[quote]Jeff R wrote:
2010 can’t come soon enough.
[/quote]
When will you guys ever learn?!
ain’t no politician gonna fix this mess
Let me throw this in the mix. First, I am no economist.
That said, last year seemed to go to shit when gas prices hit 4 bucks a gallon. My assumption is the average American’s budget (if he had one) could not pay for his commute AND his mortgage, because he was over extended on credit. The house of cards fell. Those gas prices were artificially high because of speculators.
Gas prices are rising quickly again and the stock market seems to be rising quickly as well. My current assumption is those with some money to invest are trying to get into the market thinking it has already hit bottom, even though the economy may not support it.
The implication if this is somewhat accurate is as gas prices continue to climb this summer, we are in for another deep fall in the economy this summer and those hanging by a thread will fail.
If I am totally off here, I’m man enough to admit it. Thoughts?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Jeff R wrote:
2010 can’t come soon enough.
When will you guys ever learn?!
ain’t no politician gonna fix this mess[/quote]
How about less mess?
obama has trumped Bush at his worst by a factor of four.
I have a bad feeling that, unless obama is voted out/against, he’ll live up to his “Roosevelt didn’t spend enough” comment.
Instead of admitting error, he’ll continue the orgy of spending along with an increase in taxation.
To me, that’s making a larger mess than we would have had.
Agreed?
[quote]FrankNStang wrote:
Let me throw this in the mix. First, I am no economist.
That said, last year seemed to go to shit when gas prices hit 4 bucks a gallon. My assumption is the average American’s budget (if he had one) could not pay for his commute AND his mortgage, because he was over extended on credit. The house of cards fell. Those gas prices were artificially high because of speculators.
Gas prices are rising quickly again and the stock market seems to be rising quickly as well. My current assumption is those with some money to invest are trying to get into the market thinking it has already hit bottom, even though the economy may not support it.
The implication if this is somewhat accurate is as gas prices continue to climb this summer, we are in for another deep fall in the economy this summer and those hanging by a thread will fail.
If I am totally off here, I’m man enough to admit it. Thoughts?[/quote]
Hey, Frank. Imagine the gas prices when the Israeli bombs start falling over tehran.
Just another variable to consider.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
tGunslinger wrote:
The black lines are the actual unemployment numbers for April and May 2009, while the blue lines were the projected unemployment numbers for April and May 2009, made in January 2009, is absence of the economic stimulus.
The actual unemployment numbers for May 2009, after the Stimulus was passed, were higher than the projected unemployment numbers for May 2009 if the stimulus was NOT passed.
Obama’s economists projected back in January that unemployment in April and May 2009 without the Stimulus would be about 8%. With the stimulus, unemployment was projected to be about 7.75% right now.
The actual numbers came in at 8.9% for April, and 9.4% for May, obviously included the mountain of money spent on the stimulus.
Oops…
Great post and find, T-Gun.
I don’t expect crackerjack precision on such policy predictions, but this has been an unprecedented embarrassment. Near silence from the MSM on the issue has kept in minimized, and Obama’s disengenous “jobs saved” rhetoric has purchased a little shielding from accountability.
But “it’s the economy, stupid” - and the economic incompetence chickens will come home to roost.
[/quote]
Unfortunately, I can’t take credit for it; I saw it somewhere else on the internet. I did use my mad MS Paint skills to make the graph a little easier to read, but I think I failed on that point. Oh well.
“Gawdfuckingdammit, Keynesian economics will work this time! Or… this time! How about… now! Any minute now…”
[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
AlisaV wrote:
First of all, unemployment is a lagging indicator. The unemployment rate always continues to rise after the economy turns a corner. So these numbers don’t necessarily mean that things are getting worse.
But the thing is, the stimulus couldn’t have worked because little of it is ready to spend. All that infrastructure building could take up to years to get started. The money for most projects will kick in when the recession is nearly over. Even if you believe that a stimulus can theoretically work (and a good many economists don’t), this particular bill wasn’t really a stimulus at all.
It really is a pity that more people aren’t giving the President hell for this. We should be on him like a cheap suit. People want him to be Roosevelt. But Roosevelt was working at the cutting edge of the economics of his time; his administration actually meant to end the Depression, even if there were a lot of hiccups and missteps and experiments that proved counterproductive. Obama, on the other hand, makes economic decisions that he must know darn well aren’t effective, for what I imagine is political expediency. We should be angrier about that.
