Is Barack Hussien Obama purposely trying to destroy the US economy?

[Meneldil]

Well, if Americans actually think scenes like this and this are preferable to relaxing in a train that takes you to where you want to go, then I don't really know what to say.
I know in certain areas that don't have a very dense population trains don't make sense but I doubt they want to connect swamp village one in Alabama with desert tent three in Texas.

You clearly don't understand the issue here: High speed trains are socialists. They are a way to enforce Barack Hussein Ben Obama's socialist (or rather, communist, that's where Dave made a mistake) agenda.
Furthermore, it is well known that train drivers are more often than not pinko leftist multicultural muslim terrorists.

The free-market didn't fail, a badly regulated free-market failed. America will fix the regulation (at least better than it was), and will continue to out-grow and outperform europe for the forseeable future.

Wut? Do I need to link you some GDP, HDI or other Oecd figures? Europe is already outgrowing the US, despite the 12 new rather poor (that's an understatement) members.

[CrossLOPER]

Well, if Americans actually think scenes like this and this are preferable to relaxing in a train that takes you to where you want to go, then I don't really know what to say.

SHARING personal space? Sounds like SOCIALISM.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Intriguing, but surely the main aim of the vast majority of business in a global downturn (ie there's pretty much nowhere to sell to) is to cut costs? Giving them tax breaks would simply accelerate their disinvestment whilst maintaining payouts to shareholders. Apart from the fact that most corporations avoid a significant part of their existing tax burden. However, when the upturn comes (assuming that the depth of the recession is not exacerbated by the tax cuts) your plan would, I think result in marginally quicker re-investment because of larger capital bases. I would agree with you that income tax cuts would have no effect - quite sensibly, people will save against the storm - but I would argue that this applies to corporations too.

Well, lots of corporations are in danger of losing lots of money. Corporate tax cuts let them keep more money, so the business is healthier. Capital gains tax cuts encourage stock market investment.

The other issue with tax cuts is that at a time when tax revenues are falling significantly anyway, you are going to substantially increase the deficit. I don't really understand how this is much different from increasing the deficit by borrowing - you're still in a whole world of debt. Unless of course, you substantially cut huge federal programmes like welfare and defence - which I would support.

According to some theories, tax cuts and burrowing have the same effect in terms of deficits. The difference is how the money you spend/give back to people affects the economy. This new stimulus, IIRC, offers great new amounts of funds to welfare and makes it easier for people to get on welfare.

This has so far proven impossible, and banks are unreformed. Even in Europe where several banks have been effectively nationalised, politicians haven't found the testicular fortitude to actually set bank policy. (And one might argue, what do civil servants and politicians have to offer in running the financial sector efficiently? ) How do you force the banks to deliver when no-one actually knows what the black hole of debt looks like - how do you gainsay a bank that says Fred the Baker's business is not credit-worthy?

Well here in the US we didn't put such requirements on the first $350B we gave out. It doesn't have to be idiot politicians saying who the banks have to loan to (In the US they've already done some of that, passing laws requiring a certain amount be loaned out to the poor and other bad business decisions). We just need to specify that the banks have to use the money we give for loans.

Unfortunately, we don't have a control experiment to check against. We tend to interpret the Great Depression through our own beliefs. I don't know of a major economy that has tried to step away entirely and let the whole thing go to the wall to see what happens, but maybe a keener student of economics can illuminate.

I'm not a keen student of economics? I am aghast sir! Anyways, neither do I, really.

Subject to the caveat noted above, I don't disagree. But the effect of letting the banks go bust is not measurable given the nature of the over-reliance on financial services for the latest spurt of growth. I think you are optimistic to think that such a go-to-the-wall philosophy wouldn't hugely impact on standards of living. If I understand it, the significant moment propelling the sharp downturn was the hands-off decision on Lehman Brothers.

I thought it was the effect of huge numbers of bad mortgages and people not being able to pay them. It has been speculated that Lehman Bros went down because they expected a rescue and so spurned several offers of private investment, after they saw the gov save other banks about a year ago.

