Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Econom

[warpig]

Pajamas Media » Obama Has Already Helped Wreck the Economy

After an awful week in the stock market, Team Obama sent its acolytes out to the Sunday morning shows to let everyone know that the president-elect’s campaign promise to impose tax increases on higher-income earners as quickly as possible probably won’t kick in until at least 2011.


By doing so, Obama and his inner circle finally, if only tacitly, acknowledged what they had refused to recognize during the presidential campaign, namely that economic expectations matter in the here and now.


This opens the door to the incoming administration’s next required admission — that their candidate, their party, and the expectations they created during the presidential campaign have been mostly responsible for the steep dive in the equity markets, and, nearly six months ago, put the economy into what will probably officially be declared a recession after this year’s fourth quarter. Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid did this in the areas of energy, taxation, and, with heavy assistance from Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, bailouts. With the exception of forcing, with the help of public opinion, a temporary lifting of the Outer Continental Shelf offshore drilling ban, there is little George Bush or the Republican minorities in Congress have been able to do to stop them, or to manage expectations.


Evidence of the POR triumvirate’s virtually unilateral damage to the economy began appearing as early as the fourth quarter of 2007, the first quarter of negative growth in six years. The POR recession itself began in June. The historically steep downward revision in second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth from an annualized 3.3% to 2.8% in the government’s final September announcement was more than likely due to deterioration that occurred in the final month of the quarter.

It’s not at all a coincidence that June was the month in which it became crystal clear that despite sky-high oil prices, Pelosi, Obama, and Reid were hostile to the idea of drilling for more oil — offshore or anywhere else. Pelosi insisted that “we can’t drill our way out of our problems.” In the speaker’s world, this means that you don’t drill at all. Reid declared that we have to stop using oil and coal because “it’s making us sick.” Obama seemed pleased that gas prices were so high, saying only that “I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment” instead of the sharp spike. What a guy.

Other POR economy agenda items loom ominously in the background: “windfall” profits taxes on energy producers, unionization of the unwilling through secret ballot-ending “card check” legislation, and a plethora of economy-choking environmental initiatives, to name just a few.


Collectively, these factors have weighed down the economy for nearly half a year. In recognition of when they began doing what they have done, Team Obama and the POR economy’s performance must therefore be benchmarked against where things stood on June 1, 2008, as follows:

• Inflation (June 2007 through May 2008) — 4.2%.
• Unemployment — 5.5% (as of the May report; currently 6.5%).
• Prime rate — 5.0%.
• DJIA — 12638 (down 36% as of the November 21 close).
• S&P 500 — 1400 (down 43% as of that same close).
• NASDAQ — 2523 (down 49%).
• Quarterly GDP growth before the June-related adjustment — 3.3%.

[NewC]

After an awful week in the stock market, Team Obama sent its acolytes out to the Sunday morning shows to let everyone know that the president-elect’s campaign promise to impose tax increases on higher-income earners as quickly as possible probably won’t kick in until at least 2011.

Hello Republican 45th President.

[Susanna]

Only the people will blame Bush for it; and if Obama learns from his mistakes, perhaps things will perk up and he will get the credit - though I rather doubt it, because things have gone too far to recover in a short time. But still, I daresay in 4 years time people will still be blaming Bush for the economy.

[warpig]

Originally Posted by Susanna

Only the people will blame Bush for it; and if Obama learns from his mistakes, perhaps things will perk up and he will get the credit - though I rather doubt it, because things have gone too far to recover in a short time. But still, I daresay in 4 years time people will still be blaming Bush for the economy.

Thus their need to silence conservative radio.