Really ? $800 billion later and this is what we get ?
Congrats on re-running the cheap and easy criticism. Republicans love to play this clip, apparently to claim that Obama, his economic advisors and Congress didn't know what they were doing.
The Great Recession and the rapid response to it (by Bush's Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson as well as Obama's staff) were almost unprecedented. There was almost no time to act to avert disaster. There was no history of a rapidly needed, massive stimulus to guide Bush or Obama.
We then planned to meet at 5 p.m. that day, and I invited Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to join us. Later that evening, the meeting commenced, with Democratic and Republican leaders from both the House and Senate.
Secretary Paulson described a meltdown and financial crisis from the depths of hell.
When I asked Bernanke what he thought of the secretary's characterization, he said, "If we do not act immediately, we will not have an economy by Monday." This was Thursday night. Everyone in the room was flabbergasted.
...
On Saturday, Secretary Paulson sent us a three-page draft proposal with a price tag of$700 billion. Again, we were flabbergasted — this time, by the staggering amount and the fact that all authority would be placed in the secretary's hands. Democrats insisted that the final legislation include greater accountability and oversight.
You can play that clip of Obama's rueful joke as much as you want, but the stimulus and accompanying financial market policies such as TARP and the Fed's quantitative easing programs worked.
Here is a summary of a paper, with my boldfacing of relevant sections, by Alan S. Blinder (highly respected Princeton University economist) and Mark Zandi (principal analyst at Moody's Financial Analytics and McCain's economic advisor during the 2008 campaign):
The U.S. government’s response to the financial crisis and ensuing Great Recession included some of the most aggressive fiscal and monetary policies in history. The response was multifaceted and bipartisan, involving the Federal Reserve, Congress, and two administrations. Yet almost every one of these policy initiatives remain controversial to this day, with critics calling them misguided, ineffective or both. The debate over these policies is crucial because, with the economy still weak, more government support may be needed, as seen recently in both the extension of unemployment benefits and the Fed’s consideration of further easing.
In this paper, we use the Moody’s Analytics model of the U.S. economy—adjusted to accommodate some recent financial-market policies—to simulate the macroeconomic effects of the government’s total policy response. We find that its effects on real GDP, jobs, and inflation are huge, and probably averted what could have been called Great Depression 2.0. For example, we estimate that, without the government’s response, GDP in 2010 would be about 11.5% lower, payroll employment would be less by some 8½ million jobs, and the nation would now be experiencing deflation.
When we divide these effects into two components—one attributable to the fiscal stimulus and the other attributable to financial-market policies such as the TARP, the bank stress tests and the Fed’s quantitative easing—we estimate that the latter was substantially more powerful than the former. Nonetheless, the effects of the fiscal stimulus alone appear very substantial, raising 2010 real GDP by about 3.4%, holding the unemployment rate about 1½ percentage points lower, and adding almost 2.7 million jobs to U.S. payrolls. These estimates of the fiscal impact are broadly consistent with those made by the CBO and the Obama administration. To our knowledge, however, our comprehensive estimates of the effects of the financial-market policies are the first of their kind. We welcome other efforts to estimate these effects.
One article I read—WashPo or Politico.com—quoted anonymous sources within Trump's campaign who claimed that Trump planned on blaming the RNC for insufficient support and donation-gathering if Trump lost.
He will definitely find someone to blame. His fragile ego won't allow anything else.
Of that there is no doubt. The only real question is whose political careers will be permanently damaged from Trump's "stink" when this all ends.
One article I read—WashPo or Politico.com—quoted anonymous sources within Trump's campaign who claimed that Trump planned on blaming the RNC for insufficient support and donation-gathering if Trump lost.
He will definitely find someone to blame. His fragile ego won't allow anything else.
I'll give you that, to be sure, on this one item. I need to see him put new tools in his tool box. If he does, great, he show how he learns from mistakes. If he doesn't, then I dunno what to say.
To Rod: I really think he's in it to win it and was from the beginning. With all his bluster, its hard to see him wanting to end his life as a loser and a joke for the next century like Dewey. And I'll disagree with the thought that Trump (or is it anyone ?) should be afraid of becoming our POTUS. Unless, as you say, that he only did it as a stunt. Then yes, he better be afraid.
It's clear to the world that his "toolbox" is empty... save for the same rusty hammer he pulls out in repeated attempts to beat people who he feels have "crossed" him.
New tools? Sorry, if he hasn't used them yet it just means he doesn't have them (period) and the POTUS isn't a learn-as-you go position.
No, the shocking thing was that he had no tools in his toolbox to handle the situation.
I'll give you that, to be sure, on this one item. I need to see him put new tools in his tool box. If he does, great, he show how he learns from mistakes. If he doesn't, then I dunno what to say.
To Rod: I really think he's in it to win it and was from the beginning. With all his bluster, its hard to see him wanting to end his life as a loser and a joke for the next century like Dewey. And I'll disagree with the thought that Trump (or is it anyone ?) should be afraid of becoming our POTUS. Unless, as you say, that he only did it as a stunt. Then yes, he better be afraid.
