• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Obama says GOP making life harder for the jobless

Originally Posted by Goyboy:



Me believe everything that Republicans say? No way.

No political party has a monopoly on good ideas. No political party has a monopoly on bad ideas.

Well, I don't disagree. ;)
 
When Reagan blew the bank on military spending

Very hard to take you seriously when you make such false statements as this.


spending.gif

Hardly "Blowing the bank". And if you check teh Domestic Spending, which was forced by the Democrat Party which was in power in the House/Senate... well, there you go. For an expert, you sure are prone to lying.
 
Actual unemployment(including underemployed and discouraged workers) is over 20 % in the county I live in.

Then it's probably more like 25~30% unemployment. During Reagan's era, the Department of Labor monkeyed around with how the actual unemployment computations are computed. There's a thing called U6 which is the broadest method of computing unemployment. That pretty much used to be the standard for what the reported amount was. We haven't had accurately reported unemployment numbers in the news in decades.
 
it certainly beats the government stealing wealth and doling it out to dem elites

This is certainly a well spun version of reality. Hve you looked into a job in politics?:2razz:
 
Then it's probably more like 25~30% unemployment. During Reagan's era, the Department of Labor monkeyed around with how the actual unemployment computations are computed. There's a thing called U6 which is the broadest method of computing unemployment. That pretty much used to be the standard for what the reported amount was. We haven't had accurately reported unemployment numbers in the news in decades.

I was referring to U6, and it was not Reagan. I believe as best I can tell that the change was made back in the time of the Great Depression.
 
Very hard to take you seriously when you make such false statements as this.

False? How does that prove I lied? The graph shows during Reagan's time that deicit spending tended to match the rise in military spending. Military spending went up as did deficit spending. Do you not know how to read graphs?

Look at the preceding years. Wow. Try again Mr V.

Furthermore, here's the site:
Military Spending: How Much is Enough?

Let's see what they write under the graph:

After Vietnam, during the Nixon and Ford administrations, military spending decreased by nearly a third from its peak during the war. A modest increase during the Carter administration was then followed by a huge increase in military spending during the Reagan and Bush I administrations that was not justified by any external threat. Along with huge tax cuts based on crank supply-side economic theory, the big military buildup produced by far the biggest budget deficits since WW II. As the chart below shows, Reagan/Bush basically borrowed 100% (and more) of the money that was being spent on troops and armaments. (Deficits shown are "unified" budget amounts plus the amount borrowed from trust funds, taken from published government sources, as adjusted by the Senate Budget Committee). Note that negative deficit values, as plotted, are actually surpluses.
 
Last edited:
Very hard to take you seriously when you make such false statements as this.


spending.gif

Hardly "Blowing the bank". And if you check teh Domestic Spending, which was forced by the Democrat Party which was in power in the House/Senate... well, there you go. For an expert, you sure are prone to lying.

Hey look, military spending and the deficit raise significantly under Reagan, by the very chart you post. The democratic congress passed budget's very close to what Reagan proposed(within 5 %, and 1 year less than Reagan proposed).
 
Hey look, military spending and the deficit raise significantly under Reagan, by the very chart you post. The democratic congress passed budget's very close to what Reagan proposed(within 5 %, and 1 year less than Reagan proposed).

Which apparently means I lied when I said Reagan blew the bank on military spending. I guess posting a chart which shows military spending skyrocketing and then associated deficit spending increasing actually means Reagan didn't spend huge amounts on the military. Huh.

This place is a loony bin.
 
Unemployed people would benefit from the creation of jobs in the private sector.

What are Republican government officials doing to promote the creation of private-sector jobs?

What are Democrat government officials doing to promote the creation of private-sector jobs?

What is President Obama doing to promote the creation of private-sector jobs?
 
Hey look, military spending and the deficit raise significantly under Reagan, by the very chart you post. The democratic congress passed budget's very close to what Reagan proposed(within 5 %, and 1 year less than Reagan proposed).

Sigh.

More dishonesty, from the revisionist. Not that I expected honesty from either of you.


To get the Defense Spending, that Reagan needed to defeat the Soviet Union, meant playing politics and giving the Dems what THEY wanted too. But let's not FACTS interfere with your spin.
 
Unemployed people would benefit from the creation of jobs in the private sector.

