Obama Job Approval Below 50% for First Time

Thank you, FDR only made the depression worse. Hitler deserves more credit for bringing the US out of the depression than FDR.

Here's just one example of FDR's great policies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Industrial_Recovery_Act

Sweden nationalized banks, hence lots of government spending. It worked. Japan same way.

I never said FDR's way of spending was the right way to go. This isn't even a debated topic. Ask any reputable economist and they will tell you that you need to spend in times like these.

I said Obama's spending was retarded I am not sure why you are arguing me on that? I honestly have no idea what you are saying?

The housing boom helped Sweden, but yeah what saved them was their nationalizing banks IE spending money.

http://www.articlesbase.com/news-and-society-articles/keynesian-economics-is-a-failure-681943.html

Keynesian exuberance for the powers of stimulating demand or the 'consumer' has been in vogue since the 1930s. It is sheer nonsense which is taught in every school across the globe. Keynesian economics is little more than intellectual pablum used by those in power or by a technocratic and largely illiterate elite to increase their power; enhance government; print money and otherwise destroy normal economic relationships. Keynes' theory, so believed by professors is in practice a disaster.

Keynes was a left wing wall flower and a member of the deranged Bloomsbury group of inter-World War British pacifists. He was an arrogant theorist who truly believed in the magical elixir of large government and in the technocratic dream of controlling billions of personal, business and economic decisions, to programmatically construct a perfect world order. Keynes gave intellect and jargon filled cover and rationale to politicians and demagogues who would cite his book, 'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money', to justify state interventionism.

According to this theory which has failed in practice every time it has been tried, governments can stimulate an economy through granting consumers, workers and businesses sums of borrowed money. This is termed a 'stimulus'. This debt or current deficit financing stimulus, is then paid back or retired, when the economy strengthened by consumer spending and business investment, produces a surplus of tax revenues. The stimulus is needed, so argued Keynes, to overcome business cycles, downturns and unexpected events which would decrease jobs, increase unemployment and impact state revenues. By macro and micro-managing economic and production processes, the state, so thought Keynes, would avoid cyclical variations and ensure that the lowest level of unemployment could be maintained. Government power was thus indispensable to full employment and income equality.

There are many problems with such a counter-rational plan to economic management. None of Keynes' core assumptions make sense when they are analysed either separately or together. Business cycles have historically been caused by governments, and they are usually a response to government policies to increase the size of the state through trade barriers, higher taxation, more spending, more regulation and programs of fear and compliance. The Great Depression, the 70s Stagflation and the current financial crisis are all obvious examples of this fact. Government causing economic malaise would appear to mean that government programs are not the solutions required to either get out of an economic downturn, nor to prevent future derailments from taking place.

The main impact of Keynesian economic stimuli is to increase debt; raise future tax rates and distort the normal functionings of economic markets and personal and corporate decision making. Governments choose winners and confirm losers. The winners will include companies which get bailed out, those receiving welfare, unions and others having their jobs protected, those receiving redistributed incomes and those paid off for political support. The losers invariably include firms both domestic and international who want fair and free trade; higher income families; small businesses who are classified under high income categories; future generations who must pay off the debt; and consumers who pay a higher costs for all products and services.

Under Keynesian philosophy, government and technocrats assume the role of God. Given the poverty of God heads throughout history, this is probably not a noble supposition to support.

Brian Reidl from Heritage Institute wrong an excellent article recently on the fallacy that government spending, or what is termed Keynesian deficit spending, run by God-heads, is beneficial (see Reidl
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.aspx?GUID=220a4261-b3c8-4338-a5be-62bcc3f3b8d3). In this article he makes the following important points about demand-side management and the Keynesian fetish for economic control.

“Government cannot create new purchasing power out of thin air. If Congress funds new spending with taxes, it is simply redistributing existing income. If Congress instead borrows the money from domestic investors, those investors will have that much less to invest or to spend in the private economy. If Congress borrows the money from foreigners, the balance of payments will adjust by equally reducing net exports, leaving GDP unchanged. Every dollar Congress spends must first come from somewhere else.

This does not mean that government spending has no economic impact at all. Government spending often alters the consumption of total demand, such as increasing consumption at the expense of investment.”

When stimulus packages are created the money has to come from someone via taxes, or be printed. Both are net negatives to the economy. Economic growth only results from producing more goods and services (not from redistributing existing income), and that requires productivity growth and growth in the labor supply as productivity not only increases wealth but also wages and wage opportunities.

