dagblog - Comments for "The Way I See It - Bullet Points"

Maybe my point wasn't clear

Michael Wolraich — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 16:01:00 +0000

In reply to Who do you think has stature

Maybe my point wasn't clear either. Ramona argued that no one besides the president has the stature to explain the economic nuances.

I agree that Obama has more stature than anyone else. I was making two points. 1) Other people still have plenty of stature which they are not using to effectively explain the nuances. 2) It's not that easy to make people listen to and understand economic nuances--even for the president.

In other words, the communication failure is the President's problem but not only the President's problem. It's a thorny problem that reaches deep into our politics, institutions, culture, and institutions.

Dan, I'm aware of the

Michael Wolraich — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 15:39:33 +0000

In reply to I don't think I'm conflating

Dan, I'm aware of the difference between public and private debt and have blogged about it before.

But debt, whether public or private, is secondary when it comes to immediate growth stimulus. What the economy urgently needs is spending.

Debt is simply a means to that end. If the government were to distribute money directly to the citizens, and the citizens saved it all instead of spending it, there would be no net stimulus, just a transfer from private debt to public debt.

Thus, to the extent that the government discourages consumer spending, it will diminish the immediate stimulus effect.

Now you make a good case that three decades of wealth redistribution is major contributor to our current economic woes. Taxing the rich and encouraging private saving will help address that problem, but what took three decades to accumulate won't be solved in matter of months, and we can only address it effectively with a growing economy.

So logically, it makes sense to focus on stimulus right now--get people spending with public works, unemployment support, and as you initially recommended, delays in any tax hikes.

After the recovery, we need to right the wrongs that have led us down this path and reverse the flow of wealth.

Agreed.

AmericanDreamer — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 13:04:09 +0000

In reply to I'm sure there is demand in

Agreed.

Well, if your comment was

AmericanDreamer — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 12:25:51 +0000

In reply to Hmmm. Appears my comment was

Well, if your comment was phrased a bit inartfully, mine as well. I hope it's obvious I don't want him to make effective use of his office to advocate and procure support for bad policies from the public. I was referring more to him being MIA frequently during the first two years, not delivering the needed message at the needed time, but rather too late (on health care, for example) or not at all (on jobs, for example).

Hmmm. Appears my comment was

kgb999 — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 09:50:14 +0000

In reply to I disagree to an extent w/

Hmmm. Appears my comment was phrased inartfully. I was trying to advance that premise myself. It just seems to me that Obama does indeed take the big stage and advance clear ideas. My complaint isn't that he has failed to use his bully pulpit per se. I think he does so from time to time on most major issues. My complaint is that every time he climbs up on the soap-box he takes the opportunity to essentially say "Republicans are right" in a bazillion ways big and small, blatant and subtle.

Other than that point, I think we pretty much agree on the bigger issues here. I'm seeing almost everyone argue as passionately as they know how on the debt ceiling and related nonsense. I really hope it helps. If not, it certainly won't be from a lack of pressure.

I feel that you made some

smithers_T — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 07:19:09 +0000

In reply to The Way I See It - Bullet Points

I feel that you made some good points until you began to speculate about the destruction of progressive government... as though you even know progressivism is a good in itself....? Take care with that word. Some government action not only doesn't result in progress, it results in nothing, or less _ than _ nothing, i.e. serious setbacks due to over-reach and inept micro-management of affairs that are not in the government's area of expertise.

Also note that Greece's austerity measure is what opened the door (with notable vocal exceptions) to more bailouts. The troublesome thing about bailouts is that nobody learns anything useful by them, they are artificial... at best are usually a bandage when a more serious infection is lurking beneath the surface. Sometimes, the only way to restore health is through amputation. That may sound harsh, but if you were the one about to lose a hand (rather than your whole arm?) you'd see the wisdom in it.

I'm sure there is demand in

Dan Kervick — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 05:37:39 +0000

In reply to Rather, banks are correctly

I'm sure there is demand in some places and in some businesses. But if we are looking for an explanation of why business activity and production is only expanding at a sluggish rate, and can't put a dent in unemployment, I think the answer is that there is an overall dearth of opportunity.

Also I wrote this on November

AmericanDreamer — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 04:47:10 +0000

In reply to Who do you think has stature

Also I wrote this on November 3 of last year: http://dagblog.com/reader-blogs/thoughts-how-go-offense-7380

Since then I've written nothing inconsistent with that point of view, and a fair amount reflecting that view, as I haven't changed my mind on that subject.

Frank Rich in his July 3, 2011 piece "Obama's Original Sin" in New York Magazine, wrote:

The deficit has never been a top voter priority, no matter how loudly the right claims it is. At Obama's inaugural, Gallup found that 11 percent of voters ranked unemployment as their top priority while only 2 percent did the deficit. Unemployment has remained a stable public priority over the deficit ever since, usually by at least a 2-to-1 ratio. In a CBS poll immediately after the Democrats' shellacking of last November, a debacle supposedly precipitated by the tea party's debt jihad, the question "What Should Congress Concentrate On in January?" yielded 56 percent for economy/jobs and 4 percent for deficit reduction.

Rather, banks are correctly

AmericanDreamer — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 04:02:04 +0000

In reply to They are gun shy about making

Rather, banks are correctly reluctant to lend money because many of those businesses who want to borrow it cannot demonstrate that they really can make money from the new enterprises.

I'm unclear on whether this is universally or almost universally true--whether there are basically no parts of the country and local/regional sectors where there is enough demand to start or expand some smaller and medium-sized businesses profitably, or whether there are at least some where the lack of available credit for businesses is a real problem.

Do you think bankers know, or perceive, that the shortfall in consumer demand is crippling their ability to make profitable loans? If so, to what do you attribute the fact that the banking lobby is not lobbying for more stimulus?

I disagree to an extent w/

AmericanDreamer — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 03:47:05 +0000

In reply to Who do you think has stature

I disagree to an extent w/ what I see as the premise advanced by DK/AD. Obama has totally been using his office to aggressively communicate with the American public. The problem is he has been aggressively communicating that the most important thing for America at this point in time is addressing the deficit and "fixing" independently-funded social programs

Not meaning to advance that premise at all. Here is part of the rest of the reply I drafted to the Genghis comment you and I are commenting on, which I chose not to include in the comment:

He has put it to generally poor and unimaginative use so far, a big surprise to many of us who thought he had tremendous promise in that regard. He simply has not so far been the peoples' President we so desperately need right now, even though the issues were served up to him on a silver platter...

The bigger problem, though, now for Obama, is his policies. Right now, with what he's selling, the best communications strategy in the world will not enable him to offer a narrative that makes him clearly preferable on the jobs issue next year. Which for a Democrat is inexcusable. If he wins re-election, which he well might, most likely it will be because his opposition has even more impoverished ideas about what to do to help this country than he has been pursuing. He has at the moment completely boxed himself in on economic policy by buying into the deficit-reduction trap read of the November elections the Republicans, among others, invited him to step into. It will be hard, but maybe not impossible, for him to break out of it. Otherwise the jobs picture does not look good going into next year. Beyond lowballing the stimulus he declined an opportunity to come out aggressively for the House-passed public infrastructure jobs bill that would have positioned him on the right side of the jobs issue last year and going forward.

I've been arguing as passionately as I know how to in favor of saying no to any deals on the debt ceiling matter and instead turning the Republicans' gross irresponsibility and recklessness against them to deliver a crushing blow. Partly because giving in to blackmail is foolish unless he sees it as an opportunity to do things he won't say he supports openly. And partly because deficit reduction is exactly the wrong thing to do right now for the economy and probably also for his re-election chances.