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US Job Loss Report is Blow to Still Fragile Economy

Dirty Harry said:
It could not have been much worse going in. The economy was on the brink of a total collapse. Is it still there? Wall Street doesn't think so.
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It is true that most people think that the economy was on the brink of collapse. TARP and what the Fed did stopped the banking system from going under.

The 787 billion that this administration pushed through allowed some people to keep their jobs, granted. But at what cost?

It seems pretty easy for this generation to say spend anything to save my job, without thinking about the problem we are leaving the upcoming generations.
 
Dirty Harry said:
Which all led to the Savings and Loan crisis that cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
Reagans recovery lasted as long as his second term, after which Bush Sr. was left with an economic mess that cost him a second term. Reagan used deficit spending to create a very temporary recovery. Ronald Reagan increased the deficit by 35 percent in eight years. He increased spending much like Obama. He also increased taxes as much as he cut them. Remember his social security tax increase?
Some of Reagans policies helped bring us to the point where we are today.
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Give it up DH. You can't change partisan minds that want Obama to fail and will blame everything bad on him by using the facts. :mrgreen:

Let me spell out it to you:

Obama bad
Carter bad
Reagan Good
Bush Good

That's all you need to know to read these righties like a book. ;)
 
yup, a book:

the stimulus---bad

taxes, regulations and penalties, roadblocks to JOBS---bad

middle class tax increases---bad

payroll tax hikes---bad

GREEN jobs prioritized over every other color---bad

the bailouts with no strings---bad

the bankers' refusals to budge---bad

raising the debt ceiling a tril---bad

ripping the roof off fannie and fred---bad

medicaid mandates on 49 states---bad

the doc fix---bad

service on the debt approaching 1T per year---bad

guaranteeing in full aig's obligations---bad

the aig bonuses---bad

secrets kept from the sec---bad

the secret deal with phrma---bad

double counting a quarter T in health care---bad

unemployment at 17% after a year of spending trillions on stimuli and bailouts and bonuses for every bankrupt bagman with a beef---bad

deficits at 14% of gdp---bad

etc

none of us wrote that book

heck, even bush (LOL!) didn't

only obama, he's the protagonist on every page
 
washunut said:
It is true that most people think that the economy was on the brink of collapse. TARP and what the Fed did stopped the banking system from going under.

The 787 billion that this administration pushed through allowed some people to keep their jobs, granted. But at what cost?

It seems pretty easy for this generation to say spend anything to save my job, without thinking about the problem we are leaving the upcoming generations.
Click to expand...

Kind of like wasting trillions in Iraq on nation building and regime change and charging it to our children? At least the stimulus is pumping money into our economy.
The 787 billion was mostly tax cuts, credits, unemployment extensions and aid to the hurting states and most of it hasn't been spent yet.
Bernanke said we needed economic stimulus so Obama was just following his advice. The best scenario would have been Obama taking over a sound economy, but that didn't happen.
 
The Prof said:
yup, a book:

the stimulus---bad

taxes, regulations and penalties, roadblocks to JOBS---bad

middle class tax increases---bad

payroll tax hikes---bad

GREEN jobs prioritized over every other color---bad

the bailouts with no strings---bad

the bankers' refusals to budge---bad

raising the debt ceiling a tril---bad

ripping the roof off fannie and fred---bad

medicaid mandates on 49 states---bad

the doc fix---bad

service on the debt approaching 1T per year---bad

guaranteeing in full aig's obligations---bad

the aig bonuses---bad

secrets kept from the sec---bad

the secret deal with phrma---bad

double counting a quarter T in health care---bad

unemployment at 17% after a year of spending trillions on stimuli and bailouts and bonuses for every bankrupt bagman with a beef---bad

deficits at 14% of gdp---bad

etc

none of us wrote that book

heck, even bush (LOL!) didn't

only obama, he's the protagonist on every page
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Did you honestly think everything would be better by now after the mess he inherited?:roll: I understand why Obama asked for a recount after he looked at the books.

