"Doing too little or nothing at all will result in an even greater deficit of jobs, incomes and confidence. That is a deficit that could turn a crisis into a catastrophe, and I refuse to let that happen." – Barack Obama, urging passage of his $787 stimulus package
In October 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit an all-time high, over 14,000. From there, the stock market began a year-long slide. By October 2008, the Dow was standing at just over 8,400. For the last four months, the stock market has remained relatively stable, hovering between 7,800 and 9,000. (link) Has the stock market bottomed out already ?
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the recession will be over at the end of 2009 after the housing market bottoms out and credit begins to flow again, with slow recovery occurring after that. This estimate does not take into account Obama's stimulus package, TARP II, TARP III, or any governmental policy. The CBO determined the recovery will happen on it's own. The CBO has also indicated that Obama's $1 trillion stimulus package will actually harm the economy more than if Obama did nothing, especially over the long haul.
The CBO estimates that GDP will drop by $63 billion in 2009, and rise in 2010 and afterward. Obama is proposing a $2.5-3 trillion fix (stimulus + TARP) for a $63 billion problem ???
The CBO estimates that unemployment, which currently stands at 7.6%, will reach 8.3% in 2009, and peak at 9.0% in 2010 before it starts falling as recovery takes place.
At the House Financial Services Committee's hearings with the banking CEO's last week, every one of the 8 CEO's present said they would not need any more bailout funds. A few even said they didn't need the original bailout funds. All said they'd be able to pay back the funds they received in about 3 years or less. All said they had plenty of money to lend, and they want to lend it (of course they do, that's how banks make a profit).
The bottom line is, the economy will recover from this recession, just as it has recovered from every other recession.
This begs the question, why did we just spend $1 trillion ($787 billion + interest) on a stimulus package, and why are we about to spend $1.5-2 trillion more in TARP programs ? Obama's "fix" is far worse than the problem we face going forward. The CBO says that while Obama's big spending will help some in the short term (for a trillion bucks, it better), in the long term it will increase government so much as to crowd out private investment, leading to a shrinking GDP. It will also vastly increase the interest we pay on the debt, to over $500 billion per year, which is taxpayer revenue that goes right down the drain instead of to vital government needs and services.
The Washington Post reports that only $107 billion of Obama's stimulus package will be spent in 2009, when it will be needed most. The bulk will be spent later, in other words, AFTER THE ECONOMY STARTS TO RECOVER. Obama's tax cuts come out to $13 per week per taxpayer, a paltry sum. President Bush already tried the same thing last fall with his stimulus package, and it didn't make a dent in our economic woes. There are no business tax cuts or incentives for investment in Obama's stimulus plan, such as a capital gains cut, that might speed up the recovery.
What this all makes clear is that Obama's "stimulus" package doesn't provide much of a stimulus, and there was no need to spend so much money. Instead, what Obama has put forth is an economic Trojan Horse, that increases the power of big government at the expense of the private sector. It's also a handout to Democratic constituencies, like the unions (all infrastructure and education spending will solely benefit the unions), and the environmental lobby, which will reap great rewards. Others who benefit the most are state governments. Most of those "saved" jobs will be government jobs. In fact, government is just about the only industry that hasn't laid people off so far. The government is recession-proof, because it just steals more money from you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer. That's what Obama's stimulus plan does.
In the end, taxes will have to be increased drastically to pay for all this. The dollar will be worth less, and your standard of living will be forced to drop, as we sink into the quagmire of socialism. The left is already calling for nationalization of health care and the financial system. That's what we will ultimately reap from this much governmental irresponsibility, and every bit of it is PLANNED, because Big Brother wants control over your little lives. You children cannot be trusted to handle your own affairs, your overlords must handle them for you. The worst part of all is, the majority of you seem willing to go along with it and become slaves, as long as your government gives you a food stamp, a hovel to live in, and enough cash for tv and beer. It's pathetic. We have a little adversity, then Obama scares you into thinking the world's about to end, and you're ready to hand over your rights in a New York minute, because you are actually stupid enough to think Obama is going to give you a bunch of "free stuff." (Hint – there's no such thing). You even celebrate it. Maybe you are children. You deserve what you're about to get. Hope and change, my fat butt. What a disgrace this is.
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"Give me liberty, or give me death" – Patrick Henry, 1775.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
King, I think I have a little story that I got in an e-mail that is exactly what you said here as far as why this thing had to be passed so soon, with no debate and with all those Congress critters in the dark about most of it. I will try to get that thing here before the day is out. Also, I am taking your article to my forum since most of the people there are conservative enough to like reading something like this.
