Worst Growth in 60 Years

#51
#51
Carl Pickens said:
You disagree with this? What percentage of the black vote went to Obama? The union vote? Come on PKT.....you're smart enough to know this
Click to expand...

Not the reason Obama won/Romney lost. If the GOP keeps putting their head in the sand, they will continue to lose big time when they should be winning.
 
#52
#52
volinbham said:
Agree in part - I do believe there are Presidential actions/no actions that impact the degree of change.

I would imagine if W could have done anything or even suggested anything besides tax cuts we could have had a faster growth rate during some years in the 2000s. More aggressive action in housing may have reduced the severity of the downturn a bit. Likewise I think Obama's policies (Obamacare) and tone - create considerable headwind and have slowed the potential recovery.
Click to expand...

You think the tax cuts hurt the economy in the 2000's?

No doubt that Obamacare as slowed the recovery.

I don't think it was feasible that a POTUS (Kerry or Bush) could have done anything to slow the housing bubble.
 
#53
#53
PKT_VOL said:
You think the tax cuts hurt the economy in the 2000's?

No doubt that Obamacare as slowed the recovery.

I don't think it was feasible that a POTUS (Kerry or Bush) could have done anything to slow the housing bubble.
Click to expand...

No I don't think tax cuts slowed the economy. I'm saying W's ONLY plan for the economy was tax cuts. It's a matter of signalling. There was no larger plan (trade, deficits, etc.) that gave the economy momentum.

On the issue of the housing bubble somethings could have been done but would have needed to be done in the mid-2000s. One would be legislation about lending standards, minimum reserves, etc. W & Co. made a weak effort but they were rebuffed by Dems.

One could have also pushed for legislation to repair Glass-Stegall issues.

The bubble couldn't be stopped most likely but it was basically full steam ahead into it rather than any meaningful attempts to slow the impending "pop". Same is true in the late 90s when we were warned of "irrational exuberance" but no action was taken by Clinton or Congress and the Tech bubble popped.

Put more succinctly, both policy and signalling of policy can impact the acceleration/deceleration but likely not the direction.
 
#54
#54
volinbham said:
No I don't think tax cuts slowed the economy. I'm saying W's ONLY plan for the economy was tax cuts. It's a matter of signalling. There was no larger plan (trade, deficits, etc.) that gave the economy momentum.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

volinbham said:
On the issue of the housing bubble somethings could have been done but would have needed to be done in the mid-2000s. One would be legislation about lending standards, minimum reserves, etc. W & Co. made a weak effort but they were rebuffed by Dems.
Click to expand...

Right. Additionally, nobody really knew about the problem (detailed scope and scale) except a few, select number of people.

volinbham said:
One could have also pushed for legislation to repair Glass-Stegall issues.
Click to expand...

Not feasible. They did not know the negative ramifications yet.

volinbham said:
The bubble couldn't be stopped most likely but it was basically full steam ahead into it rather than any meaningful attempts to slow the impending "pop". Same is true in the late 90s when we were warned of "irrational exuberance" but no action was taken by Clinton or Congress and the Tech bubble popped.

Put more succinctly, both policy and signalling of policy can impact the acceleration/deceleration but likely not the direction.
Click to expand...

Right. However, we are looking at this from a monday morning quarterback stance. Had Congress and the President truly known how big of a problem they had on their hands and still not acted, then not taking the actions above would have been more fruitful criticism.
 
#55
#55
I think the signs were there and more than a few people were sounding the alarm. Even in the case of Glass-Stegall, plenty of folks knew the dangers.

The problem is that it is political suicide to try to stop an overheated economy as a whole or economic sector. People just hope it won't pop on their watch.
 
#56
#56
TheDeeble said:
Obama is a presidential version of Derek Dooley.

Yea he inherited a bad situation. So people are glossing over the incompetence and bad results with "it's not his fault, it's the guy before him."

Eventually though people realized, you know what.....this guy just sucks. He's making things worse.
Click to expand...

I've made this comparison myself. I like the way ya think.
 
