obama turns natural recovery into a serial slowdown

[Larrry]

Victor Davis Hanson



November 22, 2011 4:00 A.M.

Obama's Economic Quackery
Obama has learned how to turn a natural recovery into a serial slowdown.




Sometimes the wrong medicine can make a struggling patient far sicker than he would have been had he been allowed to recover naturally. Western medicine began with the premise that the physician either must know how to cure the patient or simply leave him alone — but above all not make him worse through harmful treatment.

As 2011 ends, we have discovered how to turn a natural recovery from a near-record recession into a serial slowdown. Almost every haphazard, ad hoc attempt by Barack Obama to jumpstart the economy has only further stalled it. The president has never articulated a diagnosis of why the economy was stalled, never outlined a coherent treatment plan, and so cannot offer a prognosis. If we have a sick budget, a Byzantine tax code, bankrupting entitlements and long-term debt burden, and a costly imported-oil bill, one would never know all that from the president, who has never offered any sort of plan for addressing these crises.


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Borrowing over $4 trillion terrified investors and business owners — especially given campaign promises that Obama would not be so "unpatriotic" as to match in three years the debt that Bush had piled up in eight. After all, no one could accuse the Bush administration of having left the economy moribund by slashing government, running balanced or surplus budgets, reducing the national debt, and in tight-fisted fashion denying federal bailouts to reckless banks and Wall Street firms. Apparently, Barack Obama saw the Bush administration's economic transgressions not as warnings, but as a green light to borrow and spend even more on a predetermined redistributive agenda ("Never let a crisis go to waste") — as if once a Republican administration had trespassed, conservatives could hardly throw stones at even greater sinners.

Government's "shovel-ready" projects proved chimaeras — as if anyone could ever believe that tenured bureaucrats could spend such vast borrowed sums as efficiently as millions of private individuals responsible for their own success or failure. The irony is that drilling for more American gas and oil would, in fact, both be shovel-ready job stimulus and cost the government almost nothing; however, this was unacceptable given the opposition of the green insiders and the likelihood that corporations would profit.

Extending food stamps and unemployment benefits to record levels might in theory have sounded humane, but it eroded incentives, depressed the dependent recipients, and created no new jobs. Such gargantuan new expenditures were about as effective in combatting unemployment as prescribing a third round of antibiotics for a resistant strain of infection. A theme in many of Obama's vast new spending schemes is that we are all supposed to believe publicly that the new largesse is the right thing to do, even if we privately shrug that it inevitably ensures quite the opposite result, given unchanging human nature.

Blaming sluggish growth on everything from ATM machines, tsunamis, and the Europeans to private-jet owners and the top 1 percent of taxpayers only reminded the general public how little those in charge knew what was going on, and reminded the particular targets why they were smart to hoard cash, not buy, and not hire — in fear of new taxes, new regulations, new costs like Obamacare, and a new antagonism from an accusatory commander-in-chief himself. Blaming the patient — uncompetitive, soft, lazy — is the worst thing a doctor can do.

If one were trying to dream up a way for the Energy Department to ensure fewer jobs, less energy, and higher costs, it would be hard to match the record of Secretary Chu. We have spent billions subsidizing inefficient solar- and wind-power companies with political connections; the results have been little or no new energy, but lots more federal debt. Thanks to Obama, the "alternative energy" industry is now discredited, as "millions of green jobs" have been downgraded to the status of "stimulus" and "investments." Apparently, when crony capitalists and insider con men put the word "green" in front of their schemes, we are supposed to suspend moral judgment, as if they purchased medieval indulgences exempting them from scrutiny

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http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/283666/obama-s-economic-quackery-victor-davis-hanson

Could we just get him to play basketball and golf all the time. Then when we get a new prez he could be hired as an advisor. Take his advice and do the exact opposite..yep that should do it

 

[Anonymous]

So how do explain a record high shopping weekend- and a predicted record high year for holiday sales :???:

Record $52.4 billion spent

By Jessica Dickler @CNNMoney November 27, 2011: 7:07 PM ET


NEW YORK -- Earlier than ever store openings and steep discounts helped retailers notch record sales this Black Friday weekend, according to early reports.

Total spending over the four-day weekend following Thanksgiving reached a record $52.4 billion, up 16% from $45 billion last year, according to a survey by the National Retail Federation released Sunday.

A record 226 million consumers shopped in stores and online between Thursday and Sunday, up from 212 million last year. Individual shoppers spent more too, the NRF said. The average holiday shopper shelled out $398.62, up from $365.34 in 2010.

 

[hypocritexposer]

So how do explain a record high shopping weekend- and a predicted record high year for holiday sales :???:

Record $52.4 billion spent

By Jessica Dickler @CNNMoney November 27, 2011: 7:07 PM ET


NEW YORK -- Earlier than ever store openings and steep discounts helped retailers notch record sales this Black Friday weekend, according to early reports.

