What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[mercury14]

Let me clarify something because I think it needs to be done.

As far as the CBO goes, there's a distinction between its future projections and analysis of current or past policy. Those are two different things. Obviously predicting the future is less reliable especially the further out you go.

Bush and the Republicans used a CBO projection when instituting their tax cuts. The CBO projected that even with the Bush tax cuts we'd have a 3+ trillion surplus over ten years. At that time Republicans were lovin' them some CBO projections, weren't they? At least before they decided they were useless. Then golden again. Then useless again. Turns out that the 3 trillion in surplus not only failed to materialize but we had a couple trillion in deficit spending instead. Oopsie!

We still had two recessions even with the tax cuts in place. Did the cuts make the recessions less bad? Perhaps, but they were still bad (the second one was epic bad) and it's impossible to conclude that marginal tax rate cuts prevent recessions or keep them from being bad ones.

On the flip side we have CBO analysis of past events such as the stimulus. These are far more accurate because they involve no crystal balls and far fewer variables. As far as the stimulus goes, the CBO's analysis mirrors that of every single Wall Street macroanalytic entity, plus the Fed's. That goes a long way toward showing that the CBO's methods were valid and reproduce-able.

You seem to enjoy pointing your finger at the CBO's assessment of the stimulus as being "democratic numbers". But as soon as I point out that JP Morgan Chase, Moody's, Goldman Sachs, IHS/Global Insight, and Macroeconomic Advisors each independently came to the same conclusion as the CBO, you get real quiet.

 

[koalabear]

On a positive note, I made a big pot of chili today. The gurgle all those beans cause in my digestive tract makes me think of dems economic policy.

You should have de-gassed them before putting them in the chili.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Let me clarify something because I think it needs to be done.

As far as the CBO goes, there's a distinction between its future projections and analysis of current or past policy. Those are two different things. Obviously predicting the future is less reliable especially the further out you go.

Bush and the Republicans used a CBO projection when instituting their tax cuts. The CBO projected that even with the Bush tax cuts we'd have a 3+ trillion surplus over ten years. At that time Republicans were lovin' them some CBO projections, weren't they? At least before they decided they were useless. Then golden again. Then useless again. Turns out that the 3 trillion in surplus not only failed to materialize but we had a couple trillion in deficit spending instead. Oopsie!

We still had two recessions even with the tax cuts in place. Did the cuts make the recessions less bad? Perhaps, but they were still bad (the second one was epic bad) and it's impossible to conclude that marginal tax rate cuts prevent recessions or keep them from being bad ones.

On the flip side we have CBO analysis of past events such as the stimulus. These are far more accurate because they involve no crystal balls and far fewer variables. As far as the stimulus goes, the CBO's analysis mirrors that of every single Wall Street macroanalytic entity, plus the Fed's. That goes a long way toward showing that the CBO's methods were valid and reproduce-able.

You seem to enjoy pointing your finger at the CBO's assessment of the stimulus as being "democratic numbers". But as soon as I point out that JP Morgan Chase, Moody's, Goldman Sachs, IHS/Global Insight, and Macroeconomic Advisors each independently came to the same conclusion as the CBO, you get real quiet.

Recessions are necessary to Capitalism. The fact that you do not understand such a vital and salient economic point is somewhat illuminating in regard to your argumentation.

Here's what the CBO cannot do: analyze what we did not do.

Every single entity? It actually shows no such thing.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The reason I am here, to get back on track was this interesting little bit about those who would "manage" the economy...

Innovate or Legislate
By Reihan Salam & Patrick Ruffini
February 27, 2012 12:00 A.M.

In 2012, a number of institutions that long defined how Americans communicated are teetering near the brink of collapse. Major newspapers in cities across the country have stopped publishing. Strip-mall anchors from Circuit City to Blockbuster to Borders have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The U.S. Postal Service struggles under the weight of crushing pension obligations, as e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and Skype render it all but obsolete. In politics, traditional modes of wielding power are also being disrupted. One prominent example is the recent battle over the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, in which grassroots activists defeated once-powerful Hollywood lobbyists.

What’s toppling these formerly invincible companies and institutions? In almost every case, the proximate cause is the Internet, and the disruption it has wrought on inefficient businesses in every corner of the economy. And so we are now engaged in a war over its future.

The Internet’s enemies have proven vocal, organized, and effective, while the vast majority of consumers, workers, and entrepreneurs it has enriched have proven anything but, and the fight over SOPA must be understood in this larger context.

A McKinsey Global Institute study published last spring found that, worldwide, 2 billion people were connected to the Internet and almost $8 trillion exchanged hands via e-commerce. The United States captures 30 percent of all the revenues generated by the global Internet economy, and 40 percent of the net income. Moreover, the Internet has been a powerful driver of economic growth and job creation. In a survey of small and medium-sized enterprises, McKinsey found that for every job destroyed by the Internet, 2.6 were created. In the advanced countries that were included in the survey, the United States among them, Internet consumption and expenditure accounted for 21 percent of economic growth over the past few years.

