I distinctly recall in the fall of 2008, as an Obama win seemed likely, if not inevitable, that there was a lot of talk about small-business people planning to end investment, pull in their horns, and wait for the coming economic storm to blow over, which greatly contributed to the contraction, and the worst recovery since the end of the war. But I’m having trouble finding anything on line about it. Do others remember that, and have any links to anything?
I ask, because I suspect that the promise of an end to many of the punishing regulations is going to pull a lot of that money back into the economy (particularly if it can be repatriated without being confiscated).
I don’t remember that kind of talk in 2008. I remember it in 2009, and subsequently, as the ACA was being debated and implemented.
One of the ways I pick up spare change has always been selling aluminum scrap. Can’s mostly. My most vivid recollection of the 2008 election can best be summed up in this chart.
http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/aluminum/all/
Using the taxes from repatriated money to create an infrastructure fund would be a great way to get infrastructure projects done without bursting the budget. It could be a great long term tool if the fund was structured to park the funds in the market and then use the profits to fund projects.
Great idea, except nobody is going to repatriate money at current tax rates. What rate will Trump have to change it to in order to get the money back in-country? Is this a likely/realistic scenario? At this rate, how much money would this bring to the treasury? A little or a lot?
I hear Trump will propose a 10% tax rate for this.
OT: This election, oh man! It’s not ending! If I’m reading between the lines of news reports correctly, then more electors turned against the Hildebeest (4 or 5) than against Trump (2). (Don’t tell Jim.)
Off topic, but for California people: If California had been split up five ways as has been discussed here, what would have happened to its electoral votes?
Actually, it was six ways. You could make a guess by going back and looking at my description of those states.
I remember this.
I doubt it would have mattered much who was the POTUS. The oil price was over $100 USD a barrel back then. That’s what basically killed a lot of small businesses and increased unemployment. Once transportation prices rise enough, people close to the poverty line are better off not traveling long distances to work so, they stay home. You can directly attribute the slump in Detroit and the airline business to it. Fracking only picked up later and the oil prices only really came down once Saudi Arabia increased production in their attempt to hurt the Iranian economy.
It’s easy to talk about this or that party but the thing is the State support policies started back when W was President with the onset of the crisis and were merely continued under Obama. The only difference might have been in the stimulus package, how large and how it would have been targeted. You could argue it could have been more targeted at oil. But remember that in 2005 was Hurricane Katrina (which destroyed much of the US refining capacity). In 2010 was the Deepwater Horizon spill. Publicly justifying large oil investments to his electorate was hardly something he could do even if he wanted to. As for making a smaller stimulus package than what he did you just need to look at the European Union for an example of doing that. The crisis is much deeper and recovery has been much harder. Trump with his talk of building infrastructure is basically proposing a huge stimulus package of his own. A much needed one in my opinion. I think that was one of the big issues with the Obama stimulus package. It didn’t have nearly enough infrastructure investments. I hope he doesn’t overdo it though. Or else the US might turn into the next Brazil or Japan.
‘zilla, obviously there are a lot of variables but to argue the potus doesn’t matter is ridiculous.
Do you remember Jimmy Carter?
‘zilla likes to explain everything with one or at most two variables. His grasp of economics is limited to Keynsianism and the BBC.
“His grasp of economics is limited to Keynsianism and the BBC.”
Substituting “the NYT” for “the BBC,” isn’t that true of most “liberals”?
@Godzilla
Dude, you are delusional.
Between Obama’s actual stimulus spending, the higher budget created by CR’s after stimulus bumped it up, and QE Obama had a stimulus in the trillions. QE and keeping interest rates down have done a good job of forcing people into the stock market but it also created a bubble. The question is how that bubble is deflated.
Obama’s Fed has already decided to test Trump’s economy by raising rates.
Infrastructure spending shouldn’t be done as a stimulus but rather done to fix infrastructure that needs it and expand it where it needs to be expanded. There has to be an underlying need for the infrastructure spending or things will be built that can’t be maintained or the money will be wasted on other projects.
Spending also needs to be steady over many decades so that other bubbles aren’t created. This is because making infrastructure improvements shouldn’t be viewed as “stimulus” but as sober and rational assessment of how best to meet the needs of the populace.
I do remember quite a bit of talk about that in 2009. “Going Galt” was an active meme on Instapundit in that era; Googling for that should present some useful links.