New Study Proves Democrat Policies Destroyed Economy

[Phatscotty]

http://www.examiner.com/article/new-stu ... ts_article

A new study from the widely respected National Bureau of Economic Research released this week has confirmed beyond question that the left's race-baiting attacks on the housing market (the Community Reinvestment Act--enacted under Carter, made shockingly more aggressive under Clinton) is directly responsible for imploding the housing market and destroying the economy.

Again, let's review:

-President Bush went to Congress repeatedly for years warning them that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were going to destroy the economy (17 times in 2008 alone). Democrats continuously ignored him, shut down his proposals along party lines and continued raiding the institutions for campaign contributions on their way down.

Timeline shows Bush, McCain warning Dems of financial and housing crisis; meltdown

-John McCain also co-sponsored urgently critical reforms that would have prevented the housing market collapse, but Democrats shut that down as well, along party lines, and even openly ridiculed anyone who suggested reforms were necessary...to protect their taxpayer-funded campaign contributions as the economy raced uncontrollably toward the cliff.

-No one was making bad loans to unqualified people until Democrats came along and threatened to drag banks into court and have them fined and branded as racists if they didn't go along with the left's Affirmative Action lending policies...all while federally insuring their losses. Even the New York Times warned in the late 1990s that Democrats continuing to force banks into lowering their standards would lead to this exact catastrophe.

-Obama himself is even on the record personally helping sue one lender (Citibank) into lowering its lending standards to include people from extremely poor and unstable areas, which even one of the left's favorite blatantly partisan "fact-checkers," Snopes, admits (while pretending to 'set the record straight').

-Even The New York Times admitted that there is "little evidence" of any connection between the "Republican" deregulation measures Obama blames, like the Gramm-Bleach-Liley Act (signed into law by a Democrat), and the collapse of the housing market.

But non-Fox media have spent years deliberately and relentlessly inoculating people against the facts, training them to mindlessly blame Bush for being in charge when Democrat policies destroyed the economy. So here we sit, to this day, still watching Obama excuse and shrug off endless economic failures, illegal government takeovers and utter national bankruptcy with zero accountability.

[_sabotage_]

You are absolutely right, it was all the democrats. The republicans are honest and god-fearing. They want us all to be rich so they have more members at their country clubs and competition for their kids to get into good schools and fight for good jobs.

Did you ever think that both parties are happy as hell? Did you ever think that the rich keep getting richer, have more and more influence on our elections and democratic process?

Why do you post all of this? What's your incentive? I would actually be happy if the republicans won every election just so that people don't get so damn confused and blame all the lose of jobs, the lose of opportunity, the lose of rights on the differing parties but held the government as a whole accountable. Is that why you want the republicans to be the perennial leaders of the country, so that we can actual hold someone responsible and not get caught up in this he said she said bs?

[Phatscotty]

I post this to show the truth, against the narrative of bullshit that "it's Bush's fault".

We can't begin to get anywhere to "move forward" when we don't even know where to start or acknowledge what the problem was in the first place.

[PLAYER57832]

Had to google NBR Basically, this is the group that determines when recessions begin and end.
wikki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_B ... c_Research
a history article: http://www.nber.org/info.html

That said, while this organization claims to be unbiased, the real truth is that economics itself is biased toward a "profit determines fitness" model of society. THAT is a big part of the problem. It allows a nation to declare itself moving forward becuase it takes resources out of the ground, without any real attempt at assessing long term impacts of the damage caused by the removal.

Teh classic "argument" is Jobs versus the environment. An honest, long term view would say "short term, high paying jobs versus long term jobs and quality of life". IN many cases, that "quality of life" is fast approaching very negative situations for humanity, but of course anything criticizing the status quo (from both Dems an Repubs for the most part) is just "environmental idiocy" or "left wing hoopla".

Per the reasons for the downfall... the REAL reason was deregulation. Yes, some of that happened under other administrations, but if you wish to claim it was only Democrats or even primarily Democrats fighting to deregulate banks or just putting stops/making it very difficult to quickly install new legislation to deal with changing ecomomic situations, then you are deluded!

