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Economic Malpractice

by Bill O'Connell on December 5, 2009

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Let’s say you were having a problem with your knee.  So you go to the doctor and tell him your problem. The doctor examines you and says he has to act quickly.  He says you need an operation and if you have it, you will experience some mild pain for a brief time, but if you don’t  the pain will get worse.  How bad you ask?  On the pain scale, designed by Andrea Mankoski, you are currently at a 6, described as, “Can’t be ignored for any length of time, but you can still go to work and participate in social activities.”  He says without the operation you will probably reach a 9, “Unable to speak.  Crying out or moaning uncontrollably — near delirium.”  With the operation you will probably peak at 8, “Physical activity severely limited; you can read and converse with effort; nausea and dizziness set in as factors of pain,” but then things will progressively improve.  The pressure he is putting on you to decide is intense, so you give him the go ahead.

The good doctor performs the operation and as he predicted the pain does get worse, but it doesn’t stop.  You are beyond delirium, you are reaching level 10, “Unconscious.  Pain makes you pass out.”  Your medical proxy, demands the doctor tell her what went wrong.  The doctor shrugs and says it was worse than anybody thought, but then says the surgery is working better than expected. ”What the hell did you do in that surgery, you screw-up?” your proxy demands.   The doctor, just smiles, and turns on his heel ands walks away, leaving your proxy standing there sputtering, desperately trying to find the words to express her disbelief and outrage.  When she finally regains her composure, standing there all alone, she reaches for her cell phone to call a malpractice attorney.

Economic Stimulus Surgery

Dr. Obama told us, upon taking office, that we desperately needed a stimulus package or the unemployment rate would continue to rise.  He said without a stimulus package, the unemployment rate would rise to 9%, if we did NOTHING!  His able assistants, Harry “the Healer” Reid, and “Nurse” Nancy Pelosi, slammed through the $787 billion package.  We were saved!  Unemployment would not rise above 8% before starting to fall.  But there isn’t a happy ending to this fairy tale.  The unemployment rate rose past 8%; it rose past 9%; it rose past 10%.  So when Dr. Biden steps to the microphone and says the stimulus is working better than expected, why isn’t someone putting a straight-jacket on him and carting him off?  Why isn’t someone pointing out that the stimulus may have actually made the problem worse?  Team Obama said themselves that it would have been better to do nothing. The unemployment rate would have peaked at 9%.  Why are they getting  pass?

Non-stimulating Stimulus

Look more closely at the stimulus, which we now have had time to do.  Extending unemployment benefits does not create jobs.  Giving teachers a raise, does not create jobs.  Spending 80% of the stimulus funds so far in the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Education doesn’t speak to job creation.  It speaks to a sop to their union backers and the creation of their impossible to measure metric “jobs saved.”  Only $4 billion so far has gone to the Department of Transportation and their “shovel ready” projects.  Even these, while a help to construction workers, doesn’t do a thing for laid off bank tellers, software engineers, or FedEx employees.

The Obama administration is spending us into oblivion,  while pouring gasoline on to the unemployment fire with their ill conceived and basically botched stimulus plans.  What is needed are tax cuts that will allow the market to direct the resources where they will do the most good and get the economy moving again.  Instead Obama is taxing and spending our way to economic disaster. What we need is a sharp curtailment in government spending and to shrink the size of the federal beast. Is there a good economic malpractice trial lawyer out there?

Tagged as: Andrea Mankoski, bank tellers, Biden, cellular telephone, delirium, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Labor, Department of Transportation, dizziness, Economic disasters, economics, Fedex Corporation, good economic malpractice trial lawyer, Harry, Joe Biden, Labor, Labor economics, Macroeconomics, malpractice attorney, Nancy Pelosi, nausea, Nervous system, nurse, Obama, Obama administration, pain, Perception, Presidency of Barack Obama, Reorganization, software engineers, surgery, unemployment, USD

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Comments (22)

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  • Donald M Stebbins

    It is you advocates of small government and tax cuts who favor repeating failed polices over and over again to the point that your sanity must be questioned. If those policies worked we would be sitting in clover after almost 30 years of conservative rule. The eight years of Bush II were particularly destructive. Liberal tax and spend polices have not only been more effective in boosting our economy but increased equality in our society. The stimulus you mock may very well have saved us from
    another great depression -the expected outcome always of conservative or libertarian
    economics.
    I read your column on Jasper John's JASPER JOTTINGS Week 51 – 2009 December 20
    I am a 1961 graduate of Manhattan and while there learned the Catholic teaching about the primacy of the poor in developing economic policies based on Christian principles. Policies based on increasing equality produce better economic results
    as well as a more moral society
    Theprinciples I learned at Manhattan seem to be forgotten by you and Jasper John

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Bill_OConnel Bill_OConnel

      Donald, thank you for taking the time to comment. I find it very interesting how some people link Christian values to liberal ideology. Liberals/progressives/statists, take your pick, abhor the very principles that were rooted in faith in a Creator, that this country was founded upon.

