Unemployment Falls to Lowest Level Since 2008.

Crony RINOs and DINOs

 

All built on a strong economy across the board, had the Democrats allowed just some limited regulation and reform on Freddie and Fannie there would not have been a burst bubble. Had they done the right thing when it burst we'd have been out of this mess by now and back on track.

 

a bubble is not a strong economy....although it seems to be the strongest that tax cutting policies can generate.

 

Funny you'd say that, when 60% of the Democrats in the House voted along with 90% of the Republicans for a bill providing some limited regulation and reform of F/F, and it was the Bush administration that effectively killed that bill.

 

Yeah, I love it. At Christmas, sales are always up. A true economy is measured at the end of Summer and often depends on the price of a barrel of oil...unless you've managed to harness the sun and run powerful power plants off it and juice up electric cars/heating and so forth without that oil dependence..

Who keeps posting that map of the US with all the red BLM grazing lands on it, along with blue areas where all the people live?


..lol..

 

If you were honest, you'd admit that both sides had a big hand in ruining this economy.

 

The home construction bubble wasn't the entire economy, and all it did was replace financially solid people like myself with those who ultimately defaulted. Had they fixed the problem early no bubble to burst.

 

it was a large part of the bubble, people were using their homes "value" as ATM cards to buy cars, vacation homes, boats, pay off credit cards...

it generated billions in consumer spending that was based on smoke and mirrors.

 

Strong economy across the board? Are you serious? Strong economies don't produce the precipitous economic downturns like the Great Republican Recession of 2007.

 

I dont even think you can really lay most of the blame with politicians at all.

its a greed culture, and thats not the fault of politicians.

 

theyve convinced themselves all RW policy failures are because liberals came in and messed things up.

essentially saying their policies only work in a one party system

 

Can you shown where that happened?

1.H.R.2022 introduced on 7 May 2003 by Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT,4).
Title: To extend the registration and reporting requirements of the Federal securities laws to certain housing-related Government-sponsored enterprises, and for other purposes.
Latest Major Action: 5/23/2003 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises.
2. H.R.2117 introduced 23 May 2003 by Rep. Pete Fortney (D-CA,13).
Title: To amend the Federal National Mortgage Association Charter Act and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation Act to remove certain competitive advantages granted to the housing-related government-sponsored enterprises relative to other secondary mortgage market enterprises, and for other purposes.
Latest Major Action: 5/23/2003 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises.
3.H.R.2575 introduced on 24 June 2003 by Rep. Richard H Baker (R-LA,6).
Title: To reform the regulation of certain housing-related Government-sponsored enterprises, and for other purposes.
Latest Major Action: 9/25/2003 House committee/subcommittee actions. Status: Committee Hearings Held.
4.H.R.2803 introduced on 21 July 2003 by Rep. Edward R Royce (R-CA,40).
Title: To establish the Office of Housing Finance Oversight in the Department of the Treasury to ensure the financial safety and soundness of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal home loan banks.
Latest Major Action: 8/4/2003 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises.
5.H.R.2897 introduced on 25 July 2003 by Rep. Julia Carson (D-IN,7)
Title: To end homelessness in the United States.
Latest Major Action: 8/25/2003 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity.
6.S.1508, introduced 31 July 2003 by Sen Chuck Hagel (R-NE).
Title: A bill to address regulation of secondary mortgage market enterprises, and for other purposes.
Latest Major Action: 4/1/2004 Senate committee/subcommittee actions. Status: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably.
7.S.1656, introduced 23 September 2003 by Sen Jon S. Corzine (D-NJ).
Title: A bill to address regulation of secondary mortgage market enterprises, and for other purposes.
Latest Major Action: 9/25/2003 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
8. H.R.3507 introduced 18 November 2003 by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA,27).
Title: To expand homeownership opportunities in States having high housing costs.
Latest Major Action: 1/2/2004 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises.

Clearly, in 2003 and 2004 the issue of finance reform was not a priority of the White House or Congressional Republicans.

In the 109th Congress (2005-2006), the House overwhelmingly approved (331 to 90) HR 1461, The Federal Housing Finance Reform Act, designed "to create a stronger regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." The Senate, still controlled by Republicans lagged the House in taking action. It is not clear if this was a lack of Republican leadership or blockage by Democratic leadership (filibuster threats). (Shout if you have links to illustrate this impasse.)

