The 44th President and his Multiple Catch-22s
As the economy enters into yet another “unexpected!” slump, Desmond Lachman of the American Enterprise blog writes, “So Much for a V-shaped U.S. Economic Recovery:”
This morning’s dismal U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth numbers should give Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke pause about the prospects for the U.S. economic outlook. Despite the fact that the U.S. economy is still recovering from its worst postwar economic recession, and that it has been on steroids of fiscal stimulus and quantitative easing, all that the U.S. economy could do in the first quarter of 2011 was to muster 1.75 percent GDP growth. Such anemic economic growth offers little prospect that U.S. unemployment will decline from its current level of almost 9 percent anytime soon.Yesterday, ever optimistic, Bernanke suggested that while the economy had hit a soft patch it would recover in the remainder of the year to around 3 percent growth. His reassuring words would have had more credence had he not given similar assurances that the economy was gaining traction in early 2010, only to have found himself forced to introduce a second round of quantitative easing towards the middle of that year to boost a flagging economy.
Bernanke’s current optimism about the prospects for a pickup in U.S. economic growth are all the more surprising given the very strong headwinds that the U.S. economy now faces. Not only are sky-high gasoline prices sapping consumer purchasing power, but housing prices are again declining under the weight of the foreclosure crisis at the same time that the states are engaged in another round of spending cuts. It would seem to be only a matter of time before Bernanke introduces us to a third round of quantitative easing.
And speaking of sky-high energy prices, Investor’s Business Daily explores “Obama’s ‘Annie’ Energy Policy:”
Gas Cost: Is it just us, or do Obama’s policies sound suspiciously like that “Annie” song: Don’t worry about today’s killer pump prices, a bright energy sun will come out tomorrow.
When gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon in 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama had a simple message for voters: There’s nothing that can be done about it today.
Certainly not offshore drilling. Obama trashed Sen. John McCain’s call to open up vast tracts of offshore oil to exploration and drilling. It would not, he said in June 2008, “lower gas prices today. It would not lower gas prices this summer. It would not lower gas prices this year.”
Nor a gas tax break. Letting consumers temporarily off the 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal gas tax hook was, Obama argued, merely a “gimmick” that would “only worsen our addiction to oil.”
And not even opening up more oil and gas leases. Obama said oil companies “already own drilling rights to 68 million acres of federal lands, onshore and offshore, that they haven’t touched.”
Indeed, Obama claimed that anyone suggesting a short-term fix was just trying to peddle “false promises, irresponsible policy and cheap gimmicks that might get politicians through the next election.”
Nope. What we needed, Obama argued in June 2008, was a plan for tomorrow that provided more money for alternative energy: “I will invest $150 billion over the next 10 years in alternative sources of energy.”
Fast-forward three years to this past Saturday. Gas prices again top $4 a gallon, and what’s the president’s message to struggling families? “There’s no silver bullet that can bring down gas prices right away.” And anyone who suggests otherwise is just “trying to grab headlines or score a few points.”
In a recent op-ed, Jonah Goldberg noted the Catch-22 of Obama’s do-nothing energy policy:
One suspects that Obama would dearly love to drill a lot for more oil and gas, simply for the political windfall in jobs and economic growth. But after he flipped on offshore drilling, then flopped after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, he cannot flip again without infuriating his base. So he brags about how much more drilling there is today, even though that’s the result of policies already in the pipeline.
Obama and the greens are in an exquisite bind. Without economic recovery, Americans won’t support Obama’s “investments,” but Obama’s investments are a hindrance to recovery.
But that’s also reminiscent of an earlier environmental/NIMBY Catch-22 that Obama found himself in during his first year in office, as Jonah noted last year:
Liberalism has become a cargo cult to the New Deal, but many of the achievements of the New Deal would be impossible now. Just try to get a Hoover Dam built today.
Thus it’s time for the inevitable “Obama’s just too darn smart for this gig” op-ed from one of his supporters, and Dana Milbank of the Obama-friendly Washington Post is happy to oblige:
Seeking a template to understand the enigmatic president, I consulted three leading academics in the fields of psychology and behavior. With their help, I put Obama on the couch and came away with a reasonably coherent diagnosis: There’s too much going on in the poor guy’s head.
This is of course boilerplate stuff whenever there’s a Democrat in the White House who’s in too deep: smart Democrats are invariably too wonky for their own good.
Hiring people to find and deport every illegal in this country would have its own beneficial Catch-22 effect in a sense. That should be the big project for big gov’t.
Is this what the end looks like. I think I should reread the Book of Revelations and see if It says anything about this. Oh, noooo….!
