The American Spectator

ame| 2.25.09 @ 9:32AM

Finally, with Jindal we have a leader on the national stage, not an empty styrofoam Greek column Obama poser.
Bobby Jindal is one of a very few truly brilliant people who have ideas that work and have proven to do so. He has more smarts in his socks than Obama has in his pretend sentimental idiotic "dreams."
Jindal is a man of principle, not politics; a man with an ethical and moral center, not "above my pay grade" - "I screwed up" - "I won" pureile whining; a leader, not a facilitator; a person of action, not staging; someone who believes in the power of America and Americans, not the power of government; a man of purpose, not empty promise.
Bobby Jindal has actually served the America he leads, not just taken from it for personal gain.
Jindal and other young Republicans such as Cantor and Ryan finally give me some real hope.
Obama couldn't lead a dog to a fire hydrant, but he can put dogs in a "study group" and teach them to bark.
Jindal is real, a leader who has proven himself through his actions, someone we can actually trust and someone who delivers, not the solipsistic pathetic frat brat elitist race baiting welfare Chicago thug wind blower we now must endure. I didn't listen to Obambi's speech because he never says ANYTHING - NO SUBSTANCE, just dissembling equivocation, but I did listen to Jindal because he not only speaks with substance, he delivers it.

peter o'keefe| 2.25.09 @ 9:46AM

A confluence of affirmative action and the American gift for smearing palatable frosting on a turd.

M.E.| 2.25.09 @ 9:48AM

6000? Wow, you're optimistic. I'm thinking it's going to be 6000 within a few weeks, and down to about 3000 by Christmas at the rate he's going.

Robert Stacy McCain| 2.25.09 @ 10:05AM

M.E., who knows how low it will go or how fast? We know what direction we're going in, but have been given too little data to determine the rate of travel.

les grossman| 2.25.09 @ 10:33AM

Heck, we could easily break thru the 7000 floor this week. The market has already dropped 2% this morning, even as the Agitprop Media proclaims another miracle of Obama speechifying.

J David| 2.25.09 @ 10:36AM

The current level of "unknowns" in mortgages, combined with the encouragement of "stimulus" for people to quit paying on mortgages not yet gone bad will combine to drive the economy -- much of which is based on the foundational importance of real estate assets as *wealth*(credit-worthy) -- to much lower levels than we are at now. The culpability of gov't/financial incestuous relationships is only just beginning to show, and the answer generally accepted already is nationalization, so we have U.S.S.R. levels to get down to yet.

Bob| 2.25.09 @ 10:49AM

Gee, RSM, it seems you know little about the market and even less about economics. All economists, even conservative ones like Friedman, recommend government spending. Why, because it is fear that is causing the overreaction to the economic downturn. Tax cuts only lead to more debt, not less. I have shown you chart after chart that proves that proposition.

Furthermore, the market reacts to stock prices, not the economy. If you bail out the banks, bank stocks rise, but that's not what most of us think we should do. The stock market relates to self interest, not what might be good for the economy. Furthermore, like any gambling enterprise, the market ALWAYS overreacts to factors and is always a leading indicator, not a result of one speech. If you believe otherwise, it is a sign of ignorance.

No economist believes we will see a strong recovery any time soon. However, a bottom to the housing market will occur over the next year and the market will stabilize. Will it go under 7000? Probably. But we are beginning to see the technical signs of a bottom forming.

By the way, the cause of the current problems is NOT debt. It is a combination of securitization, leverage, improper regulation, and the housing bubble. Debt is a result of this -- not a cause. Furthermore, Republicans are more responsible for our debt than Democrats because taxes reduced without concurrent reductions in spending.

Dave C| 2.25.09 @ 10:54AM

Gee bob..

if it works out so well,.. why not pass a stimulus every month? not just when times are bad.

Bob| 2.25.09 @ 11:03AM

Gee Dave, why not just do nothing?

I think some of the stimulus package is good and other parts will do very little. We should have had payroll tax deductions and the stimulus items should all have been rated. So yes, a good part of the plan is wasted money in my opinion, but a good part of it will be effective. The government can't solve this problem, but it can give a boost to consumption in the short term.

I've now heard about some of the significant cuts in the Obama budget. If those cuts are really there, we might have some hope. Bush was incompetent when it came to management and the budget. Obama has brought in a bunch of competent people. We'll see if they are as good as their resumes.

