Exploding debt threatens America

Tell me what other president has racked up nearly 2 trillion dollars of debt in his first year. That is, no doubt, a record pace.

 

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Tell me what other president faced the challenges Obama has and is now facing? Once you have succesfully answered that question, then your question may have some relevance as you have a control to make valid comparisons.

But you cannot, because no other president but FDR has come close to facing the myriad of crisises faced by Obama. But in FDR's case the path to economic recovery was unknown. FDR had to figure it out on his own. Obama and Berneke has the benefit of history. If you look back in history to the last Great Depression, we did not emerge until after national debt almost equaled the GDP. So if you use that standard, Obama has been more proactive and agressive in dealing the the economic crisis, and hopefully more succesful.

 

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Bush, Reagan

 

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Which shrub? And Reagan? Reagan was not facing a similar mess. The nation was not at war when Reagan took office. The nation was not threatened on its own shores by terrorists. Reagan did not inherit the huge deciits Obama inherited. Reagan's problems were very tame compared to what Obama has had passed to him. Reagan was not facing the collapse of the international financial system and a depression in the making.
Reagan faced a period of stagflation, high inflation and low growth brought on by the oil shocks of the seventies.

And neither of the shrubs faced the deficits Obama faced nor war nor the dire economic straits Obama has and is facing. Shrub I faced the deficits of Reagans run away spending and raised taxes to mitigate the Reagan legacy. Shrub II inherited a budget surplus of a half billion dollars from his Democratic predecessor.

 

Reagan inherited inflation that was over 12%, interest rates that were at 20%, unemployment was at 7.6% and rising. the economy had lost over 7 million jobs for the four years before he was elected. not to mention the cold war.

George Bush faced the dot com buble, the terrorists attacks, companies like Enron, Worldcom and Tyco bankruptcies because of fraud, the 2001 anthrax attacks and a weak military.

 

Are you serious? Do you understand what a global financial melt down is? Do you know what a great depression is? The events you mentioned are nothing compared to what Obama has and is now facing. Not to mention that each of those presidents choose to ignore the serious long term time bombs in the budget, entitlements.

You will not be in the day trading business for long if you do not understand the potential global melt down we are facing today and the huge crisis Obama and the nation now face.

 

Ronnie taught me that deficits don't matter!

 

...that if we had a republican president he wouldn't have bailed companies and spent the same amount.

Stop crying and go back under your rock. 7.5 more years for you...

 

It was WWII, started by Hitler and Japan, that got our economy going. I don't think Roosevelt ever figured that out...unless the conspiracy theories about him knowing Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor are true.

 

Less than 5% of the stimulus money has been spent. So can you please list, document, or highlight what Barack has spent so far? No you can't, you're just blustering that's why.

 

How perceptive of you to notice that it was WWII that really brought the US out of depression and put the economy on a strong growth track. Now let me ask you why that was so? Let me ask you what happened to the national debt during WWII period as well.

Is the act of having someone declaring war on you stimulative to the economy? What was it about WWII that stimulated the economy?

 

Keynesian economics aside, the way you spend the money matters a lot if you want to have a substainable recovery.

In WW2 we were rebuilding the entire Pacific fleet, building planes, ships, tanks, bombs, bullets, drilling for oil to substain the allied war effort. All of this obviously pumped up our manufacturing capacity. Even better, when the war was over, the rest of the world was blown to shit; whereas we were sitting pretty ready to retool for peacetime production as the world rebuilt itself.

So the WW2 deficit spending turned out to be a great investment, not to mention the fact that we were fighting for our lives. The money Obama spent on his "stimulus package", by contrast, was almost entirely wasted. We might just as well have people digging holes and refilling them. While any amount of spending will provide some temporary stimulus, had the money been spent wisely, it might have actually pumped up our economy over the long term. Sadly, that was not the case. As ever seems to be the case with Obama, the funds were allocated according to politics rather than need or opportunity.

 

That is right it was federal spending and deficit spending that brought us out of the slump. From the Keynesian economics point of view, it matters little how the money is spent as long as it is spent producing goods or services...that does not mean giving it away as a tax break. The idea is to stimulate demand.

You can quibble about how the money is or will be spent. I have my issues with the stimulus plan. But overall its not bad, it just needs to be spent faster.

And let me note that our national deficit soared to almost equal GDP durring the WWII period.

 

What material evidence are you basing this conclusion on? You make allot of accusations but provide zero data to support your position.

 

"Exploding debt threatens America"

No sh*t. Americans made the decision in 80's and we never looked back, our debt ballooned from there. But to claim it's the Govts fault is not accurate.

Big business and the people of this country are to blame. We wanted to have our cake and eat it too.

 

Well, let's start with a comparison of the actual performance of the economy after the stimulus package verses what Obama predicted:

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Doesn't look too good. Post stimulus package we are doing worse than Obama predicted we would be doing with no stimulus package!

 

Do you blame our problems on Obama ?

Do you blame the global economic situation especially what has occurred over the last 2 years on Obama ?

 

The Obama administration is not rolling out the spending fast enough. That is the problem.

 

Yes I know what the great depression is. its was a depression from 1929 and ending around the 1930s. Obama took office in a recession. thing were worst when Reagan took office going by the numbers. no president encounter an attack like the one on 9/11. this happened in a recession.

Many of these entitlement programs were created by liberals not to mention they still are being ignored.

I make good money in bull markets and even better in bear markets.