The Economy
saveuplife
Posts: 1,173
Will both sides admit that neither candidate has any real economic experience?
Why then, do you consider your preferred candidate to be better equipped to handle the economic struggles in 2009 and beyond?
Discuss.
Why then, do you consider your preferred candidate to be better equipped to handle the economic struggles in 2009 and beyond?
Discuss.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Just compare how the 2 talk about the issue. Obama is very measured, and can coherently discuss complex issues. To me this demonstrates the poise and understanding that we will need in our leader over the next 4 years when the economy is going through such a rough time.
McCain on the otherhand rushes to judgement on issues that he doesn't have full information on, then flip flops the next day (or later that afternoon) when it becomes clear that he was completely wrong.
Also, look at the people McCain is getting his economic advice from. Gramm, who said we were in a "mental recession" and that we were a "nation of whiners." Carly Fiorina, who was fired from HP after she initiated a disasterous merger with Compaq.
I will take Obama 100% over McCain on the economy. Any day, and any time!
McCain's idea of protecting our economic future is to give people a tax cut...but then keep on spending away.
Neither has a clue, but at least McCain is half right.
Sorry, but I disagree with you on this. Obama will not raise taxes on hard working Americans.
He will get us out of Iraq where we are spending 10 billion per month!
Has it ever occurred to anyone that given all of these bailouts there may need to be tax hikes? The money has to come from somewhere right? I guess you would rather have us owe China so much money that they can control everything we do.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to be speaking Chinese 15 years from now!
I'd stop spending so much.
And, yes he will raise taxes on hard working americans.
Only 5% of them.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
There's a theory in economic literature about why current Republicans are spending so much. The theory goes like this:
-They cut taxes (sticking with their platform)
-But, spend on programs they believe in, in order to offset future spending by their opposition party (once they inevidably gain control).... this contradicts their platform.
-In a sense, this becomes a game, where each party tries to outspend each other. Dems will anyway (according to their platform), so Republicans say to themselves we should put them in a hole once they get in.
-The only constraint is popular control (voters) and occassionally congress.
...Not 100% accurate, but interesting in my opinion. I think this is one of the best reasons for doing away with the two-party system. That way, at least you'd know that there is a party that lowers taxes and cuts spending (because there would be plenty of parties). Also, atleast you'd know there is a party that raises taxes and raises spending. Policies would follow platforms.... which ironically does not occur today.
I call Bullshit, but we'll get a chance to look at that and review it later....maybe.
Well my candidate is Ron Paul, yes I will be writing his name in on Nov 4th, so I do believe he is the best qualified to handle this financial crisis. Paul has been saying for a long time that our economy cannot continue to function as it has. At some point it would collapse and guess what he was right. He has always stated that the US needs to have an economy founded on a strong dollar and a tangible manufacturing base, not economic trends like the dot com bubble or the housing bubble. Ron Paul has stated that the Federal Reserves manipulation of interest rates causes more harm to the market, in the short term it may produce the illusion of growth and prosperity but in the long term it is only weakening our currency and our economy. Unlike McCain and Obama, Paul is a devout student of the Austrian School. People may not agree with the Austrian School's principle's of economics but they can't deny that Paul has one of the strongest understanding of our economy and it's workings.
To continue, to date, Paul is the only candidate who has stated that he wants to reduce the federal government. He is the only candidate who has outlined where he would cut spending.
hey didn't Obama say we should learn more languages a while back.
- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me."
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980)
Bush SLASHED taxes ... which is part of the reason we are where we are with our deficit, coupled along with a long term, no strategy for winning war ....
Obama wants to raise taxes on that top 2% back to where they were under Clinton ... to say they should stay where they are, is flat out irresponsible.
"I don't believe in damn curses. Wake up the damn Bambino and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass." --- Pedro Martinez
It's a campaign promise made by someone who once elected, cannot legally write or pass legislature.... of course it's bullshit
When was the last time you saw really any campaign promises actually enacted?
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
not my candidate but obama gets a lot of money from the financial sector and even has a citibank/group exec (the one who called the sec of treasury asking to help enron out) as an advidor and a NAFTA/WTO lobbyist/lawyer as an advisor, too...