I just would like to know if you were just as outraged while Bush was raising the debt ceiling, exploding the deficit and spending like a drunken fool? Or is it just pure partisanship?
 
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Dirty Harry said:
It could not have been much worse going in. The economy was on the brink of a total collapse. Is it still there? Wall Street doesn't think so.
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Wall Street was riding high not long before it collapsed, somehow I don't really trust them as a good indicator of economic health. After all, Wall Street was taking a lot of government money, weren't they? Funny they didn't see it coming.
 
Cephus said:
Wall Street was riding high not long before it collapsed, somehow I don't really trust them as a good indicator of economic health. After all, Wall Street was taking a lot of government money, weren't they? Funny they didn't see it coming.
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I don't trust Wall Street at all either, but it is probably better that the DOW is over 10k right now than at 2000 had it kept on dropping.
A lot of people saw it coming, the poor schmucks just trying to save for retirement didn't. I saw it coming. I bailed out of the market a couple weeks after it's high. I believe it is in for a major correction in the near future.
 
Dirty Harry said:
Kind of like wasting trillions in Iraq on nation building and regime change and charging it to our children? At least the stimulus is pumping money into our economy.
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Where do you think the money spent on the Iraq war actually went?
 
RightinNYC said:
Where do you think the money spent on the Iraq war actually went?
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dollarsariveiraq372ready.jpg

Pallets of 100 dollar bills.

The pallets of money we air dropped over there went to prop up another corrupt regime. We might as well have flushed that money down the toilet. It was a huge drag on our economy.

Much of the money spent in Iraq is unaccounted for.
 
RightinNYC said:
Where do you think the money spent on the Iraq war actually went?
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The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

The United States has spent $19.2 billion trying to develop Iraqi security forces since 2003, the GAO said, including at least $2.8 billion to buy and deliver equipment. But the GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David H. Petraeus, who now commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.

Weapons Given to Iraq Are Missing - washingtonpost.com
 
iraq is pure argumentation, it's a dispute settled POLITICALLY in nov, 08

generic apologies for the stimulus are similarly stale, talking points from last summer

the december jobs report is NEW, NOW, TODAY

ie, where most americans live

equally in-the-now are revelations of exactly what geithner's been up to at treasury

as is health care, with its criminal requirements on individuals to buy what they can't afford, its massive medicaid mandates on bankrupt states, its half T cuts to m and m while immeasurably expanding both, already overstrained...

as if the roofless reconstruction of fannie and fred

as is the refusal of bailed out bankers to belly up to the bar

obama's facing a need to bailout states like CA at the same time he's imposing these murderous medicaid mandates

typically incoherent

obama said it himself, his REACTION to the dismal december report---he's still EXPLORING avenues

he's sposed to have answers, that's what he was elected for

an effective leader, at this point, says---stay the course

can you even imagine obama going there?

LOL!

bush was a loser, obama's worse

sorry

Governors balk over what healthcare bill will cost states - The Boston Globe
 
Dirty Harry said:
dollarsariveiraq372ready.jpg

Pallets of 100 dollar bills.

The pallets of money we air dropped over there went to prop up another corrupt regime. We might as well have flushed that money down the toilet. It was a huge drag on our economy.

Much of the money spent in Iraq is unaccounted for.
Click to expand...

And what percentage of the total spending do those pallets amount to?

My point is that although I don't have the actual figures (because I don't know if they're even released), I would wager that the vast, vast, vast majority of spending on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars went to:

1) Soldier salaries,
2) Long-term care for veterans,
3) US defense contractors, and
4) Other US companies

I'm not arguing that the wars were a good financial investment. I'm simply saying that if we're measuring things by how much money they redistribute within the US economy, then the wars surpass the stimulus in total amount and are probably close in terms of percentage.

winston53660 said:
The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

The United States has spent $19.2 billion trying to develop Iraqi security forces since 2003, the GAO said, including at least $2.8 billion to buy and deliver equipment. But the GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David H. Petraeus, who now commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.

