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| 5/23 |
| 2008/8/27-9/3 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:50987 Activity:kinda low |
8/27 Rising tide has not been lifting all boats:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/about-that-bush-boom
\_ dems, always wanting a handout from highly productive republicans
</sarcasm>
\_ Look at all the whining people in the comments. "Master's degrees
from esteemed universities mean little ... journalism" LAUGH.
This article is stupid though: the data shows improvement from 2006
to 2007 yet Krugman is talking about fantasyland 2000 numbers.
\_ "These increases in earnings follow three years of annual
decline in real earnings for both men and women."
\_ Economics aren't important when you're a POW!
\_ and? do you think the 2000 economy was long term viable
and bush came in and screwed it up?
\_ Yes, I think Bush and the Republicans have been terrible
stewarts of the economy, don't you? The situation in 2000
was no where near as bad as what we have today.
\_ Which actions or nonactions can you put your finger on?
The NASDAQ crash was in March 2000.
DJIA crashed after 9/11/2001.
Why was 2000 so much better than today?
\_ Oh come on. How about a little problem like doubling
the national debt? Blowing $1T on a pointless war?
Giving a huge tax cut to his rich cronies, who of
course invested it (mostly overseas) instead of to
the middle class, who actually would have spent it,
boosting the economy. Adding a budget busting
drug benefit to Medicare, right when we could least
afford it. Should I go on?
\_ Yes but Democrats also voted for that pointless
war and continued to fund it. (do you really
think the war was utterly pointless?)
Medicare drugs? McCain voted against it. Democrats
passed it.
My point, which I'm tired of having to bring up
repeatedly, is that you keep fingering Republicans
for things that both Republicans and Democrats did.
And yet you aren't independent.
It's partisan stupidity.
\_ A majority of Democrats voted against the war,
and also against the Bush tax cuts. You seriously
believe that Iraq isn't "Bush's War"? You are
delusional. All this happened with a GOP President
and a GOP Congress, so yes, they are the ones
responsible. I forgot another one: the whole
housing bubble/meltdown, which Bush encouraged
and failed to do anything about, when he should
have been regulating the IBs. No, I am not
independent. I used to be, but Bush convinced me
to join the Democratic Party.
\_ Bush should have regulated IBs? Don't you think
Congress has some responsibility there? What
exactly should they do? A whole lot of people
bought houses who shouldn't have. That's the
people's fault, just like the dot bomb.
What about the Greenspan and the Fed? Greenspan
was appointed by both R's and D's. Greenspan
admitted that the housing bubble was
engendered by the decline in real long-term
interest rates"
Why do you ignore what happened in 2000/2001?
Where do you think the blame lay there? Bush
again? We have had a Democrat Congress since
2006 and they have done pretty much nothing
different. Furthermore there were no Democrat
initiatives addressing the housing bubble.
\_ 2000/1 is mostly the responsibility of
Bill Clinton. It is the Executive branches
responsibility to control the money supply,
all those fools would not have bought houses
if the Fed and the Treasury Dept had not
been asleep at the switch when the IBs
created all the unregulated money. It would
have been easy for them to turn off the tap,
they just believed that the "invsible hand"
would sort it out. The Democrats have had
how many bills blocked or vetoed since 2006?
The GOP had six years of total power and
they fucked it up. Why are you making
excuses for them? Greenspan is a Randoid
from way back, in no way shape or form
is he a Democrat, nor believe in any kind
of liberal policy framework.
\_ Laugh! Clinton appointed him too.
You tell me how many relevant bills were
blocked or vetoed. Bush only has 12
vetoes so those should be easy for you.
I'm not making
excuses for the R's. IMO the real
problems are ignored by both parties
and people like you. (e.g the Fed)
Obama talks about change but he is not
effectively different from any mainstream
republicrat.
\_ I am not going to try and explain the
very complicated topic of bank
regulation here, but suffice to say
that the Executive alone, via the
FDIC and the OCC has a huge influence
on the money supply. Clinton was pretty
much a moderate, true, but he was still
a much, much better stewart of the
economy than Bush. Obama will reverse
the worst Bush tax cuts and also end
the Iraq War, if nothing else, that
will improve our fiscal deficit. He
is also talking about a middle class
tax cut and infrastructure spending,
which shold help the economy more. No,
you won't get a revolution from either
party in America, people are too
complacent here to want that. And
surely you know the rest of the
Greenspan quote you pulled from
wikipedia, where he stated that asset
markets put credit control out of the
Fed's hands.
\_ Which is obviously false. Greenspan
of course wants to duck
responsibility.
I like the Bush tax cuts. I just
hate the Bush/Congressional
spending.
The Iraq War is going to end up
about the same, Obama or not.
I don't want more gov't spending,
I want less. Middle class tax cut?
Maybe if you redefine middle class.