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
Here's the thing... (just to play devil's advocate)
an increase in manufacturing does not go along with a strong dollar.... pretty much ever in this day and age.
a weaker dollar helps manufacturing because our goods become cheaper internationally, so other countries tend to favor our goods and our exports increase.... which leads to growth in manufacturing.
That said, I completely agree with his take on interest rates. He's obviously a monetarist, he must be a fan of Milton Friedman.
Obama and McCain Tax Proposals:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/09/ST2008060900950.html
Actually he is a fan of Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard and Friedrich Hayek.
I agree with what you are saying but the problem is that we have no manufacturing base anymore. We need to create a new manufacturing base, and this is where I agree with Obama. The US, at one time, was the leader in innovation, we have since fallen way back in the pack. With peak oil coming in a few years and the drive for alternative renewable energy sources we need to through our muscule and intellect into the mix. I do like Obama's idea of a green industry but disagree with his method of funding. With a new industrial base we can begin to shit away from this debt supported economy to one with a much more secure foundation. At the sametime we are securing our economy we can also be securing our energy independence.
here you go...it has a nice visual graph with colors...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/09/ST2008060900950.html
edit: balls!!! somebody beat me to it....
wait ... so under McCain, it's not just tax cuts for the rich, but BIGGER PERCENTAGE tax cuts for the rich? You REALLY think that will trickle down???? my ass ... more toys for the rich!
how the HELL can anyone with any common sense agree with that?
"I don't believe in damn curses. Wake up the damn Bambino and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass." --- Pedro Martinez
you just answered your question though... more toys for the rich. who makes those toys? Who builds them? Who cleans them, who serves them dinner? who makes all the products they buy?... who makes all of the products they buy better? Who profits from the goods and services they spend that money on? Who invests thier money? It's not static. That's how this economy got so big in the first place. It's not doled out by the government. Every dime in the economy has trickled down from somewhere. Hell the entire industrial economy deals with finding an issue or a problem that people are willing to pay money to overcome and then making a living off that solution.
If that money is not sitting in a giant bin in their back yard....and it's invested, hell even in a regular bank account... it is trickling down. It's the reason most of us who aren't self employed have jobs and the reason most small business owners have the capital to start their business.
The Chinese?
"I don't believe in damn curses. Wake up the damn Bambino and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass." --- Pedro Martinez
Certainly, they've become one of the largest manufacturing centers for the world. They absolutely are raking in the cash. As is South Korea. South Korea probably has one of the strongest economies in the world right now. They are building automobile factories all over the US and saving on the shipping.
on the other hand...if those in the lower tier had more money to spend, the business would sell more goods and services, thus the "rich" continue to get rich...
I believe places like Walmart and JR Cigar (<---random, I know) grew to be large empires by selling items for less, thus they sold more, leading to growth and profits...
as I see it, if folks can't afford to buy anything in this consumer based economy, we're all fucked...
President Reagan tried trickle-down economics for eight years = hurt the middle class, and did not work
President Bush tried trickle-down economics for four years = hurt the middle class, and did not work
President W. Bush tried trickle-down economics for eight years = hurt the middle class, and did not work
With this in mind, maybe is it about time to start hypothesizing that trickle down economics hurts the middle class and does not work? I feel like I'm missing something here.
That's entirely too simplified. The Carter administration drove the economy into an inflation and unemployment nightmare. Reagan's trickle-down economics or "Reaganomics" did revive the economy from where it was when he took office in 1981. This is from wiki:
"According to a 1996 study from the libertarian think tank Cato Institute:
On 8 of the 10 key economic variables examined, the American economy performed better during the Reagan years than during the pre- and post-Reagan years.
Real median family income grew by $4,000 during the Reagan period after experiencing no growth in the pre-Reagan years; it experienced a loss of almost $1,500 in the post-Reagan years.
Interest rates, inflation, and unemployment fell faster under Reagan than they did immediately before or after his presidency.
The only economic variable that was worse in the Reagan period than in both the pre- and post-Reagan years was the savings rate, which fell rapidly in the 1980s.
The productivity rate was higher in the pre-Reagan years but much lower in the post-Reagans years."
