http://moveleft.org/obamas_promises/www-barackobama-com_issues_fiscal.pdf
The Problem
Increasing Debt: Under President Bush, the federal debt has
increased from $5.7 trillion to $8.8 trillion,
an increase of more than 50 percent.
Good job Barack. You have nearly doubled it already – in only three years.
And people still believe this moron.
They actually get an award for transparency,……… behind closed doors with no media allowed.
How’s that peace prize working out?
Hi Steve,
Yeah, Barack has run up the debt. I am not sure how much of that is from entitlements, and how much is from military and “other discretionary” spending. I suspect that “other discretionary” spending is not driving up the tab.
By the way, George W was no slouch, adding $1.7 and then $2.6 trillion in his two terms.
Best regards,
Don
Obama did keep his promise to make energy costs skyrocket.
Hi Steve,
That is not very charitable. 🙂
Seriously, how has Obama driven the price of energy way up?
Regarding oil, there is little that Obama could have done to affect world prices. As you can see in this graph the US no longer dominates.
I am open to your ideas.
Best,
Don
Obama’s words, not mine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4
Don
Part of the oil price rise is due to the weak dollar. Obama cannot escape responsibility for this weakening.
Hi Steve,
Thanks, I just saw the clip about Obama. Refreshingly honest — he’d never say that now. This might have been his plan to raise energy prices to combat climate change, but he never implemented it. Cap & trade died.
Yeah, I have heard that a weak dollar is driving up oil costs. I think you are correct, though the timing precedes Obama. The following link suggests that a big drop (40%) relative to Euro occurred in 2002-2007, with the Euro in Dec 2007 pegged at $1.44, and in April 2011 the Euro was at $1.47, so Obama did not do much at least relative to the Euro. And almost assuredly not much relative to China, however much we try to get them to revalue their currency! In any case, I do not see much weakening up through
Best,
Don
B.O. requested of president Bush, right before he took office to accelerate the $trillion bailout of banks and insurance companies. He then brainstormed another $trillion in
payoffstimulus spending. There’s the discretionary spending. Oh, he’s added a few $billion here and there along the way…….. remember when he drove up the prices of used cars (so much so, that the poor can’t afford them anymore) by his cash for clunkers program? He gave internet satellite companies several $billion. He bought back debt by printing more money…… the list goes on.Hi suyts,
The trillion dollar bank and insurance bailout was not quite that expensive.
Yeah, I agree, some of the stimulus spending is not such a great idea. The spending on high-speed trains may saddle us with a really expensive sink in some areas, such as the train between San Fran and LA. I have not seen the numbers, but I’d be surprised if it turns into a money-maker.
I had not heard of any impacts of the cash for clunkers. I think he should have handed out bicycles to everyone — save oil and get everyone in shape.
Also, I did not hear about the internet satellite companies. If you have a link, I’d be interested in looking.
Bigger picture: spending government money when we’re in a recession seems like a good idea. We would have been in big trouble otherwise.
Signing off for the day. Thanks for your thoughts. I’ll be back.
Best,
Don
Bigger picture: spending government money when we’re in a recession seems like a good idea.
A common misconception. Roosevelt tried it and found that the US economy took longer to recover than the European economies.
In any event I don’t think our kids and their kids will be too happy when they find out they have to repay the debt.
Cheers
Paul
Don,
Sorry, sometimes I forget that the real-world I deal with on a day-to-day basis isn’t considered factual until it is documented on the internets.
I don’t have links to the satellite internet give away, only e-mails and phone conversations. It was provided to, among many others , Hughes Net and WildBlue in order to provide “high-speed” internet access to people in rural areas. It was facilitated through the RUS. WildBlue will be launching another satellite soon. The people of this nation can be proud of the assets gained by our largess. Oddly, these billions of dollars in gifts to private enterprises by the people didn’t translate into cheaper service, just more crappy service.
