No housing bubble would have meant smoother growth at a reasonable rate. No housing bubble would have meant a healthier financial system not requiring a bailout because there wouldn't have been crap MBS product out there. Lehman and Bear would still be alive. Merrill and JP Morgan would still be independent. No housing bubble would have cut off much of the personal deficit spending available through home equity loans, lessening the pain of repaying them. And no housing bubble would have meant a more rational housing market with greater transactional volume today. Bubbles are highly disruptive and should be avoided if possible. This last one was avoidable.
The NASDAQ bubble of 1999 was more prosperous. The entire NASDAQ doubled in value between September 1999 and January 2000. It peaked at about 4x what it is today. When the bubble burst, $5.7T of peoples' net worth was lost, and lots of companies went out of business and there was massive job loss because of it. Worldcom ring a bell? Sold off in pieces. AT&T was one of the oldest companies in the US and it was sold off in pieces, too. Enron, Global Crossing, etc. Obama claiming he inherited the worst situation is another one of his statements that fly in the face of reason.
I think Kilink's point was that the housing bubble juiced the economy and generated tax revenue and yet Bush still had a sizable budget deficit. With the Clinton era bubble, there was no deficit and there was talk of (eventually) eliminating U.S. debt. Comparing the collapse of one sector (tech bubble) to the cusp of the collapse of the financial system does not make sense. Both were bad, but the impact to the entire financial system was a much bigger deal.
The balanced budgets were an illusion. People paid capital gains taxes on those NASDAQ bubble era sales. When the bubble burst, a massive drop in revenues occurred. And when you make $1 last year and lose $1 this year, but paid the tax on the $1 you made, the tax wasn't on real income, but on your life savings! But even so, when the govt. ran surpluses and paid off all its debt that it could, the govt. was taking more than it needed and I see no point in that. The thing about our current deficits is that the mint has been printing $trillions in new money and using it to pay off some of the debt. So Obama is in reality running deficits of 100% of what govt. takes in taxes and fees. More like $2.5T with $1T devaluing our currency in a hurry.
She just said she won't get into a mud-wrestling fight with Palin. I think she meant mud-slinging? I hope she gets the nomination.
Under Clinton, the budget SURPLUS last four years -- longer than the internet bubble. The below link has a graph showing budget surplus/deficit and it's pretty interesting. Note that the deficits Bush was running in some years occurred while the economy was strong. http://factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/ "But even so, when the govt. ran surpluses and paid off all its debt that it could, the govt. was taking more than it needed and I see no point in that." While I agree with that statement, I think it would be a huge luxury to be fighting over how we can make the budget surplus bigger. In fact, that would pretty much be a dream lol
Why are you guys taking the bait? Every thread gets steered into something about Obama. It's a device.
To be fair, President Obama doesn't know how old his daughter is. Today, he said she was 13. She's actually 12. Of course, I don't blame him wanting to forget her birthday. To him it's the most dispicable day on the calendar, as that day is also the birthday of the most evil entity in human history. Malia's birthday? July 4th.
How is that fair? It's not the point of the thread. Just how stupid is Michelle Bachmann? OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then everyone in the thread starts arguing about Obama, and the thread is lost. It's a transparent technique.
