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No, We’re Not Better Off

Obama gets it right.

In an interview with ABC News, Obama was asked how he planned to convince people they’re better off now than they were four years ago _ the formulation Ronald Reagan famously used to defeat President Jimmy Carter in 1980.

“I don’t think that they’re better off than they were four years ago,” Obama said.

Posted by Owen at 1831 hrs
Politics + Politics - General

1. There is nothing our government could have done to make us better off today than we were 4 years ago.  The only thing our government could do was ease the pain.

   The bigger question is if the American middle class is better off after 3 decades of Reaganomics.  Reagan’s policies have worked beautifully for the wealthy while the rest of us are left to navigate an America where prosperity is more difficult to achieve than it was for the generations that preceded.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 03, 2011 at 1950 hrs
   
   
   

2. Amazed at how stupid liberals are.  “Nothing” could have been done….

   Fixing this economy is so simple any non-socialist moron could do it.  Energy, Obamacare, regulation….

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 04, 2011 at 0702 hrs
   
   
   

3. If you watch the whole interview it was more like they are not better off but its not my fault.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 04, 2011 at 0749 hrs
   
   
   

4. amazed at how stupid smeety is…

   You honestly think our economy would be in better shape than it was 4 years ago if we simply drilled more, deregulated more and didn’t pass the affordable care act?  I am not going to say these things wouldn’t have helped to ease the pain (although I think they would simply be a short term gain that wouldn’t help the economy in the long run), but the notion that your simplistic solution would have negated the effects of the worst recession of the contemporary era is plain ignorant.

   I did notice how you didn’t address my bigger question.  Is the middle class better off than it was 30 years ago?

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 04, 2011 at 0919 hrs
   
   
   

5. Yes, we could be better off than we were 4 years ago.    We could have let the recession happen, cut our government spending, take care of the unemployed, let the chips fall where they may and then got on with life.  We would now be entering happy times again. 

   Government didn’t act to “ease the pain”.    It acted to ease the pain of government and those who spent and invested their money poorly at the cost of increasing the pain for most of America and turning an 18 month downturn into a decade or more of crap.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 04, 2011 at 0944 hrs
   
   
   

6. Yes, we could be better off than we were 4 years ago.  We could have let the recession happen, cut our government spending, take care of the unemployed, let the chips fall where they may and then got on with life.  We would now be entering happy times again. 

   That is simply absurd. 

   If our government had backed off, slashed spending and let the chips fall where they may the hole we would be finding ourselves would have been much larger.  This economy of ours is dependent on consumer spending, consumers wealth is concentrated in housing.  A hands off approach would have resulted in far higher unemployment and far more housing wealth destruction within the only segment that can spawn a “real” recovery (the consuming middle class).  A completely hands off approach would have probably brought about a quicker return to more organic less government supported growth, but there is no way in hell we would be in a better place than we were 4 years earlier. 

   We would be growing, but from a far more disadvantaged point than we are today.  We may yet reach that disadvantaged point, but for political leaders to put us there intentionally is voluntary economic-ideologically martyrdom.  There is no way any politician will ever win enough power to become that martyr.  There is far too much risk invloved for the plutocrats running this joint.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 04, 2011 at 1026 hrs
   
   
   

7. No, it isn’t absurd.  It’s what happened prior to government deciding it could make recessions “better”.    People were allowed to lose their asses and the world quickly moved on.

   Our economy cannot be based on consumer spending and housing.    They don’t produce anything.  Housing must fall further because there was, and is, no basis for even its’ current pricing.  Consumer spending has fallen because there was no basis for the extension of consumer credit to the levels that occured without a commensurate increase in production.

   The old economy isn’t going to recover.  It’s going to be replaced.  We need to get on with building the new economy and that means letting go of the old.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 04, 2011 at 1050 hrs
   
   
   

8. If you ask anybody who works on Wall Street if they’re better off than they were four years ago, not only will they answer in the affirmative; they’ll also point to Obama’s bailout as a chief reason why their future’s never been brighter.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 04, 2011 at 1146 hrs
   
   
   

9. Recessions happen. It’s a fact of life, and a method of clearing out bad investments and bad investors.

   What should have happened was that those banks who made bad loans should have gone under, while the depositors of those banks were made whole by the appropriate government guarantees, but the investors in those banks (both bondholders and stockholders) and the employees who made the bad policy decisions should have been wiped out.

   Instead, we decided to shield those who made obviously bad decisions (and they were bad at the time to anyone paying attention) from the responsibility of their decisions and we kept those who had made responsible decisions from being able to clear the market at reasonable prices and begin the investment cycle anew. So rather than reward those who were prudent, we have rewarded those who were reckless and unwise. And we rewarded them by taxing our children and grandchildren by taking on tons more additional debt. And you don’t see the problem with that?

   A similar argument could be made for those who purchased homes during the bubble. I was one of those, but I knew in 2006 that it was a bubble so I rolled over all of the excess profits from the old house into the new and kept paying down the mortgage just as I had before. So now even though my home value is down 25% or so I really don’t care, because the gains and losses were all illusory.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 04, 2011 at 1216 hrs
   
   
   

10. How in the world can we be better off when people have been losing income and benefits since the eighties?

    I believe a major reason for high unemployment is that many people cannot afford to retire because they lost their pensions and were given a glorified saving account called a 401k program that allowed other people to lose in the stock market…

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 05, 2011 at 1024 hrs
    
    
    

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