Is there a spending problem, a revenue problem or just plain bad management?

[Cardinal Fang]

A "failure" because, as your math shows, it was not large enough for the crash.

While doing almost exactly what it was designed and projected to do. It wasn't big enough, but it was the biggest that could have passed.

 

[Gimmesometruth]

While doing almost exactly what it was designed and projected to do. It wasn't big enough, but it was the biggest that could have passed.

Mmm..., no, if the WH had really used its influence, it could have been larger, but the President was not willing and went with Summers rather than Romer.

ps:
Economist's View: Summers, Romer, and the Stimulus Package

pps:

Larry Summers, now back at Harvard, was the after-dinner entertainment, interviewed by the prodigious Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, the world’s most respected financial journalist.

Summers was terrific, acknowledging that the stimulus of February 2009 was too small, that the idea of deflating our way to recovery is insane, that de-regulation had been excessive, and that much of the economics profession missed the developing crisis because its infatuation with self-correcting markets.

If only this man had been Obama’s chief economic adviser!

It reminded me a bit of Eisenhower’s farewell address, warning of a military-industrial complex, or Citizen Jimmy Carter’s sublime post-presidency. Why do these people find their consciences and souls after they give up power?

http://mydd.com/2011/4/11/larry-summers

 

[ocean515]

What "Industrial policy"? Show me this federal "policy".

You just made the correct implication that our economy is lead by private industrial/manufacturing/service sector . They are the ones guiding any "industrial policy", their influence upon import regulation is what has allowed our manufacturing base to be severely impacted by below cost imports......and much of that is done by international corporations who made the decision to move industry to where the cheap labor exists since they faced little to no tariffs.

US industrial policy, indeed.

You think the private industrial/manufacturing/service sector sets Industrial Policy? Please.

You think these business sectors want to offshore jobs?

You're not even close.

 

[KLATTU]

Given the abysmal results of the stimulus, I suppose I would go with' Boy , can you imagine how much WORSE things would have been had it not been passed?" Of course nobody can prove it wrong.

I'd stay away from the " It wasn't big enough" line though.
grounded, rational ) people saw such poor results from the first one-which was humongous-there was absolutely no reason for ( again sane, grounded) people to believe more would have somehow magically triggered some econmic tripwire which would bring the economy roaring back to life. By grounded rational peopel, I mean people who don't believe it when gadflys like Paul Krugman tell them that rhinoceros they see over ther is really a zebra.

 

[Gimmesometruth]

You think the private industrial/manufacturing/service sector sets Industrial Policy? Please.

You think these business sectors want to offshore jobs?

You're not even close.

I see you have not found an example of US govt "industrial policy".

Lemme know when you do.

And yes, private international corporations have no qualms about pursuing the cheapest labor when barriers to their products do not exist in any meaningful manner in our domestic consumer market.

 

[ocean515]

I see you have not found an example of US govt "industrial policy".

Lemme know when you do.

And yes, private international corporations have no qualms about pursuing the cheapest labor when barriers to their products do not exist in any meaningful manner in our domestic consumer market.

I'm not sure where you are coming from. I've suggested there is no US Industrial Policy, and you're asking me to find it? In fairness, I should have written "no policy" instead of "poor policy".

How many people do private international corporations employ?

 

[Cardinal Fang]

And Democrats are going to need to come up with a new excuse pretty soon because it's 2013 and Bush left office in 2009. Let's see... over 5 trillion in new debt over 4 years and the excuse is that <paraphrasing here> "It cost that much to bail us out of the Bush years"?? I don't suppose you have anything substantive to back that up, do you?

That's for any cave-dwellers out there who might have missed a few years here and there.

 

[ocean515]

View attachment 67142484

That's for any cave-dwellers out there who might have missed a few years here and there.

So other than taxing the rich and taking more revenue from the business sector, what is the Presidents plan for increasing revenue?

 

[iguanaman]

If the President knew how to stimulate the economy, his withholding of that information would be very near treasonous. If he is an incompetent with no idea of what to do or how to improve things, we would be in exactly the position we are in right now.

We can hardly assume that the guy is a traitor. We can assume he is clueless. We can also assume that we are pretty much screwed while he's in charge.

It could be worse. At least we are being run by Consevatives like GB and Europe is. We would ALL be back in recession.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Screwy ciphering. TARP was not fully spent and much of it has since been repaid. ARRA was a two-year program, and there is still today some money flowing out the far end of the pipeline.


Republicans should learn to stop creating economic trainwrecks. They are expensive.

