Contributors

Friday, September 09, 2011

Great Speech But...

The president reset the table last night with his jobs speech before both houses of Congress. Here are my thoughts:

First, we all knew he would give a good speech. That's one of his strengths. But the tone was stronger than usual...more forceful...basically he's not fucking around and I like that. This was evident as we watched the color slowly drain out of GOP faces.

Second, he's got details. Here is the fact sheet to peruse. Next week, he is sending the bill to Congress and the week after he is submitting his own deficit reduction plan for the Debt Committee to consider. Included in that will be how this is going to be paid for and it will be deficit neutral which will mean more cuts.

Some items that jump out at me from the fact sheet:

Reforms and regulatory reductions to help entrepreneurs and small businesses access capital.

As Manzi said, we are over regulated in some areas and under regulated in others.

Modernizing at least 35,000 public schools across the country,supporting new science labs, Internet-ready classrooms and renovations at schools across the country, in rural and urban areas.

If we are going to seriously compete in the world's labor force, we are going to have to do this and more. Other countries are surpassing us in this area and it needs to change.

A $4,000 tax credit to employers for hiring long-term unemployed workers.

Hallelujah! Nor hiring someone because they have been unemployed for a long time is ridiculous.

Obviously, we are going to see more details in the coming weeks but so far this is an impressive list.

Third, finally a piece of legislation with a simple name...The American Jobs Act. No one remembers the health care bill's name-they just know it as "Obamacare." They will remember this one.

Fourth, it's a win-win politically. If Congress passes the bill or some elements of it, he wins. If they don't, he is seen as giving effort to solve the jobs problem and Congress is seen as an impediment. With their poll numbers even further in the toilet, they can ill afford to be seen as obstructionist. The GOP, in particular, better try to salvage something after the debt crisis debacle. They received very poor marks from the American people on that one as well as the business community. As soon as the Tea Party becomes a liability for business (which they may have already), say buh-bye to them.

Finally, last night is yet another example of how the president and many Democrats actually have substance behind their proposed solutions. Most of the GOP have neither substance nor solutions. All they have is the ability to show you how to be afraid of something and who is responsible for it.

38 comments:

Haplo9 said...

>Fourth, it's a win-win politically. If Congress passes the bill or some elements of it, he wins.

What if Congress passes the bill and it does exactly nothing to help the economy? (which is highly likely.) Is that still a win in your book?

If the tax credits for hiring long term unemployed pass, I predict one of two things will happen - either absolutely nothing (because $4000-$10000 is beans compared to the actual cost of an employee), or we will see an expanding industry of businesses trying to game the credit. Ie companies will "hire" someone for a year to get the tax credit, give them half, then unfortunately have to let them go.

I'm curious though Mark - if all this stuff is going to get the economy moving right now, why didn't Obama and the D's do it back when R's weren't nearly such a problem? Why didn't stimulus I, which cost a lot more, do this? Could it be that this is just theater, done in the hopes of having something for Obama to help his campaign? Nah, he's trying to save capitalism, I forgot. :)

last in line said...

They don't like answering questions on the first stimulus bill. You may get them to post a link to some else's work but that's about it. In addition, all "what if's" should be reserved for only things like tax cuts. What if this fluff bill has the same effect as the first monsrous stimulus bill? What if dems keep giving sweetheart rates on loans to companies who were touted as the future only to have them go bankrupt? Sounds like the Marxist version of the Labor Theory of Value to me.

Hallelujah indeed! Once this bill is passed, businesses will immediately start hiring people that cost the company $50,000 in order to get the $4000 tax credit. Um, yeah.

Congress isn't the only entity with poll numbers in the toilet.

The tea party will go away right about hte same time Rush Limbaugh will go away (which on this blog was supposed to be 3 years ago). More wishful thinking.

Keep up those investments in infrastructure. I recently saw a program on TV about updating the Hoover dam. The engineers talked about the proposed effort enthusiastically; and said it would take "only" 15 years just to get the Environment Impact Statement approved to modify an existing dam. Crap like that is why Mark has to go back 50 plus years for his example of what government can build (the interstate highway system) because you sure as hell couldn't build anything like that today with all the environmental red tape tying up so much potential construction activity.

VR said...

On February 13, 2009, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which his administration promised would “create or save” 3.5 million jobs over two years, mostly in the private sector. The administration also claimed that without ARRA unemployment could increase to 8.8 percent, but with ARRA would drop to 7.25 percent by the end of 2010.

Unfortunately, the stimulus failed to live up to those promises. The president doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to predicting the impact of his policies on unemployment rates.

The president wasn’t the only person to make assertions about what would happen to the economy after the stimulus, and he wasn’t the only one to be completely wrong. Here is a blast from the past from Paul Krugman, writing in January 2009 about the unemployment predictions made by administration economists:

"Still picking over the Romer/Bernstein official evaluation of the Obama economic plan. Again, kudos to the team for producing such a clear, honest assessment. . . .

