The Stimulus Seems to have failed

Muldur said:
Wrong. The entire global economy was on the verge of collapse thanks to CDOs and CDSes that were legalized by the CTMA in 2006. On Sept 18, 2008, we came within a few HOURS of a complete breakdown of ALL banking as a run started on US mutual funds that would have domino-chained around the world and destroyed the credit structure entirely.
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Don't you think we need to separate the banking bailout from what is more properly called stimulus?

And how do you think we got to September 18, anyway? Government interference.

Government interferred to create Fannie and Freddie. Government interferred in long establish (and sound) banking practices. Government made home ownership a national goal, regardless of whether specific individuals could reasonably afford a home. Government trying to stimulate the housing market by stealing from Paul (the taxpayer) to make it possible for Peter (mostly poor democrat constituents) to own homes is what brought the economy down. And when it became evident that things were going south (back in 2002-2005), it was mostly democrats in government who ignored the warning signs and propped up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when they shouldn't have. And unfortunately, Bush eventually gave up and joined them in encouraging the insanity. Government did nothing about F&F's loan practices when they should have. Government officials (mostly democrats) got millions in campaign donations from F&F and did nothing when the warning was sounded. They were bought. And they in turn were trying to buy the votes of their constituents with promises of essentially *free* housing. They still are making those promises. The government's Community Reinvestment Act was busy encouraging banks to make unsound loans. And it still is, under new names. The government's banker, Alan Greenspan, was busy pushing interest rates down down down, making the banking strategies look more reasonable. The democrats who ran F&F and made millions doing it, sailed the ship of state into the icebergs. Everywhere you turn in this fiasco it was the government's interference (mostly democrats although later many republicans ... call them statists ... jumped on board) that created the conditions that finally melted down in 2008.

The lesson is clear. Massive stimulus doesn't work. Not even in the housing market. When will liberals ever wake up and learn from history?
 
BeAChooser said:
Don't you think we need to separate the banking bailout from what is more properly called stimulus?
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No, because the two are inextricably entwined. The banking bailout was part of the stimulus package, and the need for stimulus was the direct result of the near-collapse of banking.

And how do you think we got to September 18, anyway? Government interference.
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No, the gov't REMOVED interference in the 06 CTMA with a provision that superceeded state authority to ban CDOs and CDSes (essentially gambling on debt) via "bucket shop" laws.

The problem in 08 was the direct result of NON interferance on the part of gov't where it had previously (and correctly) regulated before.

Government interferred to create Fannie and Freddie. Government interferred in long establish (and sound) banking practices. Government made home ownership a national goal, regardless of whether specific individuals could reasonably afford a home. Government trying to stimulate the housing market by stealing from Paul (the taxpayer) to make it possible for Peter (mostly poor democrat constituents) to own homes is what brought the economy down. And when it became evident that things were going south (back in 2002-2005), it was mostly democrats in government who ignored the warning signs and propped up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when they shouldn't have. And unfortunately, Bush eventually gave up and joined them in encouraging the insanity. Government did nothing about F&F's loan practices when they should have. Government officials (mostly democrats) got millions in campaign donations from F&F and did nothing when the warning was sounded. They were bought. And they in turn were trying to buy the votes of their constituents with promises of essentially *free* housing. They still are making those promises. The government's Community Reinvestment Act was busy encouraging banks to make unsound loans. And it still is, under new names. The government's banker, Alan Greenspan, was busy pushing interest rates down down down, making the banking strategies look more reasonable. The democrats who ran F&F and made millions doing it, sailed the ship of state into the icebergs. Everywhere you turn in this fiasco it was the government's interference (mostly democrats although later many republicans ... call them statists ... jumped on board) that created the conditions that finally melted down in 2008.
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The damage from Freddie and Fanny was bad, but it was the DEregulation of derivitives (CDOs and CDSes) that poisoned the entire banking system.

http://search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0oG.../2008/10/26/60minutes/main4546199_page2.shtml

http://search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0oG.../2009/08/60-minutes-credit-default-swaps.html

The lesson is clear.
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Yes it is: don't allow bankers to market funky psuedo-securities.