One is reminded of Jack Kemp’s call in the 1970s and 1980s for “enterprise zones,” blighted urban areas in which regulations would be eliminated, and taxes lowered, to spark entrepreneurship and growth. The Internet has been the ultimate enterprise zone. Just as Hong Kong’s freedom and prosperity contrasted vividly with China’s desperate poverty for much of the last century, the Internet stands out as an island of low regulation and taxation in a broader economy that grows less free with each passing year. The question is whether we will allow Internet-enabled innovation to continue transforming the economy — dramatically reducing the cost and raising the quality of our education and health sectors, for example — or, alternatively, we will allow the Internet’s growth to be choked off by cronyism.

For now, the Internet represents the great exception to the rising tide of state-guided capitalism, in which government favors politically connected firms and industries. As Ian Bremmer observes in his ominous book The End of the Free Market, the governments of the world’s rising economies seek to dominate key economic sectors. The global markets for energy, aviation, shipping, power generation, arms production, telecommunications, metals, minerals, petrochemicals, and much else are increasingly being manipulated by state-owned enterprises and sovereign wealth funds.

Even the United States, long the bulwark of entrepreneurial capitalism, has moved in a dirigiste direction. During his recent State of the Union address, President Obama celebrated the bailouts of GM and Chrysler, promising that “what’s happening in Detroit can happen in other industries.” What happened in Detroit is that taxpayers gave a massive infusion of cash to politically connected workers and investors in a collapsing industry.

When we think of state capitalism, we tend to think of the Rust Belt, where automobile manufacturers and steel producers have been clamoring for bailouts and protective tariffs for decades. But in the 21st century, it is Hollywood that has been the most effective at securing handouts. Until 2001, only four U.S. states had programs to encourage film production, typically through tax breaks and other giveaways. That year, the total amount offered was in the neighborhood of $1 million. Between 2001 and 2010, however, the number of states offering incentives went from four to 40, and the amount offered increased to $1.4 billion — note the change from “m” to “b.” Thankfully, a handful of states have abandoned their film-incentive programs since 2010, having recognized that they were a bad deal for taxpayers.

Yet film-incentive programs are just the tip of the iceberg. Hollywood has pursued a number of strategies to enrich itself at the expense of the broader public. One of the most egregious has been the ongoing extension of copyright terms.

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/291732

The rest is long and specifically about SOPA, but it is worth the time to read.

 

[NeverEndingMe]

Let me clarify something because I think it needs to be done.

Oopsie!

there once was a man name Merc, who ate an Orange and became upset because the last time he tasted something round, tasted like an Apple. Merc then proceeded to call the manufacture of the Orange complaining that the Orange obama gave him for free, didn't taste like an Apple.

the manufacture tried to explain the difference between an Apple and an Orange but Merc didn't understand then gave up and Blamed Bush for the Orange not tasting like an Apple

 

[unregistered]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

there once was a man name Merc, who ate an Orange and became upset because the last time he tasted something round, tasted like an Apple. Merc then proceeded to call the manufacture of the Orange complaining that the Orange obama gave him for free, didn't taste like an Apple.

the manufacture tried to explain the difference between an Apple and an Orange but Merc didn't understand then gave up and Blamed Bush for the Orange not tasting like an Apple

Ivan and Igor were two dirt-poor Russian peasants; same amount of land, same out buildings, same everything. Except for one thing. Igor had a goat.
One night Fairy Godmother came to Ivan and told him he could have any one wish he cared to make.
Ivan was a careful man and thought for a great while and then he said, "I wish Igors' goat would die."
That is the modern American liberal.
Ishmael

 

[fair_warning]

Fringe-right conservatives...even the educated ones... have an "emotional connection" to their argument and are unable and/or unwilling to even acknowledge facts that are contrary to their deeply held political positions.

Yes...you're right on with this.However I would add that's it's more a connection to the party that espouses the political postion...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I'm glad this got bumped up, ran across some excellent doom and gloom!

Harry Dent, author of the new book The Great Crash Ahead, says another stock market crash is coming due to a bad ending to the global debt bubble. He has pulled back on his earlier prediction of a crash in 2012, as central banks around the world have been flooding markets with money, giving stocks an artificial short-term boost. But a crash is coming in 2013 or 2014, he warns. "This will be a repeat of 2008-09, only bigger, when it finally hits," Dent told USA TODAY.

Gerald Celente, a trend forecaster at the Trends Research Institute, says Americans should brace themselves for an "economic 9/11" due to policymakers' inability to solve the world's financial and economic woes. The coming meltdown, he predicts, will lead to growing social unrest and anti-government sentiment, a U.S. dollar with far less purchasing power and more people out of work.