Weapons Given to Iraq Are Missing - washingtonpost.com
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Stimulus!

Iraqi Army to Ditch AK-47s for M-16s

:lol:
 
Dirty Harry said:
Too early to make that call.
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such a muscular defense

LOL!

ok, we can wait a few months, if you want

the ny times and wash po are coming awfully close, tho

read the links in the op
 
The Prof said:
such a muscular defense

LOL!

ok, we can wait a few months, if you want

the ny times and wash po are coming awfully close, tho

read the links in the op
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Obama has only been president for a year. You can't really judge a president on what he does until after he does it. You thought Obama was worse than Bush before he even took office.

If, when he is done, the country is better off than when he started, he will be better than Bush.
 
Dirty Harry said:
You thought Obama was worse than Bush before he even took office.
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so now he presumes to tell me what i think

LOL!

there's no doubt, it's empirical---lots of americans are coming to find obama worse than bush NOW

for the approx 20 reasons i've outlined and linked in this thread

for which you press not a keystroke in defense

too interested in ME

LOL!

and history

obama's a disaster

even his most ardent apologists are utterly unarmed
 
The Prof said:
so now he presumes to tell me what i think

LOL!

there's no doubt, it's empirical---lots of americans are coming to find obama worse than bush NOW

for the approx 20 reasons i've outlined and linked in this thread

for which you press not a keystroke in defense

too interested in ME

LOL!

and history

obama's a disaster

even his most ardent apologists are utterly unarmed
Click to expand...

You can not judge a presidency until it's over and the results of the decisions made have been realized. Obama is not a disaster, yet. That's just being partisan.
The claim that Obama is worse than Bush is an opinion that is 3 years premature.
 
Dirty Harry said:
Kind of like wasting trillions in Iraq on nation building and regime change and charging it to our children? At least the stimulus is pumping money into our economy.
The 787 billion was mostly tax cuts, credits, unemployment extensions and aid to the hurting states and most of it hasn't been spent yet.
Bernanke said we needed economic stimulus so Obama was just following his advice. The best scenario would have been Obama taking over a sound economy, but that didn't happen.
Click to expand...

The Iraq spending was bad as well.

That being said this should be a debate with facts not an ideological waste of people's time.

So tax cuts to some is part of the stimulus, money to states and then certain projects, road construction etc.

To say that Obama was just taking Bernanke's advice is beyond silly. Congress came up with how the money was going to be spent not the administration.

The economy was in a mess when the new adminsitration came in fine. How long do you get to be in a job before folks start telling you stop complaining about the guy before you and get the job done.

I do not think it would be worth anyone's time to debate with you whether the current administration was focused on the economy versus health care in it's first year in office. Save the arguement that you can do two things at once. The reality is that health care absorbed more time in congress than he expected but once they went down that road there was no turning back.

The fundemental issue you refuse to address is that this generation is stealing from future generations.
 
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ap today: stimulus "spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment"

AP IMPACT: Road projects don't help unemployment

yet congress is working, even as we blah-blah, to do only more of the same

except they can't call it "stimulus," a dirty word

it's a JOBS bill, get that straight

so much for shovel readiness
 
washunut said:
So congress put together the stimulus solely at the suggestion of the Fed, sure
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Of course not, but when the head of the FED says a stimulus package is needed and recommends one, it will happen. Obama had no choice but to follow the FEDs recommendation.
 
Dirty Harry said:
Of course not, but when the head of the FED says a stimulus package is needed and recommends one, it will happen. Obama had no choice but to follow the FEDs recommendation.
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Come on, the head of the Fed may not even be confirmed for another term. I may be wrong on the timing but early this year there were a ton of people that wanted his head.

Obama on the other hand had 60+ approval rating.

Besides all that I am not even against some sort of stimulus. I would have preferred one that was more strategic in nature rather than the type we had. Something that had a payback.
 
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