By my calculations, the Obama plan is supposed to reduce average unemployment over the next two years from 8.7% to 7.6%; over the next three years, it reduces average unemployment from 8.4% to 7.3%."

As we all know, these predictions didn’t materialize. They weren’t accurate.

Krugman seemed to think that the administration’s estimates were reliable, if only because they were similar to his. In this previous post, he wrote about the same report:

"Kudos, by the way, to the administration-in-waiting for providing this — it will be a joy to argue policy with an administration that provides comprehensible, honest reports, not case studies in how to lie with statistics.

That said, the report is written in such a way as to make it hard to figure out exactly what’s in the plan. This also makes it hard to evaluate the reasonableness of the assumed multipliers. But here’s the thing: the estimates appear to be very close to what I’ve been getting."

One possible explanation is that Krugman’s models and those of the Obama administration’s economists are wrong. Another is that their assumptions/estimates are wrong.

So why should we listen to you guys again?

Chuck said...

This isn’t a plan about jobs or deficits or [the] budget. It’s a plan to get him reelected. This is all about setting up an argument. And the reason he chooses this venue is that it creates a dramatic picture of him against the Congress.

This is the first campaign kickoff speech in American history that is delivered by a president in the House of Representatives.

Obama did a pivot. A year ago he was saying - ‘My plans are working. The economy is recovering. It’s slow. Everybody is impatient, but hang on.’

He doesn’t say that anymore. His new message is entirely new: ‘I have a new plan now. It’s going to work. The Republicans are going to stop it. And on Election Day next year, if we have 9 percent unemployment or worse — a second recession — it’s them, not us.’

That is his entire reelection campaign message.

This isn’t a speech. It’s a set-up. It’s not about jobs. It’s about reelection. Obama is going to establish a premise: The economy’s in trouble. He’s got a plan. The Republicans he knows will reject just about all of it. And thus he goes into next year saying that whatever happens, it’s their fault and not mine.

What a leader.

He wants a larger tax credit for companies that hire people who have been unemployed for six months or longer, which seems like an incentive for companies to fire some of their employees, replace them with eligibles, and pocket the credit.

Mark Ward said...

Hap et al:

First of all, let's take a look at the first stimulus. In short, it worked.

http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/123xx/doc12385/08-24-ARRA.pdf

The above is yet another report saying that it did. So, please, enough with the fictional narrative. I know you don't like Keynesian economics but that doesn't mean that it's always wrong for ever and ever amen. It's taken a lot of time to analyze this data so that would be on primary reason "I didn't like answering questions." It's called waiting until the facts are all in. Now, you get to deal with them.

Here are two graphics which show the job gains and GDP.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DplYAbgSTLA/TmpzOqF7wmI/AAAAAAAABP4/jymlolO5-1c/s1600/jobschart3.jpeg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GGVhKNB_aoM/TmpzdBY3leI/AAAAAAAABQA/YEe-4-I2iZQ/s1600/gdp_large.gif

These are the facts, folks. I know you're central goal is to "prove him wrong" but numbers don't lie. Now, you're certainly allowed to think whatever you want to but given this information, anything less than acceptance of these facts means your view is pure feeling and opinion.

The problem was that we didn't have any idea at the time how big the hole actually was back in early 2009. There are some that say the first stimulus should have been bigger. They could be right but I'm not so sure. What sort of an impact would that greater debt have had in the global marketplace? Or would the economy have jump started with a greater stimulus and decreased the debt with more revenue? We can't really say and that's not what happened so let's deal with what did.

Essentially, we mended the hobbled legs and made them walk again but they aren't running. The AJA aims to do that. This act is filled with many items you have been calling for, right? So now it's likely that it won't work? Hmm...I smell a "He must fail" attitude stinking up my blog.

There are fixes to problems in this bill that we know have needed to be executed for quite some time. It will work but the questions is to what degree?

" More wishful thinking."

So, this means you are going on record that the Tea Party is here to stay? I'd think you would at least want to consider the 11 percent approval rating Congress has which includes several Tea Party members. Again, I must ask, where is the substance of what they want? Take out the propaganda and there is nothing. That's not going to fly for long when people recognize the smoke and mirror show. Many already have. Oh, and Rush Limbaugh has never won an election and doesn't have to face voters every two years.

" They weren’t accurate."

That's right. Because they were based on initial estimates of the recession which also proved to be wrong.

Chuck, what would you do? Look at the data and let's see if you can come up with a better solution. Again, there are items in this bill that the GOP has asked for currently and in the past. I guess they can't take "Yes" for an answer. He has to fail.

Mark Ward said...

A snippet from the above CBO report:

CBO estimates that ARRA’s policies had the following effects in the second quarter of calendar year 2011 compared with what would have occurred otherwise:

-They raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic
product (GDP) by between 0.8 percent and 2.5 percent,

-Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.5 percentage points and 1.6 percentage points,

-Increased the number of people employed by between 1.0 million and 2.9 million, and

-Increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 1.4 million to 4.0 million, as shown in Table 1.
(Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to
full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed
workers.)

last in line said...

