• 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!

U.S. Economy Added 162,000 Jobs in March, Most in 3 Years

Obama just doesn't have what it takes to pull us out of the Bush financial collapse.

i know

it's a shame

that's what he was elected to do
 
i know

it's a shame

that's what he was elected to do

Yes he failed miserably. He was way too optimistic about his policies and too ignorant of how bad things really were when he took office.
 
"Yes he failed miserably. He was way too ignorant about his policies"

THERE... fixed it!
 
"Yes he failed miserably. He was way too ignorant about his policies"

THERE... fixed it!

Well, his policies did keep us from going into a full blown depression, but expecting him to fix the disaster left him by the last administration was too optimistic.
Bush did way too much damage for a guy like Obama to fix even after taking the advice of Bernanke.
 
bernanke---LOL!

the too ignorant president who failed miserably isn't listening to that economic necromancer

washingtonpost.com

"keynes once said in the long run we are all dead," speechified the chairman

"if he were around today he'd say in the long run we're all on social security and medicare..."

LOL!

the dude with the funny little beard has a sense of humor, at least

Social Security Payout to Exceed Revenue This Year - NYTimes.com
 
Last edited:
Well, his policies did keep us from going into a full blown depression, but expecting him to fix the disaster left him by the last administration was too optimistic.
Bush did way too much damage for a guy like Obama to fix even after taking the advice of Bernanke.

Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush.......LOL

Barney Frank and Chris Dodd brought you the subprime mess. And that began in the 90s.

There's where this mess came from. Sure, Bush added to the pile with his liberal Medicare bill and his more liberal TARP funding, but the Democrats own the fault for this, and their constituents are paying the price in massive unemployment, foreclosures, and bankruptcies.
 
Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush.......LOL

Barney Frank and Chris Dodd brought you the subprime mess. And that began in the 90s.

There's where this mess came from. Sure, Bush added to the pile with his liberal Medicare bill and his more liberal TARP funding, but the Democrats own the fault for this, and their constituents are paying the price in massive unemployment, foreclosures, and bankruptcies.

Bush and Greenspan created the housing bubble. It could have never happened without record low interest rates and Bush's homeownership policies. Hell, Bush even eliminated down payments.
Fannie and Freddie were victims of the housing collapse, not the cause.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were victims, not culprits - BusinessWeek
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html
USATODAY.com - Bush seeks to increase minority homeownership
“No one wanted to stop that bubble,” Mr. Lindsey said. “It would have conflicted with the president’s own policies.”

How can you people still be in denial to the fact that Bush left Obama the worst economy since the Great Depression.
 
Last edited:
Well, his policies did keep us from going into a full blown depression, but expecting him to fix the disaster left him by the last administration was too optimistic.
Bush did way too much damage for a guy like Obama to fix even after taking the advice of Bernanke.

OK, lets have a honest debate about what exactly the Obama administration did to keep us out of a full blown recession, as you say.

I say that TARP was created under the previous administration so Obama should not take credit for that. The stimulus was tiny for an economy of our size. We spent something like $200 billion in 2009 on a $13 trillion economy. Clearly not the bold move needed to ward of the recession. In addition many feel that the money was improperly targeted. Much of the 2009 money went in the form on tax cuts to the poor. This allowed people to pay off some debt or save a bit. However to cut off a recession you want the money to directly flow into the economy. Actually the Chinese did a much better job with their stimulus package and they are communists!
 
I say that TARP was created under the previous administration so Obama should not take credit for that.

Do you support TARP?

The stimulus was tiny for an economy of our size. We spent something like $200 billion in 2009 on a $13 trillion economy. Clearly not the bold move needed to ward of the recession.

I blame the Republicans for digging their heels in against a larger one.

In addition many feel that the money was improperly targeted. Much of the 2009 money went in the form on tax cuts to the poor. This allowed people to pay off some debt or save a bit. However to cut off a recession you want the money to directly flow into the economy.

How else would you target it? Put cash in the hands of the poor and they spend it. They don't save it, they can't afford to.

Actually the Chinese did a much better job with their stimulus package and they are communists!

Barely.
 
Do you support TARP?

I did not, but I also did have an answer on how to stop the slide.



I blame the Republicans for digging their heels in against a larger one.

Silly to blame one side. The bill spent $787 billion. My issue is the timing not the size of the bill.



How else would you target it? Put cash in the hands of the poor and they spend it. They don't save it, they can't afford to.

Should have been targeted into infrastructure ( our roads and bridges are falling apart); building out better telecommunications; energy etc.

