Clever! President Obama’s first address to a joint session of Congress was not written – it was polled. Paragraph by paragraph, the address anticipated the most dangerous objections to the new president’s program and responded to them in turn.
The great overarching theme of the speech:
I am a conciliatory pragmatist, not a militant liberal. Have I increased public spending by once unimaginable sums? I did so.
Not because I believe in bigger government – I don’t. Not because I’m not mindful of the massive debt we’ve inherited – I am. I called for action because the failure to do so would have cost more jobs and caused more hardships. In fact, a failure to act would have worsened our long-term deficit by assuring weak economic growth for years.
Do you fear that I will raise your taxes to finance this spending? Not at all!
I know you’ll hear the same old claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people: if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime. In fact, the recovery plan provides a tax cut – that’s right, a tax cut – for 95% of working families. And these checks are on the way.
Bracing yourselves for a populist jihad against bankers? Look elsewhere for your class war.
I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions. I promise you – I get it.
But I also know that in a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger, or yield to the politics of the moment. My job – our job – is to solve the problem. Our job is to govern with a sense of responsibility. …
Does it look as if I’ve just spent a trillion dollars on pet Democratic projects – that I will be discarding market discipline for direct government investment and control in energy and healthcare? My only motive is to create jobs! And if there are hidden costs and taxes embedded in these projects, that’s just simple deficit-cutting prudence.
Now is the time to jumpstart job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down.
It will take a sophisticated ear to notice the void at the center of the speech – the void where the financial plan should be. As Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke testified on Tuesday, no recovery plan will work until and unless credit is restored. Over the past four weeks, it has become agonizingly apparent that the Obama administration has no clear idea how to do this. The so-called stimulus bill won’t help: it may mitigate some of the worst distress caused by the downturn, but it will not remotely suffice to end the downturn. The mortgage plan is likewise inadequate. And the main bank rescue plan has followed the Bush trajectory only backward: first giving money directly to banks, then later proposing to buy toxic assets from banks.
The Obama address deftly dressed up this uncertainty as a bold three-part plan:
First, we are creating a new lending fund that represents the largest effort ever to help provide auto loans, college loans, and small business loans to the consumers and entrepreneurs who keep this economy running.
Second, we have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and re-finance their mortgages. It’s a plan that won’t help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values – Americans who will now be able to take advantage of the lower interest rates that this plan has already helped bring about. In fact, the average family who re-finances today can save nearly $2000 per year on their mortgage.
Third, we will act with the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks that Americans depend on have enough confidence and enough money to lend even in more difficult times. And when we learn that a major bank has serious problems, we will hold accountable those responsible, force the necessary adjustments, provide the support to clean up their balance sheets, and assure the continuity of a strong, viable institution that can serve our people and our economy.
But the first point hardly begins to substitute for a working private-sector credit system.
The second point is only slightly less irrelevant: While the Obama mortgage plan will lower some beneficiaries’ monthly payment, it will not write down their debt – and it is the bad debts on the balance sheets of banks that are clogging lending.
As for the third and far away most important point, it amounts to a restatement of the problem, a declaration of goals without any indication of how those goals are to be met.
The economic crisis has created an opportunity for a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress to achieve long-standing ambitions in health, education, and energy. None of those things are relevant to the country’s most urgent economic problem, the collapse of the credit market. The Dems are doing what they want and what they can – not what they must. They are elevating ideology over necessity.
Barack Obama puts an appealingly conciliatory face on this hard-edged ideological approach to government. What most viewers will remember from this first appearance is this president’s pragmatic style, not his party’s determined substance. Usually the phrase, “a triumph of style over substance” criticizes the lack of substance. In this case, though, the problem is just the opposite – too much substance, but of the wrong kind.
54 responses so far
1 fact based // Feb 25, 2009 at 7:21 am
yes contrast that with Bobby Jindal’s charismatic, detailled response
2 JJWFromME // Feb 25, 2009 at 7:25 am
“They are elevating ideology over necessity.” This assumes that changes in health, education, and energy aren’t a necessity. And again, no mention of Keynes.
3 militarygnrl2 // Feb 25, 2009 at 7:45 am
I’m completely convinced that even though what is happening today sounds like socialism, it is not in fact socialist. Although on Fox News Beltway Boys, they mentioned this as democratic socialism. But if this is not socialism at all, then what is it?
4 JJWFromME // Feb 25, 2009 at 8:18 am
In a newspaper interview, Roosevelt was asked: “‘Mr. President, are you a Communist?”No.”
‘Are you a capitalist?’
‘No.’
‘Are you a Socialist?’
‘No!’ he said, with a look of surprise, as if he wondered about what he was being cross-examined.
The young man said, ‘Well, what is your philosophy, then?’
‘Philosophy? asked the president, puzzled. ‘Philosophy? I am a Christian and a Democrat. That’s all.’
5 sinz54 // Feb 25, 2009 at 8:42 am
The credit problem is a worldwide problem–the entire global financial system has nearly collapsed. I agree that Obama didn’t have a plan to fix that. Does anyone else? We can’t fix the financial crisis entirely by ourselves; AIG, which received a bailout last summer, is a multinational insurance company.