I agree to a certain extent, but mostly disagree with what you wrote. I agree that more money should be spent immediately. However, if you look at the multipliers MORE money should probably have been spent on infrastructure, not less. Also, given of the nature of the crisis at the time, “lasting stimulus” money needed to be spent (e.g. infrastructure)
[/quote]
To follow my post here, these links might help:
Multipliers: Multiplier (economics) - Wikipedia
IS/LM Model: IS–LM model - Wikipedia
The “muliplier” theory assumes that the “Liquidity Preference and Money Supply Equilibrium” remains constant. If it is so, then, in theory, government spending would push the IS curve rightward, and equilibrium between the IS curve and LM curve would shift rightwards, along the GDP axis. That is, GDP is increased.
But what if the LM curve is NOT constant, and lenders are cautious about doling out money? This caution would be reflected as a leftward shift in the LM schedule. Thus, even if government spending increased demand, thus shifting the IS curve rightward, the effect would at least partly neutralized by the leftward shift in the LM curve. Equilibrium would be re-established almost exactly where it began.
If the IS curve shifts right and the LM curve shifts left, then overall horizontal movement of equilibrium (where the horizontal axis is GDP) is zero. That is, GDP is NOT increased, which defeats the supposed purpose of government spending.
If the IS curve is NOT shifting right because government spending is NOT increasing demand and the LM curve is shifting left because liquidity preference is increasing, then the aggregate effect would be a shift upward, along the vertical axis (which measures nominal interest rates). That is, nominal interest rates would increase.
Reality check: Are nominal interest rates rising? Rephrase the question: Are government bond yields increasing?
Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!
According to the theory behind the multiplier model, rising nominal interest would suggest that government spending is doing nothing to increase aggregate demand, thus there would be no increase in GDP, thus there is no reason for the government to spend money on a “stimulus”.
Even if we assume the “mulipliers” accurately model the real world, they depend on the government increasing spending without raising taxes. If taxes are increased, the IS curve would not as readily shift rightward, as aggregate demand would be stunted by lessened purchasing power. And the idea that mulipliers increase GDP rely on the idea that the IS curve shifts rightward upon increased government spending.
Well, Obama is raising taxes. You can attempt to sugar-coat it all you want, but he is. With that, we’re stunting the action of one of the mechanisms behind the multipliers that supposedly increases GDP.
Given that the theory behind the “multiplier” model suggests that government spending has failed to increase GDP if nominal interest rates increase, and also given that nominal interest rates are increasing, would you change your mind about the “stimulus”?
What precisely does the failure of the stimulus say about Obama’s and his team’s grasp of economics?
[quote]Growing_Boy wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Wait until all the defaults on COMMERCIAL mortgages hits this summer. That’s going to make last year seem like a stroll through the park. That problem is at least 10 times the meltdown in the housing market.
We are at the beginnings of a Great Depression, which will end capitalism as we know it.
Doesn’t that make you guys all feel warm and fuzzy? Sources for such claims?[/quote]
"Commercial real estate loans differ from their residential-loan counterparts, which borrowers repay after a set period of time - usually 30 years. Commercial mortgages usually are underwritten for five, seven or 10 years with big “balloon” payments due at the very end. At that point, the property owner usually turns the loan over and refinances it. A borrower’s inability to refinance could force it to default.
All of a sudden, scores of experts are warning federal lawmakers that hundreds - or even thousands - of resort hotels, retail malls and shopping center properties and commercial complexes of all sorts are headed for, on the verge of, or are already in default, a Memphis Daily News report stated. The reason: About $530 billion of commercial mortgages will be coming due for refinancing in 2009-2011 - with about $160 billion maturing this year - even as credit for refinancing remains non-existent, and cash flows from rents and leases are way down due to the recession, property researcher Foresight Analytics concluded."
Well, if you raise taxes to pay for your stimulus, you counteract the effect of the stimulus, even if you follow the Keynesian model blindly. That was one of the mistakes of the early Great Depression – Roosevelt was obsessed with a balanced budget, and so he raised taxes as he spent, and blunted whatever effect the stimulus might have had. The idea is to raise taxes years later, after you’ve run up a deficit and the recession is over.
The real question is, to what extent do people take into account the prospect of future taxes when they spend today? If people plan for a tax hike they expect in the future, then stimulus can’t possibly work; everybody knows they don’t really have more money. That’s the rational expectations argument why stimulus is useless. The rational expectations model envisions a person who predicts his income over his whole lifetime, and decides once and for all how much to consume at each point in his life.
