As he battles the economic downturn, President Barack Obama is bracing Americans for a recovery different than any in recent memory – not a go-go return to prosperity like the 1990s but a slow, steady climb to stability.
“We know that an economy built on reckless speculation, inflated home prices and maxed-out credit cards does not create lasting wealth. It creates the illusion of prosperity, and it’s endangered us all,” Obama said recently.
But what Obama rarely says about ending the “cycle of bubble and bust” is this: He’s prepared to intervene to make sure that kind of red-hot growth doesn’t occur.
And he’s willing to do it with added government regulation if needed to prevent any one sector of the economy from getting out of balance – the way the dot-com boom did in the 1990s and the real-estate market did earlier this decade.
According to Austan Goolsbee, a key Obama economic adviser, the president plans to focus on stopping bubbles along with preventing busts.
Should we really kill the ups of our economy to get rid of the downs? Do we really want our economy to be like the kiddie ride pictured above? Safe, but with no thrill or chance of solid gains.
Whatever he does now will be undone by the next regime so I don’t see this as a permanent fix.
One more bubble! Just one more.
Clean up the government so the taxpayers get what they pay for.
The governments’ pay scale is another bubble.
Give them all a 20% pay cut, but add back to all what the E1 lost, no need to cut the bottom.
Cut out government waste and fraud.
“Regulation is to capitalism as rules are to football.”
It’s funny you say that because the NFL is actually communistic. The competition between teams is artificial, in that all teams are owned and controlled in part by one entity, the NFL. The worst teams get the best players . And all teams share in the profits, regardless of performance.
And on a related note, I find it funny that those people who are hardest on crime, those who want the harshest laws imposed on individuals, want the least amount of laws controlling corporate misbehavior. And vise versa.
Thoughts? ROFL. 5 years plans anyone?
Isn’t that called “Financial Policy”.
Where I am that’s the entire job of the Financial Minister.
Greg Allen, Well said!! I think we’ve all seen what 28 years of deregulation by Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush has done to the nation, at least those of us who are willing to reexamine beliefs in light of new data.
Paddy-O, still drooling on yourself and thinking that it is debating? It’s not. Wake up.
I think that it would be more efficacious to focus upon the criminals that blew up this current bubble, are using fake reporting requirements passed in 07 to turn massive losses into paper profits, and essentially engaged in massive fraud and counterfeit by creating paper assets for real assets that don’t exist, to the tune of trillions of dollars. Let us not forget that the ‘masters of the universe’ also ran up the largest oil and grain commodity bubble in history, killing many millions of people by starving them to death and impoverishing America just so that they could feather their nests a bit.
I think it would also be more useful to figure out where the trillions that the NY FED and the Pentagon -LOST- went.
After we solve those mysteries, we would be a long way towards stopping the bubble economy from taking hold again. Then and only then, after we have discovered what has been -done- should we introduce new regulation.
But if O he tried to do that, I think he would probably be shot. *sigh* America, fuck yea!
In case anyone as not noticed, tbe series of bubbles we have been living through is not healthy. If big firms were allowed to die off in large numbers you could make a case that it would allow the surviving firms to buy up large amounts of capacity at cut rate prices. As it is no big firm gets in big trouble and they go on to be marginal debt ridden performers.
I doubt any of this is going to happen, though, b ecause at the details level it appears that Obama is captured by the financial industry. Things were better when finance was a tool used by other businesses to help them increase their businesses. When finance is in control bad things happen.
And what is with this text box widget?
Well, he certainly would like to end the prosperity of the firearms manufacturers right now. He seems to be, in fact, the best gun and ammunition salesman in decades. I certainly have stimulated the economy, and my stimulus packages are very sweet.
Ever heard the term ‘Bean Counters’? when the bean counters are incharge… well, you know what happends!
Eat the RICH!!!
“Safe, but with no thrill or chance of solid gains.” /// Hah, Hah, Well done. something only a troll, an idiot, or an editor found of misleading Headers would write. Still, quite a few foolish repuglicans and LIE-bertarians certainly do think this way.
What is “a bubble” but “an artificial anomoly” or indicator of something out of whack–ie–not good long term supportable growth? Its the big lie language of propagandists. The whole Republican Party is built on it.
You can’t tell what a bubble looks like until it’s over. Right now I’d say we’re in a government bubble: growing size, growing programs and growing intrusiveness. The other day they even federalized the atmosphere. Big corporations are prone to failure and big markets are bubbles, but big government? It is already too big to fail but there is nothing bigger to bail it out.
Hey Alfred–you are right. The body of your longer post three above is acctually quite good. Ironic that one of the few times you found something useful to say, it does get wrapped in BS. I gues the filter here is pretty sophisticated. If you don’t shit all over yourself, the filter does it for you.
Seriously==yes, VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE (and put half of them in JAIL!!)
Is the typing in the reply box screwed up for you guys too?
So where is the venture capital going to come from for the next tech revolution like we had in the 90’s?
They should always add to the “nothing to fear”comment is “and if you know the right people you really have nothing to fear”.
sorry about that this new blog style screwed me up
So Obama has finally cracked the nut on predicting and controlling business cycles. Amazing. I’m sure he also know how to prevent resource misallocation too.
How do you stop a bubble if you really don’t know what one looks like? “The president plans to focus on stopping bubbles along with preventing busts,” is pure BS. He is maintaining the last bubble by not letting the chips fall where they may.
I suppose this does explain why the government doesn’t want to take the repayment of the “loans” it made to the banks. It’s hard to control the economy unless you really do own it.
Obama’s mighty all seeing eye could shift to the <a href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gkmL38UmiBw/Sd4wz5NSyrI/AAAAAAAAARg/a4-CYH1iLIk/s1600-h/Foodstamp+participation+Apr+2009.bmp” rel=”nofollow” rel=”nofollow” target=”_blank”>Food Stamp Bubble.</a>
Obama is an idiot. How are you going to ‘stop a bubble’? Close the market until it cools down? Seriously. Why doesn’t he just make sure the SEC isn’t staffed with morons, so that the next time a Bernie Madoff is runing a ponzi scheme, they catch his ass.
In the medical world unregulated growth is called CANCER
brm – index unknown:
Truth.
What if some sector of the economy grows ‘out of balance’ because that’s what it’s really worth? We’re going to let the White House decide when if it’s a bubble? I can see some idiot president killing a new industry because he thinks it’s a bubble.
Would we have a semiconductor industry if the president could ‘slow down bubbles’?
Hey, he even got the trifecta in there!
‘They are emphasizing clean energy, health care, education and worker training – all areas they call part of the “real economy.” ‘
Oh brother. What a perfect scam – come up with your own newspeak for ‘growth industry’ (‘real economy’) and put your political programs in it. What, real estate and tech are not part of the ‘real economy’ because they’ve experienced a bubble? Please.
“Bubbles are impossible to control” You douches are real thinkers aren’t you? Even when recognziing that “bubbles” mostly result from lack of adequate or even “any” regulation.
How about when the HEAD of the fricken Federal REserve (or whatever” says that we are in an age of “irrational exhuberance” our masters in Wash DC take a look see as to the regulatory/interference level and make some changes?
Excellent lady on Jon Stewart==after the depression REGULATIONS to prevent/limit bubbles were put in. No cycle of deep crashes for 50 years until the Savings and Loan debacle. That resulted from lessening regulation. Congresses response to that WAKE UP CALL?==Removed even more regulations so, of course we get what was unavoidable==deeper crash.
Now with this HISTORY staring us in the face, you finanicial turd blossoms think there is no role for government?
Dolts. You LIE-bertarians, and Capitalist Stooges know who you are.
Somebody get Alfred1 to a drug rehab clinic.
Let’s see the recent stock market gains happened after they undid the anti-Enron regulations.
This sounds like if it moves tax it, if it keeps moving regulate it, and if it stops moving subsidize it.
Impossible:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936