Democrats only barely had control of congress, and Republicans controlled the presidency. Responsibility was shared. The unemployment went up not because of the democrats in congress or Bush, but because of the recession. You have no evidence the failed stimulus, and the unemployment would have been much worse without the bailouts and stimulus. You just can't stop a big recession in its tracks when trillions of dollars disappear overnight and everyone goes into a panic. When a recession likes this happens, you have to spend to get out of it and revenue will drop. Massive deficits are inevitable. The slowest recovery to a rather normal recession. Specifically what spending? What programs? And was this permanent? That is true for the more socialist democrats. If the Republicans had been in charge there would have been no stimulus and no auto bailout. The recession would have been much, the recovery much slower, and our auto industry would be in much worse shape.
They had both Houses of Congress in order to pass legislation to help mitigate the slowdown and recovery. We have evidence by their own measure the stimulus failed, the recession ended 6 months after Obama moved over to the White House and before any of the stimulus began. Remember Obams's weak excuse "well those shovel ready jobs weren't so ready"? Unemployment soared and LFPR fell off the cliff. The Republicans showed the way in 2001 following in their steps from 1996-2000 after Clinton's tax rate increase had slowed the strong recovery he inherited and slowed the upward growth of tax revenues. It wasn't the slowest but the one mistake the Republicans made was the phase in for the tax rate cuts, by 2003 they realized that and passed a bill to implement them in full and the economy took off. One reason it was "normal" was because of their actions as opposed to the Democrats who came into office preaching huge tax increases, more regulations and controls on businesses and energy and the economy. Are you denying their spending increases? The budgets are public record go look them up but here is what they were saying at the time. "In FY2009, Congress did not complete work by September 30, 2008. President Bush did sign some appropriations bills and a continuing resolution to keep the government running into President Obama’s first term, yet a Democrat controlled Congress purposely held off on the big spending portions of the appropriations bills until Obama took office. They did so for the purposes of jacking up spending. President Obama signed the final FY2009 spending bills on March 11, 2009. The Democrats purposely held off on the appropriations process because they hoped they could come into 2009 with a new Democrat-friendly Congress and a President who would sign bloated spending bills. Remember, President Obama was in the Senate when these bills were crafted and he was part of this process to craft bloated spending bills. CQ reported that “in delaying the nine remaining bills until 2009, Democrats gambled that they would come out of the November 2008 elections with bigger majorities in both chambers and a Democrat in the White House who would support more funding for domestic programs.” And they did. The Truth about President Obama's Skyrocketing Spending "Unlike last year, when Bush forced Democrats to accept lower spending figures, this year could prove more difficult for the president. The fiscal year begins Oct. 1, less than four months before he leaves office. "He doesn't have us over a barrel this year, because either a President Clinton or a President Obama will have to deal with us next year," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "We are not going to be held hostage to the unreasonableness of this president." Much of the president's plan has little chance of passage, lawmakers and budget experts say. Nearly $200 billion in Medicare and Medicaid savings need congressional approval, which Democrats are unlikely to provide. "Dead on arrival," vowed Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-02-03-bush-budget_N.htm Which Democrat candidates are running on a fiscal conservative policy and cutting spending and lower deficits with a goal of balanced budgets? Correct and the economy would have gone into a recovery and we wouldn't have wasted billions on GM and the union. GM is not "the auto industry" our auto industry here in the South made it through quite well inspite of Obama creating a situation of unfair competition. Republicans as before would have kept confidence up with business and consumers and investing and not gone on a failed trickle up/demand side folly and huge increases in business and investing cost.
Pretty cute. Stupid, but cute. They reach back to the worst part of the crash and compare to the period after the recovery. I guess it just wouldn't sound good to compare Obama's last 3 years would it? Then of course there is inflation under Trump do to his policies, but we will just ignore that. But keep it up it will work on the Trumpers.
Desiring FAIR trade is not protectionist. The left is willing, and historically, as put the United States at a huge disadvantage with trade policies that benefited our trade partners at our own demise. I have asked this question about 13 times now on this forum, and nobody has elected to answer. Would you prefer: 1. Trade policies that make the US workers disadvantaged globally due to labor and environmental protections leading to layoffs and outsourcing... meaning, we can buy cheap **** with jobs that make minimum wage or 2. A reduction in our standard of living so that US works can compete with slave labor in China... meaning our employees can't afford the stuff they manufacture Which one is it? You don't get to have it both ways. Attempting to have your cake and eat it too is precisely why we find ourselves in the situation we are in. Manufacturers leaving the United States for China, Mexico, and other countries that don't have such strict labor and environmental regulations. The 3rd option is to leverage our consumerism by demanding that if manufacturers leave the US, that the products they ship back to us makes up the difference of the savings of using slave labor. What you are advocating is an open trade policy globally where the various parties must operate under different requirements. We will lose that battle, and we are currently losing it. So we are going to pretend that businesses don't make decisions for hiring and investment based on political business friendly or unfriendly conditions?