      Catholic teaching is not to place government in a place of primacy. "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's." Jesus does not say, let's lobby Caesar to create a government program to do what we should be doing ourselves as children of God and followers of Christ.

      Why does our government fight tooth and nail against school vouchers, while students in poor neighborhoods suffer with their government run monopoly schools? When John Cardinal O'Connor offered to take the bottom 10% of students in the New York City public schools and educate him, why did our benevolent liberal New York City government turn him down? Why does our new president promise that if we spend $787 billion dollars unemployment will not rise above 8% and when it does, he says we need a new jobs program? In his own words he said, if we did nothing unemployment would have peaked at 9%. As an old boss of mine would say, "Was he drunk or stupid?" You say he saved us from another great depression and by his words and deeds his program made unemployment worse than if he did nothing. How is spending $3.4 million on turtle crossing in Florida going to grow the economy in any meaningul and lasting way? Why don't we try health care solutions that limit frivolous lawsuits so that every doctor won't have to order every test under the sun to cover his "you know what"? {Hint: Trial lawyers contribute tremendously to liberal politicians} How is piling so much debt on our children and our children's children and grandchildren going to create better economic results and a more moral society? If not checked soon, I say it is more likely to lead to riots in the streets when people have to work nine months out of the year to pay taxes and have nothing left to buy a loaf of bread. When the Chinese come marching in to redeem their Treasury Bills, tell me how well our Christian beliefs will be protected by our new Chinese atheist masters?

      • Donald M Stebbins

        Bill, our high unemployment rate was caused by Bush policies. Any look
        at the history of recessions bears out the fact that it takes years to turn around
        unemployment after a recession of the magnitude of Bush II's- which was brought about by reckless tax cuts, foolish war spending, and neglect of our infrastructure coupled with long standing conservative policies of increasing the wealth and income of the rich at everyone else's expense.
        How you can reconcile conservative economics with the teachings of Christ
        requires an intellectual legerdemain far above my capabilities to understand.
        Or is it just plain fooling yourselves?
        I share your fear of Chinese domination, but I place the blame on greedy American banks and corporations who placed their profits above the national interest

        • thomas

          Don, Let me begin by saying I don’t think Bush was a conservative where the size of government was concerned, but I think you skipped a couple of links in the chain. Unemployment was caused by the recession, which was caused by the housing bubble, which was caused by liberal social policy that home ownership was a right rather than something you earned. The Community Reinvestment Act put people in houses that they couldn’t afford. When the price bubble finally burst these people were tossed out of their houses, their credit ratings destroyed. Explain to me how that’s a good thing? Bush raised the alarm on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2001 trying to get Congress in increase requlation, Barney Frank (liberal/progressive/statist) fought him. Bush raised the alarm higher in 2003, Barney said Fannie and Freddie are not in a crisis. Greenspan added his voice to the alarm in 2005, McCain tried to pass legislation in 2006, but Democrats by a straight party line voted against it. Just prior to the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Barney Frank said they were fine.
          You like to say Bush policies caused the economic problem we are in, but you don’t state what those policies were or how they caused the problem? Where in the Constitution does it say, the funciton of the federal government is providing housing or mortgages?
          In your earlier comment you said ” Liberal tax and spend polices have not only been more effective in boosting our economy but increased equality in our society.” Henry Morganthou, FDR’s Treasury Secretary lamented, that they had spent money for eight years and yet the unemployment rate was the same as when they came into office. In the midst of the Carter malaise, Ronald Reagan cut taxes and shrank government and it ushered in an expansion that lasted 25 years. Roosevelt tried spending and we had a Depression for eight years only ended by World War II. Reagan cut taxes and we had and explosive expansion of the economy lasting for 25 years. What is so hard to grasp about those two different approaches? Social Security is bankrupt. Medicare is bankrupt, Medicaid is bankrupt. And if we continue on the same course we will all be bankrupt. The teachings of Christ call for Charity, my personal charity that gives my resources where I think they will do the most good in fulfilling those teachings. I don’t see anywhere where Christ taught it was right for the goverment to legally steal, through taxation, the fruits of an individual’s labor and give it to anyone some bureaucrat or politician sees fit, especially if it is directly contrary to his teaching, e.g., abortion or government funds going to the arts where the “art” desecrates our religious symbols. We should put government back in the box the Founders envisioned for it and expand our own role in our institutions of faith to carry out the faith we believe in, rather than throwing that responsibility over the wall for the government to do.
          Thomas Jefferson said: “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

