patrick.net

curious2 says

53% of voters agreed that the crash of 2008 and its aftermath were indeed W's fault. By 2008, W had been in office seven years, including 6 with his party controlling both houses of Congress. W re-appointed Alan Greenspan and then appointed Ben Bernanke. I'm curious, you seem to attribute everything to Reagan, why not blame him for the crash?

there is plenty of info going back to late 90s and Clintons deregulation and getting GSE to ease restriction on homeownership as the beginning of the bubble which ultimately ended. Good old Barney Franks..."What Bubble ?" "Its the Racist GOP trying to kill housing for the poor." To his credit both Bush and Greenspan pointed out he high risk of US mortgages to the banking system. Ignored by the Dems.

Even today the Libs dont call it the Housing Bubble.. your still calling it the Mortgage Crisis. Lets just brush aside the notion of a RE bubble..

Plenty of details in PNETs to prove all that.

Bush was the idiot who put us into Afghanistan and Iraq last decade.

That was a $3T unnecessary expenditure, with much more still to be paid for.

Three trillion! The number boggles the mind! It might actually be the one thing that eventually sinks this nation as a functional state.

The Bush Boom itself was just a horribly little pump & dump purchased on debt leverage by abandoning oversight on the mortgage financing market and allowing them to push $6T of new debt on Americans.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CMDEBT

Bush and the Republicans pushed up our defense budget from $350B to the $800B+ it is today. $500B/yr of misallocated wealth.

http://defense.aol.com/2012/03/16/the-military-imbalance-how-the-u-s-outspends-the-world/

we're spending as if we were going to take on the whole world.

He did nothing as the trade deficit doubled:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/NETEXP

I can't blame Bush completely for everything, since some of this had antecedents during the Clinton years.

But I can blame conservatism completely, since all of these issues are rooted in the bullshit of either Koch-funded deregulation or neocon warmongering.

We really fucked ourselves 1999-2008 and it was 100% the conservatives' malfeasance.

I'm not really sure how we're going to fix things now. How do you put Humpty Dumpty back together, or fix a broken airplane in flight?

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MANEMP

Bellingham Bill says

Bush was...

...not an idiot, though I agree with your description of what happened. W affected idiocy, but it was only an affect, clowning and pretending to be not smart enough to fool anyone. In fact he graduated from Harvard and Yale, and he fooled almost everyone. He got everything he wanted (including Saddam and a second term), and empowered and enriched his patronage network enormously; Bandar Bush did particularly well.

Also, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" seem to have lost whatever meaning they used to have. I thought "liberal" meant letting people live their own lives their own way, which is what the founders of the republic meant when they called themselves liberal, not mandating everyone to buy and comply with insurance contracts written by for-profit corporations whose lobbyists buy the legislature. I thought "conservative" meant being a careful steward of resources and traditions, not deficit spending like a drunken sailor on crack. So, I tend to put those words in quotes now, because I'm not sure what people really mean anymore when they describe themselves as one or the other.

Obama IMV has been thus far an average President.

Carter-esque, let's say.

He only won reelection because Romney got less votes than Bush in 2004.

This was really a Kodos vs Kang election.

We're still being led up the garden path. If the System actually squared with the People everyone would lose their minds.

This guy knew the score:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimkiernan/6224561169/

The central issue AFAICT we've got to face is our $600B/yr trade deficit. We need to declare war on that, and then win that war.

But related to that is our leaky "paycheck economy" -- money that wage-earners get is quickly beat out of them by the System. The 99% movement kinda understood this but I never saw anyone reach full satori here -- people need to understand exactly how money is flowing in this economy from wage earner to rent-seeker parasite.

Maybe a trillion per year in housing rents. Over a trillion in health care rents. Over six trillion in government spending (though at least a lot of that hits paychecks once or twice).

We've tried to patch over this fundamental imbalance with another imbalance, the trillion+ deficit:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=cAY

that's a real road to hell -- we're borrowing what we should be taxing.

