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The Economy's Future—and Obama's
Photo by flickr user Tony the Misfit used under a Creative Commons license.When it comes to electoral predictions, I'm kind of old-fashioned: I think that most elections are determined by the economic situation, and that if the economy is bad, people tend to want to throw the bums out. Whoever the bums are at a given moment isn't particularly relevant. Big news today is that the official unemployment rate is now over 10 percent. Paul Krugman worries that President Obama's agenda was far too modest (i.e., the stimulus was too small) and that "the fateful decision, early this year, to go for economic half-measures may haunt Democrats for years to come." Reuters' Felix Salmon recently received a note from Mohamed El-Erian, the CEO of PIMCO, an enormous investment company, making a related point:
The problem is that very few people in DC are thinking of this as a structural challenge. Until they do, there is little basis for the sketch of a potential solution.
The issue, Felix explains, is that unemployment will probably remain high "for the foreseeable future," and unemployed people don't spend lots of money, so consumer spending will remain depressed. There aren't any easy solutions to that problem. Felix says he thinks that Washington is aware of the problems—"most of them have been diagnosed sharply at one point or another by Larry Summers"—but "we’re at the limits of what monetary policy is able to achieve and the nation cannot afford to repeat the monster hit to the US [fiscal situation] which we’ve seen over the past couple of years."
What does this mean for President Obama and the Democrats? It means that they had better figure out what they need to do to fix the economy. If the economy is still in bad shape at the midterm elections, the Democrats will lose a bunch of seats. But if it's still in bad shape in 2012, the consequences could be far more dramatic.
The American political system has historically only seen big changes in times of great crisis. A still-depressed economy in 2012 would definitely qualify. If that happens, you're likely to see extremists come to the fore in both parties, suggesting far more radical solutions to the country's problems. A Barack Obama presiding over 10 percent unemployment in 2012 is a Barack Obama who will be primaried from the left. And with the Republican party already hurtling full speed towards the right, you could see a Ron Paul-type candidate who espouses truly wacky economics challenging seriously for the GOP nod.
It's important that liberals remember that FDR wasn't elected in 1932 because he was liberal. He was elected because the economy was a disaster and people wanted to throw the bums out (see photo above). If the economy is still in the dumps in 2012, no one will care about Obama's or the Democrats' excuses or the process obstacles that kept liberals from achieving their goals. Economic chaos causes unrest, and unrest is disastrous for incumbents. So liberals better hope that the administration understands the danger it's in.
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Obama and FDR
OBAMA AND FDR....Paul Krugman writes today about the New Deal and the American economy:Now, there's a whole intellectual industry, mainly operating out of right-wing think tanks, devoted to propagating the idea that F.D.R. actually made the Depression worse. So it's...
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McCain Hearts FDR. What's the (New) Deal?
How the times are changing. At a General Motors assembly plant in Lake Orion, Michigan yesterday, Sen. John McCain gave...
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Recession Depression
When it comes to our energy
When it comes to our energy future, I strongly agree with the statement that Obama needs to be "like Ike". Here is what Ike had to say about energy during a famous December 1953 speech to the United Nations:The United States knows that peaceful power from atomic energy is no dream of the future. That capability, already proved, is here--now--today. Who can doubt, if the entire body of the world's scientists and engineers had adequate amounts of fissionable material with which to test and develop their ideas, that this capability would rapidly be transformed into universal, efficient, and economic usage.
There is no need for a massive, ugly build up of a new web of transmission lines running from places with unreliable, weather dependent energy sources that require enormous, often idle collectors. Instead, we can repower our existing power plant network with new heat sources that are reliable, emission free, and produce affordable power for years between each need to replace the fuel. The used material is recyclable and contains many valuable by-products that can be put to good use through the application of human creativity.
I wish you would let the
I wish you would let the people living around the storage sites that the radio active waste material there is recyclable . Maybe they would then stop the fight to keep more of the stuff from being stored in their back yards .
