Economic Reality

[Gaspar]

So. . .Just 4 hours after my initial post, CNN presents this headline:

Obama approval rating drops as fears of depression rise.

(CNN) – President Barack Obama's overall approval rating has dropped below 50 percent as a growing number of Americans worry that the U.S. is likely to slip into another Great Depression within the next 12 months, according to a new national poll.

The media went from a discussion of double dip recession all the way to depression.  Even more shocking is that this came from a CNN poll which means it was undoubtedly fair and balanced.

So perhaps the change in lexicon will be enough to spur the administration to take action?

[Gaspar]

My thoughts on gaspar's premise from a bus wending its way across the Dominican Republic: If you're wrong, double down and be wrong twice. The Obama Derangement Syndrome schick is getting repetitive at this point.I'd be more verbose, but my other phone is in my luggage. This one has no keyboard, only swype.

So. . .

[Teatownclown]

So. . .Just 4 hours after my initial post, CNN presents this headline:

Obama approval rating drops as fears of depression rise.

(CNN) – President Barack Obama's overall approval rating has dropped below 50 percent as a growing number of Americans worry that the U.S. is likely to slip into another Great Depression within the next 12 months, according to a new national poll.

The media went from a discussion of double dip recession all the way to depression.  Even more shocking is that this came from a CNN poll which means it was undoubtedly fair and balanced.

So perhaps the change in lexicon will be enough to spur the administration to take action?

Approval ratings change as fast as a woman's Gaspar's mood.

FAIL!

[Gaspar]

Approval ratings change as fast as a woman's Gaspar's mood.

FAIL!

Par

[Teatownclown]

Because Obama and the Dems have promoted dozens of bills that would have created jobs and shifted our economy in a positive direction, like High Speed Rail, Wind Farms, Residential Solar, and not only have they been blocked at almost every turn by the GOP while the Media (Left, Right and Center) all seem to miss the story. Once stimulus money started to dry up and no more action was able to go forward, mainly due to the oppositon in Congress, the improvement has stopped.

It's so easy if you do the opposite of what Boehner, Norquist, Ryan and the rest of the right wing dim bulbs suggest.

Keep jawboning the recovery into a second dip, lets get the GOP back in here to finish the job, that's what y'all want, right? Because that's what's happening here.

Birdie!

[dbacks fan]

Guess we must be doing something right. We are building wind farms in Arizona, a solar company is going to build a manufacturing plant in Mesa, and Intel is building a new manufacturing facility in Chandler. I don't see anybody blocking things here.

[Conan71]

Because Obama and the Dems have promoted dozens of bills that would have created jobs and shifted our economy in a positive direction, like High Speed Rail, Wind Farms, Residential Solar, and not only have they been blocked at almost every turn by the GOP while the Media (Left, Right and Center) all seem to miss the story. Once stimulus money started to dry up and no more action was able to go forward, mainly due to the oppositon in Congress, the improvement has stopped.

It's so easy if you do the opposite of what Boehner, Norquist, Ryan and the rest of the right wing dim bulbs suggest.

Keep jawboning the recovery into a second dip, lets get the GOP back in here to finish the job, that's what y'all want, right? Because that's what's happening here.

Birdie!

Obama is going to learn he wasted a ton of political capital on pushing so hard for legacy issues like Obamacare and bank reform when he could have used his majorities in the House and Senate to have worked on real job measures like you mentioned.  Instead, he only wound up creating new bureaucratic positions for over-sight and even more government administration.

The "stimulus" measures have accomplished little other than bolstering construction industries.  Things like cash for clunkers helped get rid of stale inventory on dealer's lots, but it was not a sustainable injection into the economy.

You apparently see it as the government didn't spend money long enough to jump start the economy.  I think the government did nothing but construct temporary measures which had no hope of creating sustained growth.

Some of this news is political shenanigans.  This is the same rattle that started about June of 2007 of pending economic doom.  A major part of a recession is purely psychological.  Tell business people a second Great Depression is coming, and they will put off all sorts of spending and start hoarding.  They will not hire new employees, they will not buy new equipment, they will start thinning the herd.  Guess what happens next?  A real recession starts to grow.  If you can beat up on consumer and commercial confidence enough, you will force people into a recession.  If the economy is still in the crapper in Nov. 2012, President Obama becomes a one-term President.  Start a wave of ominous sounding news now and chances are it will become a reality.

[Teatownclown]

I will bet you he will not be a one term President and even if you brought back Reagan from the dead. Wait a minute...
The Dead Reagan for President? Nah. Lightening will not strike twice in the same place....

Pick your wager!

[we vs us]

Exactly my point.  Scouring the news it seems that the only solution the left wants to engage is more spending and more taxation.  Neither of which is capable of producing anything except an increase in "temporary" dependence.  I say "temporary" because the weight of such dependence makes collapse imminent.

I never know how seriously to take your posts, because it's as if your only ideological motivator is that the proles never become dependent on government for anything at any time.  And that every moment is the right moment to retrench, retreat, and reduce any perceived dependence.  I know that somehow using your mathematics reduced government involvement magically increases freedom no matter the context, but that seems so obviously ridiculous in the face of massive need.  At some point, isn't withholding help because of possible future dependence trumped by what's happening on the ground, now?

