Already 5 Years Into a Lost Decade

[briansd1]

[quote=gandalf]

Although in fairness, I’m not sure what I would have done differently. The situation was fairly precarious a couple of years ago, from everything I understand. Here’s my starter list though:

– Guarantee all bank accounts and transactions
– Immediately seize insolvent financial institutions
– Fire management and remove board of directors
– Prosecute fraud where applicable, enforce laws
– Begin restructuring troubled banks for workout
– Break up “Too big to fail” banking institutions
– Implement serious financial regulatory reform
– Workout pricing imbalances in the housing market
– Expedite foreclosures with social assistance
[/quote]

That’s a good list Gandalf, and certainly one I would support.

But reality is different from the ideal situations.

There are entrenched interests which much be dislodged over time. We have to do that step by step. You can’t reform the financial system overnight.

[briansd1]

[quote=Rich Toscano]
I think we’ll be really lucky if it ends up playing out the way it did in Japan. Japan has (or at least had, in the case of the latter) a huge current account surplus and high savings rate. It was never in the situation that we are, which is that we are utterly dependent on foreign lending. Should our creditors pull the plug, that will be a lot more economically painful than the mild deflation and stagnant growth that took place in Japan.[/quote]

I think that America has a trump card that Japan doesn’t have: our military power.

If our creditors try to pull the plug, perhaps like the neighborhood mafia, we are going to have to charge for “protection”.

[briansd1]

[quote=Rich Toscano]
I think we’ll be really lucky if it ends up playing out the way it did in Japan. Japan has (or at least had, in the case of the latter) a huge current account surplus and high savings rate. It was never in the situation that we are, which is that we are utterly dependent on foreign lending. Should our creditors pull the plug, that will be a lot more economically painful than the mild deflation and stagnant growth that took place in Japan.[/quote]

I think that America has a trump card that Japan doesn’t have: our military power.

If our creditors try to pull the plug, perhaps like the neighborhood mafia, we are going to have to charge for “protection”.

[briansd1]

[quote=Rich Toscano]
I think we’ll be really lucky if it ends up playing out the way it did in Japan. Japan has (or at least had, in the case of the latter) a huge current account surplus and high savings rate. It was never in the situation that we are, which is that we are utterly dependent on foreign lending. Should our creditors pull the plug, that will be a lot more economically painful than the mild deflation and stagnant growth that took place in Japan.[/quote]

I think that America has a trump card that Japan doesn’t have: our military power.

If our creditors try to pull the plug, perhaps like the neighborhood mafia, we are going to have to charge for “protection”.

[briansd1]

[quote=Rich Toscano]
I think we’ll be really lucky if it ends up playing out the way it did in Japan. Japan has (or at least had, in the case of the latter) a huge current account surplus and high savings rate. It was never in the situation that we are, which is that we are utterly dependent on foreign lending. Should our creditors pull the plug, that will be a lot more economically painful than the mild deflation and stagnant growth that took place in Japan.[/quote]

I think that America has a trump card that Japan doesn’t have: our military power.

If our creditors try to pull the plug, perhaps like the neighborhood mafia, we are going to have to charge for “protection”.

[briansd1]

[quote=Rich Toscano]
I think we’ll be really lucky if it ends up playing out the way it did in Japan. Japan has (or at least had, in the case of the latter) a huge current account surplus and high savings rate. It was never in the situation that we are, which is that we are utterly dependent on foreign lending. Should our creditors pull the plug, that will be a lot more economically painful than the mild deflation and stagnant growth that took place in Japan.[/quote]

I think that America has a trump card that Japan doesn’t have: our military power.

If our creditors try to pull the plug, perhaps like the neighborhood mafia, we are going to have to charge for “protection”.

[briansd1]

[quote=Rich Toscano]
This is just nonsense… all they did was borrow a bunch of money they didn’t have. They didn’t even do a good job spending it.

[/quote]

Of course, it’s all relative.

We have to look at the Administration’s policies in the context of the Great Recession and financial collapse, and compare them to the ideas of the opposition which would have been to do nothing.

I’m saying that Republicans would have done nothing judging from the fact that the stimulus bill passed along party lines. Zero out of 178 Republicans supported the bill. The stimulus bill included $300 billion in tax cuts.

What were the Republican ideas for getting us out of recession? None.

