2012 Presidential Election Run-Up

[smh23]

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

…But that kind of hit, to that many industries, at that time would have been catastrophic. We would be living in a very different country today were it not for those emergency measures. And not different in a better way…

[/quote]

I’m not buying that. And neither are many economists; they just happen not to be your economists. So what we need to do is suit up two teams of economists on a virtual gridiron and see who comes out on top after four quarters, I guess.

Those “emergency measures” will end up causing more problems than they solve - in the long run. Granted, we get into “what if” territory which can be nebulous but nonetheless you already forayed there with your “catastrophic…very different country” stuff.
[/quote]

I won’t disagree that there are two sides to this (and every) debate. And as I understand it you lean toward libertarianism so I get your position.

But we are talking about a lot of jobs here, at a time when the economy certainly couldn’t have absorbed the shock. Alan Mullaly–the CEO of Ford–testified before Congress asking taxpayer money to go directly to his two biggest competitors in order to save them. Every single business maxim and shred of common sense dictates that he would never do such a thing–and yet he did it, because (and this is according to him) Ford would have failed alongside Chrysler and GM as a result of the parts industry’s collapse.

edited

[ZEB]

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
Zeb, I’m curious about how you view Obama’s emergency measures to halt what many economists believe could have become a full depression. Do you believe he did the right thing in bailing out Detroit and Wall St.? And are you not glad, given the stakes, that Mitt Romney was not President at the time?

I’m asking this sincerely.[/quote]

I’m a free market guy and I don’t appreciate a government take over of our largest auto company. Nor do I like him handing the unions the sort of control that he did. I also believe that he could have done far more for the economy his first two years as President when both houses of congress were democrat. Instead he rammed Obamacare through against the wishes of about 65% of the American people. A 4000 page bill that NO ONE READ! Does that make you feel good? Not me! Not only is it the most horrible law ever passed it is also a take over of 1/6th of the US economy.

What Obama would do if given a second term with no electorate to have to answer to scares the hell out of me![/quote]

Most of the things we go back and forth on are matters of interpretation and we almost always find common ground. But here I sincerely believe you’re mistaken. I do recognize that this position is consistent with your general economic ideology and I do commend that consistence, but rigidity is usually a liability.

In this case, I’m as hesitant as anyone to step in and save an inefficient company. But that kind of hit, to that many industries, at that time would have been catastrophic. We would be living in a very different country today were it not for those emergency measures. And not different in a better way.

Other than that, I’m not going to defend the ACA because I don’t much like it to begin with and I don’t know it well enough.[/quote]

Not true they would have declared bankruptcy and reorganized, like any other business large or small. They would have been protected from creditors for a given period of time. AND…they would have come back just as they have with no government ownership.

But in Obama’s world everything is better if government either owns it or has a hand in it.

Simple.

[countingbeans]

[quote]mudshark wrote:

Romney is a man without convictions (flipflopflipflop…) [/quote]

“Most transparent president”
“No lobbyists and bankers in my cabinet”
“Change”
“No individual mandate”
“Every bill on the internet for 5 days before I sign it”
“Healthcare bill negotiated on CSPAN”

So… About those convictions you speak about…

and a man without convictions will be led around by his nose

Please do your self a favor and look up who Larry Summers and Tim Geither are.

tea party crowd who rode a short and dying wave in 2010.

Only in America would people think fiscal responsibility, constitutional rule of law and freedom were a bad thing.

If you think the teaparty is dying, you are sadly mistaken. If you think the teaparty is dying, you don’t understand the first thing about them.

The neoconservatives lingering in the back room and whispering in Mitt’s ear are a very real and present threat to the stability of the world.

Really? Kool-ade much?

How many bombs did Clinton drop?

LOL

Their adventurism in the first 7 years of this decade fueled those that would do us harm and became the cause for the rise in terriorist enlistment around the world. Bluster and bravado are the tools of choice of a weak and reasonless (sp.) mind.

Ask Jewbacca how Obama is seen in the Mid East verse these evil men you speak of.

The supply-side, trickle-down economic policies of the Republican Party may sound good to those that get (the supposed “job creators”) but will ultimately be a shrill, piercing siren blaring in the face of the middle-class and poor of this country.

Please show how the middle class and even the poor in this nation are not significantly better off than they were in 1980?

Even after the financial crisis.

Reagonomics was a failure

See above. Please prove this. Somehow. Show me something.

This is like the “rich don’t pay their fair share” bullshit.

What is most troubling to me is something that has been moving in politics over the last 2 decades and longer: the creeping of the religious right into our politics.

Read a god damn history book. I’m so tired of this liberal nonsense bull. I’m not even religious and this is ridiculous.