"It's called waiting until the facts are all in."

Like you did with the Gabby Giffords shooting suspect? Blogging at double speed accusing the right of everything under the sun, then all of a sudden telling people to shut up out of respect for the victims.

The links you posted don't prove VR wrong. VR talked about the unemployment rate being 7.25% at the end of 2010 and the private sector creating $3.5 million jobs.

The unemployment rate is higher than that and you linked to something showing that only 1.8 million jobs were created, well under the estimate provided.

The AJA isn't full of things I have been calling for. Not sure who you are talking to or debating with there.

You want me to consider congress' 11% approval rating while you haven't even mentioned Obamas sinking numbers on here? You take your poll numbers, I'll take the election results from last year. Politics are local. Not like it will happen, but I'm going to laugh if Turner wins Weiners seat in NYC.

Sure, I'll go on record that the tea party is here to stay. Even if they end up being just a figurehead, their message isn't going away. And morons on "your side" saying that tea party folks want black people to hang from trees isn't going to make independents flock to "your side" anytime soon.

Why are you asking Chuck what he would do? You had ALL the answers before Jan 2009. We want results because it's easy to be out of power complaining about everything. You did it for years.

blk said...

Another interesting economic story was that the United States fell to fifth place in economic competitiveness. Who's ahead of us? Switzerland, Singapore, Sweden and Finland.

All those countries have some form of socialized medicine and Sweden and Finland are constantly cited by Republicans as being "socialist." Apparently, keeping your people healthy and regulating businesses doesn't automatically crush your economy.

Mark Ward said...

I hope blk doesn't mind that I cut and pasted his comment from another thread in this one.

well under the estimate provided.

I'm not talking about estimates. I'm talking about whether or not it worked and was effective. There are the numbers. Tell me whether or not it worked and was effective.

while you haven't even mentioned Obamas sinking numbers on here?

http://markadelphia.blogspot.com/2011/09/three-for-thursday-2.html

Gallup Daily tracking for the last few days=43, 44, 42, 43, 42, 42, 42, 42...not sinking but holding steady.

I'm going to laugh if Turner wins Weiners seat in NYC.

It wouldn't surprise me if he did. So what? So we're are laughing and pointing now...nothing childish about that:)

I'll go on record that the tea party is here to stay.

Yesterday I had a conservative friend of mine from tennis say, "I wish the Tea Party would go away. They are a bunch of idiot lunatics who are going to lose the election for us." Frank Luntz on Fox last night did a focus group and most of the group want everyone in Congress fired. That tells me we could see another swing next November.

The GOP was in a shambles after 2006 and 2008. The Tea Party helped them back largely due to low voter turnout in 2010. As soon as they become a serious liability, the GOP money guys are going to kick them out. The Tea Party (Angle, O'Donnell etc) already cost the GOP the Senate.

their message isn't going away.

Well, I'll agree with you there. The question is whether or not we'll be hearing it on short wave radio. Where's Glenn Beck these days? Again, when you claim there is going to be an apocalypse every other week, sooner or later, you have to deliver.

There is no substance to their message, last. Nearly all of what they are suggesting has no practical application in the world. They have enjoyed a forum for their views because it's entertainment but it doesn't actually solve problems.

We want results because it's easy to be out of power complaining about everything.

Well, in addition to the results I've shown you above, bin Laden is dead, Gaddafi is about to go away, and we have this long list.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-kept/

There are also some compromise successes

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/compromise/

Given all of this, I guess I'm wondering what else you would want consider how fucked up everything was when he took office. More importantly, I'd like to know who you think (based on facts alone) was a better president: Bush or Obama.

6Kings said...

Dissecting the lies in this speech - par for the course

Stimulus fails to achieve goals

I guess Obama and his sycophants are still pushing failure. Geez, he is going to be the laughing stock for American history.

Mark Ward said...

That's what you guys are clinging to? How his estimates are wrong? Sheesh.

Here's what I want you to do, 6Kings. Respond to the actual numbers and the analysis I listed above. Look at the charts again. Read the CBO's analysis. What do you think? Based on the numbers alone listed above, was his policy effective at reversing the tide of unemployment and shrinking GDP?

It's also amusing that your last link lays all of the responsibility at his feet and none at Bush's. It's almost as if the world began in 2009 and has sucked since. Again, I have no problem if you don't like the guy and have bad feelings towards him. But it is opinion only and devoid of any factual basis.

Last in line said...

Well im talking about obamas estimates, which is relevant in his selling of the bill

Holding steady in the toilet

"that tells me" your interpretations also told you that edwards would win iowa, obama would win new hampshire, rush would go away, the gop were on their last last leg 2 years ago, dems would hold the house last year, we were in the twilight of the loudmouth talk radio host, among other things

I don't care where glen beck is, I never listened to him

Jury is still out on obama

Im typing you this on my new droid, driving up to the cabin. The stimulus bill sucked.

