Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

[Priceless]

I blame Clinton.

 

[sagard]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Obama needs to either quit making war, or quit spending. ASAP.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

I blame kessel

 

[joecct]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

I blame Mrs. O'Leary's cow.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Obama needs to either quit making war, or quit spending. ASAP.

From Article I, Section 8

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

 

[LynahFan]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Nobody said he wasn't ALLOWED to do those things.

But he'd better stop if he wants to be re-elected. Why doesn't he understand these basic principles that the majority of Americans do? Is he just dumber than half of the population?

ETA: speaking of dumb. Let's see, so that's $2B to create 3000 permanent jobs, or $667K per job. Awesome. Give out that same $2B in small business loans, and you'd easily get twice as many jobs resulting. Or looking at the $2B to power 70,000 homes - that's $28.5K per home. You'd get a far greater reduction in CO2 footprint by spending $5K each on 400,000 homes to upgrade furnaces, hot water heaters, and insulation. Too bad those things aren't "sexy" like huge, wasteful, inefficient solar boondoggles. Anyone surprised to see style over substance from this administration?

 

[Patman]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Now now, despite the REQUIRED inefficiency the green jobs will save our economy... somehow. Despite the fact that the debt can only be remedied by increased national efficiency or an urge for foreign nations to use our currency and "buy american" or that our current economic problems can only be solved by getting people employed under traditional means doing jobs needed within a proper functioning society.

edit: Of course there's the Krugman model... pile up on debt, find a way to make the economy overheat and then immediately pay off the bills... but even that requires an increase of efficiency for which competing nations can't keep up with... sadly you can only develop the internet once.

 

[Red Cloud]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

I rather enjoyed the Waddling Fool's final post in the last thread. I love how none of his responses actually refuted what Bakunin said about the inherent differences between debts to corporations and paying taxes to the government. Especially the last one, where he just mindlessly (although that's pretty much par for the course, isn't it?) starts naming off businesses that failed.

Job well done, Bakunin. You have helped me achieve comedy heaven for the day.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

edit: Of course there's the Krugman model... pile up on debt, find a way to make the economy overheat and then immediately pay off the bills... but even that requires an increase of efficiency for which competing nations can't keep up with... sadly you can only develop the internet once.

That's why we need to develop the next "Internet," whatever that is. Americans are pretty good at building things. Highways, railroads, electricity, curing diseases, atomic power, exploring space...

 

[Patman]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

That's why we need to develop the next "Internet," whatever that is. Americans are pretty good at building things. Highways, railroads, electricity, curing diseases, atomic power, exploring space...

ok, you do understand these things don't just happen, right? They also certainly don't happen when the president is tossing out money to random nonsense projects like "cash for clunkers" or "homebuyer tax credits"... or the "stimulus" which could be adequately summarized as the "Democratic Party minor issue funding wish list"... I'm sure I could go on and on but I never really have the desire to research out the whole list.

The problem is you can't just engineer the "next best thing"... the internet was developed over multiple presidencies and didn't become a practical matter until speeds advanced beyond 150-year old tortoise carrying a piano.

edit: Don't tell me you actually think the Krugman model is a working scenario... Krugman doesn't even include the "next great technology" bit... he thinks the economy will just react to the cash-dump and get the same motor running again.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

ok, you do understand these things don't just happen, right? They also certainly don't happen when the president is tossing out money to random nonsense projects like "cash for clunkers" or "homebuyer tax credits"... or the "stimulus" which could be adequately summarized as the "Democratic Party minor issue funding wish list"... I'm sure I could go on and on but I never really have the desire to research out the whole list.

The problem is you can't just engineer the "next best thing"... the internet was developed over multiple presidencies and didn't become a practical matter until speeds advanced beyond 150-year old tortoise carrying a piano.

edit: Don't tell me you actually think the Krugman model is a working scenario... Krugman doesn't even include the "next great technology" bit... he thinks the economy will just react to the cash-dump and get the same motor running again.

No, those things don't happen in a vacuum. They also don't happen without government funding.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

ok, you do understand these things don't just happen, right? They also certainly don't happen when the president is tossing out money to random nonsense projects like "cash for clunkers" or "homebuyer tax credits"... or the "stimulus" which could be adequately summarized as the "Democratic Party minor issue funding wish list"... I'm sure I could go on and on but I never really have the desire to research out the whole list.

The problem is you can't just engineer the "next best thing"... the internet was developed over multiple presidencies and didn't become a practical matter until speeds advanced beyond 150-year old tortoise carrying a piano.

edit: Don't tell me you actually think the Krugman model is a working scenario... Krugman doesn't even include the "next great technology" bit... he thinks the economy will just react to the cash-dump and get the same motor running again.

Did you just equate the home buyer's incentive to cash for clunkers? Because they aren't even in the same universe.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Nobody said he wasn't ALLOWED to do those things.

But he'd better stop if he wants to be re-elected. Why doesn't he understand these basic principles that the majority of Americans do? Is he just dumber than half of the population?

