What America Needs to Return to Normalcy

[pbrower2a]

What is the alternative? Re-elect Obama and hope things change for the better? I say, "no we can't" to that.

YES, WE CAN!

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Most of the fear seems to have been generated by bureaucratic elites who serve as enforcers of tycoons. The Hard Right idea of 'good' competition is that in which working people compete to determine who will be most productive while being squeezed most. Such, if successful on its own terms, ensures 'decline' through degradation of the work force... and something nastier than any 'malaise' that we have known at any time. 

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Promises? He has kept more promises. The most dangerous and destructive meltdown of the US economy since the 1930s came to an end within a couple of months of his inauguration. We have had economic growth even if most Americans haven't shared in it -- because  tycoons and corporate bureaucrats so gamed the rules of the economic system that they took it all!

After a speculative bubble fails, all that can happen is slow growth based on long-term investment. We need to change the tax laws (to more progressivity!) to foster small business that now can't compete with vertically-integrated cartels and trusts.
 

[pbrower2a]

What is the alternative? Re-elect Obama and hope things change for the better? I say, "no we can't" to that.

YES, WE CAN!

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Most of the fear seems to have been generated by bureaucratic elites who serve as enforcers of tycoons. The Hard Right idea of 'good' competition is that in which working people compete to determine who will be most productive while being squeezed most. Such, if successful on its own terms, ensures 'decline' through degradation of the work force... and something nastier than any 'malaise' that we have known at any time.

Nonsense that is not even worthy of a response. Then again, you are from Michigan, so I am not surprised you are fine with Michigan-style malaise contaminating the rest of America.

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Once again:

Barack Obama has scrupulously avoided scaring markets, which is a good idea. What do you think he is -- a Marxist-Leninist?  His official prediction of the economy underestimated the severity of the economic meltdown of the year and a half that began in the autumn of 2007 (under Dubya and the result of economic policies that Bush and GOP majorities promoted before 2007) He also over-estimated the speed of the recovery, especially with respect to unemployment.

The economic meltdown was more severe than most people predicted.  I am one of those who predicted a 1929-style crash followed by a steep and protracted contraction. I couldn't predict how long it would be; I predicted that what would keep it from being as protracted as that of 1929-1932 was that we had stronger institutions (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, FDIC insurance, and welfare) that would create a higher floor for economic ruin.

http://advisorperspectives.com/dshort/charts/markets/TotalReturn/4-bad-bears.html?4-bad-bears.gif

That graph is not made for political purposes. A claim that the stimulus made things worse is specious. It violates the mainstream in economic theory and analysis. Could it have been the wrong sort of stimulus? Absolutely! It was directed more at rescuing bad actors in the American economy instead of WPA-like and CCC-like job-creating and skill-developing programs. But if the financial sector had failed, then just imagine how much else could have failed. Many companies would have found no way in which to meet payrolls.

The Romney graph is a prime example of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. 

As for malaise -- we could easily have gotten far worse.