Total spending over the four-day weekend following Thanksgiving reached a record $52.4 billion, up 16% from $45 billion last year, according to a survey by the National Retail Federation released Sunday.

A record 226 million consumers shopped in stores and online between Thursday and Sunday, up from 212 million last year. Individual shoppers spent more too, the NRF said. The average holiday shopper shelled out $398.62, up from $365.34 in 2010.

prices went up, so the corporations could pay the higher taxes sure to come if the Dems. get their way.......

 

[Anonymous]

So how do explain a record high shopping weekend- and a predicted record high year for holiday sales :???:

Record $52.4 billion spent

By Jessica Dickler @CNNMoney November 27, 2011: 7:07 PM ET


NEW YORK -- Earlier than ever store openings and steep discounts helped retailers notch record sales this Black Friday weekend, according to early reports.

Total spending over the four-day weekend following Thanksgiving reached a record $52.4 billion, up 16% from $45 billion last year, according to a survey by the National Retail Federation released Sunday.

A record 226 million consumers shopped in stores and online between Thursday and Sunday, up from 212 million last year. Individual shoppers spent more too, the NRF said. The average holiday shopper shelled out $398.62, up from $365.34 in 2010.

prices went up, so the corporations could pay the higher taxes sure to come if the Dems. get their way.......

:roll: What a line of BS! :lol: So thats the reason there was 14 million more people out shopping :???:

 

[hypocritexposer]

So how do explain a record high shopping weekend- and a predicted record high year for holiday sales :???:

prices went up, so the corporations could pay the higher taxes sure to come if the Dems. get their way.......

:roll: What a line of BS! :lol: So thats the reason there was 14 million more people out shopping :???:

Okay, let's play with the numbers.....

How many people shopped between "black Friday" and Christmas last year? How much did they spend? Have the $$s shifted in purchase period or have they really increased?


Now if the number of people that shop and they spend less between "black Friday" and Christmas this year, does that mean the economy is worse?

How many of the dollars spent were spent on cheap Chinese made goods? Is that not what you rail against, but now you are touting the benefits of those sales $$s? Does the selling of Chinese made goods HELP or HURT the US economy?


Did I mention inflation, due to the USD being worth less than last year? How many of the shoppers actually spent more than they did last year during the same period of time?


You are the "king of BS" OT and you quite often do not back up your BS with facts, or accurate figures. I figure it comes from a lack of knowledge when it comes to economics and human nature.....

 

[Larrry]

I have a friend who is a cop that worked security at one of these Black Friday stores. He said the big majority of buyers were credit card buyers who didn't have the money. A little like the government and their budget deficit,you'd have sworn the US had loads of money the way the leftwingernuts were spending gov money. Didn't you know these buyers were borrowing and buying themselves into prosperity the way obama taught them

 

[Mike]

I personally don't believe any of that retail store crap. There is no way to know what sales really are just one day after Black Friday. :roll:

They are trying to create the perception of spending just to make the public think the prices are phenomenal and to come and spend it all.

I talk with retailers 5 days per week all over the country in my wholesale business. And have for nearly 25 years. They are all saying things suck and I believe them.

 

[Larrry]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twillerer/6295815812/

 

[hypocritexposer]

You bring up a good point Larry......how many of these purchases were bought on credit, just in time for bankruptcy?

Will we see a spike in bankruptcies in a few months? Many people go out with a bang, when they "go"

 

[Larrry]

ot is basing his assumption on what the retailers are saying about one day of the year. By ot's claim the recession is over because of this one day of overspending on credit. You failed again ot

 

[hypocritexposer]

ot is basing his assumption on what the retailers are saying about one day of the year. By ot's claim the recession is over because of this one day of overspending on credit. You failed again ot

OT is basing his assumptions on an aggregate dollar figure (accurate or not), without looking at any of the other variables, in an attempt to prop up his "messiah", which is typical for him....


He'll try to be "bedroom cop" in attempts to discount a candidate, while ignoring what damage his "messiah" is doing to the Country.


He's looking for "free" stuff, now that he is retired and his wife is about to retire. He has developed a dependency on the taxpayer.......

his "messiah" is his god of giving.....

 

[okfarmer]

ahhhh... Didn't many stores open up at midnight this year or some even earlier........ made a lot of headlines anyway. So more shopping hours per day doesnt translate into better economy. Lets look at $ spent/hour open and then adjust for inflation and then compare it to something besides the worst economy in recent history - i.e. Last year. - 2 + -2 + 1 does give you a positive. when unemployment improves by 50% come back and we can talk.