        • http://intensedebate.com/people/Bill_OConnel Bill_OConnel

          Don, Let me begin by saying I don't think Bush was a conservative where the size of government was concerned, but I think you skipped a couple of links in the chain. Unemployment was caused by the recession, which was caused by the housing bubble, which was caused by liberal social policy that home ownership was a right rather than something you earned. The Community Reinvestment Act put people in houses that they couldn't afford. When the price bubble finally burst these people were tossed out of their houses, their credit ratings destroyed. Explain to me how that's a good thing? Bush raised the alarm on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2001 trying to get Congress in increase requlation, Barney Frank (liberal/progressive/statist) fought him. Bush raised the alarm higher in 2003, Barney said Fannie and Freddie are not in a crisis. Greenspan added his voice to the alarm in 2005, McCain tried to pass legislation in 2006, but Democrats by a straight party line voted against it. Just prior to the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Barney Frank said they were fine.

          You like to say Bush policies caused the economic problem we are in, but you don't state what those policies were or how they caused the problem? Where in the Constitution does it say, the funciton of the federal government is providing housing or mortgages?

          In your earlier comment you said " Liberal tax and spend polices have not only been more effective in boosting our economy but increased equality in our society." Henry Morganthou, FDR's Treasury Secretary lamented, that they had spent money for eight years and yet the unemployment rate was the same as when they came into office. In the midst of the Carter malaise, Ronald Reagan cut taxes and shrank government and it ushered in an expansion that lasted 25 years. Roosevelt tried spending and we had a Depression for eight years only ended by World War II. Reagan cut taxes and we had and explosive expansion of the economy lasting for 25 years. What is so hard to grasp about those two different approaches? Social Security is bankrupt. Medicare is bankrupt, Medicaid is bankrupt. And if we continue on the same course we will all be bankrupt. The teachings of Christ call for Charity, my personal charity that gives my resources where I think they will do the most good in fulfilling those teachings. I don't see anywhere where Christ taught it was right for the goverment to legally steal, through taxation, the fruits of an individual's labor and give it to anyone some bureaucrat or politician sees fit, especially if it is directly contrary to his teaching, e.g., abortion or government funds going to the arts where the "art" desecrates our religious symbols. We should put government back in the box the Founders envisioned for it and expand our own role in our institutions of faith to carry out the faith we believe in, rather than throwing that responsibility over the wall for the government to do.

          Thomas Jefferson said: "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

  • Donald M Stebbins

    Bill,

    I see we differ on practically everything including our versions of history. It would take me time to counter all what you say here but believe me I could. . Starting with the Community Reinvestment Act, I found that almost all independent analyses find the CRA blameless for the 2008 collapse. Blaming the CRA and Fannie and Freddie is rightist fantasy and nothing more. I confine the rest of my comments to information about the CRA found in Wipedia.
    From Wikipedia:
    Relation to 2008 financial crisis
    See also: Subprime mortgage crisis and Global financial crisis of 2008–2009

    Some economists, politicians and other commentators have charged that the CRA contributed in part to the 2008 financial crisis by encouraging banks to make unsafe loans. Others however, including the economists from the Federal Reserve and the FDIC, dispute this contention. The Federal Reserve and the FDIC holds that empirical research has not validated any relationship between the CRA and the 2008 financial crisis.[98][99]

    Economist Stan Liebowitz wrote in the New York Post that a strengthening of the CRA in the 1990s encouraged a loosening of lending standards throughout the banking industry. He also charges the Federal Reserve with ignoring the negative impact of the CRA.[93] In a commentary for CNN, Congressman Ron Paul, who serves on the United States House Committee on Financial Services, charged the CRA with "forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks."[100] In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Austrian school economist Russell Roberts wrote that the CRA subsidized low-income housing by pressuring banks to serve poor borrowers and poor regions of the country.[101] Jeffrey A. Miron, a senior lecturer in economics at Harvard University, in an opinion piece for CNN, calls for “getting rid” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as policies like the Community Reinvestment Act that “pressure banks into subprime lending.”[102]