When will liberals ever wake up and learn from history?
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We aren't the blind ones denying history here...you are.
 
Muldur said:
...We aren't the blind ones denying history here...you are.
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On the contrary....since YOU DIDN'T ANSWER this question I posed shortly ago, it is rather self evident ... your denial of history....:

Thus all your "shoulds" and "musts" and "are needed" and "for social justice" admonitions do not direct or orchestrate the economy; it is an organic thing comprised of billions of individual decisions. Rather, your sentiments illustrate the failure of top down control attempts of the past, which although doubtlessly well meaning, usually made things worse, not better.

How many examples of this would you like?

I can only surmise that this is an embarrassing and inconvenient truth.
 
Muldur said:
Originally Posted by BeAChooser
Don't you think we need to separate the banking bailout from what is more properly called stimulus?

No, because the two are inextricably entwined. The banking bailout was part of the stimulus package
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They are not inextricably entwined. In fact, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told the House Financial Services Committee in November 2008 that TARP "was not intended to be an economic stimulus or an economic recovery package." The banking bailout preceded the stimulus package by a wide margin. They were different in both purpose and character. For one thing, the banking bailout money was supposed to be repaid. Not so the stimulus. The banking bailout was designed to repair the credit markets so that the free market … the private market … would behave correctly. Not so the stimulus. The stimulus, if truth be told, was designed to pump money out of taxpayer pockets … out of the private sector … and move it to the public sector and to individuals/businesses who were deemed potential democratic party supporters.

Muldur said:
and the need for stimulus was the direct result of the near-collapse of banking.
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We did not need to double debt to fix the banking system. To get credit markets working again. We did not need to move massive amounts of money out of taxpayer hands into the hands of poor people to fix the banking system. We did not need to create a host of new entitlements to fix the banking system.

Muldur said:
No, the gov't REMOVED interference in the 06 CTMA with a provision that superceeded state authority to ban CDOs and CDSes (essentially gambling on debt) via "bucket shop" laws.
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Googling "'bucket shop' CTMA" produces a total of 9 hits? Not saying there isn't such a thing, but one of those 9 hits is even a post by you and most of the others don't seem to have much to do with derivatives. In any case, we were in trouble long before 2006. A deregulation of derivatives occurred long before 2006. Which is why warnings of what was coming were being issued years before … warnings that were ignored or dismissed by democrats.

For example, in 2000, Clinton signed the CFMA (Commodity Futures Modernization Act). That act allowed bankers to not face legal consequences if they manipulated/defrauded using derivatives. Two years earlier, CFTC chair Brooksley Born tried to subject derivatives to regulatory oversight and she was forced out by Clinton's Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Robert Rubin (a democrat) and Alan Greenspan (who was awful chummy with democrats). They then put together CFMA. And as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Report stated, that legislation was "was a key turning point in the march toward the financial crisis" (http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-01-..._otc-derivatives-otc-market-bankruptcy-filing ). So I don't know what you are referring to when you mention the "06 CTMA".

Muldur said:
The damage from Freddie and Fanny was bad, but it was the DEregulation of derivitives (CDOs and CDSes) that poisoned the entire banking system.
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We had opportunities to fix the problem between 2000 and 2008 when the warnings surfaced, but they were wasted because of democrat intransigence against calls to better regulate Fannie and Freddie. Democrats William Clay, Maxine Waters, Chuck Schumer, and Chris Dodd (among others) were more concerned about protecting the democrat controlled fiefdoms of Fannie and Freddie, and the democrats who ran them (for example, Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick) than fixing clearly identified and serious structural problems. And when Fannie and Freddie collapsed, what happened to those people? Nothing. In fact, Raines, after earning ten's of million of dollars in compensation at Fannie, went to work in Obama's Administration … in the regulating body of Fannie. :rolleyes:

Muldur said:
Quote:
When will liberals ever wake up and learn from history?

