I criticize the President and Democrats all the time. I do so through understanding of economics outside a simple correlation and causation mindset, a symptom of lack of education in the field, which people on the left and right employ.
The GDP is about $14.7 trillion. Government spending is about $3.5 trillion. If you believe the government 'owns' the economy because they are a large consumer, I will suggest the government does not own anything and is nothing more than a consumer. As a consumer the government can spend any amount they wish in the economy and this will create some jobs and will help energize the economy. But $1.3 trillion of this spending is being done with debt which must be paid back by future generations with interest. Sure the government can spend another $1-$2 trillion, all of it debt money, and this will impact the economy, but in no way does government or presidents ever 'own' the economy! It is not logical to me that the USA can afford and/or sustain this level of spending and debt creation by government. Government is not owning anything...they are borrowing everything...
Andrew Klavan: Why Do Blacks Vote for Democrats? [video=youtube;a9ZpD34Xk3M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9ZpD34Xk3M[/video]
Here is a much more accurate analogy; OK you call a plumber (a wanna be cowboy who uses his daddy's credentials to get the job because he himself doesn't have a license, nor does he deserve one) to build you a bathroom. When he is done, nothing is right. All the pipes leak, the tiles are crooked, the hot water knob blows cold water in the tub, and the cold water knob doesn't work at all, the toilet will not flush water much less anything else, the door will not close and/or lock, the window is crooked, the foundation is unstable/already cracking, the roof leaks, and the thing went 3000% over budget. Soooooo being the foolish glutton for punishment that you are, you hire another incompetent fool (brother in-laws best friend from high school who ‘wants’ to be a plumber, but is just a sprinkler organizer at a Chicago country club) to make the necessary repairs but he doesn't have the experience, knowledge, or know how to fix anything other than a water hose or a sprinkler head. And on top of all that is too stupid to realize the entire job was done so poorly it needs to be scrubbed and started over from a completely different approach. Maybe with an actual viable blue print this go round. He works on it for about ½ the time it took the other idiot to create mess in the first place, and it still isn’t any closer to being fixed than the day he started. Now you have a room attached to your house (nobody in their right mind would attempt to call a bathroom), and you are 5000% over budget. Now what? With little to no resources to depend on at this point, who do you blame (besides yourself who obviously shares about 80% of the burden of responsibility), the idiot who made the problem or the idiot who couldn't fix it? Question two; Do you really want anyone associated with either of these incompetent morons who are utter proven failures, to have another crack at it? Do you? If so you don’t deserve to have a bathroom. Better yet a more appropriate question might be, has anybody fed you and changed your diaper today?
To claim that government policy doesn't impact business is delusional. Not only do taxes, regulations and entitlements effect businesses, they affect consumer demand, which, once again, affects businesses. And yes, our government does have too much power...
I never said a president cannot influence the economy. I said a president cannot have any 'appreciable' control over the economy. A president cannot will the private economy to create 10 million more jobs! If this was true Obama would have been doing some major demanding. Government creates regulations, for example, environmental regulations, and when government tries to change these the People come unglued! You and others complain about government regulations, many of which increase costs to industry, yet if government wants to lower the regulations, voters will refuse. IMO your government very much mirrors the voters. We basically have a government that most voters like. Trying to change any part of this creates a gigantic conflict of interest in politics; the politician might be voted out of office! We need higher taxes on Americans yet this will never come up because voters will revolt! If you look at the GDP, it has been kind of flat for about 5 years. If you can answer why it has been flat, I suspect the answers will tell you that it's not about presidents and Congress. If one answer is domestic and international demands on US products and services are static right now, then how can a president change this demand? But other questions like why does the US government require corporate taxes on foreign generated taxable income need to be checked by presidents and Congress...
He does realize that the republicans of today were the democrats before 1960? Democrats were the faux conservatives then, and republicans are the faux conservatives now. Anybody who has followed politics throughout the history of the USA should know that.
since nobody seriously thinks obama got us into this mess... I guess the question is why isnt obama fixing all the worlds problems FASTER?
Add state and local and you have 5 Trillion of Government.......for a 14.7 Trillion economy..... So you dont think consuming 5 Trillion, while regulating the hell out of the other 10 Trillion.......by any means approaches government owning the economy. So what would? Would 10 Trillion of government for a 15 trillion Economy be there? Lets get the goalposts in the ground.....you can move them later..... . . .
k but a president can focus on ensuring America is the best place on earth to do business, but Obama flat out refuses.... He wants to raise energy prices on everyone. He wants to raise the price of gas to european levels... He wants to raise taxes on job creators... etc...
Is it because the 143 Day Senator/Community Organizer, who never ran so much as a lemonade stand.......doesnt have a fricking clue on how to fix anything. . . .