...

Robert Prechter, author of Conquer the Crash, first published in 2002 and updated in 2009, is still bearish. He says today's economy has similarities to the Great Depression and warns that 1930s-style deflation is still poised to cause financial havoc. Prechter predicts that the major U.S. stock indexes, such as the Dow Jones industrials and Standard & Poor's 500, will plunge below their bear market lows hit in March 2009 during the last financial crisis. The brief recovery will fail as it did in the 1930s, he says.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/stocks/story/2012-02-26/stock-market-bears-doomsayers/53259742/1

The third one is more in line with what I've been saying.



Yeah, only one side of the spectrum has an emotional attachment and it sure as hell isn't the touchy-feely Left who uses words like greed and selfishness...

lol

Are you guys for real?

 

[JohnnySavage]

If you say the market is going to crash in 5 years, and repeat that prediction every 5 years, statistically, you will hit a home run eventually.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

If you say the market is going to crash in 5 years, and repeat that prediction every 5 years, statistically, you will hit a home run eventually.

As Mises said, he can tell you what will happen, not when. If he could tell you when, you would modify your behavior and destroy the prediction.



“When Henry Thoreau set about to idly chronicle the summer of 1845 alongside Walden Pond, could Congress assert that Thoreau’s season of reflection was, in fact, an active decision not to fish Walden’s waters, regulate his negative decision under the Commerce Clause, and thereafter penalize his failure to fish under the theory that everyone has to eat?”
Chris Koster, Missouri attorney general (D)

 

[JohnnySavage]

As Mises said, he can tell you what will happen, not when. If he could tell you when, you would modify your behavior and destroy the prediction.



fakey sig lines deleted for clarity

No. It's the nature of the world, humanity, culture and society that chaos dominates. Nothing lasts forever and what we should do, is grab the crust of bread available during the time in history we exist. We are here and relevant for about 50 years. Don't worry about what went before, or what will come after because each generation will forge it's own path.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

No. It's the nature of the world, humanity, culture and society that chaos dominates. Nothing lasts forever and what we should do, is grab the crust of bread available during the time in history we exist. We are here and relevant for about 50 years. Don't worry about what went before, or what will come after because each generation will forge it's own path.

Not if Congress has its say about it...

 

[JohnnySavage]

Not if Congress has its say about it...

We get a new congress every 2 years

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Meet the new boss,
Just the same as the old boss...

 

[JohnnySavage]

Meet the new boss,
Just the same as the old boss...

Oh I don't know about that. Congress is actually pretty responsive... it's reactionary. Two years ago the people were screaming, "Stop spending so much money!!!" and they elected the tea baggers (I agree with their fiscal stance, and think it funny to call them tea baggers). The tea baggers did exactly what they were elected to do and blocked every spending bill.

Two years later the people are screaming, "Stop the gridlock!!!" and "We didn't mean you should cut our pet piggy!!!"

And so it goes. In November we will see if the age of the tea baggers has passed, and I suspect it has. There are no more fiscal conservatives in America. I am an island with no coconuts.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

If it were not for the 17th Amendment, we would have a check on the passions of the mob and their propensity to vote themselves the largess of the Treasury...

 

[JohnnySavage]

If it were not for the 17th Amendment, we would have a check on the passions of the mob and their propensity to vote themselves the largess of the Treasury...

Ha! I was just reading about this, latest movement. The repeal of the 17th.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Ha! I was just reading about this, latest movement. The repeal of the 17th.

19th too...

 

[RobDownSouth]

As Mises said, he can tell you what will happen, not when.

Most carnival "psychics" adopt variations of the above patter.

 

[busybody..]

Obamanomics: Durable Goods Tanks, Biggest Drop In 3 Years…




So much for that mythical “recovery” Obama and the MSM have been touting.


(CNBC) — New orders for U.S. manufactured goods fell in January by the most in three years as demand fell across the board from machinery to aircraft, suggesting the economy started the year on weaker footing than expected.

Durable goods orders dropped 4.0 percent, the biggest drop since January 2009 when the country was still mired in a deep recession, according to Commerce Department data on Tuesday.

Economists had forecast orders falling 1.0 percent.

Durable goods range from toasters to big-ticket items like aircraft which are meant to last three years and more.

Excluding transportation, orders fell 3.2 percent. Economists had expected that reading to be flat. Machinery orders dropped 10.4 percent, the largest decline since January 2009

 

[MeeMie]

The Chart Barack Obama Doesn’t Want America To Know About:

http://media.hotair.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/bls-emp-pop-ratio.jpg


While the Obama administration and the mainstream media attempt to paint America as enjoying a current economic recovery – the facts tell a very different story. After some 5 TRILLION dollars in deficit spending, job growth remains as stagnant as ever under the yoke of the Obama presidency.