Satellite internet is horribly slow, it drastically limits down and up load, and is intermittent at best during inclement weather. The money could have been better spent by building cellular towers and then leasing to phone companies…… I suggested that very thought, but the compulsion to give the peoples’ money away was too great for the bureaucrats. So, we rewarded the worst internet providers with billions of dollars. I’m sure if you googled you’d find something about it. I believe Hughes Net even brags about being on the receiving end of the pork. Great bunch of guys over there.
I got a call one day from a former representative, apparently now active in the advocacy of breaking this nation. He was incredulous that I didn’t want to participate in the transfer of public funds to a very narrow scope of private individuals……The plan is to use rural utility providers to facilitate this bilking of our rural citizens.
As to the cash for clunkers program, no, you haven’t heard of the economic impact, and you won’t. It only effected the people we care the least about, the working poor.
What we did, was to set a bottom price of a used car at about $4000. Worse, we took so many used cars out of circulation, the used car price would jump anyway because of supply and demand.
Now, I understand, this isn’t linked to anyone else’ statement, so the thought must be highly questionable. Therefore, I’ve endeavored to find a link to buttress the perceived validity to the radical thought that we intentionally harmed the working poor in this nation by removing affordable transportation from the market. http://www.fee.org/articles/hate-poor-act-2009/
Christopher Westley is an economics professor at Jackson State U.
Start by blocking drilling anywhere (effectively) in America. The law of supply and demand indicates the price will go up.
Then add a destabilization of the Middle East (he did not start it – he just facilitated it). Add a dash of boondoggle spending on non-existent green energy solutions, a lack of clarity and direction, and viola! You have $5/gal gas. Just as he promised.
When Obama took over, the economy was basically in a death spiral. His two choices were to let the death spiral continue, or throw around enough borrowed money to take us out of the death spiral. It worked in the short term, but the long term doesn’t look too wonderful.
Don’t buy it. When Obama took over, unemployment was much lower. The debt was much lower. The “bank crisis” was largely bullshit. Three of the largest beneficiaries of TARP reported profits in December, 2008.
Andy, if you start with your premise of death spiral, perhaps (notice perhaps) a bail out was required. But then you have to define the death spiral a bit more.
Whether the stimulus helped or not, it surely created a predicate for future government instrusions into the market. Including setting a precedent for screwing bond holders of auto companies.
All these have hidden and therefore incalculable costs. IMO that was too big a price, unless it was more clear that we were in a death spiral. I cast around to see concrete examples of that.
There was a fairly good consensus that the economy was in free fall in late 2008, early 2009. The stock market had dropped over 50%, forclosures were skyrocketing, we were at least on the verge of multiple major corporate and bank failures.
There seemed at the time to be good bipartisan agreement (starting under President Bush’s leadership) that something had to be done to avert an immediate collapse. Unfortunately, the short term remedy (throwing borrowed money around) has worsened the underlying disease.
The question now is what needs to be done to right the ship for the long term and whether such action is politically doable.
The stock market dropped because Obama kept talking about how disastrous the economy was – in order to get elected. He need to take credit for fixing it, so he had to convince everyone to break it first.
Its really strange about how people react to the market movements. If anyone actually took the time to think about it, they’d know the market won’t nor can it collapse.
Every day there is a significant amount of money blindly thrown into the market in the form of various retirement schemes. The stock market is driven by investment. Its a “no-lose” situation for the big players. When they need cash, they sell, market goes down, they buy, the market goes back up, inflated by the blind retirement investments. Look for another sell-off soon. So much so, they may have to invent another crisis. Inflation is sucking up the fortune they made in the last crisis.
Do you remember the nonsense when Bush called Obama and McCain back to Washington off the campaign trail because of the dire economic crisis that needed their immediate attention? Obama benefited from the collapse, but he didn’t cause it.
Bush did not call anyone back. Both chose to preen for the voters in their own way.
Bush was an idiot.