TARP and ARRA was NEVER excluded from the Obama "baseline" budgeting - it was kept in favor of budgeting by using continuing resolutions. Over $400 billion was "repaid" yet no following budget was reduced by that much. Money taken from account A and not returned to account A is not money repaid, it was applied elsewhere (still spent). About $275 to $289 billion (of the $787 eventually raised to $831 and extended to 2019) was in "tax cuts", i.e. money not collected that can never be "repaid". The TARP repayment is largely an Obamatron fantasy since not one penny has been used to reduce the national debt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Recovery.gov - Tracking the Money

 

[Cardinal Fang]

I belive there may be a few people who would disagree with your opinion included with your previous post.

How many of them could put forward an actually coherent reason for such disagreement?

In a relatively short period of time the United States of America became a top economic power because of it's reliance on the private sector. $100's of billions of goods are imported every year, much of which used to be manufactured here. It is only because of poor Industrial Policy, and regulatory incrementalism, that we exported the manufacturing of these goods. We could recapture that business today if the US were to get serious about. Unfortunately, the current administration does not appear interested in this approach.

While the most recent incomplete reporting from China suggest that they might have drawn about even with us, that would still leave us and them as easily the two largest manufacturing economies in the world. Of course it takes them ten times as many manufacturing workers to keep up. But even at that, China -- like all of the world's twelve large manufacturing economies -- has lost manufacturing jobs since the mid-1990's. In fact, China since then has lost more manufacturing jobs than the US presently has. US losses in that time have been about average. The notion that you have to get out of your head is the thought that manufacturing any longer has the cpapacity to provide jobs for the masses. It simply doesn't. Like agriculture a century and more ago, it has lost whatever such capacity it might once have had. Elvis has left the building. Get used to it.

 

[polgara]

So other than taxing the rich and taking more revenue from the business sector, what is the Presidents plan for increasing revenue?

Good afternoon, Ocean515.

Good paying jobs would be a start, but he hasn't seemed to have much interest in that.

So that leaves dipping lower in the pool for added revenue, doesn't it? Quelle surprise?....

 

[Jack Fabulous]

View attachment 67142484

That's for any cave-dwellers out there who might have missed a few years here and there.

Sorry to break it to you, Mr. cave-dweller but your little graph thingy shows receipts vs. outlays through 2009. WTF??? That's about the equivalent of me asking what the all time home run record is and you putting up a graph of touchdowns scored by year over a ten year stretch.

It is kind of "official looking", though.:roll:

 

[OpportunityCost]

Your side is in a spot of trouble here. The folks at the top tend to have gotten there by dealing successfully with crises and by passing ground-breaking legislation. Ending the Great Bush Recession that quickly. Ending the Travesty in Iraq. PPACA and the end of DADT. On the cusp of gay marriage and meaningful immigration reform. And then there's that Nobel Peace Prize thing. It's like Wall Street, tobacco, credit card, edcuation, and pay equity reform along with killing bin Laden while saving the auto industry are all going to have to go into footnotes here.

The #10 spot right now is the province of JFK and James Knox Polk, both of whom were impressive, but they didn't serve eight years between them. They may be getting a new neighbor here before too long.

Except Obama sees political goals before governing. Except Obama places the destruction of the other party ahead of other Americans, except the little weasel has never governed all Americans, just the ones that elected him. That is decidedly not the path to a great President. Polarizing, divisive Presidents dont make the top 10. Youre confusing the media with the reality. Its not hard to look good when the media is on their knees 24/7.

 

[Gimmesometruth]

I'm not sure where you are coming from. I've suggested there is no US Industrial Policy, and you're asking me to find it? In fairness, I should have written "no policy" instead of "poor policy".

Yes, you should have, which is what I corrected, which you concede.

How many people do private international corporations employ?

World-wide? idunno, tangent much?

 

[OpportunityCost]

That's why the data were from 2007. I guess you didn't read that part. I tried not to use big words.

Well dont use stupidly irrelevant data and I wont have to tell you its stupid and irrelevant.

You dont like people poking holes in your bad arguments do you?

Simply: data from before the financial crisis is misleading and wrong. Debt and spending are a lot higher now.

Should I use bigger words to look self important or should I leave that to you?

 

[Gimmesometruth]

Given the abysmal results of the stimulus, I suppose I would go with' Boy , can you imagine how much WORSE things would have been had it not been passed?" Of course nobody can prove it wrong.