    However, others dispute the involvement of the CRA in the subprime crisis. According to San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank Governor Randall Kroszner, the claim that "the law pushed banking institutions to undertake high-risk mortgage lending" was contrary to their experience, and that no empirical evidence had been presented to support the claim.[98] In a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) working paper, economist Luci Ellis concluded that "there is no evidence that the Community Reinvestment Act was responsible for encouraging the subprime lending boom and subsequent housing bust," relying partly on evidence that the housing bust has been a largely exurban event.[103] Others have also concluded that the CRA did not contribute to the financial crisis, for example, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair,[99] Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan,[104] Tim Westrich of the Center for American Progress,[105] Robert Gordon of the American Prospect,[106] Ellen Seidman of the New America Foundation,[107] Daniel Gross of Slate,[108] and Aaron Pressman from BusinessWeek.[109]

    Some legal and financial experts note that CRA regulated loans tend to be safe and profitable, and that subprime excesses came mainly from institutions not regulated by the CRA. In the February 2008 House hearing, law professor Michael S. Barr, a Treasury Department official under President Clinton,[65][110] stated that a Federal Reserve survey showed that affected institutions considered CRA loans profitable and not overly risky. He noted that approximately 50% of the subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies that were not regulated by the CRA, and another 25% to 30% came from only partially CRA regulated bank subsidiaries and affiliates. Barr noted that institutions fully regulated by CRA made "perhaps one in four" sub-prime loans, and that "the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight".[111] According to Janet L. Yellen, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, independent mortgage companies made risky "high-priced loans" at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts; most CRA loans were responsibly made, and were not the higher-priced loans that have contributed to the current crisis.[112] A 2008 study by Traiger & Hinckley LLP, a law firm that counsels financial institutions on CRA compliance, found that CRA regulated institutions were less likely to make subprime loans, and when they did the interest rates were lower. CRA banks were also half as likely to resell the loans.[113] Emre Ergungor of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found that there was no statistical difference in foreclosure rates between regulated and less-regulated banks, although a local bank presence resulted in fewer foreclosures.[114]

    During a 2008 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the financial crisis, including in relation to the Community Reinvestment Act, asked if the CRA provided the “fuel” for increasing subprime loans, former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines said it might have been a catalyst encouraging bad behavior, but it was difficult to know. Raines also cited information that only a small percentage of risky loans originated as a result of the

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Bill_OConnel Bill_OConnel

      Don, you disappoint me. You lead with a statement that you could counter all what I say, and then dump a Wikipedia quote as your rebuttal. You say it’s Bush’s fault, and I don’t disagree with Republicans and Democrats culpability in the mess, but other than generalizations regarding right versus left, you don’t present a strong case. I'm sure your professors at Manhattan would not smile on your presentation.

      I am for smaller government because if there are fewer pies for Republicans and Democrats to stick their fingers in at the federal level there will be less mischief they can get in. I don’t believe that just because someone graduated from Harvard they are smarter than everyone who graduated from Manhattan, and they can sit in Washington and craft policies that tell me how to live my life, what to do with my labor and the fruits thereof. So I ask you again, why is the federal government in the home ownership business in the first place?

      I pointed to the CRA as one of the starting points of the problem, not the whole kit and caboodle. I don’t know how closely you looked at your Wikipedia quote, but it included Franklin Raines, who took $90 million in bonus money from Fannie Mae by cooking the books of that institution when he ran it. So he doesn’t exactly bolster your case.

      Since you have chosen to focus on the CRA, let’s give it a closer look

      “There has been no free market in housing or finance. Government has long exercised massive control over the housing and financial markets – including its creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – leading to many of the problems being blamed on the free market today” – Yaron Brook, Forbes, July 18, 2008

      In 1992 the Boston Fed conducted a study on lending and discrimination:

      “The Boston Fed found that overt discrimination, such as redlining, is not pervasive.” So why do we have the CRA? Another study shows that the rates by which applicants are turned down for a loan, broken down by race, are similar between minority owned banks and non-minority owned banks. So do you believe that black bank owners routinely discriminate against black borrowers?

      Under the Clinton administration CRA enforcement was stepped up and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (which exists in the federal government because…?) increased approval rates for loans to minority applicants by 20% in 1 year. In the Bush administration they increased it again.

