Time Magazine
The $787 billion stimulus plan is turning out to be far less stimulating than its architects expected.
Back in early January, when Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers, and leading proponents of a stimulus bill, predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%. It hasn't quite worked out that way. Last month, the jobless rate in America hit 9.5%, the highest level it has reached since 1983. (See 10 ways your job will change.)
The two advisers who wrote the paper, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, went on to land key jobs in Obama's Administration. Romer is the head of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, Bernstein is the chief economist and economic-policy adviser to Vice President Biden. And the stimulus bill that both economists championed became law in mid-February. What has not come to pass, however, is the boom in job creation that Romer and Bernstein predicted. A little over a month ago, the Administration said the stimulus bill had created or saved 150,000 jobs. That's a far cry from the 3 million to 4 million jobs that Romer and Bernstein foresaw back in January.[...]
The $787 billion stimulus plan is turning out to be far less stimulating than its architects expected.
Back in early January, when Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers, and leading proponents of a stimulus bill, predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%. It hasn't quite worked out that way. Last month, the jobless rate in America hit 9.5%, the highest level it has reached since 1983. (See 10 ways your job will change.)
The two advisers who wrote the paper, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, went on to land key jobs in Obama's Administration. Romer is the head of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, Bernstein is the chief economist and economic-policy adviser to Vice President Biden. And the stimulus bill that both economists championed became law in mid-February. What has not come to pass, however, is the boom in job creation that Romer and Bernstein predicted. A little over a month ago, the Administration said the stimulus bill had created or saved 150,000 jobs. That's a far cry from the 3 million to 4 million jobs that Romer and Bernstein foresaw back in January.[...]
It surely would have been a better choice to just let the banking system completely collapse and fail, and for the big auto manufacturers to simply shut down.
ReplyDeleteGovernment should save businesses or even try to save them. The Government should have just let them all die. Capitalism, survival of the fittest.
People in government know nothing about business and have no place trying to interfere with them. They should get off their socialist bandwagon and simply let the weak die and the strong live.
Hopefully the average person thinks the previous 3 paragraphs were ridiculous. Well, they're just as ridiculous as the stone-throwers who criticize Obama for at least attempting to do something about the problems at hand. It's not like he decided these things all by himself. The smartest brains of both the Bush and Obama administrations agreed that extreme gov't intervention was necessary, but it doesn't guarantee the kind of success people might want to see.
Hopefully the average person thinks the previous 3 paragraphs were ridiculous. Well, they're just as ridiculous as the stone-throwers who criticize Obama for at least attempting to do something about the problems at hand. It's not like he decided these things all by himself. The smartest brains of both the Bush and Obama administrations agreed that extreme gov't intervention was necessary, but it doesn't guarantee the kind of success people might want to see.
ReplyDelete===============
Did you read the article or you just like to slam those who suggest that Obama is not G-d's gift to humanity
Sure I read it! and no, Obama is not G-ds gift humanity.
ReplyDeleteReinhart's comment shows that all he is interested in is slamming Obama and bringing back the oh-so-successful economic policies of the Right.
How can he say that money hasn't been thrown into the manufacturing sector when the Federal gov't has agreed to back all of GMs warranties, and all of the banks loans to manufacturing businesses whether they succeed or fail?
Federal stimulus money is already causing capital equipment manufacturers to see dramatic increases in road equipment orders, as well as sheet metal manufacturers who produce street signs and guard rails.
I know of a car battery manufacturer that was saved from bankruptcy by the US intervention with GM.
Summers, Romer, and Bernstein aren't using the word "failing." Only Reinhart, and that of course becomes the headline. There's a big difference between a slow start and a failure.
Would you call a student who is learning slower than expected a failure too?
So, yes, it's more of the usual Obama bashing. The 'right leaning' think tankers ran the US economy from profitable to bankruptcy in 8 years. It's proper to react strongly when they give even a hint that Obama's ideas should be discarded so that we could return to the "good old days" we had under Bush.
The real causes of the economic crisis in this country are wage stagnation (adjusted for inflation, you have 1970s in come and 2009 expenses) combined with the strange idea that there's nothing wrong with being in debt for 10 or 15 years worth of your wages. It's also clear that the "powers that be" are not really interested in actually returning things to "normal." They have some other agenda in mind. If they had wanted people's mortgages and debt to be reduced, all they had to do was divide that 700+ Billion in "bailout" money between all the taxpaying citizen households in this county and viola, problem solved. So we must infer from the fact that they denied this Jubilee to US citizens that their intention is not to help ordinary household but rather some other goal. Therefore it is not surprising that Obama's "stimulus" package isn't working for ordinary people - because it was never meant to.