Haplo9 said...

Mark, I have to say you are one of the best rationalizers I've ever seen. Does the "office of the democratic leader" as the creator for one of your graphs even give you a second's hesitation before labeling it a "fact"? You sure as hell wouldn't accept something from the "office of the republican leader", now would you? Not that that means its outright false, it just makes you a partisan hack. But we knew that.

>Essentially, we mended the hobbled legs and made them walk again but they aren't running.

How can you possibly know this? You're simply looking at the charts of GDP and jobs and saying "see! correlation equals causation! The stimulus fixed things!" But even a cursory look through history shows us that the correlation is very weak.

Here is a graph of recession length of a bunch of recessions in the last century.

http://www.tradersnarrative.com/length-of-us-recessions-historical-chart-2418.html

You'll notice that many were quite a bit shorter than this one. You'll also note from this:

http://www.fundmasteryblog.com/2009/02/12/history-of-economic-stimulus/

That a lot of those recessions either had no legislation enacted to "help" them or the legislation that was enacted was enacted when the recession was already over. In other words - recessions can and do end without the help of Uncle Sam, often on much shorter time frames. If that is the case, then how do you know that this recession is being helped because of the actions of the govt, relative to if it had done nothing? The answer is you don't - you are just going with your preferred wishes about how things might go down.

Haplo9 said...

As to your "facts":

Using the CBO as your source is problematic, because the CBO isn't doing any sort of "read economic variables and output the results." They're simply running the same model they used when scoring the stimulus in the first place:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574571810710697856.html

That's why looking at the unemployment rate is relevant, because that is a real world measure of where things stand. It tells us that a. things aren't standing all that well and b. technocrats who aim to make us believe that they have control over the unemployment rate simply by passing a bill through Congress simply don't. They never did. Yet you still have faith. But of course you do - your technocrats have D's after their names!

For your GDP graph, i don't understand what you think is supposed to be impressive about that. As you (should) know, GDP includes government spending. So if the government borrows 1 trillion dollars and spends it, its going to goose GDP. Yet even from your graph, its headed right back down again, and as we know unemployment isn't budging. So what is so impressive about it?

As for your "office of the democratic leader" chart, lets note a few things. One is that Democrats were in charge of Congress for nearly all of the brown parts, which is of course why the chart is carefully labelled "Bush Administration." Why didn't the D's fix things? Was there some kind of "fix things!" bill that they passed and Bushitler vetoed? Which one was it? Second - lets be extremely generous and say that every single one of those 1.8 million jobs happened because of the stimulus. 800 billion / 1.8 million = about $444,000 per job. And you want that to be considered a success? Must be the same definition of success you used for GM - hey, the taxpayers lost a ton of money on it, but we prevented some jobs from being lost. (For a little while.)

Mark Ward said...

Last, you can try to redirect all you want but the numbers don't lie. I wouldn't exactly call 42-44 percent in the toilet. Again, with the weird reality perception thing.

I know how important it is to you that I am wrong about some things. That must somehow mean that I am wrong about everything, hmm? You forget that I picked the exact right number for where the Senate ended up but no credit for that...only derision about the House call. I was happy to be wrong about Edwards. Any time there is less racism than I think there is, that's a good think in my book.

No more pink phone....Mark is sad:(

Mark Ward said...

. Does the "office of the democratic leader" as the creator for one of your graphs even give you a second's hesitation before labeling it a "fact"?

The source is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Here are is another link if you like

http://www.usnews.com/dbimages/master/22480/FE_DA_PublicvPrivateJobsGraph.jpg

Note that this one contains public sector job loss which I would think would make you happy, no? In fact, this chart shows that, under Obama, the public sector employee base has shrunk considerably more than under Bush. That means less government, dude.

In addition, I think you will agree that comparing this recession to past ones is like comparing a watermelon to a grape. Again, I know you don't like Keynesian economics but at the time it was the best solution. This begs the question...would you choose the best course of action given all the relevant data and facts on a particular issue even if it was the polar opposite of your ideology? I certainly would.

So what is so impressive about it?

First of all, I see that I accidentally uploaded an out of date chart. I just replaced it with a more current one. It's impressive because we still have growth every quarter despite the sluggish economy. In the second quarter of this year, we had growth without the extra spending of the stimulus.

In looking at these numbers, I don't see how you can say that the stimulus was a failure or sucked. It worked. We had private sector and GDP growth. Of course, this isn't even mentioning the massive corporate profits that are being reaped at present. All of this under the guy who supposedly is a disaster for the economy. I don't get it.

Larry said...

What if Congress passes the bill and it does exactly nothing to help the economy? (which is highly likely.) Is that still a win in your book?

