase-more-with-democrats-in-white-house.html
Add to all that the fact that the republicans want to destroy Social Security and Medicare and there really is no compelling reason for a working person to vote republicans. That’s the party for trust fund babies.
HERE ARE THE facts you cherry picking immature fool:
There was ONE MONTH during the Bush administration, Nov. 2008 where about 800,000 jobs were lost and that was the worst month during the entire Bush administration. Since obama has been in office there has been a LOSS OF 5 MILLION JOBS. When Obama says 4 million jobs have been created under his watch (actual number according to BLS is 3.9 million) he neglects that minor detail. SO OBAMA HAS A NET JOB LOSS OF 1 MILLION JOBS. Go to the BLS website to see for yourself:
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
You’re such an inferior half-witted punk of a troll.
I’m guessing it’s the beginning of Alzheimer’s with you, because you wouldn’t know a fact from a spoonful of the strained peas you eat for breakfast at the nursing home. Talk about cherry picking data!
From January 2001 through March 2004 the country lost more than 1.6 million jobs overall, and more than 2.4 million jobs in the private sector. This information is from BLS.
Meanwhile, from January 2009 through March 2012, the country lost an estimated 740,000 jobs in total, and lost about 161,000 jobs in the private sector. In other words, job loss under Obama — who inherited a recession deeper than any seen in generations, followed by a recovery that most would describe as modest — was nevertheless dwarfed by job loss under Bush, at least for the majority of the two presidents’ first terms.
Employers have added 3.1 million jobs since Obama took office, a claim fact-checked and verified by ABC News.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/job-killer-obama-guilty-or-innocent/
Of course, you won’t believe any of this because it doesn’t comport with what you are already inclined to believe.
Why didn’t Bill Clinton prevent the hi-tech bust in 1999? Remember Clinton’s bust?
Bill Clinton, like some 8th century pasha, scooped up all the taxes the private sector paid because of the amazing,incredible, brilliant technology invented in the private sector by American electrical, mechanical, and computer engineers.
Like the 8th century pasha, Bill basked in the money and scooped up the girls too. Of course, he’d been scooping & molesting since his early days in Arkansas politics.
No wonder Bill loves Saudi Arabia and the half million dollars they paid him for one speech plus the millions they bestowed on Bill’s non-profits.
Are you Dave Wonder too?
Hey, angry inferior ignorant punk……apparently you can’t read.
THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS —AND YOU CAN GO TO THE BLS SITE— THERE HAS BEEN A LOSS OF 5 MILLION JOBS UNDER OBAMA’S WATCH.
Call it cherry picking, call it whatever you want. It isn’t any differnet from what you’re doing. It’s just that you look pathetic using left wing bit sites to “prove” whatever pointless point you’re trying to make. Try again, angry inferior.
Nice try, CY.
Please explain how this horrible performance by GWB and this wondrous miracle by Obama results in an average unemployment rate of around 5% for the former and roughly double that (at minimum) for the latter.
A tax rate cut is not debt financing. The government didn’t give money to rich people. It wasn’t an expenditure. It was letting people, overwhelmingly the lower tax brackets, keep more of their own money.
I can tell by your comment that this is a wasted effort, but let me give you a couple of clues to persue.
Follow the CRA from its beginning and try to understand what you are reading with an eye to economics.
Then watch the amount of mortgage money piling up at F and F.
Notice the Banking Modernization Act and wonder why it was implemented. Then do the same reflection on the Securities Modernization Act under Clinton.
Understand why these Acts had to happen, even if it makes your head hurt.
Now with this new economic information you might see the reason for the Tax Poicies of GWB and how he drove the economy with tax cuts. But even with the tax cuts to push the economy there was no way to save us or the world economy because the Mortgage Lending to unqualified borrowers was too big a liability even for the world to carry. And this is what caused us to be where we are today. Obama has only made it worse with silly government stimulus and govt jobs.
We should have let GM and Chrysler go through reorganization by bankruptcy, they would both be better off today. Both are still in deep trouble, just watch and learn….
