Republicans engineer recessions to stall Dem Presidents.

[HamburgerBoy]

lol, nice conspiracy thread.

 

[Jhhnn]

Give your team a pass as usual. Nope, Democrats had nothing to do with the collapse. Nothing at all.

You're a pathetic partisan hack. The Democrat version of Spidey.

What you're saying is like blaming the passengers when the bus goes off a cliff. The Bush Admin & the Repub Congress were *ideologically opposed* to banking regulations, so when tasked with enforcing such, they didn't. They went out of their way to make regulations & enforcement utterly lax. It's just that simple.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ousing-crisis/2011/11/28/gIQANqLH5N_blog.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html

http://www.nysun.com/business/ex-sec-official-blames-agency-for-blow-up/86130/

My fave image from the era-

http://dorkmonger.blogspot.com/2008/11/cutting-red-tape.html

That's one of Bush's top regulators wielding the chainsaw, so that financiers could create "innovative financial instruments", letting us all buy the house of our dreams with a no doc subprime negative amortization private label ARM, then sell the MBS to the funds in our pensions & 401k's... bet heavily against their own creations with derivatives. What could go wrong?

At best, Repub ideology & practice is naive & foolish. At worst, it's enabling the lootocracy. Either way, their idea of governance is failure to do so effectively in a way that benefits all americans, not just a very wealthy very few.

 

[Matt1970]

What you're saying is like blaming the passengers when the bus goes off a cliff. The Bush Admin & the Repub Congress were *ideologically opposed* to banking regulations, so when tasked with enforcing such, they didn't. They went out of their way to make regulations & enforcement utterly lax. It's just that simple.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ousing-crisis/2011/11/28/gIQANqLH5N_blog.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html

http://www.nysun.com/business/ex-sec-official-blames-agency-for-blow-up/86130/

My fave image from the era-

http://dorkmonger.blogspot.com/2008/11/cutting-red-tape.html

That's one of Bush's top regulators wielding the chainsaw, so that financiers could create "innovative financial instruments", letting us all buy the house of our dreams with a no doc subprime negative amortization private label ARM, then sell the MBS to the funds in our pensions & 401k's... bet heavily against their own creations with derivatives. What could go wrong?

At best, Repub ideology & practice is naive & foolish. At worst, it's enabling the lootocracy. Either way, their idea of governance is failure to do so effectively in a way that benefits all americans, not just a very wealthy very few.

Wrong. Here are the republicans trying to get regulation and warning of the damage of a housing market failure and got stiff opposition from the dems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENBdqiMvJ7A

 

[nehalem256]

What you're saying is like blaming the passengers when the bus goes off a cliff. The Bush Admin & the Repub Congress were *ideologically opposed* to banking regulations, so when tasked with enforcing such, they didn't. They went out of their way to make regulations & enforcement utterly lax. It's just that simple.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ousing-crisis/2011/11/28/gIQANqLH5N_blog.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html

http://www.nysun.com/business/ex-sec-official-blames-agency-for-blow-up/86130/

My fave image from the era-

http://dorkmonger.blogspot.com/2008/11/cutting-red-tape.html

That's one of Bush's top regulators wielding the chainsaw, so that financiers could create "innovative financial instruments", letting us all buy the house of our dreams with a no doc subprime negative amortization private label ARM, then sell the MBS to the funds in our pensions & 401k's... bet heavily against their own creations with derivatives. What could go wrong?

At best, Repub ideology & practice is naive & foolish. At worst, it's enabling the lootocracy. Either way, their idea of governance is failure to do so effectively in a way that benefits all americans, not just a very wealthy very few.

Are you blaming Bush again for the housing bubble that was already the biggest in history when he took office?

And as for the original post. If Republicans are so good at manipulating the economy why do they not make it so the economy tanks after they leave office?

 

[Jhhnn]

Are you blaming Bush again for the housing bubble that was already the biggest in history when he took office?

And as for the original post. If Republicans are so good at manipulating the economy why do they not make it so the economy tanks after they leave office?

Housing was in one of its cyclical upswings when Bush took office. Obviously, it was not yet the biggest in history, no matter how much you'd like for that to be true. After 6 years of the Bush Admin, & 4 years of Repub Congress, it definitely was.

When you push something to the limit, you know it'll break, but you really don't know just when. For insiders, it was obvious that it broke in late 2006, which is why top tier incomes soared in 2007 as they sold & then sold short thru 2007, cashed in their Repo's, got liquid. Meanwhile, the pundits of the Right assured everybody that it was all just fine, that there had never been a better time to buy- houses, stocks, mbs, you name it. In the rigged casino of Wall St, setting up the marks is just part of doing business... by late 2008, banking & finance would have imploded w/o govt intervention, forcing the Bush Admin to completely reverse course. Had they not, and had Dems not provided even more stimulus, today would make 1932 look like a picnic.

Busts happen because of the highly financialized booms that precede them, a function of letting investment bankers run wild & free with other people's money. If we don't want busts, we have to restrain the finance sector from cashing in on false prosperity booms, something that Repub ideology rejects entirely.

