Excellent Article About Obama Fracking Up The Economy

[Deez Nutz]

By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/the-stimulus-kicks-in-higher-unemployment/

In our book 2010: Take Back America – A Battle Plan, we write:

“The prospect we now face is not the intermittent up-and-down fluctuations of unemployment we have had since the Great Depression. Thanks to Obama’s policies, we’re confronting the possibility of an unemployment rate that never comes down, just as they have in Europe. If we stay on Obama’s course, lower joblessness in the United States will be a thing of the past.”

The recent rise in unemployment back up to 9.6% and the loss of 54,000 jobs in August, suggests that our prediction is – dismally – coming true.

The Obama stimulus plan has finally kicked in: The higher spending he brought to our nation and the debt levels that are accompanying it are the result.

Why is unemployment remaining so high? Because the totality of Obama’s policies are dragging us into a depression.

• The prospect of dramatically higher taxes next year is freezing consumer spending, particularly in the upper income ranges which spend a third of America’s consumption.

• The huge changes that are looming in medical care brought about by Obama’s health care legislation are freezing new employment and expansion in the medical sector which accounts for 16% of GDP.

• The financial reform legislation has so raised the prospect of a federal takeover of any bank that makes “imprudent” loans that financial institutions are afraid to lend, freezing new job creation.

• The looming possibility of cap-and-tax legislation in the name of halting climate change is freezing any expansion in the manufacturing and energy sectors since these policies will force jobs to move overseas to locations that do not impose such a tax (e.g. India and China).

• The massive expansion in the deficit and in the resulting debt has so eroded confidence in our nation’s future that Americans are now saving 6% of their income, up from 1% in the past, sapping consumer spending.

• The threat of new rules for union elections that will spread private sector unionization is freezing business expansion plans.

Obama’s rush to spend, regulate, re-engineer, redistribute, and tax have stopped any recovery and are sending us back into recession.

In her wonderful book The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes notes how FDR’s policies in the late 1930s did the same thing. She notes how the imposition of the Social Security tax in 1937 (benefits did not start until 1941) and the rapid wage hikes that accompanied the passage of the Wagner Act (steel worker wages rose 40% in 1937) sent a recovering nation back into a new depression that lasted until the war started in 1939.

In his haste to re-make America and to bring us the “fundamental change” he promised as he campaigned for president in 2008, Obama has torpedoed the recovery and sent us back into a double dip recession.

The answer is to cut spending back to pre-Obama levels, reduce taxes and eliminate the threat of tax increases, zero fund the changes Obama has legislated in health care (and repeal them in 2013), eliminate the threat of cap-and-tax, and lay the basis for solid economic growth.

We have left the recession that started in 2007 and entered a new recession caused by Obama’s policies.

[gokatgo]

LOL...yup the economy was really hummin before Obama took over and ruined it all.

[Dirty Sanchez]

All those things are what is being done right now. 

2008 is over.  Stop blaming Bush. 

[Deez Nutz]

LOL...yup the economy was really hummin before Obama took over and ruined it all.

His massive $862 billion stimulus package was passed in congress over 18 months ago, and interest rates are now at historic lows.  Yet the economy is still in the toilet.  Gee, I wonder why?  (Hint:  See the bullet points in bold in the above article for possible clues.)

[Jeffy]

LOL...yup the economy was really hummin before Obama took over and ruined it all.

Have you ever wondered why the US calls the 30s the Great Depression, whereas most countries were out of their depression in a very short time?

[gokatgo]

Total BS ...The looming this, the threat of that, the possible this, the prospect of that...are you for real?  it's all buzzwords and nonsense.

 
what the eff are you pussies so afraid of?

BOO!!

[sonofdaxjones]

Nothing like the shrill cry of the Obamabot apologist.

Democrats have controlled Congress for the last 5 years . . . what do we have to show for it??  A financial cluster f_ck.

[hemmy]

Time to replace them with libertarians.

[jtksu]

I didn't vote for the guy, but it's pretty easy to see this article is a very biased view of things.  Without (validated)  facts and figures, this doesn't really have a whole lot of validity.  I could just as easily write an article that praises his policies, simply by changing a few words.  Also-  During the great depression, unemployment rates climbed over 20% and were consistently above 15% until 1940.

