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Just like clockwork. The internet bubble, the housing bubble, and now this. Obama's phony recovery is being exposed as just another bubble inflated by the Federal Reserve's cheap money policy.
The party is coming to an end.
Funny thing is, many people never felt the recovery. It's like the recovery that never was.
Funny thing is, people keep indulging these fantasies. "My" president will improve the economy. "Their" president destroyed it.
Always ignoring the fact that the president has almost zilch effect on the economy. Wall Street puppeteers control the US economy, PERIOD. The president, regardless of party, has almost no power to change that.
When the Christmas sales numbers come in at a disturbingly low number and the stock market tanks, we'll be forced to accept that there never was a recovery, that we've been in a recession for the entire Obama presidency but were able to cover it up through articial stimulus (QE programs). I'll bump this thread when the reality is accepted.
I don't understand your failure to bump this thread as you said you would.
Funny thing is, people keep indulging these fantasies. "My" president will improve the economy. "Their" president destroyed it.
Always ignoring the fact that the president has almost zilch effect on the economy. Wall Street puppeteers control the US economy, PERIOD. The president, regardless of party, has almost no power to change that.
I've been trying to make this point for a while now, but I think it is natural for us to identify with the agenda of the POTUS and project all good and bad that happens under that administration according to our political leanings, a lot easier than to consider all the rest anyway...
I thought it was interesting, however, that we get a little more honest when offered a little money.
"When survey respondents were offered a small cash reward — a dollar or two — for producing a correct answer about the unemployment rate and other economic conditions, they were more likely to be accurate and less likely to produce an answer that fit their partisan biases."
As for the unemployment numbers, I am not sure about the argument, because who doesn't know that Bush enjoyed a real economic run up that eventually popped, causing millions of lay offs. After Obama took office, we kept bleeding as the Great Recession took its toll. We somehow managed to avoid another depression and now we're in many ways on much better footing than when Obama first took office, by a good many measures.
What is the great mystery, and do we really want to go on attributing all the ups and downs to the POTUS?
To help with the numbers in any case, maybe to give workingclasshero a break..., these charts are not so hard to come by or understand:
It was primarily your "BS" sentence. I even referenced it. I did not think you gave enough weight to the role Central Banks play around the world; Japan, China, ECB and of course our Fed.
Perhaps I misinterpreted the meaning behind the words.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LearnMe
"Both the President and Congress - while under Dem control and while under Rep control - are to blame. They both have majored in political gamemanship rather than what is good for the citizenry and the country as a whole."
I am not sure what to make of my comment begin posted with the one that included this statement above, but at least this is the sort of thing I was trying to point out, obviously creating some heartburn for a few others. Yes, there are a great many factors that determine what our economy will do (and who will tend to benefit), and though this post by earthlyfather makes better sense than most, there is also what happens in the international markets, how we are affected and/or impact the global economy, and on and on goes the tangled web...
Also interesting is our assessment of who is to blame. If we elect our elected officials, be they Democrat or Republican, who is to blame?
I think the answer to this questions is not as simple either, or maybe it is but we just refuse to accept the answer, but I won't repeat myself...
It was primarily your "BS" sentence. I even referenced it. I did not think you gave enough weight to the role Central Banks play around the world; Japan, China, ECB and of course our Fed.
Perhaps I misinterpreted the meaning behind the words.
Yes but no worries. Perhaps I could have been more clear. Would be interesting to assign "weight" in terms of all the factors that determine our economic circumstances, but that's a little over my head and above my pay grade...
When the Chinese establishes their version of our phony equities market it followed the direction of our phony equities market. Now our follows theirs. I wonder why?
Looks like the OP might be right! The markets are tanking.
The markets are "tanking" because of yesterdays events on the Chinese stock market. A sell off in China triggered "circuit breakers" that shut down their stock market for the day. A similar event/scare in August/September led to a weeks long drop in our stock markets but they recovered. So far, today, US stock markets have dropped but not as low as that August/September low.
In normal times the economy's macroeconomic performance mainly depends on monetary policy, which isn't controlled by the president. However, the whole Obama administration has been in a condition where even rates at the zero lower bound haven't been stimulative, which means fiscal policy a much more central role. The initial stimulus did help quite a lot. Since 2010, however, fiscal policy has been paralyzed by GOP obstruction, so we're back to a situation where the WH has little influence on economic policy.
The point is that the right has insisted non-stop that Obama policies were doing terrible things to the economy. According to them, the ACA was a job-killer and the tax hike on the top 1% in 2013 was also supposed to destroy the economy. The right also said financial reform was similarly supposed to be hugely destructive.
Given all that, the fact that the private sector has added more than twice as many jobs under that "job-killing Obama" as it did under Bush before the crash is significant, not because Obama did it, but because it shows that Obama's ACA, Financial Reform and tax-hikes on top earners had none of the negative effect predicted by his detractors. You can, it turns out, tax the rich, regulate the banks, and expand health insurance coverage without punishment by the free market.
So, what are the new arguments on the other side? 'Economies run in cycles' -- essentially backpedaling on all the things that conservatives said would hurt the economy and haven't occurred.
Bull ****.. What is happening now is EXACTLY what everyone said was going to happen, but you guys on the left sat in denial for years calling everyone else stupid..
You can not artificially create economic stimulus without harming other segments of the economy, especially down the road.
The "stimulus" bill you keep babbling about, removed money out of the economy FIRST in order to pump it back in, and thus didnt stimulate a thing, and according to the CBO, would hold negative economic impact down the road, (i.e. NOW, of up to .2% of the GDP), since all of that money needs to be reversed, through tax policies or borrowing in order to fund the costs associated with it..
Note the important part..
NEGATIVE growth in the GDP due to the stimulus.. and thats just ONE policy..
I think waiting a week or two will yield some real bargains.
One government control we should institute is limiting overseas investment by American Capital. This could be done by heavy taxation on profits derived from such investment. Let China, Brazil and India finance their own development.
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Exactly...
