I don't see the hope, but I can certainly see the change. From Bloomberg:
"U.S. unemployment will surge to 10 percent this year and the budget deficit will be $1.5 trillion next year, both higher than previous Obama administration forecasts because of a recession that was deeper and longer than expected, White House budget chief Peter Orszag said.
Let's recall what Obama said about the stimulus:
If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits. Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four.
Oops.
Then he said, "This crisis did not happen solely by some accident of history or normal turn of the business cycle, and we won't get out of it by simply waiting for a better day to come, or relying on the worn-out dogmas of the past." You mean like big government, over-regulation of the economy, and high taxes? So what did Obama do? He went back to FDR and thought Keynesianism would work.
He finished off with this:
"For every day we wait or point fingers or drag our feet, more Americans will lose their jobs. More families will lose their savings. More dreams will be deferred and denied. And our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse."
Thanks. Things are much worse, the stimulus didn't stimulate, the tax "cut" wasn't a tax cut, and there has been nothing done to stimulate long term growth, entrepreneurialism, investment, and economic activity.
The government cannot create jobs. The government cannot create wealth. The government cannot create happiness. The statist mantra echoed by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and other tyrannical figures cannot be ignored. Increasing government size and control over the choices of individuals translates to increasing danger to individual rights and freedoms. It leads to a reduction in private economic activity and increases the dependency of people on government.
But perhaps that is exactly what Mr. Obama wants...
So the current situation remains as such:
Administration and congressional budget officials expect the unemployment rate, which was 9.4 percent last month, to keep rising. White House officials said the rate likely will rise to 10 percent by the end of 2009, averaging 9.3 percent for the entire year. It will worsen to a 9.8 percent average in 2010, instead of the 7.9 percent estimate in May.
The CBO report also estimates the 2009 jobless rate at 9.3 percent. It puts next year’s average at 10.2 percent.
The OMB raised its deficit projection for fiscal 2010, which begins Oct. 1, from the $1.26 trillion forecast in May, reflecting slower economic growth this year and next because of “the severity of the crisis in the U.S. and in our trading partners,” said Christina Romer, White House chief economist, who along with Orszag briefed reporters on the report.
The median estimate of 31 economists in a Bloomberg News survey completed Aug. 21 was for a fiscal year 2010 deficit of $1.3 trillion.
Obama is fast turning into Jimmy Carter. Thank goodness for term limits and set elections.
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10 comments:
Oh that Obama. Thinking and acting like Harper! You folks did say that Harper had a big influence on Obama.
What a fantastic argument Ted. Unfortunately you must have missed the differences in the economic performances in the two countries and the fact that Canada's economy, financial system, and growth prospects are much better.
Dont forget, Iggy voted for Harper's plans...
You must have missed the fact that the job numbers are worse in Canada, some have pulled out of the recession, Harper's deficit is higher than many and it's going to take us a looooong time to get back to the good old days of fiscal prudence under the Liberals because Harper has no plans to get rid of the deficit.
OSL: you just be joking. Iggy and company voted for the budget. Iggy was pushing more expansive EI payments which would have raised the deficit further.
Iggy wanted more "infrastructure" and govt spending further raising the deficit.
The Canadian unemlpoyment level is about 8.5%, the US level is approaching 10%. Not sure where you're getting your info, but you might want to try a few simple google searches.
The Bank of Canada is predicting an end to the recession here by year's end. Germany is out of it, and they had no stimulus. Japan is also out of recession. The US has no end in site thanks to OBmabi. He seems intent on turning recession into depression, not unlike FDR who made the Depression "Great" in the US.
Now where are you getting the idiotic notion that FDR made the depression great?
Did he start those runs on the banks? Did he cause the dust bowls? Did he cause the hyper pricing in the market?
This is one of the stupidest conservative talking points there is. Way worse than 'if Obama did it is bad; but if Harper did it was good (unless of course it was bad in which case it was the Liberals fault). They don't call them pass the buck conservatives for nothing.
The Depression was only called great in the US. Most historians now agree that FDR lengthened depression by up to 8 years as a result of his policies.
but don't take my word for it: http://www.parapundit.com/archives/005635.html
take some profs from UCLA
What utter bunk. As a historian there is nothing that gets under my skin more than ideologically driven revisionist history for politically partisan reasons of today.
If you want to comment on a historical events, then do us all the curtesy of actually knowing something about what happened instead of just regurgitating far right wing talking points from non-historians trying to score political points today.
It was a worldwide "great" depression and the US did not even suffer the worst of it or the longest of it. Germany for example suffered way more from it.
To say that FDR made the depression last longer shows a complete ignorance of both the underlying causes of the depression and the acts he took to counter them. Drought, the already half-decade long depression in agricultural sectors from before the national/global depression, collapsing international trade, switching from the gold standard, fluctuations in gold supply, lack of credit flow, hyper-inflation in the 1920s, etc. etc. etc. all had their bit and FDR's actions, even if you want to groundlessly argue were counter-productive, would not have affected many of those which persisted through the 1930s and even into the 1940s.
To say that FDR prolonged the depression, you would have to show that GDP declined during that period. In fact, the American economy expanded under FDR, the economy had recovered to the highest levels of the 1920s, unemployment was under control and the US came out of the depression when a sharp new recession hit in 1937.
You can argue, as Conrad Black does with tons of evidence in his book Roosevelt (and I cite him not as a great historical authority but someone who has clear and strong conservative credentials and someone who researches the hell out of anything he writes and provides lots of supporting theorists), that it was in fact the cuts to the New Deal and pulling back on the New Deal projects that had a direct result in creating that recession. I'm not fully convinced of that, personally, and think it was just a part of the usual 7-8 year economic cycle and they were out of this recession by 1938.
But either way, anyone who actually studies that time will tell you that to speak of "a" Great Depression grossly simplifies what happened to the US and global economy during the 1920s and 1930s. And to say that FDR extended the depression by 8 years when he only came into office in 1933 and the US was out of the depression by 1936 shows you really do not know the first thing about the Great Depression.
As for the contention that most historians agree with your view: total total bunk. In fact, the opposite is true. In 1995, the University of California sponsored a survey of the Economic History Society (made up of PhDs historians interested in economics, economists interested in history) and found something very interesting and telling. There was a split: there was a clear and strong consensus among economic historians that FDR did not lengthen the depression while there was an equally clear consensus among economic theorists that he had lengthened it. So one group whose profession is based on looking at facts as they were and as they really happened disagreed with another group whose profession is based on modelling and theory.
Either way you are wrong to say most historians agree with you when the opposite is true. More importantly, it is another perfect example of ideologues and theorists trying to fit the facts of history into their ideology and theories rather than to start with facts and reality and build up to a conclusion and theory.
And I must add Jonathan, in relation to the actual post, your argument that Iggy would have spent more, was pushing for more, is a bizarre defence to the claim that Harper has created a monster of a deficit.
Not only does it show us all that you are looking at it from a thoroughly partisan perspective - a political party partisan perspective, not even an ideological one because a truly strong conservative as opposed to a strong Conservative would laugh at your argument - it actually concedes the very point I was making.
So thank you for agreeing with me.
Have you seen the HILARIOUS conservative comic called Hope and Change? It always makes me smile, and/or emit an evil chuckle. Hope it cheers.
http://hopenchangecartoons.blogspot.com/
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