You do know, of course, that Rev Red isn't going to like you talking about this thing being aimed at throwing us into that pit we call socialism. I can't wait to see him comment on what you said.
King, here is the oft told tale about what is presently happening to us right here in the United States of America. It seems to me like we are nearly to the gate building period of this story. It is very scary to me. I felt a link would be better than taking up your space with the whole story that most have seen before but so aptly applies to the present day in our country.
http://www.gouverneurtimes.com/forum/showthread.php?t=866
You went over the top on the rhetoric this time.
From one of your far right links….
"The agency projected the Senate bill would produce between 1.4 percent and 4.1 percent higher growth in 2009 than if there was no action. For 2010, the plan would boost growth by 1.2 percent to 3.6 percent."
The CBO projections that your link cited says the stimulus will…ummm….stimulate the economy short term. And it also says that by 2019, the interest on the increased debt would lower GDP by .1%. I think we can take that "risk."
Obama spoke about those who don't think the government should do anything,…..like you do here. His response was that in the face of a crisis virtually as stark as 1931, doing nothing was simply not an option.
And on the stock market.
The trader boys are simply waiting for Obama's team to announce their financial industry restructuring plans….then the DOW will most likely break through 7500 on the way down to, what I predict will be a bottom of about 6500-7000. The stock market, in the present climate, is still way overvalued.
Mark it down.
Rev, it isn't that the stock is overpriced, it is what it is. It is that the sentiment of the market and the retracting consumer confiidence isn't allowing the market to grow. This contraction is caused by the continual beating of the drum of hopelessness, caused by this administration and the the congress. It will go down, but it won't be because of the value of the stocks it will be because the father of hopelessness is causing it to do so. Most of the indicators that aren't driven by sentiment and confidence are showing improvement.
Roysoldboy. Go to wikipedia and look up the 10 planks of communism, then report back and tell us how close we are at this moment. We are in the coffin and there are 9 nails in the top.
Well, angry….if what you say is true about the market…..then tell me why it is that at the same time that GOP'ers, led by Bush/McCain, were telling all of us the economy was "fundamentally sound" during 2007-2008…..the market dropped 4000-5000 points?
Psychology plays a big role, no doubt…..but the stock market has been telling us for way over a year now that we have a crisis on our hands. What Obama and the Democrats are doing is stating the truth…..and at this point in the crisis, that's exactly what Americans need to hear.
Man, this is hilarious. Rev. is talking like the stock market is some vast conspiracy aiming to undermine Obama by seeing how low they can go. Do you really believe that crap you're spouting? Lemme guess… You also believe that President Bush planned 9/11, right?
Stocks aren't overvalued. The market always corrects itself when that happens, like when everyone was all crazy over dotcom-type stocks. Remember that?
It is killing me how far to the extreme some of y'all are taking your optimism. Obama is not a messiah. He's a liberal extremist, to the point that he advocates killing babies who are born as a result of a botched abortion (Illinois' version of BAIPA). He's selling out my future and my kids' futures, as I see it. He doesn't care about anything but what he wants. And he doesn't want what I want. My poor grandkids who haven't even been conceived yet are still going to be paying the bill for his mistakes.
If I remember correctly Reverend has in fact outlined the case that Bush and/or Cheney and their cronies planned 9/11.
***His response was that in the face of a crisis virtually as stark as 1931, doing nothing was simply not an option.***
I wonder why he keeps comparing now to 1931. It seems to me that the very politics of fear that King wrote about is what The Man is doing. Now Rev, somehow you have got to figure out how that bunch that goes by the acronym of CBO could figure out that this $787 billion bill will cost the country $3.7 trillion by 2019. What do we do for funds during that 10 years while we pay for the bill and fund all the new agencies created to see to the money? Is it possible for someone as far left as you are to see that they are saying the cost will be nearly 5 times what Nasty Nancy and Dirty Harry told us their bill was? Try hard and use a calculator if you have to and then tell me what we do away with to exist while spending all that money for Obama's crisis. I guess we could do away with the military, completely. What else can you think of.
Joe, I don't need any kind of a refresher course about the Communist Party. I have studied that bunch since about 1952 when I was a sophomore in college. Yep, I know what they stand for and when I get a bit fuzzy I just get on the computer and call up http://www.cpusa.org and there they are. I wonder just how many times each week Rev checks in there.
I would recommend that everybody here try that link I offered in the post before this one. I hadn't been there is some time and all of a sudden I realized that they will be trying to get blacks signed up. That place can make one sick in no time.
