Why Haven't Obama's Policies Helped The Economy?

[Polk]

WhatObama should have done from Day #1:

1. Issue an executive order to freeze all federal employment at existing levels and do not replace any non essential workers that retired, quit, or were fired.

2. Issue a freeze on ALL non essential buying at the federal level - order federal employees to use existing equipment, furnishings, decorations, supplies unless new ones were absolutely essential.

3. Issue an Executive Order that only essential government contracts will be issued and those will go to the lowest bidder who qualifies to the do the work whether union or not, whether at union wages or not.

4. Ask Congress to cancel the second half of the TARP funds that President Bush left for President Obama to use.

The above four measures would have saved billions, set a magnificent example, and would have put most of the American people squarely behind him.

5. Make an empassioned plea to Congress to make the Bush tax policy permanent for the next ten years or until a fair and impartial permanent flat tax could be put together and presented to the American people for comment and input. (This would have freed up up to six trilion in investment capital that American businesses are sitting on here at home and abroad.)

6. Push Congress to relax as many regulations as possible that are not essential to protect the life, liberty, or well being of the American citizens. (This would have encouraged American businesses to put those trillions in investment capital to work.)

7. Leave Obamacare on the shelf or assign it to professionals to work on to come up with the most effective, efficient, and economical way to reform the healthcare system.

8. Assure commerce and industry that Cap & Trade was out of play for the foreseeable future.

9. Appoint a professional Commission to look at Medicare, Social Security, and the federal portion of Medicaid and present him with the more effective, efficient, and economical ways to reform these programs with the least pain for those currently dependent on them.

10. Put the best financial minds in the country to work to fix the flaws and holes in the banking and mortgage industry.

If he had done this, I am confident that we would have begun pulling out of the recession within a few months and would be back to a booming economy by now. Some businesses would have failed and there would have been some intermittant pain, but that happened anyway. But he would have laid out the blueprint for a successful economy for a free people and would have gone down in history as one of America's greatest Presidents.

Unfortunately, his model seems to be a bigger, stronger, more intrusive, and ever more authoritarian government governing an ever more dependent and submissive people. And I don't think he CARES whether unemployment is high or the economy is hopelessly bogged down. I think the more we need the government to 'save us', the happier he is.

Would have indeed put us on a different path than the one we currently are on. But for a man that has his whole life surrounded himself with subversives, leftists, Communists, Marxists, Domestic Terrorists?
It just didn't fit his ideology. Many of us knew it from the begining and tried to warn others.

You're right that it would have put us on a different path, but that path would have been to Great Depression 2.0.

 

[8537]

Really, Japan... you wana compare all this with Japan...

Sure.

Japan has had zero interest rates and stimulus after stimulus for over a decade and they are still mired in slow to no growth.

Japan was far too slow in offering monetary stimulus and were far too slow to arrest the housing collapse.

So, Japan ended up at a lower equilibrium level of employment. There was a smart economist that warned us of such a suboptimal equilibrium earlier that century, but of course conservatarians dismiss him.

By contrast Germany did much less and their growth rate far outpaced ours. Granted there are many differences but it is suggestive enough.

WTF are you talking about? Germany has very low interest rates and they had a significant fiscal stimulus.

And their output increased by a whopping .1% last quarter. That's one tenth of one percent. That's ONE TENTH OF ONE PERCENT growth. 1/10th of one percent. Does that "far outpace" our most recent quarter?

 

[bripat9643]

You're right that it would have put us on a different path, but that path would have been to Great Depression 2.0.

We're on the path to the Great Depression 2.0

 

[Polk]

Steve Wynn is a Democrat, you fucking Tool

Since when? He was Bush appointee to the Kennedy Center board and while he's given money to candidates of both parties, his donations to Republicans have been much larger.

The man who played a major role in revitalizing Las Vegas is bashing President Barack Obama as “the greatest wet blanket to business, progress and job creation in my lifetime.”

Speaking to investors on a Monday conference call, casino developer Steve Wynn — calling himself a “Democratic businessman” — went on a rant against Obama and his policies.

Read more: Steve Wynn: Obama a bad bet for biz - Jennifer Epstein - POLITICO.com

And I could call myself a wooden shoe, but that wouldn't be true either.

 

[auditor0007]

The 2008 meltdown created a three trillion dollar hole in the economy. Obama tried plugging it with a less than one trillion stimulus. We're also facing massive unemployment, something that's a legacy of the 2008 meltdown and that can't really be blamed on Obama. We're also facing a consumer strike, as consumers (consumer spending is 70% of GDP) cut spending as their equity (house, stockls) is shot to bits and they don't know if they'll be in employment next month.

