"Lock Him Up!"

[Watchmen]

It's not that I am doubting your 401K statements. The question is "How did you manage to miss out on the investment opportunities during the Obama administration? " From real estate to the stock market, the economy did very well. Perhaps you were too invested in gold, alternative energy, bonds?
All the investors with a lick of sense did quite well during the Obama years. What happened to you?
Tom

I'm just talking about my 401k.

 

[Watchmen]

Perhaps you honestly forgot what you posted a mere 13 posts up? Post 87:



Nobody is questioning that your 401(k) is up right now. Nobody is "bringing it down".

People are clearly only questioning the part where you stated that it was stagnant under Obama.

Your own evidence for your statement that your 401(k) was up was that the stock market is up. Post #90.

If the evidence for your 401(k) being up is the stock market being up, then your 401(k) would have also been up under Obama because the stock market was hitting record highs then as well.

Not much growth at all the last few years under Obama. Just a my experience. Mileage may vary.

 

[tytlyf]

Not much growth at all the last few years under Obama. Just a my experience. Mileage may vary.

Well, that depends on where you get your information from. A lot of people have been told that the economy wasn't recovering and getting worse the longer Obama was in office.

It's a simple thing to check the statistics on, have you done that? I do understand that GOP media likes to tell people things knowing they won't fact check what is said.

As mentioned before, Trump is taking credit for most of Obama's accomplishments. To Trump supporters, the economy magically changed over night when Trump took office. That's due to GOP media telling them that. I watch Fox and listen to Rush 95% of the time. I hear them making statements on 401k's. So I understand who is teaching people to make similar statements like yours.

 

[esmith]

Yes the stock market made exceptional gains during the Obama administration. However one must consider why, and one of the major reason was the exceptional low interest rate. What one must look at to determine the Obama administration's affect on the national economy is varied. The following charts from :Economic Record: President Obama
compare the Obama to Regan. One can select any president from JFK to Obama. Now there are those that say President Trump will be the next President Regan. Let's hope so, but only time will tell
GDP

Job Creation

Median Income

Debt as a percentage of GDP

 

[metis]

Reagan tripled the national debt when it wasn't necessary to do so with the exception of his first year in office (remember "voodoo economics", as GHW Bush called Reagan's economic plan), so do we really want to consider him some sort of economic hero.

Secondly, the interest rate is still very low, which undoubtedly is continuing to encourage investments.

Thirdly, Obama & Co. pulled our butts out of a downward spiral, and yet, as we see, the Republicans still can't give him any credit whatsoever. But Trump is now such an economic miracle-worker in just 7 months!

BTW, what has happened with the stock market in the last three days, and what does this appear to be attributed to? Hmmmm?

 

[Revoltingest]

Reagan tripled the national debt when it wasn't necessary to do so with the exception of his first year in office (remember "voodoo economics", as GHW Bush called Reagan's economic plan), so do we really want to consider him some sort of economic hero.

Secondly, the interest rate is still very low, which undoubtedly is continuing to encourage investments.

Thirdly, Obama & Co. pulled our butts out of a downward spiral, and yet, as we see, the Republicans still can't give him any credit whatsoever. But Trump is now such an economic miracle-worker in just 7 months!

BTW, what has happened with the stock market in the last three days, and what does this appear to be attributed to? Hmmmm?

Obama harmed the recovery with specific actions he took, which explains why it was so slow.
- Continued requirement that Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac not renegotiate failing loans, sending borrowers into foreclosure.
- His homeowner assistance programs applied only to those with perfect payment records, but not to those actually in need.
- Government regulators pressured commercial lenders to foreclose upon borrowers at risk, rather than allow renegotiated loans. This sent many into foreclosure....many who could've otherwise survived.
- Regulation of lending made borrowing far more difficult. Some might argue this is a good thing, but borrowers who had renewable loans found themselves in foreclosure.

Obama was one of the worst things to happen to our economy.
Even worse than GW Bush, whose wars he continued to pursue at devastating cost.

 

[esmith]

Reagan tripled the national debt when it wasn't necessary to do so with the exception of his first year in office (remember "voodoo economics", as GHW Bush called Reagan's economic plan), so do we really want to consider him some sort of economic hero.

Secondly, the interest rate is still very low, which undoubtedly is continuing to encourage investments.