We aren't the blind ones denying history here...you are.
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Yeah. Sure. :rolleyes:
 
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/577362/201107051910/The-Economic-Spin-You-Less.htm

Lies, Damned Lies And Job Statistics

… snip …

The White House tries to spin its own economists' conclusions that the Democrats' massive, ineffective stimulus package cost a whopping $278,000 per job. If only it was that cheap.

… snip …

The CEA report concluded "that as of the first quarter of 2011, the ARRA has raised employment relative to what it otherwise would have been by between 2.4 million and 3.6 million." The Weekly Standard did the math and pointed out that that amounts to "a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job." Early in the Obama administration, the CEA said that about $92,000 in government spending would create one job for one year.

But it's likely the real cost is far higher than the Standard reckoned. The Heritage Foundation once referred to it as the "Generational Theft Act," warning that its "temporary" provisions for increased funding for programs the left loves would never be reined in.

In 2009, it put the price tag at $3.27 trillion, pegging the cost per job at $900,000 to $1.3 million, depending on which figure on job creation or saving you accept.
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bikerdruid said:
the stimulus was a failure, because the money went to the wrong people.
the money should have gone to the working class, who would spend it on goods and services, actually stimulating the economy.
instead it was given to corporations that gave huge bonuses to the incompetent dolts that got them in trouble in the first place.

if the people have money and spend it, the economy works.
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BeAChooser said:
Don't you think we need to separate the banking bailout from what is more properly called stimulus?
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BAC...i'm curious about your response to my post.
 
It may have failed everything told the nation, but it did exceptionally well for many, but don't worry, the media won't say a thing... tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich.

Get elected and pass out thousands of millions of $$$$ to whoever you feel like.. stimulus... looting...

And fortunately, the people have been sufficiently dumbed down...
they won't say anything, they won't even know they should care...
and fortunately, the media will be sure not to pursue it and not to talk much about it...
so they'll make sure no one says anything...
except about those rich Republicans... how can they be so greedy and evil?
 
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JudeBrando said:
It may have failed everything told the nation, but it did exceptionally well for many, but don't worry, the media won't say a thing... tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich.

Get elected and pass out thousands of millions of $$$$ to whoever you feel like.. stimulus... looting...

And fortunately, the people have been sufficiently dumbed down...
they won't say anything, they won't even know they should care...
and fortunately, the media will be sure not to pursue it and not to talk much about it...
so they'll make sure no one says anything...
except about those rich Republicans... how can they be so greedy and evil?
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PLUS those evol Republicans are in bed with the oil companies and isn't it suspicious that gas is so high?

Let's have a government inquiry into those shady deals that must be happening to jack up the price of gas and ignore the reality of printing trilliions has on gas prices.

Right out of Atlas Shrugged.

:rolleyes:
 
BeAChooser said:
And how do you think we got to September 18, anyway? Government interference.
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I think the US started down the path to September 18th 2008 precisely seven years and seven days beforehand. Osama Bin Laden is dead, but he lived to see Al-Qaeda win.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
I think the US started down the path to September 18th 2008 precisely seven years and seven days beforehand. Osama Bin Laden is dead, but he lived to see Al-Qaeda win.
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So the US lost some $$.

The coalition routed them in Afghanistan. In Iraq there were about 5 times as many Al Qaeda deaths as there were coalition deaths amounting to a much greater percentage of Al Qaeda. Not to mention Al Qaeda lost a freaking country lol. Their killings of muslims hasn't done much to endear them with muslims. WAY more top Al Qaeda leadership have been killed than coalition leadership including the top dog himself - Bin Laden.

It's quite interesting that someone would interpret this as a win for Bin Laden.
 
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20077259-503544.html

The magnitude of the worst U.S. recession since the Great Depression escaped President Obama when he first stepped into office, the president acknowledged today at his "Twitter town hall."
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LOL! Can this guy stop lying for even one minute? He seems to have forgotten his own claim back in January 2009 that this was the worst recession since the Great Depression … bogus though that claim was at the time. The truth is he made this the worst recession with his inept, socialist interference in the economy. And now he's busy turning a recession into a depression. :mad:
 
DrBaltar said:
So the US lost some $$.