The people in this country have been arguing about religion and its place in or not in politics since the bill of rights was drafted.

Two decades… Right. Just like “banks are evil” is a new idea right? I mean Jefferson doesn’t litter many of his letters with the same rhetoric occupy uses today or anything. Class warfare is on right? You’ve woken up, right? Wrong, Socrates saw class warfare as a tool the government can use ever so long ago…

I’ll leave this subject for another time.

No please, enlighten us how the last 20 years are so special that it wasn’t included in the documents that founded this country.

[Fletch1986]

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
I was really thinking hard about voting for Romney early this year. This was based on his record as governor and his experience in business in the private sector. But the more he campaigns, the more inconsistency I see in his views many of which I still don’t know what they are because they seem to change so much and the excessive pandering to the base. I think in gathering money to support his campaign, he made too many promises and has been pulled too far to the far right’s ideologies much like Mccain. At this point, my vote will just be a ‘not Romney’ vote. Not a ‘for Obama’ vote. [/quote]

Good thing you live in TX and your vote won’t effect Texas’ delegation to the electoral college!

Hah!

This coming from someone who will not vote for Romney (or Obama).[/quote]

In about a decade, Texas will probably be a swing state. So I’ll continue to do my civic duty and vote despite what the results will be and wait till the day my vote will count.

[countingbeans]

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
Zeb, I’m curious about how you view Obama’s emergency measures to halt what many economists believe could have become a full depression. Do you believe he did the right thing in bailing out Detroit and Wall St.? And are you not glad, given the stakes, that Mitt Romney was not President at the time?

I’m asking this sincerely.[/quote]

I’m a free market guy and I don’t appreciate a government take over of our largest auto company. Nor do I like him handing the unions the sort of control that he did. I also believe that he could have done far more for the economy his first two years as President when both houses of congress were democrat. Instead he rammed Obamacare through against the wishes of about 65% of the American people. A 4000 page bill that NO ONE READ! Does that make you feel good? Not me! Not only is it the most horrible law ever passed it is also a take over of 1/6th of the US economy.

What Obama would do if given a second term with no electorate to have to answer to scares the hell out of me![/quote]

Most of the things we go back and forth on are matters of interpretation and we almost always find common ground. But here I sincerely believe you’re mistaken. I do recognize that this position is consistent with your general economic ideology and I do commend that consistence, but rigidity is usually a liability.

In this case, I’m as hesitant as anyone to step in and save an inefficient company. But that kind of hit, to that many industries, at that time would have been catastrophic. We would be living in a very different country today were it not for those emergency measures. And not different in a better way.

Other than that, I’m not going to defend the ACA because I don’t much like it to begin with and I don’t know it well enough.[/quote]

Not true they would have declared bankruptcy and reorganized, like any other business large or small. They would have been protected from creditors for a given period of time. AND…they would have come back just as they have with no government ownership.

[/quote]

Plant wouldn’t have closed for a single day, lol.

Just would have broken the Union.

[ZEB]

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]ZEB wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
Zeb, I’m curious about how you view Obama’s emergency measures to halt what many economists believe could have become a full depression. Do you believe he did the right thing in bailing out Detroit and Wall St.? And are you not glad, given the stakes, that Mitt Romney was not President at the time?

I’m asking this sincerely.[/quote]

I’m a free market guy and I don’t appreciate a government take over of our largest auto company. Nor do I like him handing the unions the sort of control that he did. I also believe that he could have done far more for the economy his first two years as President when both houses of congress were democrat. Instead he rammed Obamacare through against the wishes of about 65% of the American people. A 4000 page bill that NO ONE READ! Does that make you feel good? Not me! Not only is it the most horrible law ever passed it is also a take over of 1/6th of the US economy.

What Obama would do if given a second term with no electorate to have to answer to scares the hell out of me![/quote]

Most of the things we go back and forth on are matters of interpretation and we almost always find common ground. But here I sincerely believe you’re mistaken. I do recognize that this position is consistent with your general economic ideology and I do commend that consistence, but rigidity is usually a liability.

In this case, I’m as hesitant as anyone to step in and save an inefficient company. But that kind of hit, to that many industries, at that time would have been catastrophic. We would be living in a very different country today were it not for those emergency measures. And not different in a better way.

Other than that, I’m not going to defend the ACA because I don’t much like it to begin with and I don’t know it well enough.[/quote]

Not true they would have declared bankruptcy and reorganized, like any other business large or small. They would have been protected from creditors for a given period of time. AND…they would have come back just as they have with no government ownership.

[/quote]

Plant wouldn’t have closed for a single day, lol.

Just would have broken the Union.[/quote]

BINGO!

And THAT is what Obama was out to protect. And he not only protected it but handed them more power.