[Dirty Sanchez]

I didn't vote for the guy, but it's pretty easy to see this article is a very biased view of things.  Without (validated)  facts and figures, this doesn't really have a whole lot of validity.  I could just as easily write an article that praises his policies, simply by changing a few words.  Also-  During the great depression, unemployment rates climbed over 20% and were consistently above 15% until 1940.

The "real" unemployment rate is said to be at ~17% right now.

[Deez Nutz]

Another good article along the same lines:

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/08/27/obama%E2%80%99s-economic-slide/

The Commerce Department today revised down  its estimate for second quarter gross domestic product from 2.4 percent to 1.6 percent. This is not a sign of a weakening economy but a weak economy last spring. The weakness was especially pronounced as the bulk of what growth did occur was due to a building of inventories and a temporary (and now apparently reversed) blip in home sales.

Most of the data since the second quarter ended—from industrial orders to labor markets to housing—has worsened further. What we are seeing is an economy that tried to recover last winter, slowed, and is now sliding steadily to stagnation. Not yet a recession, it is certainly the Obama slide.

The great American jobs machine has stalled. Whether it revives anytime soon or continues to flounder is the 7-millions-jobs question. What is certain is that the economy should be steadily strengthening. The basic forces of growth and prosperity remain in place, much as they have always been. But something is holding the economy back. That something is Washington.

The key factor that always escapes the economic models—and is now missing from the economy—is confidence. The inherent, pervasive optimism that traditionally propels investment and saving, hiring, and extra effort is simply missing. The federal government spent enormous sums to spur the economy. The American people were never comfortable with the associated buildup in the national debt, but they were willing to give the new President and his Congress the benefit of the doubt. They hoped. They were misled. It failed. Now the hope has been replaced by worry, and Washington continues to give reason to worry.

In addition to a big stimulus program, Obama ran on the idea of heaping new taxes on upper-income taxpayers, including those small businesses he says (correctly) are critical to the recovery. Congress did nothing. And so as 2011 creeps over the horizon, so too does a massive tax hike on middle-class families, upper-income workers, small businesses, savers, family farms, and on an on. Having done nothing about this tax cut for the last nearly two years, all these prospective tax hike victims can only assume that Congress intends to hit them with the full tax hike from allowing the 2001 and 2003 tax relief to expire.

The tax hike itself is bad enough, falling as it will on a stuttering economy. But the bigger issue is still confidence. There is no economic policy rationale to justify raising taxes on a weak economy. None. Yet Obama and Congress are so desperate for revenues to pay for their massive spending surge that they’re willing to raise taxes. Yes, the tax hike is foolish and unjustifiable, but far more debilitating to the confidence the economy needs to grow is what Congress’s tax policies say about its willingness to accept sustained high levels of joblessness—or, alternatively, what it says about President Obama’s understanding of how our economy really functions and what it takes to prosper. No wonder confidence is lagging. No wonder the economy is flagging. The wonder is that the President appears dead set against changing course.

Who here agrees with Obama and thinks it would be wise to let the Bush tax cuts expire?

[john "teach me how to" dougie]

Another good article along the same lines:

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/08/27/obama%E2%80%99s-economic-slide/

The Commerce Department today revised down  its estimate for second quarter gross domestic product from 2.4 percent to 1.6 percent. This is not a sign of a weakening economy but a weak economy last spring. The weakness was especially pronounced as the bulk of what growth did occur was due to a building of inventories and a temporary (and now apparently reversed) blip in home sales.

Most of the data since the second quarter ended—from industrial orders to labor markets to housing—has worsened further. What we are seeing is an economy that tried to recover last winter, slowed, and is now sliding steadily to stagnation. Not yet a recession, it is certainly the Obama slide.

The great American jobs machine has stalled. Whether it revives anytime soon or continues to flounder is the 7-millions-jobs question. What is certain is that the economy should be steadily strengthening. The basic forces of growth and prosperity remain in place, much as they have always been. But something is holding the economy back. That something is Washington.

