Don’t Call It the Obama Economy: It’s Not His Fault
Okay, I admit it. America continues to endure what has been the worst post-World War II “recovery” ever.
But you people out there who are laying this on our president, who is doing everything he can when he’s not playing golf or picking NCAA tournament brackets, are way out of line. I know this because the establishment press, which sees all and knows all (just ask ‘em), virtually never cites Barack Obama, his administration, or his policies when there’s bad economic news.
I know, seven quarters after the recession officially ended in June 2009, the economy has generated only 245,000 seasonally adjusted jobs. Over 500,000 of those jobs have come from one sector — temporary help services:
All right, so if you take away the temps, the economy has still lost jobs since the recession ended. (Here’s the breakdown of the remainder: the rest of the private sector, up 128,000; the president’s best buds in state and local government, down 429,000; and the federal government, up 38,000.)
But it’s not Barack Obama’s fault. It’s you free-market conservatives who are always whining about uncertainty who are to blame. You’re the ones who are causing employers to resist taking on full-time workers and to avoid hiring the long-term unemployed, and it’s your nonstop negativity which has caused 2.33 million people to leave the workforce in the past twelve months. On Sunday, economic icon Paul Krugman said that “uncertainty is just a myth being made up to blame this on Obama.” Do you ever see the business or economics writers at the Associated Press or elsewhere citing administration-induced uncertainty as a reason why people can’t get jobs? Of course not.
I’m sure you wingnuts can’t wait to crow about how, during the seven quarters after the last serious recession ended in the early 1980s, the economy under Ronald Reagan added 5.29 million jobs, including 5.09 million in the private sector. Big freakin’ deal. Relatively speaking, Reagan had it made. All he had to face was 13% inflation, 21% interest rates, the malaise of the previous administration, and a Congress dominated by the other party. Just because Obama came into office with low inflation, low interest rates, low gas prices, and a Democratic Congress doesn’t mean he had it any easier.
Why, look at the housing mess he inherited: a market awash in foreclosures, underwater mortgages, and moribund building activity. I know what you wingers are going to say next: Two-plus years later, we have 1.9 million homes in foreclosure, 23% of mortgaged homes underwater, and a double-dip in new homebuilding. Well, just ask Julie Schmit at USA Today why this is the case. She’ll say it’s because foreclosed homes are depressing existing-home prices; first-time buyers are being turned down by those mean old bankers who expect to get repaid; and heartless appraisers won’t inflate homes’ values.
Well, doesn’t everyone know that it’s all Bush’s fault? Young Prince Barry inherited this awful mess, after all. =^[.]~=
Obama: “It was like that when I got here.”
Alrighty then if that is the case then why did you increase spending more than all presidents combined in just 2 years? What did we get for it? Nothing except worse economy. Quit the excessive spending!
EVERYBODY LIE’S ON THIS BLOG, WHY…YOU ALL TOLD ME IT WAS BUSH’S FAULT…NOW YOU CHANGED YOUR MINDS.
It’s still basically “about the economy, stupid,” as Bill Clinton said in 1992. If the economy is as bad as it is today on Election Day in November 2012, Obama is finished. Add to that another war in Libya, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an Iran that may have a nuclear bomb, Egypt going to the Muslim Brotherhood, an isolated Israel that’s about to be attacked on all sides by radical Islamists, China, Russia, and North Korea all laughing at us, Obamacare, and budget deficits that would make anybody cry, and I don’t really know what this guy is going to run on.
And, with a record like this, I really can’t see the Republicans losing as long as they nominate somebody that even looks halfway decent. Remember, all Ronald Reagan had to do in 1980 was prove to the American public that he was a serious candidate during the debate with Carter. The country was more than ready for a change and, once they saw how sane Reagan was in comparison to Carter, Reagan was elected in a landslide. Could be the same in 2012. Let’s hope.
You know what, the MSM and the Obama mouthpieces can say whatever they want. That’s how America is, but truth meets reality when it comes to filling your gas tank, grocery shopping or just living in today’s economy. Bush may have started this financial fiasco, to which I have my own doubts, but this administration along with Pelosi and Reid have taken the negative on steroids. We are all losers with this administration. I say let’s forget the ffffing blame and just FIX THE PROBLEM. How about that for a change we can believe in? Obama and the Democrats are driving this country into bankruptcy.
Right on, Mr. Blumer!
And I think the American People should make Obama President for life, since he’s done such a ‘smash up’ job.
This would soothe the media’s angst and vitriol, eliminate those racist polling places, absolve the guilt of all white Americans, make Congressional duties so much easier, save bagillions of ‘campaign funds’, ease the overwhelming stress on our unions, and the United States will live happily ever after.