I know a lot of people try to point out how the Clinton tax increases of 1993 proved "Reaganomics" wrong because it didn't stop the growing economy, but that's disingenuous. Not taken into account is that at the time Clinton took office, the economy was growing again. Also, the end of the Cold War led to huge cuts in military and defense budgets, which is a reduction in the size of government that Clinton falsely gets credit for.
As always, I don't really know what I'm talking about, and I'm sure I'm going to confuse myself, since the economy is not my strong suit, but I'll try and muddle through.
First off, many of what you said is true, but framed in such a way to make it look good for Reagan. There's alot of "yes, but..." statements that need to be made in regard to your facts. Yes, unemployment decreased during Reagan's term, but it was unlike Clinton's steady decrease; Reagan had a disaster in his first few years as unemployment spiked, and then organized a quick boom period with Reaganomics (and remember, Reaganomics wasn't always the case in practice- I believe Reagan rose taxes every year he was in office after 1982). Yes, inflation went down, but how do you think that occurred? From those spikes of unemployment, and from the high interest rates that you yourself spoke about. Imports got cheaper and manufacturing in the States became harder to sustain itself. Explain why the middle class shrunk during his tenure, while the top 1% of earners controlled far more wealth by the time he left office. In the quote of mine you cited, I spoke specifically about Reagan-esque economic policy and its' detrimental effect on the middle class, and the facts bear me out on this. Outsourcing increased on his watch (could be seen as the prologue to the problems we face now). You also failed to mention that deficit during Reagan's tenure, a problem that reversed during Clinton's.
From that same wikipedia article that you cited...
"The job growth under the Reagan administration was an average of 2.1% per year, which is in the middle of the pack of twentieth-century Presidents."
Middle of the pack, and under the two eight-year reigns of Democratic presidents in our last half-century, Kennedy/Johnson and Clinton.
"The tax reform was ostensibly to reduce or eliminate tax deductions. This legislation expanded the AMT from a law for untaxed rich investors to one refocused on middle class Americans who had children, owned a home, or lived in high tax states.[27] This parallel tax system hits middle class Americans the hardest by reducing their deductions and effectively raising their taxes. Meanwhile, the highest income earners (with incomes exceeding $1,000,000) are proportionately less affected thereby shifting the tax burden away from the richest 0.5%"
Trickle-down at its' finest, and there is no evidence that it ever "trickled down." And this is not even to mention the union busting, etc. attitude that the Reagan administration had which decimated middle-class advocacy and should not be a footnote to my previous argument. My point still stands...the middle-class has had greater hardships under Reagan, Bush I (especially Bush I, who was in large respects a continuation of Reagan's economic policies), and Bush II. Both Reagan and Bush II had the same problem; if they want to cut taxes, fine (although don't cut tax solely on the rich in some cock-eyed trickle down theory) but you have to cut spending as well. Neither did so, and in both cases we were saddled with a deficit.
Ah, I've heard this song before, that Clinton 'inherited' the economy that was just waiting to boom from the Reagan/Bush era. I do not see any evidence supporting it, and it sounds like an argument conjured by Reagan fans to divert people from acknowledging that the middle class shrunk during his tenure. I'm not arguing that Reagan's plans did nothing; of the three Republican presidents I mentioned, he certainly has the best statistics. But the fact remains that Clinton had a better percentage of economic growth than President Reagan, and far better than either of the Bushes.
I think this article, which uses information from the Economic Report of the President, explains my case much better, and shows that the economic consistently grows stronger under Democratic executive leadership:
http://www.slate.com/id/2199810/
http://www.eriposte.com/economy/indicators/bush_deficit_graphic.gif
http://thinkorthwim.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/debt.jpg
feel free to search for other charts .... you'll find the same thing ... over and over and over again ...
"I don't believe in damn curses. Wake up the damn Bambino and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass." --- Pedro Martinez
I was not trying to point out that "Reaganomics" was advantageous for the middle class (I should've said that in my OP... my bad), but I was showing how it did revive an extremely wanning economy. In my opinion, the middle-class are the bitches of the two party system. Neither side is looking out for them. In the end, whichever party gets into office, their economic/tax policies are going to hurt the middle class in the end.