      Community activists groups such as ACORN will find out if a bank intends to expand, which is public information, and launch a protest that the bank in question discriminates. Why? In ACORNS own words, “When you’re talking a billion dollar merger, every day of delay costs a lot of money. It’s cheaper to negotiate than fight.” In other words the CRA is used by ACORN for government sanctioned extortion. Not my vision of America.

      And then as many government programs have unintended consequences, CRA is no different. Banks choose not to open branches in poor neighborhoods. So now people in poor neighborhoods won’t even have a bank branch to safely keep their money. As Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' “

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  • Donald M Stebbins

    Bill, The election of Ronald Reagan was one of the worst things to ever happen to our country. His economic policies stunted the growth of middle class income leading to
    our sharply divided society in term of wealth and income. We will be paying for his
    misdeeds for decades to come.
    Perhaps his worst deed was the ending of research and development of alternative
    energy sources. When he took the solar heater out of the White House it
    was symbolic of his devotion to the oil companies that had selected him for
    the Presidency despite his obvious lack of qualifications.. Think of how much better
    off we would be if Jimmy Carter had been reelected and led us on a path to energy
    independence- There would be far less global warming, no 9/11 attacks, no having to cater to dictatorships like Saudi Arabia. We would have a cleaner, safer environment and a much better economy.
    Alan Greenspan himself has stated that Fannie and Freddie did not cause the debacle
    He has admitted that his own philosophy led to the problems because the bankers
    and investors did not police themselves as he thought they would. You followers
    of the Ayn Rand disciple Greenspan became "more Catholic than the pope" when
    he admitted he was wrong. It was seemingly too difficult for true believers to face the truth that even your guru had to admit..
    BTW, Ayn Rand, the true founder of modern day Conservative economic thought,
    was a committed atheist who hated the very idea of Christ and opposed all Christian
    thinking

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Bill_OConnel Bill_OConnel

      I have a hard time grasping your world view when you make a comment that Reagan was one of the worst things to ever happen to our country. Let see, he began a 25 year run of unprecendented economic growth, he ended the cold war without firing a shot, he made Americans, yourself excluded, proud to be Americans again. Ending Research and Development on alternative energy resources? Do you mean like Jimmy Carter's Synfuels Project? The project where we spent billions of dollars trying to convert coal into oil, only to have the project crash and burn when oil prices, once again, came down as they tend to do in a free market. Government predictions of a permanently high level in the price of oil proved (surprise!) not to be prescient. I didn't know that Jimmy Carter had a magic machine that could control solar activity and thereby control global warming. The current fiscal crisis was caused by a chain of related events. How you can say that two government related entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac becoming insolvent were not a factor in the financial meltdown, is simply putting your head in the sand. It is even more ridiculuous when Barney Frank says six months beforehand that there is no problem with Fannie and Freddie, and he heads the committee that writes the laws regulating them, and your pet peeve is not enough regulation. Ayn Rand wrote, as you say, about Conservative economic thought. I never read any of her books on religion. On the other hand I don't know that she every killed anyone, let alone tens of millions to enforce her economic views, a la, Stalin, Mao, Castro and other proponents of the "worker's paradise." Remember, the Berlin Wall was put up to keep people IN not keep Westerners OUT

  • Donald M Stebbins

    Bill,
    is 300 K more than 11 or 51 K?
    Look at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10/14/opi… for the whole article

    October 14, 2008
    Bulls, Bears, Donkeys and Elephants

    By TOMMY McCALL

    Since 1929, Republicans and Democrats have each controlled the presidency for nearly 40 years. So which party has been better for American pocketbooks and capitalism as a whole? Well, here’s an experiment: imagine that during these years you had to invest exclusively under either Democratic or Republican administrations. How would you have fared?

    As of Friday, a $10,000 investment in the S.& P. stock market index* would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents only, although that would be $51,211 if we exclude Herbert Hoover’s presidency during the Great Depression. Invested under Democratic presidents only, $10,000 would have grown to $300,671 at a compound rate of 8.9 percent over nearly 40 years.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Bill_OConnel Bill_OConnel

