Cal, my response was to Shag… Sorry – I didn’t see your post
So, whatever drugs that the conservatives are on lately – could you please share with the left? Obviously I am not on the same chemically altered plane that you are.
I never blame the incoming president for the economy for the first year, or longer. I didn’t with any of them, starting with Reagan. It was Carter’s fault that unemployment ran up to over 10%. I don’t blame Reagan for the 10.8 unemployment in December 1982 (which is actually 22 months after he took office). I didn’t blame Reagan for the stock market going down 25% during his first couple years in office.
What you look for is recovery times... the thing the current president actually has control over.
Why do you blame Obama?
Do you really want to use this standard? Then I get to blame Reagan for the entire first two years in office. It was his ‘atmosphere’ that prolonged the recession, that caused unemployment to skyrocket and the market to tank. But, that isn't true... it was Carter's policies that created those problems.
That's a difficult example to use because the transition between Clinton and Bush was very troubled due to the childish, uncooperative, and spiteful behavior of the outgoing administration and Al Gore's failed attempt to steal the election.
And Bush creating TARP and then giving 350 billion dollars to Paulson to dole out to just any CEO that said ‘please’ is dealing smartly with the problem? Doing nothing or doing something stupid isn’t any different than what Bush encountered, and let’s face it, the hundreds of billions of dollars that were mishandled during the time after this election was a whole lot larger than the money we were talking about at the end of 2000. That 350 million is more than the entire amount of the long term stimulus part of Obama’s package (approx 270 billion in tax cuts, 300 billion dollars in short term, 300 in long term). When you combine the other half of TARP it is more than all the spending stimulus in Obama’s plan.
There is certainly recognition that the bubble had burst before Bush took office, just as it's noted that Obama took office during a bad economic period as well.
A ‘bad economic period’? The two aren’t even in the same ballpark… no banks failed right before Bush took office, the housing market wasn’t collapsing, the credit market wasn’t frozen, heavy American industry wasn’t going bankrupt.
And guess what – in mid May, 2008 the dow was at 13,058, in just 5-1/2 months it fell to 9650, almost 3,500 points – it was in free fall long before the election.
But of course, if you are Bryan you put the blame on that little tidbit on Obama as well.
This is just ludicrous....
The observation and argument that is gaining support right now is simply that Obama is making the situation worse.
And I think his actions will make it better. This is something only time will judge – I have given you my time frames – You can’t change this at this point. The bills have been passed, the budgets proposed, the wheels are in motion.
It is now a waiting game.
Do what Foss is doing, sell. My finance guy is telling me to get in at 6300 – so keep selling Foss… It is men like you, who sell when the market is down, and buy when it is up, that make me money…
Despite his high profile during the period after the election, did Obama ever disagree with any of the policies being advanced by Bush, Paulson or the Democrats in congress?
I don’t think he was ‘privy’ on how the TARP funds were being mishandled by Paulson. I also think he was busy working on his plans for his stimulus plan. You don’t write 1,000 pages of bill overnight. There was hardly anything going on during that time frame from the white house. That was part of the problem. The little bit they were doing was being done behind closed doors as Paulson handed out billions, without any accountability.
What problems did you have with the auto bail out in 2008? And why are you blaming that on Bush and not the Democrats in Congress?
Either you do something or you don’t. Either let them go into bankruptcy and reorganize, sink or swim. Or you make a commitment to really pull them out of their financial crisis. You can either let them bleed out, or you can cure them, but a band-aid wasn’t the solution. That is what they got, both from Congress and Bush, a band-aid that will just be sinking money into them. If the government was going to help them they needed to do it with much more money then they did, so the companies could not only stop the hemorrhaging, but also start to invest for the future.
If he thought that the TARP idea was such a bad idea, why did Obama chose Geithner, a man who was partly responsible it to be the Treasury Secretary?
I think TARP is a needed idea. However Geithner had nothing to do with how the first 350 billion was allotted, or the terms under which that money was given out. I would imagine we will never know where that 350 billion went. It was Paulson/Bush that decided who would get that money, and the restrictions (or complete lack thereof) on how it should be spent.
That represented 1/3 of the entire stimulus plan that Obama has in place – 1/2 of the actual spending part of that plan. It is just appalling.
And why don't you think that people are making financial decisions based on what Obama is SAYING he will do? He has no opposition in Congress, so you'd have to be a fool to not take him seriously.
I think they are now – I said that earlier. The market is now mostly a reflection of Obama’s policies. Before he took office it was a reflection of Bush’s economic climate. When Wall Street was being bombarded with bad news daily during those 3 months, and Obama was finally being briefed on how bad it really was by the Bush exit team, you can’t place that on Obama. He had yet to come up with a plan, because he was still learning about the scope of the problem. You don’t come into a failing company, and craft explicit plans on how to change that company, until you look at the books. Obama was looking at the books during those 3 months. He was getting a team in place, and starting to draft plans. That was his job. His job was not to fix the economy, or stabilize the market before he got into office.
