It's about time, Obama! Finally, you grow a pair!

[lomiller]

Just like the Great Depression was POTUS Hoover's. However, the Recession of 1937–1938, is known as the Roosevelt Recession. Something POTUS Obama should be aware of just in case we have to be honest down the road.

Roosevelt certainly erred in allowing the “balance the budget!” crowd to get their way and prematurely end the stimulus causing another downturn in 37/38.

Of course the right these days has no real intention of even trying to balance the budget, but otherwise they are pushing similar policies to those that caused the 37/38 downturn. Obama does seem to recognize this, whether he can prevent them from once again tanking the US economy is still in doubt.

 

[Tricky]

(Shrug)

A standard "blame everything on your predecessor" political speech.

Usually this means one's own achievements are pretty lousy, so far.

When the opposing party is painting you as a terrible president because of things that you inherited, it's a fair response.

How's that $800,000,000,000 stimulus bill that had to be passed right now or else doing in reducing unemployment, again?

We can't really know that unless we could somehow create an alternate time line that would show how high unemployment would have gone without the stimulus bill. Considering the direction the economy was heading, that could have been a pretty high number. But of course, that's why economics is an inexact science.

 

[lomiller]

(Shrug)

How's that $800,000,000,000 stimulus bill that had to be passed right now or else doing in reducing unemployment, again?

According to the CBO there would be an additional 3.3 million unemployed without it

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...-created-up-to-3-3-million-jobs-cbo-says.html

 

[KingMerv00]

Current unemployment rate 9.6%
When Bush 43 left office it was 8%

Quick test of intellectual honesty:

What was the unemployment rate before Bush took office?

If you apply the same logic to Bush as you did to Obama, what conclusion would you reach?

 

[Kegeshook]

Quick test of intellectual honesty:

What was the unemployment rate before Bush took office?

If you apply the same logic to Bush as you did to Obama, what conclusion would you reach?

What was the unemployment rate before the Democrats took control of the legislative branch?

 

[Skeptic]

When the opposing party is painting you as a terrible president because of things that you inherited, it's a fair response... we can't really know that unless we could somehow create an alternate time line that would show how high unemployment would have gone without the stimulus bill.

Both of these are just standard political excuses for a failed policy: "it's all their fault" and "things would have been even worse if I hadn't done it".

 

[Kegeshook]

According to the CBO there would be an additional 3.3 million unemployed without it

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...-created-up-to-3-3-million-jobs-cbo-says.html

$242,424 per job.

 

[Skeptic]

According to the CBO there would be an additional 3.3 million unemployed without it

Let us do the math:

814 billion / 3.3 million = about $250,000 per job created per year.

What is the average yearly salary of those created jobs, I wonder?

 

[lomiller]

Let us do the math:

814 billion / 3.3 million = about $250,000 per job created per year.

Half the stimulus was tax breaks that ended up going into savings accounts creating few if any jobs. Most of the rest didn’t go to government hires, but to contractors performing work for the government. It may surprise you to learn that business don’t charge just barely enough to cover the cost of their labor.

The main point of stimulus is to create enough demand to get companies investing in order to chase potential profits, so your implied notion that straight government hiring would have been better is deeply flawed.

 

[Skeptic]

The main point of stimulus is to create enough demand to get companies investing in order to chase potential profits, so your implied notion that straight government hiring would have been better is deeply flawed.

Who said anything about government hiring? I said that spending $250,000 per job created is a lousy return on the investment.

If the government spent that money on building a massive secret mind-control device that made everybody search for a job a lot harder and therefore 3.3 million more might have gotten a job, it would still not be worth $800,000,000,000 of tax money.

 

[Skeptic]

Right because there aren't over 400 bills stuck in the senate due to filibusters.....

The opposition opposes the president's policies! Who knew such an unprecedented, inconceivable thing could happen in a democratically-elected system of government? Obama apparently didn't -- no wonder Obama's policies find trouble getting off the ground in many cases.

 

[A'isha]

I suppose it takes real political leadership to blame the nations woes on the opposing party when you have control of both the house and senate

The opposition opposes the president's policies! Who knew such an unprecedented, inconceivable thing could happen in a democratically-elected system of government? Obama apparently didn't -- no wonder Obama's policies find trouble getting off the ground in many cases.

So which is it, fellas?

 

[KingMerv00]

What was the unemployment rate before the Democrats took control of the legislative branch?

My question wasn't meant to insult Bush, it was meant to point out Cicero's awful reasoning skills.

 

[rwguinn]

So which is it, fellas?

Yes.

 

[A'isha]

Yes.

So Obama is simultaneously some kind of idiot for not knowing that he'd have trouble getting his policies off the ground due to the opposition, and some kind of idiot for blaming the opposition for his having trouble getting his policies off the ground?

I see.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Who said anything about government hiring? I said that spending $250,000 per job created is a lousy return on the investment.

IIRC there was a real push to put billions more into food stamps and unemployment benefits, which would have had more immediate impact on the economy and would have created more jobs by CBO estimate, but the right didn't want to create a "welfare state." So, we spent money that less directly created jobs.

So, either you can hand out the money or you can filter it through profitable organizations. One creates more jobs per dollars, but is unpalatable to conservatives. The other creates lots of profit in the private sector and a bit fewer jobs, but is more palatable to the conservatives. When you have to get around a veto you do the best you can.

 

[lomiller]

Who said anything about government hiring?

Your statement is meaningless without the assumption that government hiring these people directly is superior because you have no basis for how much a job should cost other then hiring the person directly. If you don’t agree with the claims implied within your posts you should retract them.

 

[ksbluesfan]

I'd love to see Obama and the Democrats in Congress push through important legislation, such as an expansion of the stimulus. The Republicans are going to try to block any efforts, so there is no sense in trying to compromise with them. Paul Krugman has been saying this for at least a year.

 

[Cicero]

I'd love to see Obama and the Democrats in Congress push through important legislation, such as an expansion of the stimulus. The Republicans are going to try to block any efforts, so there is no sense in trying to compromise with them. Paul Krugman has been saying this for at least a year.

In reviewing "The Conscience of a Liberal, " NYT's David M. Kennedy couldn't help but notice that Krugman's talents would be better served as a fertilizer salesman rather than a professor of Economics and International Affairs.

"And as for national security - well, as Krugman sees things, it was not Democratic bungling in the Iranian hostage crisis or humiliation in Somalia or feeble responses to the first bombing attack on the World Trade Center or the assault on the U.S.S. Cole, but the runaway popularity of the Rambo films (I'm not making this up) that hoodwinked the public into believing that the party of Carter and Clinton (not to mention McGovern and Kucinich) might not be the most steadfast guardian of the Republic's safety..."

""Yes, Virginia, there is a vast right-wing conspiracy," he writes, a sentence that both stylistically and substantively says much about the shortcomings of this book..."

 

[leftysergeant]

So Obama is simultaneously some kind of idiot for not knowing that he'd have trouble getting his policies off the ground due to the opposition, and some kind of idiot for blaming the opposition for his having trouble getting his policies off the ground?

I see.

Makes perfect sense to those who still think piddle-down ecconomics works.