ReplyDeleteYou don't know how strange mainstream U S attitudes to economic issues look from outside.
ReplyDeleteThe end of Obamania as reoported in the Los Angeles Times of July 12, 2009: "...Barack Obama has fallen back to Earth...last week, in Russia and Italy, Obamania was little more than a pleasant memory. Yes, his international polling numbers are still high, but the president encountered hardly any adulation in the streets of Moscow or anywhere else. Instead, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin reportedly gave him a tongue-lashing over a two-hour breakfast, and the tent-bound refugees from Italy's April earthquake mostly wanted to know whether he could rebuild their homes...The hard reality of international affairs is that, just as the United States has interests, so do other countries. And when those interests conflict, all the charm and charisma in the world can't resolve the differences...All of which left Obama sounding, at the end of the week, as if he looked forward to getting back to solvable problems -- such as the economy and healthcare. "The one thing I will be looking forward to," he said, "is fewer summit meetings"."
ReplyDeleteOne of two: Obama's chutzpa knows no bounds.
ReplyDeleteThe NY Jewish Week's top story of July 16, 2009: Mild Flak For Obama On Issue Of Settlements: In first White House meeting, Jewish leaders challenge tone, not substance, of president’s freeze policy.
This is amazing:
"...Instead of criticizing the substance of administration policies, the strongest critics at Monday’s meeting complained that the president is too willing to express disagreements with Israel in public, which they say gives the Palestinians and the other Arab states a free pass and undermines support for U.S. policy within Israel."
"Obama vigorously defended that policy, saying that a public airing of differences between close friends can only bolster their friendship."
“What we heard from the administration is that the president believes he has an ability to open up to the world in a way that his predecessors didn’t,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “He argues that by reaching out and showing a different approach, we can bring peace and security — he used the word ‘normalization’ — to Israel and the Arabs.”
Foxman pressed Obama to keep policy disputes between the two governments private, arguing that perceived differences between the two allies can be exploited by Palestinian leaders not interested in making compromises.
The president did not back down an inch, he said. “He spelled out that he has a strategy — and the strategy is to tell it like it is. Tell your friends the truth. The problem is, some of us feel he is not telling the truth in a fair way.”
The unintended result, he said, is that “Israel looks like it is the obstacle to peace when it doesn’t agree with U.S. demands. It takes the Palestinians off the hook and it means Israel will not feel secure enough to take risks.”
Foxman said he and Malcolm Hoenlein, the Conference of Presidents’ executive vice president, pressed hard on that point — but that “the president disagreed. He said that for the past eight years there was no public difference between the U.S. and Israel — and nothing was accomplished. So it’s time for a change.” ...
Two of two: Obama's chutzpa knows no bounds.
ReplyDeleteSo one would think the great chachumim who went to the White House could at least recall (1) the sacrifice of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan in 2004, a mere FIVE years ago when Israel gave away Gaza to the Arabs for FREE all under Bush II's African-American Condoleeza Rice's efforts, or (2) the split in the Likud and Sharon's and later Olmert's willingness to do anything and everything for the USA in the framework of the new KADIMA party formed in 2005 all done in favor of Bush II and Condi Rice again to please all the whims of the USA, or (3) how about the full cooperation Israel gave the USA by not getting involved in the Second Iraq War in 2003 launched by Bush II and the African-American Colin Powell, that led to the LIBERATION of the Iraqi nation and people from the murderous tyranny of Saddam Hussein, while Israel had very good reason to hit back at Iraq for a very long time, but did nothing so as to clear the way for the USA.
Israel has served well as the puppet of the USA and done its bidding repeatedly even to its own endangerment (Israel only got qasams from the Gazans as a "thank you" that led to war), yet Obama has the audacity to allege "that for the past eight years there was no public difference between the U.S. and Israel — and nothing was accomplished. So it’s time for a change" !!
One wonders what political idiocy he has in mind next and why the chachumim couldn't rebut him, but then again, this is The Three Weeks when even the greatest Jewish sages 2,000 years ago in the times of the Second Bais Hamikdosh didn't say anything at the feast and episode of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza and remained silent leading to the chain of events of the churban bayis sheni, may Klal Yisroel be spared from such a calamity this time!