I wouldn't expect all banks to fail, just the stupid ones. They'd be bought out by other businesses. We could help the smarter ones extend credit as needed. Instead we inserted the blunt instrument of federal policy into the equation and that hasn't helped.

Personally, I would have liked to see governments let the whole thing wash down the drain. Actually see if the market would respond properly, by picking over the bones of the destruction and using the good bits to start again. Conserving money, facilitate savings, drive down the debt while people are expecting hard times and cuts, and yes, at the right time, use tax cuts to fertilise the new growth.

However, I also recognise that I am pretty well off, and wouldn't lose my job, my home, my hope, my family and my ability to eat as most other people would in such an experiment. Since these needs are high on most people's agendas, I can see why they prefer bail-outs to the probable revolutions that would scar the world. Indeed, were it to get as bad as it might, the peasantry might well be at the door with their pitchforks and torches to dispossess me in lieu, as happened several times before.

So I'm still not seeing a coherent plan that doesn't involve indentured servitude for our grand-children or the Great Unwashed fouling the Orangerie.

I'm an unemployed student who has to get a new career in several months and I wanted the same thing.

EDIT:

Was not about 300 billion of the stimulus some form of tax cut?

Income tax cuts to lower and middle class people (or just handing money out to the lower class who didn't pay taxes in the first place) - which aren't that effective, since people just save the money.

As for socialism, we wouldn't insist they accept the money. As for Japan and long times to get the money flowing - won't the same thing happen with all the infrastructure we're financing?

CR

[Devastatin Dave]

Dave (and anyone else who feels similarly) do you have suggestions about how this economic crisis should be managed which don't involve a stimulus package?
.

Yes, you allow failure. When the people bought more house than they should of, you let them become homeless. When the banks made loans that they should not have to people who have a history of bad credit and are nothing more than lofelong losers, you let them go bankrupt. Those who have lived outside of their means and played Russian Roullete with their retirement in the stock market, you let the bullet pass through their skull. Why should I have to pay for everyone else's f-up? Bush was an idiot with the first bail out and his ridiculous spending. Obama is putting the nail into the coffin of personal responsibilty. All we are doing is causing more pain. We should have, before all the stimulus BS, was allow failure and this issue would be over a lot sonner. We are continueing the problem and only making ourselves more and more dependent on government assistance. People can call me nuts or a tin foil hat wearer, I don't care. This is his plan and its going to work because there are enough people who will believe the media and have been educated (indoctornated) into the belief that the government knows whats best. Its a bloodless revolution an no one cares because they've drank the kool aide...

And yes, it may have started with Fanne Mae and Feddie Mac, but Bush fed this monster and Obama is feeding it steroids...

[drone]

I'm with Dave on this one, Bush should have let it all go down the drain. Every now and then you have to clean house and thin the herd of the poorly run companies. Obama got voted in on "Change", but in reality people fear change, which is what would have happened as businesses collapse and realign to get through this crisis. It would have hurt, but in the long term it would have been more beneficial.

The bailouts and stimulus are just a raid on the Treasury, first for Bush's cronies, and now for Pelosi's/Obama's.

[Furunculus]

Wut? Do I need to link you some GDP, HDI or other Oecd figures? Europe is already outgrowing the US, despite the 12 new rather poor (that's an understatement) members.

.............. which is where all that growth is coming from, and who are the worst hit by the current crisis.

[Spino]

High speed trains? Why? America is a big place and we use cars here. Its just not practical and considering how crappy Amtrak does, why continue a failed course. The "stimulus" is nothing more than a pay-off to his homies at Acorn and the Union bosses. It is also a garantee to hurt the economy to a point where the only thing to survive will be the government which again brings me to the fact that it is his purpose to destroy our way of life in order to bring his socialist agenda to the masses. Read his books, look up his record. Its all there, its just the media was too busy digging through Sarah Palins garbage can to report the truth about this fraud.