ETA: speaking of dumb. Let's see, so that's $2B to create 3000 permanent jobs, or $667K per job. Awesome. Give out that same $2B in small business loans, and you'd easily get twice as many jobs resulting.

Right now average consumer and business sentiment is low and slipping. If the government was to give me a big check tommorrow...I'd be happy, but I'm still not going out to buy that new home entertainment system as who knows what tomorrow brings. If businesses get a stash full of cash...they'll sit on it and not hire. Evidence? Even as companies had profits that blew away expectations the last 3 quarters and the stock market almost doubled from 6500 to 11500...employment didn't budged. ...IMO the military option is just the worst government spending as it serves almost no public good, but it will cause other countries to spend more making it harder to stop later.

So in a normal economy youre right on. But this is not a normal economy. The problem is not pushing money out there...there are big banks that will be happy to take your money. Unfortunately the government is the best avenue to make sure that projects get started...and private contractors are hired...so investment actually turns into circulating capital. This is about the psychology of consumption.

The deficit is a huge problem. But its important to remember at least half of the solution is fixing govt revenues as about half of Americans didn't pay taxes last year due to the recession. And hiring and consumption is best way to fix it.

Or looking at the $2B to power 70,000 homes - that's $28.5K per home. You'd get a far greater reduction in CO2 footprint by spending $5K each on 400,000 homes to upgrade furnaces, hot water heaters, and insulation. Too bad those things aren't "sexy" like huge, wasteful, inefficient solar boondoggles. Anyone surprised to see style over substance from this administration?

Furnaces, insulation, skylights, doors and windows all have major upgrade govt rebates today. IMO this is pretty good. It targets a public good...and it doesn't just give money to someone who will sit on it...but rather it forces business to be done to unlock those funds. So do you increase these subsidies? Don't think so. You quickly reach diminshing returns and are soon just burning money as the people who were upgrading would have upgraded with more moderate rebates.

All in all...the administration certainly hasn't been perfect (primarily in its choice of priorities). But IMO the overall approach has been fairly sound and logical...this has not been the case for the GOP over the last decade.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

You have helped me achieve comedy heaven for the day.

You're welcome. It does get tiresome when people are deliberately obtuse, though. Just for ****s and giggles, I'll address his response point-by-point (or non-point, as the case may be). To those who weren't paying attention in the last thread, this all has to do with my contention that it is idiotic to fear corporate America's power over us relative to the government's power over us.

Pay your taxes and obey the law and you have nothing to worry about.

Paying my bills on time and in full allows me to dodge higher interest rates and late fees. Paying my taxes on time and in full doesn't allow me to dodge higher tax rates imposed by Congress or any rule changes they choose to implement (such as restricting itemized deductions). To put it another way: credit card companies don't influence my behavior; the government's tax policies certainly do.

This next quote relates to the power of Congress to reinstate the military draft in the future:

An asteroid can destroy the planet tomorrow.

Something like that hasn't happened in tens of millions of years. We had two drafts in the 20th century. I don't think we need the stat nerds on this board to tell us which of these is more likely to happen in our lifetime. The next response somehow manages to be even more dense / ridiculous.

Working for a security company is not the same as being drafted by the US government to take up arms. Don't pretend that it is.

Both are voluntary. One pays a lot better.

The draft is voluntary? ****, my dad will be surprised to hear that.

The next response deals with him making a comment that companies don't care if you buy their products with money you don't have, which led me to mention that the credit card companies care about failing to collect on their debts, which led to this:

Doesn't that destroy your credit rating?

Obviously, and that has nothing to do with the original point. If I'm selling you something, I have no reason whatsoever to care where you got the money. Cash, check, debit card, or credit card - all of them are legally acceptable forms of payment. If you fail to repay your debt incurred by buying my product, that's your problem as well as the problem of the company that extended you the credit. It's not as though the credit card company somehow compelled you to use the card irresponsibly; that was your choice.

Lastly, posting a random list of companies that went bust is hardly a compelling argument that corporate stupidity costs more than government stupidity.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Evidence? Even as companies had profits that blew away expectations the last 3 quarters and the stock market almost doubled from 6500 to 11500...employment didn't budge

First off, it's easy to "blow away" expectations and play the "beat the number" game when the previous year's business was terrible. Secondly, employment is a lagging indicator - companies are always slow to hire coming out of a recession because they need to be certain that business won't go back into the toilet again.

But this is not a normal economy.

Not normal compared to what? High unemployment and a reluctance to spend is typical during and immediately after a recession. Come on, this is basic economics. Just because the recessions of '91 and '01 were relatively tame doesn't mean they're all like that.

Unfortunately the government is the best avenue to make sure that projects get started...and private contractors are hired...so investment actually turns into circulating capital. This is about the psychology to spend but society doesn't understand this.