But, on the other hand, if people spend the disposable cash they have on hand right now, then they’ll spend the stimulus and it can actually work, so long as the tax hikes are delayed until the end of the recession. This is the idea of a “propensity to consume” – the idea that, given so much disposable cash, people will spend a certain percent of it; in other words, that they do not plan, they just look in their wallets and see what’s there.
So whether stimulus can work depends on whether people are planners or non-planners. The evidence shows that people are somewhere in between; disposable income and consumption are very closely correlated, suggesting that people spend more when they have more available right now. People are not perfect planners. But they’re probably not perfect non-planners either, so the effect of a stimulus may be smaller than expected.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
On this very site individuals were arguing along with their presidential nominee that the foundation of the economy was strong and that we were not in a recession. Now the numbers hadn’t come out at that time to prove that we had been in a recession…but in a recession we were. That everyone admitted to it after the numbers officially came out is not so great a claim to make I don’t think. “We admitted to it after it was painfully obvious and we couldn’t ignore the data” is a pretty weak statement, IMO. Now, I don’t recall, what were you saying mid 2008?
No one admits to a recession until the numbers come out because of the self-fulfilling prophecy such an event would have on the markets. I can’t recall anyone “ignoring the data” - the question was whether a “cure” was any good before a proper “diagnosis”.
Obama was going to introduce his “cure” no matter what the numbers said - fundamentally bad policy.
Let me know that Republican who denied being in a recession after our economy met the definition of one. Looking forward to it.[/quote]
Newspeak. Did you get this thought out of Soviet Russia? Mid-2008 we were in a recession. Why was it so hard to realize this? It would not have been a “self fulfilling prophesy,” to admit reality. A statement about the realities on the ground is not bad policy. You are not now denying that we were in a recession in mid-2008, are you? Were you then doing so? Or is it that you just hadn’t realized it yet?
[quote]
Sure, you and I will attempt to gauge it by it’s “mitigating” effects. But most–and this was my point–will just look to see if the economy turned around.
No, “we” won’t, because the economy will always turn around. If the “economy turning around” was the measuring stick, every piece of trash policy could take credit, and there would be no such thing as a ba simulus package.
Folks with common sense know that can’t be true. [/quote]
We’re less than five months into a new administration that inherited the largest recession and financial crisis since the Great Depression, and we’re having an argument about if the recession is starting to turn the corner. Yeah, what was I thinking arguing that such a quick turnaround could have had anything to do with the administration’s policies?
Wow. I like this part, “[quote]The burden of proof is on your secular god-king who is healing the oceans.[/quote]” I think it shows how nuanced and unbiased your appraisals are.
I’m not sure if we’re turning the corner yet, but there are serious signs for hope. People like yourself will never admit that the actions of this administration could have possibly had any positive effects. That’s fine, I’m glad you’re using the type of language you are so that people can immediately see your extreme bias. We’re only a few months into this massive policy initiative and you’re already declared failure. That type of talk will score you a hearty round of applause around these parts, and a hearty scoff from just about everyone else.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
Aragorn wrote:
This is the really infuriating part to me. Nobody wants to face what an abysmal failure the trumpeted Salvation Bill was and they are doing what they can to ignore it or gloss over the catastrophic mushroom cloud. I told people in day to day life, others posted on here, and we had people in office who even managed to recognize this abortion. We were all right, and the result is that nobody wants to admit it.
Well, so long as we’re not biased or using extremist rhetoric.
I’ve had a very low opinion of that stupid bill since it was first discussed. And obviously you simply can’t recognize frustration or anger as such and instead label it extremism. Bravo Einstein.[/quote]
Well if it’s a “stupid bill” and you’re feeling “frustration” then obviously I’m some kind of “Einstein” for thinking you could be using some extremist rhetoric for declaring it a “catastrophic mushroom cloud” and an “abortion.” Obviously a policy initiative of this size can be summed up as a “abysmal failure” in this time span. Obviously.
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
Well, if you raise taxes to pay for your stimulus, you counteract the effect of the stimulus, even if you follow the Keynesian model blindly. That was one of the mistakes of the early Great Depression – Roosevelt was obsessed with a balanced budget, and so he raised taxes as he spent, and blunted whatever effect the stimulus might have had. The idea is to raise taxes years later, after you’ve run up a deficit and the recession is over.
The real question is, to what extent do people take into account the prospect of future taxes when they spend today? If people plan for a tax hike they expect in the future, then stimulus can’t possibly work; everybody knows they don’t really have more money. That’s the rational expectations argument why stimulus is useless. The rational expectations model envisions a person who predicts his income over his whole lifetime, and decides once and for all how much to consume at each point in his life.
