MASSIVE JOB LOSSES 651,000 jobs were lost in February under President Obama's administration.
"GM ISN'T VIABLE" Just months after being given $13.4 billion of taxpayer money, GM is again in danger of failing and wants another $16.6 billion from you-- the American taxpayer.
PRO-GAZA PROTEST The Columbia Palestine Forum rally at Low Plaza and demand adminstration action.
don't you think the tanking
don't you think the tanking economy has something to do, with, like, the fact that this thing began an entire year before he came into office? what do you expect a guy to do in not even a month in office?
No
No. I don't. When the economy loses 651,000 jobs, the buck stops at one place. The President. As far as I know, Obama is the President.
White Russian
@White Russian So many
@White Russian
So many partisan hacks sit around and defend their party's president despite worsening economic conditions by claiming that the president can't exert that kind of direct control over the economy. And then once the other guy is in the chair, he magically begins to possess those same powers.
I think more reasoned logic would suggest that the president is responsible when there are long spells of poor economic performance; given that President Obama took office recently, it's decidedly unfair to lay all the blame on his shoulders. The fact is that he inherited this mess and it's now his job to clean it up. If things don't get better in a year, then we all have every right to point fingers, but starting up the blame game so soon is nothing if not counterproductive.
@Anonymous
@Anonymous
I really don't know how to begin responding to your first point about "many partisan hacks." What I know is that the President is in a position to significantly affect the US economy under the current economic conditions. When consumers and businesses aren't spending money, the government must step in and spend money for them. The President must express a coherent economic recovery plan that allows investors to have confidence in him.
So far, Obama has done neither. You might say, "Oh wait, what about the $3/4 trillion 'stimulus' bill? Wasn't that spending?" Yeah, it is. But it isn't spending that is going to create jobs. What should have been in the bill were provisions that would have involved overhauling the nation's highway system, fixing bridges, etc. Not for things like increasing funding for advocating birth control. Furthermore, the President has been completely and utterly inept in selecting a competent Treasury Secretary. Tim Geithner has become the representative laughingstock of the Obama's economic plan. How could he go up to the Hill and testify to Congress that he doesn't have a real plan because he has only been on the job for a few weeks. Uhh. . . what happened to the whole time between November and now? Obama keeps saying, "We are in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression so you better pass my 'stimulus' bill!'" Well, uhh. . . then why don't you have a clear plan for the banking problem, Mr. President? If we're in such a big crisis, why aren't you doing anything about the banks? Why are you spending this week trying to promote your health care plan? I mean, health care?!?! Really?!?!? Now?!?!?! I thought we were in the worst economic crisis of our time? The President and Tim Geithner have done nothing to give confidence to investors, or the American consumer for that matter. In fact, they are creating more economic uncertainty by essentially being ignorant of the situation and playing politics by trying to ram through a multi-trillion dollar budget through Congress, etc.
Well, this post got way too long, but I hope (though I'm sure I have not) that I have convinced you of at least some of the culpability that Obama is responsible for.
White Russian
@White Russian I wasn't
@White Russian
I wasn't necessarily referring to you as a partisan hack; that comment was directed more generally at partisan hacks everywhere ("hacks" being the operative word here).
I don't want this to become a debate about the legitimacy of Keynesian economics, but if we do assume its validity (and based on our economic history, it's a reasonable assumption), spending does create jobs. As I said, though, I'm not interested in a debate about Keynesian economics so I'll leave it at that.
The infrastructure investment you desire has already been passed as part of the spending bill: $27 billion just for infrastructure, in fact (http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/rebuilding-infrastructure).
And I can only speculate, but I think the reason health care is so high on the president's agenda is because there are 40 million Americans who don't have it. And while we will eventually get through this recession, people need health care now.
I'm now realizing that unfortunately many of the arguments I could make in defense of the president's agenda would necessarily come back to the notion that spending stimulates the economy and creates jobs. It's true that the New Deal is not what got us out of the Great Depression; World War II, the most massive public works project in American history, did that. That's why the president is trying to spend such vast amounts of money, because only spending on that scale is going to restart the economy. Many people were actually concerned that the stimulus bill wasn't big enough, just like the New Deal wasn't big enough. FDR lucked out (economically) with WWII, which is why he still gets the credit, but the credit given to government spending isn't misplaced. It's what got us out of the Great Depression and it's what going to get us out of this.
@Anonymous [feel free to give yourself a drink name]
Well, thank you for not necessarily including me with all partisan hacks.
I don't necessarily want to get into a Keynesian debate either, but I don't think that just any-old-type of spending will instantly create jobs. That's the point I was trying to make.