You are correct in saying that the problem with the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations was the outlandish spending. But if you look back, you'll see a mojority of this spending was defense spending to combat the Cold War. Also, both presidents had a democratic majority in congress that refused to cut any domestic spending, which was what Reagan and Bush both tried to do. As for president Clinton, I am one who believes he was in the right place at the right time. The Bush Sr. recession was abating in 1992 before Clinton was elected and, as I stated before, the Cold War had ended and the military was down-sized and defense budgets were slashed. There was the end to much of the spending that crippled the previous administrations. Also, in 1994 the republicans took over congress and cut some domestic spending. Then came the dot com bubble which boosted the economy, and when that bubble bursted, the real estate/credit bubble was blowing up (Clinton rode this one to the end of his 2nd term, then Bush Jr. jumped on). These are what accounted for the economic growth that Clinton enjoyed while in office, but he had nothing to do with it. Now that that bubble has bursted, there's no more "junk-bond" like bubbles for anyone ride anymore.
"Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.
That 1.14-point difference, if maintained for eight years, would yield 9.33 percent more income per person, which is a lot more than almost anyone can expect from a tax cut...
...Over the entire 60-year period, income inequality trended substantially upward under Republican presidents but slightly downward under Democrats, thus accounting for the widening income gaps over all."
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/08/31/business/0831-sbn-webVIEW.gif
Well, I think when judging how a President's economic policies compare when judged against other Presidents, the primary barometer has to be how citizens were effected. Numbers don't always tell the whole story; wages have gone up during the Bush administration but you need the whole story that the wage increase had been outrun by inflation, which means although people are earning more dollars, they're making less money. You mentioned some facts, and many of them look upon the Reagan Presidency favorably, but when you take the statistics of the average American family into account, and particular and most unfortunately the widening gulf between rich and poor in this country under his tenure, it's hard to look back on his term with anything but frustration, as he was the prologue to the massive screwups and economic mismanagement we've seen under Little President Bush.
Also, you say that the middle class are the 'bitches' of the two-party system. Maybe so, and I'm not holding up Clinton as a savior; he did alot of things that hurt this country. But the fact remains that economic growth thrived under his tenure more than Reagan's, unemployment went lower, and the middle class grew and prospered. More people climbed the ladder, so to speak; the middle class was not the bitch during his years that it was under Reagan. I don't think it's as easy to say that Clinton was good and Reagan was bad for the middle class, but all the stats show that Clinton was at least better.
To agree with your assessment that Clinton was just 'riding the wave', you have to acknowledge then that Presidents have no impact on the unfolding of the economy. I disagree with that; Reaganomics had a profound impact on the economy of our country, for good and ill, as did Clinton's policies, and for you to try to give Reagan credit for boosting the economy while taking it away from Clinton is not logical or fair in my opinion. The bad economic news was not done when Clinton took office; he took office with a massive deficit and had to fight tooth and nail to get his tax increases through Congress. And in a few years, the deficit became a surplus, the middle class prospered, and individual innovation was encouraged once again. So much for tax hikes automatically equals bad for the economy. The tech bubble burst was crappy, but in its' beginning it was fostered by a new economic environment of small business innovation due to new technologies, which is always a great sign for the middle class. You had a ton of vibrant start-ups, and they all eventually collapsed due to rampant speculation and shoddy Wall Street dealings, but that the environment for creating new, small businesses was there is another hallmark of a Clinton presidency.
After re-reading my last repsonse, I can see how you would think I meant that Reagan was repsonsible for the boost in the economy in the 90's, but that's not what I was trying to convey. I do believe that once the Cold War was over and defense spending was drastically curbed, it opened the door for the Reagan/Bush tax cuts to work as they were intended. But, I do not think that was what solely caused the economic boom that followed. Our economy is a friggin see-saw. Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down, and whoever's in office at the time get all the credit or blame when in reality they're just a small cog in a huge machine.
I agree with this 100%, but can it be proven that Reaganomics or the Clinton tax increases had anything to do with the tech bubble and the opportunities it created for small business ventures? I don't know, maybe it was a bit of both, maybe it was just pure luck. Maybe we should give the credit to Al Gore since he "invented the internet"... LOL!