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fended off the next great depression?

majora$$hole

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when obama says the TARP prevented the next great depression is that like bush saying invading iraq prevented another 911?
 
when obama says the TARP prevented the next great depression is that like bush saying invading iraq prevented another 911?

While both involve a "what if," speculative situation, the economic issue is far less speculative than terrorism. It's not just a guess made personally by Obama, it's what leading economists all say based on actual market information and theory.

So... no, it's not like that. Also, did Bush ever actually say that?
 
My thinking is that there is a lot more support for the idea that TARP contributed to pulling the economy out of its nosedive than for the idea that Iraq's invasion was anything other than a diversion from the war on terror. As Deuce pointed out, economists come down pretty firmly in favor of TARP's usefulness, while even members of the military community question the Iraq action. In the end though, as Deuce again pointed out, both involve speculation on why something didn't happen. Pretty hard to prove to everyone's satisfaction.
 
My thinking is that there is a lot more support for the idea that TARP contributed to pulling the economy out of its nosedive than for the idea that Iraq's invasion was anything other than a diversion from the war on terror. As Deuce pointed out, economists come down pretty firmly in favor of TARP's usefulness, while even members of the military community question the Iraq action. In the end though, as Deuce again pointed out, both involve speculation on why something didn't happen. Pretty hard to prove to everyone's satisfaction.
i don't know i seem to remember either bush or cheney saying that exact thing. oh and i also remember the whole "intelligence community" saying there were WMD's just like the leading economists said what they said. seems the same to me.
 
when obama says the TARP prevented the next great depression is that like bush saying invading iraq prevented another 911?

Bush put TARP through.


are you talking about the 800 Bn "Stimulus"?
 
It's weird the things people 'remember'.

we said they had WMD, the French said they had WMD, the Russians said they had WMD, the Brits said they had WMD, the UN said they thought they had WMD but weren't sure; hilariously, after the dust settled, it turns out that maybe even Saddam thought he had WMD still on-board.

:lol: turns out when you execute people for bringing you bad news, they stop telling you things like "excuse me oh great and noble leader of the ages, but it seems that our chemical facilities which you ordered to continue working without supplies or chemists have ceased production", and start telling you things like "yes oh great one, yes yes, everything is just fine..."
 
Back on topic...

While Obama believes the TARP and Stimulus saved the country, the reality is that it slowed the economy and increased the underlying problems.

When the government borrows money, they must get the money from somewhere. In this case, they got the money from three sources.

The first (and worst) was from the printing press. When Obama bailed out some of the largest banks, he forced them to put their money in an account where the government added several zeros to the end of their balance and sent the money back. In essence, they created money out of thin air. That caused the value of the dollar to slide.

The second was to borrow money from private lenders. These are the people buying treasury bonds. These people would have otherwise put their money in banks or other financial institutions to gain interest. The banks would have then loaned the money to businesses and individuals who would have in turn used the money to grow their economies and thus the economy as a whole.

The third would be to borrow from foreign entities. This is the only version that actually helps the economy in the short term by importing money that is leaving the country as a result of the trade deficit. It does, however, prevent foreign countries from using their excess capital to grow their economies and create demand for goods an services that outside countries, including ours, could provide.
 
we said they had WMD, the French said they had WMD, the Russians said they had WMD, the Brits said they had WMD, the UN said they thought they had WMD but weren't sure; hilariously, after the dust settled, it turns out that maybe even Saddam thought he had WMD still on-board.

So wait all these countries with a vested interest in saying saddam had WMDs swear he did, but when it came time to decide an invasion they looked at their evidence and said... 'uh oh' and poor ol Colin Powell had to present a sad crock of crap to the UN that held no water?

And the concept that they could develop WMDs is **** anyways cause its not like we had spy satellite tracking every dust particle in the country and bombing it to hell at our behest for the last couple decades.
 
Bush put TARP through.


are you talking about the 800 Bn "Stimulus"?