Beyond that, our system is very, very broken. Its broken because, as noted by sabotage, both parties are dominated by people who happen to have made a lot of money. The real problem is a society that judges success and failure almost purely by the amount of money being generated.

When I hear people claiming that only some people have a right to healthcare, that protecting the environment is something we "cannot afford" and see CEO after CEO gaining very significant increases in bonuses, stock offerings and wages... at the very same time they are cutitng wages, closing factories and sending jobs overseas, then blaming tax policies and such. Well.. sorry, but they are "crying croc tears all the way to the bank".

If we want our economy to come back, our society to even just maintain, then there has to be a fundamental acceptance that it is the WORKERS, those who punch clocks, who have no real say in what their company sells.. who mostly don't really care, except to get a paycheck.. Workers who work just as hard whether they work for the most profitable company in the country or one going bankrupt and who ask only their just wage, not some esoteric fancy of what those at the top deem they can "afford", but a real wage for real work, a wage that allows them to live a decent life. It is not the workers, it is the CEOs and executives who decide if a company fails or succeeds. They get to take wonderful bonuses for any upturn and then turn around and ask the workers to "pay their share"... a share that means a significant portion of their income, that means the difference between taking a child to the doctor, sending them to college, and even retiring without being in poverty.

THAT is why our economy is failing.. .becuase suddenly someone who plops down some money, money they got from other investments or even inherited, NOT money that was earned from real work... they are suddenly more valuable, more important, more worthy than anyone who punches a clock and does real work. As a result of that mindset, more and more people have to do with less and less.

And then, we get told that its a form of patriotism (think back.. Bush actually did say that!!) to spend. Yet, when they do spend, they are bing "irresponsible". No matter if the expense was for $100 tennis shoes or $100,000 for an operation... THAT is where you can look for why our economy is hurting. Not blaming Democrats or even, to a point Republicans... though when it comes to these matters, the Republicans certainly take the cake. The Democrats are not doing great, but the Republicans are fully intent on hitting anyone not a millionare with huge bills... and then turning around and claiming that supporting the wealthy, not average people is what will make our society great. Its pure bull. Our country was built on average people, a few who certainly "made it big", reached their dreams.. they set a peak upon which people could dream, but the reality has always been the workaday folks who punch clocks, do the jobs they are told and do them as well as they can, expecting only to get a reasonable wage.. .nay, make that hoping for a reasonable wage any longer.

[_sabotage_]

The problem is that our politician's are rich, need to be rich to get into their position and focus on becoming more rich and not on helping the country, but on helping their buddies.

There is a video of Larry King asking Clinton to work for Ted Turner if he gets elected. Do you think our president should work for a small group of wealthy citizens?

If you would like to see where the problem started, Liar's Poker, which in itself is a good book, talks about how the Lehman Bros managed to make mortgages trade-able on the market, how they offered a huge new sector for the financial markets to exploit and how the guy who did it got record bonuses for his work.

Year on year more and more financial firms began dealing with this new commodity, taking billions of dollars in bonuses annually. After a quarter century, we see that this was a risky business, that it was made riskier as it went and that the bonuses provided to the architects and traders remain firmly in their pockets while the owners of the houses got kicked clearly to the curb. We then see that the same banks who got rich from this and paid out these bonuses, then got trillions of dollars from the Fed, some with the legitimate approval of the government and some through unauthorized loans.

You may also note that though the republicans are supposed to have a top down approach and the democrats have a bottom up approach, that both actually give to the banks who then hoard the money or make it available at their own profit.

[PLAYER57832]

The problem is that our politician's are rich, need to be rich to get into their position and focus on becoming more rich and not on helping the country, but on helping their buddies.

There is a video of Larry King asking Clinton to work for Ted Turner if he gets elected. Do you think our president should work for a small group of wealthy citizens?

If you would like to see where the problem started, Liar's Poker, which in itself is a good book, talks about how the Lehman Bros managed to make mortgages trade-able on the market, how they offered a huge new sector for the financial markets to exploit and how the guy who did it got record bonuses for his work.

