It's Obama spreading panic

[DarrinS]

http://thehill.com/ -morris/its-o...009-02-24.html

Ultimately, all recessions and depressions resolve themselves into crises of confidence. The instant, global, 24/7 communications of today make them ever more so. President Obama, in his pursuit of liberal big-government spending, has totally neglected the role of the president of the United States in reversing global panic. To the contrary, his every remark and the constant preoccupation of his Cabinet is to heighten the sense of crisis and to escalate the predictions of doom if we do not do as they tell us and raise spending now and taxes later.

Instead of being a firewall, reassuring Main Street even as Wall Street crashed, he has become a conduit of panic, spreading the mood of desperation from the stock exchange floor to kitchen tables across the world.

There are bad loans, which became bad assets, that lie at the root of the crisis. Through deregulation by the government and the greed of financial ins utions, they spread to every portfolio in the world. But these basic facts have metastasized out of all proportion to their real harm into job and financial insecurity for every family on Earth. It is President Obama, not the markets themselves, who has spread this fear. A global Paul Revere, he has not only aroused us, but incited fear and trepidation in his wake.

Previous panics have been global in impact, but local in focus. The world panicked because of developments in Mexico or Argentina or Thailand or South Korea. Now, with Collateralized Debt Obligations spreading the poison of a bunch of bad loans all over the world, infecting every portfolio, the panic is not only global in impact but in focus as well. Modern communications have hastened the spread of the virus of panic throughout the global bloodstream.

In addressing this panic, the president of the United States must truly be the leader of the world — showing the way back to confidence.

Instead, Obama has been instrumental in purveying fear and spreading doubt. It is his pronouncements, reinforced by the developments they kindle and catalyze, that are destroying good businesses, bankrupting responsible people and wiping out even conservative financial ins utions. Every time he speaks, he sends the markets down and stocks crashing. He doesn’t seem to realize that the rest of the world takes its cue from him. He forgets that he stands at the epicenter of power, not on the fringes campaigning for office. This ain’t Iowa.

Why does Obama preach gloom and doom? Because he is so anxious to cram through every last spending bill, tax increase on the so-called rich, new government regulation, and expansion of healthcare en lement that he must preserve the atmosphere of crisis as a political necessity. Only by keeping us in a state of panic can he induce us to vote for trillion-dollar deficits and spending packages that send our national debt soaring.

And then there is the matter of blame. The deeper the mess goes — and the further down his rhetoric drives it — the more imperative it becomes to lay off the blame on Bush. He must perpetually “discover” — to his shock — how deep the crisis that he inherited runs, stoking global fears in the process.

So, having inherited a recession, his words are creating a depression. He entered office amid a disaster and he is transforming it into a catastrophe, all to pass every last bit of government spending and move us a bit further to the left before his political capital dwindles.

But the jig will be up soon. The crash of the stock market in the days since he took power (indeed, from the moment he won the election) can increasingly be attributed to his own failure to lead us in the right direction, his failed policies in addressing the recession and his own spreading of panic and fear. The market collapse makes it evident that it is Obama who is the problem, where he should, instead, be the solution.

[ChumpDumper]

Morris?

Really?

[DarrinS]

I know, I know, it's Morris, but there is some truth to it.

[LockBeard]

Talking about raising taxes, univ. health care, and going forth with this idiotic cap-and-trade while businesses are already scared less of the power grab by this administration amazes me until I remember what forms of life are in office.

I suppose they figure they will be able to control enough for the aftermath to not make a difference.

[ChumpDumper]

I know, I know, it's Morris, but there is some truth to it.

Not really. If the market is thrown into a tailspin by a few political sentences, it can stay down forever as far as I'm concerned. All these Ayn Rand acolytes are showing their true pussy nature.

[LockBeard]

Pussy nature when what they fear is coming true by the day.

Okay.

[DarrinS]

A good example:

Read the President's message in A New Era of Responsibility

We start 2009 in the midst of a crisis unlike
any we have seen in our lifetimes. Our economy
is in a deep recession that threatens to be deeper
and longer than any since the Great Depression.

Man, that sure gets me fired up to invest.

[ChumpDumper]

Pussy nature when what they fear is coming true by the day.

Okay.

Yeah. They are pussies looking for someone else to blame.

[ChumpDumper]

A good example:

Read the President's message in A New Era of Responsibility





Man, that sure gets me fired up to invest.

"Threatens" would be the operative word here -- but people see what they want to see.

[Winehole23]

Repe ive, hackneyed and insincere.

Morris is a servile toady. It is repulsive to behold even on the printed page.

This is exactly what Republicans used to say 30 years ago. Blame economic bad news on the bad news Democrats.

And, oh, Obama is a fear monger. Did you hear his speech yesterday, DarrinS? Was the President spreading fear and wrecking the economy with his cavalier comments?

[Winehole23]

Man, that sure gets me fired up to invest.

You think the president overstates the case, is that the gist of it?

[Winehole23]

My PFA on the whole thing is everybody's gonna be pissed at Obama for sugarcoating his advice to the public re: the Panic of 2008-2009.

[Winehole23]

It could be a tough tough scrape.

[MannyIsGod]

I stopped reading here "
Ultimately, all recessions and depressions resolve themselves into crises of confidence".