Thirdly, Obama & Co. pulled our butts out of a downward spiral, and yet, as we see, the Republicans still can't give him any credit whatsoever. But Trump is now such an economic miracle-worker in just 7 months!

BTW, what has happened with the stock market in the last three days, and what does this appear to be attributed to? Hmmmm?

Well let see the Facts and Facts
Obama increased the deficit by $6.69 trillion, Reagan increased the deficit by $1.142 trillion. Obama had the largest deficit of any president.
Obama increased the national debt by $7.917 trillion; 5th largest increase percentage wise. Reagan increased the national debt by $1.86 trillion, the largest increase percentage wise (186%) Oh by the way 18% is not "tripled" as you stated that would be 300%. Kind of off in your figures aren't you?
Now pay particular attention to the charts in post #105 especially the GDP growth, Median income, and Job creation. Therefore as the economy is concerned which President would you prefer?

 

[metis]

The above two posts are simply hilarious as, under Bernanke and Paulson, both Republicans, they told Congress that if they didn't act soon in a meeting in September, 2008, that we could sink into a deep recession. What they told Bush and Obama even before the latter took office, is that if they and Congress allowed the banks to fail that we could sink into a depression that could possibly be even worse than during the Great Depression because we had even more money by percent tied up in credit.

IOW, according to these economists and others, Bush and Obama had no choice but to "bail" out the banks, thus sharply unbalancing the budget to stop the "freefall", to use Stiglitz's word for what was happening.

If people forget, just a reminder that the banking system had pretty much come to a halt because no one knew if the other was solvent, which is why Bernanke came up with his "stress test" plan run by the fed. And AIG was collapsing as well as the world's primary privately-owned insurer of accounts.

Anyhow, there are some pretty good books written by reputable economists on this, so I'm not blowing smoke. "Freefall" by (Nobel Prize winner in economics) Stiglitz is the best, imo, because he takes the reader through this step-by-step. Even Wiki's account isn't bad: Great Recession - Wikipedia

 

[Revoltingest]

The above two posts are simply hilarious......

A bold claim which doesn't address any of the points I made.
And then it goes on to justify crony capitalism for the long troubled AIG.
The bailouts.....
Why bailout lenders who were in trouble because of loan defaults,
when he could've instead bailed out the borrowers, thereby saving
both them and the banks? Because big companies on Wall St get
the attention...not the little folk who got no aid whatsoever from Obama.

 

[esmith]

The above two posts are simply hilarious as, under Bernanke and Paulson, both Republicans, they told Congress that if they didn't act soon in a meeting in September, 2008, that we could sink into a deep recession.

So it appears that you disagree with the facts. In neither of my post did I have any thing to say about any other administration than Obama and Regan. Yet you dismiss what was written and take your argument in a different direction. Is it because you can not dispute the facts or even maybe can not face the facts.

 

[metis]

First of all, bailing out the investors simply would not have kept the banks solvent for a couple of reasons, including the time it would take to do as such while the banking system and economy was in a state of freefall. It's an unfortunate reality, and frankly also an unfair way to do what they did, but they literally had no choice. When we're losing 700,000 jobs in one month alone, speed is needed, and this is what the CBO had also concluded. .

My only regret is that we didn't do what the Brits did, namely to bust up and resell the offending banks. But the fed couldn't do that because they technically had to break the law in mandating that banks take loans so as to justify running the "stress test" that was so badly needed. IOW, time was of the essence.

With the latter post I did cover all but the last part, and I didn't do that one simply because it didn't deal with what was happening with the Great Recession, which is what my post had focused on.

So, let me just add that the conditions when Reagan took office was far less severe than when Obama did even though it was indeed significant at first. Also, we didn't go as low economically with the stock market, for example, taking a nasty noser-- and that's where most of the investment money is tied up either directly or indirectly. And then there's the collapse of the shadow-banking system that literally froze.

When your investment bankers and citizens won't invest because they're too afraid, it takes time for money to loosen up again. Therefore, the recovery was slow and uneven as we've painfully seen. And yet by the time Obama left office, unemployment had dropped below 5%, and it is also Trump who benefited from Obama & Co.'s actions.