Republics are not fashionable any more.
Other nations will be so jealous!
P.S.
Remove “In God We Trust” from our currency and replace it with “Eliminate Stupidity!”.
P.P.S.,,,,,,,oh, never mind.
These are interesting times we live in. The sad thing is I run into people all the time who tell me the media is controlled by the right. They can never give examples, but swear its true. One need only watch the White House press corp lob soft balls to Carney and pat each other on the back each day to know what BS that is. Even going to war is so commonplace that it hardly warrants press scrutiny anymore. The Senate is so smitten with Obama they can’t man up and agree with Rand Paul that the Senate should be the ones to declare wars. Meanwhile no one notices or cares that Obama’s policies are Bush on steroids, though I fully expect Obama’s platform to remind us how different he is – with complicit help from the media.
A frackin’ good analysis, Tom.
Whew. Am so glad you helped us right-think (as opposed to think right) and understand the only real job growth is in government and temp work. This is a good thing, yes?
We were worried Evil Business, particularly those small companies hanging on by their fingernails, were on the rebound. Wouldn’t want that to happen.
Clearly it’s our patriotic duty to blow (oops)…spend (nope)…INVEST in a Gubmint Motors Dolt. Then, will all be right…I mean LEFT with the world?
Yep. Why should I buy two Honda Insight’s that get better mileage when I can INVEST in one Dolt for the same price. Plus, just think of how those extra repair costs would stimulate the economy.
You pegged it, Schnauzer, it’s a Dolt two-fer!
One small hitch, as you note. Instead of getting twice the capacity for the price of one, the Gubmint Dolt unexpectedly (!) allows you to INVEST twice as much for HALF the return. How quaint, how capricious, how deliciously progressive. In other words, WTF!
Obama inherited an enormous deficit and economic crisis, but he still added to the deficit himself.
Numbers are approximate off my head but the national debt is:
Carter 1 trillion, Reagan 3.5 trillion, Bush41 2 trillion, Clinton 1 trillion, Bush43 4 trillion and Obama is not done but over 3 trillion already.
If you are looking at this as a left right issue, you are blind. The right has been worse at debt spending but the left is now catching up. The bigger issue is rich vs. poor – the wealthy class has been accumulating wealth as the public debt has exploded and the middle class is working more and getting less.
It’s obvious a progressive tax code should take more from the ultra rich and lower taxes for the small businesses and working class. That’s how America became prosperous, taxing the tar out of billionaires under conservative rule.
If we don’t look at the 50s and 60s to see how budgets were balanced, we deserve what we get.
1. Your first mistake is to credit Bush43 with $4 trillion in debt. That 4 trillion included $700 billion in TARP, which Obama, the Dems and financiers claim has been payed back. But, it was never credited back to Bush, so his portion, in reality, becomes $3 trillion in debt. That makes Obama’s portion about $4 trillion in only 2 years. The highest rate ever. Some “catching up” by the Democrats. Obama is a redistribution-of-wealth president. What would his portion of national debt be in 8 years?
2. Your class warfare “rich vs. poor” socialistic scenario is lame. By following that course you will find that sooner or later you will run out of other people’s money to give away. Poor people don’t provide jobs for anyone, but the “rich” do. And it’s the “rich” business owners that re-invest their money back into the economy. They don’t stash their money in their mattresses waiting for a rainy day. And 47% of workers do not pay any federal income taxes. That’s an abomination. So how is that fair? Most should pay a minimum of $500 per year. Federal employment keeps rising, employees who make 25% more on average than in the private sector. The same is happening at the local levels – government jobs growing, private sector jobs disappearing, taxes rising. Obama’s stimuli, giving money away, didn’t produce jobs. What needs to be done is stop growing government at the expense of higher taxes. Reduce taxes, reduce the size of government and let the business community reinvest the saving back into the economy to grow jobs. And don’t forget – guys like Pelosi, Reid, Obama, Kennedy, Kerry, Dodd, Frank, etc. are all multimillionaires who are usually the first to raise rich vs. poor issues, i.e., class warfare. They don’t care because no matter what laws are passed they will still end up with their share of the wealth.
I will refrain from calling you any names but please, please go to the OMB website for the real numbers. I realize that you are a mind-numbed obotron of a particular ethnicity which precludes you from using reason, but perhaps you could try. You may achieve some credulity.
It doesn’t matter. We are here, now. Obama shows no signs of being able to fix it, so it is time to try something and someone else.
It might be, as is so much of life, unfair.
I agree. Obama doesn´t seem to be capable to resolve this issue. Not while he’s worried attacking Gadhafi and playing golf.