 

[EagleKeeper]

I left it out because it is hard to find a trend of recessions with the exit of Dems. Usually, there is a magical boost in the economy when a Dem goes out of the Oval Office over the last 40+ years.


Gee, I wonder why that could be....

Because they have been running wars; Increases the country's manufacturing output to support the war efforts.

Wilson - WWI
FDR/Truman - WWII
Kennedy/Johnson - Vietnam

 

[nehalem256]

Housing was in one of its cyclical upswings when Bush took office. Obviously, it was not yet the biggest in history, no matter how much you'd like for that to be true. After 6 years of the Bush Admin, & 4 years of Repub Congress, it definitely was.

In 2001 when Bush took office it was at 130. Please tell me where else in history that housing prices were at or above the 130 level.

 

[fskimospy]

In 2001 when Bush took office it was at 130. Please tell me where else in history that housing prices were at or above the 130 level.

Which index are you referring to? The national composite index was most certainly not at 130 in January of 2001.

 

[Genx87]

I cant figure out which story to believe from the dumbocrats. Republicans are a bunch of idiots running on a religious platform. Or the most intelligent crafty party to ever walk the face of the planet. Where they can systematically time recessions to hurt dumbocrats and create events to start wars without anybody saying a word.

 

[nageov3t]

what about Clinton's recession at the start of GWB's first term?

 

[nehalem256]

Which index are you referring to? The national composite index was most certainly not at 130 in January of 2001.

The index in the graph. So you are arguing that the 130 is not from January of 2001 but for some other month.

Fine. For 2000 it appears to be ~122. For 2001 it appears to be ~130.

Call it 126 for January of 2001. That would meet or exceed any prior bubble peak.

 

[fskimospy]

I cant figure out which story to believe from the dumbocrats. Republicans are a bunch of idiots running on a religious platform. Or the most intelligent crafty party to ever walk the face of the planet. Where they can systematically time recessions to hurt dumbocrats and create events to start wars without anybody saying a word.

Not to mention the tiny little flaw in this plan where had the economy not tanked in 2008 perhaps the Republicans could have simply won the election instead. You engineer a recession that makes you lose an election so that you can make the other guy look bad and let you win... the same election you could have won four years ago? Makes perfect sense to me!

Lets be honest though, it is in the Republican Party's best interests to have the economy continue to function poorly in 2012. While the idea that they would engineer a recession is absolutely ridiculous, I think it is quite reasonable to think that they are not very interested in passing measures that will see the economy improve at the moment. If Romney somehow wins I fully predict we will see a sudden interest in that emerge in the Republican Party say... around the middle of January 2013.

 

[fskimospy]

The index in the graph. So you are arguing that the 130 is not from January of 2001 but for some other month.

Fine. For 2000 it appears to be ~122. For 2001 it appears to be ~130.

Call it 126 for January of 2001. That would meet or exceed any prior bubble peak.

Actually when I went and looked at the data it was close to 130, so good enough. The median home price index for all time periods is a bit over 120, and historically it had peaked at almost 145 in the past.

Regardless, it was certainly within the government's power to deflate the housing bubble, and Bush must take his share of the blame as most of the inflation happened on his watch.

 

[blankslate]

what about Clinton's recession at the start of GWB's first term?

read post #25

 

[nehalem256]

Actually when I went and looked at the data it was close to 130, so good enough. The median home price index for all time periods is a bit over 120, and historically it had peaked at almost 145 in the past.

Regardless, it was certainly within the government's power to deflate the housing bubble, and Bush must take his share of the blame as most of the inflation happened on his watch.

According to the graph presented in this thread to prove that Bush was to blame for the housing bubble clearly shows only 1 time period with housing prices about 130.

 

[fskimospy]

According to the graph presented in this thread to prove that Bush was to blame for the housing bubble clearly shows only 1 time period with housing prices about 130.

It lacks further historical data. You can download the Case-Shiller excel tables from a number of places on the web. Regardless of that, housing prices experienced an unprecedented, enormous expansion during Bush's presidency that he not only tolerated, but seemed happy about. Had the crash happened almost immediately into his presidency you could reasonably argue that he couldn't have done anything, but it happened halfway through his second term. There's no escaping responsibility for that.

 

[werepossum]

Republicans engineer recessions to stall Dem Presidents.

I think you give them way too much credit but you are entitled to your opinion.

Though probably not entitled to the pharmaceuticals required to craft such an opinion.

When the top tax rates were higher and the firewall existed between commercial and investment banks recessions did happen but they tended to be shorter.

This recession occurred after Clinton's tax increases were done away with and after President Clinton signed Graham Leech Blighly into law. (One of three decisions that I consider his worst)

As of now it's one of the longest in recent (or even for several decades) history

The one that started after Clinton's term was short in comparison and the Bush Tax Cut nor the passage of Graham Leech Blighly did make their effects evident in the economy until later.

Good points, except that there was not a recession after Clinton's tax hikes were removed, for the next recession (as measured by NBER) started March 2001 and the first Bush tax cuts did not go into affect until June 2001. Unless you feel that people start spending less because they will soon have more money to spend, this cannot be attributed to the Bush tax cuts.