\_ Every family maing under $150k/yr
That isn't middle class to you? |
| 5/23 |
|
| krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/about-that-bush-boom krugman&posall=TopAd,Position1,Top5,SponLink,SFMiddle,Box1,Box3,Bo ttom3,Right5A,Right6A,Right7A,Right8A,Middle1C,Bottom7,Bottom8,Bottom9 ,Inv1,Inv2,Inv3,tacoda,SOS,ADX_CLIENTSIDE&pos=Top5&query=qstring&keywo rds=? As far as I can tell on a first read, there's nothing deeply surprising. Still, they represent a landmark -- and not in a good way. The key point is that 2007 was the end of an economic expansion -- whether or not the NBER declares a recession, the employment situation, which is what matters to most people, has deteriorated sharply this year. Yet median household income was lower than in 2000, while both the poverty rate and the percentage of Americans without health insurance were higher. In short, the economic policies we've been following just aren't working. No, of course not -- but remember, the key argument of the right has always been that tax cuts and deregulation would produce good news, a rising tide that raised all boats. In that regard, the fiscal policy of the Bush years has been a nightmare. Spending has increased even ex-military (so much for "it's because of the war"). We are a nation of whiners, but not how Graham meant it. Our public sector has grown ever larger and ever whinier. I always hear the argument "If I worked in the private sector, I'd get paid much more." I work for a company that has the budget to hire an additional engineer. With our workload, I'd love to hire four, but I just can't afford to do that. The government has faced no such restrictions, and because of that, we're all in a mess. The dichotomy faced by the right is showing larger and larger gaps between reality and what is claimed to be the foundation of right-wing economics policy (lower taxes equalls better economy, as people have more money to spend on stuff). deregulation and government helping corporations earn more money has no positive impact on the lowly workers and their families. The CEO's get rich and move out of the country as the facilities close and cheap asian labor gets the nod. Not to mention they are talking about cutting taxes AND spending further while attempting to cover the world with our military in the name of public safety. But they need to be accompanied by governmental fiscal restraint. Congress (both sides of the aisle) and the President drove through record spending increases all over the place. Rarely can you cut taxes and expect to be able to have more income to spend. I place the blame not on the "right", but on the moderates/liberals of both parties who demanded increased spending and at the same time sold tax cuts, all to simply buy more votes from their constituents. And they still refuse to take responsibility for the situation we're in. We keep expecting our government to bail us out when we've made dumb decisions, like go into WAY too much debt. We expect the government to take responsibility for taking care of us instead of us stepping up and doing it ourselves like our parents did. The median age of workers was at peak earning years (in real terms) in 2000. So for the past 7 years it should be expected to be downhill for the median household. com collapse at the end of the Clinton faux economy, to name a few. Perhaps the only beneficial contribution from the Bush administration were the "tax cuts" which helped sustain the economy throughout difficult times. Both the number and the percentage of people without health insurance coverage decreased between 2006 and 2007. Interestingly enough, I found some information comparing 2007 to 2001. Real median incomes of Black and non-Hispanic White households rose between 2006 and 2007 (Table 1)--the first real increases in annual household income since 1999. Income inequality decreased between 2006 and 2007, as measured by the shares of aggregate household income by quintiles and the Gini index. And let us not forget health insurance: Both the percentage and number of people without health insurance decreased in 2007. It would appear the link you provided sent us to the Bush propoganda version. This particular expansion benefitted only the wealthy and the upper middle class. Statistics on inflation and unemployment are also a joke. For most Americans who are not wealthy or upper middle class, the inflation rate is probably double the official figures. The irnoy is that I voted for Bush twice, but I won't be voting for any Republicans again any time soon... We could then look forward to more economic decline, as the oil barons switch to the Euro and the US, with our 66% debt as percent of GDP, is declared a basket case. The rising tide of debt and oil dependency (or of global warming) might flood Washington DC and drown our politicians. Only now, the regulations are in favor of corporations to the detriment of most Americans. History has proven that corporations cannot be depended upon to do the right thing. Their inability to do the right thing is why we have laws against child labor and slave labor. It's why we used to have meaningful laws against monopolistic behavior, and why we used to have a strong movement for collective bargaining. Our elected representatives are being corrupted by lobbyists because of the high cost of running for office, and those are the same influences that will prevent meaningful public financing of elections with MSM allowing candidates the free air time that we, the people, own. The economy will flourish for all if we start by, once again, restraining greed in our public corporations. From the quick-lube in Ohio who is doing 26% of last business, to my industry which is suffering through a wave of consolidations I see nothing but pain and entrepreneurs "holding on" until the current administration takes its misguided economic policies down the road with them. But what if people are so afraid of the "other" that they elect a guy whose only tax policy is a tax cut EXCLUSIVELY for the rich? A great depression is not out of the realm of possibility. In 1929 roughly 90% of the population was still on the farm on family held farms. Now the "agribusiness" sector only employs about 2% of the population and most of them don't own any land. At least back then you could have 40 acres and independence. Securitization, the latest Wall Street scam, started and ended under his watch. He didn't invent the Chicago school of thought, but he personally gave them the front-row seat. Supply-side economics is pure pablum, designed explicitly to funnel tax dollars to the already-super-wealthy. The entire Republican economic agenda beginning with Reagan has been a sham. Lowering taxes while increasing spending helps pay America's debt... Remember, they are NOT the party of decreasing government spending.. For example, I agree with you that tax cuts are rather asinine to a degree, but we must also remember how many careless dollars we've wasted going to war. If you're giving tax cuts to the wealthy and expensively going to war then somebody is going to end up paying major amounts of money. And when an economic downturn occurs, there will be little aid that can be provided since money is being carelessly spent. Let me tell you as a college student who is about to graduate - it is us. My tuition has increased at least 23% each semester and it's taken me 6 years just to get two BA's. It's embarrassing, yes, but the price of college has gotten insane that many of my fellow college students are dropping out after two years and giving up. People like myself intend to move to other countries when we graduate as I would never want my kids to have to go through what I've gone through. I must say to the United States, however, what is to become of this nation if few get their education and the ones that do end up leaving? I guess America will be an uneducated nation of winners. Result: the GOP and big business are so intertwined it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. It is as if this entire nation of consumers has been completely cast aside as irrelevant, nothing more than collateral damage as the banks, investment houses, and mortgage brokers fall off their sugar highs. America is at the end of a 30 year debt binge called Reaganomics. There i... |