The coalition routed them in Afghanistan. In Iraq there were about 5 times as many Al Qaeda deaths as there were coalition deaths amounting to a much greater percentage of Al Qaeda. Not to mention Al Qaeda lost a freaking country lol. Their killings of muslims hasn't done much to endear them with muslims. WAY more top Al Qaeda leadership have been killed than coalition leadership including the top dog himself - Bin Laden.

It's quite interesting that someone would interpret this as a win for Bin Laden.
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Al-Qaeda had one primary goal: to end the situation where the United States was the world's only superpower. They were/are the idealogical diametric opposite to the neoconservative vision of a Project for a New American Century. Ten years after the WTC attacks, it is clear that they have succeeded: there is not going to be a New American Century, because the United States is effectively bankrupt. Was this all part of Bin Laden's plans? No, because what has happened since then is also largely the result of the arrogance and incompetence of GWB and his administration. But at the end of the day, the sequence of events which started on 9/11 has led to a situation where the United States is on the brink of an economic catastrophe. Bin Laden may be dead and a lot of taliban may have been killed in Afghanistan, but since when was dying for the cause a problem for supporters of Al-Qaeda?

The purpose of Al-Qaeda was not to "take over countries". That's the sort of thing the US tries to do. Everything Al-Qaeda does was/is just a means to an end, and that end was/is to cripple the United States.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
....
The purpose of Al-Qaeda was not to "take over countries". That's the sort of thing the US tries to do. Everything Al-Qaeda does was/is just a means to an end, and that end was/is to cripple the United States.
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So Bin Laden didn't scheme, plan, and execute strategy designed to create an opening in which he could take over Saudi Arabia?

:)
 
mhaze said:
So Bin Laden didn't scheme, plan, and execute strategy designed to create an opening in which he could take over Saudi Arabia?

:)
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He may well have done that. What do you think he would have done with that power had he been able to get hold of it? Somehow I don't think Saudi Arabia would have remained an ally of the United States. Bin Laden would have just stopped selling oil to the US, and that's Game Over.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
He may well have done that. What do you think he would have done with that power had he been able to get hold of it? Somehow I don't think Saudi Arabia would have remained an ally of the United States. Bin Laden would have just stopped selling oil to the US, and that's Game Over.
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No it would not have been. Oil is a fungible resource...some tankers go one place, other tankers go another place. Makes almost no difference when pipelines are not involved to the point of end use.

Bin Laden figured on whipping up the Arab population, creating massive uprising in Saudi due to the offensiveness of the American military bases there. We were just the fall guy. He figured he could take that country, given it's various leadership weaknesses and the manner in which the US props them up.

To understand OBL, you must go back to Sayyid Qutb and Nasser, the origins of the Muslim Brotherhood. OBL was his primary disciple, and Al Quaeda OBL's army. For what he would have done if he'd gotten Saudi, he would have become the Caliphate, I would guess. Basically, we'd have been at war with Saudi Arabia (by his doing, since that makes us da EVIL ONE....we'd be warring with the Caliphate, and with Mecca).

The function the USA plays in Arab politics is more that of the "feared evil enemy from afar" which serves to intimidate and suppress modernization in those societies and keep their leaders in power.

For in depth looks at these intricate interactions I suggest www.stratfor.com.
 
BeAChooser said:
The truth is he made this the worst recession with his inept, socialist interference in the economy. And now he's busy turning a recession into a depression. :mad:
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you do indeed like to write history to suit your purpose.
bush started the recession by cutting taxes on the rich, going into two wars and borrowing the money to fight them.
the mortgage bubble had nothing to do with obama, but it burst as he came to office.
is your memory that short, or are you deliberately dishonest?
 
bikerdruid said:
you do indeed like to write history to suit your purpose.
bush started the recession by cutting taxes on the rich, going into two wars and borrowing the money to fight them.
the mortgage bubble had nothing to do with obama, but it burst as he came to office.
is your memory that short, or are you deliberately dishonest?
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And it's "never let a crisis go to waste" time. That is, when you have a group of favorite socialist theories you'd like to play on the American people, in the midst of an economic recession.

But even that is insignificant compared to the spending.
 
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