Brian from Minneapolis| 2.25.09 @ 11:05AM

Honestly Bobby Jindal needs to go back to working for Kwikee Mart and selling squishees in my opinion. You republicans crack me up, why don't you all move to an island, because your a dying breed

Reagan's Ghost| 2.25.09 @ 11:06AM

Liberal trolls pay off credit card with other credit cards, so to speak, and feel it is the gov't's (and non-parasites') job to "bail" them out when such "economy-stimulating" stupidity runs them into ruin that are such practice's obvious results. And since it seems to work for them (in the new socialism) why can't it work for the gov't, right? After all the Chi-Coms are SUCH retards they'll keep buying our bad paper forever. The gravy train never ends for the godless visualizers who feel sin should never have consequences.

james23| 2.25.09 @ 11:07AM

"the cause of the current problems is NOT debt. "
The dumbest statement posted on this blog in sometime, and once again, its from Obama's troll-pal Whatabout Bob.
this one is pretty good, too:
"the market reacts to stock prices, not the economy." Get this guy a position in Obama's Ministry of Economics and Public Works.

R. Dittmar| 2.25.09 @ 11:08AM

"Obama has brought in a bunch of competent people."

Unless of course by competent you mean paying their taxes on time.

carl winston| 2.25.09 @ 11:15AM

Did Obama really just get credit for getting us out of Iraq in 19 months (when his plan actually leaves "tens of thousands of troops there for training, fighting terrorists and to provide security." ) This is double plus ungood!

Robert Stacy McCain| 2.25.09 @ 11:39AM

"All economists, even conservative ones like Friedman, recommend government spending. Why, because it is fear that is causing the overreaction to the economic downturn. "

Bob, you're so full of it, your eyes are turning brown. Your phony propaganda claim that "all economists agree" on this neo-Keynesian nonsense has been thorougly debunked. The Cato Institute had no problem finding more that 200 economists to refute Obama's assertion that "everyone agrees" with his stimulus idea.

Real American| 2.25.09 @ 11:50AM

Tax cuts don't put us into debt. They never have and never will. Overspending puts us into debt. Cutting tax rates has proven, over and over again, to grow the economy and that produces more revenue for the Treasury. That's true whether the President is JFK, Reagan or GWB.

And don't forget. IT'S OUR F**KING MONEY, NOT GOVERNMENT'S!

Burke| 2.25.09 @ 11:58AM

While we would have had excessive debt problems even without Freddie and Fannie, these two institutions put us on steriods. By selling our countries credit to low credit home buyers, Freddie and Fannie facilitated the home-as-ATM and high-leverage trading of mortguages. Government spending and guarantees got us into this mess, it is not what will get us out. You can't eat your way out of obesity. Recessions are painful and but they teach people to be conservative in their spending. The unprecidented prosperity of the last quarter century has let people think that they are entitled to their good fortune. For all of the problems that Obama and the left will cause, we can thank them for reminding people how fragile is our freedom.

Thomas| 2.25.09 @ 12:14PM

The economics of "pump priming" have proven to be grossly overrated, throughout history. The market is not the barometer to look to as a true economic indicator. The health and stability of the manufacturing segment of the economy is a far better long term indicator of overall economic stability. And it sucks. When major corporations have to rely upon loans to meet their daily operating expenses, they are already bankrupt. This is the situation much of the world at the moment. All the pump priming in the world will cure a destructive business model. What it does, however, is create an inflationary spiral with a future debt that can be crippling. This causes economic stagnation, at best, or even a worsening and lengthening of the economic downturn.

In the last 100 years, the financial organs of many of the world's economies have been given an inflated importance. They create nothing. Their only function is to facilitate the transfer of money, which is, itself, merely a means to making transfers of value from one entity to another more convenient. They do not control, nor even significantly impact the economy, as a whole.

The purpose of TARP, the Porkulous Bill and every other economic stimulus action taken by the Federal government is designed to do three things:

1. Protect the jobs of politicians and their political appointees.

2. Rescue private sector associates of said politicians.

3. Rapidly expand the breadth of Federal power and increase control over small governmental sub-divisions and the private sector.

Virtually every problem in America can be directly traced back to government intervention at some level, including the current economic "crisis". Just maybe, government inaction is the cure.

Bob| 2.25.09 @ 12:32PM

So let me get this right, RSM. You find 200 out of 15,000 economists in the U.S. that agree with your position and you consider that significant? Furthermore, there are always those who will take a position just to get a paycheck by places like the Cato Institute. I saw no one on the list from any major Ivy League university, by the way. You are never going to find 100% that will agree on anything with anybody. I'd hope you'd have the intelligence to realize that. Furthermore, Friedman is one of the most respected economists tied to the policies of the Republican party. I'm glad you didn't come back with the statement that debt created the current mess. Even Greenspan does not question the need for stimulus.

Did you know that there were 300 Republican economists in 2003 that praised Bush's economic plan and you see how that turned out.

If you give me any position, I'm sure I could find 200 credentialed whackos to support it. I think it's time for you to learn something about the difference between real solutions and political hacking.