What are Republican government officials doing to promote the creation of private-sector jobs?

What are Democrat government officials doing to promote the creation of private-sector jobs?

What is President Obama doing to promote the creation of private-sector jobs?

The same stuff Reagan and Bush did. It's not surprising it's failing. Reagan and Bush did not have financial crisises. True, Black Monday was during Reagan's time, but that bounced back without any intervention and no one frankly knows why to this day it even occured. Historically, financial crisies are hard to fix and hard to recover from. How do you create jobs when the underpining of society, leverage, is still very questionable? One way and I disagree with is government direct financing. But that just sets you up for bigger problems.

All of those who are clamoring for fixes first need to think about why this recession is different.
 
Sigh.

More dishonesty, from the revisionist. Not that I expected honesty from either of you.

Dude. Your own graph disproves your argument that I lied.

To get the Defense Spending, that Reagan needed to defeat the Soviet Union, meant playing politics and giving the Dems what THEY wanted too. But let's not FACTS interfere with your spin.

Okay...and that disproves my argument that Reagan blew the bank spending on military how?

You know, you coud just man up and admit you were wrong....but that's not going to happen.
 
Sigh.

More dishonesty, from the revisionist. Not that I expected honesty from either of you.


To get the Defense Spending, that Reagan needed to defeat the Soviet Union, meant playing politics and giving the Dems what THEY wanted too. But let's not FACTS interfere with your spin.

Dishonesty? I used the chart you provided...
 
Dishonesty? I used the chart you provided...

No, you took without context information and created a fantasy. I guess people like OC would fall for it, but that's about it.
 
No, you took without context information and created a fantasy. I guess people like OC would fall for it, but that's about it.

What lack of context? Reagan increased military spending. True. He used the cold war to justify it, and may have even believed it, but that is irrelevant. He jacked up military spending. What effect did this have? Jobs. Obama jacked up spending. What do you think the result might be?

Congress passed the budget that Reagan submitted to them largely intact. It's true, they did.

Reagan cut taxes, Obama cut taxes. Both true. So what we see is a pattern of Obama acting in largely the same way Reagan did, and Reagan is the conservative messiah, and Obama is the anti-christ.
 
OK, I'll bite. Why is this recession different?

Let's start with the last major recession. The tech bubble collapse destroyed huge amounts of largely paper wealth in addition to large capital investments by VCs and individuals. That lead to a decline in consumer demand and thus a recession. The underpinnings of lending and leverage were not affected. Firms were capable of getting financing at decent rates without serious problems. Government could stimulate demand and businesses had access to capital to meet that demand.

This recession is fundamentally different. The underpinnings are financial. When the big investment banks and houses lost huge amounts of money in their securitized assets they also faced the daughting problem of meeting their financial obligations on leverage they used to buy those assets. Basically they had big holes in their balance sheets in the assets and huge liabilities. That basically destroyed their willingess to lend. As many firms are leveraged up to the hilt for every day operations, distruptions to financing are indeed fatal. So how can you use the same principles for a regular recession to a financial recession when the required factor, financing, isn't avaliable for firms to utilize to meet demand? And when companies right now who are operating cannot refinance or even revolve their lines of credit, they cut back leading to more and more unemployment and less and less demand. With less demand from fewer workers, less incentive to start a business and coupled with no financing, we're pretty much up **** creek.

Financial crisies have caused massive problems. The Asian Financial crisis for one was devastating, which IMO was a forebear for us as the US business environment is more dependent upon lending then the South Korean market was. The Mexican Peso crisis was barely averted by a massive US loan. Russia for years after the Ruble crisis had problems. There really isn't a good way out of this historically. Japan saw a decade of virtual no growth from its financially centered crisis.
 
No, you took without context information and created a fantasy. I guess people like OC would fall for it, but that's about it.

Show us how we are wrong rather then just accusing us to compenstate for your lack of any knowledge.

How did we remove context. How did we create a fantasy. Are you denying that domestic spending did not materially increase?
 
obvious Child, thank you for explaining how financial institutions are contributing to the current recession.