But, on the other hand, if people spend the disposable cash they have on hand right now, then they’ll spend the stimulus and it can actually work, so long as the tax hikes are delayed until the end of the recession. This is the idea of a “propensity to consume” – the idea that, given so much disposable cash, people will spend a certain percent of it; in other words, that they do not plan, they just look in their wallets and see what’s there.
So whether stimulus can work depends on whether people are planners or non-planners. The evidence shows that people are somewhere in between; disposable income and consumption are very closely correlated, suggesting that people spend more when they have more available right now. People are not perfect planners. But they’re probably not perfect non-planners either, so the effect of a stimulus may be smaller than expected.[/quote]
Yep. Not many people will risk their money when, if they are successful, Obama and Pelosi are there to ‘spread the wealth around a little’.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Growing_Boy wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Wait until all the defaults on COMMERCIAL mortgages hits this summer. That’s going to make last year seem like a stroll through the park. That problem is at least 10 times the meltdown in the housing market.
We are at the beginnings of a Great Depression, which will end capitalism as we know it.
Doesn’t that make you guys all feel warm and fuzzy? Sources for such claims?
"Commercial real estate loans differ from their residential-loan counterparts, which borrowers repay after a set period of time - usually 30 years. Commercial mortgages usually are underwritten for five, seven or 10 years with big “balloon” payments due at the very end. At that point, the property owner usually turns the loan over and refinances it. A borrower’s inability to refinance could force it to default.
All of a sudden, scores of experts are warning federal lawmakers that hundreds - or even thousands - of resort hotels, retail malls and shopping center properties and commercial complexes of all sorts are headed for, on the verge of, or are already in default, a Memphis Daily News report stated. The reason: About $530 billion of commercial mortgages will be coming due for refinancing in 2009-2011 - with about $160 billion maturing this year - even as credit for refinancing remains non-existent, and cash flows from rents and leases are way down due to the recession, property researcher Foresight Analytics concluded."
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article9792.html
[/quote]
Might soon be a good time to cash in anything you can a buy some commercial property?
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
Well, if you raise taxes to pay for your stimulus, you counteract the effect of the stimulus, even if you follow the Keynesian model blindly. That was one of the mistakes of the early Great Depression – Roosevelt was obsessed with a balanced budget, and so he raised taxes as he spent, and blunted whatever effect the stimulus might have had. The idea is to raise taxes years later, after you’ve run up a deficit and the recession is over.
The real question is, to what extent do people take into account the prospect of future taxes when they spend today? If people plan for a tax hike they expect in the future, then stimulus can’t possibly work; everybody knows they don’t really have more money. That’s the rational expectations argument why stimulus is useless. The rational expectations model envisions a person who predicts his income over his whole lifetime, and decides once and for all how much to consume at each point in his life.
But, on the other hand, if people spend the disposable cash they have on hand right now, then they’ll spend the stimulus and it can actually work, so long as the tax hikes are delayed until the end of the recession. This is the idea of a “propensity to consume” – the idea that, given so much disposable cash, people will spend a certain percent of it; in other words, that they do not plan, they just look in their wallets and see what’s there.
So whether stimulus can work depends on whether people are planners or non-planners. The evidence shows that people are somewhere in between; disposable income and consumption are very closely correlated, suggesting that people spend more when they have more available right now. People are not perfect planners. But they’re probably not perfect non-planners either, so the effect of a stimulus may be smaller than expected.[/quote]
a stimulus where the gov’t doles out money will always be a failure. Any multipliers they claim from stealing money from furture generations to spend now, will have be applied to the money not in market when they have to pay it off. Not to mention the interest we have to pay on the borrowed money we are spending.
The only saving grace of the borrowed stimulus money is certain double digit inflation. If it can cover the interest on the borrowed money and negative multiplier from pulling money out of the market to pay it back, the stimulus may look like a success in isolation. Unfortunatly, inflation will bring its own problems.
[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
On this very site individuals were arguing along with their presidential nominee that the foundation of the economy was strong and that we were not in a recession. Now the numbers hadn’t come out at that time to prove that we had been in a recession…but in a recession we were. That everyone admitted to it after the numbers officially came out is not so great a claim to make I don’t think. “We admitted to it after it was painfully obvious and we couldn’t ignore the data” is a pretty weak statement, IMO. Now, I don’t recall, what were you saying mid 2008?