You say you are not in favor of protectionism, yet you seem to want eliminate the comparative advantage of low cost labor. I think most realize some problems with China's trade policy. What they disagree with is Trump's approach to it. Corporations take advantage of these countries comparative advantage for their benefit. It's called capitalism.
What isnt funny is how our elites and ruling class rig the system to only benefit the elites who finance campaigns. And indeed that is our reality. It destroys a middle class and creates social problems, and destroys a republic. Not to mention what it does to average people who work. FDR saved capitslism once from the greed of rich sociopaths and it is high time another one gets elected.Who will also stop our managed decline. Being a retired business owner, capitalism is great but only when the wealth it generates does not mostly travel to a few. When the system is rigged to do just that. And both parties have done that once the old Dem party was destroyed by Clinton and other treasonous bastards. I left that party under clinton when he embraced the disemboweling of America and her middle class. No doubt it will take another big economic crash and depression to wake up more people so the people take back their govt from the greed driven sociopaths who give no allegiance to any country.
No, it's called "Trade." A comparative advantage means that a nation produces a good at a lower opportunity cost. Unless you're enjoy wasting implicit/explicit resources (time, money, labor, capital, etc), you would be a fool NOT to take advantage.
In Capitalism, individuals who provide value to others are more wealthy than those who fail to do so. You're not saying anything meaningful, here.
If you can find no meaning in an obvious rigged system designed to create max income disparity then that is on you not me. FDR said the same thing long ago and took on his rich peers. And saved capitalism . We have seen two distinct models of capitslism. One model benefits many people including the people who supplies the work to create the wealth and the other is rigged to send the income mostly to the top. By the book free market capitslism has never existed in modern civ. Take demand and supply as it applies to wages. So if labor is needed but supply is short owners have to raise wages so as to have needed labor. But in some sectors to keep from raising wages you use illegal aliens to get around one principle of market capitalism and wages in that sector remains the same and stagnate for Americans in that sector. If neither party will stop illegal immigration the illegal labor supply keeps wages from rising as the cost of living goes up . The national chamber of commerce is a lobby for cheap illegal labor. So the system gets rigged against working people. This is real world capitalism as practiced. And apparently to you...meaningless And that is absurd. Not sure what reality you hail from but it aint the one working people live in .
Debatable. I'm not really interested in discussing what happened more than 70 years ago. I'm not sure which version of capitalism exist where income isn't mostly at the top. Rich people have more sources of income than the poor. That is true regardless of the economic system that is adopted. The United States is a free market economy. I don't know what you're talking about. You're not talking about very many sectors of the economy, because illegal immigration tends to supply very low skill labor, which are not very susceptible to wages increases, even with labor shortages. Secondly, the condition you're referring to is known as the Natural Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment, or NAIRU. Employers aren't increasing wages because there is a shortage of labor. They do it under labor market tightness, usually when the unemployment rate exceeds full employment levels. Wages increase due to inflation. Wages will rise regardless of illegal labor supplies. The only wages that will primarily be affected by illegal immigration are (as I've stated previously) low wage, low skill labor, due to the fact that illegal immigration is the primary competition for this talent pool. You haven't demonstrated that the system is rigged against working people; nor have you stated anything remotely accurate.
So when did providing such things move from labor prospering by their work and being at least lower middle class to dropping out of the middle? It was when capitalism moved from being a model that allowed for a large working middle class to a model that primarily served only the top by offshoring middle class jobs to working poor labor. I believe capitalism should benefit workers instead of exploiting them as our corporations do. A nation's capitalism should benefit the country and her people. If that means less profit as it once did then so be it. Having an ethical capitalism is constructive while max profits at any cost is destructive and irresponsible which you would know if you paid attention to what happened 70 years ago. Not like we ain't been here before.
Sure it has always been at the top and nothing wrong with that and it is essential in capitalism . But it has varied as to the degree and that matters. If it moves too much to the top and the disparity is great as now and in the gilded age it will create unsustainable problems. As most unethical things tend to do. When you see our middle class devastated that happened due to a change in capitalism, and only the top tier benefits this is irresponsible of our ruling elites for it weakens our nation and people. An economic model must serve a nation and people instead of being only a means of maxing profit for a scant few. And we used to know that
Trump is crushing it, much to the chagrin of his detractors. https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/obama-trump-booming-economy/ Thanks for taking care of the Middle Class, President Trump.