Year on year more and more financial firms began dealing with this new commodity, taking billions of dollars in bonuses annually. After a quarter century, we see that this was a risky business, that it was made riskier as it went and that the bonuses provided to the architects and traders remain firmly in their pockets while the owners of the houses got kicked clearly to the curb. We then see that the same banks who got rich from this and paid out these bonuses, then got trillions of dollars from the Fed, some with the legitimate approval of the government and some through unauthorized loans.

You may also note that though the republicans are supposed to have a top down approach and the democrats have a bottom up approach, that both actually give to the banks who then hoard the money or make it available at their own profit.

The radio program "marketplace"did a series of stories on this some time back. It did a good job of covering the actual melt-down, though it did only a superficial job of getting into the deeper issues I mentioned. In fact, the heavy corporate dependence of NPR and PRI each mean they are themselves less than fully objective, though they are far more objective than any other standard media source and do present some truly left wing programs such as Democracy Now!.

[saxitoxin]

I trust the NBER to be situationally correct.

That said, the larger epoch of the failing economy is because the NBER's Leisure-Consumption-Production model of growth that was introduced with the adoption of the final report of the Committee on Recent Economic Changes is unworkable in the long term. The economy of humans is based on a NBER idea developed in the early last century that human leisure must be maximized (ergo, the introduction of vacation and holiday time, automation of home functions for even low income people [e.g. washing machines], 40 hour work weeks); as people enjoy more leisure time they will consume more which will lead to greater production and, cyclically, more consumption, then more production, etc.

This is the same model unsuccessfully being used by Antelope in Yellowstone Park to organize their species' economy. It's more disastrous for humans, though, because they have been able to implement it with greater potency through the aid of hierarchies, whereas Antelope have proven mostly incompetent in the creation of hierarchies like governments and corporations. This may be due to their hoofed appendages that makes it difficult to develop a system of ledger-accounting. See:

During this period of collapse, humans are becoming frustrated. They don't understand why the vacation their species took from 1900-present is almost over. Very soon humans will have returned to a traditional, feudal craft-agrarian economy which is what nature intends to be their maximum developmental level. (Of course, if you say this to a human they get prickly and offended because they've bought into the idea that anything is possible. In that sense, Antelope may be better grounded in reality.)

[Symmetry]

I'm generally wary of Tea Party activists who write stuff like:

But non-Fox media have spent years deliberately and relentlessly inoculating people against the facts, training them to mindlessly blame Bush for being in charge when Democrat policies destroyed the economy.

[Phatscotty]

I'm generally wary of Tea Party activists who write stuff like:

But non-Fox media have spent years deliberately and relentlessly inoculating people against the facts, training them to mindlessly blame Bush for being in charge when Democrat policies destroyed the economy.

The Examiner is a Tea Party activist? Luckily, I am wary about people who don't know what they are talking about.

Maybe video works better for you

[Symmetry]

I'm generally wary of Tea Party activists who write stuff like:

But non-Fox media have spent years deliberately and relentlessly inoculating people against the facts, training them to mindlessly blame Bush for being in charge when Democrat policies destroyed the economy.

The Examiner is a Tea Party activist? Luckily, I am wary about people who don't know what they are talking about.

From the article, about the author.

Robert Moon, Conservative Examiner
Robert Moon is an award-winning researcher, published author, and former Regional Coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots. He has organized for conservative causes and candidates for the last fifteen years, is a former Precinct Committeeman and is currently stationed overseas.

Should I be wary of you?

[Phatscotty]

I'm generally wary of Tea Party activists who write stuff like:

But non-Fox media have spent years deliberately and relentlessly inoculating people against the facts, training them to mindlessly blame Bush for being in charge when Democrat policies destroyed the economy.

The Examiner is a Tea Party activist? Luckily, I am wary about people who don't know what they are talking about.

From the article, about the author.

Robert Moon, Conservative Examiner
Robert Moon is an award-winning researcher, published author, and former Regional Coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots. He has organized for conservative causes and candidates for the last fifteen years, is a former Precinct Committeeman and is currently stationed overseas.

Should I be wary of you?