ROAD BLOCKERS
We have plenty of writers with opinions but most do not reseach the subject they are writing about completely . For one , more than half of what Congress set for the stimulus is still in the hands of Congress being held up by the GOP with intentions to make the jobs program fail . For two , the Wall Street gang that was bailed out is exporting many American jobs with the intention to cause a failure to the jobs program . Even their legal positions being exported . So our job situation is one of one step foreward and two steps backward . Wall Street has had a vendetta with unions for decades and they figured out how to get local and state retirement fund managers to put the retiree's money in Wall Streets hands . Wall Street did the same during the 1980's to retiree's money in S&L's . Wall Street now has in their hands a very high per cent of all of America's money and with that kind of power they will get what they want regardless of what the President or you and I say .
Delaware beats Switzerland
Delaware beats Switzerland as most secretive financial center
http://joshfulton.blogspot.com/2009/11/delaware-beats-switzerland-as-mos...
Delaware beats Switzerland
Delaware beats Switzerland as most secretive financial center
http://joshfulton.blogspot.com/2009/11/delaware-beats-switzerland-as-mos...
Delaware beats Switzerland
Delaware beats Switzerland as most secretive financial center
http://joshfulton.blogspot.com/2009/11/delaware-beats-switzerland-as-mos...
The Economy's future???
"we’re at the limits of what monetary policy is able to achieve . . . " -Felix Salmon
The hit on the economy? - http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/releases/moroutstand/mortoutst...
You should have read Nomi Prins book "It Takes a Pillage", by now.
You will find that the bank bailout exceeded the total outstanding residential mortgage debt for the WHOLE nation plus 2-3 Trillion more!
If they would have paid off all the residential mortgages, the economy would be humming because the majority of the country spends way more then it saves.
It stands to reason that with your cash flow relieved of its mortgage payment you may save more but you would spend way more.
- Way more then someone who makes say a million a year because he/ she already spends what they want and are already saving the majority of that income.
Think about it.
The Bush/Obama administrations, have indebted the country to an extremely small number of people who made bad capitalist decisions, whose businesses HAVE failed!
Think of it this way -
These commercial/ investment/ insurance banks are run with no regard to accounting principles and couldn't, in the real world, get a loan from a real bank following GAP, general accounting principles..
And . . . And to cure the accounting problem the Obama administration is going to try to gut the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting rules - rules that the BUSH administration felt was needed to fix the financial industry!
Well I expected change.
After President Clinton killed the Glass-Steagal act, I was hoping my party would return to its fiscal senses.
But the liquor of my banked lively hood, leveraged, as if their own by larcenists, poured by lobbists and embibed liberally by the administration; has gone to its head.
They believe the charlatans and in the present stupor of financial irrationalism, believe they can not be perceived as administratively, fiscally, stumbling drunk.
The Economy's future???
"we’re at the limits of what monetary policy is able to achieve . . . " -Felix Salmon
The hit on the economy? - http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/releases/moroutstand/mortoutst...
You should have read Nomi Prins book "It Takes a Pillage", by now.
You will find that the bank bailout exceeded the total outstanding residential mortgage debt for the WHOLE nation plus 2-3 Trillion more!
If they would have paid off all the residential mortgages, the economy would be humming because the majority of the country spends way more then it saves.
It stands to reason that with your cash flow relieved of its mortgage payment you may save more but you would spend way more.
- Way more then someone who makes say a million a year because he/ she already spends what they want and are already saving the majority of that income.
Think about it.
The Bush/Obama administrations, have indebted the country to an extremely small number of people who made bad capitalist decisions, whose businesses HAVE failed!
Think of it this way -
These commercial/ investment/ insurance banks are run with no regard to accounting principles and couldn't, in the real world, get a loan from a real bank following GAP, general accounting principles..
And . . . And to cure the accounting problem the Obama administration is going to try to gut the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting rules - rules that the BUSH administration felt was needed to fix the financial industry!
Well I expected change.
After President Clinton killed the Glass-Steagal act, I was hoping my party would return to its fiscal senses.
But the liquor of my banked lively hood, leveraged, as if their own by larcenists, poured by lobbists and embibed liberally by the administration; has gone to its head.
They believe the charlatans and in the present stupor of financial irrationalism, believe they can not be perceived as administratively, fiscally, stumbling drunk.