Don't be silly, Haplo. Of course it will be a win, because even if we do tip over into a second recession, Mark and his ilk will always claim that without it things would have been even worse. Lather, rinse, repeat. Oh, and also blame the Koch brothers and other economic wreckers and saboteurs.

A. Noni Mouse said...

From an article on two special elections coming up Tuesday:

Dissatisfaction with President Obama is hurting Democrats’ chances in two House special elections that will take place on Tuesday.



Many Democratic strategists are privately blaming Obama for their party's difficulties in both districts and worry that if his numbers don't improve he could hurt their chances at retaking the House in 2012.


Obama dragging down Democratic candidates in House special elections

Democrats! Are blaming Obama for their troubles in getting their people elected. Not Bush, Obama!

Keep on whistlin' past the ol' graveyard, M!

Haplo9 said...

>That means less government, dude.

Yay! Only millions more to go. Btw, what does that have to do with the question of whether the stimulus worked or not?

>In addition, I think you will agree that comparing this recession to past ones is like comparing a watermelon to a grape.

Huh? Why? It isn't as we haven't had a recession that was precipitated by an asset bubble before. So why would this one be different?

>Again, I know you don't like Keynesian economics but at the time it was the best solution.

You know, I don't blame you. If, like you, I was heavily invested in believing that Team Blue was the team that tries to help things while Team Red tries to harm things, I'd be rationalizing a miserable failure too. (Wait, sorry, the proper terminology on this blog is "miserable fucking failure.") Put another way, we've reached a "Mark said so" point. You say the stimulus was the best solution because you want it to be the best solution.

>would you choose the best course of action given all the relevant data and facts on a particular issue even if it was the polar opposite of your ideology?

I would have said up front, we've got a recession that is being driven by the overvaluation of an asset (housing.) We're going to have to let that correct itself, and that's going to involve some pain. In the meantime, you can expect that I:

a. Won't try to stimulate demand in the housing market, because that is plainly counter to letting the bubble deflate. (Fail here.)
b. Won't try to raise taxes in the recession, because that will discourage investment. (Good job here, though not for lack of trying on Obama's part.)
c. Won't engage in regulatory adventurism, because that will discourage investment. (Fail here.)
d. Will actively look to figure out why the bubble occurred and prevent it from happening again. (I think we'd both agree that this is fail, though for completely different reasons.)

That's it.

Haplo9 said...

>would you choose the best course of action given all the relevant data and facts on a particular issue even if it was the polar opposite of your ideology?

A silly question. This presumes that one can know the "best" course of action, which simply isn't true, and is a silly fallacy that you are engaging in with this entire post. That said, if I could somehow know the "best" course of action, and it didn't ruin principles that I think are important for the country (like liberty), sure I'd do it.

>It's impressive because we still have growth every quarter despite the sluggish economy. In the second quarter of this year, we had growth without the extra spending of the stimulus.

And again, it isn't possible for you to claim whether that growth was due to the stimulus or, was due to .. growth in the economy. You don't know, and neither does the CBO. It's just your preferred narrative.

>In looking at these numbers, I don't see how you can say that the stimulus was a failure or sucked.

Mark. Here is a little preview of what the election will be like: where are the jobs? Why is the unemployment rate so high? If the stimulus was so wonderful, why did it only marginally affect the jobs picture, if at all? As you'll recall, other recessions required no such stimulus to add jobs, so either this recession is somehow unique and required a stimulus to get out of it where others did not (why? how?) or the few positive signs we are seeing are recovery that would have happened regardless of the stimulus. Yes, I know you want it to be the stimulus. Unfortunately, the data (and especially history) doesn't back you up on that.

Mark Ward said...

So why would this one be different?

Wow. I'm not quite sure what to say to that. Your ignorance is astounding. This recession saw GDP decline -5.1 percent. The dot.com bubble saw a decline of -0.3 percent. The recession before that was -1.4 percent and the one in the early 80s was -2.7. Clearly, the SIZE of this one makes it different. It was the worst one since the Great Depression.

heavily invested in believing that Team Blue

How does being a Keynesian mean Team Blue? It was Nixon who said, "We are all Keynesians now."

we've reached a "Mark said so" point.

Let me translate that from right wing blogspeak into English

(translating...translating...)

My (willful) ignorance, due to my instransigent ideology, is better than your knowledge.

Again, Hap. The numbers don't lie. Now, if the number had shown continued decline and three quarters of negative GDP, then that means it didn't work.

Won't try to raise taxes in the recession, because that will discourage investment.

Not entirely true. I agree with you regarding most taxpayers but people invest to make money. Possible taxes don't prevent them from doing so. It's a nice story to prop up your ideology but that would mean that no one invested in the post war boom when taxes were insanely high. It would also mean that people "didn't invest" when Bush I raised taxes in the early 90s. They did and how did the economy do again during the 90s? The results speak for themselves.

We're going to have to let that correct itself, and that's going to involve some pain.