The 1996-2006 period was our "roaring twenties". 2008 was 1929. The System did try to stabilize things a bit more 2009-2012 compared to 1930-1932, but fundamentals are still fucked and things will remain screwed until monetary velocity within the paycheck economy is fixed.

Romney had zero answers to any of that, what the Republicans wanted to do would have made things worse (they're very good at that at least).

curious2 says

I'm not sure what people really mean anymore when they describe themselves as one or the other.

The European use of liberal got coopted by the left a long time ago. Whenever Limbaugh refers to "liberals" he means current day Democrats that are opposing the movement conservative program.

Movement conservatism is the long con to bust out the current extra-constitutional order from within. To blow it up and then have the boots on the ground to restructure things more to their liking.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Grover_Norquist

Whether by plan or accident, what the conservatives have been doing is strengthening their position while weakening their enemy's positions.

Yes, this nation is still at war with itself. I see no other way to describe it.

I was looking at the exit polling at just shocked at the partisan divide in describing things.

http://elections.msnbc.msn.com/ns/politics/2012/all/house

Movement conservatism has injected tremendous amounts of bullshit into the discourse, going back to the 1950s and even earlier (Taft's crap) I guess.

Clinton and the DLC behind him -- accused by conservatives as being a "liberal" -- triangulated a lot of that BS right into the Democratic party. Gore (another "liberal"), via Lieberman, same thing.

The future's going to be a lot shittier place than the System is willing to let on now. I suspect this nation is just too damn big to govern effectively. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are around 20M in total population, that's about the limit I guess, 5 or 10M people per nation-state. Even Canada and Australia are running into problems with their ~25M+ sizes.

Bellingham Bill says

Obama IMV has been thus far an average President.

I may have over stated it, calling him great. But average ? I don't even know what that means. One thing he does have in common with Carter, is that there are serious systemic long term problems that are reflected in the current economy, and it's an economy that "he owns." Not that a President has as much impact on the economy as politicians pretend.

I say he gets at least a B, for his stewardship through such tough times.

But, it's not over, and I agree with most of your analysis of the magnitude of the problems that are not being addressed, and your fixing a plane mid flight metaphor.

First of all, even without the whole Bain Capital/Robber Baron moniker, what Romney couldn't showcase was his experience as governor of Massachusetts, my permanent home state, and his adopted state, after coming of age. For a candidate, that makes practically no sense. Being governor is usually the best experiential prerequisite for later, running for President. His entire stint as governor was in cutting state programs, increasing fees (in place of taxes), creating Romneycare (major subsidy for big insurance), and leaving the gubernatorial role with a greater deficit plus net job & population losses circa 2007. Now, these were exactly the types of issues he was accusing B.O. of instigating. Talk about the kettle calling the pot, black. If Mass residents had their own PACs, we could have easily shown all the swing states, how completely mediocre Romney was, without even needing to say anything good about Obama in the process.

You people forget how hard it is to get rid of incumbents. Any incumbents, even terrible ones usually get re-elected.

Bellingham Bill says

I can't blame Bush completely for everything, since some of this had antecedents during the Clinton years.

But I can blame conservatism completely, since all of these issues are rooted in the bullshit of either Koch-funded deregulation or neocon warmongering.

Good summary, ... well put.

Conservatives don't want to think about this, or they say "yeah, but that was Bush, how can you liberals still harp on that, OBama owns it now."

The reason is that the aftermath was a crippling blow to the economy (2008). And even now GDP and tax revenues are much more below projections than spending is.

One other comment about Obama's grade. I'm pretty sure that my cringing when listening to Bush, wasn't just about disagreeing with his policies. For intelligence and oratory skills, if GW Bush was a 'D' grade, then OBama is WAY off the scale.

zzyzzx says

Any incumbents, even terrible ones usually get re-elected.

Even African American ones, when unemployemnt is at 8% ?

Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm the one bringing up race. Maybe not a factor, since possibly there are enough people in blue states that perceive his non-whiteness to be a positive (for whatever reason - maybe just pride in our diversity), that it offsets the racists in red states (not that they're all located there). And possibly in both cases the states would be blue or red without this regardless.

zzyzzx says

You people forget how hard it is to get rid of incumbents. Any incumbents, even terrible ones usually get re-elected.

It's mostly due to Stockholm Syndrome.

Back in 2008, when Obama won, I thought it was a mixed blessing for him. I didn't think it was possible for whomever won to have a second term. We seemed to be completely fucked at the time, and not all, but many people understand that. Results are not judged in a vacuum. He has had a lot of really good wins over the last four years, and I am surprised that we are not worse off now.

Part of why Mitt lost is that Obama won. Obama's victory is a great achievement in light of (1) where we were when he took office and (2) what has happened to other leaders in elections around the world since the 2008 crash.

marcus says

I may have over stated it, calling him great. But average ? I don't even know what that means.

I would call a President who:

1. did not prosecute a single Wall Street crime in his four year term (even though there was massive fraud)
2. bailed out the big banks but failed to break them up (to reduce systemic risk) and failed to impose harsher terms (Dodd-Frank was massively watered down by the bank lobby)
3. passed the completely unconstitutional NDAA and defended it in the New York district court (which deemed it unconstitutional upon appeal by Chomsky, Hedges and others)

as an "average" president, or even below average. Obama, IMO is a moderate Republican.

Using the term "Great" for Obama was pure hyperbole.

marcus says

I'll say it. Obama is a great President.

Paying people to buy cars that are made in Japan, Korea, and Mexico when unemployment is this high is not my idea of a great president. I think Romney should have talked about this a lot during his campaign.

Romney lost because the country's demographics have changed and Republicans as of now only appeal to the same chunk of the populace they always have while the growing minority demographic votes heavily Democratic. Unless the GOP changes it won't matter if even 100% of their base votes for them. They will lose. Doesn't matter if it was Romney or someone else.

Romney lost because Obama was excellent in winning elections. I have a lot of respect for him in this.

We can retroactively attribute reasons all we want. But reasons are overrated.

lostand confused says

But Mittens likes grits-well, only when he visits southern states.

Isn't grits bad for you just like lard? That's a rather unenlightened way of eating, rather unrefined wouldn't you say? It is much healthier to eat sushi with edamame and then to finish it off with green tea. What's with this bastardly malnutrition that we see being eaten all around us.? Do people have a death wish to die in their early 60 or even before. I tell you, what travesty. I am gonna have another cup of green tea at the thought of this horror, horror!

edvard2 says

Unless the GOP changes it won't matter if even 100% of their base votes for them. They will lose. Doesn't matter if it was Romney or someone else.

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/we-really-need-peter-thiel-conservatism.html

edvard2 says

Republicans as of now only appeal to the same chunk of the populace they always have while the growing minority demographic votes heavily Democratic.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/07/the-real-real-america/

dublin hillz says

Isn't grits bad for you just like lard? That's a rather unenlightened way of eating, rather unrefined wouldn't you say? It is much healthier to eat sushi with edamame and then to finish it off with green tea.

Hey now.... I might vote for Democrats, but I am also a Southern guy and one way to upset Southerners regardless of political affiliation is to diss their food! All kidding aside, grits alone is simply made out of corn. But- you add in cheese, bacon, and some green peppers, bake that in the oven until the top is a bit crisp.... man oh man its good stuff.

Republican leadershit has made horrendous blunders. Politics, just like sports is a game of matchups. You have to neutralize your opponents' strengths and magnify their weaknesses. In reality, they did the exact opposite. Why would you appeal to only one group (white males, particularly wealthy ones) and alienate everyone else. How stupid can you be? The results showed up on electoral map. That's the equivalent of not even covering the other team's best wide receiver and daring the other offense to throw the ball deep!