“Seeking a template to understand the enigmatic president, I consulted three leading academics in the fields of psychology and behavior. With their help, I put Obama on the couch and came away with a reasonably coherent diagnosis: There’s too much going on in the poor guy’s head.”
Yeah, so if a homeowner hired a gardener who can’t manage to mow the lawn right and takes a lot of time off to play golf… when the boss wants to fire the fool, let him or her read Milbank’s column and see if that changes the plan. We only tolerate Obama’s level of incompetence in politicians and Milbank’s kind of lame stupidity in pundits.
The only thing that saved FDR from being the worst and most economically destructive president was WWII. What is going to save Obama? What is going to save the United States? How many years?
That question scares the living #eLL out of me. Haven’t a clue what the answer might be, and I don’t know if we can afford to find out.
“only worsen our addiction to oil.”
Much like our addiction to food. But they’re working on that, too.
It gets to the point where you can’t really say anything new about how stunned you are at the things happening in this country, but I will say this: There is no chance in hell of this country having the kind of growth Bernanke’s talking about over the next 3 quarters. None.
Despite the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed Milbank’s hand-wringing angst, I think a simpler explanation for Obama’s performance in office can be summarized with this pithy quote:
“Big Desk. Little Man.”
There’s not ENOUGH inside his head, especially with regards to economic knowledge and how markets are superior to central planning and crony capitalism.
I really hate to see Hoover compared to the vacuum currently filling the Oval Office. Those familiar with Herbert’s career tend to suspect that the man was a genius. Not, as it turned out, a great President, but both before and after his term he showed evidence, on many occasions, of some serious intellectual horsepower and leadership skills. One the other hand, Obama, well, …
A decade Before becoming President, Hoover was credited as the “Savior of Belgium” due to his food distribution efforts in Europe after World War 1, feeding millions of hungry children and adults.
I cannot imagine a scenario in which 0 is any country’s savior.
…. The (glove-puppet pretender to what the guy with his hand up his back presents as the “presidency”) and his Multiple Catch-22s ….
“Multiple Catch-22s?”
Shouldn’t that be Multiple Catches-22?
In the English Language or any other, though, whoever has his hand up Buraq Hussayn bin Buraq Hussayn bin Hussayn Milhous 0′Zero’s back, is done. Put a fork in him.
Want to do something about Obama’s fuel price fiasco? Let’s start with putting the blame back where it belongs – on Obama and his administration – and keeping it there until 2012 and beyond:
Gas Pump Activism: Print This Poster!
It is a tragedy of history that Herbert Hoover is seemingly known for his role in the Great Depression and not for his accomplishments in mining outside the United States. He is a towering figure of the early days of mining in Australia. His Australian work and achievements are briefly but properly noted in this entry of the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A090362b.htm.
This is only part of it:-
“By the time Hoover left Western Australia in December 1898, he was one of the ablest and best-known mining engineers in the colony. Blunt and laconic, he had a phenomenal memory, prodigious capacity for work, and high ambition. An ardent exponent of American mining methods, he helped to establish single-hand drilling, disciplined management, and high standards of efficiency in the aftermath of a boom.”
Herbert Hoover was a man of humble beginnings but with high achievement well before becoming President.
W Brown
Sydney, Australia
Obama’s handling of the ‘Birthers’ is another clue as to what kind of person he is. A leader would have defused that controversy by never hiding his birth certificate or other important documents in the first place. A partisan politician would have ginned up such a controversy in order to discredit his critics.
High achievement doesn’t come from voting present.
One quibble: The Washington Post has editorially taken The One to the woodshed several times of late, and apparently is no longer solidly in the bag for him. Unlike the self-parodying lefty twits of the Times’s editorial suite, Fred Hyatt and Co. apparently do have some intellectual honesty. (At least enough to admit that their man is turning into an embarrassment, which The Times will never admit or even see.)
“I put Obama on the couch and came away with a reasonably coherent diagnosis: There’s too much going on in the poor guy’s head..”
Last time i checked that meant you are crazy not smart. Look his “ideas” are not even his, they belong to others. Next everyone has ideas. thats not the sole criteria for being smart. Its the ability to come up with a thought and actually make it work. THATS the trick. everyone sounds brilliant in the echo chamber, peace is easy when you get rid of free will and liberty, and ideas are perfect as long as they dont get tested in real world enviroments. But its when thoes thoughts are applied ans tested you can see which are good and bad, which work and dont. Why our system works so well and why obamas does not is because ours closely mirrors nature and how it works. It continues to amaze me how libs constantly make fun of people who “dont believe in evolution” ( i am an evolutionist), yet seemed to completly forget the simple yet primary role of nature…survival of the fittest.