For starters, the president can practice fiscal responsibility to generate a balanced federal budget, or a surplus, rather than to piss away the federal budget like a drunken sailor signing off boondogle legislations such as the multi-million "bridge to nowhere" project, George H Bush Sr's pet project "million points of light", awarding no-bid multi-billion contracts to Haliburtion, Blackwater, etc. The biggest piece of the federal budget is the Iraq War, over Billions of $$$ a day, yet the inept W has no clue how that $$$ is being spent. with all that multi-billion spent already, the troops are still short on protective gears. where the F*** did the $$$ go ? A federal budget surplus strengthens the value of the currency. To the extent that the Oil is denominated in USD, a stronger USD conteracts the rising cost of oil. It is ironic to note that one of the tenets of the Republican party has been fiscal responsibility, yet none of the Republican President, post-Ike, has been able to generate a balanced budget. Reagan's only lament was that he didn't balance the federal budget. In fact,The only US presdient, post Ike, able to generate a surplus was Clinton, the best Republican president the GOP never had ! Another thing that a presient can do is abstain from saber-rattling Iran. as noted by Major, doing so adds uncertainty to the middle east dynamics, which causes the oil price to increase.
Of course they are components, but they do not equal the health of the overall economy. GDP is a fair metric to use to look at the overall health of the economy. It grew 3.9% (annualized) in Q3 2007. Put that in your pipe and smoke, it, rookie. Robust growth. Your silly point is like saying that the Spurs sucked last year, despite winning the NBA championship, because Tony Parker (one of the Spurs' components) had a bad championship series.
My goodness you're ignorant. I feel like a Harvard PhD explaining physics to a Kindergartner when I reply to your moronic posts. Massive layoffs? Let's try looking at some FACTS, which seems to be something you ignore since you likely get your economic talking points from DailyKos. Take a looksie at the unemployment rate. It was 4.7% last quarter. That's an extremely healthy number, and well below the average rate during Slick Willie's tenure as President.
LOL, thanks for the "help", aggy. Sheesh, you win a football game and now you think you can talk to me on economic issues? Stick to agronomy, aggy. Your factors were so significant that our GDP grew at 3.9% last quarter.
what institution of lower learning did you attend ? take away the , >130 million troops in Iraq and support personnel , what is that truer unemployment rate ? that are statisticians, there are liars, and there are morons who can't tell the difference ! W is supposed to be a Republican, a supposed proponent of a smaller Government. the inept has built up the Gov Payroll in order to show a higher unemployment rate. get a clue, ! even a Braille reader can tell that the current unemployment rate is higher than Clinton's last 3 yrs.
actually, it's 130 thousand + the increase in Gov personnel from the creation of Homeland Security Dept, as well as added personnel for the domestic survaillance program. to the ill-informed bigtexx, . the chart you provided illustrates how healthy economy was under Clinton's watch without the benefit of a big Gov payroll (the troops in Iraq, a new Homeland Security dept, and additional staff to support domestic surveillance programs
130,000 soldiers (assuming they were all unemployed prior to the war), and however many people are employed in surveillance would have a minimal impact on the unemployment numbers. I mean you're talking about a workforce of what 150 million? 200 million? And isn't the majority of Homeland Security just the former airport workers, etc. that were taken over by the government? I personally believe most Presidents get too much credit or slack for what happens during their tenure. More often that not, I think the slack is usually warranted because of poor decisions are easier to point out (i.e, the increase in discretionary and non discretionary spending under this president, war spending depending on your view, etc) than it is to say that economic growth is due to specific policies (when you look at the shrinking unemployment above, what specific Clinton policies were instrumental in this?). Personally, I think Presidents tend to miss things up more than they do to help things (i.e, massive spending increases instead of say streamlining taxes, etc). It would be great if whoever gets elected next term controls spending, though I suppose there is no reason to optimistic. As for the current economic situation, I think this is the price we pay for having budget deficits as well as a trade account deficit. Its not sustainable but I don't think its as dire as people say. The dollar will continue to weaken and probably weaken beyond fundamentals would say (typical investor overreaction or think about how oil has an irrational premium). However, ultimately, this will adjust the trade imbalance. Not only do US manufacturers become more competitive (not enough to maybe matter against China, but definitely against Japan, etc). Also, this means US services will be much more competitive in Europe and around the world (i.e, IT, consulting, etc). Net net, the weakening of the dollar was a long time coming and you reap what you sow. At the end of the day it will stabilize, we'll buy less plasma TVs b/c they won't be as cheap (which means you can't have the same standard of living, but perhaps thats b/c everyone was living beyond their means). Its pretty telling though how most of these economic discussions turn into partisan arguments when thats basically the pot calling the kettle black. The truth is, that most sides seem to have valid parts (unemployment is still historically low, the govt has gotten bloated under a supposedly fiscally conservative administration)...........