Really? Does anyone here with half a brain actually want to find out why someone says that mindless drivel? I know I doubt. When I see ignorance of that sort I generally just stay away from it and I certainly wouldn't post it as some authoritative message.

[MannyIsGod]

A good example:

Read the President's message in A New Era of Responsibility





Man, that sure gets me fired up to invest.

Because investors are looking to presidential addresses to decide on whether or not to enter the market.

Well, maybe the stupid ones are.

[Winehole23]

I stopped reading here "
Ultimately, all recessions and depressions resolve themselves into crises of confidence".

Really?

Really!

Obama is bumming us out and causing an at ude problem.

Other people call it a recession, but the gloomy gusses are behind it all. They caused the worst economic contraction since the 1930's, just by bad talking the economy. Wow.

[Oh, Gee!!]

it's like in other countries where saying "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you" actually makes you divorced

[DarrinS]

Because investors are looking to presidential addresses to decide on whether or not to enter the market.

Well, maybe the stupid ones are.

It may be a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc, but almost every time Obama makes his case for catastrophe, the market tanks.

[doobs]

The problem is Obama is not being clear about his long-term plans for stabilizing the financial markets. Obama and Geithner have been floating ideas and experimenting, going back and forth on TARP II, the "bad bank" idea, the mortgage bailout plan, the "Buy American" provision in the stimulus, and others. Obama has also hemmed and hawed on incomes taxes and corporate taxes and capital gains taxes. Team Obama has not given the market a clear indication of what will happen over the next few years.

And it's not like investors can only invest in the American stock market. They can invest in real estate. They can invest in bonds. They can invest overseas. Or they can just keep a strong cash position and sit out the economic downturn; you know, wait for the bottom. So, yes, investor confidence in the government's plans for the economy matters.

Obama just needs to have a plan, and to announce that plan with confidence. Some plans are clearly better than others, but the market loathes uncertainty.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

I can't think of a better way to stimulate job growth in this country than announce cap and spend plans that will be nailing businesses with more taxes and fines and higher operating costs. And it's not like none of those costs will be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. It makes perfect sense, this administration is so smart

[Winehole23]

The problem is Obama is not being clear about his long-term plans for stabilizing the financial markets. Obama and Geithner have been floating ideas and experimenting, going back and forth on TARP II, the "bad bank" idea, the mortgage bailout plan, the "Buy American" provision in the stimulus, and others.

Treasury is *not even* fully staffed yet. Is Geithner self-generated? Does he have an amanuensis or a mentor?

The NCEI is a goat from what I can tell. Larry Sommers is the ular lord of it all, but I haven't seen him in any headlines lately.

Hurry up, please.

Obama has also hemmed and hawed on incomes taxes and corporate taxes and capital gains taxes. Team Obama has not given the market a clear indication of what will happen over the next few years.


Obama just needs to have a plan, and to announce that plan with confidence. Some plans are clearly better than others, but the market loathes uncertainty.

The approach so far has been completely ad hoc. That should change.

I frankly don't see that the current rebalancing of equities particularly favors the investor or the corporate citizen, so I wouldn't get my hopes up too high right now for a tax cut if you fall into that category.

A little clarity would be nice, but there is one abiding fact that above all must remain unclear for all our sakes -- our banking sector is kaput. It cannot pay. So we must. That is the *plan*.

Admit nothing. Give the banks a clean bill of health and a broad tranche of our future prosperity to hoard or to play with.

Can it really work? Is the rest of the world that dumb? Are we?

[micca]

http://thehill.com/ -morris/its-o...009-02-24.html

Necessity is the excuse for every infringement of human liberty. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. -- William Pitt

Or as Rohm Emanuelle said "never let a good crisis go to waste" It's pretty transparnet that this recession is being used by the political class to grab more and more power. They create crisis then tell us they're the only ones who have the knowldege to solve it is them, illegal aliens case in point. A congress that is signing bills that they don't even have the time to read is not a goverment it's a regime. Sorry we don't have time for represenative goverment ,just trust that warm tingling feeling running up your legs.

[Winehole23]

Necessity is the excuse for every infringement of human liberty. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. -- William Pitt

Or as Rohm Emanuelle said "never let a good crisis go to waste" It's pretty transparnet that this recession is being used by the political class to grab more and more power. They create crisis then tell us they're the only ones who have the knowldege to solve it is themselves.

Dovetails with Naomi Klein.

[Extra Stout]

Can it really work? Is the rest of the world that dumb? Are we?

If they do nothing, the U.S. economy collapses, the U.S. government probably collapses, and everybody falls into a post-Soviet dystopian of starvation and violence, leading up to wars among the successor states that kill millions.

If their plan fails, the U.S. economy collapses, the U.S. government probably collapses, and everybody falls into a post-Soviet dystopian of starvation and violence, leading up to wars among the successor states that kill millions.

If their plan works, our standard of living will be sharply reduced, but we're spared the specter of, say, Houston and Dallas becoming 21st-century Stalingrads as the Confederates and Aztlanenses fight a long war over who gets to control the oil in Texas and in the Gulf of Mexico in the post-U.S. world.

Yeah, the plan has almost no chance of working, but you gotta try...

[Winehole23]

It may be a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc, but almost every time Obama makes his case for catastrophe, the market tanks.

The DarrinS nuts . It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Or maybe they just guessed right.

Was it foreseeable in advance that things might start to get even worse in 2009?

Or are you still convinced things aren't so bad?