Wow Roysoldboy, quite disturbing.
http://obamaism.blogspot.com/
Rev,
Do you have a reading comprehension problem ? I stated that the stimulus plan would provide some short term stimulus in my post. For a trillion dollars, how could it not ? The problem is, we didn't need to spend a trillion dollars to fix a $63 billion problem. The bottom line is, Obama is engaging in massive overkill to implement a left wing agenda, and he's scaring people to do it.
And you just referred to the Congressional Budget Office as one of my "far right links." That's where the figures come from. You're a scream.
Tory,
The Reverend stated many times that Bush was behind 9/11, but I think he has pulled back from that absurd stance. He contradicts himself quite frequently, and hopes nobody will notice. For instance, he initially thought Bush was behind the financial crisis too, and was totally against the Bush bailout, but now, with Obama in office, he's perfectly fine with trillions of dollars in spending to fight "the worst crisis since the Great Depression."
And Rev, stocks aren't overvalued. They are undervalued. In the next few years, the stock market should go up substantially.
Roy,
Great link. How many side of that fence do you suppose are already up right here in America ?
Seems like time for some Nikita Khruschev quotes. See how many sound like the American left.
"The press is our chief ideological weapon."
"All the sparrows on the rooftops are crying about the fact that the most imperialist nation that is supporting the colonial regime in the colonies is the United States of America.”
“We say the name of God, but that is only habit.”
“Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his [own] viewpoint, and the correctness of his [own] position, was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation.”
"Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers."
"I once said, "We will bury you," and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you."
Joe,
Frightening stuff. One day we may wake up and find we're communists.
Joe, thanks for that link. I wonder how people can keep from seeing so much of those things connecting Obama to far left leaning. Maybe we have waited too long now, since that "stimulus", "jobs" or whatever bill is about to become law. Maybe we have allowed ourselves to be enslaved with that bill that the CBO says will cost the country $3.27 trillion in the next 10 years. Of course, they cheated and looked at what it will cost to administer all that money and get it spent, you know, people added to the government to spend must also be paid for work.
A man could spend hours on that site and never see all the good stuff.
I'm relatively certain, if you check the archives, that I have never stated that Bush or Cheney brought about 9-11. Like millions of other Americans, however, I have many unanswered questions about that tragic event.
I know it doesn't matter to those who make up stuff as they go along, but my current Bush-9-11 opinion is that whomever might have known an attack would come in 2001…..AT THE VERY LEAST…..it is true that Bush/Cheney purposely and emphatically disregarded Richard Clarke's, and others, warnings about the immense danger we faced with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
We now know why that was the case. Bush/Cheney's foreign policy was, in sum total, Iraq. So, even though Ashcroft quit flying commercial airlines in July of 2001, even though there are still no credible answers to why WTC7 collapsed despite not being hit, and even though numerous other similar observations have never been answered……the main reason why Bush/Cheney missed all the warnings…..was because they were hell-bent, tunnel visioned about carrying out the neo-conservative wet dream of attacking, occupying and building American bases in Iraq from where the U.S. could project it's power over the middle eastern region.
And….I gotta' tell ya'…..this "communist" hand wringing is a scream.
Rev, You really don't see the Lib/Dems policies leading us to socialism/communism?
Rev,
Your nose is growing about 9/11. I remember. You said Bush either engineered it or let it happen so he'd have justification to go to war and take away the rights of the american people. You said it repeatedly.
If all Bush cared about was invading Iraq….Why did he invade Afghanistan first ?
About that crazy "communist hand-wringing" – what do YOU call it when the government talks about taking over the financial industry, the health care industry, the auto industry, etc ? When the government talks about dictating compensation levels ? When the president talks about a national security force apart from the police and military ? When the government talks about repealing gun rights and instituting policies to counterract right-wing talk radio ? When the government institutes discriminatory policies to favor untions ?
Are those considered liberty and free-market capitalism in your world ?
Maybe Reverend isn't saying we're not going communist, King. He's saying it's not something to worry about.
I remember several Reverend posts in which he outlined the Bush/Cheney/some not-so-shadowy-conservative-think tank plans to create an attack that would allow them to invade the Middle East.
In fact I believe it was precisely that over-the-top-tinfoil-hat theory that first attracted me to his writings.
Rev, how many years have I been calling you Red and why did I start doing that in the first place? It seems to me that you were so obviously a far left leaning poster on the forum here at the paper that led me to think that way. Rev Red, you fool nobody with that scream over communist worries. Have you forgotten to read on the CPUSA site lately?
I've always wondered why the communists and socialists don't just admit they are communists and socialists. They should have the strength of their own beliefs, like Bernie Sanders from Vermont does. At least he's honest about it. The rest of them are cowards.