W. James Antle III| 2.25.09 @ 1:00PM

Bob, by Friedman are you referring to Milton Friedman? Can you cite anything where Milton Friedman advocated pump-priming and increased (unfunded) federal spending during a recession?

thirteen28| 2.25.09 @ 1:07PM

"The financial collapse was caused by excessive debt, and now Obama and the Democrats seem to think that they can fix the problem by borrowing money. "

Someday people are going to look back at this and have a big "what the hell were we thinking??" moment.

Jeremiah| 2.25.09 @ 1:44PM

Interesting piece on Rush in the American Conservative.

Ran| 2.25.09 @ 1:53PM

A conservative economist named Friedman, advocating Keynesian spending? [inhales]

[coughs] Hey. That's groovy, man.

Think First| 2.25.09 @ 1:57PM

It's so funny to listen to the rantings here of "educated" people talking about things they obviously don't get. Yes the economy can operate in a debt environment IF the private sector is healthy and working with as little govt. involvement as possible.

What Bob missed completely about Friedman's comments is he felt something needed to be done to restore confidence in the PRIVATE SECTOR. He disagrees with the level of debt and increase of govt. control being touted in the stimulus.

Sorry but it's been proven too many times the majority of economists still believe keynesian economic models which have been proven completely wrong on far too many occasions. Attacks on the CATO Institute are revealing of your true agenda.

You're wrong, you know it and you hope to intimidate others by throwing around your "edication" (spelling intentional) as proof. Not here.

I've watched many folks slowly wake up to the fact the liberal policies of relaxing credit and mortgage policies to fund undesirables into homes everyone knew they couldn't afford and float them around while everyone reaped crazy profits from them caused a large part of this.

A long time ago it was forewarned this would cause a huge housing bubble and banking crisis. In one of his more lucid moments, Bush and others tried to get this changed but the Democrats in Congress voted them down every time.

A feel good moment for Liberal policies and the resulting failure is being falsely laid at the feet of Reagonomics. How utterly absurd! It is because they got away from them this started spiraling downward to begin with! What a joke you make of your argument every time you state anything different.

I also note you selectively quote from Friedman but don't also mention he felt doing nothing was preferable to the current stimulus as many others have also agreed. I could care less how many folks say the sun rises in the north if I can plainly see it rises in the east.

Here is your defining moment. If you can admit to being wrong, learn at the feet of true economists in the Austrian economic field beginning with the Mises institute and moving forward. If not, then you prove yourself nothing more than an agenda with an ego more important than truth or fact.

urie| 2.25.09 @ 3:50PM

I have never left a message before but reading these blog I must say, "Shut up and do something about it" are you kidding how easy you have forggoton the last eight years? in just a few weeks of office and you have judge our president.
get up and do something stop talking about it. Talk is cheap

URIE | 2.25.09 @ 8:43PM

So sorry for my nasty outburst. I love Conservatives!

ruth| 2.25.09 @ 8:54PM

This quote is from The American Conservative's piece on Rush that Jeremiah mentioned. "Obama is known to have strong feelings about 'localism'." "Local community invariably turns out in practice to mean leftist agitator and race-guilt shakedown organizations--the kind of environment in which Obama learned his practical politics." Of course the liar in chief is going to push 'The Unfairness Doctrine', he will just be sneaky about it like all good marxists.

ruth| 2.25.09 @ 9:09PM

Better watch yourself, Bobby. Quin's already blocked you: Don't tempt fate with Antle and RSM.

Interloper| 2.25.09 @ 10:14PM

ROFL! Oh my Gawd! Robert Stacey McCain, known as 'that hopeless hack who is so racist even the Washington Times dumped his ass,' now imagines himself an expert in economics? He must be the child Sandra Herold gave up for adoption at birth and bought Travis to replace.

Bob is right. The consensus of respected economists worldwide is that a huge government stimulus is needed in the U.S. to restore confidence in spending, borrowing, and the housing market. It is better to do one or two large injections rather than to wait. The latter course results in continuing lack of confidence by consumers, causing refusal to participate in the economy to escalate. Japan's 'hold the course' strategy of insufficient stimulus resulted in a recession that lasted more than a decade in the 1990s.

As an observer of the far Right for a while, I've watched many a moonbat retreat into economic mysticism after the legal and social changes they fought so hard have become the norm. Perhaps RCM has given up on his hallowed dream of returning the country to 1855 or so, with himself at least the governor of a Southern state in which only white, Christian men with property would be able to vote. He will now devote himself to economic hocus-pocus, instead.

HomelessLeRhino| 2.25.09 @ 10:19PM

57 cops should never have been threatened with layoff. 57 hacks should have been targeted. This is about efficiency, accountability, productivity,and integrity in government becoming the issue. It is the issue that pulls the mighty middle and conservatives together. Everybody, but the truest bluest dems, hates being ripped off by the public sector. We should bury hatchets and join on this issue for 10 years and save America. Once we do that we can go back to mauling one another.