The only thing government has accomplished is to help create two gigantic asset bubbles that collapsed and did severe damage to the economy in the process. Call me a cynic, but I don't think further government manipulation of the economy is a great idea. The only thing that the homebuyer credit and cash for clunkers accomplished is to compress the demand into a shorter timeframe. Auto sales fell dramatically after the clunkers program ended: why? Because the people who took advantage of the program were mostly going to buy that year anyway. They simply did so a bit earlier than they otherwise would have to take advantage of the government incentive. Something similar to that has now occurred with housing: strong sales in April, and dismal sales in June.

Furnaces, insulation, skylights, doors and windows all have major upgrade govt rebates today. IMO this is pretty good. It targets a public good...and it doesn't just give money to someone who will sit on it...but rather it forces business to be done to unlock those funds.

If our debt is roughly equal to our GDP, why the **** are we handing out money to people to do things that are considered a common sense aspect of homeownership?

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Paying my bills on time and in full allows me to dodge higher interest rates and late fees. Paying my taxes on time and in full doesn't allow me to dodge higher tax rates imposed by Congress or any rule changes they choose to implement (such as restricting itemized deductions). To put it another way: credit card companies don't influence my behavior; the government's tax policies certainly do.

So credit card companies can't just raise rates because they feel like it? That's odd, because all of my former credit cards raised their rates from ~15% to 23-30%...even though I paid my bills on time.

This next quote relates to the power of Congress to reinstate the military draft in the future:

Something like that hasn't happened in tens of millions of years. We had two drafts in the 20th century. I don't think we need the stat nerds on this board to tell us which of these is more likely to happen in our lifetime.

The earth is bombarded by asteroids on a regular basis...our Solar System is a shooting gallery. We haven't been hit by a "big one" in about 100 years (that little pebble that hit ground in Russia in 1908).

The draft is voluntary? ****, my dad will be surprised to hear that.

No, military service is voluntary. There is no draft. You don't seem to understand this. In the unlikely event of a draft, you can claim conscientious objector status or get a deferment (ask Dick Cheney).

Lastly, posting a random list of companies that went bust is hardly a compelling argument that corporate stupidity costs more than government stupidity.

That wasn't a list of companies that went bust. That was a partial list of companies that engaged in criminal behavior which had ramifications far beyond bankrupting their shareholders. Genuity was the first Internet company. When the WorldCom scandal came to light, the market went south so fast they were unable to recover and were bought out by L3. Their stock went from $225/share to worthless in a very short time. Do you want to recount the ways in which the crooks at Enron wiped out wealth on a generational scale?

 

[Rover]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Hmmm...in the spirit of the day I'll try to keep this on subject.

Lynah, I find your criticisms short sighted. Simply put, the USA needs to get off of foreign energy sources. Simply put #2, there ain't enough oil in the US to meet our energy needs. So, the US needs to get energy elsewhere.

For that main reason, you need to start somewhere. 2 Billion in loans to develop more efficient solar energy is perfectly reasonable with that in mind. Utility companies don't have the $$$ to shell out 2Bn on experimental projects. That kind of money is probably the total market cap of most of these companies. Likewise, the oil industry has no incentive to develop something with a lower ROI than what they're doing now. That leaves the government, which has a vested national security and economic interest here.

This is why I often say conservative policies tend to benefit China far more than America. Why? Guess which country is currently plowing much more resources into developing domestic energy like this, because they too are overly dependent on foreign oil? That's right - China. Think we're having trouble competing now? Wait until they day they're harnessing their own energy to power their economy, while we're still spending money and using the military to secure hostile countries half way around the world.

 

[ScottM]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

So credit card companies can't just raise rates because they feel like it? That's odd, because all of my former credit cards raised their rates from ~15% to 23-30%...even though I paid my bills on time.

Now the ability to unilaterally change rates, terms, etc. is more limited. They were getting their licks in before the CARD Act and Fed regulations went into effect. Payment history had little to do with those hikes, limit reductions, etc. The card companies were cutting their risk exposure to consumers in general. Congress saw fit to pull the teeth out of their risk-based pricing which allowed them to offer low rates to good customers, and higher rates to bad customers. You can send your thanks to Carolyn Mahoney, Barney Frank, etc.

 

[eaglehockeyrules]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Obama needs to either quit making war, or quit spending. ASAP.

No, Obama needs to get working on creating those 2 million jobs he promised; another campaign promise he never came through on. Obama really should address the economy and 10% unemployment, yet Obama seems to avoid those real, nasty Presidential issues by going on the campaign trail to schill for Immigration Reform.

At least under Dubya unemployment was only 3.5%!

"Those were the days..."

 

[amherstblackbear]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Credit Card Companies certainly influence my behavior.

Chase nailed me with a near 30% APR even though I didn't have a late payment or overage in the decade that I had the account and, to the best of my knowledge, my FICO was always > 700.

When I couldnt get them to explain, I told them to go eff themselves and opened a Discover account.

lessons:

arbitrary decisions by corporations do affect us (point priceless)
I can't tell the government to go screw (point bakunin)