GDP Goes Negative In Fourth Quarter

I agree that the increased spending for wars and social programs were fiscally irresponsible.

I supported Bush instead of Kerry because Kerry would have wasted even more money than Bush did.

Or so I thought at the time.

Conservatives have not had a real fiscal conservative that meets the purity test for a long time.

But we and the nation sure need one now.

 

I have no problem with honest conservatives. I voted for Ron Paul and supported Gary Johnson during the last election, but I supported them since I was liberal. I found common ground with them over foreign policy and civil liberties. I disagree with them over economic issues.

While you yearn for a Conservative politician, I yearn for a liberal politician. When was the last time a liberal won the WH? It was FDR. One could claim LBJ was a liberal, but he didn't win the WH. Plus, him and his Secretary of State were lying war mongering (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)s. At least he enacted Medicare and strengthened SS while bombing yellow people.

 

Obama is more liberal than FDR or LBJ.

And far less patriotic.

Those two were misguided on their domestic policy but at least they wanted to defend America.

 

Obama is to the right of Nixon.

Stop making (*)(*)(*)(*) up, especially in the name of patriotism.

I see this conversation all of a sudden took the turn for the worse.

Plus, Obama has defended America. While I don't agree with his neocon lite FP, he has defended America. Only RWNJ believe otherwise.

Take care.

 

No he isn't.

Obama is a "progressive" in the worst sense of the word.

I don't know how he could push his radical left-wing statist agenda any harder without declaring martial law and surrounding congress and the Supreme Court with jackbooted thugs armed with assault rifles and M1 tanks.

 

A moderate Republican is not a radical liberal.

Then again, RWNJ are filled with hysteria and fear that makes them blind.

 

That's (*)(*)(*)(*)ing bull(*)(*)(*)(*).

 

Ahh.

Yeah well that's certainly true, I just don't buy that Presidents have that much impact on recessions and expansions. Sure, they no doubt have an effect, but one would think the Fed would take most of the blame - which remains fairly the same across presidencies.

Sure, artificial stimulus just broadens the miscalculation, but to say that.. without Obama there'd be a good recovery seems a little bit unfounded to me. There's no way McCain or Romney would but the brakes on the fed, nor would they have laissez faire economic policy in general. Isn't it sort of sad that we're talking about spending and taxation as the executive's domain? Really illuminates the fact that your country has a de facto pseudo-parliamentary system with the executive controlling the legislature.

 

American presidents are limited to broad stroke and overall climate. Obama offered business the prospect of higher energy prices, higher labor and physical costs through regulatory changes and health care mandates. Higher taxes were also threatened. None of it was expansionary. None of it spurred business. OK, if you were a fraud front 'green energy' scam you got perks and spiffs and loans and you needed to do nothing. Failure WAS your preferred option.

And American business saw this train wreck coming BEFORE Obama was actually elected. They lightened their load, employees, commitments, whatever, well before he was elected and by January 2009 the bulk of the damage was done.

 

The Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway in US history, was built and financed entirely by private businessmen. In fact, our Federal government had no involvement in the road system until the 1920's. How did our country manage to grow and develop before the 1920's? It's a mystery...

 

Sorry man but that's just ridiculous.

You think business preemptively predicted that Obama would be marginally harsher on business and decided to halt all investment? That's preposterous, especially when there was a subprime mortgage crisis caused in large part by the fed right before your graphs show the crash.

Blaming stuff like this on Obama makes it look like you're irrational - there are bigger fish to fry when it comes to the recession/expansion cycle.

 

Every hack economist is entitled to their unfalsifiable hypotheses, you, me, Krugman, all of them.

 

Its 4 years later, and all things Obama still suck. Are we only allowed to observe such now, and claim that we are surprised things did not go better ? Admittedly, the Press tells us every week for the last few years how downturns were somehow not anticipated !

Kind of a stupid position to take, is it not ?

 

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...EwQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=hyper inflation&f=false

Here we have an actual textbook on the principles of economics, telling us about runaway inflation;

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=runaway inflation&f=false

http://www.dictionarist.com/runaway+inflation

here we have a conservative defining it;

http://capital-flow-watch.net/how-to-survive-runaway-inflation/

As above 'runaway inflation' is not a made up term.

 

Obama is not a moderate Republican.

He's a radical leftist who would like to be an outright dictator if he gets the chance.

You may be even more far left than Obama.

That would be difficult to do but I suppose it is possible.

But no way does that make Obama a moderate except in your eyes.

The rest of us see the man for what he really is.

 

That wouldn't be because he constantly threatens using executive orders is it?