Hey, I want high speed trains here... and lots of them... including them magical ones that levitate over the track like some genie put the whammy on 'em. But... I don't want the gummint to build n' run 'em!

Seriously, why the hell can't we open competitive bidding and regional contracts like we did during the 19th century when we were first laying track all across the country?

[rasoforos]

Yes the U.S is such a commie state right now. Already Lenin statues are being erected allover the place, everyone calls eachother comrade and has started growing a beard (indeed even the women)!

Get serious people. Isn't 20 years post cold war enough to give up believing to McCarthy?

The U.S, like every other western country needs to adopt a mixed economy model (Indeed there is no pure capitalism nor any serious economy supports such a contraption) and introduce controls and welfare elements. Being reluctant to do this, the U.S was forced into the blitzkrieg economical readjustment that we are seeing today. Let mistakes past become lessons learnt.

[CrossLOPER]

Seriously, why the hell can't we open competitive bidding and regional contracts like we did during the 19th century when we were first laying track all across the country?

No profit in such a thing.

[LittleGrizzly]

Yes, you allow failure. When the people bought more house than they should of, you let them become homeless. When the banks made loans that they should not have to people who have a history of bad credit and are nothing more than lofelong losers, you let them go bankrupt. Those who have lived outside of their means and played Russian Roullete with their retirement in the stock market, you let the bullet pass through their skull. Why should I have to pay for everyone else's f-up? Bush was an idiot with the first bail out and his ridiculous spending. Obama is putting the nail into the coffin of personal responsibilty. All we are doing is causing more pain. We should have, before all the stimulus BS, was allow failure and this issue would be over a lot sonner.

Hell now this i can't get behind, i see no tin foil hats up to this point and i even think i agree, though im fully behind infrastructure building as part of the stimulus (high speed trains FTW!) i just don't really see why private corporations deserve this money, most western nations bend over backwards to have these companies in our countrys and then when things go badly were supposed to give them money...

Ask yourself.. how many corporations would bail out the goverment/country...

We are continueing the problem and only making ourselves more and more dependent on government assistance. People can call me nuts or a tin foil hat wearer, I don't care. This is his plan and its going to work because there are enough people who will believe the media and have been educated (indoctornated) into the belief that the government knows whats best. Its a bloodless revolution an no one cares because they've drank the kool aide...

I have to disagree here, i have heard the theory before (haven't got a clue where) that the republicans built up such a huge debt so that a future goverment would have no choice but to get rid of welfare programs in order to have a chance of paying such a debt...

Building up huge debts is definetly not going to advance the welfare state, the goverment will continue to build up huge defecits until spending has to be cut drastically, then which is the goverment going to cut... military or welfare, in a country like USA i would imagine it would much more likely be the latter....

[Crazed Rabbit]

Yes the U.S is such a commie state right now. Already Lenin statues are being erected allover the place, everyone calls eachother comrade and has started growing a beard (indeed even the women)!

Get serious people. Isn't 20 years post cold war enough to give up believing to McCarthy?

The U.S, like every other western country needs to adopt a mixed economy model (Indeed there is no pure capitalism nor any serious economy supports such a contraption) and introduce controls and welfare elements. Being reluctant to do this, the U.S was forced into the blitzkrieg economical readjustment that we are seeing today. Let mistakes past become lessons learnt.

You're not terribly familiar with the economic realities in the US, are you?

We have welfare and lots of government regulations over the economy. Indeed, it was federal policies aimed at increasing home ownership and the reckless loans given by the semi-governmental financial institutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that caused most of the underlying problems.

Being too laissez faire has nothing to do with this.

CR

[Vladimir]

Where is the poll?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I love smoking polls.

[Ironside]

Unfortunately, we don't have a control experiment to check against. We tend to interpret the Great Depression through our own beliefs. I don't know of a major economy that has tried to step away entirely and let the whole thing go to the wall to see what happens, but maybe a keener student of economics can illuminate.