Peter P says

Romney lost because Obama was excellent in winning elections.

Thing is, McCain's vote total would have taken Ohio and Florida this Tuesday.

You had a faulty candidate, worse than McCain. Plus letting up on the anti-women, anti-gays, anti-poor people, and anti-Latino stuff in general would help too.

Pandering a bit to the non-Christians in this country would be gravy!

robertoaribas says

Obama got 76% of the Asian vote. Considering that as a demographic, Asians are actually more wealthy than whites, why do you think they went counter to the prevailing trend of those making over $200K voting for Romney???

think hard about it... Think really hard...

All their thinly veiled racism (kenya, muslim, real american) came back to bite them in the ass. Even the wealthy asians realized that they would rather vote for pride and not be marginalized than focus primarily on their own personal tax rates.

Republicans had a better option for their candidate, but they chose to ignore and actively sideline him in favor of their favored elitist and radical religion-spouting crack heads who wouldn't have had a prayer against Obama. Seriously, Santorum? And ignoring a responsible conscientious man like Ron Paul. The GOP lost its damn mind! They won't win another presidency until they overhaul their thinking and positions. Actually screw them, I want a valid independent party! The GOP needs to die when the boomer generation does.

uomo_senza_nome says

the completely unconstitutional NDAA

NDAA was buried in a bigger defense bill and didn't change the status quo.

A "great president" would have vetoed it, yes. Said president would be heading out of office now, since that act would provide a magnitude more ammunition for the right to attack him with (as soft on national security) and a lot more time to hit him with it.

This doesn't mean I think Obama has been a great president, just that this particular thing doesn't disqualify him.

Great presidents are hard to find. I can only think of three, Lincoln + the two Roosevelts, and these guys also had massive failings.

Politics is a tough business. The bullshit here is astounding.

Maybe the simplest is best, if your policies left the country better off, you were good. The better, the better you were. Maybe Jefferson would also sneak in here with the Louisiana Purchase, something else that was unconstitutional.

Not making things worse would make you an OK president. Carter and many others fall into here.

Active stupidity makes you a bad president. We all have our examples here.

robertoaribas says

Obama got 76% of the Asian vote. Considering that as a demographic, Asians are actually more wealthy than whites, why do you think they went counter to the prevailing trend of those making over $200K voting for Romney???

think hard about it... Think really hard...

Asian voters tend to be young and living with parents?

Obama was very successful in energizing is base.

You are calling it propaganda as if that means it wasn't true. Okay, "Killed people" is a little extreme, but the rest of the items on your list are all true.

thomaswong.1986 says

The propaganda was from the Obama side. And yes they were fooled.

Killed people..
Closed plants..
Outsourced Jobs...
Signed SEC docs when on leave
didnt pay taxes for 10 years.
Has huge wealth overseas in Swiss Accts.

Rin says

what Romney couldn't showcase was his experience as governor of Massachusetts

what's really odd is that his term precisely coincided with the national housing boom, 2003 through 2006! His set-up was golden!

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MASTHPI

Quigley says

And ignoring a responsible conscientious man like Ron Paul.

Ron Paul does have some fringe views, with his views on fixed gold standard (severely deflationary and catastrophical), free market ideology (clearly markets suffer from human entropy and deterioration).

Read this on the instability of the gold standard:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/golden-instability/

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2012/01/playing-free-markets-canard.html

However, he's excellent on foreign policy. But the neo-cons have to sideline him because you know, 'merica likes War.

This will easily be debated for decades because it does smash some of some of the old thought. Prior to this any president with 7.5% unemployment or higher was not reelected. Well this is 7.9%..so the economy can be said that there was no selling point for Romney.

It's been a bit debated now in the Boston media that there is this paradox between the state and federal level republicans running for office.

Basically on the state level republicans tend to be socially liberal but economically conservative. On the federal level things change and this is where they have always attacked Mitt.

Take a stance on abortion and stick to it, take a stance on same sex marriage and stick to it etc.