I didn't think it was possible for you to make a more ignorant statement than the one above but you have. Pauslson and his team tried to let the market correct itself by letting Lehman fail. It worked for a day and then people began to realize that there was no value in their investments. The interconnected assets of the financial sector were now perceived (and rightfully so) as having no value. People wanted their money and there was none. They began to demand their money and things went massively down hill from there.

What would have followed would have likely been the collapse of the world's financial system given the spread of liberal economic theory around the globe (a quick aside, this isn't completely a bad thing. Obviously, there are benefits but I'm simply stating the hows here).

Here's the truth, Hap. If it weren't for the spirit of FDR, you would not have been able to draw money out of your bank in the fall of 2008. Thankfully, FDIC remained intact even with all the deregulatory silliness.

I'd recommend two things, Hap, First, read "Too Big Too Fail" by Andrew Ross Sorkin. Your knowledge of what happened is woefully shallow. Second, try to think outside of your stringent ideology. If I was involved in the decision making in 2008 and saw clear evidence that letting Lehman (along with all the others) fail, I would have let them fail regardless of my ideology.

Of course, that would have meant that Glass Steagall was still in place and we all know why it wasn't.

Mark Ward said...

Here is a little preview of what the election will be like...

As I have shown previously, the American people blame Bush first, then Wall street, then Congress, then the president. This election is going to be about what they are always about: ignorance (willful or otherwise) versus knowledge. Since Bush isn't on the ticket and we can't elect Wall Street financiers, it's going to be about the president and Congress. Who has the higher approval rating?

rld said...

Elections are only about fear in your eyes when Republicans win.

Juris Imprudent said...

Pure partisan hackassery.

Same as it ever was.

Haplo9 said...

>Clearly, the SIZE of this one makes it different.

Leaving aside your missing the context of my comment.. Ok, the size is different and .. the size differential justfies a stimulus this time around whereas it didn't in the past? Why? You're still just saying "the stimulus was needed because I think it was needed."

>How does being a Keynesian mean Team Blue?

On a side note, I would estimate that being a Keynesian makes you 95% likely to be on Team Blue, but the point I was making is that you are a classic partisan - you really do believe that your side is better and that it is the only one that can save the country. Thus, you're highly biased towards rationalizing anything (in this case, the failed stimulus) that will help your team.

>Again, Hap. The numbers don't lie.

You keep saying "the numbers don't lie" like it is a magic talisman to ward of disagreement. Mark, the numbers don't say what you really want them to say. Correlation is not causation, and we can see from history that this is not so. Here's what a "Mark Said So" means - it means you've made an assertion, usually underlying a lot of your claims, that is either a complete fabrication from your fertile conspiracy driven mind, or represents a conclusion that is a leap, orders of magnitude, beyond what is reasonable given the data you have presented. In this case, you're doing the second. You see some slight signs of recovery in the economy, and you reason backwards to claiming that the stimulus worked, because if the stimulus didn't work, well.. (that would hurt Team Blue.) You don't even seem to be particularly concerned at the supposed effectiveness of your stimulus - even if it did work, $440,000 per job is a pretty awful return on investment, don't you think?

Haplo9 said...

>Now, if the number had shown continued decline and three quarters of negative GDP, then that means it didn't work.

I've already pointed out to you why your chart of GDP is a nonsensical way of claiming growth, and you've ignored it. Though, somewhat humorously, you've neglected to note that the rate of growth in GDP in your new chart shows it going pretty steadily south since Q1 of 2010. No doubt you will use that as evidence for the necessity of this latest round 2 of stimulus, aka "Save Obama's Reelection Prospects!" SORP! Maybe this time we can reach 500k+ per job - what do you say?

> people invest to make money.

Glad you've figured this out. Unfortunately, you haven't seemed to figure out any logical consequences that arise from that realization. Pity.

>Possible taxes don't prevent them from doing so.

I'm going to assume by "possible taxes" you mean the risk of future tax rate increases. In which case, yes, technically you are correct, the risk of future tax increases doesn't prevent someone from investing money. It, however, is most certainly something they consider when investing money. As I've already witnessed you try to tell two business owners that you know the risk environment they operate in better than they do, we already know you are an ivory tower idiot on this one Mark.

>They did and how did the economy do again during the 90s? The results speak for themselves.

Mark, I have to ask - why would you ever use the 90s as an example for much of anything? You may remember - the economy in the 90s had something of a bubble in the latter half of it. Don't you think the existence of a bubble might throw your preferred correlation (taxes were raised yet the economy grew) off a bit? That's like saying that because Bush lowered taxes it caused the housing market to crash in the late 2000's. Yes, there is some superficial correlation, but it's quite obviously nonsense to draw such a conclusion.

Haplo9 said...

>I didn't think it was possible for you to make a more ignorant statement than the one above but you have. Pauslson and his team tried to let the market correct itself by letting Lehman fail.

