Thread: Obama Speech at Georgetown

Anyone listen to it?

A few things I noticed -

When trying to "clearly" explain the causes of the current financial crisis Obama stated it was a, “perfect storm of irresponsibility and poor decision-making stretched from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street.”
He blamed the banks and Wall Street for high risk housing loans, but at (the same time conveniently omitted the role government played in causing the banks to make those loans.

Obama said, "History has shown repeatedly that when nations do not take early and aggressive action to get credit flowing again, they have crises that last years and years instead of months and months -- years of low growth, years of low job creation, years of low investment, all of which cost these nations far more than a course of bold, upfront action"

According to "The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics" (Great Depression: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics | Library of Economics and Liberty):

" Interestingly, given the importance of the Great Depression in the development of economic thinking and economic policy, economists do not completely agree on what caused it. Recent research by Peter Temin, Barry Eichengreen, David Glasner, Ben Bernanke, and others has led to an emerging consensus on why the contraction began in 1928 and 1929. There is less agreement on why the contraction phase was longer and more severe in some countries and why the depression lasted so long in some countries, particularly the United States."

According to two UCLA economists (FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate / UCLA Newsroom): the Great Depression was prolonged by seven years due to Roosevelt's New Deal policies.

So where does Obama get this "history has shown repeatedly" garbage?

He also said that economists on the left and right agree, “The last thing a government should do in the middle of a recession is cut back on spending” (The Gaggle : More on the Obama Speech: Did He Just Say Entitlement Reform?)

Of course some economists agree, but I'm sure there are plenty that disagree.

He then made a comment regarding families cutting back on spending. That if all families stopped spending it would hurt the economy. But when, in fact, would All families stop spending? Never.

But of course Obama uses that false premise to again promote government spending, or priming the pump (as Keynes called it). And prime the pump with what? Money that those families would have used to spend themselves had government not taxed it out of them.

But of course Obama knows better than American families how and where to spend their money.

Anyone else have observations?

When an economy gets to where this one was and still is the Government is the only one left to stabilize and prop up the economy. if the government did not spend (whether its borrowed money or not doesn't really matter) we would probably be right in the middle of a depression right now. Investors would have started pulling massive amounts of money out of the market (way more than they had) and that was about to happen.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

When an economy gets to where this one was and still is the Government is the only one left to stabilize and prop up the economy. if the government did not spend (whether its borrowed money or not doesn't really matter) we would probably be right in the middle of a depression right now. Investors would have started pulling massive amounts of money out of the market (way more than they had) and that was about to happen.

So the government meddles with the economy (in this case the Community Re-investment Act, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac), the economy takes a dive (after 30 years of faulty government economic policy), government denies it's involvement (and tries to hide it's involvement by blaming companies like AIG), but then claims it will fix the economy by taking away, then redistributing via TARP and stimulus bills what it has depleted from the economy.

And then we are to believe that the government has saved us...

Right....

"Government cripples you, then hands you a crutch and says, 'See, if it wasn't for us, you couldn't walk." -- Harry Browne (1933-2006)

I forgot to mention that the TARP and stimulus money doesn't all come from collected tax, there's not enough to cover the trillions being spent. Instead congress is borrowing and the Fed is printing. At the end of the day, not only will those that received sub-prime loans through CRA, and then defaulted, have their already poor credit further trashed, they, and the rest of us, will have our taxes increased to repay the government loans. And when all of the newly printed money starts seeping into the economy we will all be taxed again due to inflation - especially the poor. Not exactly a tax on just those earning $250,000 and above.

And then the government will have another crisis to exploit.

That's why we have to say Stop! today. The government is trying to kick start the bubble generator that got us into this mess, hoping that the next collapse will not come inconveniently soon. If they succeed and artificially restart the sick false growth of the past years, this country will self destruct before the end of the next decade.

And the next time you hear Obama in one of his speeches tell you how mad he is about the mortgage meltdown, and how Wall Street is to blame, and how he inherited this mess -

remember his involvement in helped to bring all of this to pass:

Obama's involvement with ACORN and CRA -

RealClearPolitics - Articles - ACORN, Obama, and the Mortgage Mess

UPDATED: Obama Sued Citibank Under CRA to Force it to Make Bad Loans | Media Circus

Obama's involvement with TARP -

Record Shows Obama Was on Board With TARP in September, and Every Bit As Socialist As He Claims Bush Was | NewsBusters.org

Obama knew about the retention bonuses before they were paid -

MANUFACTURED OUTRAGE - New York Post

And just in case you have any doubt as to the contempt the Obama administration holds against our intelligence, HE DIDN'T BOW, OK?

White House: Obama didn’t bow to Saudi king « Wellsy’s World

and if you believe any of this you are a dangerous right wing extremist.

we attended our local tea party today! did anyone else attend?

I wanted to but came too late. At 3:30PM, there were just a few individuals and a bunch of Asian tourists with cameras left in Boston.

To tell you the truth I don't see what all the fuss is with wall street.

What is wall street all about anyway? Its about money and greed. Its always been that way. How many economic meltdowns has this country had in its history? Government has never been able to prevent it and never will. So they will write new regulations to prevent what happened from happening again eh? I will bet you that right now some smart guys on wall street are already formulating new schemes that go beyond new regulations which will lead to the mess happening again in the future.

To blame government is folly because politics is involved and there is blame enough to go around to both parties.

I would be more concerned with people owing more that they can afford on Credit cards and buying homes they can't afford.

Like I already said to complain about how this happened isn't really important right now. What is important is to get the economy moving again.