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President needs to stop invoking the 'D-word'
Valley Press ^ | Tuesday, February 17, 2009.

Posted on 02/19/2009 6:43:02 AM PST by BenLurkin

Yes, we're going through tough times, but President Obama has repeatedly invoked the Great Depression and it's scaring the heck out of consumers. Who's going to go buy anything if we're headed for an economic catastrophe? People will horde every penny they get and businesses will suffer and things will only get worse.

In a well-written op-ed piece in Friday's Wall Street Journal, University of Nevada-Reno economics professor Bradley R. Schiller takes Obama to task for spreading fear itself to win votes for his stimulus package.

In his article titled, "Obama's rhetoric is the real 'catastrophe,' " Schiller points out that Obama kept saying that the economy would fall into an abyss and possibly never recover without his stimulus package. Never recover?

"This fearmongering may be good politics, but it is bad history and bad economics," the professor writes. "It is bad history because our current economic woes don't come close to those of the 1930s. At worst, a comparison to the 1981-82 recession might be appropriate."

While the loss of 3.4 million jobs in 2008 is a grim statistic, it represents the same percentage - 2.2% - of the workforce that was cut in 1981-82.

Neither of those years remotely compares to the Great Depression. In 1930, the economy shed 4.8% of the workforce; followed by another 6.5% in 1931, and still another 7.1% in 1932.

The latest unemployment figures show the U.S. at 7.6%, well below the 10.8% of 1982; and again, not even in the ball park with 1932's mind-boggling 25.2%.

In terms of economic growth, believe it or not, the real gross domestic product, Schiller writes, "rose in 2008, despite a bad fourth quarter. The Congressional Budget Office projects a GDP decline of 2% in 2009. That compares to 1982, when GDP contracted by 1.9%."

(Excerpt) Read more at avpress.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial
KEYWORDS: america2point0; asocialistamerica; fearmongering; greatdepression; hyperbole; mrobama; nationalization; ussa
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So no, the situation Obama inherited is not remotely like that which FDR inherited and he ought not to make people think so. Yet his pushing of the notion that the world will end if his package isn't passed resulted in a bill of more than 1,000 pages that no one had even read.

Now that is scary.

1 posted on 02/19/2009 6:43:03 AM PST by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin

Fear is the point ... when any signs of improvement occur, we are all supposed to be soooooo grateful for The One having saved us.


2 posted on 02/19/2009 6:45:46 AM PST by mgc1122
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To: BenLurkin

The only thing we have to fear is the Fear-Monger-In-Chief.........................


3 posted on 02/19/2009 6:48:00 AM PST by Red Badger (Zimbabwe has removed 12 zeroes from its currency. We need to remove ONE from the White House......)
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To: BenLurkin

He used the word “Crisis” 25 times, maybe more in the speech in PHX yesterday. It’s called ‘propaganda’, and the sheeple are too dumb to know it, or care.


4 posted on 02/19/2009 6:48:09 AM PST by devane617 (Republicans first strategy should be taking over the MSM. Without it we are doomed.)
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To: mgc1122

Everything’s a CRISIS.


5 posted on 02/19/2009 6:48:13 AM PST by FES0844
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To: mgc1122

The “crisis” is that if they don’t get these spending bills in place quickly,

the economy will recover on its own, showing no need for the spending.


6 posted on 02/19/2009 6:49:06 AM PST by MrB (The 0bamanation: Marxism, Infanticide, Appeasement, Depression, Thuggery, and Censorship)
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To: mgc1122

Bingo. He’s simply taking us down to ground zero to create a save by Big Brother (the community organizer in chief).


7 posted on 02/19/2009 6:49:14 AM PST by sarasota
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To: FES0844

“Everything’s a CRISIS.”

Crisis is the reason we need super dooper heroes like Obozo ... or so we are told.


8 posted on 02/19/2009 6:49:27 AM PST by mgc1122
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To: BenLurkin

If he stopped, then how would he scare-monger people into supporting his economy-killing policies?