Of the ideas advanced by each side, which ones are preferable? That’s the question.

[briansd1]

[quote=Rich Toscano]
This is just nonsense… all they did was borrow a bunch of money they didn’t have. They didn’t even do a good job spending it.

[/quote]

Of course, it’s all relative.

We have to look at the Administration’s policies in the context of the Great Recession and financial collapse, and compare them to the ideas of the opposition which would have been to do nothing.

I’m saying that Republicans would have done nothing judging from the fact that the stimulus bill passed along party lines. Zero out of 178 Republicans supported the bill. The stimulus bill included $300 billion in tax cuts.

What were the Republican ideas for getting us out of recession? None.

Of the ideas advanced by each side, which ones are preferable? That’s the question.

[briansd1]

[quote=Rich Toscano]
This is just nonsense… all they did was borrow a bunch of money they didn’t have. They didn’t even do a good job spending it.

[/quote]

Of course, it’s all relative.

We have to look at the Administration’s policies in the context of the Great Recession and financial collapse, and compare them to the ideas of the opposition which would have been to do nothing.

I’m saying that Republicans would have done nothing judging from the fact that the stimulus bill passed along party lines. Zero out of 178 Republicans supported the bill. The stimulus bill included $300 billion in tax cuts.

What were the Republican ideas for getting us out of recession? None.

Of the ideas advanced by each side, which ones are preferable? That’s the question.

[briansd1]

[quote=Rich Toscano]
This is just nonsense… all they did was borrow a bunch of money they didn’t have. They didn’t even do a good job spending it.

[/quote]

Of course, it’s all relative.

We have to look at the Administration’s policies in the context of the Great Recession and financial collapse, and compare them to the ideas of the opposition which would have been to do nothing.

I’m saying that Republicans would have done nothing judging from the fact that the stimulus bill passed along party lines. Zero out of 178 Republicans supported the bill. The stimulus bill included $300 billion in tax cuts.

What were the Republican ideas for getting us out of recession? None.

Of the ideas advanced by each side, which ones are preferable? That’s the question.

[briansd1]

[quote=Rich Toscano]
This is just nonsense… all they did was borrow a bunch of money they didn’t have. They didn’t even do a good job spending it.

[/quote]

Of course, it’s all relative.

We have to look at the Administration’s policies in the context of the Great Recession and financial collapse, and compare them to the ideas of the opposition which would have been to do nothing.

I’m saying that Republicans would have done nothing judging from the fact that the stimulus bill passed along party lines. Zero out of 178 Republicans supported the bill. The stimulus bill included $300 billion in tax cuts.

What were the Republican ideas for getting us out of recession? None.

Of the ideas advanced by each side, which ones are preferable? That’s the question.

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=briansd1]

We have to look at the Administration’s policies in the context of the Great Recession and financial collapse, and compare them to the ideas of the opposition which would have been to do nothing.

I’m saying that Republicans would have done nothing judging from the fact that the stimulus bill passed along party lines. Zero out of 178 Republicans supported the bill. The stimulus bill included $300 billion in tax cuts.

What were the Republican ideas for getting us out of recession? None.

Of the ideas advanced by each side, which ones are preferable? That’s the question.[/quote]

No, that’s not the question.

I don’t really care what the Republicans would have done. You said that the current administration has done a “great job” with their economic policy during the recession. I said that this is horribly misguided. To disagree with this, in my opinion, is to completely misunderstand the nature of what got us here, and of what could eventually get us out. What the Republicans would have done is irrelevant.

That said, it is also totally wrong to say that the Reps would have done nothing. Look what they did under Bush — they threw even more money at the financial industry than the Obama administration did. They are all appeasers for the incompetent and corrupt financial industry.

Now look. If you like one side better than the other, that’s fine. But you conflate being better than the Republicans (in your opinion) with being great. Those aren’t the same things. And I feel the same way for all the right wingers who give the Republicans a free pass for all their sins, despite the fact that (in their opinion) the Republicans are better than the Democrats.

They both suck. Sorry. That is incontrovertible, in my opinion. So when someone says that the current administration has done a “great job” with economic economy, I’m going to call it out as being the misguided partisan cheerleading that it is.

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=briansd1]

We have to look at the Administration’s policies in the context of the Great Recession and financial collapse, and compare them to the ideas of the opposition which would have been to do nothing.