Thanks for the link! But it really just proves my point. $27 billion is literally squat. I'm sorry, but it really is nothing. The 'stimulus' bill itself was around $787 billion. So let me do a rough calculation: THAT'S 3% OF THE ENTIRE BILL! 3%!
Remember all of the pictures of the public works projects during the Great Depression that you saw in your 8th grade history textbook. Umm. . . yeah, this is nothing like that at all. Even though, "we are in the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression." I mean, come on, either Obama was using his in-the-heavens rhetoric to play politics or he really didn't have a clue as to what was in his 'stimulus' bill. (I happen to believe it was the former, unfortunately.)
I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I thought that there was absolutely no infrastructure spending at all in the 'stimulus' bill. I really didn't mean that at all. What I meant was quite literally the point that I just made above.
[As a side note: this is just one excellent example of how this bill was really just labeled a 'stimulus' bill to get it passed through Congress. I really do believe that this was the Democrats' exploiting the American public's feeling that we are in a dire crisis. This bill was nothing more than a SPENDING bill.]
White Russian
Government spending is a
Government spending is a major part of GDP, as any introductory economics course will tell you. Since consumption is down and investment is down, the only way to boost GDP is to increase government spending, which is exactly what is happening. A lot of the money is going towards preventing cuts in social services like education and health care, which I hope you'll agree is a pretty reasonable objective.
Spending on infrastructure, scientific research, health care, energy, and education amounts to a total of $411 billion, which is over 50% of the funds. The rest of the money is going towards middle class tax cuts and "protecting the vulnerable", whatever that means.
Anyway, the point is that an increase in government spending is the most direct way to increase GDP and consequently create jobs. If you feel the spending is going towards the wrong things, maybe you should lobby Republican senators and Congressmen to either get on board or get out of the way and stop trying to turn an urgent necessity into a weaker bill.
Obama's efforts to make the bill appear bipartisan are what's really holding him back. Appeasing Republicans is a waste of time and (a lot of) money.
OK, what did you even say?
You didn't even respond to what I said.
Just in case you didn't know, I do have some understanding of what constitutes GDP. Yes, I know GDP = Business + Consumers + Gov. + Export. I've seen the same graph in the economics textbook with the 45 degree line and GDP with AE. Yeah, we all took Intro. to Econ. Don't patronize me.
What I'm saying is, taxpayer money is important. And so is the national debt. Government spending is needed to maintain GDP. BUT, spending can be efficient or inefficient. It can help create a lot a jobs or few jobs depending on where and how it's directed. Do you really think that most of the people who are being laid-off have the education or training to be nurses or doctors? NO. But they would be suitable for 'shovel-ready projects' that benefit US infrastructure, which in turn benefits the economy in the long-run.
Instead of just 3% of a $787 billion 'stimulus' bill, maybe infrastructure spending should have been 10% of the whole bill. Keep the tax cuts at about 40-50%, but make sure that the government is spending money (that we don't even have) wisely.
Please. Respond to what I say. Because this discussion that we appear to be having is just you coming up with a completely out-of-left-field argument every time I actually RESPOND to what you say.
[I'd like to hear what Bailey's 'the Leftie' Original has to say about all of this.]
White Russian
Your issue with the bill,
Your issue with the bill, then, is that infrastructure spending is 7% less than you would have preferred it to be, and therefore President Obama is responsible for the decline in GDP? I'm not sure I even want to dignify that with a response.
My own "out-of-left-field" arguments are simple economic ones. Yet it seems that you've been reiterating the same argument that this spending is wasteful for several posts now. Despite that, you have yet to point to a specific example of wasteful spending in the bill. I'd be very interested to see how much of the bill you consider wasteful and why, and I'd love to have a serious discussion about that.
But until you deign to examine the details of the bill instead of submitting to every knee-jerk anti-spending reaction you have, take a little friendly advice and don't get too worked up...it's bad for your health.
I also wanted to quickly
I also wanted to quickly point out how amusing it is that while analysts are now saying that the stimulus bill was too small and there may need to be another one in the near future, you're arguing that there was too much spending, or wasteful spending.
My final point in this argument (feel free to have the last word, as I don't feel this is going anywhere): screeching about a bill that has already been passed is counterproductive. Instead, maybe we should be looking towards the future and trying to figure out and support the best plans to improve the economy. And right now the consensus is that more spending is required. If you think you know better, fire away...
Wasn't there a Huge Argument before?
Wait, wasn't there a huge argument on this blog before over whether or not we should give bailout money to the Big 3 auto companies?