Subject to the caveat noted above, I don't disagree. But the effect of letting the banks go bust is not measurable given the nature of the over-reliance on financial services for the latest spurt of growth. I think you are optimistic to think that such a go-to-the-wall philosophy wouldn't hugely impact on standards of living. If I understand it, the significant moment propelling the sharp downturn was the hands-off decision on Lehman Brothers.

While I can't really illuminate what it means, banking and thus a better credit flow has been vital for the growth of the "modern" economy for about 800 years (I might be a bit off on dates, but the riches of the templars came through banking). Risking a cascade effect that takes out most of the banking system would then probably be extremely bad.

Well, lots of corporations are in danger of losing lots of money. Corporate tax cuts let them keep more money, so the business is healthier. Capital gains tax cuts encourage stock market investment.

That's a bigger cut of a smaller pie (companies get taxes on thier profit). I recall the opposite argument when tax cuts are mentioned. And stock market investments? They would then be built on nothing concrete, thus having market bubbles tendencies (that might survive if the stimulus is enough to make the consumption grow again though).

According to some theories, tax cuts and burrowing have the same effect in terms of deficits. The difference is how the money you spend/give back to people affects the economy. This new stimulus, IIRC, offers great new amounts of funds to welfare and makes it easier for people to get on welfare.

As a temporary action it makes sence, people will feel slightly more secure and thus spending more. And the people that end up on welfare as the get fired atm can steel maintain some levels of spending.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

True getting them as permanent welfare recivers would be bad, but increased welfare during hard times are logical, it's in fact intended. Getting them off welfare when the times improves are intended as well though.

I never really gotten they idea that making unemployed dirt poor will somehow make them create work, I mean you only need to look at eastern Europe to see that the concept if flawed and that other factors are much more influencal.

You're not terribly familiar with the economic realities in the US, are you?

We have welfare and lots of government regulations over the economy. Indeed, it was federal policies aimed at increasing home ownership and the reckless loans given by the semi-governmental financial institutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that caused most of the underlying problems.

Being too laissez faire has nothing to do with this.

CR

Actually it does. If you haven't missed it, the bubble of the US house market were the catalyst and not the cause of the current situation. It viewed the flaw of the whole system (eternal growth).

[gaelic cowboy]

Dev Dave trust me you dont want to live in a country where your ideas are are put into action.

[Yoyoma1910]

What we need to do is start a war between some sneetches, which can all profiteer from.



Especially amongst the ones with bellies with stars, and the ones with none upon thars.

[Adrian II]

I believe he is in order to bring forth a socialist state, like the Utopian ones all his radical professors, terrorist buddies, and left wing parents have preached and ingrained into him his entire life.

Obama was the second shooter oin the grassy knoll and in 2001 he personally pulled down the Twin Towers, there's video footage of it on the Interweb! :buckteeth:

Man, oh man. If the amount of energy that Americans put into conspiracy theories could ever be harnassed for useful purposes, you guys could do without oil and nuclear power for the next hundred years.

[Vladimir]

Man, oh man. If the amount of energy that Americans put into conspiracy theories could ever be harnassed for useful purposes, you guys could do without oil and nuclear power for the next hundred years.

Then teh Obamer would tax it to death.

[Gregoshi]

Man, oh man. If the amount of energy that Americans put into conspiracy theories could ever be harnassed for useful purposes, you guys could do without oil and nuclear power for the next hundred years.

I hear the oil companies have the secret to conspiracy theory driven energy locked away in their vaults.

[Subotan]

EVERYTHING sounds like SOCIALISM.