I'd also add that our economy is something like 60% consumer spending; given that the vast majority of consumer goods are imported and that both parties' favored fixes for recessions largely involve putting more money in consumers' hands (Republicans by taking less of it, Democrats by taking more from "those who don't need it" and redistributing it to "those who do need it"), it's not difficult to see that recovery will be progressively more difficult no matter which party is in power.

I cant figure out which story to believe from the dumbocrats. Republicans are a bunch of idiots running on a religious platform. Or the most intelligent crafty party to ever walk the face of the planet. Where they can systematically time recessions to hurt dumbocrats and create events to start wars without anybody saying a word.

The Democrats have only one story about Republicans: "They are a bunch of idiots, and damn it, it's not fair that they always outsmart us." The Pubbies don't have to be the most intelligent, craftiest party to ever walk the face of the planet, they just have to be notably smarter than the Dems - which is much like saying the Slovakian Olympic women's swim team has to be more attractive than the Slovakian Olympic women's shotput team.

 

[Matt1970]

The one that started after Clinton's term was short in comparison and the Bush Tax Cut nor the passage of Graham Leech Blighly did make their effects evident in the economy until later.

It was a Catastrophic collapse of an entire market that NEVER returned to what it was and a horrific attack on US soil that shut down the world market. I wonder why that wasn't such a horrific recession? Oh ya, Bush cut EVERYONE'S taxes and sent rebate checks to nearly every tax payer. That's how you stimulate an economy. Not put out a stimulus that takes 10 years to pay out it's $$, threaten to raise taxes during a recession, pass an unpopular healthcare law that will tax businesses and individuals and engage in full on class warfare.

 

[fskimospy]

It was a Catastrophic collapse of an entire market that NEVER returned to what it was and a horrific attack on US soil that shut down the world market. I wonder why that wasn't such a horrific recession? Oh ya, Bush cut EVERYONE'S taxes and sent rebate checks to nearly every tax payer. That's how you stimulate an economy. Not put out a stimulus that takes 10 years to pay out it's $$, threaten to raise taxes during a recession, pass an unpopular healthcare law that will tax businesses and individuals and engage in full on class warfare.

lol. Not according to actual analysis of Bush's stimulus.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2001/10/09taxes-gale

 

[Matt1970]

lol. Not according to actual analysis of Bush's stimulus.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2001/10/09taxes-gale

This wouldn't be one of those same economists that insisted unemployment wouldn't go over 8% is it?

 

[werepossum]

lol. Not according to actual analysis of Bush's stimulus.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2001/10/09taxes-gale

From your study's leading paragraph:

This note evaluates President Bush's new proposals for stimulating the economy via tax cuts. We evaluate the proposals relative to a series of principles for effective stimulus proposals that we developed in earlier work.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that any economic scheme by any Republican, even the nominally conservative at best Bushes, is going to fare extremely badly when evaluated by the most left-wing of the respectable think tanks according to its own internally developed criteria.

 

[fskimospy]

This wouldn't be one of those same economists that insisted unemployment wouldn't go over 8% is it?

No.

I like how you just blindly declare Bush's response to the 2001 recession as the right way to do things and then when people with actual knowledge attempt to analyze it you work really hard to ignore it.

I'm genuinely curious, why?

 

[fskimospy]

From your study's leading paragraph:

I don't think it's a stretch to say that any economic scheme by any Republican, even the nominally conservative at best Bushes, is going to fare extremely badly when evaluated by the most left-wing of the respectable think tanks according to its own internally developed criteria.

I like how you claim it's respectable and say it's so biased that its results can't be trusted. I don't see how those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Regardless, lots of economic research from across the spectrum shows that tax cuts are among the least effective forms of economic stimulus.

 

[Matt1970]

No.

I like how you just blindly declare Bush's response to the 2001 recession as the right way to do things and then when people with actual knowledge attempt to analyze it you work really hard to ignore it.

I'm genuinely curious, why?

They can analye it till the cows come home. They were similiar market collapses yet one lasted less than a year and a lot of people still think we were in the last one. Both Stimulus packages were in the form of cash spent and tax cuts.

 

[Genx87]

Not to mention the tiny little flaw in this plan where had the economy not tanked in 2008 perhaps the Republicans could have simply won the election instead. You engineer a recession that makes you lose an election so that you can make the other guy look bad and let you win... the same election you could have won four years ago? Makes perfect sense to me!

Lets be honest though, it is in the Republican Party's best interests to have the economy continue to function poorly in 2012. While the idea that they would engineer a recession is absolutely ridiculous, I think it is quite reasonable to think that they are not very interested in passing measures that will see the economy improve at the moment. If Romney somehow wins I fully predict we will see a sudden interest in that emerge in the Republican Party say... around the middle of January 2013.

Well I think it is clear the 2008 manufacturing was designed so they could blame Obama for the next 4 years lol

If Romney wins I expect a whole lot of "stimulus" talk and a bigger push for war with Iran. My only hope right now is Obama wins and republicans take the house and senate ala 1996. Or Romney wins and republicans tank in the legislature. I fear what a republican congress and Romney could get done.