This is the best post in this thread hands down. You're absolutely right. Most of the rest was just partisan crap flinging. Claiming that good employment numbers are fallacious due to Iraqi troop deployment is a big stretch. Likewise - the GDP and employment numbers have been good under Bush (and likewise with Clinton). Trying to underpin those basic measures with excuses like dot-com bubble or equity-credit bubble may be true - but it's not your pres can really do much there anyways. And no I'm not satisfied with the boards answers to my questions about a presidents ability to alter oil prices and mortgage defaults. I thought the President would generally support expanding US producion and refineries. Would this not have a downward effect on prices? Also -Bush is no fiscal conservative by any means and any good economic indicators can hardly be attributed to fiscal conservatism. In fact i think the govt is a bigger chunk of our GDP than ever (including the regime previous regime).
I'm not really sure how where I went to college matters at all. But if it makes you feel better, go right ahead fella. By the way, I don't know the first thing about agronomy. I have a BBA in Accounting and a JD. I am currently a bankruptcy lawyer, and as such, the economy and trends matter very much to my practice. Please...do tell what your credentials are. Yes...GDP grew. Yippee. However, people overall are making less money. There is a real estate crisis. The stock market is unstable. You may end up thinking things are just rosy until the crash. At some point, B of A will no longer bail out Countrywide. Then the largest mortgage lender in the country will go out of business. None of this points to good things in the future. I think the article that was posted was reactionary and overblows the problem....but to ignore that there is a problem is foolish.
If we never went to Iraq and investors felt there was a zero chance we'd go to war in the Middle East, its not a stretch to say oil prices would be lower than today - just by the simple notion that there is less risk to supply. How much lower is a valid question, but I think in this case, the president's policies can affect it. And of course, using presidential capital to push through oil drilling in Alaska or coastal areas, or alternative energy would also impact oil prices. The whole home mortgage default is one of those things which is true case of monkeys flinging poo in here. Everyone believes in the American dream and I can't imagine any legislation being passed 3 or 4 years ago that would explicitly make it harder for people to get into homes - legislation like banning subprime loans, adjustable mortgages, 0 down mortgages, etc. The truth is, there is a need for these products because sometimes a standard mortgage isn't for you - does that mean a private party shouldn't be able to lend to you at terms you agree to? The write solution there is to just make sure that truth in lending regulations are being followed, mortgage brokers aren't committing fraud (and I've heard of some pretty egregious behavior on their part), appraisers aren't compromised, etc. It seems the majority of the foreclosure stories I read about are people who got stretched thin, were playing the housing market like the stock market, etc. The loose lending simply gave a lot of people the rope they needed to hang themselves. In the end, the banks (and really that means their shareholders) lose money by lending too aggressively and the homeowner whose credit/savings take a hit). Any government bailout of either the bank or the homeowner basically rewards bad behavior and tells people to go ahead and take risks b/c you're not really risking anything, the govt will bail you out.
...then there are morons who think that 40% of Americans are currently in Iraq!! Me stepping foot in this thread is like Aristotle stepping into a class of pre-schoolers to debate philosophy. If you want to take economic/financial advice from firefighters, lawyers, or low-level IT personnel, then this is the thread for you!