So there's really not a lot he can do. Further stimulus is off the table due to the GOP, consumers aren't going to feel like spending until they've reduced their debt and feel secure in their jobs and the economy in general. It's going to take a long time for things to get better, and it doesn't look like they will anytime soon.

There is more to it than that. The baby boomers, who make up almost 30% of the population, stopped buying. All these years, the baby boomers drove the economy with their purchases of bigger and bigger homes, more cars, nicer cars, and every new gadget that was ever produced. They purchased these things for themselves and many things for their kids. Now they are selling those big homes and downsizing. Many have retired, and the ones who have not are saving for retirement. They don't need a million new things, so they stopped purchasing which has decreased demand for many products.

Where the even bigger problem comes into play, is that the kids of these baby boomers have headed off to college. Now they should begin making all these purchases as they start their families and follow in their parent's footsteps. But their is one problem. Unlike their parents, who went to college, and pretty much made it through college with only small amounts of debt, these kids are coming out of college with massive amounts of debt. And this debt burden that they face is stopping them from buying things like new cars, big fancy houses, or any houses at all. They just can't afford it. And since their parents are not buying anything, and they can't afford to buy anything, there is little demand for all the products and services that American businesses produce, which leads us to a lack of demand and little need to hire more people.

I know this entire concept is a bit complex, and most here will just say that the reason the economy continues to stall is that it's all government's fault for creating too many regulations and spending too much taxpayer money and overtaxing everyone. But hey, believe what you want. Keep cutting taxes and spending and cut as many regulations as you want. Good luck with that working too.

 

[ba1614]

Many "baby boomers" weren't too good to throw garbage, fix a car, become a machinist, and a hundred other jobs not good enough for someone with a bachelor of the arts degree.

 

[8537]

Many "baby boomers" weren't too good to throw garbage, fix a car, become a machinist, and a hundred other jobs not good enough for someone with a bachelor of the arts degree.

I'm not sure people graduating today are too good for that either - Just about every person waiting a table or pulling drinks in this college town has a degree. The difference is that today's graduates carry tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt into the job and therefore have almost no disposable income.

 

[ba1614]

Many "baby boomers" weren't too good to throw garbage, fix a car, become a machinist, and a hundred other jobs not good enough for someone with a bachelor of the arts degree.

I'm not sure people graduating today are too good for that either - Just about every person waiting a table or pulling drinks in this college town has a degree. The difference is that today's graduates carry tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt into the job and therefore have almost no disposable income.

What do you expect in a "college town"?

 

[editec]

We cannot employ the recent college grads we have right now.

Clearly the lack of an educated workforce isn't the problem.

 

[8537]

Many "baby boomers" weren't too good to throw garbage, fix a car, become a machinist, and a hundred other jobs not good enough for someone with a bachelor of the arts degree.

I'm not sure people graduating today are too good for that either - Just about every person waiting a table or pulling drinks in this college town has a degree. The difference is that today's graduates carry tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt into the job and therefore have almost no disposable income.

What do you expect in a "college town"?

Eh, well....Ideally, I'd expect the people pulling drinks to be college students and those that didn't pursue college.

The people with college degrees would ideally be working in the field they studied. Unless one's degree is in hotel / restaurant management or a related field, working in the restaurant/bar industry is not putting one's degree to work.

This town has a miniscule unemployment rate, but grads are still struggling to find work.

 

[JWBooth]

The point is to expand the powers of the state. A strengthening economy reduces the demands for increasing state action.

 

[The Rabbi]

Many "baby boomers" weren't too good to throw garbage, fix a car, become a machinist, and a hundred other jobs not good enough for someone with a bachelor of the arts degree.

I'm not sure people graduating today are too good for that either - Just about every person waiting a table or pulling drinks in this college town has a degree. The difference is that today's graduates carry tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt into the job and therefore have almost no disposable income.

Your response is typically a non-sequitur because you didnt understand the point.

The point was that people are going to college pursuing BA degrees rather than train for more skilled manual labor type jobs,which are abundant btw. So when they get out they are stuck because they have no marketable skills. What you see is born of necessity, not choice.

 

[daveman]

Since when? He was Bush appointee to the Kennedy Center board and while he's given money to candidates of both parties, his donations to Republicans have been much larger.

The man who played a major role in revitalizing Las Vegas is bashing President Barack Obama as “the greatest wet blanket to business, progress and job creation in my lifetime.”

Speaking to investors on a Monday conference call, casino developer Steve Wynn — calling himself a “Democratic businessman” — went on a rant against Obama and his policies.

