Obama Clueless On Economics

Sinatra

Senior Member
Feb 5, 2009
8,013
1,008
48
Fred Barnes rips Obama's near total lack of economic understanding...

Know-Nothing-in-Chief


Is President Obama an economic illiterate? Harsh as that sounds, there's growing evidence he understands little about economics and even less about economic growth or job creation. Yet, as we saw at last week's presidential press conference, he's undeterred from holding forth, with seeming confidence, on economic issues.

Obama professes to believe in free market economics. But no one expects his policies to reflect the unfettered capitalism of a Milton Friedman. That's too much to ask. Demonstrating a passing acquaintance with free market ideas and how they might be used to fight the recession--that's not too much to ask.

But the president talks as if free market solutions are nonexistent, and in his mind they may be. Three weeks after taking office, he said only government "has the resources to jolt our economy back into life." He hasn't retreated, in words or policies, from that view.

....

A good example of Obama's economic shallowness is his unrelenting defense of the $787 billion "stimulus." Enacted in February, it has had minimal impact on the economy. Yet Obama has no second thoughts. He says he wouldn't change a thing about the stimulus. It has "already saved jobs and created new ones," he said at the press conference, neglecting to note that 2 million jobs--a net 2 million--have been lost since it was passed

...

He seems oblivious to what the stimulus palpably lacks: incentives for private investment. These were a major reason (but not the only one) for Ronald Reagan's success in ending the deep recession in 1981-82. They also aided the rebound from the milder recession in 2001. In both cases, investment in the private sector led to job creation.

Obama, ignoring history, relied instead on government spending and small, one-time tax rebates (with no incentive power). Ideology may have played a role here. The stimulus was drafted by congressional Democrats, who loathe tax cuts. Obama could have insisted that tax incentives be added. He didn't. A fair conclusion: He simply doesn't understand the economic value of tax incentives.

"Tax cuts alone can't solve all of our economic problems," Obama said last winter. Nobody had said they could. This was a straw man. But tax incentives would surely have helped and might already have begun to stimulate the economy had Obama included them.

...

Nor does Obama understand the economics of business. Our corporate tax rate of 35 percent is the second highest among the major economic democracies. To avoid paying it, companies don't repatriate their overseas profits. They do this to be competitive in the global economy.
Slashing the 35 percent rate would allow them to bring profits home and remain competitive abroad. This solution isn't on Obama's radar.

On the contrary, Obama has proudly proclaimed an economically counterproductive approach to overseas profits. In his address to Congress in February, he announced: "We will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas." Profits earned abroad would be taxed at 35 percent.

This makes no economic sense. Untaxed foreign profits allow companies to keep many jobs at home. Taxing those profits weakens global competitiveness. And the beneficiaries would be foreign firms that replace American companies and reap the profits Obama is eager to tax. The Obama policy means the profits go away and tax revenues vanish. Does Obama understand this? There's no evidence he does.

...

Listen to Obama talk about making "clean energy the profitable kind of energy" and you reach the same conclusion: When it comes to economics, he doesn't get it. His "cap and trade" policy would limit carbon emissions, drive up the costs of gasoline, electricity, and natural gas, and stifle the economy. Only then would green energy become profitable (maybe) and only so long as it continued to receive a massive government subsidy. You can't get much more uneconomic than that.

...

Whew! And this is just what Obama has proposed in the first six months of his presidency. Obamanomics pays lip service to a free market economy. But Obama hasn't a clue what makes it work. (emphasis added)
 
...

A good example of Obama's economic shallowness is his unrelenting defense of the $787 billion "stimulus." Enacted in February, it has had minimal impact on the economy. Yet Obama has no second thoughts. He says he wouldn't change a thing about the stimulus. It has "already saved jobs and created new ones," he said at the press conference, neglecting to note that 2 million jobs--a net 2 million--have been lost since it was passed

...

Great article. I found the above especially telling. Obama doesn't seem to be good at anything.
 
