• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

Recession ended in June 2009

daenku32 said:
Source for the 8.5% number?

The only one I'm aware is from January '09, before the stimulus bill was even written up and they were only talking about what it should do. Certainly before the hundreds of compromises they did to make the stimulus weaker.

But I must say I'm impressed in your (or someone's) ability to predict with 100% accuracy the baseline 6 months out, yet somehow mess up the calculation of stimulus' impact on the baseline.

And as pointed out, definition of recession is only about the GDP rates. That's not to stay things aren't bad.
Click to expand...


Back in early January, when Barack Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers — leading proponents of a stimulus bill — predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%...


The two advisers who wrote the paper, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, went on to land key jobs in the Obama Administration.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1910208,00.html
 
Yeah, theprestige and Malerin are right on this one.

That stimulus bill was Obama's "Mission Accomplished" moment. It was too small to completely work, as Krugman and others pointed out at the time, and the administration engaged in the same rosy thinking distortions that the Bush administration did in the run up to the crisis.

In fairness, the reason unemployment was much higher than they anticipated was because the crisis was much worse than people thought when the 8.5% number was floated. It's something like learning there was another well in the gulf leaking the whole time that no one knew about.

However, it's still the administration's fault for making bold declarations before good information was available then dancing around like the crisis was over once they passed the bill. It was a failure on a lot of levels, which are mostly not Obama's fault. There's only so much he could do with the senate, but it is his fault for trying to pretend like the war was over long before such a claim was prudent. Hell, they were so pleased with the bill that they didn't bother to bail out the states like they did Wall Street, meaning state-level cutbacks basically negated the effect of the stimulus. The stimulus was necessary to keep things at zero, but essentially there was no net effect.

But this is what happens when you try to bend the facts to support your position rather than tailoring your effort to the facts as they actually exist. One of the reasons I was most excited about Obama was the hope that fantasy governance would end. He's done a lot of things I really respect and admire in possibly the toughest political environment since the 60's, but he's been a huge disappointment on many other topics, this being one of them.
 
Last edited:
TraneWreck said:
Yeah, theprestige and Malerin are right on this one.

That stimulus bill was Obama's "Mission Accomplished" moment. It was too small to completely work, as Krugman and others pointed out at the time, and the administration engaged in the same rosy thinking distortions that the Bush administration did in the run up to the crisis.

In fairness, the reason unemployment was much higher than they anticipated was because the crisis was much worse than people thought when the 8.5% number was floated. It's something like learning there was another well in the gulf leaking the whole time that no one knew about.

However, it's still the administration's fault for making bold declarations before good information was available then dancing around like the crisis was over once they passed the bill. It was a failure on a lot of levels, which are mostly not Obama's fault. There's only so much he could do with the senate, but it is his fault for trying to pretend like the war was over long before such a claim was prudent. Hell, they were so pleased with the bill that they didn't bother to bail out the states like they did Wall Street, meaning state-level cutbacks basically negated the effect of the stimulus. The stimulus was necessary to keep things at zero, but essentially there was no net effect.

But this is what happens when you try to bend the facts to support your position rather than tailoring your effort to the facts as they actually exist. One of the reasons I was most excited about Obama was the hope that fantasy governance would end. He's done a lot of things I really respect and admire in possibly the toughest political environment since the 60's, but he's been a huge disappointment on many other topics, this being one of them.
Click to expand...
This is a measured, accurate statement. I agree.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession

http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/reference/word-definitions/recession-definition.html

http://econ.economicshelp.org/2008/09/definition-of-recession.html

http://recession.org/definition

Yes, the hard-line, unfeeling, exacting definition of 'recession' does not include unemployment (among many other factors and resulting effects it also ignores). But note that there is no such thing as a recession or depression without a rise in unemployment. And we will be feeling this unemployment/underemployment for years after the academics have declared the recession over (in June 2009 according to them).

There is currently no (zero) guarantee that anything will remain stable let alone start improving. If the last twenty years are any indicator then things will continue to reach new plateaus of 'worse' as economies around the world falter and populations continue to increase. Kids, you're welcome for the hell of the future. Enjoy! ;P

Stop being naive. And you call yourselves realists and skeptics.
 
kuroyume0161 said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession

http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/reference/word-definitions/recession-definition.html

http://econ.economicshelp.org/2008/09/definition-of-recession.html

http://recession.org/definition

Yes, the hard-line, unfeeling, exacting definition of 'recession' does not include unemployment (among many other factors and resulting effects it also ignores). But note that there is no such thing as a recession or depression without a rise in unemployment. And we will be feeling this unemployment/underemployment for years after the academics have declared the recession over (in June 2009 according to them).

There is currently no (zero) guarantee that anything will remain stable let alone start improving. If the last twenty years are any indicator then things will continue to reach new plateaus of 'worse' as economies around the world falter and populations continue to increase. Kids, you're welcome for the hell of the future. Enjoy! ;P

Stop being naive. And you call yourselves realists and skeptics.
Click to expand...

I see someone is going through a "F--- The Establishment" and a "Cool Existential Despair" stage all at once.
 