I'm wary of anyone who attacks the messenger. I mean, this article is about the real estate bust, where trillions of dollars got wiped out and tens of millions lost their jobs and tens of millions lost their homes and it sent a shock wave all throughout Europe, where millions more lost their jobs and governments are imploding. and it's about the study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Not sure how much the author was writing other than reported. About the only thing you got here is a Tea Party person who finally has the evidence to back up what the Tea Party has been saying all along...and that regard Symm, YOU GOT HIM!

all you care about is the messenger. It's a losers position. If you want to attack something, try pinning the real estate bust on FOX news, or show how the NBER is owned by the Koch brothers, or something else that is actually substantial

[Symmetry]

I'm generally wary of Tea Party activists who write stuff like:

But non-Fox media have spent years deliberately and relentlessly inoculating people against the facts, training them to mindlessly blame Bush for being in charge when Democrat policies destroyed the economy.

The Examiner is a Tea Party activist? Luckily, I am wary about people who don't know what they are talking about.

From the article, about the author.

Robert Moon, Conservative Examiner
Robert Moon is an award-winning researcher, published author, and former Regional Coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots. He has organized for conservative causes and candidates for the last fifteen years, is a former Precinct Committeeman and is currently stationed overseas.

Should I be wary of you?

I'm wary of anyone who attacks the messenger. I mean, this article is about the real estate bust, where trillions of dollars got wiped out and tens of millions lost their jobs and tens of millions lost their homes and it sent a shock wave all throughout Europe, where millions more lost their jobs and governments are imploding. and it's about the study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Not sure how much the author was writing other than reported. About the only thing you got here is a Tea Party person who finally has the evidence to back up what the Tea Party has been saying all along...and that regard Symm, YOU GOT HIM!

all you care about is the messenger. It's a losers position. If you want to attack something, try pinning the real estate bust on FOX news, or show how the NBER is owned by the Koch brothers, or something else that is actually substantial

When the part of the message I'm attacking is that Fox is the only trustworthy media source on the global economy, I will express my scepticsm, Scotty, about the analytic skills of the author.

[_sabotage_]

Scotty, it was the republicans who allowed houses to marketable commodities in the first place back in the early eighties. The point is it doesn't matter. The point is that either which way you look at it, the US is a two party system which results in the rich getting richer. The parties have become one in the way they interact. You should wake up to the fact that the republicans are smiling at you, just as others need to wake up to the fact that the democrats are smiling at them.

The pie is getting split into smaller and smaller chunks for those at the bottom and middle, while the top's chunk gets bigger. The only way to increase the size of the pie is through production. Production is becoming more and more prohibitive through barriers put in place to protect the current hegemony. The only way out of this is to realize that we should encourage production on all levels; especially by taking away protective policies aiding big business and by eliminating barriers to small business.

A top down approach will not work for the simple fact that the rich don't need to spend. They became rich by conserving more of their income than was spent. The poor will spend. If you wanted to have a true stimulus package, give the money to the poor and they would have put it to work immediately. The banks play the government like a puppet and you are the audience who invests so much energy into cheering on one puppet over the other.

[Phatscotty]

Scotty, it was the republicans who allowed houses to marketable commodities in the first place back in the early eighties. The point is it doesn't matter. The point is that either which way you look at it, the US is a two party system which results in the rich getting richer. The parties have become one in the way they interact. You should wake up to the fact that the republicans are smiling at you, just as others need to wake up to the fact that the democrats are smiling at them.

The pie is getting split into smaller and smaller chunks for those at the bottom and middle, while the top's chunk gets bigger. The only way to increase the size of the pie is through production. Production is becoming more and more prohibitive through barriers put in place to protect the current hegemony. The only way out of this is to realize that we should encourage production on all levels; especially by taking away protective policies aiding big business and by eliminating barriers to small business.

A top down approach will not work for the simple fact that the rich don't need to spend. They became rich by conserving more of their income than was spent. The poor will spend. If you wanted to have a true stimulus package, give the money to the poor and they would have put it to work immediately. The banks play the government like a puppet and you are the audience who invests so much energy into cheering on one puppet over the other.

that's a pretty good post...

I know some Republicans are smiling, but I'm not really trying to defend them. I was happy to see them go in 2006. I know they are both responsible.