I can tell by your comment that this is a wasted effort, but let me give you a couple of clues to persue. Take a look at Countrywide financial and the subprime 25 that produced the most toxic loans. Notice that while their employees could make 3% on a straight fixed loan they could make sometimes as much as 15% on a subprime. The more prepayment restrictions and adjustable rates the better.
Notice also that these mortgage lender were unregulated. When your bank said no, they said yes! Low credit score, no job? No problem. Which brings us to Wall Street, where there was an appetite for Mortgages far greater than the need to scrutinize the “sausage”. Wall Street found it very profitable to package mortgages. Do you look at the contents when your take is millions of dollars? Moreover even a bad loan was profitable because housing prices kept going up. If someone misses their payments and forecloses you just sell the asset at a higher price.
Finally, notice the great whales playing with credit default swaps and other instruments that were unregulated. A multi-trillion dollar shadow market that Wall Street created and used to insure the mortgages. Prior to 2008 it was a great way to make money but in the end it’s what brought down Bear Stearns, Lehmann Brothers and others.
When billions of dollars are changing hands at the top isn’t there some dereliction of duty, to not see the constant conflicts of interest, the paying off of ratings agencies, the push to sell subprime over prime loans to make a buck? At some point it’s preposterous to say these organizations were pushed around by laws when they have teams of legal advisers and lobbyists.
All the financial experts at the top said don’t interfere, we know what we’re doing. In reality the were simply riding the tide until it went out leaving everyone high and dry.
Under Bush, who tried to change the way homes were being sold, the housing bubble of toxic assets occured. Countries that held the paper got bailed out by the American tax payer. The biggest robbery in history. Thank you Fed, RINOS, and Demonrats.
NATFA, AND GATT has helped speed the destruction of a once great country with what was once made in America are made in turd world countries with lose laws, and shipped back here.
Add 12-25 million illegal aliens, most on the sugar tit. An invasion by another country with a turd world culture. Plus, millions of moon god worshipers who hate the country they came to. One has to change facts on the ground to pave the way for a North American Union.
Daone, and company are on board the above stated agenda. It continues to weaken the economy, and culture of these United States. Marxism, global Marxism is the goal. It is not what G-d has given for DaOne, and his ink, but what the State gives. You see, what the State gives, the State can take away.
How ignorant you are Leatherneck , still I suppose that comes with the Left Wing biased half backed education you received.
The HOUSING BUBBLE was instigated by the Dumbocrats under Clinton. Banks and Financial institutions were FORCED by LAW to make loans to minorities (mainly BLACKS) who were never ever going to be able to repay them. To protect themselves Banks had to bundle these TOXIC MAINLY BLACK DEBTS and try to offset them by bundling them with other debts. This was working OK until Barney Franks boys got too greedy and the whole edifice came tumbling down. The whole WORLD FINANCIAL CRISIS lies at the door of stupid Dumbocrats incompetence started under CLINTON. Guess who most of the housing bailouts have gone to too under the USURPER – Yep your right the same feckless BLACKS who caused the problem in the first place.
Bush tried to get Fannie and Freddie cleaned up on several occasions. He was blocked by the Rino’s running Congress through 2006, then the Democrats. Bush was not a good President on fiscal matters – but his greatest failing was letting the idiots in Congress (including our current President and VP) do as they pleased instead of vetoing everything.
Actually, Old Soldier, it was Demonrats all the way. Remember Jumpin Jim Jeffords? He meant the Rats controlled the Congress in 2001 and 2002. After that, all they had to do was filibuster, and every time Bush proposed a reform, Chris Dodd (D-Countrywide) and his fellow Rats did.
By the way, during the Great depression, there was no such thing as U3 and U6 numbers. The closest thing today to compare is the real unemployment numbers posted at Shadowstats.
One other thing, think about a couple facts here. The stated GDP growth rate over the last 4 years has been anywhere from 1-2.5%. The deficit spending over the last 4 years has been around 8-12% of GDP. Imagine if there were no deficit spending. Kind of kicks you right in the kisser when you put those two stats together doesn’t it?