Obama IS capable of fixing the economy…he knows how to fix it. He doesn’t want to. His agenda is the opposite – to take down capitalism. We need to tell the truth and stop saying he’s incompetent, stupid, etc. He’s very bright when it comes to the destruction of America. People wonder, how can he be such an expert on the U.S. Constitution, when all he does is go against it. He’s an expert on it, in order to know how to subvert it. Wake up, people!
LibertyShip46 – What propelled Reagan in ’80 and can benefit ANY candidate running against Obama is asking the same question, ‘Are you better off than you were 4 years ago’?
To add to your list, the 200% increase price of fuel since Jan ’09, the EPA’s/the DoJ/the Frank-Dodd f’ing things up & still undetermined future f’ing up Act Obama signed/not recognizing the marriage Act/ not recognizing Arizona’s SB 1070/ not signing drilling permits in a timely manner after the Federal Courts gave the oil companies the green light/ the ‘strong armed purchase of the right to live or be taxed’ legislation otherwise known as ‘ObamaScare’ etc., etc.,
The dude has ‘NO’ platform to run on. The man has no sense of right or wrong or personal reflection on the p iss poor management ‘skills’ he’s portrayed. In ANY private sector job this a sshat would’ve been 86′d long ago.
No scruples, no common sense, no moral compass on this empty vessel..
Obviously, Tom…the great unwashed do not understand the elements of the stimulus infused kinetic recovery cycle.
Higher gas prices lower global warming so that temp jobs can fuel the economic rebirth of health care price reduction through increased spending and closing the loopholes for the rich by taxing the small business community which does not raise taxes while supporting the union pension funds with dollars borrowed from China from the which the deficit will be reduced with green jobs.
It takes Ivy League matriculation through hidden transcripts and a deep understanding of the hide the decline hockey stick to get a full grasp of the reason why everything that improves is the credit of leftists and everything that does not is fault of Fox News, the Tea Party, capitalism itself and the wrong kind of patriotism.
I hope this clears this up.
Wow. That was masterful. You should have gotten Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s gig at the DNC.
For crying out loud! Obama thinks the federeal funds are his personal stash to dole out to the unions, the leftists, muslims and the communists. If left unchecked for the next 4 years I don’t know if our country will ever recover. Maybe it will be the end of our republic. No one on the right, or the middle better not sit out the next election! I hope we have someone to cheer about, but whomever, we had better vote out obama!
Goldi,
I sure hope we have someone to cheer about also and wouldn’t it be nice
if that someone was Governor Sarah Palin and Congressman Allen West for
the office…
Agree with you on another thing and that is Obamanator must go and that
will take every vote we can muster…….
Sorry awkward sentence and double negative.
Superb piece from start to finish. Worthy of Jonathan Swift.
You folks have to notice that the meltdown of our economy started under George Bush Jr., not under Obama. Before some of you call me an “Obama-supporter” (in which I’m not, don’t equate me for being for Obama, I’m an Independent-Conservative), the start of the meltdown of the economy started in November or December of 2007, you folks have to acknowledge that when the banks where bailed out in 2008, it happend under Bush. So in my opinion, I believe our economy was “rigged” in order to bring someone like Obama into office, yes Obama is making our economy worst, but for 8 straight years the Republicans robbed and bankrupted the national treasury, and I also believe that’s one of the reasons they didn’t want McCain to win the 08 election against Obama. Since Obama has been in office, he’s raised the deficit to 4-trillion dollars (under Bush, the deficit was 1-trillion dollars, and Bush was NO conservative by any chance)!
“A nation is defined by it’s borders, language & culture!”
“…..the meltdown of our economy started under George Bush Jr…..”
Sorry, Sean, but if it were not for the housing bubble, there would never have been a financial crises. One reason for the bubble was low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve, an independent government body. The other reason was the entrance into the housing market of low income buyers and speculators without financial backup. This was helped by certain laws (Community Reinvestment Act, 1977) allowing local communities and organizations (ACORN) to apply pressure on local banks to reduce lending standards. This goes back to the Carter Administration. Then laws were passed supporting the reduced lending standards and allowing Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to guarantee these “toxic” mortgages by buying them directly from banks. Since the banks could easily pass on these bad mortgages to the government, they had no interest in whether or not the borrower was financially solid or not. And then the “housing bubble”, followed by the financial crisis. Obama and the Democrats blamed the meltdown on Bush because it happened under his administration. Most voters were like you, ignorant of the facts, and blamed Bush, as did Obama and the Democrats.
Sorry to ruin your daydream, but, the Democrat Socialist Party of America has been in control of Congress since 2006.
And I’m a conservative-conservative/conservative. I’m totally into self preservation, and just happen to have an opinion I’m not afraid of, whether it scares you or not.