I just want to point at the real estate aspect, and the flaws that were legislated into it so that they get the proper amount of blame for the recession and the meltdown. They blew the biggest bubble in history (so far).

[Symmetry]

Can we get a link to the study? Scotty, rather than what the Tea Party thinks it says?

[oVo]

So here we sit, to this day, still watching Obama excuse and shrug off endless economic failures, illegal government takeovers and utter national bankruptcy with zero accountability.

Um scotty, the Bush White House was the epitome of zero accountability on a wide variety of fronts. Are you thinking that the economy just tanked over the last four years? Do you have any recollections of what occurred the eight years prior to the Obama Presidency?

[Phatscotty]

So here we sit, to this day, still watching Obama excuse and shrug off endless economic failures, illegal government takeovers and utter national bankruptcy with zero accountability.

Um scotty, the Bush White House was the epitome of zero accountability on a wide variety of fronts. Are you thinking that the economy just tanked over the last four years? Do you have any recollections of what occurred the eight years prior to the Obama Presidency?

Nope. If you had your quotes right (I didn't say any of that, Sabotage did), you might see that I was glad Republicans got kicked out in 2006. They fantastically dropped the ball.

However, that doesn't change that Democrat policies in the real estate market crashed real estate, and then the economy. I don't have to love Bush or regard him as blameless for pointing out that Bush and Mccain were trying to stop the destructive policies.

That's just the way the cookie crumbled

[saxitoxin]

Can we get a link to the study? Scotty, rather than what the Tea Party thinks it says?

http://www.nber.org/papers/w18609

(abstract)

Other interesting research recently from the NBER:

The Long-Run Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net
... that access to food stamps in childhood leads to a significant reduction in the incidence of obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes. http://www.nber.org/papers/w18535
(obviously a totally invalid conclusion - as Player points out, all research in the field of economics is invalid; therefore, food stamps must be abolished)

Resistance to Property Taxes
... because a larger proportion of property owners are having taxes paid from escrow accounts, rather than being directly involved in the process of writing checks -- property taxes are higher, but property tax revolts are less likely to occur http://www.nber.org/2009_redesign/archive.pl

Popularity Pays
Using data on the number of friendship nominations received from schoolmates as a measure of popularity, the researchers estimate that moving from the 20th to the 80th percentile of the high-school popularity distribution yields a 10 percent wage premium nearly 40 years later. http://www.nber.org/papers/w18475

[rdsrds2120]

But non-Fox media have spent years deliberately and relentlessly inoculating people against the facts

But non-Fox media have spent

non-Fox media

Fox media

This was my favorite part.

BMO

[saxitoxin]

But non-Fox media have spent years deliberately and relentlessly inoculating people against the facts

But non-Fox media have spent

non-Fox media

Fox media

This was my favorite part.

BMO

That was pretty silly. I noticed the further one gets away from the original source, the more outlandish the claims attributed to that source become.

NBER --> Investor's Business Daily article --> examiner.com article

The same thing occurred in the thread titled "CEO Shuts Down Hostess."

[Symmetry]

But non-Fox media have spent years deliberately and relentlessly inoculating people against the facts

But non-Fox media have spent

non-Fox media

Fox media

This was my favorite part.

BMO

That was pretty silly. I noticed the further one gets away from the original source, the more outlandish the claims attributed to that source become.

NBER --> Investor's Business Daily article --> examiner.com article

The same thing occurred in the thread titled "CEO Shuts Down Hostess."

I don't know, from the title on, as the abstract you provided indicates, it was a pretty outlandish interpretation from the get go. The conclusion just seems to bring it all back to where it wanted to be.

[Phatscotty]

But non-Fox media have spent years deliberately and relentlessly inoculating people against the facts

But non-Fox media have spent

non-Fox media

Fox media

This was my favorite part.

BMO

And that is my favorite way to just make things I don't like go away

the simple mere mention of FOX - nuff said

♥

[_sabotage_]

So here we sit, to this day, still watching Obama excuse and shrug off endless economic failures, illegal government takeovers and utter national bankruptcy with zero accountability.