Malerin said:
Back in early January, when Barack Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers — leading proponents of a stimulus bill — predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%...


The two advisers who wrote the paper, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, went on to land key jobs in the Obama Administration.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1910208,00.html
Click to expand...

So you realize that the number is based on hypothetical bill that didn't actually exist? That the "below 8%" was a benchmark they were shooting for when determining how big the eventual stimulus should be.

What we and them got in March--two months after this figure was announced--the stimulus was vastly different, as was the baseline as well. The stimulus we received was not what the White House or at lot of economists were hoping for.

To say that the March stimulus failed to do what Obama had promised, is to assume the bill Obama signed was the one he wanted in the first place.
 
dudalb said:
I see someone is going through a "F--- The Establishment" and a "Cool Existential Despair" stage all at once.
Click to expand...

Well, I've always been a FTE type. Not really getting the CED reference. Do you really trust the government and big business to look after your well-being? (see every war, Katrina, BP, 9/11, Lobbyists, Golden parachutes, Exxon, Enron, Bush, Reagan, McCarthy, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.). You are fodder for others to step on as they ascend to 'glory'. This is the real world - few are happy and wealthy. The middle class in the US is vanishing. There is actual data to back that up. But ignore it, please. ;)

And there was no aristocracy in France in the late 18th Century - the starving peasants just imagined they were being starved to death while the posh few partied to extremes not seen since decadent Rome. There's no data to back that up either, I suppose...
 
TraneWreck said:
...when the 8.5% number was floated. It's something like learning there was another well in the gulf leaking the whole time that no one knew about.

However, it's still the administration's fault for making bold declarations before good information was available then dancing around like the crisis was over once they passed the bill. ..
Click to expand...

I know you put these two events on different paragraphs, but people are still going to think it happened around the same time.
 
kuroyume0161 said:
Well, I've always been a FTE type. Not really getting the CED reference. Do you really trust the government and big business to look after your well-being? (see every war, Katrina, BP, 9/11, Lobbyists, Golden parachutes, Exxon, Enron, Bush, Reagan, McCarthy, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.). You are fodder for others to step on as they ascend to 'glory'. This is the real world - few are happy and wealthy. The middle class in the US is vanishing. There is actual data to back that up. But ignore it, please. ;)

And there was no aristocracy in France in the late 18th Century - the starving peasants just imagined they were being starved to death while the posh few partied to extremes not seen since decadent Rome. There's no data to back that up either, I suppose...
Click to expand...



And your solution is............
 
I see the economic illiterates are out in force. This is why too much information can be a bad thing to the highly uneducated masses and then you give them an open forum (the internet) to say whatever the hell they want. Not a good combination.

1. The recession was a lot worse than anyone really thought it would be or would care to admit
2. The GOP blocked any additional stimulus efforts and economists debate that if it had been bigger, things would be better by now (but we know how good they are at predictions).
3. Now that they've been bailed out and are sitting on large piles of cash, are these companies hiring? Not a chance. You can accuse them of being cautious but the bottom line is that they came with their hand out (how capitalistic is that?) and now are giving a big middle finger to those who gave them help: the taxpayer. Who's the villain now?
5. Most economists (except your run-of-the-mill Chicago school fundy) agree that the stimulus saved millions of jobs and kept us from going into a deeper hole.
6. With the size and scope of the recession, getting back to 5 or 6% unemployment will take a lot longer than a few years. If you can't be intellectually honest enough to admit that, you can excuse yourself from an honest debate.
7. Given all of the above, how well do you think we'd have fared had we done nothing? If you think we'd be back to 2005's "normal," (this is the "the market is self-regulating and will fix itself" line of argument) you're not just delusional and dishonest, you're stupid. Even the Great I Am W thought we needed stimulus and he enacted a rather large one that people conveniently forget about when laying this at the feet of Obama and the Democrats. Not to mention he started two unfunded wars that are still ongoing, gave tax cuts to millionaires (that worked well to grow the fake economy, though) and generally f'ed the place up. Certainly there is a lot of culpability to go around but at least be honest about it.
 
daenku32 said:
I know you put these two events on different paragraphs, but people are still going to think it happened around the same time.
Click to expand...

Sure, but there were a lot of claims made before and after the bill passed.

For me, one consistent source of frustration with the Obama administration is that they never express their ideals. With health care, for example, we never learned what sort of bill Obama wanted, just what he thought he could pass. They do this, I'm guessing, so that they can take credit for whatever emerges.

They did the same thing with the stimulus. Romer was clear that the bill needed to be at least $1.2 trillion, Krugman wanted one even larger than that, but we never heard Obama articulate what he thought was necessary. Thus, when the 8.5% number was floated, we didn't have Obama saying, "based on the information we have access to, we need a bill of at least $1.2 trilion to keep unemployment below 8%."

Instead, he started out at 700-800 billion because he thought it was more politically viable. So now we're left to wonder how that happened. Did he really think that $800 billion would be sufficient? They said they could keep unemployment under 8%, then they get worse numbers, but still offer a bill based on the earlier numbers...it's hard to defend them on this one.