      You know what they say Don, about lies, damned lies and statistics. Okay, the New York Times (hmmmm, I wonder what their point of view is), produces a nice study that says investments were better under selective Democratic presidents than Republicans. Let's look at your numbers this way. The historical average rate of return for the S&P 500 from 1871 to 2008 is 10.4%. Looking at your list of Presidents, on the Republican side, G.H.W Bush, Eisenhower, Reagan and Ford all beat that average; on the Democrats bench Bill Clinton is the only one to do so. If you look more closely at Clinton's record, and on the economic front it's pretty good, it was pretty weak his first two years in office and rather strong the last six. What happend in those last six years? The Republicans took control of Congress and turned Bill Clinton into a moderate. It's nice of the Times to start with Herbert Hoover, who by the way was no free market conservative. Hoover believed in government intervention and made things decidedly worse by doing so. Also notice, the Times conveniently left out the Roaring 20s a period of tremendous economic growth with the stock market averaging 19.98% per year from 1920 to 1928, all under Republican administrations.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Bill_OConnel Bill_OConnel

      Don, if we really want to make it fun, let's compare your New York Times data with to conservative presidents and in that group I'll include Harding/Coolidge, Eisenhower and Reagan, each serving eight years. Your $10,000 investment would have grown to $42,940 under Harding/Coolidge. Put that under the mattress and take it out in 1952 at the beginning of the Eisenhower administration. When Ike left office, it would be worth $150,880. Back under the matterss until Reagan takes office. Invest your $150,880 and when Reagan turns the reins over to Bush (41), your original $10,000 investment would be worth $523,350. Aren't numbers fun?

  • Donald M Stebbins

    Bill 80 years is not enough for you? Before the 1930's neither party was consistently liberal or conservative. Teddy Roosevelt condemned the "malefactors of great wealth"
    and Woodrow Wilson was a racist Therefore claiming Republican good times as
    evidence of superior "conservative" performance is disingenuous. I will check your numbers later
    BTW the NYT article was not produced by the Times but submitted to them as an oped
    article by Tommy McCall of Money Magazine

    Bulls, Bears, Donkeys and Elephants

    By TOMMY McCALL

    Since 1929, Republicans and Democrats have each controlled the presidency for nearly 40 years. So which party has been better for American pocketbooks and capitalism as a whole? Well, here’s an experiment: imagine that during these years you had to invest exclusively under either Democratic or Republican administrations. How would you have fared?

    As of Friday, a $10,000 investment in the S.& P. stock market index* would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents only, although that would be $51,211 if we exclude Herbert Hoover’s presidency during the Great Depression. Invested under Democratic presidents only, $10,000 would have grown to $300,671 at a compound rate of 8.9 percent over nearly 40 years.
    Home

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Bill_OConnel Bill_OConnel

      Don, looking backward anyone can be a successful investor. In your 80 year scenario, with the exception of Bill Clinton, investing during the term of any Democratic president would have yielded returns below the historical average. What does that prove? You can slice the stock market's performace any number of way to make it look the way you want. Take a 10 year average that looks impressive and slip it two years and it can look bad. Do you long for the days of Jimmy Carter when he left office with inflation at 12%, and mortgage rates of 17.5%? I give him credit for some of his deregulation moves regarding airlines and trucking, but his economic policies were not good. FDR was president for eight years, spent boatloads of money and still couldn't end the Great Depression causing his Treasury Secretary Morganthau to lament in May 1939

      "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. {emphasis added} And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot!"*

      And yet this is the very failed model that Barack Obama is following. I give Clinton credit for negotiating NAFTA, and he would probably get a lot more credit if he kept his eyes on the ball and his hands off the help. But you refuse to answer my biggest beef and that is why is the government involved in these things that the Constitution gives them no power to do? Take the $787 billion stimulus bill, most of the money went to the Department of Education, the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services. Only about $4 billion went to the Department of Transportation for "shovel ready" projects. When 70%-80% of jobs in this country are created by small businesses, even if the stimulus was a good idea, why is spending most of the money in three departments that shouldn't even exist, going to end the rise in unemployment? The proof is in, it didn't. The federal government took $2,314 of wealth from every man, woman and child in this country and wasted it on a false promise that it would cap unemployment at 8% and it did not. Someone should be held accountable. Instead this administration is doubling down, and tripling down, on more and more spending on empty promises that an overwhelming majority of Americans are against, according to most polls. And the arrogant life time politicians in Washington say, "too bad, you are too stupid to manage your own affairs, you need we Harvard educated elites to tell you what to do, for your own good."