Historically of course government spending has reduced productivity and long-term economic growth due to some obvious reasons. As government spends more it raises taxes which reduces profits, productivity and wage and job creation. As government incurs more debt through stimulus and demand side packages it reduces the incentive to produce and displaces money by removing the more productive private sector from the economic equation and replacing it with a far less effective state dollar, taxed or printed on government printing press. The inefficiency of government policy in health, housing, education, and general industry are obvious creating huge costs which must be borne by ordinary taxpayers – ineffective solutions at a higher price one can say.

And as Reidl sources and proves:
“Mountains of academic studies show how government expansions reduce economic growth:
1.Public Finance Review reported that "higher total government expenditure, no matter how financed, is associated with a lower growth rate of real per capita gross state product."
2.The Quarterly Journal of Economics reported that "the ratio of real government consumption expenditure to real GDP had a negative association with growth and investment," and "growth is inversely related to the share of government consumption in GDP, but insignificantly related to the share of public investment."
3.A Journal of Macroeconomics study discovered that "the coefficient of the additive terms of the government-size variable indicates that a 1% increase in government size decreases the rate of economic growth by 0.143%."
4.Public Choice reported that "a one percent increase in government spending as a percent of GDP (from, say, 30 to 31%) would raise the unemployment rate by approximately .36 of one percent (from, say, 8 to 8.36 percent)."

It is obvious that Keynesian economics and demand management are tools for fools. Wealth, a better society, a cleaner world, a higher level of development is not coerced by government. It only occurs when free people operating in free markets are allowed to interact and determine the price and supply of various goods and services. Government involvement ensures the opposite and is a theory mired in cultish theological absurdity.

First of all, use your own words.

The first point "stimulating demand or the
'consumer' has been in vogue since the 1930"

This person either wrote this before the 1970's or just skipped over them.

Stagflation, a great point. Shows what can sometimes happen when interest rates, inflation, and unemployment all whirl in a deadly economic tornado.

I really don't have time or patience to read anymore but it's a decent article but it seems like he is in bed with Laffer who influenced the extreme tax cuts that have built our trillions of dollar debt.

Why does it matter if I give credit to the source? I have neither the time or patience to put all that into my own words. That article was written very recently, as noted by the mention of the financial crisis.

Here's a better one though, give this one a whirl

http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=33066

one study does not make proof though. IMO that study made HUGE assumptions about what could have happened IF... a vast majority of historians, and many economists agree that the new deal did a great deal for the country. while WWII no doubt kick started the boom back up, by 39 the economy had basically stabilized. it was going to recover, WWII simply accelerated that recovery.

at the same time this is not to say the new deal was by any means perfect. plenty of it was unnecessary, and as many have pointed out, roosevelt was not necessarily a huge fan of the constitution lol.

however i would argue that the new deal by no means extended the depression.

Strongly approve, 1.

The man stepped into the hardest shoes in the world with every country and his own on his ass.  The guy's doing his best.  He's making more jobs in the country than we've had in the last 8 years from the sad figurehead we had. 

im giving him my good vibes.  maybe he'll get a lot further with actual support from the people that put him there in the first place.

What jobs?

well he kept the american auto up and kickin'. without that have lost thousands more.  keeping the interstates under construction and doing so with union workers

Hhahahahahahahhaha I'd read more if I were you. Union workers. lol.

you do realize that the government had a major role in the failure of GM and Chrysler? and the UAW over the years has done an awesome job of sinking their own ship. all while Japanese companies make better, more efficient cars on American soil with non-union labor. explain that to me.

you'll see what happens when you're paying the price for all of Obama's monopoly money that keeping the great government union workers employed

So we live in a capitalistic society which is based on booms and busts.  The bust we're in right now just happens to suck hardcore because of the irresponsibility of the government and the republicans for the last 8 years. 

Obama has gone back to sort out corruption and rebuild government funded programs to not only help us through this bust but to make sure the next one doesnt suck as bad. The stimulus package focused on infrastructure with gave plenty of americans jobs for things like building buildings and roads and the labor unions are in favor of obama becuacse he works for their rights and has tried to fight agast reasoning worker wages.

As for white collar jobs on wall-street, they took the risk, they played the game and sucked at it. Lost. 

Back off obama, he's doing good.

My dad's in constuction.  Homebuilder by profession and doesnt work with a union.  He had a bit of a super-slump, but is now freshly getting work in Philly, and a lot of it based on people linking together that he's already been working for. 

This recession is a reality check for us pompous americans

The government that caused GM to fail was not Obama.  You're probably like the assholes that pointed the finger of socialism to Obama during the election.  Stop trying to jump ship to monopolies now.  Research your political terms and get some real facts. 