No problem. Consider yourself one of the few on this board who do know. There's a fair amount more and it's pretty complex subject overall. I frankly don't know a considerable portion of it especially as it's so entwined it's hard to figure out just what goes where. As I understand how the Asian economies got out of their mess, it was through increased exports boosting their capital reserves and thereby bringing much needed capital into their economies. I don't see that happening here at all. Many still have restrictions on capital flight (or how fast cash can be removed from their economies). In that aspect, our investment in renewable energy technology is all the more important as it could provide a solid way of brining in additional capital from trade. There's no real answer considering our situtation though. And Obama should be given some slack considering that. If this was just a basic decline in demand recession, we'd be well out of it by now.

On that note, the government actions to stabilize did help, but the consolidation of the financial sector is a ticking time bomb. I think the next financial crisis is going to make this one look like a nice day in the park.
 
What lack of context? Reagan increased military spending. True. He used the cold war to justify it, and may have even believed it, but that is irrelevant. He jacked up military spending. What effect did this have? Jobs. Obama jacked up spending. What do you think the result might be?
10% unemployment. This is where you're inability to admit the failure of your Ideology kicks in. Reagan's spending spurred what?

A: Private Industry

B: GSE's (think Freddie and Fannie)

C: "Shovel Ready Projects"

D: More Gov't.


Now, we all know that the Defense Industry was greatly helped by the higher level of spending. This produced a positive upward lift in the economy. But the difference was, this upward movement was in the PRIVATE sector, creating "stuff". (Stuff being a catch all for all the actual physical things created)

Obama's focus has gone towards more Gov't and "shovel ready projects". Two years, where's the success of this? Oh there is nothing positive going on.
Congress passed the budget that Reagan submitted to them largely intact. It's true, they did.

Reagan cut taxes, Obama cut taxes. Both true. So what we see is a pattern of Obama acting in largely the same way Reagan did, and Reagan is the conservative messiah, and Obama is the anti-christ.

No, Obama is just doing it WRONG. His focus is Gov't. And you DO NOT UNDERSTAND why that is wrong, which is sad, really. That you think Obama and Reagan are similar in actions shows a serious disconnect with reality.
 
Let's start with the last major recession. The tech bubble collapse destroyed huge amounts of largely paper wealth in addition to large capital investments by VCs and individuals. That lead to a decline in consumer demand and thus a recession. The underpinnings of lending and leverage were not affected. Firms were capable of getting financing at decent rates without serious problems. Government could stimulate demand and businesses had access to capital to meet that demand.

This recession is fundamentally different. The underpinnings are financial. When the big investment banks and houses lost huge amounts of money in their securitized assets they also faced the daughting problem of meeting their financial obligations on leverage they used to buy those assets. Basically they had big holes in their balance sheets in the assets and huge liabilities. That basically destroyed their willingess to lend. As many firms are leveraged up to the hilt for every day operations, distruptions to financing are indeed fatal. So how can you use the same principles for a regular recession to a financial recession when the required factor, financing, isn't avaliable for firms to utilize to meet demand? And when companies right now who are operating cannot refinance or even revolve their lines of credit, they cut back leading to more and more unemployment and less and less demand. With less demand from fewer workers, less incentive to start a business and coupled with no financing, we're pretty much up **** creek.

Financial crisies have caused massive problems. The Asian Financial crisis for one was devastating, which IMO was a forebear for us as the US business environment is more dependent upon lending then the South Korean market was. The Mexican Peso crisis was barely averted by a massive US loan. Russia for years after the Ruble crisis had problems. There really isn't a good way out of this historically. Japan saw a decade of virtual no growth from its financially centered crisis.

A couple of things. I think Greenspan understood what was allowing the economy o grow. That is why kept interest rates low for so long and allowed leverage at financial institutions to get so high.

What is interesting is that this administration, not understanding business is doing what may turn out to be all the wrong things. That is why spending $800 billion is not creating jobs. For example how many jobs were lost in residential and commerical building and everything that surrounds it. It does not matter how many roads we tar over, those jobs won't come back until we burn off the excess supply and get back to a more reasonable building run rate.

Next the new Financial Regulation bill, without saying it is good or bad will have the effect of lowering the capacity of financial institutions to lend. Now that has to hurt not help the recovery. perhaps that is OK as we may need to burn off a bunch of excess debt the country acquired.
 
Dude... that's just silly talk.

[/sarcasm]

No that is what is needed you just can't get democrats to do it. I hope the GOP learned their lesson on spending in 2006
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom