When is the United States going to recover from Democratic Rule? - Page 2

When gas tops three dollars a gallon and beyond, will the media blame Obama as it did Bush?

I'm still a fan, but there's a fine line between being transparent and being overexposed. Every time you turn on the TV, there's Obama. He's getting a puppy! He's eating a cheeseburger with Joe Biden! He's taking the wife to Broadway and Paris -- this is the best season of "The Bachelor" yet!

I get it: You love being on TV. I love my bong, but I take it out of my mouth every once in a while. The other day, I caught myself saying to a friend, "Don't tell me if he's fixed the economy yet, I'm Tivo-ing it."

I mean, selling the personal part to stay popular, I'm all for it, but you got us already. We like you, we really like you! You're skinny and in a hurry and in love with a nice lady. But so's Lindsay Lohan. And like Lohan, we see your name in the paper a lot, but we're kind of wondering when you're actually going to do something.

I know that's harsh. But when I read about how you sat on the sidelines while bailed-out banks used the money we gave them to hire lobbyists who got Congress to stop homeowners from getting renegotiated loans, or how Congress is already giving up on healthcare reform, or how scientists say it's essential to reduce CO2 by 40% in 10 years, but your own bill calls for 4%, I say, enough with the character development, let's get on with the plot.

Obama needs to start putting it on the line in fights against the banks, the energy companies and the healthcare industry. I never thought I'd say this, but he needs to be more like George W. Bush. Bush was all about, "You're with us or against us."

Obama's more like, "You're either with us, or you obviously need to see another picture of this adorable puppy!"

'm glad that Obama is president, but the "Audacity of Hope" part is over. Right now, I'm hoping for a little more audacity.

There are a number of economists who strongly object to even the basic idea that government spending is a useful tool during this crisis. For example, 1995 Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas called multiplier estimates from Economy.com "schlock economics"; John Cochrane of the University of Chicago has called government spending stimulus "a fallacy"; Robert Barro of Harvard called one version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) "the worst bill that has been put forward since the 1930s."

Spending skeptics regard the impact of government spending on private spending very differently, as the Keynesian model was replaced many years ago, at least among research economists; and many of the presumptions of the Keynesian model have changed as well. The central message from new research on fiscal policy is that the impact of government spending depends critically on what the spending is on, and how it is ultimately financed.

For these reasons, there is no simple answer to the question of how spending affects the economy, but what new research does tell us is not supportive of spending stimulus programs. Studies that include the important requirement that higher spending must be ultimately financed with higher tax rates find that government spending expansions do not expand the economy.

In some cases, higher spending can raise GDP for a short period of time if tax increases are delayed, but the greater the delay, the greater the long-run decline in employment and output that ultimately swamps the temporary gain. These findings are summarized in a new paper by Harald Uhlig of the University of Chicago, who writes that "the analysis here may lead one to conclude that the long-term consequences of massive expansions in government stimulus come at substantial costs."

And if public spending is a very close substitute for private spending, there may well not be even temporary gains from higher spending.

The key reason recent studies don't find a Keynesian-level multiplier is because the higher taxes on incomes or expenditures that ultimately accompany higher spending depress economic activity. And the depressing effect of these tax increases is the largest when government spending closely replaces private expenditures. Ironically, the largest temporary gains of higher spending occur when the spending is on items that have little direct value to consumers, such as military spending.

The standard approach for judging government spending is cost-benefit analysis, which judges a project to be worthwhile if the costs--including impact on future taxes--are less than the benefits it provides. It may be useful for government to consider accelerating spending on worthwhile programs during a downturn, since the cost of some initiatives, such as construction projects, may indeed be lower.

Lee E. Ohanian is a professor of Economics and director of the Ettinger Family Program in Macroeconomic Research at UCLA.

Jake Tapper and Karen Travers report: In an interview with Bloomberg News Al Hunt today, President Obama says he thinks unemployment will hit 10% this year.

Will unemployment reach 10%? asks Hunt.

Yes, says the president.