I'd stay away from the " It wasn't big enough" line though.
grounded, rational ) people saw such poor results from the first one-which was humongous-there was absolutely no reason for ( again sane, grounded) people to believe more would have somehow magically triggered some econmic tripwire which would bring the economy roaring back to life. By grounded rational peopel, I mean people who don't believe it when gadflys like Paul Krugman tell them that rhinoceros they see over ther is really a zebra.

An appeal to authority....without finding authority to back your claim.

well played.

 

[Jack Fabulous]

Well dont use stupidly irrelevant data and I wont have to tell you its stupid and irrelevant.

You dont like people poking holes in your bad arguments do you?

Simply: data from before the financial crisis is misleading and wrong. Debt and spending are a lot higher now.

Should I use bigger words to look self important or should I leave that to you?

You may want to throw in a couple multicolored graphs. It doesn't matter what they represent they just need to look important.

That seems to be preferred deflection method.

 

[Cardinal Fang]

Mmm..., no, if the WH had really used its influence, it could have been larger, but the President was not willing and went with Summers rather than Romer.

The choice was not between Summers and Romer, but between pass and fail. Things had been reasonably cordial through December, but the tone changed after New Year's. Reaction to Obama'as speech at George Mason University was purely partisan, and then the orders came down from party leader Limbaugh -- I hope he fails. No working across the aisle, no giving in to the new guy. Stonewall him across the board. The perfect from that point on could not become the enemy of the good. It was ordeal enough just getting the crummy $787 billion through. None of these $1.0 trillion, $1.2 trillion, and $1.4 trillion plans could ever have gotten off the ground. That's politics.

 

[Gimmesometruth]

Good afternoon, Ocean515.

Good paying jobs would be a start, but he hasn't seemed to have much interest in that.

Funny, since the GOP has done absolutely zero on jobs programs while the largest sector of job losses was govt employment. we had our austerity going on at the state local level while Congress fiddled, save for the ARRA...which had a very small portion for state/local employment.

So that leaves dipping lower in the pool for added revenue, doesn't it? Quelle surprise?....

incongruousness, but income gains were hardly seen at the "bottom" over the last 4 years.

 

[CaptinSarcastic]

Keep in mind that the GSE's purchased only conforming loans -- those that met their minimum underwtiting standards. The porrly underwritten rejects had to go off to Wall Street whose private-label shops would buy and sell off almost anything. The typical note that failed and caused the credit crisis and ensuing Great Bush Recession was written in 2005-06 by a private broker (Countrywide, Ameriquest, New Century Financial, etc.) into subprime or other markets with excessive high-cost, high-profit terms attached for sale and securitization through Wall Street, not the GSE's. Here is a graph of how it all happened...

This is probably the best example of the conservative information bubble. If you ask any conservative what the primary drivers of the economic collapse were, they will all say the same exact, factually inaccurate thing. They will say the collapse was caused by Barney Frank, Fannie and Freddie, and The Community Reinvestment Act.

Barney was a minority member on the House Finance Committee on which Republicans could have passed anything they wanted without his support.

Fannie and Freddie only bought conforming loans, which are far different than the NINJA (no income, no job, no assets) loans the boutiques were selling.

The CRA had nothing to do with the crisis, fully 94% of the sub-prime loans were made by institutions who did not have to comply with the CRA, in other words, they made the loans not to get people into houses, but to turn a profit.

And boy did they turn a profit.... for a while. The banks learned that they could underwrite a mortgage they KNEW was crap, and then package it in a bundle, get a AAA rating on it from S&P and Moody's, and make a ton of cash.

This was a systemic failure that was allowed to happen as a result of the failure of the SEC to even look at these instruments, a conscious decision that whatever the market does is okay, it will be self-correcting. It wasn't, and because of this criminal negligence, the American people (along with people around the world) were given a terrible choice, bail out these criminals and prevent a complete global economic collapse, or don't. The crazy thing is that knowing what we know now, these banksters have still managed to buy enough influence to be able to do it again.

But Republicans who can apparently read, so have access to all of this information, choose to either only believe information from inside the bubble, or IMO more likely, to only hear information from inside the bubble.

Here is what Alan Greenspan said about regulation of the mortgage instruments:


October 23, 2008 “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” he told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last year.”


Henry Waxman “Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?”

Mr. Greenspan conceded: “Yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.”

“I had been going for 40 years with considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well” – the idea that regulation was not needed because bankers would seek to protect their reputations and their “counter-parties” would look to their own interest.