And shadowstats has it at right around 22.5%.
Forward into the abyss with Dear Leader Barackito Obamalini.
The difficulty with your argument isn’t that it’s not true (because it is), but that if you will recall, Roosevelt was reelected in a landslide because people believed he was making things better when he was in fact instituting essentially fascist corporatism – what we’re now calling crony capitalism – on the one hand and inciting populist hatred of the job creators on the other. And, his fiscal, tax, and monetary policies were a disaster.
But MOST PEOPLE WERE TAKEN IN BY FDR!
And, that was in a country when traditional American values were much, much stronger than they are now!
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid, and work your ass off to elect a (more) conservative president and a conservative congress!
Like Obama, FDR had a fawning press that refused to criticize him – even hiding his physical disables and adultery. Like Obama, FDR got credit for “Doing Something” even though everything he did was more harmful than helpful.
I always laughed when reading FDR’s speeches about how he was “trying everything possible” to end the Depression. He never tried lowering taxes, cutting federal spending, or deregulating business. All the things that worked for Harding and Coolidge.
Indeed. There were press critics of FDR, such as H.L. Mencken who called him Roosevelt Minor, and the Chicago Tribune under Col. McCormick, and later William Randolph Hearst and the Hearst papers, but you are by and large correct that the press and radio journalists loved him.
With respect to the era of FDR, you have to remember that the average American had less economic understanding then they do now. Many Americans in the 30s were socialists of some sort or another. CPUSA did the best it ever did in US presidential elections in the 30s. Perhaps Americans of the era were more socialy conservative, but that era represents the hightest acceptance socialism and fascism have had in this country.
Two reasons to pity Obama:
A) He and his minions are doing everything according to “The Book of FDR” and the economy isn’t responding according to historical records… except that it is. Take pity on Obama because there is no greater fool than an educated fool.
B) The Democrats and the media talked the country into a recession in 2007. They had it all planned, they’d sweep into power based on a fraud and turn the economy around with massive spending and government intervention. The people would give thanks to “Savior Government” and Conservatism would be forever dead. Take pity on Obama, he finally succeeded in something, he created a real depression out of a fraudulent media campaign. His first successful venture and it may well kill his hideous ideology for a generation.
+1 on both your points, and a big +1 on the basic blog post here.
I feel no pity for Obama. I feel sorry for myself and so many others who are struggling every day. Food prices are higher, gas prices are higher, utilities are higher. I can’t go out to eat anymore. I haven’t been able to go out shopping for clothes or shoes for three years and it;s getting worse. I think Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan can do better for us. Let’s give them a chance.
Is this “the worst presidential exercise of economic stewardship since Franklin Delano Roosevelt”? It probably is, because Obama hasn’t really been concentrating on improving the economy. He concentrates on his main objective: to even scores with people and groups he dislikes, and to give favoritism and largesse to groups he likes. He has the puniest, most private and petty view of the Presidency of anyone ever elected.
He’s all about insulting his enemies — England, Israel, white people, doctors, bankers, wealthy people — and giving benefits to those he likes or wants to bribe — Muslim countries, college students with loans, blacks who need free mortgages, poor people who need free medical care. . .
This is a small, minuscule, teeny-tiny man in a big office.
Well, dave #1, you seem to be absent from the debate. You just hit and run because you know yours is a bunch of dem talking point?
We may be in the beginning of a long stretch if the study by the Ntl Bureau of Economic Research is any indication. With zero interest rates encouraging debt and punishing saving, Bernanke’s Keynesian blindness is part of our malaise, and there is no end in sight to this misguided policy. Artificially low interest rates and political pressure on lenders led to the housing meltdown, and we don’t know what bubble is building now, but most likely it includes the government-guaranteed sector.
“The National Bureau of Economic Research has published a new paper analyzing 138 years of economic history in 14 advanced economies, which proves that high levels of private debt cause severe recessions.