I personally live in a town where someone back in '94 put a romney for senate bumper sticker on a stop sign. It lasted for years and years I might check later today if it is still there.

Social conservatism is the albatross around the party at this point. There is nothing realistically to be gained by trying to block same sex marriage or abortion. Republicans need to drop these as issues just as the democrats dropped gun control long ago.

Some may have bet that there would have been some sort of occupy candidates to oppose tea party groups but that frankly didn't happen. I wouldn't call Obama a far leftist by any means. But on the other side he constantly compromises which ultimatly means that there is no real enforcement mechanism for him to really do anything that far to the left at all.

The differences of the policies that romney would have enacted vs obama frankly aren't that much different. Even Jim Cramer of CNBC stated this is mostly about the capital gains tax. I don't think anything realistically changed since 2009 when he entered office and chances are they won't (for the better) by 2017.

In some respects it could be argued that Obama fell into a massive trap and that being simply throwing them the generational economic time bomb of which is the retirement of baby boomers. Assuming no war, financial meltdown on the market or another Katrina no one has specifically stated how people will retire without cashing out the stock market. By the time 2015 comes retirements will come en masse. Neither candidate has specifically said how this is to be solved.

Lastly is that this was pretty predictable given the swings. Bush could win in '04 despite the war being unpopular, Clinton won given well hillarycare and all that minor stuff, Reagan could even though Iran contra happened. Unless there is either a significant 3rd party (perot in '92) or something dramatic like hostidges (Carter in '80) then presidents win reelection.

YesYNot says

Back in 2008, when Obama won, I thought it was a mixed blessing for him.

Couldn't agree more with this. I remember posting about it somewhere how "fishy" I thought the McCain surge was last time.

To me, it seemed like the writing was on the wall in '08 for the Republicans so they held the Billionaire's candidate, Romney, back until '12. The power elite plutocrats knew Hillary or Obama was slaughtering whoever they put up. So they threw a bone to the old dog McCain (but didn't give him any money).

They knew how bad it was going to get and thought putting Romney back in '12 would be a sure win.

It is also why we had such a poor field of Republicans this time. The wanted a smooth sail for Romney to oppose Obama.

What they didn't count on is how much their easily manipulated "base" of evangelicals were fearful of the Mormon. For pete's sake Rick Santorum gave Romney a challenge. "Frothy" Rick Santorum!

Also unfortunately for the plutocrats, the economy has improved just enough that some common folks noticed.

No matter how many times the plutocrats paid Sean Hannity to scream otherwise, it does seem like things have improved under Obama.

In 2008, people were worried their bank would collapse, their 401k was evaporating, the threat of layoffs were everywhere, and there were ZERO prospects of another job if you were laid off. No one was hiring.

Now there is still a minor hint of layoff threat and it is hard to get a job. But people are finding them.

Enough people noticed.

Mittens will get the last laugh. He will baptize all our dead ancestors and convert them into Mormons.

uomo_senza_nome says

Ron Paul does have some fringe views, with his views on fixed gold standard (severely deflationary and catastrophical), free market ideology (clearly markets suffer from human entropy and deterioration).
Read this on the instability of the gold standard:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/golden-instability/
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2012/01/playing-free-markets-canard.html

Am I confusing you with someone else, but weren't you an Austrian proponent like a year ago?

Quigley says

Republicans had a better option for their candidate, but they chose to ignore and actively sideline him in favor of their favored elitist and radical religion-spouting crack heads who wouldn't have had a prayer against Obama. Seriously, Santorum? And ignoring a responsible conscientious man like Ron Paul.

Hahaha! Ron Paul is not a Republican see there's your problem right there. He's an honorary Republican in the way that some independents fall under the Democratic caucus.

Anyhow Ron Paul never had a shot even if the entire GOP elite and every plutocrat had lined up behind him. Tell America you are going to downsize it's military, close bases overseas, and you can watch your voters evaporate. Republicans like having that big stick, and they like USING it, so Ron Paul was always a non-starter.