Independent just means you cannot decide what to believe in. C’mon, it is easy, find a set. Same as moderate. Can’t decide to decide.
Even the headline is false. Giving Presidents the sole responsibility for the economic situation is an outdated meme. And the situation now is too serious to indulge in such political trite. The economy is the responsibility of BOTH the congress and the president together. The current economic situation was caused by George Bush, Barrack Obama and a democratic majority in congress. Which is why nobody wants any liberals or social conservatives in Washington at this moment. It’s the hole point of the Tea Party movement. If your are not fiscally conservative, back off. Once the country has been saved, social cons and liberals can come back and resume their decadent spending. But right now grown ups has to take charge and make the grown up decisions.
@Sean. Have to agree with you buddy. The pain started in 2008. The layoffs came swift and furious, esp. after the TARP bailout. Now, I know a lot of good people through no fault of their own were given the pink slip. In a good economy, these people would have been right back to work for another company but there were NO JOBS. At some point, we need to stop beating a dead horse. Oh, some of these people were near and dear to me and I had a hard time thinking of them as the hairy unwashed. Being successful in this world has become more a game of chance. I’m all for getting this budget under control and reducing the debt but we can’t destroy what works. Some of Obama’s programs were just stupid, like mortgage remodification. Most people who needed it, didn’t have a job. No job, how are you going to pay? But he did subsidize COBRA which may have kept millions off the state medicaid rolls (SMART!). I’m sure i will offend a great many with this but here goes. I want to see more investment in our infrastructure. I want to have high speed internet like the socialist countries have. I want to be able to see a doctor when I’m sick now and not in six weeks. I want to see America leading in the world again for something other than our military industrial complex. Seems like all we Americans can do anymore is sit around and play the blame game. Who gives a shit who broke what? If your kid broke the remote do you hate him/her for the rest of your life? HELL NO! Move on already.
“The pain started in 2008,” but it was cultivated over 15 years at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to a degree that is still not yet appreciated.
It isn’t just that Fan and Fred allowed people who had no business buying homes to buy homes. It’s that they lied to the ratings agencies and the markets about the quality of the loans they packaged into their bond offerings.
Specifically (Wall Street Journal; BizzyBlog post):
George W. Bush didn’t do that. Democrat cronies did that. Cloward and Piven are surely proud.
Franklin Raines on Wicki:
In 1991 he became Fannie’s Mae’s Vice Chairman, a post he left in 1996 in order to join the Clinton Administration as the Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, where he served until 1998. In 1999, he returned to Fannie Mae as CEO, “the first black man to head a Fortune 500 company.”[3]
On December 21, 2004 Raines accepted what he called “early retirement”[4] from his position as CEO while U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigators continued to investigate alleged accounting irregularities. He is accused by The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the regulating body of Fannie Mae, of abetting widespread accounting errors, which included the shifting of losses so senior executives, such as himself, could earn large bonuses.[5]
In 2006, the OFHEO announced a suit against Raines in order to recover some or all of the $90 million in payments made to Raines based on the overstated earnings,[6] initially estimated to be $9 billion but have been announced as 6.3 billion.[7]
Civil charges were filed against Raines and two other former executives by the OFHEO in which the OFHEO sought $110 million in penalties and $115 million in returned bonuses from the three accused.[8] On April 18, 2008, the government announced a settlement with Raines together with J. Timothy Howard, Fannie’s former chief financial officer, and Leanne G. Spencer, Fannie’s former controller. The three executives agreed to pay fines totaling about $3 million, which will be paid by Fannie’s insurance policies. Raines also agreed to donate the proceeds from the sale of $1.8 million of his Fannie stock and to give up stock options. The stock options however have no value. Raines also gave up an estimated $5.3 million of “other benefits” said to be related to his pension and forgone bonuses.[9]
An editorial in The Wall Street Journal called it a “paltry settlement” which allowed Raines and the other two executives to “keep the bulk of their riches.”[10] In 2003 alone, Raines’s compensation was over $20 million.[11]
A statement issued by Raines said of the consent order, “is consistent with my acceptance of accountability as the leader of Fannie Mae and with my strong denial of the allegations made against me by OFHEO.”[12]
In a settlement with OFHEO and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Fannie paid a record $400 million civil fine. Fannie, which is the largest American financier and guarantor of home mortgages, also agreed to make changes in its corporate culture and accounting procedures and ways of managing risk.[13]
In June 2008 The Wall Street Journal reported that Franklin Raines was one of several public officials who received below market rates loans at Countrywide Financial because the corporation considered the officeholders “FOA’s”–”Friends of Angelo” (Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo). He received loans for over $3 million while CEO of Fannie Mae.[14]
Close your eyes and imagine a real LEADER. It isnt hard to do. anyone will do.