I can't say whether this is savvy politics. If it is, it certainly hasn't resulted in popularity, but as a negotiating ploy it's terrible. He begins every discussion by conceding about half of what he needs. Or maybe he really though his proposal was sufficient, it's impossible to tell. The fact remains that for whatever reason we ended up with a stimulus bill that was grossly inadequate compared to the severity of the recession, and it was structured in such a way that state-level cuts basically undermined the entire project.

THe fact that they celebrated so overtly after the stimulus was passed, boldly declaring that it could all be fazed out before 2011, leads me to believe that they made a colossal error. Many people warned them (including members of the administration, like Romer) that their bill was inadequate, so I find the "who could have predicted the levvies would break" argument about the crisis being worse than anticipated a little hard to swallow.
 
Last edited:
themusicteacher said:
I see the economic illiterates are out in force. This is why too much information can be a bad thing to the highly uneducated masses and then you give them an open forum (the internet) to say whatever the hell they want. Not a good combination.

1. The recession was a lot worse than anyone really thought it would be or would care to admit
2. The GOP blocked any additional stimulus efforts and economists debate that if it had been bigger, things would be better by now (but we know how good they are at predictions).
3. Now that they've been bailed out and are sitting on large piles of cash, are these companies hiring? Not a chance. You can accuse them of being cautious but the bottom line is that they came with their hand out (how capitalistic is that?) and now are giving a big middle finger to those who gave them help: the taxpayer. Who's the villain now?
5. Most economists (except your run-of-the-mill Chicago school fundy) agree that the stimulus saved millions of jobs and kept us from going into a deeper hole.
6. With the size and scope of the recession, getting back to 5 or 6% unemployment will take a lot longer than a few years. If you can't be intellectually honest enough to admit that, you can excuse yourself from an honest debate.
7. Given all of the above, how well do you think we'd have fared had we done nothing? If you think we'd be back to 2005's "normal," (this is the "the market is self-regulating and will fix itself" line of argument) you're not just delusional and dishonest, you're stupid. Even the Great I Am W thought we needed stimulus and he enacted a rather large one that people conveniently forget about when laying this at the feet of Obama and the Democrats. Not to mention he started two unfunded wars that are still ongoing, gave tax cuts to millionaires (that worked well to grow the fake economy, though) and generally f'ed the place up. Certainly there is a lot of culpability to go around but at least be honest about it.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree with what you say about Bush,but the first paragraph is scary in what it implies;That Democracy cannot work, and we need some kind of intellectual elite to run things.
 
themusicteacher said:
1. The recession was a lot worse than anyone really thought it would be or would care to admit
2. The GOP blocked any additional stimulus efforts and economists debate that if it had been bigger, things would be better by now (but we know how good they are at predictions).
3. Now that they've been bailed out and are sitting on large piles of cash, are these companies hiring? Not a chance. You can accuse them of being cautious but the bottom line is that they came with their hand out (how capitalistic is that?) and now are giving a big middle finger to those who gave them help: the taxpayer. Who's the villain now?
5. Most economists (except your run-of-the-mill Chicago school fundy) agree that the stimulus saved millions of jobs and kept us from going into a deeper hole.
6. With the size and scope of the recession, getting back to 5 or 6% unemployment will take a lot longer than a few years. If you can't be intellectually honest enough to admit that, you can excuse yourself from an honest debate.
7. Given all of the above, how well do you think we'd have fared had we done nothing? If you think we'd be back to 2005's "normal," (this is the "the market is self-regulating and will fix itself" line of argument) you're not just delusional and dishonest, you're stupid. Even the Great I Am W thought we needed stimulus and he enacted a rather large one that people conveniently forget about when laying this at the feet of Obama and the Democrats. Not to mention he started two unfunded wars that are still ongoing, gave tax cuts to millionaires (that worked well to grow the fake economy, though) and generally f'ed the place up. Certainly there is a lot of culpability to go around but at least be honest about it.
Click to expand...

I agree with most of what you wrote, my criticisms of Obama in this thread being tame next to my opinions of the Senate "moderates" and various insane libertarian based political movements. In a more reasonable world, when it was discovered that the crisis was more severe, new stimulus could have been passed to correct the initial flaw. In this climate, however, there was only one shot at it, and we missed. It's not Obama's fault that everything rested on that one chance.

But the bolded isn't technically correct.

Bush passed the first rounds of bailouts of the financial sector. Most of that money, as well as the money allocated in the bailouts during Obama's term, has been paid back. That was never intended as stimulus. In a sense, it would allow for increased lending and that could be stimulative, but it's rather indirect which is why the ARRA was needed.

But you are absolutely correct that the source of this problem resides in the horrifically mismanaged period from 2001-2009.
 
Last edited:
dudalb said:
And your solution is............
Click to expand...

not needed to think the solution we were given and the promises we were given are not working or have worked.

I've seen this tactic alot lately - that you can't be critical nor have an opinion of something unless you have a solution. Is it sort of like a reverse ad hominem?

Maybe if kuroyume0161 was in a position of power and influence having a solution might be important. It might also be neat to hear what his solutions are - but he does not need one for his arguments to be made.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom