Thursday, December 6, 2012

Miscellaneous 153

1) What Obama and the Democrats did (beginning in 2010 and moving forward - and this really is kind of shady) was use the 2009 budget as a baseline and essentially moved forward with it via a series of continuing resolutions....It’s kind of like if you wrecked your car and then decided afterwards that you really liked spending that extra $25,000 a year and so you continued to do so in perpetuity. Of course the downside is that you'll eventually end up, hello, busted!............2) According to the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll, consumer spending is up 28%, from $60 a day (per individual) in 2009 to $77 a day in 2012. That, and we ALL know that government spending has grown significantly, too (it's essentially doubled since the final year of Clinton). This whole notion that a lack of demand has been the reason for our crappy recovery is borderline laughable.............3) The actual reason for the poor recovery, in my opinion, is the fact that we aren't saving and investing. I mean, just take a gander at the breakdown of GDP; consumption - 71%, government spending - 20%, imports/exports - -3%, and investment - 12. 12%!! That number has to get better and it has to get better quickly....Argentina anybody (the fact that those idiots tried to improve their economy via tax increases and printing money, too - and, guess what, it didn't work!)?

3 comments:

dmarks said...

"Of course the downside is that you'll eventually end up, hello, busted!.."

Not if you are in charge and are able to break the rules and laws with impunity.

BB-Idaho said...

Noting 'lack of demand is borderline laughable' and being no economist, I googled "lack of demand us economy" and got 16.3 million results. While that may take a couple hours reading, my
experience in industrial production was that demand was the
driver; what kept us on the job during holidays, running lines 24/7-and why we cycled through periodic
additions and reductions in force.
IMO, demand is an important factor. That said, there are arguments that can be made negating consumer spending in the global economy.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

I'm not trying to diminish the importance of demand here (I'm not a demand-sider OR a supply-sider) but when you have a government spending close to 16 trillion dollars over 4 years and you STILL have fellows like Krugman saying, "MORE!!", you really gotta reassess a little, I think.