Read more: Steve Wynn: Obama a bad bet for biz - Jennifer Epstein - POLITICO.com

And I could call myself a wooden shoe, but that wouldn't be true either.

There's a difference: Wynn knows what he's talking about.

 

[AquaAthena]

Why? My Opinion is that he hired a bunch of academics to get ideas from instead of listening to people who work in business. In theory (get it ) this is a fine idea and could work but in reality it didn't work.

On top of this, after these advisors' ideas have been showed to fail in other countries and are now failing in our country Obama, through his new jobs plan, wants to double down on the same "solutions" we have been using for over 2 years now with no success.

This video explains it so perfectly.

I Don't Understand with Obama - YouTube

"Why Haven't Obama's Policies Helped The Economy?"

Because they have been counter-productive to freedom and prosperity.

 

[8537]

Many "baby boomers" weren't too good to throw garbage, fix a car, become a machinist, and a hundred other jobs not good enough for someone with a bachelor of the arts degree.

I'm not sure people graduating today are too good for that either - Just about every person waiting a table or pulling drinks in this college town has a degree. The difference is that today's graduates carry tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt into the job and therefore have almost no disposable income.

Your response is typically a non-sequitur because you didnt understand the point.

No, you're simply too much of a partisan hack to understand my posts.

The point was that people are going to college pursuing BA degrees rather than train for more skilled manual labor type jobs,which are abundant btw. So when they get out they are stuck because they have no marketable skills. What you see is born of necessity, not choice.

How could you possible read my earlier post and conclude that I was disagreeing with the above? I never said if was born of choice - in fact, quite the opposite.

Your blind hatred of any liberal makes it so that even when you agree with someone you have to disparage and misread.

 

[Firehorse]

Sorry, I looked at this thread this morning and was going to repond but had to get to work. I'm there, so let me add a little more reality into the conversation.

I don't have a masters degree in finance, but I do have one in real life.

To say that a 'stimulus saved jobs' is technically correct, but a better way of wording it is 'the simulus delayed unemployment'

If a company is at the Finacial point of laying some one off, giving them money to make payroll will help keep people on the job. But without an improving economy, once the cash infusion runs out, the same finacial problem still exisits and once again, some one will have to be laid off. Your not helping the economy by giving the company the money, your just delaying the lay off process (for political reasons I bet).

Add to this the fact that the business is still not doing enough business to keep the workers busy (that's why they are getting rid of that particular employee). So while the company is doing enough business to keep 10 workers productive, they keep 15 workers on payroll with stimulas money (those extra 5 workers are in effect not doing anything but soaking up payroll)

This is not good finacial sense. The government already pays unemployment benifits to the tune of a percentage of what the worker was making (say 70% for example). But with stimulas to prevent job loss, they are now paying 100% of the salary of the worker that was about to be laid off. It is actually cheaper to let the person be laid off, then to prevent the person from being laid off with stimulas money

Thos is not good finacial sense. The government has an unemployment program that will pay an unemployed worker a percentage of his salary

 

[Firehorse]

Sorry for the last line, formating on my phone bites

 

[ba1614]

I'm not sure people graduating today are too good for that either - Just about every person waiting a table or pulling drinks in this college town has a degree. The difference is that today's graduates carry tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt into the job and therefore have almost no disposable income.

What do you expect in a "college town"?

Eh, well....Ideally, I'd expect the people pulling drinks to be college students and those that didn't pursue college.

The people with college degrees would ideally be working in the field they studied. Unless one's degree is in hotel / restaurant management or a related field, working in the restaurant/bar industry is not putting one's degree to work.

This town has a miniscule unemployment rate, but grads are still struggling to find work.

You only have so many opportunities with a degree in something like Art history, philosophy, music therapy, or any number of the useless degrees out there. Kids going thousands in debt for useless degrees get no sympathy from me, most of them are expecting life to be easy, like their degree was.

 

[daveman]

What do you expect in a "college town"?

Eh, well....Ideally, I'd expect the people pulling drinks to be college students and those that didn't pursue college.

The people with college degrees would ideally be working in the field they studied. Unless one's degree is in hotel / restaurant management or a related field, working in the restaurant/bar industry is not putting one's degree to work.

This town has a miniscule unemployment rate, but grads are still struggling to find work.

You only have so many opportunities with a degree in something like Art history, philosophy, music therapy, or any number of the useless degrees out there. Kids going thousands in debt for useless degrees get no sympathy from me, most of them are expecting life to be easy, like their degree was.

The graduate with a science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with a fine arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

 

[signelect]

Ya'll just don't get it. It is Bush's fault can't you see. When you are perfect and have all the answers you don't make mistakes.