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Reckoning
The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush
The American economy can take a lot of abuse, but
no economy is invincible.
The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling
legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph
E. Stiglitz, sees a generation-long struggle to recoup.
<snip>
"Up to now, the conventional wisdom has been that
Herbert Hoover, whose policies aggravated the Great Depression,
is the odds-on claimant for the mantle "worst president" when it
comes to stewardship of the American economy. Once Franklin
Roosevelt assumed office and reversed Hoover's policies, the
country began to recover.
The economic effects of Bush's presidency are more insidious
than those of Hoover, harder to reverse, and likely to be
longer-lasting. There is no threat of America's being displaced
from its position as the world's richest economy. But our
grandchildren will still be living with, and struggling with,
the economic consequences of Mr. Bush."
<snip>
"But the Bush administration had its own ideas. The first
major economic initiative pursued by the president was a massive
tax cut for the rich, enacted in June of 2001. Those with
incomes over a million got a tax cut of $18,000—more than 30
times larger than the cut received by the average American. The
inequities were compounded by a second tax cut, in 2003, this
one skewed even more heavily toward the rich. Together these tax
cuts, when fully implemented and if made permanent, mean that in
2012 the average reduction for an American in the bottom 20
percent will be a scant $45, while those with incomes of more
than $1 million will see their tax bills reduced by an average
of $162,000."
<snip>
"A rising tide lifted all yachts. Inequality is now widening in
America, and at a rate not seen in three-quarters of a century.
A young male in his 30s today has an income, adjusted for
inflation, that is 12 percent less than what his father was
making 30 years ago."
<snip>
"A budget surplus of 2.4 percent of gross domestic product
(G.D.P.), which greeted Bush as he took office, turned into a
deficit of 3.6 percent in the space of four years."
<snip>
"Tax expenditures—the vast system of subsidies and preferences
hidden in the tax code—increased more than a quarter. Tax breaks
for the president's friends in the oil-and-gas industry
increased by billions and billions of dollars."
<snip>
"Today, China alone holds more than $1 trillion in public and
private American I.O.U.'s. Cumulative borrowing from abroad
during the six years of the Bush administration amounts to some
$5 trillion. Most likely these creditors will not call in their
loans—if they ever did, there would be a global financial
crisis."
<snip>
"The problems of foreclosure and bankruptcy posed by excessive
household debt are likely to get worse before they get better.
And the federal government is in a bind: any quick restoration
of fiscal sanity will only aggravate both problems."
<snip>
"What is required is in some ways simple to describe: it amounts
to ceasing our current behavior and doing exactly the opposite.
It means not spending money that we don't have, increasing taxes
on the rich, reducing corporate welfare, strengthening the
safety net for the less well off, and making greater investment
in education, technology, and infrastructure."
See the complete
article
HERE
But another view from author Mike
Folkerth follows:
The statement
[above]
regarding Roosevelt could not be further from the truth. Hoover
was a good man who refused his pay and donated it to charity. He
even refused to use government provided stamps to post personal
letters. His inability to control the Federal Reserve and loose
banking practices brought down the country (sound familiar)?
Hoover was a bright financial figure who asked then Governor of
New York, Franklin Roosevelt, to help him reign in the dangerous
practices on Wall Street, Roosevelt refused.
Roosevelt
did not end the
depression. My father was 96 when he passed away and was a very
bright man. He would often talk about the war pulling the
country together, not Roosevelt. What F.D.R. did do, was the
same thing that Bush is doing, hire the unemployed for
government service, put the bill on the tab and hope for the
best. Roosevelt made it illegal for citizens to own gold and
replaced it with fiat currency that was printed on the demand.
Once the government had all the gold collected, Roosevelt
changed the value of gold from $20.67 to $35.00 per ounce giving
the appearance of instant wealth to the Federal Government. He
had successfully set up the world's largest pyramid scheme which
has finally reached saturation, and that is what we are facing,
not simply the consequences of the past 8 years.
I never liked Bush,
like you, I voted for him, I think that was a mistake. But what
I was really doing was voting
against the zany Al
Gore. I wrote early on that the Bush presidency was a domestic
disaster and so it has proved to be. You will see that I
predicted the immigration issues, the housing collapse and other
important events, long before they occurred. I credit my ability
for doing so to being a fair student in 8th grade
math.
It's math Jack,
something that the economist below allows to be bent in the
direction of the his ultra liberal leanings. But bend it as he
may, math is the exact science as economics is the dismal
science and combined there is no changing the outcome. (spin
yes, reality no).
Keep in mind that I
thoroughly dislike Bush, but we must remember that he did
inherit a failing economy. The tech bubble explosion cost
Americans some $2 Trillion dollars followed by 911, followed by
another economic tsunami. Just what would Al Gore have done to
change things? No war, I'm sure. But, we must remember that even
with a war
economy, America is listing heavily to the starboard side and as
the old showman would say, "You ain't seen nothin' yet."
See
Mike's book at
http://mikefolkerth.com/the-book/ and check out his blog
entries.
I'm a businessman and not an economist, but I do know this;
had I cut my company revenues by giving assets to outsiders, I
would have retired much earlier than I did. Not because I
was able to, but because my company would have
gone out of business. Bush has something I didn't have.... a
credit card that he can charge to our kids.
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