Unemployment hits 9.8%

[JohnSmith2007 353]

You may doubt it but I would be as supportive of such model as I am today. The approach makes sense whether it's a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent pursuing it. Do I think that the Obama administration is doing all the right things in regards to helping the economy getting back on it's feet? Not by a long shot. But when you look at effectiveness studies in terms of stimulating measures for the economy, the focus the administration is having is geared more towards the more effective measures and less towards the least effective. I would have preferred to see much more in terms of future oriented investment projects. Problem with those is that they take time to get underway and the economy needed a push quickly.

While you look at studies I have lived in the real world. I was an adult in the Carter years. I saw what he did and how Reagan fixed things. I have lived here for 55 years and I KNOW what worked and what didn't. Supply side saved us from the mess Carter gave us. Tax and spend has never worked. Yeah, you can cherry pick stats and give us revisionist history but the facts are still the facts. What Obama is doing hasn't helped. Supply side has worked in the past and it would have worked today.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

While you look at studies I have lived in the real world. I was an adult in the Carter years. I saw what he did and how Reagan fixed things. I have lived here for 55 years and I KNOW what worked and what didn't. Supply side saved us from the mess Carter gave us. Tax and spend has never worked. Yeah, you can cherry pick stats and give us revisionist history but the facts are still the facts. What Obama is doing hasn't helped. Supply side has worked in the past and it would have worked today.

Reagan got elected by telling the country the debt was "out of control." Compared to national income, it was the lowest in 50 years. He probably didn't know. But his supply-side economists did. They lied to America.

In 1981 Reagan's supply siders wrote the tax cuts for the rich and his budgets. The Senate was Republican, and Reagan got the Southern Dems in the House to vote for him. All Republicans and a few Dems voted for the budget. The national debt had its worst year since 1945. The next year it got worse, and for 20 out of 20 years, the supply siders raised the debt relative to our ability to pay.

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

[JohnSmith2007 353]

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

You are a good one to talk. You didn't live through the misery index of the Carter years. All you know is the revisionist history and the cherry picked facts as well. You are the other hyper-partisan on this board that knows nothing but DNC talking points. While you were crapping in your diapers I was in the workforce trying to support a family. Carter about killed this country, Reagan gave us back our pride and our power. No chart, graph or cherrypicked data can change that.

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

You are a good one to talk. You didn't live through the misery index of the Carter years. All you know is the revisionist history and the cherry picked facts as well. You are the other hyper-partisan on this board that knows nothing but DNC talking points. While you were crapping in your diapers I was in the workforce trying to support a family. Carter about killed this country, Reagan gave us back our pride and our power. No chart, graph or cherrypicked data can change that.

i wonder if steven thinks 14%+ mortgages are great, as that's what we had during the carter years.

Edited December 3, 2010 by charles!

[^_^ 5,021]

Home prices are much more determinative of overall affordability than rates, IMO.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

You are a good one to talk. You didn't live through the misery index of the Carter years. All you know is the revisionist history and the cherry picked facts as well. You are the other hyper-partisan on this board that knows nothing but DNC talking points. While you were crapping in your diapers I was in the workforce trying to support a family. Carter about killed this country, Reagan gave us back our pride and our power. No chart, graph or cherrypicked data can change that.

My parents actually went out and bought a rooftop, solar water heater during the Carter years because of tax rebate, and that water heater saved them hundreds of dollars annually. They also ended up buying a used Chevette, which was a piece of #######, but that's beside the point.

Before the supply siders, Dems and Repubs brought the debt down relative to our income in 27 out of 35 years. The supply siders (with Reagan and the Bushes) raised it 20 out of 20 years. That's no accident.

The Supply-Sider's Hoax: Bush-I called it voodoo economics (but he got stuck with it). Their "theory" is that cutting taxes for the super rich will encourage them to work so much harder and make so much more money that they will pay more taxes, even though their tax rate went down. Well the voodoo didn't work in 20 out of 20 years. And now they want to try it again. And they've scared America again about the debt. It's easier now that they've run it through the roof.

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

steven, obama accomplishing in two years half of what took bush II 8 years is hardly laudable.

[mawilson 2,133]

Show me where the economy was stimulated in any real way. If it didn't stimulate then it was wasted.

Show me that it wasn't. Show me what the economy would have looked like today without the stimulus.

You can't. No-one can.

[mawilson 2,133]

The stimulus didn't create very many jobs, it didn't even stop the job loss.

So what? It was wrongly advertised as a job creator, but it was stimulative nonetheless.

[mawilson 2,133]

Reagan got elected by telling the country the debt was "out of control." Compared to national income, it was the lowest in 50 years. He probably didn't know. But his supply-side economists did. They lied to America.

Well it's true now. The debt as a percentage of GDP has never been higher (since the end of World War II).

Home prices are much more determinative of overall affordability than rates, IMO.

They are? I think it's a combination of prices + rates. If the rates are low, prices can go higher

without affecting affordability and vice versa.

[JohnSmith2007 353]

So what? It was wrongly advertised as a job creator, but it was stimulative nonetheless.

How has it been stimulative? What effect can you point to that shows the economy being stimulated? My definition of the success of the stimulus, and I admit it is a narrow one, is how fast people get back to work. Without people working the economy has no hope of coming back. The jobs must come first.

[spookyturtle 9,465]

steven, obama accomplishing in two years half of what took bush II 8 years is hardly laudable.

But he had to spend all that money or the after effects of Bush would have been even more devastating.

[JohnSmith2007 353]

i wonder if steven thinks 14%+ mortgages are great, as that's what we had during the carter years.

I wonder how Steven would feel about the misery index. Double digit unemployment, double digit interest rates and double digit inflation. In many, if not most, ways the mess Reagan inherited was much worse than the one Obama got.

[mawilson 2,133]

What effect can you point to that shows the economy being stimulated? My definition of the success of the stimulus, and I admit it is a narrow one, is how fast people get back to work. Without people working the economy has no hope of coming back. The jobs must come first.

They "must", but they never do. Think about it, why would the jobs come first?

If you're a business, why would you expand and hire more people if you don't see

increased demand for your products?

At the same time, giving people (especially low-income earners) more money to

spend (whether through tax cuts or unemployment checks or whatever!) creates jobs

as a secondary effect because they will go out and spend it.

[JohnSmith2007 353]

They "must", but they never do. Think about it, why would the jobs come first?

If you're a business, why would you expand and hire more people if you don't see

increased demand for your products?

At the same time, giving people (especially low-income earners) more money to

spend (whether through tax cuts or unemployment checks or whatever!) creates jobs

as a secondary effect because they will go out and spend it.

I know that in my own situation the company I work for will hold off hiring and work the people they have more hours even thought the demand warrants more people. I have been working 50 - 60 hour weeks for the last year. Last month we had an all employee meeting. (I work for a company that has about 100 people) We asked him when we were going to get more people because we are starting to burn out. The president and owner of the company (he is one of those 250K and up tax bracket types that own a small business. You know, the ones that Dog says doesn't exists.) and he said he will not hire more people until he can get a handle on what the future holds in regard to government policy. He doesn't know what his tax burden will be, he doesn't know if there will be new environmental regulations (I work for a mining equipment company) and he does not know if anything the government is doing is going to help things recover. It is uncertainty more than demand right now that is holding back employment.