As summarized by Business Insider:
Through a series of tests run on a sample of 14 advanced economies between 1870 and 2008, Mr Taylor establishes a link between the growth of private sector credit and the likelihood of financial crisis. The link between crisis and credit [i.e. private debt] is stronger than between crises and growth in the broad money supply, the current account deficit, or an increase in public debt.
Over the 138-year timeframe Mr Taylor finds crisis preceded by the development of excess credit, as in Ireland and Spain today, are more common than crisis underpinned by excessive government borrowing, like in Greece. Fiscal strains in themselves do not tend to result in financial crisis.”
What constantly puzzles me is why Obama is doing as well as he has been doing in the polls? The administration may say that the country is still experiencing “job growth,” and I guess they would keep saying that even if they added only one job per month. Sure, technically you have job growth, but it’s not helping either the economy or the people that much. Worse, these job numbers are not doing anything for the 23 million people who are out of work or who have given up looking for a job. Which leads me to ask once again, who in their right mind would actually vote for a guy who thinks what is happening right now is pretty darn good?
I just hope the Democrats have not instituted a mind set that we all should accept this as the “new normal.” That’s European-style thinking. Accept high unemployment, high taxes, and low growth as a matter of course and just keep giving people public support until all the money dries up, like it did in Greece and the rest of Europe.
If this is true, if Democrats have convinced Americans that this is indeed the “new normal” and that there isn’t anything we can do about it, then they have done more to hurt this nation than any of our foreign enemies ever did.
Why? Because they have turned the American people into a bunch of lazy, complacent, whining victims rather than a robust group of over achievers. And not only would that be a shame, it would be a crime. By stomping out America’s rugged individualism and desire for success, we will no longer be able to achieve the really big things in life, like winning wars, creating new industries, inventing cutting-edge technologies, and maintaining a robust economy.
Nope, we will be no better than France. And how many major wars has France won lately? They couldn’t even handle Libya without massive British and US military assistance. How many great inventions and how many global industries have the French either started or maintained lately? And since when was France the biggest economy in the world? If this is what the Democrats think we are now, a bunch of lazy, selfish, under-achieving, helpless victims, then they really don’t understand either the American people or the American spirit. November is coming, America. Time to re-claim our birthright and stand on our own two feet again. All we need now is a government in Washington that is going to allow us to do that.
Three word answer: Check the crosstabs.
The polls that show Obama doing well use 2008 demographics to weight the results. Polls that use current party self assignment data for weighting produce very different numbers.
Mr. Blumer, for the last 14 years I have been Administrator for a small village (4,300) in NW Ohio that serves as an industrial and jobs center for the area. In early 2006 we felt we had over 6,000 jobs in and around the village, most of them of the good-paying variety. Today we estimate less than 3,500.
Our 1.5% village income tax is a good indicator of local economic health. In 2006 collections peaked at $4.9 M. In 2010 it bottomed out (I hope) at $3.45 M. We are showing tiny signs of recovery, but I am far from confident about the future.
We simply cannot allow another four years of copying failure. There is no such thing as a “jobless recovery”, Mr. President, and we need to let you go.
What happend to America was Fannie & Freddie encouraging bad loans to people who could not afford it. Bush is not totally blameless, but Pelosi, Dodd, Frank et al are to blame as well. We all know this and for someone to say otherwise is just lying. Now we pay for GM, Solyndra, etc to work us all into a hole. I had a visit this weekend from an Obamabot and she would not talk about the issues. All she would talk about is women’s rights. I care not about having free birth control as much as I care about my childs future to even think about birth control much less college. I want to see the bad four letter word, as Biden puts it, JOBS>>>>>>>where are the jobs?/
The Obama-supporting woman who says Obama will get her free birth control pills reminds me of the biblical story of Esau trading his birthright for a bowl of pottage (stew).
This woman thinks a pack of $10 a month birth control pills is a good trade for her liberty, freedom, and economic opportunity?
Obama’s populist speeches against “the rich” are part of his deception.