Anyone who believes the policies of this Administration haven't had a negative impact on the economic health of this country is, with all due respect, living in a fool's paradise. We are fighting 2 wars involving our Army and Marines up to the hilt, stretching them close to the breaking point, have lowered our recruiting standards several times to attempt to maintain a force level inadequate for the job, because Bush and Rumsfeld ignored repeated calls from highly placed people in the military brass and Congress to increase the size of our standing ground forces, only recently figuring out that not doing that was beyond stupid. Why didn't the Administration increase our force level years ago? Well, besides incompetence beyond the pale, they simply didn't want to spend the money. Why? Because they were more interested in cutting taxes during a major war(s) for the first time, to my knowledge, in our history. This has had a direct negative impact on our economy. Those who support the Administration, come hell or high water, and regardless of brute stupidity, look only at the short term. We are moving past the short term and the piper is busy playing his flute. Huge import and export deficits, a dollar plummeting to such an extent that OPEC is seriously looking at ending pegging the dollar as the currency recieved for selling their vital product, the driving force for pouring their hundreds of billions into buying our government bonds (our debt), which if stopped would be a disaster. Something they wouldn't have dared consider until now. The Administration's foreign policy has hurt not only our political standing in the world, with our system of allies of decades standing in disarray, but also the sales of our products and services overseas. It has hurt our dealings with our major trading partners, who hold so much of our debt that we have lost a great deal of our leverage this country has been so used to having. And that doesn't even address the taxes our kids and grandchildren will be paying for the forseeable future to service a national debt increased in multiples of trillions of dollars. All that and so much more, but Bush's sycophants continue living in their fantasy world where all is groovy, repeating endlessly that pointing out the horrible position our country has been placed in is simply partisan business as usual. D&D. Attempt Civility. Impeach Bush for Creating Idiots.
Please explain how you are more qualified to talk about the health of the economy than the Nobel Prize winning economist who wrote the article that started this thread. TIA While you are at it, please explain to your "moron" brother about how singling out statistics like the stock market, unemployment in Texas, or other cherry picked "evidence" does not reflect that the entire economy is "booming." Again, TIA. Then, come back when you have an intelligent response to any of the articles presented in this thread or to any of the specific posts made by the posters you called out. One last time, TIA.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. - William Shakespeare,
No one claimed it did. Except maybe you, in trying to create a strawman to argue. GDP is a backward-looking metric. No one is discussing where the economy was in July. People are talking about the economy *now* and where it's going. 3rd quarter GDP is totally irrelevant to that.
Agree with you on the mortgage crisis. I think the vast majority of the foreclosure are not cuz of fraud, etc. If the Pres signed a law (which would most likely have been legislated by Democrats), outlawing subprime loans - the outcry would be tremendous. A disproportiately large number of "minorities" (non-Asians cuz apparently the US media thins so), would be denied a chance at the "American Dream". I suppose some would argue that Bush's deficit has raised interest rates but I think that is tenous at best in regards to this situation.
I don't see how the Nobel prize factors in. It would probably take bigtexx a few minutes to find some article written by some highly-acclaimed economist that supports his views. Sadly - it really is a dismal science. I've always thought of economics as applying pseudo-mathematical tools to predict human behavior. I think it is only really effective in explaining stuff that's already happened.
i think the gov't does have a responsibility to make sure banks are making sound loans. banks are regulated by the federal gov't. bank examiners who are gov't workers come in and examine loans to make sure they are made on sound credit priciples. where the break down occured, I have no idea. but the gov't does have a responsibility to regulate the banking industry.
The thing about the mortgages was essentially every experienced financial analyst that I heard speak on the issue knew that the vast majority of these people were going to default, and that these people didn't really understand how rising interest rates would hit them. When you offer a loan to someone that you believe will result in default but they are not as clear as you that the loan will default, then that qualifies to me as predatory lending. And the government does seem to have a fairly established role and interest in preventing predatory lending. I see the fault in not regulating this in the 'market forces will fix everything' statement of faith that has become a Republican mantra. 20 years ago conservatives were probably right that in many places market forces could make things more efficient. The conservatives of that era would look at as situation, analyze it, and if market forces would work they would apply them. The vanguard of the revitalized 'market philosophy' movement, however, has come and gone. Reagan is dead. Now you have a bunch of second rate followers-on who unthinkingly present the knee-jerk 'market forces' response to every problem. This includes the many instances in the world where market forces don't makes sense. Do you want your fire department to prioritize fires based on which fire is the most profitable to put out? Doesn't seem like a good idea to me. The subprime mortgage crisis was a problem that everybody saw coming. It resulted in millions of marginally poor people transferring wealth to large banks (the bank ends up with both the house and all the mortgage payments to date – essentially a very large short term rent agreement). And the people who were affected were not properly aware of the risks that they were taking. That sounds to me like a very avoidable problem. I have no problem blaming it on Bush and a lack of leadership overseeing institutions that provide loans.
“In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.” - Confucius
