20 thoughts on “The Next Four Years”

  1. Nowhere in this analysis is the effect of fracking taken into consideration. My fear is Obama will continue to claim he’s been good for the economy while we continue an unsustainable anemic growth.

  2. “Obama has made it clear that he will raise taxes on “the rich” and if he gives in to extending the Bush tax cuts again it will not bode well with his constituents.”

    That’s a ludicrous statement. This is the last public office he will ever hold. What difference does it make to him what his “constituents” want, and why should he care if they don’t like what does or doesn’t do? Especially since he cares about nothing but himself, I might add (and just did).

    1. What I keep wondering is what Obama going to do with all his free time now. All the guy has ever done up until this point is campaign and give stump speeches. Now what’s the point of any of that now?

      1. True enough. He could just continue to live in a manner that Bourbon kings would have considered obscenely lavish, costing taxpayers about $1.4 billion a year, and continue not actually being president. Heck, it would be worth an extra $1.4 billion a year just to keep him from doing more damage…

      4. It seems strange to me that you can complain about various Obama policy decisions (Obamacare, Libya war, Iraq war, Afghanistan/Pakistan war, Yemen war, (etc), ended Don’t ask don’t tell, appointed liberals to the Supreme Court, created a consumer protection office, took an interest in clean energy (sure, including Solyndra), took an interest in unclean energy (including the Gulf clean up and the Keystone pipeline), saved/temporarily-nationalized the auto industry, and I really can go on if you convince me it is worth bothering, but at the same time insist that Obama doesn’t do anything.

      5. Well, you know how he’s been working on the reincarnation of Karl Marx? Turns out the research is paying off, so the next few years will be spent grooming the clone as his successor.

  3. What will be better this four years is the amount of humor we can get from the posts of Chris Gerrib, Baghdad Jim and Bob-1, as the economic chickens of statism come home to roost and the economy gets even worse. Their verbal and logical contortions (contorted is the only way these guys can approach logic) explaining away what’s going to happen if “Il Dufe” gets his way will be more acrobatic than Cirque du Soleil.

    1. Prediction: The October, 2013 jobs report will show unemployment lower than it is now (7.9%).

      If I’m wrong, I’ll work on my verbal contortions and excuse making.

        1. I was talking about the next four years, Jim, not next month. If, however, the unemployment rate does drop, want to explain the cause and effect? I know you have trouble with economics and logic, but give us the Obama policy or policies that led to this drop and why. Otherwise it’s just more “post hoc ergo propter hoc.”

          It’s possible that despite the economic dislocations statism brings, there might be an upsurge in the encomy if Il Dufe lucks out and some technological advancement causes some economic growth; much as the dot-com boom led to another State-shtupper “post hoc,” i.e., “Clinton was president then; therefore Clinton caused it.” We might also get some nice gridlock that would halt the advance of the State long enough for the people who actually know how to create wealth (oops–that let’s out Jim and Obama!) to do so.

          1. The cause and effect is that the Fed is keeping interest rates low, household debt is low thanks to the de-leveraging of 2008-2012, and people aren’t going to want to live with their parents or roommates forever. So household formation will pick up again, with the attendant borrowing and spending, which will create new demand for products and services, and new jobs.

            Congress could still mess it up by going through with tax hikes and spending cuts, Europe could mess it up by falling apart, and Israel/Iran could mess it up by starting a war in the Middle East, but the most likely outcome is that the economy gets better.

            It would have gotten better under Romney too; I don’t think Romney would really have cut spending as much as he promised.

  5. Roughly 50% of the country has elected to learn the hard way.

    They could have learned the easier way and elected someone who knew how to spark some economic action and pull huge piles of regulation off the backs of everyone.

    And they could have observed Europe and California to see what happens if they re-elected Obama.

    But they didn’t.

    So they will experience the hard way. Whether or not they actually will learn is, I suppose, an open question.

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