I’d been thinking about writing a piece about this, but haven’t had the time to do the digging for it. People saying that the improved jobs numbers from the most recent report were “Obama’s” job numbers, but a president doesn’t have to be president yet for him to start to have an effect on the economy.
There was a palpable sense, even before the 2008 election, as a lot of business people realized that Obama was likely to win, that the economy was starting to contract, as they pulled in their horns and decided to wait out the storm. Similarly, many non-Democrats I know (and I) breathed a huge sigh of relief and felt as though a mighty weight had been lifted off us when we realized she wasn’t going to be the next president, and that, after a long decade, we were about to get one who at least promised to lift the jackboot of the federal government from the neck of the economy. I in fact think that those jobs numbers are Trump’s and, as FDR made the Depression Great, so did Barack Obama and the Democrats with the 2008 recession.
The seeds of the summer ’08 crash were sown in 2007, when the Pelosi-Reid Dem Congress elected in fall ’06 took office and opened the spending floodgates.
Annual deficits had been dropping fast since ’04, the post-9/11 peak. The sharp rise in the ’08 deficit (Pelosi-Reid’s first budget year) to right back up near the ’04 wartime peak was an economic confidence-destroyer.
Add in the real prospect of a Dem President by late summer ’08, and you had a formula for exactly what happened to the Tinkerbell economy of the time: A massive confidence-crash. The kids all stopped believing at once and the economy went SPLAT like a bug on a windshield.
I in fact think that those jobs numbers are Trump’s and, as FDR made the Depression Great, so did Barack Obama and the Democrats with the 2008 recession.
You’re being delusional IMO. They kickstarted the economy with the stimulus and the lower oil price did the rest. Trump was responsible for neither. One could even argue Obama had little to do with it either.
They kickstarted the economy with the stimulus
This is what’s “delusional.” The economy never was “kickstarted.” It was the worst economic recovery since the end of the war, and he was the first modern president to never see a single year of 3% growth. All that the Spendulus did was double the national debt and bail out public-employee and other unions, and there were no “shovel ready” jobs.
Best case, the “stimulus” programs move economic activity forward in time. More likely case is to totally skew the numbers and create an illusion of economic activity as dollars flow, often without associated production of value. The total effect is economic resources being reallocated, and in many cases mis-allocated.
The recession ended in the first six months of Obama’s first term due to TARP. That it never felt like it ended and the economy flirted with recession as tens of millions dropped out of the workforce was due to Obama and the Democrat’s horrible policies on the economy and everything else that depressed life for Americans.
It wasn’t even until the last year or so that things started improving and even now, many states still have not lowered their unemployment rate to what it was prior to Obama taking office.
Most of the improvement in the economy came from things that Democrats tried to kill, like fracking. And also from Republicans taking over governorships and legislatures to counter Democrat’s insanity. Obama owes Republicans and the oil industry a big thank you for letting him leave office with some positive economic numbers.
No, the economy was never kickstarted by the stimulus. That money went to Democratic hacks in the various states.
Keynsianism does not work. Stimulating the economy does not work.
My take on this has always been the same. The real estate crisis was due to two things: easy credit from the Fed and other central banks and extraordinary leverage (allowed to borrow $50 for every $1 of assets for real estate speculation). As I’ve noted before, such parties could have flamed out spectacularly just investing in US treasuries at such a level of leverage. All it then takes is a minor hiccup and suddenly, there’s a huge forced selling of assets to cover losses.
Things like rampant criminality and hysteria are natural late stage phenomena. Anyone who isn’t doing something to protect themselves from the huge risks of a market collapse will likely be oblivious to the risks of criminal acts as well, assuming they even care about such things. /And hysteria is a natural side effect of any collective action that selects for it.
Having said that, an Obama presidency probably is more than a minor hiccup when it comes to overleveraged investments.
I think businesses have been sitting on trillions since Obama was elected because, while they didn’t know how Obama would screw them, they knew they were going to get screwed. No confidence in the future or that the US business climate would be friendly to businesses. They also know Obama is a liar – hence the bogus “unemployment rate” which did not factor in those who left the work force out of frustration.
And they were right.
Once Trump got elected they knew that the US business climate was going to get more friendly and so it was safer to invest those trillions.
Citizens have more confidence in the economy and business climate now that Trump is in so they started to look for jobs again – hence the uptick in the “unemployment rate”.
The busines of America is Business.
The government merely needs to be sure contracts are adhered to and fraud is severely punished.
Anyone thinking that anything Obama did at any point in time had any positive effect on the economy has completely lost touch with reality. The best they can do is claim it would have been worse without him since there’s no way to argue alternate realities.
Remember how Obama was claiming success in Iraq (due to Petraeus and McCain) just before he screwed it up? Obama thought the solution to every problem was to stick his nose in the air and talk.
For all the good news about Trump and the economy, we are nowhere near out of the woods.
The democrats have put us in debt by 8 trillion dollars. If interest rates rise, the servicing of that debt will require us to take money away from entitlement programs. Since Obama added a trillion dollar entitlement program, we are in deep kaka.
I really do not see a way out of this unless we either inflate the dollar to nothing and ruin the middle class or have an austerity program–and with the fake news in operation, they’ll blame that on Trump.