What happens after one of Obama’s “blame the rich” speeches? Imagine a cartoon showing Brinks trunks full of bags of campaign cash (from Corzine, bundlers, billionaire donors, CEO banksters, etc.) backing up to the White House rear entry to unload. In front of the White House, a president makes a populist “hate the rich” speech. Inside magums of champagne are icing down for the party.
Nice cartoon, any truth to it?
Seriously, if things were as wonderful as the Obama trolls here would have us believe they are, they wouldn’t be dissecting rat hairs with a hat pin to prove it (8.254% unemployment, not 8.3%… WHOOPEE!) Everybody would basically KNOW things are looking up. The MSM talking heads would be gushing smiles out of all 338 of their teeth every month… instead, they cast about looking for a way to somehow spin the news in their boyfriend’s favor.
If things were getting better, if his dipsh*t policies were working, we’d know it by now. We’ve been thru 3 or 4 “Summers of Recovery” already and it didn’t happen. Game over.
I thought this was interesting in light of #1′s comments: (this from paragraph 4, & 5.)
Mitt Romney’s proposal for a structured bankruptcy would have necessitated considerable federal involvement, too, but with a key difference: The UAW contracts would have been renegotiated, and GM’s executive suites would have been cleaned out, placing the company on a path toward innovation and self-sufficiency rather than permanent life support. Which is to say, Obama did for GM what he is doing by un-reforming welfare: creating a dependent constituency.
The Democrats cling to the ridiculous claim that the bailout of GM and its now-Italian competitor, Chrysler, saved 1.5 million U.S. jobs. This preposterous figure is based on the assumption that if GM and Chrysler had gone into normal bankruptcy proceedings, the entire enterprise of automobile manufacturing in the United States would have collapsed — not only at GM and Chrysler but at Ford and foreign transplants such as Toyota and Honda. Not only that, the Democrats’ argument goes, but practically every parts maker, supplier, warehousing agency, and services firm dedicated to the car industry would have collapsed, too. In fact, it is unlikely that even GM or Chrysler would have stopped production during bankruptcy: The assembly lines would have continued rolling, interest and debt payments would have been cut, and — here’s the problem — union contracts would have been renegotiated. Far from having saved 1.5 million jobs, it is not clear that the GM bailout saved any — only that it preserved the UAW’s unsustainable arrangement.
Read the rest: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/316379/democrats-gm-fiction-editors#
Obama is the most awesomest President EVAR! Nay, the most bestest leader to ever let us have the privilege of serving him. People were like, “Don’t bailout that auto company!” And Obama lifted his chin, tilted his head ever so slightly to the side, closed his eyes, and with a deep breath proclaimed, “Let my Union contractors go”. And he raised his hands to the sky and parted the sea of bondholders to let the UAW pass safely to the other side of bankruptcy. And while GM is now left to wander the automotive wasteland for 40 years, Obama will lead that car company to paradise. He’ll lead those blessed unions to the promised land.
Hefty, don’t forget those GM bondholders.
I had GM bonds in my retirement account. They are worth 10 cents on the dollar.
Any American who invests a penny in a unionized company is making a sucker bet.
Here is one of President Obama’s legacies: US commercial law doesn’t apply when the friends of powerful politicians squawk.
US bankruptcy judges are sworn to uphold US bankruptcy law, which has been around since the beginning of the republic. Why? Without commercial law, New York city (Detroit too) would still be swampland.
America’s economic dominance is partly due to the absoluteness of the rule of law, and level playing fields. When the GM bankruptcy resolution was handed to the president’s consiglieris, the rule of law was ABSENT.
Great post Tom, thanks.
I’d add two points.
Under the “worst stewardship ever” has to be Obambus wasting time and money on “green energy”, exactly when fracking comes along and offers the US energy independence, out of the blue, on a platter, here it is take it! Not to mention the Keystone pipeline, conventional drilling licenses, Gulf issues, etc.
Second, both things can be true at once. This CAN be the worst stewardship since FDR, AND it can be the worst financial situation since the Depression. Bubbles happen. And, well, this one happened.
