Curse

Snow Bunny · Jan 20, 2009, 06:32 PM // 18:32

Media dipshits have been comparing it lately to FDR's New Deal. For those of you who don't know what that is, it was FDR's way of 'massive spending' to prime the economy and stimulate employment.

In 2009 dollars, FDR's plan came out to $79 billion, which at the time was about 3% GDP. Substantial, but he wasn't gambling horribly, considering the country was in a depression.

Obama's plan is projected currently at $800 billion, but steadily appearing to look more like $1.1 trillion, about 10% of the US GDP. We're not into a depression yet - we're into year 2 of the American recession. This is an enormous gamble - the economy will collapse if this doesn't work.

For all the toasting off of this guy, this seems absolutely retarded. Don't get me wrong, I voted for him, but this seems idiotic.

Winterclaw · Jan 20, 2009, 06:48 PM // 18:48

Didn't the new deal prolong the Great Depression? IIRC, it was WWII that got it out of it. So I guess Obama has no concept of what has gone on in the past or is intentionally trying to tank our economy so he can be viewed as the savior.

See this is how people with liberal economic leanings try to fix things: throw money at it. Sometimes the best thing you can do is nothing and let the problem will correct itself.

BTW, why did Obama pick a preacher who thinks white people are evil to give the prayer? Couldn't he pick a non-racist preacher just once?

Inde · Jan 20, 2009, 06:49 PM // 18:49

Snow Bunny, you answered your own question, "the economy will collapse if this doesn't work". Which means that if he does nothing it will collapse, and if we gamble with this there's still a chance of a collapse. I think it might be better to be proactive, try to stop a depression, versus reactive and only do a huge stimulus when we finally enter a depression. Granted, I'm not happy about any of it, I think throwing this much money around won't guarantee anything so I'm being contradictory.

Winterclaw · Jan 20, 2009, 06:59 PM // 18:59

Inde, what about not spending any money to prevent a depression or to get us out of one?

Spending money to prevent depressions isn't explicitly in the US constitution so technically the government has no right or authority to do it.

shoyon456 · Jan 21, 2009, 03:13 AM // 03:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winterclaw

Spending money to prevent depressions isn't explicitly in the US constitution so technically the government has no right or authority to do it.

Pre-emptive war against Iraq and continuing to occupy it isn't explicitly in the US constitution, so the government has no right or authority to do it. See how I can do that too?

Puebert · Jan 21, 2009, 03:50 AM // 03:50

I'd rather try and fail, than failing from never trying.

Snow Bunny · Jan 21, 2009, 04:12 AM // 04:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Puebert

I'd rather try and fail, than failing from never trying.

Idealist dribble.

Inde, I understand what you're saying, but I suppose I worded my original thought incorrectly.

The US will be able to make it out of this recession; it will make time, and be slow and painful, but we will do it. The economy from a credit standpoint according to analysts is through the worst - banks have no reason to fall farther.

Obama's plan, if it fails, would plunge us into immediate depression.

I hate to rag on him, I'm just so sick of "YES WE CAN".

Lasareth · Jan 21, 2009, 04:14 AM // 04:14

@ guy above snow

It's a little more complicated than that. If you try and fail, you stand at a worse point than not trying because you've spent billions or trillions of dollars failing. Obviously there is no explicit and clear answer to what should be done, or we would be doing it and there wouldn't even be other options. Personally I think there are better ways to spend the money than giving it to groups that will squander it.

And the constitution has been marginalized plenty of times when making decisions. Makes you wonder sometimes why it's even around.

Puebert · Jan 21, 2009, 04:34 AM // 04:34

Yes, I understand throwing $800 billion into a hole would be worse than not throwing it, but I think at the position Obama is at, if he takes a conservative view at it and refuses to do anything and attempt to let the market fix itself, people would be unhappy, due to all "Change!" talk floating about.

I don't think giving money to a few banks/private companies is not the way to fix the economy, nor do I think handing out money to citizens will save it, I think the fastest and safest way would be to create new jobs.
Which, hopefully, some of the money would do.

I think its a good time to switch to metric too. =]

I also want our $350 billion back from the banks.

**cosyfiep** · Jan 21, 2009, 04:39 AM // 04:39

it took the 'powers that be' a whole year to even figure out that we were in a recession....will take a lot longer to figure out how to fix it----(and yes it is going to get worse, much worse before it gets better especially when they have yet to point the finger at the right reason it got this bad in the first place--eg I KNEW it was coming back in 2003 and I am not an economics person).....
lets just hope that something positive happens soon.

Lasareth · Jan 21, 2009, 04:51 AM // 04:51

Stopping wasteful spending would be more change than anything we've seen so far imo.

Puebert · Jan 21, 2009, 04:55 AM // 04:55

Or, ya know, we could actually make them provide a plan for what they're going to do with the money before we hand it over to them.

I'm honestly not in favor of the bailouts, but I'd rather have them than the "do nothing, the economy will recover" tactics.

ty3c · Jan 21, 2009, 05:23 AM // 05:23

these bailouts dont work anyways

remember the 750 BILLION bill to fix what was said it all?

hmm down to 350 billion and still not fixed

seems to me just another way to use our taxmoney for something useless

what ever happend to "fixing your own problems"????

our GOV has and will always screw up, it's just a matter of how and when.

btw, our presidents dont seem to be getting any better, though I will give obama a chance to prove he was better then bush.