I asked myself the same thing Erik, and looked it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Barnes_(journalist)

Frederic W. Barnes is an American conservative political commentator. He is the executive editor of the news publication The Weekly Standard, co-host with Mort Kondracke of The Beltway Boys on the Fox News Channel, and also regularly appears on Fox's Special Report with Bret Baier.

Barnes was a promoter and has been a continued supporter of the US war in Iraq. On 10 April 2003, he said "The war was the hard part...and it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but not as hard as winning a war".[1] He has been called the "Last Bush Loyalist" for his continued loyalty to George W. Bush by Slate.com columnist Timothy Noah.[2]

So lets review:

He's Conservative
He's a Bush Loyalist
He Co-Hosts a Show on Fox News

The Fox News part alone is enough to take away any credibility he has. But the rest, :lol:
 
I asked myself the same thing Erik, and looked it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Barnes_(journalist)

Frederic W. Barnes is an American conservative political commentator. He is the executive editor of the news publication The Weekly Standard, co-host with Mort Kondracke of The Beltway Boys on the Fox News Channel, and also regularly appears on Fox's Special Report with Bret Baier.

Barnes was a promoter and has been a continued supporter of the US war in Iraq. On 10 April 2003, he said "The war was the hard part...and it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but not as hard as winning a war".[1] He has been called the "Last Bush Loyalist" for his continued loyalty to George W. Bush by Slate.com columnist Timothy Noah.[2]

So lets review:

He's Conservative
He's a Bush Loyalist
He Co-Hosts a Show on Fox News

The Fox News part alone is enough to take away any credibility he has. But the rest, :lol:
Argumentum ad hominem (argument directed at the person). This is the error of attacking the character or motives of a person who has stated an idea, rather than the idea itself. The most obvious example of this fallacy is when one debater maligns the character of another debater (e.g, "The members of the opposition are a couple of fascists!"), but this is actually not that common. A more typical manifestation of argumentum ad hominem is attacking a source of information -- for example, responding to a quotation from Richard Nixon on the subject of free trade with China by saying, "We all know Nixon was a liar and a cheat, so why should we believe anything he says?" Argumentum ad hominem also occurs when someone's arguments are discounted merely because they stand to benefit from the policy they advocate -- such as Bill Gates arguing against antitrust, rich people arguing for lower taxes, white people arguing against affirmative action, minorities arguing for affirmative action, etc. In all of these cases, the relevant question is not who makes the argument, but whether the argument is valid.

It is always bad form to use the fallacy of argumentum ad hominem. But there are some cases when it is not really a fallacy, such as when one needs to evaluate the truth of factual statements (as opposed to lines of argument or statements of value) made by interested parties. If someone has an incentive to lie about something, then it would be naive to accept his statements about that subject without question. It is also possible to restate many ad hominem arguments so as to redirect them toward ideas rather than people, such as by replacing "My opponents are fascists" with "My opponents' arguments are fascist."
 
Dude, you wouldn't trust anything said by Obama, so why should I trust something said by a Fox News Journalist?

Hypocrite.
 
I know quite a bit about economics.

What do you know??

Well Dude, what an awesome deflection right there. How ironic since you always like to say I deflect. :lol:

You're quite a bit is also influenced by your very partisan opinion. Even if Obama said something you'd agree with, you'd probably avoid saying that you agree with him.
 
I know quite a bit about economics.

What do you know??

Tell me how free trade benefits our national economy.

Better still, tell me when that will actually start to happen.
First of all, how are you going about defining what's beneficial?...What makes your definition of any greater value than anyone elses?


Freedom benefits everyone....Ever tried to sell something to someone who had no money or job??
 
I know quite a bit about economics.

What do you know??

Well Dude, what an awesome deflection right there. How ironic since you always like to say I deflect. :lol:

You're quite a bit is also influenced by your very partisan opinion. Even if Obama said something you'd agree with, you'd probably avoid saying that you agree with him.
Your entire argument against the piece in the OP is ad hominem and argument from ignorance.

Now, what in hell do you know about economics that can argue against Barnes on the subject at hand?
 

Forum List

Back
Top