 

I think executive orders are only the tip of the Obama dictatorship iceberg.

He's capable of far worse given the weak and spineless Republicans in congress.

 

Grab all the guns so no one can oppose him? Would he do that?

 

All leftists dream of that.

I think he's using his office to grab power wherever he can including promoting generals who will do ANYTHING they are told.

 

No, I didn't vote for Obama and I don't agree with many of his policies or agenda but I can read a newspaper. What I saw were Republicans that refused to address the fact that temporary tax cuts needed to be allowed to expire and that tax loopholes for corporations and investors needed to be eliminated.

If anything President Obama didn't go far enough. When we have a trillion dollar deficit none of the Bush era tax cuts or the tax cut to FICA/Payroll taxes made any sense.

Unlike "Republicans" I am a fiscal conservative and the first rule of being a fiscal conservative is PAY THE BILLS! After the bills are being paid then it's time to figure out how to reduce them. A fiscal conservative doesn't stop paying their mortgage because the interest rate is too high. The pay the mortgage and then refinance the loan. A fiscal conservative doen't refuse to pay their cable TV bill because it's too high. They pay the bill and then cut the programing to reduce the costs. The "Tea Party" element of the Republican Party simply said, "Lets don't pay the bill and borrow to cover the costs" and that is not fiscal conservatism.

Unlike "Republicans" I can see that a small business owner with $100K/yr in net income pays a 37% tax rate, a corporation with the identical $100K/yr in net income pays 22% and an investor with the identical $100K/yr in net income pays less than 20% and that isn't "fair" taxation. All of these should be paying the identical tax rate because they have the identical income.

The Republicans in the House took the US economy to the edge of the fiscal cliff because they were idiots, period, and that was the cause of the contraction in the 4th Quarter of 2012. They were for deficit spending and they opposed fair taxation in America. This isn't a "liberal" opinion but instead an independent "libertarian" position. Pay the bills and then reduce spending. Eliminate unfair taxation and treat every dollar of income the same under our tax laws without playing favoritism to the wealthy.

Republicans in the House opposed, and still oppose, balancing the budget and eliminating unfair tax rates that favor wealthy investors and corporations over the workers and small business owners in America.

 

No one cares about or respects your silly fantasies.

 

I said "Obama and the Democrats took over and in 2008 ", that is factually correct. Obama was a full voting member of the Democrat controlled Senate. Not only that he voted AGAINST the 2007 Bush/Republican budget and the $161B deficit because the Democrats wanted more spending.

Not only did Obama support and vote for the $400B Democrat deficit of 2008 and supported and voted for and signed into law the 2009 budget which increased the deficit to $1,400 billion almost TEN TIMES the last Republican budget.

CATO is not right wing it is libertarian and does not belie the fact that the 2008 budget was a Democrat budget, Bush's was DOA and not even considered. The 2009 budget was entirely a Democrat budget support by Obama, voted for by Obama and signed into law by Obama in March of 2009. Yes it was set in place before he moved from the Capital building over to the White House, that does not change the fact of his role in it.

Do you mistakenly believe he road into town on January of 2009?

Claiming false unsupported consensus does not change the fact. The stimulus and deficits have NOT put us into a recovery and now we see things going negative.

It was suppose to kick us into a long term recovery, it did not and along with the host of other failures of this President have kept us from going into a full recovery.

They are called facts and they remain unrefuted.

 

AFTER he and his fellow Democrats increased the deficit from $161B to $1,400B!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bush and the Republicans, after the slowdown and recession he inherited hit a one year deficit of $400 billion lower it to a measly $161 billion. Obama and the Democrats took it to $400 billion in 2008 and the $1,600 billion in 2009 and have kept it over $1,100 billion ever since.

So what exactly are you trying to brag about here?

 

10 years is not temporary and the rates need to be made permanent.

The FICA holiday should never have occurred and was a Democrat sham on the taxpayer and future recipients.

Wrong, the first rule is don't incur bills you can't pay and don't just keep charging it on your credit card. Then gain additional revenue through economic growth not higher tax rates.

They didn't say anything of the sort.

The corporation pays 22% then the individuals who make up the corporation pay 37% on their left over profits. That's 59%.

The Democrats took it to the edge because they refuse to pass budgets and cut spending.

 

That disaster of 52 months of full employment, soaring tax revenues and lower deficits in 2005, 2006 2007 down to a measly $161B. Yeah what a disaster. I guess you claim that the Democrats saved the day after 2008 when they turned that around into 10% unemployment and deficits over a TRILLION and GDP in the tank.