If you're voting for economic reasons, then why?

Gimmesometruth said:

He only stated the obvious, that households (whose biggest investment is their home) are not "investing"....duh. They have seen a huge decline in their assets.....DUH.

The point still is, private firms are not investing in either property or employees, why should they when demand is low (because households have decreased their spending) and profits are still up.

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Maybe so but I interpreted this:

The other 8 percent is largely structures or more exactly, long-lived assets. The attitude of business and households against committing to long-lived assets is extraordinarily suppressed.”

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Households were not purchasing houses...but maybe that is what you are saying...? I do agree that businesses not 'investing' in long-lived assets it certainly based primarily on weak demand.

AdamT said:

He does, however, agree that most of the economy is doing pretty well.

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1.9% GDP is doing pretty well?

I wonder what you would call this: Obama could only dream of Reagen's numbers.

Reality Hammer:Ronald Reagan GDP

During the Reagan Era GDP (Gross Domestic Product, or the total output of the nation) grew substantially. Overall the economy expanded by a third, or the equivalent of the entire West German economy.

Looking at the growth by quarter, we can see that the economy was quite sluggish at the end of the Carter Era. The two recessions during the Carter budget years were a sign of the inability of that administration to achieve an extended period of growth.

But as predicted by Supply Side economic theory, the across-the-board marginal rate cuts for the Federal income tax spurred not just a long period of growth, but the longest in peace-time history at that point in time.

When the Reagan economic program took effect in 1982, the economy took off and never looked back, growing at an average annual rate of 4.3%. As a comparison, average annual growth for the twelve years from 1990-2001 (since Reagan) was 2.95%, for 1991-2001 (previous trough to peak) it was 3.05% and for 1992-2001 (the last expansion) it was 3.4%.

So the Reagan expansion growth was better than the last expansion by almost a full percent per year and the growth for all the Reagan years was greater than the growth since by half a percent. That's a lot of support for the claim that Reagan's policies have produced the best growth in a generation. (The average growth for the eight Clinton years was 3.55%, and it was part of the last expansion period.)

Born Free said:

1.9% GDP is doing pretty well?

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His point is that the damage is localized. He didn't say it in so many words, but I think it translates more or less to, the economy is mostly doing pretty well, but the housing and construction sectors are still sucking wind. Not exactly a news flash.

Unfortunately the causes of Reagan's recession (the first one) are not the same as the cause of the second recession, and thus there's no easy fix. And since he and subsequent presidents already slashed taxes and ran up deficits, cutting taxes isn't much of an option either.

AdamT said:

His point is that the damage is localized. He didn't say it in so many words, but I think it translates more or less to, the economy is mostly doing pretty well, but the housing and construction sectors are still sucking wind. Not exactly a news flash.

Unfortunately the causes of Reagan's recession (the first one) are not the same as the cause of the second recession, and thus there's no easy fix. And since he and subsequent presidents already slashed taxes and ran up deficits, cutting taxes isn't much of an option either.

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OK, maybe I'm missing something, the bad economy is not localized, it's wide spread. I can't believe anyone would suggest the economy is mostly doing pretty well. That health of an economy is it's growth rate, and a 1.9% GDP is hardly doing well. In fact the monthly employment increases are not even keeping up with the birth rate. Thus we're going backward, and in anybody's mind that is not doing pretty well. We are moving closer and closer to another recession dip and that is by anyone's standards is not doing pretty well.

I travel all over this country and I have never seen so many store fronts closed, box stores closed, malls half empty. This is not doing pretty well, far from it. There are small pockets of strength that is mostly in the farm belt. But that's it.

Dickieboy said:

Maybe so but I interpreted this:



Households were not purchasing houses...but maybe that is what you are saying...? I do agree that businesses not 'investing' in long-lived assets it certainly based primarily on weak demand.

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They are purchasing not much of anything at all....homes, durable goods....yadda yadda.

Again, he is stating the obvious while missing the point, neither corporate or household investment is circulating, neither will lead us out of this liquidity trap.