Winterclaw · Jan 21, 2009, 07:26 AM // 07:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

Pre-emptive war against Iraq and continuing to occupy it isn't explicitly in the US constitution, so the government has no right or authority to do it. See how I can do that too?

Article 1. Section 8. To declare war

So yes, the US constitution does give congress the authority to declare war.

MMSDome · Jan 21, 2009, 08:02 AM // 08:02

I love how you guys try and kite answering to what a shitty deal this is and blame Iraq and the past administration. Blaming them doesn't solve shit Obama needs to lead our people and do whats right. I hope to God this works and I am definitely rooting for Obama but I didn't vote for the guy. I trust he knows what he is doing but this doesn't seem so smart. Blaming doesn't get you anywhere so leave that at the door.

ADDED: For clarification and not wasting another post I want to clear up that I am rooting for him because why wouldn't you support your leader? I don't want him to fail I want our country to pull together and being exactly like the retarded Bush bashers against Obama gets us no where.

Winterclaw · Jan 21, 2009, 06:35 PM // 18:35

Quote:

I am definitely rooting for Obama but I didn't vote for the guy

I'm not sure I can root for him. I don't like his positions. He abandoned one of his campaign promises before he was sworn in (the tax break for companies that hired people). I think it's likely that his presidency will be marred by racism via proxy. Plus after 6+ years of the democrats savaging Bush for not being democrat and all the hated they spewed out I'm not sure I could trust or support them or their candidate until they do an about face. They are still demanding legal action against Bush. After the election, while praising Obama with one hand, they were throwing around the n-word against blacks in Calafornia for voting against gay marriage.

Plus it's a bit personal. When the people of my state decided when they should have their primary elections, he made sure to do everything possible to keep our votes from counting until it was clear he'd win either way. He was kowtowing to the DNC and taking our rights in the process. The man is a tyrant and a tool of the political machine for all I care... I can't root for a tyrant.

The only thing more disturbing to me than this tyrant getting elected is that the majority of the people of my state and michigan (as well as the others) voted for a tyrant after it became clear that he was a tyrant and had no problem with voiding our rights when it was convenient to him.

Master Fuhon · Jan 21, 2009, 08:14 PM // 20:14

When you say it's better to do something instead of doing nothing, surely what you mean is that a human being can only learn from a mistake that's already been made. Throwing an unknown clear liquid on a fire in a chemical lab or agressively pulling at a car accident victim to free him can make things worse. But these mistakes had to be made by one person before we could all learn from them. And the people saying "don't give away free money" usually are not foolish enough to believe that will prevent a collapse; the consensus is that they believe the collapse is inevitable and the only way to rebound is to take it and learn from it. But there's a specific use we get out of putting more money into this system; we can watch some of it disappear this time because no one was paying attention last time.

Now, when most people get involved in the troubleshooting process, they are entirely dependent on someone else's model defining how things work. The people handling this crisis now have probably been educated with the best we have to offer; yet unfortunately the model they are working with is strictly based on logic and numbers. If businesses and economies worked like that, these problems would have been solved a long time ago because there are plenty of people who are good with numbers. Instead, there is some underlying mechanic that the person who formulated the model ignored because it is too difficult to comprehend. The truth is that when you are performing repairs based on a false model, it does not matter what kind of brain power you have because the problem is in how you define the problem.

It almost doesn't matter what we are talking about, most inabilities to fix problems stem from the failure to use an appropriate diagnostic model. The guy fixing someone else's computer; he screws up because he uses the diagnostic model of the person who broke it. The doctor failing to treat a disease; he prescribes things that make the condition worse because he's treating symptoms instead of the cause of those symptoms. The businessman who cruches more numbers to fix things; he's forgetting that man made creations do not conform to rules of logic because they are made by beings with imperfect logic.

I think the money buys some time to look at the problem over a longer duration instead of facing it all at once. We've benefited a little from 24 hour news telling us how executives have been giving themselves treats for doing a terrible job.

ty3c · Jan 23, 2009, 04:43 PM // 16:43

bailouts wont work

in fact i'll promise you anymore bailouts at all wont work they do nothing but make the rich richer and this country is going down the shoot.

just get ready for it is all I can say.

nebuchanezzar · Jan 23, 2009, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winterclaw

Article 1. Section 8. To declare war

So yes, the US constitution does give congress the authority to declare war.

We have not declared war. The US is not at war. Congress has never passed any declaration of war. It still amazes me that people believe we are in a war because the press calls it a war. My apologies for nitpicking but, we are not at war. Declaring war is a power of Congress only, not our Commander-In-Chief.

OT,
There are other deep rooted problems that have helped to put our country in the position it is in now. Until we start to rationally look at the system's that are broken/failing/skewed then we will not ever have a "true" turn around. My personal opinion starts with our monetary system but it is not the only one.
Too often I see the media "informing"(ya right) Americans only of the symptoms and passing those off as the problems. The financial scare over mortgage foreclosures was a symptom, not a cause. I'm not going to go into detail as that would probably bore most people but, we need to have an informed, aware, and responsible populace to really deal with these root problems.....oh ya, whoops, this is America.....the land of the entitlement mentality...my bad.

Winterclaw · Jan 23, 2009, 08:08 PM // 20:08

Please don't drink the kool-aid