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organizations, specifically banks, is such that they were best capable of protecting shareholders and equity in the firms.” The fact that they simply sought predatory gains for themselves – in the form of losses for their customers and clients (and it turns out, taxpayers” was “a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works.”

Ironically, this is one of the reasons why high capital gains tax rates of the past protect the economy. Capitalist will always want to increase their wealth, that is by definition, what capitalists do, and this has served our country very well most of the time. But in times past, when the tax cost of selling was so high, people held on to their businesses, and when capitalist know they are in for the long haul, they make long haul decisions. When they can cash out quarterly, they make short term decisions. Think of the difference between Sam Walton and his heirs, that is the difference between the progressive system of 50 years ago and the supply side tax system of today. Yes, Walton's heirs have amassed enormous wealth for themselves, but virtually all at the expense of the values that Sam felt were more important than a quick buck (or billion).

American capitalist patriots of the last century would be rolling over in their graves if they saw the state of American capitalism today.

The law of unintended consequences of supply-side economics, screw the employees, screw the customers, screw the country, screw the company itself, but take as much cash out as you can as soon as you can.

 

[Gimmesometruth]

The choice was not between Summers and Romer, but between pass and fail. Things had been reasonably cordial through December, but the tone changed after New Year's. Reaction to Obama'as speech at George Mason University was purely partisan, and then the orders came down from party leader Limbaugh -- I hope he fails. No working across the aisle, no giving in to the new guy. Stonewall him across the board. The perfect from that point on could not become the enemy of the good. It was ordeal enough just getting the crummy $787 billion through. None of these $1.0 trillion, $1.2 trillion, and $1.4 trillion plans could ever have gotten off the ground. That's politics.

As the articles clearly pointed out, the President gained nothing from "reaching out", he should have gone bigger, and again, Summers did not even allow Romer's full advice to get to the President's eyes and ears...but again, the President did not sell it since he didn't fully see the size of what was needed. And again, as I pointed out, even Summers NOW sees his own error.

 

[ocean515]

Yes, you should have, which is what I corrected, which you concede.

World-wide? idunno, tangent much?

LOL

You have been making the point about private international corporations offshoring jobs. It would seem to follow you could put a number on how many people are involved.

 

[Cardinal Fang]

Given the abysmal results of the stimulus, I suppose I would go with' Boy , can you imagine how much WORSE things would have been had it not been passed?" Of course nobody can prove it wrong. I'd stay away from the " It wasn't big enough" line though. grounded, rational ) people saw such poor results from the first one-which was humongous-there was absolutely no reason for ( again sane, grounded) people to believe more would have somehow magically triggered some econmic tripwire which would bring the economy roaring back to life. By grounded rational peopel, I mean people who don't believe it when gadflys like Paul Krugman tell them that rhinoceros they see over ther is really a zebra.

Typical talk one might hear in the back of a turnip truck. ARRA was monitored and evaluated by a sizable number of well-known public and private sector statistical analysis shops. CEA, CBO, the Fed, Moody's, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, IHS Global Insight, and so on. Each shop relied upon its own internal and proprietary models and projections to do this work, and yet they all ended up in very much the same ballpark. At the end of 2010, there were 3+ million jobs in the economy that would not have been there without ARRA. about two points had been shaved off the unemployment rate, and about the same amount had been added to GDP growth rates. Obviously, more money would have been better, but this was the best that obstructionist Republicans were going to let past them. They had really preferred a package of nothing but more tax cuts for the rich and mega-corporations, you know. That's their answer to freaking everything.

 

[ocean515]

How many of them could put forward an actually coherent reason for such disagreement?


While the most recent incomplete reporting from China suggest that they might have drawn about even with us, that would still leave us and them as easily the two largest manufacturing economies in the world. Of course it takes them ten times as many manufacturing workers to keep up. But even at that, China -- like all of the world's twelve large manufacturing economies -- has lost manufacturing jobs since the mid-1990's. In fact, China since then has lost more manufacturing jobs than the US presently has. US losses in that time have been about average. The notion that you have to get out of your head is the thought that manufacturing any longer has the cpapacity to provide jobs for the masses. It simply doesn't. Like agriculture a century and more ago, it has lost whatever such capacity it might once have had. Elvis has left the building. Get used to it.

How many could put forth a coherent reason? Why, I suspect all of them.

I think you need to get out of your head the notion the cheap labor issue can't be overcome. As I wrote before, $100's of billions in goods are being shipped into this country that could be manufactured here.

Until the US Government addresses the reason they are not, any attempt to properly address the revenue issue will be a fools errand - something the President is proving adept at running.