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Wait a minute... he added darn near $1 trillion in spending in his first 3 weeks in office and we're talking about cutting $17 billion over 10 years?
Something is screwed up here.
Immie
What's the interest on the almost 1 trillion debt he added?
A 2% interest rate is 20 Billion in one year.
Woohoo, great job.
Here it is again! "Almost one trillion in debt he added." Says who? Sean? Rush? Mark?
Look at it this way: In the last stages of addiction the addict might be found in a bar trying to sell his children into slavery for one more fix.
Well that's EXACTLY what Obama is doing, selling our children into debt slavery for one more fix. Because he is too cowardly to govern in a fiscally responsible way.
Too many questions to say deal. See, you right wingers want a yes or a no when the answer is maybe/depends.
I am no right winger, but you clearly jump to conclusions based on zero evidence. I suspect you aren't bright, are very young or are agenda driven.
We should have done that when Clinton handed bush a balanced budget.
Oh let's just do it now and quit waffling.
I'll be happy to pay my share of expenses for the Iraq war, that I adamantly opposed, today if you Obamabots will force the Obama to balance the budget and support a balanced budget constitutional amendment.
Shit or get off the pot. Deal or no deal?
Obama was handed a deficit/recession and has to spend his way out of it.
Almost every economist agrees. What makes you smarter than them?
1) what does that even mean?
2) I am not a right winger, are you?
3) on the topic of balancing the budget, or even the budget generally, can you list anything Obama has done worthy of any credit?
So cutting 17 billion in wasteful spending isn't worthy of credit? Exactly, you're just an Obama hater and nothing he does will be worth credit in your eyes
That is the fallacy they want you to buy into. Cutting 17 billion is good if you aren't spending 3 trillion. The cut amounts to less then 1/2 of 1%. You have to look at the whole picture, not just the things they want you to see.
That was brutal.Obama was handed a deficit/recession and has to spend his way out of it.
Almost every economist agrees. What makes you smarter than them?
No almost every economist doesn't believe it and if you want I can provide quotes from Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini and Stigletz to demonstrate it. BTW two of them are Nobel prize winning economists.
In fact MOST really credible economists including those at the Government Accounting Office disagree.
But the pundit economists and the "experts" who play the role of economists on the news prolly do agree.
But then again none of them were on record in the public domain predicting this econ crisis either as I was, as Krugman, Stigletz and Roubini were.
And if you want proof that I predicted this great recession I can provide proof that I predicted today's deflationary trend last April, months before anybody else mentioned it anywhere.
And I can also provide damned strong evidence that no amount of deficit spending will correct a deflationary trap, and that the Obama admin's approach is one that has no history of success while there actually is a proven success strategy that he is ignoring.
But you better be able to deal with real economics and not just soundbites or it will just blow right over your head.
Obama is guaranteeing himself a comparison to Hoover for eternity.
Wait a minute... he added darn near $1 trillion in spending in his first 3 weeks in office and we're talking about cutting $17 billion over 10 years?
Something is screwed up here.
Immie
What's the interest on the almost 1 trillion debt he added?
A 2% interest rate is 20 Billion in one year.
Woohoo, great job.
I'm ashamed of myself. I'm an accountant and have a degree in finance, and I didn't even factor in the interest. And remember that is only the annual rate, since no debt is actually retired, the costs only continue to go up.
Here it is again! "Almost one trillion in debt he added." Says who? Sean? Rush? Mark?
I based my "almost one trillion dollars spent" on President Obama's own estimates. That being said, we all know that the government is conservative when discussing program costs and very liberal when discussing tax revenues. So, the cost will more than likely far exceed the $849 billion original estimate.
Immie
I'm glad to see that the budget cuts Bush proposed last year might make it through congress this year.
That was brutal.Obama was handed a deficit/recession and has to spend his way out of it.
Almost every economist agrees. What makes you smarter than them?
No almost every economist doesn't believe it and if you want I can provide quotes from Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini and Stigletz to demonstrate it. BTW two of them are Nobel prize winning economists.
