No. Adding artifical demand doesnt fix the problem, just pushes the ultimate solution back.

And the equal and opposite reaction is that creating a massive government program based on debt slows the economy in general.

There was nothing artificial about the demand.

There is no evidence that the stimulus slowed the economy.  Every economic indicator we have shows that the economy responded positively at the exact moment the stimulus went into effect.

Lets say you are the head of a family of 5 and you own a home. Things get tight so you take out a second mortage.

For a while things seem great as you have cash to spend. In reality your long term debt is higher and in reality you have more bills and the same income.

Things are better on paper and worse in reality.

This is a parallel of the Obama stimulus.

are you saying that there is "No" evidence? If I produce some are you wrong?

The government is not a family (or a business), the budgets don't work the same.

Income equals spending.  This is an absolute truth.

If spending goes down (people and businesses stop buying stuff) income goes down (wages fall and jobs disappear).

There are three options for the government at that point:
     Do nothing and hope that the economy sorts itself out.
     Encourage additional spending with lower taxes, lower interest rates, and quantitative easing
     Direct stimulation of the economy by spending more on infrastructure, education, defense, energy, etc.

It did not look to anyone studying the situation that the economy would sort itself out anytime soon.  Economy was contracting at a very high rate.  Using a combination of options 2 and 3 was the best solution.

If this was so logical why did the Obama predictions of the stimulus fall so short.

Posted by swamphawk22 on 5/23/2012 1:04:00 PM (view original):
If this was so logical why did the Obama predictions of the stimulus fall so short.

They thought the crash was smaller than it was.  Economic analysis at the time pointed to a 4-5% contraction.  It was actually a 10% contraction.  The stimulus would have needed to be bigger to match the predictions.

The crash was smaller? How can this be possible?

The analysis was done after the crash took place.

Why couldnt the stimulus plan have caused a larger contraction?

As they were dealing with the crashing economy, they thought it was contracting at a rate of 4 or 5%.  Looking back we know it actually contracted at a rate of close to 10%.

The contraction slowed/stopped when the stimulus was implemented. 

So just to review...

Crash....Obama takes office....Obama analyzes the crash....Creates plan to fix it....Plan passes and goes into law....Analysis was wrong....Economy contimued to get worse.....Obama analysis was wrong....It was not Obama's fault??

The stimulus was too small.  That is Obama's fault.

Posted by crackatoeha on 5/20/2012 7:37:00 PM (view original):
That's following the company line.......when found out, first ignore, when that does't work, attack.........waiting for the attack.

As I said before, keep ignoring the facts.  Bush had to deal with a lefty set of houses dead set on making the right look bad so the communist in chief could get in office.  All put forth by Bill Ayrs and Soros.............Hope you are happy with the results, a true unemployment of 22%, 30 % loss of housing value, a doubling of gas prices, a doubling of debt to 16 trillion and a middle east that thinks we are a joke.  Nice job prez and you kool aid drinking fools.

Posted by wrmiller13 on 5/22/2012 11:06:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jrd_x on 5/22/2012 11:25:00 AM (view original):

Posted by crackatoeha on 5/22/2012 10:17:00 AM (view original):
How about talking about the fact that there has not been a constitutionaly mandated budget put forth by this joke in over 1200 days.  Or the fact that he has added more debt than all of the other pres. combined.  Or that in 2004 he was warned by Bush that fannie and freddie were going dowm and he and his buddies Barney and Dodd said all was fine, took their 15 Mil in bonuses and let the housing market crash, on purpose and on schedule.

That is quite a paragraph.

So the president is responsible for legislating a budget?

In 2004, the current president knew enough to warn a senator about fannie and freddie, but not enough to actually do anything about it himself over the next four years?

You do know that the collapse happened before obama became president right?

This is a nice contradiction you put forth here.

The president cannot (obviously) "legislate" a budget into being.

But the president can "do something" about the impending collapse of Fannie and Freddie?

What, pray tell, should he have done, other than warn the legislative body and implore them to "do something" about it?

I guess we will just gloss over this double standard that is apparent here?

The president can't legislate a budget.  If you want to blame congress for that, it's OK with me.

If the president knew the financial collapse was coming in 2004, it's odd to blame the president that took office in 2009.  Again, if you want to blame the financial collapse on congress or a lack of regulatory oversight, that's also fine with me.

I just found it odd that you were so quick to lay the blame on one president for NOT doing something, yet absolving the other president for not being able to do something.

In both circumstances, there is plenty of blame to go around.

IMO, the single biggest problem with our system is that both sides are terrified of admitting that they have some of the responsibility for the mess we are in.

Two different situations.  Crackhoe pointed out that the president hadn't put forth a budget.  He actually did.  It just wasn't approved by congress.

Then crackhoe said that Bush warned Obama about fannie and freddie and the financial collapse but that Obama didn't do anything about it.  Putting aside for the moment that Fannie and Freddie didn't cause the collapse, that seems a little ridiculous.  If the president knew the situation was going to lead to collapse, his warning a  senator doesn't absolve him of responsibility.