Fix'd. (Not a jibe at CrossLOPER)
Being a socialist, (Social Democrat actually, but it's a broad term), it irritates me how conservative Americans automatically label anything they dislike as socialism. At least do some research and realise that America has a long, long way to go before becoming a socialist state. Trust me; Barack Obama is not a socialist. If he was, you'd know, considering that I and most of Europe would be gushing about him wherever I went.
Obama has the potential though. If he really steps up the environmental work, then he could create a Solar-Powered Keynesian Economy, meaning no nasty supply side shocks as a result of oil.
It doesn't matter if your economic ideals mean that a few people can achieve wealth beyond their wildest dreams; whilst there are black males in inner city slums whose life expectance doesn't creep past 30, whilst families are driven to bankruptcy to pay medical costs, whilst New Orleans still lies empty and devastated, the wealth of a few become irrelevant compared to the poverty of the many.

[Vladimir]

Fix'd. (Not a jibe at CrossLOPER)
Being a socialist, (Social Democrat actually, but it's a broad term), it irritates me how conservative Americans automatically label anything they dislike as socialism. At least do some research and realise that America has a long, long way to go before becoming a socialist state. Trust me; Barack Obama is not a socialist. If he was, you'd know, considering that I and most of Europe would be gushing about him wherever I went.
Obama has the potential though. If he really steps up the environmental work, then he could create a Solar-Powered Keynesian Economy, meaning no nasty supply side shocks as a result of oil.
It doesn't matter if your economic ideals mean that a few people can achieve wealth beyond their wildest dreams; whilst there are black males in inner city slums whose life expectance doesn't creep past 30, whilst families are driven to bankruptcy to pay medical costs, whilst New Orleans still lies empty and devastated, the wealth of a few become irrelevant compared to the poverty of the many.

Europeans *do* love Barack Obama so he must be a socialist, right? The only reason New Orleans is empty and devastated is because today is Ash Wednesday.

[Furunculus]

Hell now this i can't get behind, i see no tin foil hats up to this point and i even think i agree, though im fully behind infrastructure building as part of the stimulus (high speed trains FTW!) i just don't really see why private corporations deserve this money, most western nations bend over backwards to have these companies in our countrys and then when things go badly were supposed to give them money...

Ask yourself.. how many corporations would bail out the goverment/country...

you understand the concept of the moral hazard.................?

[LittleGrizzly]

Europeans *do* love Barack Obama so he must be a socialist, right?

People are just very happy for the change from the last guy, most wouldn't really want his policys in thier country...

you understand the concept of the moral hazard.................?

Yes.

[Adrian II]

Europeans *do* love Barack Obama so he must be a socialist, right?

After the last guy even Vlad the Impaler would make a welcome change.

[Devastatin Dave]

After the last guy even Vlad the Impaler would make a welcome change.

I liked Vlad, he saved Europe regardless of his actions being a lttle rash.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I liked Vlad, he saved Europe regardless of his actions being a lttle rash.

...by staking his claim to the Balkans....

[woad&fangs]

I must say that I have a bit more confidance in the stimulus plan after watching Obama give his speech last night. The investment in science, infrastructure, and education is long overdo anyways. It also seemed like he truly is thinking long term and already making plans about how to deal with the debt.

However, I did turn it off before he finished his whole speech. Pelosi jumping up and applauding like a neurotic hamster every 2 minutes became very annoying

[CountArach]

This thread confirms my suspicions that Dev Dave is a master satirist. Well done sir.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Dev Dave trust me you dont want to live in a country where your ideas are are put into action.

Don't worry, we'll burn this country to the ground before we lower government intervention.

[Adrian II]

I liked Vlad, he saved Europe regardless of his actions being a lttle rash.

He was too pinko for my taste. I'm a right-wing social democrat, Qin Shi Huangdi platform.

[Xiahou]

I must say that I have a bit more confidance in the stimulus plan after watching Obama give his speech last night. The investment in science, infrastructure, and education is long overdo anyways. It also seemed like he truly is thinking long term and already making plans about how to deal with the debt.

That's all standard claptrap anyhow. Sure, he delivered it well- but it still seemed pretty empty. Take education- we've been pouring cash into it for decades. How is throwing more money at the problem going to fix anything?