In fact MOST really credible economists including those at the Government Accounting Office disagree.
But the pundit economists and the "experts" who play the role of economists on the news prolly do agree.
But then again none of them were on record in the public domain predicting this econ crisis either as I was, as Krugman, Stigletz and Roubini were.
And if you want proof that I predicted this great recession I can provide proof that I predicted today's deflationary trend last April, months before anybody else mentioned it anywhere.
And I can also provide damned strong evidence that no amount of deficit spending will correct a deflationary trap, and that the Obama admin's approach is one that has no history of success while there actually is a proven success strategy that he is ignoring.
But you better be able to deal with real economics and not just soundbites or it will just blow right over your head.
Obama is guaranteeing himself a comparison to Hoover for eternity.
Sweet.
Very good indeed.
Obama was handed a deficit/recession and has to spend his way out of it.
Almost every economist agrees. What makes you smarter than them?
No almost every economist doesn't believe it and if you want I can provide quotes from Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini and Stigletz to demonstrate it. BTW two of them are Nobel prize winning economists.
In fact MOST really credible economists including those at the Government Accounting Office disagree.
But the pundit economists and the "experts" who play the role of economists on the news prolly do agree.
But then again none of them were on record in the public domain predicting this econ crisis either as I was, as Krugman, Stigletz and Roubini were.
And if you want proof that I predicted this great recession I can provide proof that I predicted today's deflationary trend last April, months before anybody else mentioned it anywhere.
And I can also provide damned strong evidence that no amount of deficit spending will correct a deflationary trap, and that the Obama admin's approach is one that has no history of success while there actually is a proven success strategy that he is ignoring.
But you better be able to deal with real economics and not just soundbites or it will just blow right over your head.
Obama is guaranteeing himself a comparison to Hoover for eternity.
My comment was not addressed to you. I don't know what the Govt has spent. I knowit has not added near $1T in debt.
My comment was not addressed to you. I don't know what the Govt has spent. I knowit has not added near $1T in debt.
The original estimate, and as I said, government estimates on spending are generally well below actual, was I think $849 billion. I think the bill passed at just under $750 Billion. Most of which was to be spent in the first two years but the rest spread out over something like 10 years. That is all from memory, mind you.
Seventeen billion cut here (and redirected) there is nothing compared to what the government wastes every year. Please note: I am not blaming President Obama for that or any other President for that matter. Seventeen billion is just not even a drop in the bucket.
In my personal opinion, we cannot continue to spend like there is no tomorrow. Eventually, and I don't know when, our credit will run out and it will only take an enemy holding a lot of our notes to cause this to happen. When that happens we will be in deep shit.
Immie
My comment was not addressed to you. I don't know what the Govt has spent. I knowit has not added near $1T in debt.
The original estimate, and as I said, government estimates on spending are generally well below actual, was I think $849 billion. I think the bill passed at just under $750 Billion. Most of which was to be spent in the first two years but the rest spread out over something like 10 years. That is all from memory, mind you.
Seventeen billion cut here (and redirected) there is nothing compared to what the government wastes every year. Please note: I am not blaming President Obama for that or any other President for that matter. Seventeen billion is just not even a drop in the bucket.
In my personal opinion, we cannot continue to spend like there is no tomorrow. Eventually, and I don't know when, our credit will run out and it will only take an enemy holding a lot of our notes to cause this to happen. When that happens we will be in deep shit.
Immie
As I said, my previous comment was not in response to your post.
Could the Govt afford to spend $2.5 trillion a year? Why or why not?
The original estimate, and as I said, government estimates on spending are generally well below actual, was I think $849 billion. I think the bill passed at just under $750 Billion. Most of which was to be spent in the first two years but the rest spread out over something like 10 years. That is all from memory, mind you.
Seventeen billion cut here (and redirected) there is nothing compared to what the government wastes every year. Please note: I am not blaming President Obama for that or any other President for that matter. Seventeen billion is just not even a drop in the bucket.