During the primaries, Ron Paul was the only candidate from any party to outpoll Obama nationally. Republicans had a chance with him, but as Quigley observed they chose instead to sideline him. The major parties are both patronage networks, and Ron Paul was too independent for the party bosses. He actually wanted to work for America, not the party machine.

uomo_senza_nome says

Read this on the instability of the gold standard:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/golden-instability/

Krugman's blog is hardly an objective source. Even in his official columns, he has trouble with basic facts and/or math, sometimes saying instead whatever he thinks will make his case:
http://patrick.net/?p=1217991&c=887899#comment-887899

The NY Times doesn't seem to fact-check opinion columns or blogs, so a demonstrably false statement can remain uncorrected if it's part of an "opinion" that they want to promote (usually more spending). His official articles can be good, because they are subject to editing and fact-checking.

A fiat currency can have genuine advantages over gold or silver, but it also involves risks. If we had sound fiscal and monetary policy, and a real commitment to maintain them, then a fiat currency would be the best choice. A balanced budget amendment, which would need to be carefully written to allow some flexibility while preventing abuse, would be better than the gold standard.

curious2 says

[RP] actually wanted to work for America

the America of ca 1880.

mdovell says

no one has specifically stated how people will retire without cashing out the stock market. By the time 2015 comes retirements will come en masse. Neither candidate has specifically said how this is to be solved.

ayup. This came to my attention 5+ years ago, the 1980-2020 supercycle of boomer investment and disinvestment.

The one thing for stability is that Gen Y is turning 20 now and is a bit bigger than the boomers, so they have the bodies to invest.

Whether they have the disposable income is the more interesting question, since Gen Y also has to pay to pension off their parents, while investing!

(but if this pension money just gets spent back into the payroll economy maybe it's all good -- we need velocity, we don't have any real resource constraints, other than some strategic metals and oil.)

mdovell says

Reagan could even though Iran contra happened

November 1986 (and Bush Sr knew nothingk, nothingk).

mdovell says

something dramatic like hostidges (Carter in '80)

The Fed did more to fuck over Carter than the hostage crisis maybe.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=cC2

Graph shows the Fed really wanted that 1980 recession and wasn't going to stop until they got it. Then they went more to make sure!

curious2 says

Krugman's blog is hardly an objective source

The link I quoted is very precise. I don't quote Krugman unless I think he's correct. He is spot-on about the fixed gold standard problems. There are instances where he is biased because of political/economic views, but on this particular point - he's stating facts.

david1 says

Am I confusing you with someone else, but weren't you an Austrian proponent like a year ago?

Same guy. Austrian is a broad term. If you mean the American Mises Circle Austrian, I am certainly not. I fully comprehend Krugman's argument against the classical gold standard. I still think Austrian insights have merit, but I tend to look at it through modern system based theories - complexity theory, agent based economics etc.

Here are a few examples:

http://nonlineardynamic.blogspot.com/2012/11/put-your-finger-on-bubble.html

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/things-that-arent-bubbles/

Krugman actually says "value is an emergent property", which is basically Austrian in thinking.

As for Carter:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=cC5

10 million more jobs in just 3 years. +300,000 a month every month.

Problem was the baby boom was turning 20 and wanted to work, plus women were flooding into the workforce and also wanted to work.

Then we had price shocks in oil, back in the Nixon days and then again when the Iran thing went down.

The Bush Boom ginned up 8M jobs:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=cC7

from the 2003 bottom but only +6M from the (admittedly slowing down) economy he inherited in 2001. And +6M over 7 years is 70,000 net per month, on a much bigger population base!

Part of the problem I have with today's Republicans -- and conservatives in general -- is that they have no facts, just one long stream of consciousness of bullshit ("cancer of liberalism" etc).

And what facts they do bring to the table tend to be BS too.

uomo_senza_nome says

complexity theory, agent based economics

I KISS YOU!