And all you have to do is follow the money they dish out, the preferential treatment & favors they give, and the loopholes/exemptions to the regulations they institute to see who actually controls the government. The government doesn't work for the government any more than it does for the people or the best interest of the nation as a whole for that matter.
he was a senator for 2 years....only RW math equates that to 143 days lol and he was the director of the developing communities project
A President can create an environment that can and will create jobs.....which will "will the private economy to create 10 million more jobs". The President need to be smart on how he uses resource to maximize the outcome. If Obama hadn't spent the last 3 years campaigning, then maybe he could have at least done SOMETHING that would create jobs. His stimulus was a bust, because he did not spend the money wisely.....he waste most of the money by using it where it had little affect on the economy. We don't need more taxes, we need more revenue and effective use of government support that actually create jobs. The more people that are back to work, the higher the Federal revenue intake. No, we do not have a Government that most people like. If we did, Congress approval rating would not be less than 10%. We have a Government that caters to special interest and has very little interest in the average citizen. Environmental regulations are one thing if they are just. Regulations based on theories and speculation do nothing but harm businesses. The extra cost burdens of these regulations are NOT absorbed by the businesses, they are absorbed by the consumer. It has been flat because one of our largest industries.....construction, specifically housing construction, has been flat. It has also been flat because we have an unemployment rate of over 8%. When people are unemployed, they stop buying products that are not a necessity. As far as international demand, one thing a President can do is to see what product IS in demand internationally and spend money in that area to increase overall export of that product. Or the President can initiate a study on what product are in demand internationally and do things to bring our country to supply that market. All the current administration seams to do is to increase the printing of money, which only hurts our economy.
This and all the good paying jobs that kept this going are no longer available in our country. We also have a completely hostile environment against private ownership (ma and pop style businesses) and small business in general. Now what will any president with a 'd' or an 'r' do to rectify this situation? Nothing, not a GD thing, since their corporate masters doesn't see it as a problem.
In the absence of a real recovery, government has provided a fraud-recovery, based on horrific amounts of borrowing and spending, borrowing and spending, etc., etc. This has the effect of rescuing the banking cartels and the stock market, plus a handful of exporters (because the value of the US Dollar is driven down). But as far as reality goes? Forget it! This fraud-economy is so rooted in Keynesian economic theory that it must have continual supplies of "money" that is essentially worthless and made out of thin air, or, the fraud-economy starts to tank again, as we are seeing now. The stock market has been going way down for several weeks because of this reality, but was up 155 point yesterday on the mere hopeful "sentiment" that the Federal Reserve System is "going to do something" (probably create even more worthless money) to prop up the markets. When reality DOES finally set in and this F'd-up fairytale ends, the last line WON'T be, "and they lived happily ever after"....
Leaked Trade Doc Shows Obama Wants to Help Corporations Avoid Regulations A draft agreement leaked Wednesday shows the Obama administration is pushing a secretive trade agreement that could vastly expand corporate power and directly contradict a 2008 campaign promise by President Obama. A U.S. proposal for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact between the United States and eight Pacific nations would allow foreign corporations operating in the U.S. to appeal key regulations to an international tribunal. The body would have the power to override U.S. law and issue penalties for failure to comply with its ruling. We speak to Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch, a fair trade group that posted the leaked documents on its website. "This isnt just a bad trade agreement," Wallach says. "This is a 'one-percenter' power tool that could rip up our basic needs and rights." http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/14/breaking_08_pledge_leaked_trade_doc -------------------------------------------------------------------------- While you were sleeping......Fascism is on its way! The earmarks of a free society is to have open and free discussions. Once a it stops doing that it is no longer free! So what does a trade agreement have to do with national security that it needs to be kept secret?
Ah yes, America's economy was perfect, booming and unassailable up until the very moment Obama took office. How's the memory these days? Stabilising the economy of a nation like America is analogous to trying to stop a supertanker on a dime; it can't be done. Fixing it takes years; remember that it took over a decade and a world war before America even began to recover from the '29 crash. Whining that Obama hasn't been able to fix both Bush's legacy in a scant 42 months, as well as dealing with a global recession, does nothing except amplify partisan affiliation.
I don't care how it's twisted...IMO the government does not own the economy. No one owns the economy. Everyone can participate in the economy. Is the US government a large consumer...yes they are. And government needs to be a much smaller percentage of GDP. Government spending is not as efficient as private sector spending in terms of creating jobs. Still I don't see how government controls any economy...
Absolutely...and this is what angers me most is that it does not appear that Obama has approached the private sector and asked the simple question; what can the federal government do for you to help you compete in the global marketplace? It seems on the surface that Obama has more of an adversarial relationship with business which makes zero sense to me? But...if Obama ever did ask that question, one answer might be that the USA and it's citizens simply will not adjust to give industry what they need to better compete. At least we would know the truth then we can consider Plan B...
If you believe Obama can create 10 million jobs...then what is Obama waiting for? We have the current unemployment rate for many reasons but one of them is because domestic and international demand on US products/services are down. You are blending the private sector with government too much! Government has a role and it is not leading and dictating commerce. If there are profits to be made, rest assured that a business is going to fill the demand...business does not need government for this...
The truth stings doesnt it....... So if we had a 15 Trillion dollar governemnt for our 15 Trillion dollar economy......would that equate government owning the economy? What does it take? . . .
The US government is trying to make up for the lower demands of products and services in the private sector. This is a great temporary arrangement and only works well when in parallel the private sector grows on it's own merits. Also in the private sector they become more efficient, more frugal, do more off-shore, etc. which all equates to fewer jobs. And, as the economy lingers population growth continues which exacerbates the issue. The government could stimulate the economy with $2-$3 trillion of debt money but there are risks in doing this. Seems to me Obama has no power with Congress, and Obama is hoping things get better which it will but not at the speed which politics demands...for re-election. Obama IMO is ineffective in identifying the root problems and in getting people and industry together to resolve these root problems. If Obama is ineffective, then he needs to step aside and let some other sucker give it a try...