Don't point fingers at the man who's had 8 months to turn around the biggest fuck up a goverment has seen.  Thank George W Bush for that one.  Obama is working for the american people and not for himself

Please shy away from political threads. I can't believe you just posted this with a straight face. I'm not even gonna try and sort out all the individual inaccuracies and just call it one big facepalm.jpg.

Proof that vocabulary is not a good substitute for substance and fact.

Here are some of your biggest problems:

*The bust we're in right now just happens to suck hardcore because of the irresponsibility of the government and the republicans for the last 8 years. 

*The stimulus package focused on infrastructure

*As for white collar jobs on wall-street, they took the risk, they played the game and sucked at it. Lost. 

*Back off obama, he's doing good.

*This recession is a reality check for us pompous americans

Have you ever been out of your state? Lol no offense but I cannot believe that you actually think what you just said is true. It has to be a game. I suggest you start googling your topic instead of taking your info from 17 magazine from now on. I'm not even going to counter with the civil rights and foreign policies. Just please google. And then post.

Give me some facts then. 

I've been allll over this country and others.  I live in Pennsylvania. Its a spotlight state because it reflects natural trends because of the diversity of our demographic.  When considering actions they look at sta
tes like ours to consider how the whole country will react.  Everything from the boondocks to central philly

With all the bullshit you've been spewing I'm almost insulted that you'd tell me to do research. Maybe I should have realized you wouldn't catch on, by monopoly money I meant fake money, space cash, stimulus spending, whatever name you want to call it.

I'm glad that Obama is doing so much to fight for the unions! Of which over 1/3 are already state labor unions anyway. Since only about 12.4% of the work force is part of a union, its good that the rest of Americans can go fuck themselves. There's some real facts for you honey.

American car companies failed because of the government. It started in the 1970s and gradually got worse over time. Big labor union lobbies fought for congress to pass protectionist policies to secure their jobs long-term with over inflated pay and benefits. In the process, the great auto workers of detroit began making lesser quality cars because they believed they didn't have to compete. Its only natural that Americans turned to the superior Japanese cars. But I don't expect you to take any of this in, you just keep on wearing those trendy Obama shirts.

www.google.com

a whole world of facts await you. Also, everything else you said is bullshit. thanks, but please, research your topic a little before you post again.

Keywords:

Bailout expenditures

Union trade systems and workers

Fannie Mae and Freddie mac bailout.

Credit debt, bailout

Government subsidized programs, bailout.

It's time you learn what is ACTUALLY going on. Not what daddy tells you, not what NS kids are saying.

Since the 1970's our system has not gone through 1, not 2, but 3 boom and bust cycles.  So if you pick  this one and obama's presidency to pin on the failure of the auto industry, at least be coherent in your thoughts.  Had those 12.4 percent of workers , to quote your fact, gotten their protection laws passed it would have prohibited the open market. 

Check your vocab because monopoly is a reference to big business.  Something Obama, unlike presidents in the past, has decided to step up and work with against and for to help the american people instead of using big business to his own benefit.  You used monopoly money in an entirely wrong context.  From what i can tell you are probably someone who would propose a flat tax rate or better yet let thousands of americans live without health insurance. 

I stongly suggest you pick a side and stay with it.  So right now i'd like to tell you to stop hating on America becuase that won't get anyone anywhere.  But its opposition like you who is what the very basis of our government system is founded on. 

So here's to 1776 and many years to come

Before you try to check me on my VOCAB, maybe you should realize the vast amount of problems you just brought up.  You basically are examining what is wrong with the human mind.  You can't expect to thrive and have everyone else suffer becasue of it.  You'll love our government when your making millions and hate it when all your friends are unemployed and your tax rates go up. 

When's the last time you opened a history book?  Your pulling shit out your ass.

I need to go to sleep.

God please stop posting. You know absolutely nothing. Normally I would not post, because I normally like your posts, but what you are saying is just downright wrong and ignorant. No matter how many buzzwords  you know, it doesn't replace coherent historical fact. PLEASE research your topic more. To say that if union workers got their rights the auto industry would not have collapsed is fucking stupid. You obviously know nothing of anything that went on. Stop posting.

Bam, 100% true. Well it isn't all the governments fault though. The private sector is to blame as well. They were too busy providing for lobbyists instead of dusting off the R and D part of their companies to compete with Toyota, but yeah you are completely right.

But you can't just sit there and blame all the unions. CEO's can't get away scott free on this. Sure the workers were making a little bit more than they should but CEO's are paid an infinite amount of money.

Thank you for someone with logical thought.