No one admits to a recession until the numbers come out because of the self-fulfilling prophecy such an event would have on the markets. I can’t recall anyone “ignoring the data” - the question was whether a “cure” was any good before a proper “diagnosis”.
Obama was going to introduce his “cure” no matter what the numbers said - fundamentally bad policy.
Let me know that Republican who denied being in a recession after our economy met the definition of one. Looking forward to it.
Newspeak. Did you get this thought out of Soviet Russia? Mid-2008 we were in a recession. Why was it so hard to realize this? It would not have been a “self fulfilling prophesy,” to admit reality. A statement about the realities on the ground is not bad policy. You are not now denying that we were in a recession in mid-2008, are you? Were you then doing so? Or is it that you just hadn’t realized it yet?
Sure, you and I will attempt to gauge it by it’s “mitigating” effects. But most–and this was my point–will just look to see if the economy turned around.
No, “we” won’t, because the economy will always turn around. If the “economy turning around” was the measuring stick, every piece of trash policy could take credit, and there would be no such thing as a ba simulus package.
Folks with common sense know that can’t be true.
We’re less than five months into a new administration that inherited the largest recession and financial crisis since the Great Depression, and we’re having an argument about if the recession is starting to turn the corner. Yeah, what was I thinking arguing that such a quick turnaround could have had anything to do with the administration’s policies?
Now, to your “grading.” Making predictions when facing complete financial crisis in addition to a global recession is a crap shoot and you have admitted it yourself. The question seems to truly be “would the economy have been better at this point in time without the stimulus?” Are you arguing that it would be? Or just taking a cheap shot? I realize that no matter what the democrats do you will “boo” them, but I still would like to see your sources for such a claim.
“Would the economy be better but for the stimulus?” - you have it backwards. The Obama adminstration claimed it would be, and, based on their own projections, it’s not. The burden of proof is on your secular god-king who is healing the oceans.
That said, do I believe the economy would be in a better place? Absolutely. You think our Treasury auctions would be this bad had Obama not passed a Recovery Act that made a laughingstock out of the fiscal strength of the dollar and the American economy?
Wow. I like this part, “The burden of proof is on your secular god-king who is healing the oceans.” I think it shows how nuanced and unbiased your appraisals are.
I’m not sure if we’re turning the corner yet, but there are serious signs for hope. People like yourself will never admit that the actions of this administration could have possibly had any positive effects. That’s fine, I’m glad you’re using the type of language you are so that people can immediately see your extreme bias. We’re only a few months into this massive policy initiative and you’re already declared failure. That type of talk will score you a hearty round of applause around these parts, and a hearty scoff from just about everyone else. [/quote]
You do realize that the Obama “administration” abdicated responsibility for the spending bill to Pelosi and Reid don’t you. He had little input into it beyond selling it and signing it. Not that he would understand the implications since he has no training in economics or business, never held a private sector job and never ran a business.
The spending bill was not rushed thru because it was important to the economy. It was rushed so that the American people wouldn’t have a chance to see what was in it and Republican were blocked out of the drafting. The spendulus is owned 100% by the Democrats.
The spendulus has been successful at repaying political debt incurred by Obama to the environmentalists and unions. That’s about it.
[quote]Jeff R wrote:
Instead of admitting error, he’ll continue the orgy of spending along with an increase in taxation.
To me, that’s making a larger mess than we would have had.
Agreed?
[/quote]
Agree. But where were your beloved republicans when Bush had his orgy of spending on an unnecessary war and blowing the state up to the behemoth it has become (before any Democrat had any power)?
Like I said, politicians aren’t the fix, they are the blame.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
But, on the other hand, if people spend the disposable cash they have on hand right now, then they’ll spend the stimulus and it can actually work…
[/quote]
I was with you up until this statement. First, who is spending money and what are they spending it on? If every nitwit is given more money to spend you can be sure he won’t be spending it on productivity. He will spend it on some good that has already been produced (probably in China) which does not add to income in this country. There can be no recovery without more productivity from this country. Otherwise we are just producing more debt abroad and we are back at square one.
No. Spending is not the solution for recovery. Not even a little bit of Keynesianism will work.
Pay off our debts and allow private citizens to invest in productive enterprises with their own money. That is the only solution.
You’re right, trade is another complicating factor. In a sense, our stimulus is diffused all over the world. The trade deficit is slowing recovery because resources are directed away from the more productive export and import-competing industries.