On the spending side more tax credits like they did for energy fix ups for homes.

Their economy grew at about 3x our rate in Q1 2010. They also did a large build out of high speed rails as an example of infrastructure spending.



Barely.

Many progressive economists like Krugman agree that this stimulus package was not sufficient.
 
Many progressive economists like Krugman agree that this stimulus package was not sufficient.

I know. I think it probably wasn't either. It's the classic case of a government program failing not because it's too big, but because it's not big enough. Sometimes that happens.

Not that it's been a complete failure, mind you.
 
OK, lets have a honest debate about what exactly the Obama administration did to keep us out of a full blown recession, as you say.

I say that TARP was created under the previous administration so Obama should not take credit for that. The stimulus was tiny for an economy of our size. We spent something like $200 billion in 2009 on a $13 trillion economy. Clearly not the bold move needed to ward of the recession. In addition many feel that the money was improperly targeted. Much of the 2009 money went in the form on tax cuts to the poor. This allowed people to pay off some debt or save a bit. However to cut off a recession you want the money to directly flow into the economy. Actually the Chinese did a much better job with their stimulus package and they are communists!

The recession was coming and could not be stopped. We did not fall into a depression.....yet. Do you think Obama should have spent more on the stimulus? Where would you have targeted it? Corporations already had way too much capacity for existing demand. They were going to downsize no matter who got the tax breaks.
Tax cuts to the poor and middle class did go directly into the economy and did help boost demand a bit.
The recession will not be over until the housing sector stabilizes and that could be decades. Reducing the suffering is about all Obama can hope for.
 
The tone of the "Hannity followers" when job creation is in full effect will be priceless. If there is job creation in the tune of 300k by summers end, the "conservative victory tour" will be a wash out.

123,000 jobs doesn't even meet the job growth needed to even keep up with population increase, the participating labor force increased by 625,000 people for the first 3 months of the year, so even to keep where we were would have required a job increase of 208,000 newly employed workers. So ya thanks for the good news of static job growth and a continued unemployment rate of 9.7% change we can believe in. :roll:
 
123,000 jobs doesn't even meet the job growth needed to even keep up with population increase, the participating labor force increased by 625,000 people for the first 3 months of the year, so even to keep where we were would have required a job increase of 208,000 newly employed workers. So ya thanks for the good news of static job growth and a continued unemployment rate of 9.7% change we can believe in. :roll:

The economy was in much worse shape that they had thought. It probably can't be fixed. Thanks GWB.
 
No relevant economic comment; only your overstated opinion. Noted and not surprised.

Positive job growth in the tune of six figures is now considered "neutral"?

Yes actually first of all 54% of those 162,000 jobs were temp position, 2nd of all the participating labour force increased by 625,000 over the first three months of the year which means a job increase of 208,000 would have been required just to stay afloat and keep the unemployment rate where it is.
 
lol yep, let's play the blame game, tell me when exactly does this become Obama's economy? Perhaps after he has left office? :roll:

If the economy is still in shambles after Obama leaves office, it will still be Bush's recession for the next president, too. Dem or Rep. It may take a couple decades to clean up this mess.
There really is nothing Obama can do to fix the housing sector. Perhaps time will sort it out. Perhaps not.


Looks like market may be adjusting today.
 
Last edited:
lol yep, let's play the blame game, tell me when exactly does this become Obama's economy? Perhaps after he has left office? :roll:

See, this is the problem. It's not Obama's or Bush's economy. It's the economy. The President can only do so much. This idea that the a President is in charge of the economy is very unrealistic. He doesn't just push buttons and make it go.
 
The recession was coming and could not be stopped. We did not fall into a depression.....yet. Do you think Obama should have spent more on the stimulus? Where would you have targeted it? Corporations already had way too much capacity for existing demand. They were going to downsize no matter who got the tax breaks.
Tax cuts to the poor and middle class did go directly into the economy and did help boost demand a bit.
The recession will not be over until the housing sector stabilizes and that could be decades. Reducing the suffering is about all Obama can hope for.

If you read my response you would have seen that I said we should have spent more stimulus money in 2009.

While some of the tax cut money got into the economy some did not. People who study this say that tax cuts are not an efficient use of stimulus dollars.

Again you mention we did not go into a depression, true.

What no one has responded to yet is what exactly can you point to that the Obama administration did to keep us out of a depression.

Stimulus spending of $200 billion in a $13 trillion economy does not stop anything.
 
Yep so Obama gets a free pass for his entire administration how convenient.