You forgot that Trump is crushing it and Obama was dismal and had the WORST economic recovery in post WW2 era. You forgot that.
I don't know what labor you're referring to, but obviously not all forms of labor is equal. Surely you know this. I honestly don't know who or what you're referring to. There are millions of different types of workers and many different corporations. I work for a corporation and I don't feel exploited in the least. I can't speak for any other employees (as I work for a firm that has hundreds of thousands), but you haven't described anything specific. Work today is increasingly individualized. Not all workers operate as a monolith. I don't know what 'ethical capitalism' means.
Everyone always has their own opinion of how an economic should function, then reality sets its own course. Which is why I never take anyone who uses the word "should" seriously.
Ethical capitalism would not destroy your nation's middle class by shipping American jobs to a communist nation that has oppressed poor people that have to work for wages that are working poor wages, exploiting the poor with jobs that paid middle class wages here in America. And then being allowed to sell those goods here tarrif free. Ethical capitalism involves being tesponsible to the society the company is a part of. That there is more than just max profits . You know the way it once was here in America . Probably before you were born since you cannot relate or know ethics and capitalism. I am a retired business owner, a small manufacturing business that served the construction industry, commercial and residential. Even if I could have I would have never moved to china to exploit their dirt poor for cents on the dollar labor to ship back here being a parasite on America and her consumer market. In order to max out my own income. But unlike big banks and big corporations I have an allegiance to my country and people. Like business did after ww2. Today business that offshores they contributing nothing to our nation and people is nothing but an unethical parasite that exploits while giving nothing back. Once upon a time we expected business to be responsible and moral but alas as the years passed suddenly it was being said that business was above morality or amoral . And max profits trumped ethics and everything else. Thus this change that happened in my lifetime is a fundamental change that affects all working people to the negative. It benefits only the elites and upper middle, the professional class. The labor of most has been cleverly devalued by illegal labor and globalism Just as Perot tried to tell us prior to NAFTA . This was the scheme originating in the GOP to l minimize working wages shrinking the middle class so max profits for the few would happen. And it was a scheme that changed the form of capitalism that had created the largest middle class in world history in america. Replacing it with our current form that destroys a middle and enriches the top. And that is unethical and immoral along with irresponsible considering the social problems it inevitably creates.
Nonsense, FDR's high tax and regulation policies made the Depression worse, Hoover had similar policies. Capitalism isn't an 'ism', its a natural pattern of human behavior that's been around as long as man in which goods and services are voluntarily exchanged for the benefit of both parties.
Financial driven depressions take longer to cycle out of. The right claim he made it worse but as compared to what? So that is an ideological driven opinion. It is irrefutable that he vastly improved gilded age income disparity giving us the best disparity until his changes were dismantled. Working people did much better under his pragmatism than at any other time . Just an inconvenient fact for ideologues His common sense bank regulations kept us from a financial driven crash until those regs were killed. There is a reason he was in his 4th term when he died. The people could feel the big difference this man made. What he and his policies did for average Americans was great. He made a positive difference for working people and unlike modern presidents and congress actually represented working people. Read your history and it is clear he saved capitalism that was at risk because of the excesses of the top dogs . As we see today. In that era communism and socialism was new and growing numbers of people in the west thought it might work better than the capitalism that plunged the west into a great depression . FDR was good for working people and that is a fact.
My wife and I live in a small town far removed from a city. Our little town will never be booming economically but her job in furniture sales seems secure and we did save on Taxes.
Nonsense, from Wikipedia: "Jim Powell stated in his 2003 book FDR's Folly that the median joblessness rate throughout the New Deal was 17.2 percent and never went below 14 percent. Powell states the Depression was worsened and prolonged "by doubling taxes, making it more expensive for employers to hire people, making it harder for entrepreneurs to raise capital, demonizing employers, destroying food... breaking up the strongest banks, forcing up the cost of living, channeling welfare away from the poorest people and enacting labor laws that hit poor African Americans especially hard".[18] A 2004 econometric study by Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian concluded that the "New Deal labor and industrial policies did not lift the economy out of the Depression as President Roosevelt and his economic planners had hoped", but that the "New Deal policies are an important contributing factor to the persistence of the Great Depression". They believe that the "abandonment of these policies coincided with the strong economic recovery of the 1940s".[21] They do not credit Roosevelt for the remarkable prosperity of the 1940s." FDR was bad for workers, Trump is good for workers.
