Biden: 'We Misread the Economy' - And it's all the Republicans' Fault

Start Thinking Right ^ | July 9, 2009 | Michael Eden

[A.Hun]

“heads we win, tails you lose” approach.

You could very well be correct...that's exactly what happened with FDR (and we are still suffering the fallout).

I believe it was Mark Steyn that pointed out a couple of months ago that it was the party in power in various nations during the depression that retained control, whether they were conservative or liberal, as long as it looked like the nations were "recovering". Obama's policies are now proving to have done nothing but make the situation worse. If jobs don't appear quickly, I think the Dems will be out on their butts in 2012.

I sure hope so, anyway.

I wouldn't worry too much about Cloward-Priven. Their aim, to collapse government by milking available social programs, is probably going to happen without any conspiracy. 20% unemployment will do it nicely.

[Michael Eden]

If Mark Steyn said it, it must be true.

I LOVE listening to that guy on the radio.

Two UCLA economics professors did a study that proved that FDR made the Great Depression last SEVEN YEARS longer than it would have without his policies.

My biggest worry, quite frankly, is that we’ve already drank the economic cyanide, and what happens in 2010/2012 won’t change the fact that we’ve ALREADY committed suicide with Obama’s policies. We are/were at such a fragile state, and the LAST thing we needed was hyperinflation-creating massive debt to kill us a couple years from now.

[Newtoidaho]

Truly an excellent summary of the mess, how is started and how it was enabled.
Saddest part is where you point out that almost 60% of the people in the country just have no clue. I have a brother like that, I’ve been working on him for a couple of years trying to get him to pay attention to what is going on. He just refuses to be aware, prefers to keep himself wilfully blind to the issues that are bankrupting him and his 2 young daughters. It is EXTREMELY frustrating, and I’m sure there are a whole lot more people exactly like him out there.

[cranked]

Yeah, yeah, Biden, you goons “misread the economy” at the same time, you continue to espouse that you moronic goons “inherited it.” Ironic or satire....?

[RWB Patriot]

Maybe some conservatives are like me and want people to learn the hard way. There’s no better lesson than that.

[Michael Eden]

You said of your brother, “He just refuses to be aware.” Refusing to think about something unpleasant is clearly a key way that otherwise intelligent people make themselves stupid.

There’s also the stupidity of good intentions paving the road to hell. Liberals mean well, and so it never seems to matter how disastrous their policies turn out to be.

Then there’s the stupidity of the demagogue. If Republicans don’t want to destroy the nation’s economy to accomplish NOTHING (China, India, Russia aren’t going to pursue global warming agendas, and these countries will make any sacrifice on our part useless EVEN IF global warming were actually REAL), they don’t care about nature. That sort of thing.

One of the big problems is that we are such a dumbed-down and irresponsible culture that these kinds of devices actually tend to work.

[A.Hun]

“My biggest worry, quite frankly, is that we’ve already drank the economic cyanide, and what happens in 2010/2012 won’t change the fact that we’ve ALREADY committed suicide with Obama’s policies.”

I’m convinced we have. Our only hope was to keep Dems from gaining control in 2008 and we failed. I expect chaos.

I wrote this in March, and see little need to revise it.

http://www.rightofatilla.net/index_files/Page532.htm

[dearolddad]

Biden....”yep yep, I’m an idiot and there’s nothing you can do about”. THROW THESE CLOWNS OUT OF OFFICE.

Good ole Joe could/would fu*k up a one car funeral.

[Michael Eden]

I looked through your article. Quite a few good points therein.

I think that people should understand that we’re not at a point of a linear downward slope. That point WILL come, but there will be a lot of little ups and little downs.

Go back to the Great Depression as an example. A couple paragraphs from the Wikipedia article are illustrative:

“The Great Depression was triggered by a sudden, total collapse in the stock market. The stock market turned upward in early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April, though still almost 30 percent below the peak of September 1929.[10] Together, government and business actually spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. But consumers, many of whom had suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut back their expenditures by ten percent, and a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the USA beginning in the summer of 1930.

In early 1930, credit was ample and available at low rates, but people were reluctant to add new debt by borrowing.[citation needed] By May 1930, auto sales had declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices in general began to decline, but wages held steady in 1930, then began to drop in 1931. Conditions were worse in farming areas, where commodity prices plunged, and in mining and logging areas, where unemployment was high and there were few other jobs. The decline in the US economy was the factor that pulled down most other countries at first, then internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. Frantic attempts to shore up the economies of individual nations through protectionist policies, such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries, exacerbated the collapse in global trade. By late in 1930, a steady decline set in which reached bottom by March 1933.”

I personally believe we’re in the same sort of dynamic. The stock market may go up, and unemployment may go down, but those will be temporary “gains” that will be consumed by other, more powerful forces acting against our economy (such as massive interest payments and soaring interest rates as the full weight of our debt begins to reveal itself; and such as the massive regulatory and tax burdens Democrats are seeking to impose at a time when they should be doing JUST THE OPPOSITE).