Oh tell me sport when exactly was it that Democrats were clamoring for more regulation on Freddie Mac and Fannie May? Oh wait, in fact the exact opposite was true, it was the Republicans who were clamoring for more regulation on Freddie Mac and Fannie May and it was the Democrats who stood in the way of regulation against high risk mortgage loans for Freddie Mac and Fannie may because (survey says) it would have been unfair to minorities:

YouTube- Shocking Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis

The economy had collapsed before he took office. Obama is going to spend his entire presidency trying to clean up Bush's mess and he probably won't be successful.

Fannie and Freddie did not cause the housing bubble or it's collapse. They were victims. Greenspan and Bush created the housing bubble.

"There’s a dangerous — and misleading — argument making the rounds about the causes of our current credit crisis. It’s emanating from Washington where politicians are engaging in the usual blame game but this time the stakes are so high that we can’t afford to fall victim to political doublespeak. In this fact-free zone, government sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the real estate bubble and subprime meltdown. It’s completely false. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were victims of the credit crisis, not culprits.

Start with the most basic fact of all: virtually none of the $1.5 trillion of cratering subprime mortgages were backed by Fannie or Freddie. That’s right — most subprime mortgages did not meet Fannie or Freddie’s strict lending standards. All those no money down, no interest for a year, low teaser rate loans? All the loans made without checking a borrower’s income or employment history? All made in the private sector, without any support from Fannie and Freddie.

Look at the numbers. While the credit bubble was peaking from 2003 to 2006, the amount of loans originated by Fannie and Freddie dropped from $2.7 trillion to $1 trillion. Meanwhile, in the private sector, the amount of subprime loans originated jumped to $600 billion from $335 billion and Alt-A loans hit $400 billion from $85 billion in 2003. Fannie and Freddie, which wouldn’t accept crazy floating rate loans, which required income verification and minimum down payments, were left out of the insanity.

There’s a must-read study by staff members of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York analyzing the roots of the subprime crisis that came out in March. I don’t think it got much attention then as the conclusions seemed uncontroversial at the time. But now that Washington politicians are trying to rewrite history, it should be mandatory reading for every American interested in knowing how we got here.

The study identifies five causes of the subprime meltdown:
-Convoluted loan products that consumers didn’t understand.
-Credit ratings that didn’t do a good job highlighting the risks contained in subprime-backed securities.
-Lack of incentives for institutional investors to do their own research (they just relied on the credit ratings).
-Predatory lending and borrowing (which I think means fraud perpetrated by borrowers).
-Significant errors in the models used by credit rating agencies to assess subprime-backed securities."
 
Last edited:
If the economy is still in shambles after Obama leaves office, it will still be Bush's recession for the next president, too. Dem or Rep. It may take a couple decades to clean up this mess.
There really is nothing Obama can do to fix the housing sector. Perhaps time will sort it out. Perhaps not.


Looks like market may be adjusting today.

Yep so Obama gets a free pass for his entire administration how convenient.

Oh tell me sport when exactly was it that Democrats were clamoring for more regulation on Freddie Mac and Fannie May? Oh wait, in fact the exact opposite was true, it was the Republicans who were clamoring for more regulation on Freddie Mac and Fannie May and it was the Democrats who stood in the way of regulation against high risk mortgage loans for Freddie Mac and Fannie may because (survey says) it would have been unfair to minorities:

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs"]YouTube- Shocking Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis[/nomedia]
 
Yep so Obama gets a free pass for his entire administration how convenient.

Nobody said that.

But he started with an extreme disadvantage. You can't expect him to just snap his fingers and make everything the way it was in a year or two.
 
The economy had collapsed before he took office. Obama is going to spend his entire presidency trying to clean up Bush's mess and he probably won't be successful.

Fannie and Freddie did not cause the housing bubble or it's collapse. They were victims. Greenspan and Bush created the housing bubble.

"There’s a dangerous — and misleading — argument making the rounds about the causes of our current credit crisis. It’s emanating from Washington where politicians are engaging in the usual blame game but this time the stakes are so high that we can’t afford to fall victim to political doublespeak. In this fact-free zone, government sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the real estate bubble and subprime meltdown. It’s completely false. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were victims of the credit crisis, not culprits.

Start with the most basic fact of all: virtually none of the $1.5 trillion of cratering subprime mortgages were backed by Fannie or Freddie.


lmfao and now I'm done talking to you, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac purchased $500 billion high risk Alt-A mortgage products.
 
Nobody said that.

But he started with an extreme disadvantage. You can't expect him to just snap his fingers and make everything the way it was in a year or two.

Strange that Warren G. Harding was able to do just that.
 
Back
Top Bottom