I can't even argue you with you anymore, I can't figure out how. you're basically a slightly smarter version of this woman and that's a compliment.
https://www.newschoolers.com/web/forums/readthread/thread_id/472971/

You need some real work on your reading comprehension. I never once said that all 12.4 percent of union workers worked for the auto industry, in fact, I think I made it clear that over a third were state labor unions. Therefore its ridiculous to claim that Obama is helping all Americans when the stimulus money has almost all been funneled to people working within government unions or to the failed American automakers.

And I was unaware that criticizing the government was hating America, but thanks for making that clear for me.

Monopoly money, just to help you out this is the illustrated version

You guys are being much too harsh on her. Government union workers (in a lot of cases) are very overpaid. Guards in CA prisons are making over 100,000 a year. That's definitely not a job which the skill demanded is worth that much in my humble opinion. Especially at the cost of taxpayers.

What you guys have to remember is that Unions help keep the middle class afloat. Wouldn't you know it? We have the lowest union rate and a dwindling middle class. Sure some unions lobby and government unions tend to have too much negotiation power, hence why I am for unions in the private market for the most part.

If you want to know more about unions and their impact besides what is spoken at the dinner table and said on the news I suggest you take a labor economics class once you get to school or if you are going to be in it sometime.

Definitely, well in the scope of the time period it made more sense to pay big money into lobbies and campaign contributions to elect members of congress sympathetic to their goals. The payoff was greater at the time than R & D. Horrible management was a huge contributing factor as well, the CEOs didn't care that the company was running on an unsustainable business model as long as they kept making money till the ship ran aground.

Put me in the "Approve" category. He's been in office for what, six months?

1. No. The reason the CIA could not apprehend Bin Laden was because of the 1999 pakistani coup. After that, the mujahadeens the CIA hired to kill him via RPG just straight up sucked at aiming. The third failed attempt, this one is semi-classified, was a predator drone fitted with Hellfire missiles making it the first experimental MQ-1a. The predator drone actually spotted bin laden several time between september 7 2000 and the winter of that year, but could not fire weapons because the host country Uzebekistan would not allow munitions to be carried onboard at the time.

people are never happy. Lets face it. Thats why they started a democracy, so we'd all have a say. Yet people disapprove Bush, then obama is the answer according the media. Ehhhh fuck that shit people will always disagree

Bam, 100% false. The private sector is not to blame. The UAW and the designed obselesence are to blame. The big 3 failed because of these reasons:

while all of these are true. #1 is entirely poor buisness decisions by GM, aka, the private sector.

Very nice, way too hammer in the details, I was too tired last night. I forgot about the American companies implementing planned obsolecense.

Just another detail to add it, when Japan entered the market they stayed well away from the union cesspool that is Detroit. Almost all their labor comes from harder working labor from the South or places like Kentucky where people don't bitch about how horrible their job is but rather appreciate it. It hardly seems like they're being exploited at $49 an hour, that's the fair market value of their labor, and if they don't want the job they don't have to take it. Its the UAW and weak management on the part of the American companies that have skewed this. So do I now feel bad that they've lost their jobs and Detroit has become one of the worst cities in America? Not really. In fact, to cut costs the American companies have exported the labor out to places like Mexico to build their cars, cause Detroit was literally sucking the lifeblood of the companies. So now Japanese cars are more "American" than the American cars, no wonder everyone's driving Toyotas and Hondas.

The union has basically become a parasitic organization in almost all of its forms. That's why so many unions are government unions, because the state is the only host the parasites can suck dry that won't die, since the host is a parasite in itself and just sucks more out of multiple hosts (the taxpayer) in response.

No, the private sector is what's given you better cars. Otherwise you'd still be driving your great American cars that failed at 120,000 and only get maybe 13-14 miles to the gallon.

The "poor business decisions" relate to the age old Union-Management battle. The management at GM and Chrysler were too weak to fight hard enough back, they gave in to union demands because they thought they could still remain profitable, hence the implementation of planned obsolecense to sell more cars to cover the costs. Soon the union became so entrenched in the way that these companies did business that it became impossible to lay them off, cut their wages, or not offer pensions. Also, the unions had become so powerful politically that they could basically dictate what the companies could and could not do. Even back in 2008 facing the verge of the cliff they were unwilling to compromise, fuck them. Bankruptcy was the only way to dissolve the contracts, and it should have happened a lot sooner.

So you just contradicted yourself, either you want to look cool in your first sentence and disagree with me, then later say pretty much what I am or you just are that arrogant.

Let's think about this. Designed Obselesence, hmm that would be a PRIVATE sector mistake as I said above. All you are doing is adding detail to my argument, so thank you.