  • Donald M Stebbins

    Bill Even the Forbes article I sent you via email shows that Democrats outperformed
    Republicans during the last 80 years. Where do you get your numbers- they conflict
    with any numbers I can find
    Frankly I think conservatives have a enormous amount of chutzpah criticizing Obama
    after the way Bush ruined our economy with his stupid and reckless policies.
    Paul Krugman and others predicted what would happen back in 2000. He was right on the money.. I have to ask whether conservatives in general are incapable of
    learning from their mistakes. Paul Krugman recently said he was naive when he
    believed that people would abandon a policy after it failed utterly .
    By any honest reckoning Obama's stimulus has been a success. Cons have been
    intellectually dishonest in saying otherwise given the time it took Saint Ronnie
    to end his recession – it started after he took office- it should never have happened
    according to the way you judge Obama. Obama is doing his best to correct the
    disaster created by Bush and the neocons- You should be supporting his efforts rather
    the complaining and continuing to support the failed policies of conservatism

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Bill_OConnel Bill_OConnel

      Don, the way you tap dance would put Fred Astaire and Michael Flatley to shame. Is it four or five times you generically mention "Bush ruined our economy with his stupid and reckless policies," without mentioning a single policy and how it contributed to the recession? You make it hard to rebut your claims. I don't agree with a lot of what Bush did, including increasing spending but, oops, no that's a good thing, right, because that's all Obama has been doing since taking office. It's nice you give a nod to Paul Krugman who is a Nobel Laureate. However, he won the Nobel for his work on trade, for which he is respected, but otherwise he is a shrill left wing complainer for the New York Times. You like to put forth bromides like, "By any honest reckoning Obama's stimulus has been a success." Back it up with some facts, man! Get in the arena and drop the platitudes. When Obama promised that unemployment would not rise above 8% and it would hit 9% if we did nothing, and he slams through a 1,000 page stimulus bill that no one reads and unemployment rises to 10.2%, do you really call that, "success by any honest reckoning," really? You sound like every liberal wonk who looks over the wreckage of another failed government program lamenting, "I guess we didn't spend enough." Rather than honestly saying, "Well, that didn't work, let's scrap it and try something else, like leave it alone." Or are you relying on the Obama fabrication "jobs saved"?

      Here's an important note to my friends in the news media: the White House has absolutely no earthly clue how many job losses have been prevented because of the stimulus bill. None. Not Christina Romer. Not Jared Bernstein. Not Austen Goolsbee.

      Each of these distinguished economists would have failed Statistics 101 for making such a laughable claim. But we see them now repeating these assertions to reporters who have seemingly abandoned all skepticism. — Tony Fratto, CNBC, 2 June 2009

      I should be supporting his efforts? I think I have demonstrated to you through quotes from FDR's own Treasury Secretary that what Obama is doing, following the model of FDR does not work. I will do everything in my power to stop these insane policies before he bankrupts the country. Wake up, Don. If Obama's policies are so wonderful, why is his approval ratings lower than any president in history at the same point in their presidency? Why does he continue to support and push legislation that a majority of Americans oppose? This is hubris, the likes of which we have never seen. It's time to get your head out in the fresh air, Don. I support the principles on which this country was based, not on government running every aspect of our lives. If you want to have an honest debate, come prepared to defend your position with hard facts. I think we can both pick and choose our favorite times during the S&P 500s history and have some fun with those numbers, but what does that have to do with Barack Obama's inexperience and incompetence?

  • Donald M Stebbins

    Bill, true to the form of all arguments I have with neocons you describe your opinions and misstatements of history as "hard facts". As far as I am concerned you have presented very few if any facts let alone hard ones.. One fact you seem not to be aware
    of is that it took Reagan over two years to bring unemployment down below 10%
    Beyond that you do not seem to be reading my comments which included the words:
    "Our high unemployment rate was caused by Bush policies. Any look
    at the history of recessions bears out the fact that it takes years to turn around
    unemployment after a recession of the magnitude of Bush II's- which was brought about by reckless tax cuts, foolish war spending, and neglect of our infrastructure coupled with long standing conservative policies of increasing the wealth and income of the rich at everyone else's expense."
    Then you say I did not give a single example of Bush's poor policies. I count four in that sentence alone.
    You call the magnificent Paul Krugman shrill after he accurately predicted the Bush
    debacle and more recently presciently said that the Obama stimulus package would turn out not be be large enough
    As far as your opinion that it President Obama's very rational policies are insane
    I can only wonder what "air" you have been breathing that could so affect your reasoning ability.
    Anyone listening to Obama or reading his books knows he stands head and shoulders above any Republican, libertarian, neocon, or rightist of any sort in his reasoning ability and devotion to his country. He is a great American doing his best
    to correct the follies of the conservatives and their fellow travelers.. Start thinking instead of invoking the ideology of the right, which is almost always wrong.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Bill_OConnel Bill_OConnel