#57
#57
volinbham said:
I think the signs were there and more than a few people were sounding the alarm. Even in the case of Glass-Stegall, plenty of folks knew the dangers.

The problem is that it is political suicide to try to stop an overheated economy as a whole or economic sector. People just hope it won't pop on their watch.
Click to expand...

I tend to agree with everything in this post except the idea that there were many people who actually knew the size and scope of the problem. There were certainly people worried about that the problem, but most of those underestimated the problem
 
#58
#58
PKT_VOL said:
I tend to agree with everything in this post except the idea that there were many people who actually knew the size and scope of the problem. There were certainly people worried about that the problem, but most of those underestimated the problem
Click to expand...

There were a few in government prior to the 08 crash who understood the size and scope of the problem and their underlying factors and were basically told by most of congress, the treasury and fed to shut up.
 
#59
#59
milohimself said:
There were a few in government prior to the 08 crash who understood the size and scope of the problem and their underlying factors and were basically told by most of congress, the treasury and fed to shut up.
Click to expand...

I haven't heard of this. Maybe you are right.
 
#60
#60
PKT_VOL said:
I haven't heard of this. Maybe you are right.
Click to expand...
Frontline did a 60 minute piece about this particular woman, and I can't remember her name or the agency she worked for, but she basically went in front of congress from 06-early 08, explained exactly what was happening with the markets in question, what was going to happen in the then-near future (which she was more or less entirely accurate about), suggested some immediate measures which had a fairly high likelihood of mitigating the crash to a large extent... And was laughed out of the room.

I agree with people who say we don't need "more government" to prevent future catastrophe, because the fact is we had measures and agency in place that could have prevented much of what happened. The problem is that when we're in a boom, any entity with that level of agency who presents even the slightest threat of tapping on the brakes is thoroughly neutered by congress.
 
#61
#61
milohimself said:
Frontline did a 60 minute piece about this particular woman, and I can't remember her name or the agency she worked for, but she basically went in front of congress from 06-early 08, explained exactly what was happening with the markets in question, what was going to happen in the then-near future (which she was more or less entirely accurate about), suggested some immediate measures which had a fairly high likelihood of mitigating the crash to a large extent... And was laughed out of the room.
Click to expand...

I vaguely remember that woman. I believe she was also the first to speak about the local/state government budget crisis.

milohimself said:
I agree with people who say we don't need "more government" to prevent future catastrophe, because the fact is we had measures and agency in place that could have prevented much of what happened. The problem is that when we're in a boom, any entity with that level of agency who presents even the slightest threat of tapping on the brakes is thoroughly neutered by congress.
Click to expand...

I don't buy this angle. Most of our regulatory agencies are either too incompetent to a good job or are in bed with the same people they are suppose to regulate.
 
#62
#62
Government regulators work best when they work with the industry not against it. It will never be very effective otherwise. It was in the banks interest not to push the bubble. The problem is that government subsidized the risk.
 
#63
#63
Weezy said:
Government regulators work best when they work with the industry not against it. It will never be very effective otherwise. It was in the banks interest not to push the bubble. The problem is that government subsidized the risk.
Click to expand...

But wouldn't most folks, pre-collapse, categorize that as working with, not against, the industry?
 
#64
#64
PKT_VOL said:
I don't buy this angle. Most of our regulatory agencies are either too incompetent to a good job or are in bed with the same people they are suppose to regulate.
Click to expand...
In acknowledging the first part of my post, you are acknowledging that, in that particular instance, there was a government agency that was in a position to affect some sort of meaningful change that would have mitigated the impact of the crash.

I contend that most of those government agencies are not incompetent, but rather rendered ineffective by politicians at the behest of their larger constituents, or created/manipulated to create market distortions tilted in favor of those constituents.

That same story as a case in point: That woman whose name I forget called for what would have been effective measures in minimizing the crash, then her department was rendered ineffective by congress members who were on the dole of financial players who had a large interest in seeing to it she couldn't accomplish anything. That is in effect what happened.

