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The myth that Obama saved us from the great depression
- Thread starter Max E.
- Start date
Quote from Brass:
Judging by the posts that preceded my first one in this thread, there IS no conversation, just worms luxuriating in the mud.
Baby steps...
Take a jab at refuting this post. Remember, you can't use your fallback position of injecting racism or sexism into your reply.
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I think we're headed for something over a 25% contraction. This puts us well within Great D levels, imo. Back in the 1930's, the downturn lasted so long because the Federal Reserve hoarded gold instead of loaning it out to commercial banks, to repump the money supply. Many economic historians, including Bernacke, have admitted as much. Obama inherited a structurally deficient economy that's ran on debt since the 80's. Technically, it's not his fault. And technically, by running massive deficits, he has in fact bought us time. However, it's really a semantical mindgame. The larger the debt bubble (government, consumer and derivative), the worse the dollar will implode when it finally does. Obama has done nothing to remedy the problem (offshoring, high taxes, excessive regulation), and domestically, made the situation much worse. I suppose it's all academic now. There's really no hope for us. We're on the Titanic and half the lifeboats have been launched. I'm real optimistic. I know. On the flip side, that volatility we talked about is gonna be coming back real soon. Tsunami like volatility Except I'm pretty sure some form of capital controls will be in place by then, and I will bet the sitting President blames speculators for the looming dollar collapse (instead of the national debt and federal reserve monetizing it). They'll need a scapegoat and we're it. Nobody likes a war-profiteer. I am getting ready now
My bad. I was referring to the article, which for 80% of its length supports Keynesianism, the target of so much of Max's emotion these days. And then phoenix's "nonsense" label, which brought Max back to soft-pedal.Quote from denner:
Understood, but your post implied that a depression is an impossibility with a fiat currency. That misconception was directly addressed by Achilles.
First, numeric projections are bullshit. Haven't you been here long enough to figure that out for yourself?Quote from denner:
Baby steps...
Take a jab at refuting this post. Remember, you can't use your fallback position of injecting racism or sexism into your reply.
******************************************************
I think we're headed for something over a 25% contraction. This puts us well within Great D levels, imo. Back in the 1930's, the downturn lasted so long because the Federal Reserve hoarded gold instead of loaning it out to commercial banks, to repump the money supply. Many economic historians, including Bernacke, have admitted as much. Obama inherited a structurally deficient economy that's ran on debt since the 80's. Technically, it's not his fault. And technically, by running massive deficits, he has in fact bought us time. However, it's really a semantical mindgame. The larger the debt bubble (government, consumer and derivative), the worse the dollar will implode when it finally does. Obama has done nothing to remedy the problem (offshoring, high taxes, excessive regulation), and domestically, made the situation much worse. I suppose it's all academic now. There's really no hope for us. We're on the Titanic and half the lifeboats have been launched. I'm real optimistic. I know. On the flip side, that volatility we talked about is gonna be coming back real soon. Tsunami like volatility Except I'm pretty sure some form of capital controls will be in place by then, and I will bet the sitting President blames speculators for the looming dollar collapse (instead of the national debt and federal reserve monetizing it). They'll need a scapegoat and we're it. Nobody likes a war-profiteer. I am getting ready now
"High taxes?" Excessive regulation?" Those are baseless talking points. Since you're blaming the feds, federal taxes are lower than they have been in decades. And if regulatory oversight had been heightened and tightened, perhaps a lot of what had happened would not necessarily have happened.
Achilles also predicted that the US dollar would "collapse" in his subsequent post. Against which currencies, and to whose benefit?
http://useconomy.about.com/od/criticalssues/p/dollar_collapse.htm
As for the stimulus spending to ease the descent and to encourage a turnaround, you need to look at the benefits as well as the cost. I don't think that there should be much intervention during a normal business cycle. But what had occurred was anything but. You keep looking at the cost, but not the potential alternative.
It's easy to make plausible sounding arguments that combine to support any conclusion. The problem with projecting a convoluted string of scenario combinations is the exaggerated outcome when small errors in fact and judgment are made along the way, which then accumulate. Faulty assumptions and assessments don't make for very good predictions. Consider such an example:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/CCuPyLeDzng" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
And so, against that background, I prefer to side with the judgment of people who are more familiar with the economy and whose general expectations are decidedly different.