Also:  making sure that employers somehow have even more money to hoard is useless.  There's no incentive value to tax cuts for business.  They'll just throw their savings on the pile with their record profits and continue to not invest.

How bout we raise the minimum wage?

[Conan71]

I never know how seriously to take your posts, because it's as if your only ideological motivator is that the proles never become dependent on government for anything at any time.  And that every moment is the right moment to retrench, retreat, and reduce any perceived dependence.  I know that somehow using your mathematics reduced government involvement magically increases freedom no matter the context, but that seems so obviously ridiculous in the face of massive need.  At some point, isn't withholding help because of possible future dependence trumped by what's happening on the ground, now?

Also:  making sure that employers somehow have even more money to hoard is useless.  There's no incentive value to tax cuts for business.  They'll just throw their savings on the pile with their record profits and continue to not invest.

How bout we raise the minimum wage?

Why is there such massive need in the first place?

What you fail to realize in any of that is this IS the result of far too much dependence on government in the first place.  There's simply never going to be any ideal time to start with cuts, but to keep on doing what we've been doing wrong in the name of compassion is insane.

Look at the problems government has fomented out of programs it deemed worthy.  Government insistence that homeownership should be a "right" for everyone led to a stupid lending binge that helped push our economy off a cliff as one example of why sometimes it's better to allow free markets to operate without artificial intervention.

[Gaspar]

From The WSJ:

The picture is even gloomier if we look in more detail. Estimates of monthly GDP indicate that the only growth in the first quarter of 2011 was from February to March. After a temporary rise in March, the economy began sliding again in April, with declines in real wages, in durable-goods orders and manufacturing production, in existing home sales, and in real per-capita disposable incomes. It is not surprising that the index of leading indicators fell in April, only the second decline since it began to rise in the spring of 2009.

The data for May are beginning to arrive and are even worse than April's. They are marked by a collapse in payroll-employment gains; a higher unemployment rate; manufacturers' reports of slower orders and production; weak chain-store sales; and a sharp drop in consumer confidence.

The economy will continue to suffer until there is a coherent and favorable economic policy. That means bringing long-term deficits under control without raising marginal tax rates—by cutting government outlays and by limiting the tax expenditures that substitute for direct government spending. It means lower tax rates on businesses and individuals to spur entrepreneurship and investment. And it means reforming Social Security and Medicare to protect the living standards of future retirees while limiting the cost to future taxpayers.

All of these things are doable. But the Obama administration has not done them and shows no inclination to do them in the future.


SUCKS!

[guido911]

As Mark Levin likes to say, everything Barack Obama touches turns to crap.

But why should that stop our blissfully out-of-touch President from citing a soon-to-be defunct restaurant as an example of why the auto industry bailouts have been such smashing successes?

http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2011/06/reverse-midas-touch-ohio-restaurant.html

[nathanm]

You wan know why the stimulus mostly only forestalled worsening of the economic situation rather than bringing real improvement? Half of it was tax cuts that mostly went to people who weren't going to spend money even if God Himself ordered them to do so.

We seem to be hell bent on repeating the mistakes of 1937. It's more than a little ironic that today's 'conservatives' ignore history so completely. Thankfully, we're in a situation more akin to Japan after its meltdown and not a new Great Depression. (or so it seems so far)

Also, I don't think it helped one whit that the Bush Administration decided  there would be few or no prosecutions for the rampant fraud in the derivatives market (and mortgage market) and that the Obama Administration foolishly continued that policy. Hell, there was clear malfeasance within the Bush Administration that went unpunished. We need a head knocker like Teddy or even Franklin Roosevelt, but all we get is Obama, who, while being better than any of the Republican options, apparently lacks the cajones of either.

[Gaspar]

Nate,
This is ehhaustive and non productive.  We both have different (and sometimes the same) interpretations of who is at fault. At this point, the blame game is useless.  I don't give a smile if it was Santa Clause who started the whole Fredy/Fannie collapse.

There are only a few viable solutions left.  That's what we are discussing here.  Unfortunately that is what the whole country has to discuss now, even many Democrats.  We can blather about how we are going to produce millions of green jobs out of our asses or we can simply do the things necessary to save the economy. 

The steps necessary to save the economy are not new, they are not borne of "brilliance" or pride, they are simple and proven, and businesses have been begging for them for 3 years. 

Instead of President Obama giving the economy what he thinks it needs, it's time he gives it what it wants!

[Conan71]

Gaspar, that's not entirely true.

The Bush tax cuts have been extended due to heavy lobbying which claimed it would help bolster the economy by creating a more business and investment-friendly environment.  That was one thing business ("the economy") demanded out of Congress and the President and they got it.  That was the magic panacea that would turn things around.

I said at the time, "don't let the tax cuts expire, it's put up or shut up time.  If the economy rebounds and treasury revenue increases, we know it works.  If we are still in the doldrums a year or two down the road, take the cuts away as it's obviously not a solution."

That extra 3% of income doesn't appear to be finding it's way back into the economy yet, or at least very slowly.