But here’s a third: trying to BLAME the fail on the Republicans is not nearly true for all the reasons we can enumerate, and therefore is part of that bad stewardship, it’s putting an attempt at political and personal benefit, before the good of the country. Even Obambus would get more of his way, if he negotiated politely and in good faith with Boehner, not to mention publically as he claimed he would in his campaign.
So yes, we can spend all day describing the sins of omission and comission by the regime – but also it was a bad one, for bipartisan and long-standing reasons, and it certainly called for not just GOOD stewardship but really super, duper stewardship, which for sure we ain’t seen.
O’Dismal has been President for 43 months? Its seems more like 43 years. Its been nothing but spend, spend, spend and now the Treasury is bearer than Mrs. Hubbard’s Cupboard. We’ve spent yesterday, today, and tomorrow away. Gas is hovering around $4.00 per gallon, food prices are skyrocketing, and gold is shooting for the moon. Which tells you a thing or two about the value of the Dollar–its in the tank because Bernacke is financing the deficit on the backs of savers. And welfare, medicare, food stamps, unemployment, and disability out the wazoo. Paying people not to work. How long can this go on? And all O’Dismal got is to demean, slander, and impune Mitt Romney. The incredible, nasty, little, petty tryant that is O’Dismal. Who are you going to believe? The facts and circumstances all around you, or the pap, pablum, and lies from the Marxist Media Megaphones, the puposely misleading polsters, or O’Dismal’s minions.
The White House declared their plan for the USA’s fiscal health in their 2013 White House Budget, Table 7.l. Google those words and you will get Table 7.l.
Obama plans $4+ trillion new debt for 2013 to 2016.
Are you ready for a Greek-type collapse?
Just the other night I was sitting around conversing with a few aquaintences when I mentioned that I would be glad when Obama is out office. One person, of whom was a teacher st local college, gave me a funny look and siad “You mean you are not voting for Obama?”
I replied “Of course not! What do I look like? A masochist?”
What economic stewardship?
Maybe they imply there is some of that because elections are so damned inconvenient, but to give the claim credence by debunking it is a joke.
All he has ever wanted to “stewart” is a collapse of the economy.
People need to stop applying the models of the past to these criminals. Those models are simply irrelevant. It’s like trying to apply the lessons of trench warfare to Afghanistan. Useless.
They are actively destroying the COUNTRY. The economy is one small battle.
The sum total of the Criminal in Chief’s activities on the eonomy was to allow his first set of idiot economists to convince themselves that just as every other economic downturn since the Great Depression began its reversal within 18 months, so would this one. Those advisors probably weren’t evil, just blinded by their 20 years of training in the fact-free Keynsian cult. obama might very well have seen through their giddy assessments and realized that the medicine would kill the patient. Then HE became giddy.
‘Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again……’
BTW: that La Salle stopped running long before Archie and Edith sang about her.
FDR’s alphabet soup agencies provided employments, they dug holes and grew trees, they built the TVA, they built roads,…
Obama’s “Stimulus” stimulates his crony billionaires, and destroyed jobs, e.g. Solyndra, “shovel-ready jobs” were never shovel ready.
In any case, Conventional Wisdom says FDR saves the US economy, Conventional Wisdom also says the US Economy never recovered until our industrial productions were ramped up to fight Hitler, our young men and women were sent to die all over the world.
Does it mean a war is coming to cull our young to save Obama’s economy?
I held GM bonds in my retirement account. Obama’s attorneys gave me 10 cents on the dollar.
I am nobody. I presume you are nobody too.
Get ready, folks. The USA is on a fast track to Venezuala, Argentina, mafioso-Russia.
Roosevelt did not end the Depression.
Roosevelt’s brain hemorrhage ended the Depression.
There’s an allegation posted on the web by a former Secret Service agent that FDRs’ brain hemorrage was in actuality due to his (FDR) blowing his brains out with the .38 that he was known to habitually carry.(Technically, this would qualify as a hemorrage. Given the fact that the press was
“totally in the tank” for him; non-reportage of this inconvenient fact would not be out of character).