Before the end of this year? asks Hunt.

Yes, says the president.

In January, the incoming administration predicted in a white paper study that without a huge stimulus package, unemployment would reach just over 8%, and would be contained at under 8% with a stimulus package.

(When asked about this discrepancy, one of the authors of the study Jared Bernstein, the top economic adviser to Vice President Biden recently said that when we made our initial estimates, that was before we had fourth-quarter results on GDP, which we later found out was contracting at an annual rate of 6 percent, far worse than we expected at that time. The bottom line, Bernstein said, is that without the stimulus the unemployment rate would have been between 1.5 and 2 points higher than it otherwise will be.)

Understanding the Age of Obama
By Victor Davis Hanson

Are you confused by all that has changed since President Barack Obama took office in January? If so, you're not alone. Perhaps, though, this handy guide to Age of Obama "logic" might be of some assistance.

1. The Budget. Wanting to cut $17 billion from the budget, as President Obama has promised, is proof of financial responsibility. Borrowing $1.84 trillion this year for new programs is "stimulus." The old phrase "out-of-control spending" is inoperative.

2. Unemployment. The number of jobs theoretically saved, or created, by new government policies - not the actual percentage of Americans out of work, or the total number of jobs lost - is now the far better indicator of unemployment.

3. The Private Sector. Nationalizing much of the auto and financial industries, while regulating executive compensation, is an indication of our new government's repeatedly stated reluctance to interfere in the private sector.

4. Race and Gender. Not what is said but who says it and about whom reveals racism and sexism. For example, an Hispanic female judge isn't being offensive if she states that Latinas are inherently better judges than white males.

5. Random violence. Some assassinations represent larger American pathologies, but others do not. When a crazed lone gunman murders someone outside the Holocaust Museum or shoots an abortion doctor, we should worry about growing right-wing and Christian extremism. But when an African-American Muslim convert brags about his murder of a military recruitment officer or an Islamic group plots to kill Jews and blow up a military jet, these are largely isolated incidents without larger relevance.

6. Terrorism. Acts of terror disappeared about six months ago. Thankfully, we live now in an age where there will be - in the new vocabulary of the Obama administration - only occasional "overseas contingency operations" in which we may be forced to hold a few "detainees." At the same time, ongoing military tribunals, renditions, wiretaps, phone intercepts and predator-drone assassinations are no longer threats to the Constitution. And just saying you're going to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay is proof that it is almost closed.

7. Iraq. The once-despised Iraq war thankfully ended around Jan. 20, 2009, and has now transformed into a noble experiment that is fanning winds of change throughout the Middle East. There will be no need for any more Hollywood cinema exposés of American wartime crimes in Iraq with titles like "Rendition," "Redacted," "Lions for Lambs" and "Stop-Loss."

8. The West. Western values and history aren't apparently that special or unique. As President Obama told the world during his recent speech in Cairo, the Renaissance and Enlightenment were, in fact, fueled by a brilliant Islamic culture, responsible for landmark discoveries in mathematics, science and medicine. Slavery in America ended without violence. Mistreatment of women and religious intolerance in the Middle East have comparable parallels in America.

9. Media. The media are disinterested and professional observers of the present administration. When television anchormen and senior magazine editors bow to the president, proclaim him a god or feel tingling in the legs when he speaks, it is quite normal.

10. George W. Bush. Former President Bush did all sorts of bad things to the United States that only now we are learning will take at least eight years to sort out. "Bush did it" for the next decade will continue to explain the growing unemployment rate, the most recent deficit, the new round of tensions with Iran and North Korea, and the growing global unrest from the Middle East to South America.

Once we remember and accept the logic of the above, then almost everything about this Age of Obama begins to make perfect sense.

Originally Posted by franksargent

One person != more and more people

ABC != how terrible and Orwellian our world has become

The basic point is that the recession of 2001 wasn't a typical postwar slump, brought on when an inflation-fighting Fed raises interest rates and easily ended by a snapback in housing and consumer spending when the Fed brings rates back down again. This was a prewar-style recession, a morning after brought on by irrational exuberance. To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.