I’m saying that Republicans would have done nothing judging from the fact that the stimulus bill passed along party lines. Zero out of 178 Republicans supported the bill. The stimulus bill included $300 billion in tax cuts.

What were the Republican ideas for getting us out of recession? None.

Of the ideas advanced by each side, which ones are preferable? That’s the question.[/quote]

No, that’s not the question.

I don’t really care what the Republicans would have done. You said that the current administration has done a “great job” with their economic policy during the recession. I said that this is horribly misguided. To disagree with this, in my opinion, is to completely misunderstand the nature of what got us here, and of what could eventually get us out. What the Republicans would have done is irrelevant.

That said, it is also totally wrong to say that the Reps would have done nothing. Look what they did under Bush — they threw even more money at the financial industry than the Obama administration did. They are all appeasers for the incompetent and corrupt financial industry.

Now look. If you like one side better than the other, that’s fine. But you conflate being better than the Republicans (in your opinion) with being great. Those aren’t the same things. And I feel the same way for all the right wingers who give the Republicans a free pass for all their sins, despite the fact that (in their opinion) the Republicans are better than the Democrats.

They both suck. Sorry. That is incontrovertible, in my opinion. So when someone says that the current administration has done a “great job” with economic economy, I’m going to call it out as being the misguided partisan cheerleading that it is.

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=briansd1]

We have to look at the Administration’s policies in the context of the Great Recession and financial collapse, and compare them to the ideas of the opposition which would have been to do nothing.

I’m saying that Republicans would have done nothing judging from the fact that the stimulus bill passed along party lines. Zero out of 178 Republicans supported the bill. The stimulus bill included $300 billion in tax cuts.

What were the Republican ideas for getting us out of recession? None.

Of the ideas advanced by each side, which ones are preferable? That’s the question.[/quote]

No, that’s not the question.

I don’t really care what the Republicans would have done. You said that the current administration has done a “great job” with their economic policy during the recession. I said that this is horribly misguided. To disagree with this, in my opinion, is to completely misunderstand the nature of what got us here, and of what could eventually get us out. What the Republicans would have done is irrelevant.

That said, it is also totally wrong to say that the Reps would have done nothing. Look what they did under Bush — they threw even more money at the financial industry than the Obama administration did. They are all appeasers for the incompetent and corrupt financial industry.

Now look. If you like one side better than the other, that’s fine. But you conflate being better than the Republicans (in your opinion) with being great. Those aren’t the same things. And I feel the same way for all the right wingers who give the Republicans a free pass for all their sins, despite the fact that (in their opinion) the Republicans are better than the Democrats.

They both suck. Sorry. That is incontrovertible, in my opinion. So when someone says that the current administration has done a “great job” with economic economy, I’m going to call it out as being the misguided partisan cheerleading that it is.

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=briansd1]

We have to look at the Administration’s policies in the context of the Great Recession and financial collapse, and compare them to the ideas of the opposition which would have been to do nothing.

I’m saying that Republicans would have done nothing judging from the fact that the stimulus bill passed along party lines. Zero out of 178 Republicans supported the bill. The stimulus bill included $300 billion in tax cuts.

What were the Republican ideas for getting us out of recession? None.

Of the ideas advanced by each side, which ones are preferable? That’s the question.[/quote]

No, that’s not the question.

I don’t really care what the Republicans would have done. You said that the current administration has done a “great job” with their economic policy during the recession. I said that this is horribly misguided. To disagree with this, in my opinion, is to completely misunderstand the nature of what got us here, and of what could eventually get us out. What the Republicans would have done is irrelevant.

That said, it is also totally wrong to say that the Reps would have done nothing. Look what they did under Bush — they threw even more money at the financial industry than the Obama administration did. They are all appeasers for the incompetent and corrupt financial industry.

Now look. If you like one side better than the other, that’s fine. But you conflate being better than the Republicans (in your opinion) with being great. Those aren’t the same things. And I feel the same way for all the right wingers who give the Republicans a free pass for all their sins, despite the fact that (in their opinion) the Republicans are better than the Democrats.

They both suck. Sorry. That is incontrovertible, in my opinion. So when someone says that the current administration has done a “great job” with economic economy, I’m going to call it out as being the misguided partisan cheerleading that it is.

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