Michigan-Matt| 2.25.09 @ 10:54PM

A moron calling the right moonbats. That's a good one.

Basil Plumley| 2.26.09 @ 12:33AM

Hey Interloopy,

I see that you and the other "usual suspects" are still stuck on stupid. The last time you tried to argue the "confederacy" angle, you embarrassed yourself.
Are you still an ardent defender of the 'separate but equal' doctrine? Your silence on this issue is quite telling. You have some nerve to lecture anyone.
Oh wait, but you are the Professor of Law, Professor of History, Psychology Wizard. You know, you could go to prison for impersonation. Then again, you already know that; don't you.

Hey Bob,

Is it true the last refuge of scoundrels is the Ivy League?

ruth| 2.26.09 @ 12:36AM

In a word, Mr. Plumley, yes.

Bob| 2.26.09 @ 8:35AM

The problem with Think First's response is that he cannot provide data to support the proposition that discretionary and military spending is not stimulative because it is. Most analyst hacks make the mistake of including social security, medicare, and interest in the analysis which is based more on actuarial calculations are are definitely not stimulative. In fact, it was World War II spending that got us out of the Great Depression. And, if you look at unemployment, after FDR's program the unemployment rate dropped significantly.

That said, we absolutely know that tax cuts are not stimulative -- they only increase debt. In fact, the greatest growth rate in GDP came under that tax increases of Clinton.

Those are the facts. I've referenced the charts here many times. That said, SPENDING IS NOT THE ANSWER. Why? Because analytically, the returns on this investment are less than the amount invested. So they are stimulative, but they don't pay themselves back. The hope is that in the extreme situation we have now, they will be more effective.

So my position, friends, based on objective analysis, is that NEITHER tax cuts nor a huge stimulus are the answer. As Friedman says, it is all about private enterprise. Tax cuts don't help private enterprise because most of the gains go into the pockets of already wealthy individuals. Trickle down has proven not to work because it is so inefficient -- i.e., lots of filters as the money goes downwards -- everyone in the chain takes out a piece -- that is just human nature.

So, RSM, you are wrong again about Milton. He never said that spending is not stimulative. In fact, he says the opposite. His problem was with "deficit spending". In that sense, I totally agree with him. I'm the one here that proved tax cuts are not stimulative and only add to the debt creating MORE deficit spending. Milton was against this as well.

That's why the position of true conservatives should be a balanced budget amendment as I've said many times. Yes, this will result in higher taxes but may be the only way to force Congress to reduce spending.

We did get off of the subject, however. It was NOT debt that caused this problem. It was the confluence of securitization, deregulation, and leverage that RESULTED in debt. The problem is that politicians will not provide a "learning moment" to an uneducated public (represented here by Basil and Ruth) because the blame for these things will go back to them -- both Democrats AND Republicans.

ruth| 2.26.09 @ 1:53PM

Long winded, imperious, and still wrong.

Bob| 2.26.09 @ 3:16PM

If it is wrong, Ruth, show me the charts that prove it so. An please, don't refer to an article with point to point data. You prove my point about social conservatives. Thank you.

ruth| 2.26.09 @ 3:43PM

Bobby, too damn bad common sense ain't so common--and you are the poster boy for that idiom .

Bob| 2.26.09 @ 4:18PM

Ruthie, common sense tells us the world is flat and that blacks were inferior. So much for common sense. You probably still believe the earth is flat and was created in 6 days. Right? "Common sense" is simply a way of saying you cannot comprehend or analyze information. Thank you for proving my point once again.

ruth| 2.26.09 @ 6:25PM

Blah, blah, blah. Snore.

ruth| 2.26.09 @ 9:34PM

You believe blacks are inferior? Shame on you--I thought you were the enlightened white boy from the 'hood'? Snark.

Bob| 2.27.09 @ 8:15AM

Ruthie, your responses are getting more intellectual as we proceed. Thank you, again, for proving my point regarding social conservatives.

ruthie| 2.27.09 @ 9:06PM

Bobby, you finally, finally got the correct spelling of my name. No y for me, bub. Thanks a bunch. And thanks for all your compliments regarding my intellectual prowess. Keep 'em coming! Too bad you live on the east coast--I'd ask you out for a drink. Purely friendship, of course, I know you're married. The woman must be a saint! Have a good weekend, Bobby.

chi 1 flat iron| 9.1.09 @ 5:19AM

Class and AssProfessor Laurie of Glasgow put his notice on his door
chi flat iron : "Professor Laurie will not meet his classes today."A student, after reading the notice, rubbed out the "c".
Later Professor Laurie came along chi hair straightener , and entering into the spirit of the joke, rubbed out the "l".