Economists say both, really. TARP was important because we need banks to be loaning our money for the economy to do much of anything at all, and the stimulus injected some much needed spending into the economy. (both individuals and businesses were tightening the belt hard, but to recover an economy you need someone to spend!)

I leave that sort of thing to the smart people. I'm nowhere near qualified to state whether the stimulus did or did not help.
 
i don't know i seem to remember either bush or cheney saying that exact thing. oh and i also remember the whole "intelligence community" saying there were WMD's just like the leading economists said what they said. seems the same to me.

Difference is, I personally can look at the evidence that the financial markets stabilized after tarp. I personally will never see the evidence of WMD's. I don't have to take the economists word for it because I can see what happened in the economy with my own 2 eyes.
 
Difference is, I personally can look at the evidence that the financial markets stabilized after tarp. I personally will never see the evidence of WMD's. I don't have to take the economists word for it because I can see what happened in the economy with my own 2 eyes.

Also, the "slam dunk" intelligence was apparently based on like one guy in Iraq with no corroboration.
 
i don't know i seem to remember either bush or cheney saying that exact thing. oh and i also remember the whole "intelligence community" saying there were WMD's just like the leading economists said what they said. seems the same to me.

The support for the idea of WMDs in Iraq was not so universal and widespread as some try to rewrite history to say now. There were lots of voices out there arguing that the evidence was too flimsy. Not so much with TARP.
 
Economists say both, really. TARP was important because we need banks to be loaning our money for the economy to do much of anything at all, and the stimulus injected some much needed spending into the economy. (both individuals and businesses were tightening the belt hard, but to recover an economy you need someone to spend!)

I leave that sort of thing to the smart people. I'm nowhere near qualified to state whether the stimulus did or did not help.

the notion that stimulus spending would be a net benefit to our economy required us to discount everything we've learned about macroeconomics in the last 80 years.

Crises Economics:

...Perhaps the most compelling research on this subject is a very recent study by Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna at Harvard. They used data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to identify every major fiscal stimulus adopted by the 30 OECD countries between 1970 and 2007. Alesina and Ardagna then separated those plans that were in fact followed by robust economic growth from those that were not, and compared their characteristics. They found that the stimulus packages that appeared to be successful had cut business and income taxes, while those that evidently did not succeed had increased government spending and transfer payments...
 
the notion that stimulus spending would be a net benefit to our economy required us to discount everything we've learned about macroeconomics in the last 80 years.

Crises Economics:

...Perhaps the most compelling research on this subject is a very recent study by Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna at Harvard. They used data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to identify every major fiscal stimulus adopted by the 30 OECD countries between 1970 and 2007. Alesina and Ardagna then separated those plans that were in fact followed by robust economic growth from those that were not, and compared their characteristics. They found that the stimulus packages that appeared to be successful had cut business and income taxes, while those that evidently did not succeed had increased government spending and transfer payments...

About a third of this stimulus came in the form of tax cuts.
 
when obama says the TARP prevented the next great depression is that like bush saying invading iraq prevented another 911?

No, because Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 while TARP did address some of the issues of our current economic problems.
 
No, because Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 while TARP did address some of the issues of our current economic problems.

In claiming (if this is so) that invading Iraq prevented another 9/11, one does not claim that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11.
 
In claiming (if this is so) that invading Iraq prevented another 9/11, one does not claim that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11.

I can't see how not invading Iraq would have had any effect on our security. Hussein was pretty much at odds with the Islamic extremists.
 
I can't see how not invading Iraq would have had any effect on our security. Hussein was pretty much at odds with the Islamic extremists.

Well, for one thing, that's not true; it's beyond dispute that he happily financed Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel. There is no convincing case whatsoever that he was "at odds" with al Qaeda or anyone else, either. The idea that, if he had WMDs, he wouldn't supply them to a group wanting the hurt the US or an ally is laughable.

But even if it were -- that's an entirely different argument from the one you made, to which I responded.
 
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