Weezy said:
Government regulators work best when they work with the industry not against it. It will never be very effective otherwise. It was in the banks interest not to push the bubble. The problem is that government subsidized the risk.
Click to expand...
Moral hazard is more of intangible, long-term principle that always needs to be considered, but prior to the crash wasn't on the minds of the banks until it became apparent they would get bailed out (whether they liked it or not).

Government regulators working with the industry is what resulted in the repeal of Glass-Steagall, low-doc/no-doc loans being issues en masse, the complete and absolute opacity of the OTC derivatives market, etc. Government regulators working with the industry was a large driving force behind what nearly put us in a second great depression.
 
#65
#65
Danl said:
But wouldn't most folks, pre-collapse, categorize that as working with, not against, the industry?
Click to expand...
Mostly, and I agree to a large extent that it should not be doing that. More or less everybody on all sides of this issue agree that no single company should be big enough to destroy our entire economy if it goes down, but it's virtually indisputable that the level of risk our government implicitly subsidizes guarantees that.
 
#66
#66
milohimself said:
Government regulators working with the industry is what resulted in the repeal of Glass-Steagall, low-doc/no-doc loans being issues en masse, the complete and absolute opacity of the OTC derivatives market, etc. Government regulators working with the industry was a large driving force behind what nearly put us in a second great depression.
Click to expand...

Regulation will never be very effective when it is against the industry. The private industry should just be able to pay more to get the best talent, unless you want to simplify the processes which really do serve a market purpose. ok, I'm generalizing a bit. There are probably a few things they could do better, but still generally, that's my opinion.

I'm not arguing whether they should be against/with banks, I'm stating that it doesn't work if the relationship is not established in a what's good for you, is good for me. For instance, nuclear regulators and nuclear plants work well together because safety is profitable/good for both entities. The only time it's contentious is when discussing some vague, costly environmental issue, like protecting against no fish getting caught on grates or something of the like.

My opinion is that it is in the banks best interest to not push the bubble as they stood to go under. Whether they saw the risk, but knew government would bail them out, I doubt. But it was still in their best interest.
 
#67
#67
That's the thing, they weren't at all aware of the risk until the s**t had already hit the fan.

There are notions going back to the days of Adam Smith that financial markets are inherently different from any other market place and need to be treated differently.
 
#68
#68
milohimself said:
Frontline did a 60 minute piece about this particular woman, and I can't remember her name or the agency she worked for, but she basically went in front of congress from 06-early 08, explained exactly what was happening with the markets in question, what was going to happen in the then-near future (which she was more or less entirely accurate about), suggested some immediate measures which had a fairly high likelihood of mitigating the crash to a large extent... And was laughed out of the room.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that's Brooksley Born you're talking about.
 
#70
#70
milohimself said:
In acknowledging the first part of my post, you are acknowledging that, in that particular instance, there was a government agency that was in a position to affect some sort of meaningful change that would have mitigated the impact of the crash.

I contend that most of those government agencies are not incompetent, but rather rendered ineffective by politicians at the behest of their larger constituents, or created/manipulated to create market distortions tilted in favor of those constituents.

That same story as a case in point: That woman whose name I forget called for what would have been effective measures in minimizing the crash, then her department was rendered ineffective by congress members who were on the dole of financial players who had a large interest in seeing to it she couldn't accomplish anything. That is in effect what happened.
Click to expand...

There is a difference between theory and reality. In theory, yes, they could have mitigated the crisis. In reality, this really hit most people off guard.

I don't blame the final congress's "neutering" action for causing the crisis or not being able to prevent it.
 
#71
#71
Lawgator1 it is very obivious that you need O stuck up your **s . Because you don't know *hit like every other Florida Dem-cat I know.Why can't you just admit he has nothing but a tax spend agenda to bankrupt America.
 
#72
#72
JEBB6263 said:
Lawgator1 it is very obivious that you need O stuck up your **s . Because you don't know *hit like every other Florida Dem-cat I know.Why can't you just admit he has nothing but a tax spend agenda to bankrupt America.
Click to expand...

Offense?
Obama?
Olives?
Opinions?
Options?
Octets?

??
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top