Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (33064)	2/20/2009 3:20:30 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 71588

Its extremely rare, that any ONE, meaning a specific individual (or even a specific group) is solely responsible for such complex problems. If you want to blame previous presidents for the mess during the Bush years - then why didn't Bush fix them when he controlled the House, Senate and he was president? For the most part he never had the power to change them. He never had more than a narrow majority in the Senate (and for almost half his time in office Republicans where in the minority), and its not like the fact that someone in congress has an R next to his name on the roster means that Bush can control him. Its not just Democrats in congress that aren't subordinate to the president, Republicans aren't either. Bush did make one effort to deal with one part of the problem (probably too little to late, but at least he tried), but it was shot down by congress. Other policies that contributed to the problem would have been impossible to reverse. (To be fair to your side of the argument, there are a number of them that I'm almost certain Bush would not have reversed, even if he could have done so easily and at no political cost, OTOH if he didn't institute them, and if he had no power to reverse them, I can't put much blame on him for them.) There are small ways Bush could have worked to make things better that he didn't try, and there is at least one way that he made things worse (rules passed under his administration allowed certain institutions to become more leveraged), so obviously he should be blamed as well, but the idea that "Bush was president when it happened, therefore he (or he and congress, or he congress) deserve all the blame isn't a reasonable one. No one controls and economy the size of the US economy, and if Bush had tried to control it to a much greater extent, to avert potential problems, he likely would have failed in his effort to take stronger control (congress would likely have voted it down, but when the Republicans where in charge, and when the Democrats had a majority), and even if he succeed he probably would have made things worse (even if the directives he issued where much wiser than those typically issued by people with that level of control, and I have no reason to think that Bush would be some genius of economic management)

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (33064)	2/24/2009 8:37:12 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

IT'S HIS ECONOMY NOW By RICH LOWRY February 24, 2009 -- LAST January, Barack Obama sat in the audience during the State of the Union Ad dress. As a top contender in the Democratic nomination battle, he was the subject of more attention than the other 535 lawmakers, to be sure, but still only a senator. Now he's the very center of the whirlwind, the world's most powerful man at (if the normal laws of physics hold) the apex of his influence. He will be trying to sell an ambitious liberal agenda while promising to cut the deficit; to reassure the market while acknowledging dire economic conditions; to keep the populist wolves at bay while explaining the banking, housing and auto bailouts. Daunting as this is, he can take comfort in one small thing - at least his speech won't be aired with a tiny box tracking the sinking Dow. The conventional wisdom is that Obama's warnings about the economy have scared its "animal spirits" and if he were only sunnier, the stock market would pick up. Please. It's reality and this Administration's actions, not Obama's words, tanking the market. The banks are in perilous condition (and no one can be sure what Obama will do about it), and the housing market doesn't appear to have hit bottom. The federal government is running the highest deficit as a share of GDP since World War II, and higher taxes (and probably not just the ones Obama has promised) are assured. Obama still has a political cushion on the economy because he inherited a mess - but, from now on, that cushion diminishes by the day. The ever-accelerating pace of the news cycle, plus Obama's overexposure and the size of the stimulus package (and the rapidity with which it passed) all mean he'll probably take ownership of the economy too quickly for comfort. In an astonishing about-face, he's already talking about cutting the deficit he was desperately urging Congress to increase less than two weeks ago. The idea is that once the Keynesian stimulus has worked its magic, it can be rolled back up as the economy recovers, jolted back to life by highway re-paving projects and upgrades to federal buildings. Of course, in keeping with this theory, Obama should have objected to the more than $200 billion in the stimulus that is spent in 2011 or after. But that spending is "investment" for long-term growth. As one wag observed, we've gone from the era of tax cuts supposedly paying for themselves to spending increases paying for themselves. Obama's emphasis on the deficit is driven by a simple fact: We can't run trillion-dollar deficits forever without courting dire consequences. An alarming Brookings Institution report on the fiscal outlook notes that markets are beginning to consider it at least imaginable that the US will default on its debt in a few years. Obama insists he'll impose budget discipline - by conveniently doing all the things he already wanted to do: scaling back the Iraq War, raising taxes on the rich and further nationalizing ("reforming") health care. The first two at least reduce the deficit; the latter is a poorly disguised budget-buster. When has government ever expanded its health-care programs and achieved a cost savings? Obama styles himself a post-partisan pragmatist, so he also talks about reining in entitlements. "Social Security, we can solve," he told The Washington Post, with a dismissive wave of his hand before taking office. His plan was to form a commission to study the program, a typical Beltway expedient. But he has shelved even the commission idea for now under pressure from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. It's much easier to host a "summit" on fiscal responsibility, as he did yesterday. One news item from that confab: He'll be holding another summit, on health care, next week. This all plays to Obama's strength, which will also be on display tonight: the ability to talk, forcefully and persuasively. Ultimately, though, he'll be judged on more exacting standards: Can his program cohere, and does it work? comments.lowry@nationalreview.com nypost.com