Guess what, the people who said let them fail were right.
The Big Three are dead. Let capitalism work.
No Magic Wand
There's no magic wand that Obama can wave to fight back the tide of bad economic news this week, this month, or this year. The bad news is going to keep coming as a result of a crisis he didn't start, but he's trying to get us out of. And it's not like he has control over the economy and he's directing every detail of it down to every single lost job. Also, Obama isn't the only part of government ... government is a pretty huge enterprise with a lot of leaders responsible for the economy ...
But seriously, blaming him is a little like blaming a guy for trying to put out a fire than an arsonist started.
Also, on the GM thing ... it's tough, but Obama's got to let it go. The car industry isn't coming back. The economy is changing, and the Big Three aren't a part of the new economic future. If he keeps chasing a dream of a new American auto industry, he's going to waste a lot of tax payer money.
What I'd Like
I'd just like some of that $13.4 billion back from GM. How could the government be so stupid as to give companies that are obviously failing and have so little future viability billions of dollars just to stay afloat?
America is turning into the incarnation of socialism. I understand that it might be necessary to bail out banks which touch every industrial sector there is, but bailing out GM? I mean, come on! The main point was made in the previous argument about bailing out the auto companies: where does it end? when do we so no more bailouts for insignificant companies?
Why don't we bailout the porn industry? I heard they were on the Hill a few weeks ago. . .
The problem with not bailing
The problem with not bailing out GM is that GM employs a vast number of American workers. If GM goes bust, all those workers instantly lose their jobs. The American auto industry, incompetent as it may be, keeps a lot of people employed.
I'm not necessarily saying that's a good reason to bail them out, but that's at least part of the logic being used.
Giving companies a blank check is a stupid idea. But the political problem with making and enforcing conditions on bailouts is that the right starts making hay about the government taking over the auto industry. None of this is as black and white as some people make it out to be...and rather than sitting on the outside and throwing stones, I'd prefer to give this new administration the benefit of the doubt and see what they can do.
The problem with bailing them out
The problem with bailing them out is. . . uhh. . . because they are going to fail. I'm not a know-all expert, but I'm pretty sure that a company still exists even if it declares bankruptcy. It can still be a viable company. Now, someone can correct me on this if it's false and please do if I am, but the fact of the matter is that we are giving this company billions of your own tax dollars. Why not just distribute the $14 billion among all the GM workers then?
What happens if GM wants $100 billion next time? Would you want to give $100 billion to this kind of company? Capitalism is not all sunshine 24/7, all the time. It has it's ups and downs, but the market will always adjust.
White Russian
The hope is that if the
The hope is that if the government can somehow force American automakers to focus all their efforts on green cars, the industry could once again become a worldwide leader. The inherent problem with this logic is pretty obvious though; American automakers are not good at green cars yet.
I agree with you that a line has to be drawn somewhere, and I agree that the companies who are asking for bailouts are asking because of mismanagement and poor business strategy. Nobody likes rewarding failure, and there's definitely a risk of that in bailing them out, but if we decide not to bail them out we need to be very, very sure. Because it's not your local farmers' market that's going bust; it's one of the biggest employers in the country. All I'm saying here is that the situation is more complicated than you seem to appreciate in your posts.
Well
My question still remains. If GM comes asking for $100 billion, would you bail them out? Because they already got $15 billion. They're asking for another $15 billion. So that's $30 billion already-- if they get the additional money. I mean, we're only at the start of the recession so. . . let your imagination run wild.
Doing the bookkeeping, we've already lost $15 billion to a zombie company. I mean, let's face it, without more government money, there is no way it's going to make it out of the economic downturn. So just guess how many more times it's going to come back to you and me and ask for money.
What I'm saying is: if (and when, for that matter) this company fails, how much money will we have wasted on it? And would this money have been more wisely spent? $15 billion is already a lot of money-- half of the infrastructure spending in Obama's 'stimulus' plan (hat tip to Anonymous). Well, that's ironic: the government wants to fix the country's roads AND make sure that you can buy your American cars-- if you even wanted to in the first place. Now that I think about it, it sounds really scary.
And get this, if GM DOES get it's additional $15 billion, we will have spent just as much money on ONE company, GM, as we have spent on ALL of Obama's 'shovel-ready projects.' I mean, HELLO?!?!? What's going on here? There's something wrong here!
EITHER OBAMA'S 'STIMULUS' PLAN DOESN'T INCLUDE ENOUGH INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING OR GM IS GETTING TOO MUCH TAXPAYER MONEY!!!
White Russian
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