There are a couple of interesting observations to be made from the above graphic from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. One, the steep decline in American jobs correlates to when the Democrats took over control of Congress. Coincidence? Perhaps. But then recall that Barack Obama begins his presidency in 2009 and the decline very much continues well into 2010 where it at least flatlines. 2010 was when Republicans then took control of the House of Representatives and gained a number of seats in the Senate – which the Democrats still control.

$5 TRILLION in lost taxpayer deficit dollars is quite a sum for what that chart reflects – stagnant job growth. Millions who remain unemployed. Millions more who have dropped out of even trying to find work and are therefor not even being counted in the unemployment figures.

 

[RobDownSouth]

I'm glad this got bumped up, ran across some excellent doom and gloom!


http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/stocks/story/2012-02-26/stock-market-bears-doomsayers/53259742/1

The third one is more in line with what I've been saying.



Yeah, only one side of the spectrum has an emotional attachment and it sure as hell isn't the touchy-feely Left who uses words like greed and selfishness...

lol

Are you guys for real?

Harry Dent?
Where have I heard that name?

Oh yeah, he wrote a book entitled How to Profit from the Greatest Boom in History: 2006-2010 back in 2006.

Wasn't that good of a psychic back then either!!

 

[MeeMie]

With 13 million people currently unemployed, there has never been a more desperate time in recent history to create jobs in America.

While President Obama is busy on the campaign trail making promises to government employees, union cronies, and radical environmentalists, others in Congress are committed to reducing regulatory red tape, overhauling our broken tax system, and unleashing the private economy to create jobs for all Americans.

The Jobs through Growth Act - H.R. 3400 will cut harmful regulations and overhaul the tax code to boost job growth.

• Will make the tax code simpler, flatter and fairer. Empowers taxpayers with the choice of either staying with the current tax code or switching to an income tax with the lowest rates in 80 years. The new optional tax system would have two tax rates of 15 percent and 25 percent.
  
  
• Provides tax relief for small businesses by eliminating the death tax, the alternative minimum tax, and the capital gains tax on inflation. This bill would allow small businesses to opt out of federal regulations imposed since the end of 2007 and would require federal agencies to give greater consideration to proposed regulation’s impact by publishing a regulatory flexibility analysis.
  
  
• Remove the red tape that ensnares job creators. It would call for a timeout on all new regulations that create significant economic costs until unemployment falls below 7.7 or less. The Obama administration’s proposed 144 major harmful regulations should never be implemented and a regulation moratorium will at least temporarily put the brakes on them by requiring congressional approval on all regulations, which are projected to have an annual economic impact of $100 million or more.
  
  
• Removes barriers to approving the Keystone Energy Pipeline, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and boosting America’s domestic energy production. The Jobs through Growth Act would help foster an environment in which the private sector can grow, invest and create jobs in America. It would help boost American energy production by removing barriers to approving the Keystone Energy Pipeline and give a one-year extension to Outer Continental Shelf leases that were delayed by the Obama administration. This would immediately create thousands of jobs and lower the price of gasoline.

If you agree, ask your Representative to become a co-sponsor of
H.R. 3400, the Jobs through Growth Act

http://www.house.gov/representatives/








. . .

 

[patrick1]

The Chart Barack Obama Doesn’t Want America To Know About:

http://media.hotair.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/bls-emp-pop-ratio.jpg


While the Obama administration and the mainstream media attempt to paint America as enjoying a current economic recovery – the facts tell a very different story. After some 5 TRILLION dollars in deficit spending, job growth remains as stagnant as ever under the yoke of the Obama presidency.

There are a couple of interesting observations to be made from the above graphic from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. One, the steep decline in American jobs correlates to when the Democrats took over control of Congress. Coincidence? Perhaps. But then recall that Barack Obama begins his presidency in 2009 and the decline very much continues well into 2010 where it at least flatlines. 2010 was when Republicans then took control of the House of Representatives and gained a number of seats in the Senate – which the Democrats still control.

$5 TRILLION in lost taxpayer deficit dollars is quite a sum for what that chart reflects – stagnant job growth. Millions who remain unemployed. Millions more who have dropped out of even trying to find work and are therefor not even being counted in the unemployment figures.

This is a silly, mutliply cut-and-pasted attempt at a partisan take on figures primarily affected by completely different factors than who happens to be in Congress or the White House.

Here for instance is a more complex and subtle analysis by Ed Dolan - a libertarian. I know, what's a hardened leftist like me doing quoting a libertarian? I may need to go and lie down under a libertarian woman.

http://www.economonitor.com/dolanec...new-low-why-it-matters-for-the-budget-debate/