Interestingly, the cap-and-trade legislation most Democrats and Obama WANT to impose carries its own version of Smoot-Hawley. To wit, if countries like China and India don’t “play ball” with liberals’ stupid global warming agenda, they will impose tariffs - which will trigger a trade war, which will trigger a depression.

[rockabyebaby]

LOL, he’d screw up a free lunch!

[A.Hun]

I think that people should understand that we’re not at a point of a linear downward slope. That point WILL come, but there will be a lot of little ups and little downs.

In fact, this latest stock rally underscores your point. Although the market is not a good place for long term money, I assume it has been good for traders.

As for the depression, the stock market graph is quite telling:

We are in somewhat the same situation only worse, and for these reason IMHO:

We have a far larger population that exaggerates all the stresses.

Much of our population is dependant on a public dole that did not even exist in the twenties.

The regulatory burden. It kills creation of small business.

In our favor, we do have technology they did not posess then, but this government is determined to keep us from utilizing it.

As for cap and trade, I saw the very provisions you reference. The entire Waxman-Markley Act is the stupidest legislation I have ever seen. For them to pass something like it in these economics times shows how totally out of touch Democrats have become. The only good thing is that ignorance on that scale can't be justified, no matter what the MSM says. That's why I believe they will be vulnerable in '10 in the House, and '12 across the board. It will be too late, but at least Republicans will be picking up the pieces.

As a small businessman I have been watching the economy closely for 34 years. I have never seen it this bad, this early. I hate even talking about it, but people need to know it is going to get worse...a lot worse. We were in for it even if we had the best legislators in history running the government, instead, look at what we are stuck with!

[Hatteras]

Saving for future reference...

[Michael Eden]

I think we’ll be “riding the downward slide” to hell soon - with “soon” possibly being measured in three or four years.

Let me add two things to your list that explains why our situation today is FAR more precarious than it was prior to 1929:

1) They were on the gold standard back then. There was SOMETHING to provide a sane measurement of valuation. Today that “measurement” essentially is what some quasi-bureaucrats SAY it is.

2) Financial devices such as derivatives. We have over $700 trillion dollars of these things - which have been bundled with safer/more stable securities and which have been leveraged as much as a hundredfold or more - floating around like Titanics.

You say something that - while true in itself - I would “spin” to a different context: “In our favor, we do have technology they did not posess then, but this government is determined to keep us from utilizing it.” On my view, the technology ends up being actively pitted against us. The superior technology on the one hand makes byzantine financial devices (like the aforementioned derivatives) easier to create; and on the other hand it makes it easier to juggle numbers to favor a predetermined conclusion and make it appear that everything is okay.

The “investor class” LOVES all that fancy technology, but as a small business guy, I have no doubt that you have long since recognized that fundamentally business and investment practices are relatively timeless. And unfortunately, I would actually argue that technology has actually caused us to radically depart from simple common sense. Too damn many models that are more based on junk than reality.

We keep being told Obama “inherited” the economy, and nobody bothers to point out that Obama has imposed so many business-murdering policies - with MORE (higher taxes, health care and cap-and-trade) coming - that business are simply afraid to stick their necks out.

[A.Hun]

Let me add two things to your list

The point on the gold standard is taken, but it presented problems all its own (primarily money supply). Today, I believe, money's value is as much a question of liquidity as it is supply.

You are spot on about derivatives. Unlike many here, I supported TARP because I feared the bank meltdown would take the derivative market with it. We still are not out of the woods, even with the progress the banking system has made (all you can really say is that it still exists, though).

I agree on your "spin" on tech to a degree...we indeed have had 70 years to build ever more complex traps. It also is responsible for the loss of mfg jobs. Howeever, it is still a powerful force for good in the modern age. My take considered more the limiting of technology by starving business for energy or environmental concerns.

As for Obama, I still haven't decided if he is just this ignorant of basic economics, or if he is intentionally trying to destroy us. Regardless, trying to continue to blame Bush and the Republicans for it is ridiculous. Its not working too well for him anyway...even the MSM is now allowing people to point out that Porkulus did exactly nothing for small business-THE generator of jobs in the US.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

My view is that conservatives had darn well better have a response to all this “inherited” crap or else.

How's this?

Or this?

[Michael Eden]

Well, the first one not so much, because it’s about Bill Clinton letting bin Laden slip away and metasticize, rather than blaming Democrats for the economic malady.

The second one is a good step toward an argument, but it is just about positive economic signs in late 2006. I actually cite the DOW (nearly 12,000) and the unemployment rate (4.4%) prior to when the Democrats took over. I would say we need to take facts such as are presented in this article and marshal them into a larger argument: blame Democrats for killing the economy — primarily by poisoning the housing finance market.

Both articles are quite good: I put them into a word file for further “ammo.” Thanks for posting them.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

Well, the first one not so much, because it's about Bill Clinton letting bin Laden slip away and metasticize, rather than blaming Democrats for the economic malady.

The issue with letting OBL get away when we could have had him is the impact 911 and the WOT have had on our economy and budget.

But the key work is "inherited". Bush needlessly "inherited" OBL from Clinton (who BTW also didn't catch him in 8 years). The Democrat Congress "inherited" 4.5% unemployment from the GOP. That's what I was getting at.