The key factor that always escapes the economic models—and is now missing from the economy—is confidence. The inherent, pervasive optimism that traditionally propels investment and saving, hiring, and extra effort is simply missing. The federal government spent enormous sums to spur the economy. The American people were never comfortable with the associated buildup in the national debt, but they were willing to give the new President and his Congress the benefit of the doubt. They hoped. They were misled. It failed. Now the hope has been replaced by worry, and Washington continues to give reason to worry.

In addition to a big stimulus program, Obama ran on the idea of heaping new taxes on upper-income taxpayers, including those small businesses he says (correctly) are critical to the recovery. Congress did nothing. And so as 2011 creeps over the horizon, so too does a massive tax hike on middle-class families, upper-income workers, small businesses, savers, family farms, and on an on. Having done nothing about this tax cut for the last nearly two years, all these prospective tax hike victims can only assume that Congress intends to hit them with the full tax hike from allowing the 2001 and 2003 tax relief to expire.

The tax hike itself is bad enough, falling as it will on a stuttering economy. But the bigger issue is still confidence. There is no economic policy rationale to justify raising taxes on a weak economy. None. Yet Obama and Congress are so desperate for revenues to pay for their massive spending surge that they’re willing to raise taxes. Yes, the tax hike is foolish and unjustifiable, but far more debilitating to the confidence the economy needs to grow is what Congress’s tax policies say about its willingness to accept sustained high levels of joblessness—or, alternatively, what it says about President Obama’s understanding of how our economy really functions and what it takes to prosper. No wonder confidence is lagging. No wonder the economy is flagging. The wonder is that the President appears dead set against changing course.

Who here agrees with Obama and thinks it would be wise to let the Bush tax cuts expire?

But those tax cuts are only for the rich!!!!!!

[gokatgo]

Nothing like the shrill cry of the Obamabot apologist.

Democrats have controlled Congress for the last 5 years . . . what do we have to show for it??  A financial cluster f_ck.

how rough ridin' Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!) are you ...you still blame Clinton, Carter and Roosevelt for all of America's ills...yet piss your pants and cry like bitches when somebody says we shouldn't go back to Bush economics.


 


 

[john "teach me how to" dougie]

Nothing like the shrill cry of the Obamabot apologist.

Democrats have controlled Congress for the last 5 years . . . what do we have to show for it??  A financial cluster f_ck.

how rough ridin' Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!) are you ...you still blame Clinton, Carter and Roosevelt for all of America's ills...yet piss your pants and cry like bitches when somebody says we shouldn't go back to Bush economics.


 

The worst thing about Bush economics was government overspending. Wouldn't want to go back to that. 

[sonofdaxjones]

Who said Bush was all that good??  He was the consummate neo-Liberal.

Again, Dems have controlled congress for FIVE years, what do we have to show for it? A financial cluster f_ck.  This is not hard.

[pike]

Bush was a dumbass and started most of the mess the world is in today, Obama made it 10 times worse

[Fitz Bath]

Bush was a dumbass and started most of the mess the world is in today, Obama made it 10 times worse

How? Be specific.

[chrismedico]

Everything is going low...and Obama's rule made things go worse!! 

[turns_cats_trashy]

Wow, first post in the politico board and emoticon usage. Not saying I agree but balls to the wall nonetheless.

[Rage Against the McKee]

I didn't vote for the guy, but it's pretty easy to see this article is a very biased view of things.  Without (validated)  facts and figures, this doesn't really have a whole lot of validity.  I could just as easily write an article that praises his policies, simply by changing a few words.  Also-  During the great depression, unemployment rates climbed over 20% and were consistently above 15% until 1940.

The "real" unemployment rate is said to be at ~17% right now.

What was the "real" unemployment rate during the depression? It seems like there would be a lot of stay-at-home moms in the 1930s.

[AzCat]

The "real" unemployment rate is said to be at ~17% right now.

What was the "real" unemployment rate during the depression? It seems like there would be a lot of stay-at-home moms in the 1930s.

Then:


Now:

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.