Some need to do some reading, including this that I'll link again: Great Recession - Wikipedia

fini

 

[Revoltingest]

First of all, bailing out the investors simply would not have kept the banks solvent for a couple of reasons, including the time it would take to do as such while the banking system and economy was in a state of freefall. It's an unfortunate reality, and frankly also an unfair way to do what they did, but they literally had no choice. When we're losing 700,000 jobs in one month alone, speed is needed, and this is what the CBO had also concluded. .

I never proposed bailing out investors, which is exactly what Obama did.
Instead, I'd prefer bailing out the borrowers (as I clearly said), which would
have the secondary effect of saving the investors.

 

[metis]

Bailing out the borrowers simply would not have loosened up the freeze in the banking system because no one knew who was solvent and who wasn't. Also, there simply wasn't enough time to set things in motion to help the borrowers in time. If it had been a viable option, then I'm quite confident that Paulson and Bernanke would have demanded that we take that step, but they didn't. We needed actions right away, as they and the CBO told Congress, not many months down the line. When Congress first took the vote and it failed, the stock market took one hellofa noser if one remembers correctly. They had to reconvene and hurry up and sell it, and yet even then most of the Republicans were so dimwitted enough not to understand what was at stake.

 

[Revoltingest]

Bailing out the borrowers simply would not have loosened up the freeze in the banking system because no one knew who was solvent and who wasn't.

You don't believe in alerting posters to a response, eh?
That's only partially true. The fed was primarily the one in the dark. Many (not all) banks were clearly solvent, & having no trouble continuing business, eg, Old National. This is similar to the auto industry in that the unfamiliar public thought they were all in trouble, but some were fine, eg, Ford.

Also, there simply wasn't enough time to set things in motion to help the borrowers in time.

There was plenty of time. But this wasn't the problem. Note that even as years passed, Obama still chose to not help troubled borrowers. Moreover, the fed even took steps to harm commercial borrowers, thereby exacerbating the real estate crash.

If it had been a viable option, then I'm quite confident that Paulson and Bernanke would have demanded that we take that step, but they didn't.

I'd prefer to hear evidence based arguments over citing supposed experts' opinions.

We needed actions right away, as they and the CBO told Congress, not many months down the line. When Congress first took the vote and it failed, the stock market took one hellofa noser if one remembers correctly. They had to reconvene and hurry up and sell it, and yet even then most of the Republicans were so dimwitted enough not to understand what was at stake.

Such rationalizing will always favor crony capitalism for large companies (which lavishly donate to the Big Two). If they really had small borrowers in mind, they'd have immediately began crafting an effective assistance program. But they never did.

 

[Watchmen]

Well, that depends on where you get your information from. A lot of people have been told that the economy wasn't recovering and getting worse the longer Obama was in office.

It's a simple thing to check the statistics on, have you done that? I do understand that GOP media likes to tell people things knowing they won't fact check what is said.

As mentioned before, Trump is taking credit for most of Obama's accomplishments. To Trump supporters, the economy magically changed over night when Trump took office. That's due to GOP media telling them that. I watch Fox and listen to Rush 95% of the time. I hear them making statements on 401k's. So I understand who is teaching people to make similar statements like yours.

I've been talking about my 401k. Very clear about that. Stagnant last few years. Trump becomes prez and now it's finally doing better again. I never watch Fox or listen to Rush. You make a lot of assumptions.

 

[tytlyf]

Yes the stock market made exceptional gains

Post the source of all your charts.

 

[esmith]

Post the source of all your charts.

I did if you would have taking the time to read the post. Which it appears you haven't. Sorry it isn't on TV but you have to read it.

 

[tytlyf]

I did if you would have taking the time to read the post. Which it appears you haven't. Sorry it isn't on TV but you have to read it.

Good, so why are you using Reagan Vs Obama? How about Bill Clinton Vs Reagan?

 

[esmith]

Good, so why are you using Reagan Vs Obama? How about Bill Clinton Vs Reagan?

Because I didn't want to and because you lefties think the Obama was the greatest.

 

[tytlyf]

Because I didn't want to and because you lefties think the Obama was the greatest.

We lefties think the Obama was the greatest? That's for history to decide. I doubt you'd find a single lefty that thinks Obama's economy was better than Bill Clinton's. Thanks Bushy

So next time around if you're trying to make a point, don't cherry pick. The economy was much better under Clinton than Reagan.