I'm sure Trump never expected to be the nominee, but here he is, and I think the real possibility of actually becoming president scares the hell out of him, as it should. I really wonder if at this point, he is trying to be so outrageous with his newest insults, attacks and outright lies, that he loses to Hillary and can then scream about how the system is rigged and she stole the presidency from him. (He has already started on the rigging excuse) Yet with every bomb he tosses, his supporters blindly double down on supporting him. It must be driving him nuts!
Along these lines - I have thought, all along, that he only did this to stir up shit (or else he works for the Clintons like the popular conspiracy theory), and really can't be bothered with the presidency. He's got too much else to do in his multi-millionaire world to be troubled with having to go to all the meetings and summits, etc.
“Obama-Clinton have single-handedly destabilized the Middle East, handed Iraq, Libya and Syria to Isis, and allowed our personnelto be slaughtered at Benghazi,” Trump wrote, in a single-paragraph release sent to reporters by his campaign. “Then they put Iran on the path to nuclear weapons. Then they allowed dozens of veterans to die waiting for medical carethat never came. Hillary Clinton put the whole country at risk with her illegal email server, deleted evidence of her crime, and lied repeatedly about her conduct with endangered us all. They released criminal aliens into our country who killed one innocent American after another... and have repeatedly admitted migrants later implicated in terrorism.”
“They have produced the worst recovery since the Great Depression,” Trump continued. “They have shipped millions of our best jobs overseas to appease their global special interests. They have betrayed our security and our workers, and Hillary Clinton has proven herself unfit to serve in any government office.”
I know we all construct our own versions of reality, but this is giving construction a whole new twist. It is kind of interesting that Trump's reality is every bit as much a fabrication as his building projects. I think it is how his mind works. He wants an apartment with two bathrooms? There done! Problem solved. He wants a nemesis of his white male Anglo-Saxon version of the American dream as his opponent which he can beat at the election? There, done! This might work on TV. It might even work while canvassing for election, in fact it seems to. But what happens when reality comes up and hits him in the face? His reaction to the Khans gives us a pretty good indication. He just couldn't process the fact that here was a shining example of a real world couple who ran counter to all his preconceptions of what muslims stood for. The dissonance was too much so he fell back on his routine. The shocking thing was not his distaste for the Khans, though God forbid that was bad enough. No, the shocking thing was that he had no tools in his toolbox to handle the situation.
I'm sure Trump never expected to be the nominee, but here he is, and I think the real possibility of actually becoming president scares the hell out of him, as it should. I really wonder if at this point, he is trying to be so outrageous with his newest insults, attacks and outright lies, that he loses to Hillary and can then scream about how the system is rigged and she stole the presidency from him. (He has already started on the rigging excuse) Yet with every bomb he tosses, his supporters blindly double down on supporting him. It must be driving him nuts!
“Obama-Clinton have single-handedly destabilized the Middle East, handed Iraq, Libya and Syria to Isis, and allowed our personnelto be slaughtered at Benghazi,” Trump wrote, in a single-paragraph release sent to reporters by his campaign. “Then they put Iran on the path to nuclear weapons. Then they allowed dozens of veterans to die waiting for medical carethat never came. Hillary Clinton put the whole country at risk with her illegal email server, deleted evidence of her crime, and lied repeatedly about her conduct with endangered us all. They released criminal aliens into our country who killed one innocent American after another... and have repeatedly admitted migrants later implicated in terrorism.”
“They have produced the worst recovery since the Great Depression,” Trump continued. “They have shipped millions of our best jobs overseas to appease their global special interests. They have betrayed our security and our workers, and Hillary Clinton has proven herself unfit to serve in any government office.”
I know we all construct our own versions of reality, but this is giving construction a whole new twist. It is kind of interesting that Trump's reality is every bit as much a fabrication as his building projects. I think it is how his mind works. He wants an apartment with two bathrooms? There done! Problem solved. He wants a nemesis of his white male Anglo-Saxon version of the American dream as his opponent which he can beat at the election? There, done! This might work on TV. It might even work while canvassing for election, in fact it seems to. But what happens when reality comes up and hits him in the face? His reaction to the Khans gives us a pretty good indication. He just couldn't process the fact that here was a shining example of a real world couple who ran counter to all his preconceptions of what muslims stood for. The dissonance was too much so he fell back on his routine. The shocking thing was not his distaste for the Khans, though God forbid that was bad enough. No, the shocking thing was that he had no tools in his toolbox to handle the situation.
During the primary season, as Donald Trump’s bizarre outbursts helped him crush the competition, I thought he was being crazy like a fox. Now I am increasingly convinced that he’s just plain crazy.
I’m serious about that. Leave aside for the moment Trump’s policies, which in my opinion range from the unconstitutional to the un-American to the potentially catastrophic. At this point, it would be irresponsible to ignore the fact that Trump’s grasp on reality appears to be tenuous at best.
Begin with the fact that he lies the way other people breathe. Telling a self-serving lie — no matter how transparent, no matter how easily disproved — seems to be a reflex for him. Look at the things he has said in just the past week.