Um scotty, the Bush White House was the epitome of zero accountability on a wide variety of fronts. Are you thinking that the economy just tanked over the last four years? Do you have any recollections of what occurred the eight years prior to the Obama Presidency?

Nope. If you had your quotes right (I didn't say any of that, Sabotage did), you might see that I was glad Republicans got kicked out in 2006. They fantastically dropped the ball.

However, that doesn't change that Democrat policies in the real estate market crashed real estate, and then the economy. I don't have to love Bush or regard him as blameless for pointing out that Bush and Mccain were trying to stop the destructive policies.

That's just the way the cookie crumbled

Wow misquote, but whatever, neither parties are accountable and Obama has definitely taken a number of pages out of the Bush book. The government is not accountable to the people, they are only accountable to their campaign donators and big business interests.

[saxitoxin]

But non-Fox media have spent years deliberately and relentlessly inoculating people against the facts

But non-Fox media have spent

non-Fox media

Fox media

This was my favorite part.

BMO

That was pretty silly. I noticed the further one gets away from the original source, the more outlandish the claims attributed to that source become.

NBER --> Investor's Business Daily article --> examiner.com article

The same thing occurred in the thread titled "CEO Shuts Down Hostess."

I don't know, from the title on, as the abstract you provided indicates, it was a pretty outlandish interpretation from the get go. The conclusion just seems to bring it all back to where it wanted to be.

The IBD report of the NBER study seemed to engage in observations instead of interpretations. Noting that the CRA was a Democrat-advocated policy is probably an acceptable editorial observation since it's a commonly-acknowledged fact.

Examiner.com, however, took the IBD observations and began applying interpretations ("economy was destroyed because of ...") that aren't logically supported by the NBER report so would require Examiner.com to have some independent qualification that it hasn't demonstrated. Similarly, on page 1 of this thread, I applied my own interpretation that challenged the Examiner interpretation - but accepted the more limited NBER conclusion - as to the reason for the destruction of the economy (that being the west's adoption of pack-ungulate economic policies and the leisure economy). I also did not offer proof of qualification, though in my case that was due to a drive for brevity.

[PLAYER57832]

Can we get a link to the study? Scotty, rather than what the Tea Party thinks it says?

http://www.nber.org/papers/w18609

(abstract)

Other interesting research recently from the NBER:

The Long-Run Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net
... that access to food stamps in childhood leads to a significant reduction in the incidence of obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes. http://www.nber.org/papers/w18535
(obviously a totally invalid conclusion - as Player points out, all research in the field of economics is invalid; therefore, food stamps must be abolished)

Love you too, saxi..


Seriously, its not that all economics is wrong, its that it is a narrow gauge of human behavior, not the full truth and measure of human sucess or failure. However, our political system is so dependent upon the influx of money that money, almost alone, and thus economic theory have become "the" gauge of validity and success. (or what Symmetry said..)

The excerpt on antelope you posted earlier was a good read. and all the points you make below are good ones.

Resistance to Property Taxes
... because a larger proportion of property owners are having taxes paid from escrow accounts, rather than being directly involved in the process of writing checks -- property taxes are higher, but property tax revolts are less likely to occur http://www.nber.org/2009_redesign/archive.pl

and the fact that there is essentially no upper limit to the mortgage deduction, and that investment income is treated so much more favorable than earned income, even to the point that money put forward is not taxed unless it generates a profit... all also very much lead to increases in housing prices and all real estate in ways that may have little to do with the base productivity or abstract "value" of the land itself. (Las Vegas, placed in a dry desert, has higher priced homes than much of the country --- though if the area were isolated, Las Vegas would utterly fail, while farms and houses in much of the country would persist).

Popularity Pays
Using data on the number of friendship nominations received from schoolmates as a measure of popularity, the researchers estimate that moving from the 20th to the 80th percentile of the high-school popularity distribution yields a 10 percent wage premium nearly 40 years later. http://www.nber.org/papers/w18475

Yeah, this is part of why I am now making a pittance wage and not even working in my field, while Steve H is making millions, though we both attended many of the same classes and I got better grades in some cases.

That, and entertainment pay MUCH better than real science...