Obama is a political animal, even more so than most who rise to that position. If anyone cares to dig into the stimulus package (that didn’t work) they’ll find billions of dollars literally handed to Obama supporters unions, green energy folks etc.

And I’m still waiting for someone to post on this or any other thread in PWI why Obama deserves reelection.

[countingbeans]

[quote]ZEB wrote:

Obama … If anyone cares to dig into the stimulus package (that didn’t work) they’ll find billions of dollars literally handed to Obama supporters unions, green energy folks etc.

[/quote]

SOmeone before mentioned the evils of “supply-side” economics.

How was Obama’s stimulus NOT “supply-side” economics? How is every liberal’s favorite Paul Krugman’s Keynesian ways not “supply-side” economics?

[atypical1]

Let’s not forget that GM went to the govt asking for money to begin with. If you want to blame someone blame GM. So if GM wanted to break the union then their best course of action would have been to not ask for money and just go bankrupt. So why didn’t they do that?

james

[Fletch1986]

CB, do you know where I can find a graph like that that includes Great Depression years?

[countingbeans]

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
CB, do you know where I can find a graph like that that includes Great Depression years?[/quote]

Ha, not off the top of my head. It is like the world reset after the start of WWII.

[countingbeans]

[quote]atypical1 wrote:
Let’s not forget that GM went to the govt asking for money to begin with. If you want to blame someone blame GM. So if GM wanted to break the union then their best course of action would have been to not ask for money and just go bankrupt. So why didn’t they do that?

james[/quote]

If I had to guess:

Same reason Ford asked them to be saved.

There would have been disruptions in production. Whether it be with negotiations or flat out walk out. Replacing employees is expensive, and takes time to get back to the same productivity levels as before.

GM would have to downsize, and would still be unlikely to be solvent. They would have needed government loan guarantees and re-working of debt like Chrysler did back in the day.

So, all told this would have been a pain in Ford’s ass to the tune of time and money. Plus Ford know GM is a bloated pig that isn’t going to make it anyway, so it just buys Ford time.

From GM’s perspective they came and begged the government for money because given the climate at the time, they would have been forced into selling off more than they kept.

[Fletch1986]

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
CB, do you know where I can find a graph like that that includes Great Depression years?[/quote]

Ha, not off the top of my head. It is like the world reset after the start of WWII. [/quote]

I was just asking b/c I had a hunch that the crazy spending and deficit in Obama years was necessary to prevent a full out 21st century great depression.

[atypical1]

But Ford didn’t ask them to be saved. Ford went to them after GM and Chrysler received the bailout because it didn’t want to be at a complete disadvantage. And Ford didn’t take any money.

I was under the impression that GM wasn’t just looking at bankruptcy it was looking at actually being out of business since nobody had the money to finance a bankruptcy. But I’m not a finance guy so please correct me if I’m wrong.

james

[countingbeans]

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
CB, do you know where I can find a graph like that that includes Great Depression years?[/quote]

Ha, not off the top of my head. It is like the world reset after the start of WWII. [/quote]

I was just asking b/c I had a hunch that the crazy spending and deficit in Obama years was necessary to prevent a full out 21st century great depression. [/quote]

There are people who think FDR is the one who dragged the depression out and it was WWII that got us out.

But anyway, to the massive spending part. That is why I bring up the IMF article. Basically comes right out and says the stimulus didn’t work, and then bitches that governments cut spending too fast.

Keynesian was only supposed to be used when the budget is balanced. Then it makes sense. The government taking out debt when the rest of the population is saving can keep an economy from contracting (this ignores allocation of resources problems) so on and so forth.

Government putting resources where the market is rejecting them in the first place and running up massive debt in the process, debt it will have to inflate its way out of, isn’t going to solve a problem. Like putting a finger in the dyke.

[countingbeans]

[quote]atypical1 wrote:
I was under the impression that GM wasn’t just looking at bankruptcy it was looking at actually being out of business since nobody had the money to finance a bankruptcy. But I’m not a finance guy so please correct me if I’m wrong.

james[/quote]

Right. Bankruptcy is expensive as shit. Lawyers make a killing.

They would need government backing or to sell divisions to get through the (I can’t remember the name) period.

[smh23]

[quote]atypical1 wrote:
But Ford didn’t ask them to be saved. Ford went to them after GM and Chrysler received the bailout because it didn’t want to be at a complete disadvantage. And Ford didn’t take any money.

I was under the impression that GM wasn’t just looking at bankruptcy it was looking at actually being out of business since nobody had the money to finance a bankruptcy. But I’m not a finance guy so please correct me if I’m wrong.

james[/quote]

Beat me to it. From what I’ve read it was bailout or bust.