10 Responses for "Disappointment"

1. Aaron April 9th, 2009 at 9:02 am 1

   Yeah, don’t get me started. It’s not bad enough that Obama’s treasury secretary is basically continuing the very same “throw money at failing banks” strategy that Bush pursued. Hell, even some Republicans are saying that this is pointless and that we should just nationalize those banks (at least temporarily, until the toxic assets are sold off or swallowed.)

   Pissing taxpayer money down a rathole is bad enough, but continuing the very same domestic apying program that he once railed against is really unacceptable. Barkingg heads in the media were proclaiming Obama’s “honeymoon” over a week into his term, but if he’s really committed to continuing these awful Bush policies, then I’m afraid the heads are right.

2. Woeful April 11th, 2009 at 5:20 pm 2

   OKokok…

   DM, I am not a fan of FISA in any way. I’ve blogged about it, FISA is clearly unconstitutional and continuing down that same path is a mistake. That said, what freaks me out is Obama’s 180 on this. It makes me think that the intelligence he’s getting is SO tremendously awful that there is no other way to preserve the Republic… Sadly by forsaking our basic vales we have already lost it. The American is done.

   Aaron, this particular Bush policy is/was a Democrats policy. It always was, no Republican ever wanted it. This fact gives me tremendous satisfaction. In the end Bush forsake his own principals to save us economically because he knew knew that the GOP/Milton Friedman hoax is totally bankrupt and that Keynes is the way to go. Keynes allows for flexibility for dramatic swings and although scary to accept is clearly the way to go knowing the alternative. That said, I think even Keynes would agree to nationalize at this point… Read Krugman’s stuff, I really respect that guy.

3. D M April 11th, 2009 at 6:33 pm 3

   Since Obama voted for the FISA bill, can you really say he did a 180?

4. Aaron April 12th, 2009 at 5:20 am 4

   Woeful, what policy are you specifically referring to as Keynesian? The general policy of government intervening in a financial crisis, or the specific policy of the moment, which is shoveling trillions of dollars at insolvent banks with no oversight on how it’s spent?

   I reluctantly supported the bailout money last fall, because I felt that the alternative (banks collapse along with American economy) was worse. However, I stupidly assumed that some degree of governmental oversight would come along with all that money, only to realize later that what was being handed to the banks was essentially a blank check. Nationalizing the banks and wiping all those toxic assets off the books would have made far more sense, and been more strictly Keynesian. This was just a corporate handout, and in retrospect, the Republicans were absolutely right to oppose it.

   Obama’s continued championing of this policy is based on the same wrong-headed assumption that fueled Bush: that if you just prop up these banks long enough, eventually some private entity will come along and purchase all those trillions of dollars in toxic assets for an amount other than what they are worth - which is absolutely nothing, nothing at all.

   We are, in no uncertain terms, pissing the last of our national wealth down a rathole. It will not save us, and it won’t even prolong the inevitable for very long. I say the Depression hits for real by the end of this year, with food shortages and riots to follow.

5. Woeful April 12th, 2009 at 5:44 pm 5

   And that’s the moment he made his 180 DM…

   Keynes would say that You, Me, DM, Obama and anyone else in either of the administrations are a bunch of pussies. Scarred into inaction… As frozen as our banks. He would probably say that the new stimulus plan is lacking by about 2 trillion dollars and to just nationalize the banks already. Then spend another trillion on top of that and worry about paying it back later.

   But we can’t stomach the though of this… So we just might have that Depression you’re predicting.

6. D M April 14th, 2009 at 10:36 am 6

   It’s not that ‘we’ can’t stomach the thought of it, it’s that the oligarchy is entrenched enough that they can prevent the necessary actions to get us out of the mess.

   They’re still making money; who gives a fuck about the larger picture?

7. Aaron April 14th, 2009 at 5:29 pm 7

   Sorry to sound so relentlessly pessimistic: I’ve been reading Jim Kunstler’s blog again, which is a guaranteed downer every time.

   I do believe we’re in serious trouble right now, though, and the current stock market rally is just a mirage. The crisis in the world economy is that nobody is loaning money, for any reason, at any interest rate…and if that continues it will start to affect our food and fuel supplies.

   I can’t shake the feeling that the societal elites (including both political parties) know full well that our goose is cooked, and the bailouts and subsequent stock rallies are nothing more than their attempt to squeeze the last dregs of capital out of a dying system. Once that source is squeezed dry, that money will be quickly moved offshore, at which point the whole house of cards collapses utterly, and they’ll leave the rest of us to our fate. Which, needless to say, will not be a pleasant one.

8. Woeful April 15th, 2009 at 5:46 pm 8

   Have either of you guys seen this?
   http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/04/possible_narratives_about_the_geithner_plan.php

   #3 is the underlying issue that I was dancing around with my last comment.

   BTW, after I commented I realized that you might not have been talking about last year’s FISA vote DM. If not you might have a solid point. Was Obama around when FISA was initially enacted? I don’t think so?

   And yeah Aaron, I think we might be in some serious dodo here. However, it can get exponentially worse if we drift into a deflationary spiral… And the CPI just posted it’s first contraction since 1955.

   http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=amfjRQPE6kc0&refer=home

   This is the Big Bad! This is the stuff that puts the fear of God into normally stoic economists. Once this happens, it’s like the Terminator, it can’t be reasoned with or bargained with, and it will not stop until it squeezes every last ounce of the desire to live from us. This is what all these “masterminds” are trying to prevent by dumping cash into the system to shock Frankenstein’s Monster back to life. We can’t allow deflation to gain a foothold and we are very very close to this scenario.

   That said, we just made it through two very bad weeks of gloomy economic data and the Market took it well. I’ve been looking at my own IRA’s balance trend and after over a year, the trend finally looks optimistic. Now, I don’t believe that there isn’t anymore to fall, but the graph is finally looking like an overall upward trend. Barring any unforeseen badness (and there is a lot of badness out there) I think that we will be in good shape by this time next year… IF we can get through the next six months without any major unexpected badness, and that’s a BIG if.

9. D M April 16th, 2009 at 8:51 am 9

   No, Woeful I was talking about the FISA vote last year that Obama voted for. The roots of the document come from 1978, I think. But when he voted to ‘expand’ upon the ‘meaning’ of the bill, which was already perfectly clear, and provide retroactive immunity to businesses (which he said in Feb was bad), something cockeyed was going on. I get that Obama is first and foremost a pragmatist, and he’s going to do what he needs to to win, but a flip like that is just weird.

   I look at the economic links and I think; everyone is insisting that the world is going to collapse. I just don’t think that it’s going to implode. Will things get bad–yes, but the doomsayers are painting this ‘end of the world’ scene and I always get suspicious when that happens.

10. Woeful April 19th, 2009 at 6:19 pm 10

    That’s what I thought. I was deeply disappointed by Obama’s actions as well and called him out for it on my blog last year regarding FISA. Since then there have been a few other 180s too, specifically regarding torture. Sure he is closing Guantanamo but he has adopted this halfway policy regarding everyone else: http://www.slate.com/id/2215818/

    That said, I think we should keep in mind that he can only do so much. He is incredibly constrained by the system itself, the politics of it all. If he takes too hard a stand it could and probably would just crash and burn and progress (incremental is better than none).