As I said autoworkers did earn a bit too much but your claim of $146,000 a year is from a biased source and does not reflect the average auto worker, sorry you're wrong there.

You're not going to blame the CEO's who were earning tens of millions of dollars on poor management tactics? So what you are doing is sitting there blaming the waiters/waitresses for serving bad food and earning too much when the cook is the one who makes all the food. Doesn't make much sense to me.

Maybe I'm completely wrong, but Ford is still doing just fine WITHOUT any government bailouts or interference. That in itself is proof that the federal bailouts and regulations fucked GM and Chrysler.

Fords stock has been rising, and their cars are actually really fucking nice in the last couple years.

I really think you get off to telling people they are wrong over the internet.

He was pretty much right. Clinton had severely limited power when it came to doing anything against "terrorism" after Somalia. Apparently Republicans will stand up for losing thousands of soldiers in a country that was sovereign to begin with, but when it comes to a humanitarian mission like Somalia, we don't belong there because we lost 5 troops. Granted we captured the wrong people and supported the wrong leader, when has that made the difference between us proceeding with missions?

You are missing the most important attack on Bin Laden. His Tamarack farm was surrounded by paid CIA agents. Their mission was to kill him and storm the compound. However, his 8 million wives were there and many other civilians. For this reason they did not go through with it. It was not worth the civilian life.

You really need to learn how to see gray areas in the world. Hey, why should you have to when you can just blame a democrat for everything, right? Clinton's act definitely didn't help and made it easier to fuck up. You have to slap consumer responsibility and financial responsibility on this one too. It doesn't say in his act that newly married couples can go out and buy and escalade and 700,000 dollar house.

Ford had their own problems but they were stable enough to pull through, now they've realize they have to adapt or face the same fate.

They realized their weak position long before the other two and tightened spending, improving their cash position. Ford still has plenty of their own problems though.

Here's some more on it
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-06-01-bankruptcy-competition-ford_N.htm

thanks for clarifying :)

they also got a shitload of loans before it was impossible to get money, if i remember correctly.

im sorry but while i totally agree, unions definitely helped to fuck over GM significantly, unions by no means forced them to build shitty cars.

STRRRRRRROOOOONNNNGLYYYY against...

Well i was assuming you meant there was something inherently wrong with the private sector system and that you were attacking capitalism and the private sector as a whole. I was merely pointing out the problems lie in union-management relationships which is actually contradictory to capitalism and the "private sector" is not to blame.

I took his phrase "miscommunication among agencies" to be a subtle attack on the CIA, which these days seems to be a punching bag for left wing media, or how our intelligence community is somehow poorly structured. Neither of which is justified, by the way.

not the broad private sector. but in this instance, it was clearly not the government forcing them to build shitty cars.

no, its the government that allowed them to make shitty cars and get away with it for so long.

You are a fool, I am referring to miscommunication between Clinton's administration and CIA higher ups. It was pretty well documented. There was some tension there.

You need to get off the internet kid you are so sure of your correctness in every aspect of debate. You are an arrogant little snot who has show time and time again that he is a rich, entitled, right wing, know it all.

You don't add anything all you want to do is pick apart people posts. Fuck off.

Strongly Approve: 0Approve: 2
Undecided / Weak Approve/Disapprove: 2.5
Disapprove: .6
Strongly Disapprove: 12

The healthcare system he wishes to install is ludacris. It was modeled off of the Massachusetts healthcare system which completely FAILED. Not to mention dozens of MA hospitals are going completely bankrupt. I spent four hours talking politics with two republicans and a democrat doctors in my family. Two dentists and an ER doctor. I was amazed to hear how a universal healthcare system would change things. (For the worse).

As my friends dad says "There already is universal healthcare! You just have to pay for it."

not trying to twist your words but are you saying you WANT more govt regulation? just wondering.

I was going off what I was saying before. It was the fact that government was so intertwined with GM and the UAW that played a major role in causing them to fail. They got protectionist laws and regulations passed that benefited them at the time and made it so they wouldn't have to compete, but as you can see the whole house of cards came tumbling down.

Here's a great article I just came across that makes it clear
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13783014

on #1, i dont think we ever really really tried to assassinate bin laden. think about it, that would cause the worst repercussions. every terrorist would then become a martyr against us getting back at us for killing their leader

Strongly Disapprove 13

Never in the history of the World has printing cash and putting it into circulation ever worked for any country, so what does Obama do....Print more cash. and now with the stimulus package America will be close to 20 Trillion dollars worth of debt