 

[Lonecowboy]

Faced with rising food prices, shoppers may feel the pinch as they pick up their holiday staples at the supermarket. The cost of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, including all the basic trimmings, has increased by about 13 percent since last year, according to an annual price survey.

prices are up all the way around-
due to the effects of inflation-
due to the effects of printing more money with nothing behind it-
due to the effects of overspending-
due to the effects of obama and company-
due to a liberal media pushing obama to uninformed voters-
due to apathy and complacency-

 

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who is a cop that worked security at one of these Black Friday stores. He said the big majority of buyers were credit card buyers who didn't have the money. A little like the government and their budget deficit,you'd have sworn the US had loads of money the way the leftwingernuts were spending gov money. Didn't you know these buyers were borrowing and buying themselves into prosperity the way obama taught them[/quot


How can your friend tell if a debit card or a credit card was used. How do you know they had no money. A lot of cards access the bank accounts directly and are essentially a same as a check.

 

[Larrry]

I have a friend who is a cop that worked security at one of these Black Friday stores. He said the big majority of buyers were credit card buyers who didn't have the money. A little like the government and their budget deficit,you'd have sworn the US had loads of money the way the leftwingernuts were spending gov money. Didn't you know these buyers were borrowing and buying themselves into prosperity the way obama taught them[/quot


How can your friend tell if a debit card or a credit card was used. How do you know they had no money. A lot of cards access the bank accounts directly and are essentially a same as a check.

See it's like this, they have a store manager. The manager talks. Now that wasn't to hard.

 

[hopalong]

Longer shopping hours, in some cases almost doubling the hours!!!
In the past they had a limited number of big ticket items ((1 or2)) this yr ((6 or 8)) wonder waht that done to the over all increase oldtimer?
Any one with knowledge knows that when you use a credit card you SIGN for the purchase, a debit card you use a pin number, you would just have to notice what the customer was doing at time to pay!!! :wink: :wink:

I have a friend who is manager of a major retail store who told me the same thing (didn't have true figures yet but credit card purchases were defiantly higher this yr..,,,, This same friend told me that they started at 10:00 pm on Thurs evening, with some major items being put out again at midnight, and again at 2 AM and his was not the only store doing that.

oldtimer,,, with your vast knowledge of how retail sales work can you explain how this would not lead to increased spending of $33.28 average per person????? (that is if you can))

 

[Clarencen]

To answer yourNov. 27 10:0 post OT:

The answer OT is Inflation. A couple of years ago you pointed out that the cost of Thanksgiving dinner was about $2.00 cheaper per person then the year before. This year it was reported to be about $10.00 higher.

It's the volume of good sold we should use as a yardstick, not the dollar figure. I remember that back in the 1980's someone said "we can have a depression when prices are high as well as when they are low" He was told "Don't talk about a depression now". Then we were hit by the farm crisis.

 

[Anonymous]

To answer yourNov. 27 10:0 post OT:

The answer OT is Inflation. A couple of years ago you pointed out that the cost of Thanksgiving dinner was about $2.00 cheaper per person then the year before. This year it was reported to be about $10.00 higher.

I can buy that as part of the answer Clarencen- but how do you justify such a rise in numbers of shoppers? Up 14 million...Hopefully this shows consumer optimism is up too....

A record 226 million consumers shopped in stores and online between Thursday and Sunday, up from 212 million last year.

I know many Republicans (like several of the above posters) don't want to see the country recovering because that would mean Obama was having a little success...But not being a D or an R- I 'd just as soon think optomistically and would rather see the country succeed rather than fail over partisan politics...Altho as I've said before- I don't expect total recovery from the depths of the Bush Bust for at least a decade...

Investors must have liked the weekend too- as I see the Dow is up 300 points this morning..

 

[Bullhauler]

I have a friend who is a cop that worked security at one of these Black Friday stores. He said the big majority of buyers were credit card buyers who didn't have the money. A little like the government and their budget deficit,you'd have sworn the US had loads of money the way the leftwingernuts were spending gov money. Didn't you know these buyers were borrowing and buying themselves into prosperity the way obama taught them[/quot


How can your friend tell if a debit card or a credit card was used. How do you know they had no money. A lot of cards access the bank accounts directly and are essentially a same as a check.

See it's like this, they have a store manager. The manager talks. Now that wasn't to hard.

Well I use a credit card alot and I have never paid a dime in interest on a credit card. Some of us use a credit card for convenience and to rack up points for free stuff. That is why I use my Cabellas card so much.

 

[hopalong]

Of course oldtimer investors ALWAYS like profits on their investements>>>> WOOOOsH guess that fact goes over your head!!!
As far as increased numbers, you miss the fact that longer hours meens more customers in and out of the store, especially when most of the stores limit the number of customers in the store at any give time!!! FIRE REGULATIONS. More hours = more customers!!!
For instance you can only have 100 customers at a time, and you increase that to 3 different times you have 300 customers, is that so hard to understand..PLUS there were lots of stores extending the usual day after Thanksgiving sales to Saturday and Sundays well you are bound to have more over all sales??
Is that too much for you to grasp??? :wink: :wink: :wink:
EH