HR 1461 remained stalled in the Senate: last action, 31 October 2005, referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

On 31 July 2007, after the Democrats obtained control of the Congress in the November 2006 election, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced HR 3221, a "bill to provide needed housing reform and for other purposes." Among other things, the bill granted the newly formed Federal Housing Finance Agency "supervisory and regulatory authority over Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the federal home loan banks (enterprises)" (per CRS analysis).

Pelosi's bill became Public Law 110-140 on 19 December 2007 110-289 on 30 July 2008.

 

And didn't have to burst, it was the shifting of buyers from qualified to unqualified due to the Democrat policies that caused it. My house value went up and came back down, didn't make a difference other than I had less disposable income due to higher insurance and taxes on that value. Now I have more as the appraisal value came back down. For those who did buy there were those of us who didn't.

I spent bunches and it was not smoke and mirrors, we had full employment and people were working, not being paid not to work as Obama seems to favor.

 

Government meddling in the market causes them and it could have been avoided.

 

Here is the vote on that bill, HR 1461, the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005, which was the *only* bill to regulate F/F to ever be passed (in 2005) by a chamber of the Republican controlled Congress.

Party - Ayes - Nays
Republican 209 15
Democratic 122 74

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll547.xml

As you can see, over 60% of the Democrats joined with over 90% of the Republicans to vote for the Republican bill to provide greater regulation and oversight of Fannie/Freddie.

And here is the the Bush administration's response to this, the only bill to regulate F/F ever passed by either chamber of the Republican controlled Congress:

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=24851

"the Administration opposes the bill"

And here's a link to an article about Republican Mike Oxley, sponsor of that bill, saying how they "got a one-finger salute” from the Bush White House.


He fumes about the criticism of his House colleagues. “All the handwringing and bedwetting is going on without remembering how the House stepped up on this,” he says. “What did we get from the White House? We got a one-finger salute.”

The House bill, the 2005 Federal Housing Finance Reform Act, would have created a stronger regulator with new powers to increase capital at Fannie and Freddie, to limit their portfolios and to deal with the possibility of receivership.

Mr Oxley reached out to Barney Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the committee and now its chairman, to secure support on the other side of the aisle. But after winning bipartisan support in the House, where the bill passed by 331 to 90 votes, the legislation lacked a champion in the Senate and faced hostility from the Bush administration. Adamant that the only solution to the problems posed by Fannie and Freddie was their privatisation, the White House attacked the bill. Mr Greenspan also weighed in, saying that the House legislation was worse than no bill at all.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8780c35e-7e91-11dd-b1af-000077b07658.html
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/09/10/greenspan_bush_fannie_freddie/index.html
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/one-finger-salute/[/url}

 

Layoffs resume after a brief pause last month...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/29/us-economy-idUSTRE7BE12S20111229

 

They fluctuate week to week. But after declining 4 straight weeks in a row, they are still far below the 450k range we were seeing a few months ago.

 

This could be the result of less people on the unemployment cheese. some call it welfare for legal aliens. They and their employer pays into it along with billions of US tax money. When that 2 years of cheese is up the unemployed cant file a claim. Hence, they are taken off the list of unemployed. On the other spectrum empolyers report on their capaicy of employees, and the holiday hire was a big part of that.

When you put it all togeather it looks like unemployment is down. But the reality is nothing has realy changed sicne 2008.

 

Other than the fact (as has been pointed out numerous times in this thread) that 1) the numbers are seasonally adjusted, 2) the numbers reflect new initial applications, not continued benefits, and 3) the unemployment numbers have nothing to do with uenmployment benefits, you'd have a point.

 

What it effects is the % unemployed. It makes it appear better than it is when people are just dropping out of the workforce altogether which is what is happening. The new initial applications is still horrible as it has been for 3 years now.

 

When Obama took office weekly initial claims were in the 5-600,000+ range.

Only a dishonest person invested in failure for political purposes could say that initial claims, which have been below 400k for several weeks now, is as horrible as it has been.

 

Yeah that usually happens at the start of a recession.............DUH.

Then we recover, except not now. 3 years AFTER that recession ended and the numbers we see are HORRIBLE.

Oh spare us your phony logical fallacies when you can't present and intellectual argument.

 

Well DUH. So they obviously aren't as horrible. DUH.

The Great Recession was HORRIBLE.

But claims below 400k is not HORRIBLE. Unless you want to call the entire Reagan presidency HORRIBLE. Initial unemployment claims averaged about 400k while he was president.

Truth hurts, eh?

 

oh so blame Bush!?

 

Or the Democratic Congress that created the housing bubble...