Bear in mind also that government officials have a stake in accentuating the positive. The administration needs a recovery because, with deficits exploding, the only way it can justify that tax cut is by pretending that it was just what the economy needed. Mr. Greenspan needs one to avoid awkward questions about his own role in creating the stock market bubble.

Originally Posted by Powerdoc

The entire world, thanks GW Bush and his administration for this mess. Most of countries of the world face the crisis and increase the huge internal debt to avoid a total collapse of the economy. And who will pay ?
Me, us for sure.

Originally Posted by Powerdoc

The financial crisis born in USA according to every economist. It was related to the subprimes

Note that I did not say that all the problems europe has come from Bush. It would be totally stupid.
I did not say that every decision of Obama is good in my agenda. For example raising tax for the rich is more symbolic than efficient in my point of vue. But the problem is that all economy of the world are obliged to increase the debt to avoid deflation.
Of course we will obliged to paid later. That's life.

My point is that Obama did not generated this crisis. Like every other governement of the world he is obliged to face it, and inject billions of dollars. If he did not inject this money (and it's also the case for most countries) there will be a major collapse of the economy.

Does it make me happy : not at all. I will have to pay later

Obama said during the ABC Special on Wednesday night that a way to save healthcare costs is to abandon the sort of care that evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve the patients health. He went on to say that he had personal familiarity with such a situation when his grandmother broke her hip after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Obama offered a question on the efficacy of further care for his grandmother saying, and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?

THE PRESIDENT: I dont know how much that hip replacement cost. I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because shes my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody elses aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when theyre terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. If somebody told me that my grandmother couldnt have a hip replacement and she had to lie there in misery in the waning days of her life that would be pretty upsetting.

And its going to be hard for people who dont have the option of paying for it.

THE PRESIDENT: So thats where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But thats also a huge driver of cost, right?

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

So how do you how do we deal with it?

THE PRESIDENT: ...you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. Its not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And thats part of what I suspect youll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.

He added: "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."

Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers pleaded guilty this morning to conspiring to commit bribery and is free on personal bond.
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U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn said, "The defendant now stands convicted."

The one count of conspiring to commit bribery is punishable by up to five years in prison.

No sentencing date has been set.

Conyers, the wife of powerful Democratic congressman U.S. Rep. John Conyers, appeared before Cohn to answer charges in connection with the wide-ranging probe of wrongdoing at Detroit city hall.

Originally Posted by Flounder

http://www.freep.com/

It's on the front page of freep.com right now, and the story is running on many liberal blogs.

It's also in the list of top stories at http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/

After initially opposing a sludge contract with Synagro, Mrs. Conyers, after accepting a bribe, became the deciding vote in the city council on a resolution to approve the contract.

Mrs. Conyers faces up to 5 year in prison, three years supervised release and/or a $250,000 fine. Calls to an attorney for Mrs. Conyers were not immediately returned.

Originally Posted by dfiler

Honest question:

Couldn't the difference in coverage be a result of the fact that one person is a state governor and the other is a member of a city council?

There are only 50 governors in the nation but literally hundreds of thousands of city council members. It seems appropriate that the story about a governor gets more national coverage.

Originally Posted by Flounder

Do you really think a bribery conviction of the councilman wife of a moderately prominent congressman is ever going to generate more news than the disappearing act / sex scandal by a prominent governor who had already been in the news frequently in re: the stimulus and mentioned as a potential presidential candidate would, no matter the (D) or (R) next to the name?

Also, I think you're forgetting that a whole host of major news outlets took "hiking the Appalachian trail" utterly at face value:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmem...sanfo.php#more

In fact, the first I ever heard of the Sanford story was an AP story on the front page of Yahoo! the declared Sanford "found."

Also, don't you think that might be a factor in the level of coverage for Sanford as well? Blatantly untrue statements tend to generate attention.


See how easy it is to play this little tit for tat game? It can't be won.