In my personal opinion, we cannot continue to spend like there is no tomorrow. Eventually, and I don't know when, our credit will run out and it will only take an enemy holding a lot of our notes to cause this to happen. When that happens we will be in deep shit.
Immie
As I said, my previous comment was not in response to your post.
Could the Govt afford to spend $2.5 trillion a year? Why or why not?
I understand it was not in response to my post. Does that mean I cannot participate in the conversation?
We are not talking about spending $2.5 trillion a year. We are talking about spending AN ADDITIONAL $2.5 tillion a year. Big difference in my book. What is a trillion here and a trillion there?
Immie
Over the weekend The Times and other newspapers reported leaked details about the Obama administrations bank rescue plan, which is to be officially released this week. If the reports are correct, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, has persuaded President Obama to recycle Bush administration policy specifically, the cash for trash plan proposed, then abandoned, six months ago by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
This is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair.
After all, weve just been through the firestorm over the A.I.G. bonuses, during which administration officials claimed that they knew nothing, couldnt do anything, and anyway it was someone elses fault. Meanwhile, the administration has failed to quell the publics doubts about what banks are doing with taxpayer money.
And now Mr. Obama has apparently settled on a financial plan that, in essence, assumes that banks are fundamentally sound and that bankers know what theyre doing.
Its as if the president were determined to confirm the growing perception that he and his economic team are out of touch, that their economic vision is clouded by excessively close ties to Wall Street. And by the time Mr. Obama realizes that he needs to change course, his political capital may be gone.
Lets talk for a moment about the economics of the situation.
Right now, our economy is being dragged down by our dysfunctional financial system, which has been crippled by huge losses on mortgage-backed securities and other assets.
As economic historians can tell you, this is an old story, not that different from dozens of similar crises over the centuries. And theres a time-honored procedure for dealing with the aftermath of widespread financial failure. It goes like this: the government secures confidence in the system by guaranteeing many (though not necessarily all) bank debts. At the same time, it takes temporary control of truly insolvent banks, in order to clean up their books.
Thats what Sweden did in the early 1990s. Its also what we ourselves did after the savings and loan debacle of the Reagan years. And theres no reason we cant do the same thing now.
But the Obama administration, like the Bush administration, apparently wants an easier way out. The common element to the Paulson and Geithner plans is the insistence that the bad assets on banks books are really worth much, much more than anyone is currently willing to pay for them. In fact, their true value is so high that if they were properly priced, banks wouldnt be in trouble.
And so the plan is to use taxpayer funds to drive the prices of bad assets up to fair levels. Mr. Paulson proposed having the government buy the assets directly. Mr. Geithner instead proposes a complicated scheme in which the government lends money to private investors, who then use the money to buy the stuff. The idea, says Mr. Obamas top economic adviser, is to use the expertise of the market to set the value of toxic assets.
But the Geithner scheme would offer a one-way bet: if asset values go up, the investors profit, but if they go down, the investors can walk away from their debt. So this isnt really about letting markets work. Its just an indirect, disguised way to subsidize purchases of bad assets.
The likely cost to taxpayers aside, theres something strange going on here. By my count, this is the third time Obama administration officials have floated a scheme that is essentially a rehash of the Paulson plan, each time adding a new set of bells and whistles and claiming that theyre doing something completely different. This is starting to look obsessive.
But the real problem with this plan is that it wont work. Yes, troubled assets may be somewhat undervalued. But the fact is that financial executives literally bet their banks on the belief that there was no housing bubble, and the related belief that unprecedented levels of household debt were no problem. They lost that bet. And no amount of financial hocus-pocus for that is what the Geithner plan amounts to will change that fact.
You might say, why not try the plan and see what happens? One answer is that time is wasting: every month that we fail to come to grips with the economic crisis another 600,000 jobs are lost.
Even more important, however, is the way Mr. Obama is squandering his credibility. If this plan fails as it almost surely will its unlikely that hell be able to persuade Congress to come up with more funds to do what he should have done in the first place.
All is not lost: the public wants Mr. Obama to succeed, which means that he can still rescue his bank rescue plan. But time is running out.
