Politics shmolitics. Army suicide rates at highest in decades

That wasn't the only bank merger/acquisition.

 

Obama was supposed to be the change, no?

He asked Bush to get congress to authorize the 2nd half of TARP funds in January before he took office. His Treasury Secy., Geithner, had a HUGE hand in how the TARP money was distributed and its use in late 2008. Between January and February, Obama had over $1T to spend as he saw fit and had enormous leverage with how the banks would operate (robo signing, etc.).

But yeah, it's all bush's fault as usual. I honestly don't see how a guy could follow that presidency and do anything any differently than Bush did.

 

Like I said, Obama has been in charge, had 1/2 the TARP money and his "emergency" stimulus bill, had his guys' fingerprints all over where the money went.

Somewhat related (since you want to compare Bush and Obama):

By my figuring, we're borrowing about 9% of GDP (that IS Obama's doing) and GDP growth is (generously) about 1.7% of GDP. Seems to me that without China loaning us all that money, Obama would be presiding over 1.7% - 9% = -7.3% GDP growth, eh?

Compare to BEA revised figures for 2008, the height of the crisis, where the deficit was 4% of GDP (the worst of W's presidency) and GDP growth was -.3%. Growth during the crisis was -.3% - 4% or -4.3% without all the borrowing.

Do you agree the economy is actually twice as bad now as it was during the crisis?

Or how about 2007, where the deficit was 1% of GDP (Bush was a massive spender, too! Seriously.) and GDP growth was 2.9%, meaning GDP was actually growing without being fudged by the govt.

BTW, you know why I put "emergency" in quotes?

 

There is no "my hands are tied by what bush did" excuse for what the Banks did from November 2008 on.

I'm not a deficit hawk in the least. I've written many times before that govt. SHOULD borrow and it's a reasonable thing to do. It can even have ever increasing debt, as many businesses do, and for the same reasons.

Consider you run a business and terms to your vendors are net-30. They're giving you 30 days worth of loan at 0%, so you take that loan every time. Month 1 you buy $x worth of supplies net-30. Month 100 you buy $x * 100 worth of supplies. You are carrying 100x the debt, but all is good.

In the case of govt., the borrowing should be done for things it can't and shouldn't pay for out of general revenues. Like building the golden gate bridge - the govt. issued bonds to pay for it, then paid down the bonds. If it took 30 years to pay off the bonds, and they built the bay bridge by issuing a 2nd set of bonds, then they have 2x the debt (assuming the bridges cost the same). Of course, they (like a business) are generating revenue (tolls) to pay for the debt.

Debt to pay the light bills? Unless you're a startup with no revenues but a plan to be profitable, you are going out of business. It is simply bad business that cannot survive long. The feds get away with doing that because they can print money (and are at an alarming rate). But not for long - those pesky arabs won't give us their oil for $100 anymore, they'll want $200 of the devalued dollars instead.

So I don't see the issue with deficit spending at all, even in good times. The thing is, it shouldn't change in the bad times or it will just make things worse. Case in point, the negative growth of our industries I illustrated in my previous post.

Government spending HAS increased substantially during Obama's term. It's just bad logic to look at years 2,3,4 and say "the level of spending hasn't increased much" when year 1 there was a massive $600B increase - logic says $600B + $600B + $600B + $600B = $2.4T is a fuck load of money above and beyond the budgets he inherited. Almost 3x what both wars cost over a 10 year period condensed into 4.

So TARP was one of those "emergency" spending things. Bush's last budget was ~$3T. Obama's first budget was $3.6T, and he's basically called for $200B increases in his budget proposals (see http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/tables.pdf) that keep getting unanimously rejected by 100% of the Democrats and Republicans in both houses of congress.

I asked about "emergency", but you didn't answer. It's a parliamentary gimmick. The feds establish a budget and only can break the budget for spending bills that are marked "emergency." The idea is to not tie the govt.'s hands to a fixed budget should we be attacked militarily or some natural (Katrina) disaster occurs. Rebuilding a city devastated by natural disaster is an emergency. Spending money on "shovel ready" projects is not. It's an insult to us all.

Maybe you can pin 1/2 of that "emergency" TARP money on Bush's budget at his doing and the other 1/2 on his budget at Obama's doing, but that would be a ONE YEAR expense - a spending level required for Bush's last year but not all four years of Obama's.

I have to ask you another question, because you propose something I simply do not understand. How can government actually run a surplus? I can see it not issuing T-Bills for a while, until all the T-Bills are paid off. Then what does it do with the excess cash collected from the Rich (they're paying almost all the taxes)? There is no bank that can hold the money - who's going to pay the govt. interest? You going to buy Venezuelan T-Bill (equivalents) with the money? Risky! Going to buy stock on the stock market with it? In a decade, the feds would own EVERY company listed (close enough, you get the idea).

You fear the govt. will borrow more in bad times? I fear they overspend in good and are stuck with the need to increase spending in bad. Running a surplus can only make things worse, and I suggest when we've had surpluses that severe recessions and other economic crises follow. Consider LBJ balanced the budget in 1969, followed by runaway inflation/unemployment/interest rates. Clinton balanced budgets and NASDAQ crashed ($7T of net worth out the window!), followed by a decade of sluggish economy (9/11 and Katrina created huge expenses to rebuild NYC and NO), airline bailouts, banking system crash (another $5T of net worth out the window), etc., within short order (8th year, less than the 1970s timeframe).

Finally, to answer your last paragraph - it's not that the deficit increased, it's that it increased almost 10x from 2007. It should have increased by < 1x.

 

I think there are two things going on.

1) Mocking the Bush haters, throwing their own rhetoric out there.
2) Taking Obama to task for his failure to help main street.

And yeah, I do think going from homeowner to homeless and destitute might cause some to think of suicide. Personally, I think where there's life there's hope and it's never worth it. It's also not clear to me that there is any rise in suicides at all - just fewer auto accidents since people can't afford the gas like they could when they had jobs and gas was cheaper.

 

I repeated this fact 2-3 times for mobes' benefit.

mobes is a smart guy.

 

When you go outside, are you afraid the aliens will use their ray guns on your brain?