The Rapidly Falling Deficit-- A Failure???

[Jermyn Davidson]

"This is an absolute disaster. It is President Obama's single greatest failure, representing the fact that he, and the rest of the American government, did not adequately respond to the Great Recession. It means that millions of Americans were kept out of work, that trillions in potential output was flushed down the toilet, and that the American economy was very seriously damaged, probably permanently, for no reason at all."

Interesting article, not sure I agree with it.

What do you think?

http://theweek.com/article/index/264...alling-deficit

[ILG]

I'm not sure what to think. The author could be right. It seems like the right course is perhaps stimulus during recession but then cutting back afterwards. It seems like they never get around to the cutting back part...

[Jermyn Davidson]

Originally Posted by ILG

I'm not sure what to think. The author could be right. It seems like the right course is perhaps stimulus during recession but then cutting back afterwards. It seems like they never get around to the cutting back part...

Thanks for commenting!

For real.
Sincerely.


There are conservatives out there that still argue that no stimulus was necessary at all.

However, the Great Depression was so bad and dragged on for so long becuase the government refused to intervene.

When Bear Stearns failed and the markets tanked, GWB saw the writing on the wall.

[ILG]

Originally Posted by Jermyn Davidson

Thanks for commenting!

For real.
Sincerely.


There are conservatives out there that still argue that no stimulus was necessary at all.

However, the Great Depression was so bad and dragged on for so long becuase the government refused to intervene.

When Bear Stearns failed and the markets tanked, GWB saw the writing on the wall.

Often, conservatives and liberals take extreme views that, if you followed either course, you would end up with a disaster. Conservatives are sick of huge government spending, as am I. However, the government should have been bright enough to see the bank failures coming. Myabe they did and maybe they didn't but they claim they didn't. Okay, so what then? why give welfare to the people who caused the problems?? (banks) It could be the government has no choice. However, bailing out the banks at the cost of taxpayers and letting the little guy falter seems very one-sided.

I view the crash as an economy that was out of blood and needing huge transfusions. You have to give transfusions to sustain life. The question is how much and to whom. Democrats seem big on stimulus but very very bad about pulling back after the crisis is past and they keep overspending and creating bubbles. You have to pull back after a while. But the other side wants austerity right off to break the cycle, but that may more likely break the back of the country.

[Praxeas]

Stimulus does not work. It's a short band aid that just puts us more in debt

[shazeep]

you are being played, don't you think

[Jermyn Davidson]

But they’ve added up, because under Obama, the economy has added 11.643 million jobs and lost 5.155, for a net gain of 6.488 million jobs. That’s a 4.952 million advantage over Bush. Now, 6.5 million jobs doesn’t put Obama up there in Clinton (22 million) and Reagan (around 16 million) territory. But remember—he has 30 months to go yet. Let’s say we average a gain of 250,000 a month the rest of the way. That’s another 7.5 million. And that would put him up in Reagan territory. And that seems conservative, if anything. If the recovery gets genuinely humming, we could start seeing months between 300,000 and 400,000 next year. It seems unlikely to happen, but God would it be hilarious if Obama, with everything the Republicans in Congress have done to keep the economy in a state of contraction, ended up surpassing Reagan?


http://news.yahoo.com/don-t-know-oba...-politics.html

So apparently, President Obama is doing something right-- or maybe this guy is just mistaken?

[Monterrey]

CHARLTON HESTON IS MY PRESIDENT!!!!!

Wait! That was during Clinton's reign!

[ILG]

My biggest economic concern is what is going on with the petro-dollar.

[aegsm76]

Originally Posted by Jermyn Davidson

But they’ve added up, because under Obama, the economy has added 11.643 million jobs and lost 5.155, for a net gain of 6.488 million jobs. That’s a 4.952 million advantage over Bush. Now, 6.5 million jobs doesn’t put Obama up there in Clinton (22 million) and Reagan (around 16 million) territory. But remember—he has 30 months to go yet. Let’s say we average a gain of 250,000 a month the rest of the way. That’s another 7.5 million. And that would put him up in Reagan territory. And that seems conservative, if anything. If the recovery gets genuinely humming, we could start seeing months between 300,000 and 400,000 next year. It seems unlikely to happen, but God would it be hilarious if Obama, with everything the Republicans in Congress have done to keep the economy in a state of contraction, ended up surpassing Reagan?


http://news.yahoo.com/don-t-know-oba...-politics.html

So apparently, President Obama is doing something right-- or maybe this guy is just mistaken?

Here are the facts:
4th quarter of 2008
Labor Force - 154,648 million
Employed - 144,046 million
Not participating - 80,177 million

Latest stats
Labor Force - 155,694 million
Employed - 146,221 million
Not participating - 92,120 million

The above is from the bureau of labor statistics
And shows a gain of 2 million jobs during BHO's reign.

Also, if you look at the latest release, part-time jobs were at 19,040 million the previous month and were at 19,880 million this month.
So, though we gained over 400k jobs, we actually lost over 400k full-time jobs and replaced them with over 800k part-time jobs.