Pro Austerity Economists reverse stance on UK Stimulus/Austerity

[BoberFett]

You do gain something. You gain a V shaped turn around instead of an anemic turn around.

It is simple and straight forward but our government screwed it up. When things are good you don't lower revenues and increase spending. You don't keep a low interest rate. You want to encourage some level of savings at the personal and government level.

Then when things go bad as they always inevitably do you have lots of levers to work with.

Instead we cut revenue, we increased spending, we incentivized borrowing over savings with low interest rates and we cut the regulations that turned a bad real estate bubble into a terrible financial bubble. When things went bad we had no levers left except stimulus and QE. Neither of these is something you do permanently but until the economy is doing better talking about cutting deficits is a bit like complaining about the lack of lifeboats while the ship is sinking, doesn't do us any good.

Some people seem to have this ridiculous notion that the economy was rosy when Bush implemented tax cuts. It was on it's way down after the tech bubble, and further after 9/11.

 

[Darwin333]

We have a trillion dollar deficit because Republicans intentionally sabotaged the economy.

Like when the Clinton Admin sought and got the repeal of Glass-Stegall and with a swipe of Clinton's pen single handedly allowed this all to happen?

 

[CountZero]

Some people seem to have this ridiculous notion that the economy was rosy when Bush implemented tax cuts. It was on it's way down after the tech bubble, and further after 9/11.

Yep, which is why I said earlier in this thread that I think Bush did the right thing early on it was the leaving in of the tax cuts and low interest when the economy was better that is the problem.

 

[BoberFett]

Yep, which is why I said earlier in this thread that I think Bush did the right thing early on it was the leaving in of the tax cuts and low interest when the economy was better that is the problem.

The economy never got better.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

The economy never got better.

According to who? Can you point to economists who argue that we've been in a recession since 2001?

 

[Jhhnn]

It is called "fudging the numbers". The national debt has gone up year-over-year every year since 1957.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm

True, but you picked a mighty convenient cutoff point. The debt increased by a mere $18B in FY2000-

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

Notice that RR/GHWB quadrupled the debt, and GWB doubled it again...

 

[Jhhnn]

Like when the Clinton Admin sought and got the repeal of Glass-Stegall and with a swipe of Clinton's pen single handedly allowed this all to happen?

That's inaccurate. Repubs pushed for deregulation for decades, got it repeatedly in small increments.

Clinton has admitted to making a mistake wrt deregulation, particularly wrt derivatives, but none of that accounts for the cheerleading & enabling of the Bush Admin & the Repub Congress of the era.

 

[Jhhnn]

The economy never got better.

According to who? Can you point to economists who argue that we've been in a recession since 2001?

I rarely agree with BoberFett, but the economy really didn't get better for a lot of people- they just got to borrow more money at lower rates, cash in their home equity, creating false prosperity. They also got to take on enormous long term financial obligations at temporarily low rates with ARM's of all sorts... when the value of the property falls below the balance, you're locked in to the original lender, who'll charge you whatever they want... people in that situation are currently paying up to 11%, if they haven't already defaulted...

America's wealthiest did great, however, which is all Repub leaders care about, anyway. They really put the bone to the rest of us, cashing in heartily even as their "Conservative" mouthpieces told us to buy, buy, buy! because there was no housing bubble...

Today, of course, Austerians still claim that we can vanquish unemployment by cutting spending, forcing layoffs, and all too many believe it...