Oh Mark. It's so cute when you change the subject in order to try to win the argument. Lets see - we were talking about stimulus, I give you an example of what I would have done in lieu of the stimulus, and then you start talking about Lehman brothers and Paulson. Hrm, that doesn't sound like the 2009 stimulus. That sounds like TARP. Why did you shift to talking about TARP? You realize that the 2008 TARP and the 2009 ARRA aren't the same thing, right? I'm less certain that TARP was 100% waste than the stimulus, though. That said, since the only way to deflate a bubble is to.. let it deflate, I'd like to know what would have happened had TARP not existed. And no, the speculations of a pseudo-intellectual like yourself don't count.

> The interconnected assets of the financial sector were now perceived (and rightfully so) as having no value.

(Is this another one of your "derivatives are poisonous, mysterious and mystical devices of evil" demonstrations of your lack of knowledge?) When Mark uses the word "interconnected", you can be sure that he's reached full on handwaving mode, like with GM and bankruptcy. This isn't magical Mark - assets that had connection MBS's were the primary assets that had trouble, and it wasn't that they were perceived as having no value, it was perceived that their value was nearly impossible to assess because the security of the underlying mortgages had become so much in doubt. Now its true that a lot of companies and thus people had exposure to MBS's either directly or indirectly, but that by no means encompasses the entire market.

>I'd recommend two things, Hap,

After I took the time to watch your ridiculous "documentary" .. i forget the name, narrated by Matt Damon, you'll have to forgive me at passing on your recommendations. I can only stomach a certain amount of magical thinking, and I usually get my fill from you.

Haplo9 said...

>ignorance (willful or otherwise) versus knowledge.

Oh yes, of course. And naturally, you'll be on the side of knowledge. *giggle* It couldn't be that a pseudo intellectual teacher knows fuck all about how the world works in his ivory tower. :)

>it's going to be about the president and Congress

Too bad Obama will be running against another person, rather than Congress, huh. Cause yeah - if Obama was running against Congress, he might win! Good point!

>If I was involved in the decision making in 2008 and saw clear evidence that letting Lehman (along with all the others) fail, I would have let them fail regardless of my ideology.

You know, you say stuff like this all the time. I guess it makes you feel like you're even handed and objective. I think you're fooling yourself, to be honest. On one hand, you claim that you are above ideology when it comes to making such decisions. On the other, you regularly talk about how only the Democrats are proposing real solutions, how they are the only adults in the room, blah blah blah. Yet you want us to believe that if Republicans had a proposal to fix things, you'd put aside your ideology and embrace it if you believed it would work? I don't buy it. I think you'd say, "Well I'd support the Republican plan if it would actually fix things." You've managed to convince yourself that your policy preferences aren't policy preferences, in other words - you've convinced yourself that they are near objective fact, and that gives you cover to claim that you are only being fair minded. I mean seriously Mark - do you really think that a CBO report that doesn't say nearly what you think it says, and two charts that show marginal economic growth prove that the stimulus worked? Really? That's all that's needed in your mind?

I think there is another problem for you here, if indeed you're willing to abandon your ideology in favor of "what works". (Leaving aside how impossible it is to know ahead of time what works versus what doesn't. The best we can say is what is likely to work versus what is likely to not work.) It implies that you don't have any guiding principles. You may think that means you are flexible. Maybe so. I think it also means that you are prone to support "solutions" that you believe may work, without actually considering what kind of impact they may have. The ACA is a good example. I wouldn't support the ACA, even if I knew that it would help people, (which I think is wishful thinking, but beside the point) because the individual mandate is repugnant to the notion of a federal government limited in power. And I think a principled liberal would do the same, or at least acknowledge the concern - but that's the problem isn't it - you aren't principled.

Anywho, its fun to hypothesize about the things that motivate Mark. Narcissism plus confirmation bias plus ivory tower elitism yields some very interesting, if sad, results.

Mark Ward said...

Why? You're still just saying "the stimulus was needed because I think it was needed."

It really has nothing to do with what I think. It had to do with the facts of the situation which was quite dire. The size of it made it that way. At the time we were facing another (and likely worse) depression.

we already know you are an ivory tower idiot on this one Mark.

Well, the ad hominem didn't take too long this time. Thank goodness!

the economy in the 90s had something of a bubble in the latter half of it.

A bubble that caused a recession that was less than one percent in decline in GDP. I was also speaking of the overall economic situation which included a budget surplus when President Clinton left office. And higher taxes.

Regarding TARP and ARRA, you said,

I would have said up front, we've got a recession that is being driven by the overvaluation of an asset (housing.) We're going to have to let that correct itself, and that's going to involve some pain.

which to me says that YOU switched the conversation to TARP, not me. "Up Front" to me means when the recession began in December 2007 and ended in June of 2009. So, that's TARP and ARRA, technically speaking.

I'd like to know what would have happened had TARP not existed. And no, the speculations of a pseudo-intellectual like yourself don't count.