      Don, it's nice to see you finally identified some policies of Bush that you dislike. So let me address those points. First, let me address your comment about the unemployment rate. You are absolutely correct about the lagging nature of unemployment as well as the history with Reagan. However, Reagan attacked the problem by cutting tax rates and shrinking government. The results are in and they worked. Reagan never promised that any given program would cap the unemployment rate at a specific level nor did he offer a "do nothing" scenario that ultimately turned out to be better than the action. Instead of following this success formula, Obama is choosing the path of FDR, which is to spend his way out of the problem and that is proved to have failed according to Henry Morganthau, FDR's Treasury Secretary. Most rational people would choose the formula that worked over the one that didn't, but if you real goal is to pay off you backers with pork projects and expand the scope and control of the government, perhaps not.

      Tax Cuts — Kennedy cut taxes and the economy grew. Reagan cut taxes and the economy grew. Clinton cut taxes in 1997 and the last years of his administration were his best economically. Clinton handed Bush a recession after the dot.com bubble burst and then 9/11 hit. Bush cut taxes and GDP growth in 2004 and 2005 topped any year under Clinton. You opinion is that tax cuts are reckless. The facts are that they work for both Democrats and Republicans.

      Foolish war spending. That's interesting coming from a liberal. Woodrow Wilson (D) World War I; FDR (D) World War II; Truman (D) Korea; Kennedy/Johnson (D/D) Viet Nam. To provide for the national defense is explicit in the Constitution. I may argue that we may have avoided some of these conflicts with tougher diplomacy. You call it foolish, I call it keeping us safe, which Bush did. We were safe for seven years. Now that Obama is in office, there are brush fires breaking out around the world and in Fort Hood we once again have a terrorist attack on our soil. Obama is going to put the 9/11 terrorists on trial in a civil court in Manhattan, which is insane and unprecedented in American history, and this upstanding administration says it was Attorney General Holder's decision alone and Obama had nothing to do with it. Now that's leadership.

      Neglect of infrastructure. Where in the Constitution does it say that infrastructure is the responsibility of the president? This is another of my pet peeves with the expansion of the government. If the people of New York need a bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn, why should someone in Arizona pay for it? It should be paid for by the City of New York. Oh, we can't afford it! No? Well by federalizing everything as soon as the guy in Arizona pays for your bridge, you will have to pay for his sewage treatment plant, then pay for a turtle crossing in Florida, and an airport for John Murtha's "Airport for No One" (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204… Cut taxes and let people pay for their own local projects.

      Increasing Wealth and Income of the Rich. This is from an analysis done on data from the Bureau of Economic Statistics by Steven Horwitz, The overall lesson is clear: lives for Americans below the poverty line continue to get better in terms of what they are able to put in their households and have to make use of everyday. And do note that the average American household in 2005 was doing much better than its 1971 counterpart. MUCH better – and this doesn't even count medical advances and the like. So whatever one hears about stagnating wages and the like, the bottom line is ultimately what we can afford to buy and have in our households to improve our lives. By those measures, life for the average American is better today than 35 years ago, life for poor Americans is much better than it was 35 years ago, and poor Americans today largely live better than the average American did 35 years ago. Hard to square with a narrative of economic stagnation or decline. It's time to put the final nail in that coffin that the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. It doesn't take a genius to figure out where wealth and income are concerned, there is a floor ($0), but there is no ceiling. So over time, America being the land of opportunity that it is, allows hard working creative people to, yes, get rich. It is not a zero sum game, like liberals like to think. How did Bill Gates' establishment of Microsoft impoverish anyone? On the contrary, with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, many more people benefit from his starting Microsoft than he himself. Does that make him evil? While we're on that subject, while the average libera'ls income is typically 6% higher than the average conservative's, why do those evil, greedy, heartless conservatives give 30% more to charity than liberals? Why don't you ask VP Joe Biden, who despite being a millionaire and being paid handsomely by we taxpayers, contributes about $1 per day to charity? Doesn't he believe in helping those less fortunate than himself or only by stealing from other people through the government and giving away their money?

      So what does liberal nirvana look like. Well, Detroit has been run by liberals and the auto unions since 1961. Take a look here: (

      ” target=”_blank”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw)

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