One way of looking at it (I get this from Tim Duy) is that stimulus is a way of getting around a resource constraint: a lack of foreign credit. In the current climate, foreign investors are reluctant to lend to US citizens (by buying securitized mortgages, etc). But financial markets will absorb US government debt. A fiscal stimulus can be viewed as a way to lure foreign investors back into supporting US demand. The trouble is, the rest of the world is increasingly producing for its own markets, not for ours, and if we borrow too much for too long, the world may become less willing to accept US government debt and we’ll have to accept much lower growth.
So, yeah, there are a lot of things wrong with the stimulus. Truth be told, there aren’t any painless solutions. (What you’re suggesting would worsen the recession in the short run.)
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
So, yeah, there are a lot of things wrong with the stimulus. Truth be told, there aren’t any painless solutions. (What you’re suggesting would worsen the recession in the short run.)[/quote]
Reality! There will be pain any time someone spends more money than they have especially when the means for paying it back is also diminished.
I just don’t see how no one can understand this. Whenever a debt is incurred it has to be paid back – this is the painful part. It makes no sense to keep racking up more of it thinking the pain is going to lessen. It just keeps delaying any recovery from it.
[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
Newspeak.[/quote]
I hope the irony of an Obama supporter accusing someone of “Newspeak” isn’t lost on you.
A fabulous non-answer to the issue I raised. More importantly, we simply don’t want to foist the label “recession” until we know we’re right.
I never denied we were in a recession in mid-2008 - the obvious point (or should be obvious) is that we didn’t know if we were or weren’t until the data came in, and enormous policy decisions that commit trillions of dollars don’t need to made until we have a better picture of the economy (if it all).
And, another obvious point is that loose language in the markets compound existing weakess. You won’t hear the Federal Reserve use the term “recession” until we are confirmed to be in one, because the Fed gets that businesses will react defensively precisely when we don’t want them to.
I never said you could’t argue it - I just said you’ll have to do a hell of a lot better for someone other than a Hopenchange lemming to believe you. Fact is, we don’t have good signs that the recession is letting up, and based on Obama’s own predictions, we should have never had this unemployment rate.
So far you have offered exactly dick backing your claims that Obama’s Recovery Act is somehow helping mitigate the recession.
You are one of the most predictably partisan voices here - and you are now whining that someone else decided to say something snarky about a politician?
Poor baby.
Besides, the insult was more directed at Obama’s navel-gazing followers than the man himself.
Where? What are they? Can’t wait to hear your answer.
The Rabid Partisan crybabying that someone else is partisan.
At any rate, I disagree - I would gladly admit that Obama’s policy choices had a positive effect, if the evidence supported it. So far, no such.
More importantly, folks can have preconceived expectations about whether or not a given policy will work. No sane citizen will simply state that “dunno if it’ll work…but whatever they decide to come up with, I reckon it should work.” No, folks have a sense of what will work and what won’t, and if they wind up being wrong, that is fine, too - but I don’t owe this administration (or any other) blind faith when I think their policies aren’t going to work.
T[quote]hat type of talk will score you a hearty round of applause around these parts, and a hearty scoff from just about everyone else. [/quote]
Try again, junior - and check your recent polling data as to which party is more trusted on managing this financial mess. By all accounts - according to you - it shouldn’t even be close. But, as we are learning, “everyone else” is leaning away from the Democrats’ approach to handling the recession.
Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on six out of 10 key issues, including the top issue of the economy.
A few quick points before my cottage cheese and veggies put me to sleep:
[quote]I never said you could’t argue it - I just said you’ll have to do a hell of a lot better for someone other than a Hopenchange lemming to believe you. Fact is, we don’t have good signs that the recession is letting up, and based on Obama’s own predictions, we should have never had this unemployment rate.
So far you have offered exactly dick backing your claims that Obama’s Recovery Act is somehow helping mitigate the recession. [/quote]
- I did offer sources. 2) this search took about 30 seconds:
Brookings:
Jobs Report is Good News; U.S. Economy Turning Corner
-Jeffrey R. Kling, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, Economic Studies The Brookings Institution (earlier link)
IMF:
A simple search of the site will provide answers. But I’ll help you out a little…I assume you can use the map here and add the United States? http://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/index.php
I assume you know how to use google? Once you stop relying solely on right-wing blogs and websites it becomes obvious that there is currently a debate as to whether we are turning a corner or not. This is not “partisan.” This is reality.
I’m not sure how “I like” and “I’m glad” became “whining” and “Rabid Partisan crybabying”…I assume it has something to do with how obviously biased and untenable your position is. You don’t think there’s a debate right now? Wake up.