9 posted on 02/19/2009 6:50:17 AM PST by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus (Nihil utile nisi quod honestum - Marcus Tullius Cicero)
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To: BenLurkin

“Yes, we’re going through tough times, but President Obama has repeatedly invoked the Great Depression and it’s scaring the heck out of consumers.”

That’s the point!

“The agitator’s job, according to Alinsky, is first to bring folks to the “realization” that they are indeed miserable, that their misery is the fault of unresponsive governments or greedy corporations, then help them to bond together to demand what they deserve, and to make such an almighty stink that the dastardly governments and corporations will see imminent “self-interest” in granting whatever it is that will cause the harassment to cease.”


10 posted on 02/19/2009 6:52:28 AM PST by DBrow
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To: BenLurkin

Of course. These are totally manufactured crises. What currently exists must be razed in order to put the new system into place.


11 posted on 02/19/2009 6:52:40 AM PST by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
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To: BenLurkin
Of course, we are in a depression, at least until the first decent economy news is reported. Probably right around the 2010 congressional elections.

Can't have these evil republicans winning too many seats back in 2010

Then it will be a an Obama recovery.

A miracle by the miracle worker. Sing Hosanna!!!

The American people are truly blind

12 posted on 02/19/2009 6:53:26 AM PST by Popman (One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress - John Adams)
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To: BenLurkin
Obama: I have nothing to offer but fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance..
13 posted on 02/19/2009 6:55:01 AM PST by KarlInOhio (On 9/11 Israel mourned with us while the Palestinians danced in the streets. Who should we support?)
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To: Red Badger

“The only thing we have to fear is the Fear-Monger-In-Chief.........................”

but..but..but..he said we must choose hope over fear...Zero sure doesn’t practice what he preaches.


14 posted on 02/19/2009 6:55:25 AM PST by LottieDah (If only those who speak so eMichaloquently on the rights of animals would do so on behalf the unborn)
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To: BenLurkin

One expression that needs to be used more often, especially in economics, is “And then what happens?”

Truthfully, the economy we have known for a long time is unsustainable, based in multi-leveraged schemes with no basis in reality. Obama and a whole bunch of economists are correct, we are heading into a depression, and a whopper of one.

As such, it is not a time for optimism, but for girding of loins, battening down hatches, and weathering the storm. The more of us that do this, the better off we all shall be.

The big questions that need to be asked now is how do we get from this unsustainable economy back to a stable economy, and what will that stable economy consist of?

The era of government largesse is at an end. How so ever we reach it, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are done.

The new age of anti-federalism is soon to be upon us. Ironically.


15 posted on 02/19/2009 6:55:41 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: BenLurkin

B-But, Dude..Where’s the Hope?


16 posted on 02/19/2009 6:57:18 AM PST by Calusa (Subo como el Dolar. Bajo como el cafe.)
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To: ViLaLuz

Yep.

This is all about instituting a whole new economic system...and a new ruling class.


17 posted on 02/19/2009 7:01:31 AM PST by Tex Pete (Obama for Change: from our pockets, our piggy banks, and our couch cushions!)
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To: ViLaLuz

Have to make the situation so dire that people will fall for anything, no questions asked. This is a Socialist Revolution. Even Tom Brokejaw said it was like the Velvet Revolution, this change that is being ushered in. Except he got it wrong; instead of the shackles of socialism being cast off, they are being locked ON our economy.


18 posted on 02/19/2009 7:11:33 AM PST by a fool in paradise (Song of the day Friday the 13th, February 2009. - The Kinks' Sold Me Out. The American Dream is over)
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To: BenLurkin

He comes to steal and to kill.


19 posted on 02/19/2009 7:23:52 AM PST by anniegetyourgun
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To: BenLurkin

20 posted on 02/19/2009 7:40:30 AM PST by Leisler
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