So I guess that means everyone who doesn't agree with libertarian ideology and we're sticking with the willful ignorance...shocking...not. What is about you guys and the whole jealousy/insecurity thing about intellectuals? Somehow it ties in to the adolescent power fantasy.

When Mark uses the word "interconnected"

Actually, that's Jim Manzi, not me. Did you ever read his piece "Keeping America's Edge?" Given his background, I think he's an informed source on the financial sector.

but that by no means encompasses the entire market.

Were you asleep during the fall of 2008? Good grief...

. I can only stomach a certain amount of magical thinking, and I usually get my fill from you.

#3-Projection/Flipping.

Time for some new tactics, Hap. Most of these are pretty worn out. I know you are trying to avoid a lot of unpleasant truths here but you'd be a lot better off if you chucked your catechisms out the window and engaged in some reasoned thinking. Not liking something and blowing out imperatives combined with derisive comments towards yours truly isn't rational.

Haplo9 said...

>#3-Projection/Flipping.

Time for some new tactics, Hap.

Agreed Mark. You may have a record here - I see a #3, a #4, a #5, a #6, a #7, an #8, a #9, a #11, and a #12 in this post and the comments. Well done!

Haplo9 said...

>The size of it made it that way.

You do realize that this is 100% a "Mark Said So", right?

>It really has nothing to do with what I think. It had to do with the facts of the situation which was quite dire.

And again, I have to say - I'm impressed by your ability to convince yourself that your policy preferences are facts. You may prefer to live in a delusion, but the rest of us don't need to coddle it.

>What is about you guys and the whole jealousy/insecurity thing about intellectuals?

Who said you counted as an intellectual? I certainly didn't. The word "pseudo" as a modifier to "intellectual" kind of changes the meaning, you know?

>Well, the ad hominem didn't take too long this time. Thank goodness!

Someone get the fainting couch, stat!

last in line said...

The bill isn't gonna get through congress. Something may get through, but not this as it is.

Mark Ward said...

You do realize that this is 100% a "Mark Said So", right?

Let me see if I am interpreting this correctly. You are saying that the fact that this last recession was negative 5.1 percent and was greater than any other recession going back to 1945 is insignificant? That size (chuckle chuckle) does not, in fact, matter?

You may prefer to live in a delusion, but the rest of us don't need to coddle it.

Yawn--with the #3 again.

The bill isn't gonna get through congress. Something may get through, but not this as it is.

Well, of course it isn't, last. The number one stated goal of the GOP is to make Barack Obama "a one term president." Why on earth would they want to do anything that would solve problems and make him look better?

Haplo9 said...

>You are saying that the fact that this last recession was negative 5.1 percent and was greater than any other recession going back to 1945 is insignificant?

Wow - how is it that you are so unable to follow the thread of a conversation? I'm not claiming that the this recession is insignificant, I'm claiming that the size of the recession has nothing to do with whether a stimulus is justified. The question "is this recession big?" and "should we do some stimulus?" are not related questions. I asked you why a stimulus was justified for this recession relative to other recessions, and you said that this recession was larger. I then asked why being larger made a stimulus necessary. You said hurp, durr, blurble.

Mark Ward said...

Given the fact that you believe there is never a situation that warrants government stimulus, I didn't think there was much point in answering. The lack of aggregate demand, which would obviously occur with such a large recession, demonstrates a need for government stimulus. Given the unique circumstances of the situation (interconnected financial markets on a global scale being the chief one), I think it was necessary.

But you're doing it again, Hap. You continue to keep the focus on me and dissect every little thing I see with a micro tool in the hopes of finding something you can trip me up on. You do this to avoid answering my questions and (likely) reveal your own ignorance. So, how about less focus on me and more on some serious critical thinking on the various elements of this crisis while maybe trying to leave the stringent ideology at the door.

Juris Imprudent said...

The lack of aggregate demand, which would obviously occur with such a large recession, demonstrates a need for government stimulus.

That is an article of Keynesian faith, not an iron law of economics.

Haplo9 said...

>I think it was necessary.

Well done. You said the magic words. Now we can part ways and agree to disagree. I find it very unconvincing because a. you are still winging it, because you're just saying, "er, the recession was big so stimulus was needed." to which I'd respond "how big is big?" Further, I find the efficacy of stimulus to be highly doubtful - recall $440,000 per job, even if one were to agree that it worked.

Btw - were you aware that the funds for Solyndra came from the stimulus?

http://energy.gov/articles/obama-administration-offers-535-million-loan-guarantee-solyndra-inc

Pretty 'stimulatin, huh. It's almost as if politicians, when given a bunch of money to spend, are more interested in pet projects and cronyism than trying to find things that might actually grow the economy.

last in line said...

Fromthe original entry - "Next week, he is sending the bill to Congress"

Wrong. Try next month...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/09/obama-jobs-speech-right-now-dick-durbin.html

As Journey once said, Don't Stop Believin!

It's so freakin urgent that they will get the bill there next month!