6 sinz54 // Feb 25, 2009 at 8:48 am
JJWfromME: I wish you folks on the Left would stop conflating long-term and short-term problems. There is absolutely no evidence that “Changes in health, education, and energy” are needed to fix the *current* economic crisis. The current economic crisis was sparked by a deleveraging in real estate and the derivatives that were based on real estate mortgages. It had nothing whatsoever to do with health or energy or education. A lot of those homeowners who defaulted on their mortgages were well educated and healthy, OK? It’s being disingenuous of you Lefties to keep sneaking your entire grand long-term agenda through, at a time when Americans are worried and depressed over the state of the economy and are willing to try just about anything to get out of this mess. You are doing EXACTLY what you accused Bush of doing–using public fears over a crisis (in Bush’s case, 9-11) to ram through an ideological agenda that is only tangential to the immediate crisis.
7 dragonlady // Feb 25, 2009 at 8:50 am
Rhetorically, few can match Obama. However like most of his speeches, it was pie-in-the-sky. He cleverly painted any doubters as cynics. There were huge programs proposed, for instance, govt provided health care. The content of Jindal’s message was good but visually and oratorically, it doesn’t help to go up against Obama.
8 Oneon1isto // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:02 am
Sinz54: perhaps the commenters feel that tackling these problems is like killing two birds with one stone. If we tackle health care, we take away a huge burden for business (indeed, small business groups are pushing this issue the hardest) and if we lower our oil consumption by drivingn energy, we lower our trade deficit. Both of which would stimulate and ideally help reduce our deficit. Obviously these dont even begin to touch the issue with financial markets, so your point is taken. But perhaps if we see these efforts in this light we can see their place in the current discussion.
9 JJWFromME // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:10 am
You can’t solve other problems (which *must* be solved at some point) while stimulating the economy? There is good economic theory that backs this up. It’s not disingenuous.
10 gibberish // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:10 am
US business is handicapped by having to provide health care and people are terrified of losing benefits. If healthcare was unlinked to jobs business would prosper, unemployment or setting up your own business would seem less terrifying. Universal health provision can help the economy hugely
11 JJWFromME // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:12 am
The financial markets is just one problem. The spiral that the larger economy is in is another.
12 Bulldoglover100 // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:16 am
David sez: The Dems are doing what they want and what they can not what they must. They are elevating ideology over necessity…………..I disagree with you 100%. This is the charge that is being leveled at US, not the Dems. Another point you may not want to hear but at the risk of being called a troll again I will say it…….Obama is too smart to not fix this country if he can and it scares the bejezus out of us that he will do just that….The desire for some in our party to be willing to let this country sink into a deeper depression simply so they can regain power sickens me and millions of other Republicans out there…which is why so many supported Obama in his speech last night. WE must find a way to come up with ideals that can fix this country and do our best to get that message out to the people in this country. When 80% of the people polled say Obama is on the right track and we stand and say he isn’t? We are a doomed party.
13 Oneon1isto // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:20 am
I’d just like to second bulldog in saying that the GOP’s place right now shouldn’t be against Obama, but as the party of limited government, lower taxes and fiscal responsibility your job is to become entrenched in his policy discussion, and accept his open hand. Ignore the house Democrats, and forge a freaking coalition with the president and blue dogs who actually agree with you on many substantive points.
14 sinz54 // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:42 am
Bulldoglover100: Give me a break. Of course Obama and the Dems are ideologically driven–what do you call tossing education, energy weatherization and some “health care advisory board” into a so-called “stimulus” package? A real stimulus package is temporary, short-term and targeted specifically to jump-starting the economy. Obama’s package contained numerous items designed to expand the welfare state. Let the Dems continue to charge the Repubs as being ideologically driven. The Repubs had a real stimulus package in mind–a drastic cut in the SS payroll tax–which would have stimulated the economy without turning American society into a clone of Canada or Western Europe. Obama wasn’t interested. He really does believe that the domestic agendas of FDR and Lyndon Johnson were terrific, the domestic agenda of Reagan was a disaster, and he’s out to roll the country back to 1965, and restart the process of driving American society toward that of France or Canada. That’s certainly ideologically driven.
15 sinz54 // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:45 am
JJWfromME: I agree with you that the larger economy has tanked. But it’s NOT because of lack of education or lack of energy or the other pork-barrel nonsense in Obama’s so-called “stimulus” package. Gasoline prices have dropped by 50% since last year’s peak. And we had a more prosperous economy than this in the early 1960s, when Americans were less educated. We conservatives are NOT going to let you liberals get away with your vast social engineering agenda under the false label of “economic stimulus.” We’re going to insist that you call it what it is–Welfare State 3.0 (the first two were FDR’s and Lyndon Johnson’s).
16 gblittle // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:47 am
militarygnrl2 — What is it? It’s called “neo-socialism”. Just google it!
17 sinz54 // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:52 am
Oneon1isto: Obama has NOT offered the GOP an open hand. Just a pat on the head. After the GOP has made some proposals, Obama says to them, “Thank you for your suggestions, but I’ve decided to do what I always wanted to do anyway.” Bipartisanship is a lot more than having an ostentatious meeting with the “loyal opposition” just for a photo-op. It means being willing to *compromise*. But Obama simply does NOT believe that the way to grow an economy is through the private sector, as we conservatives do. He made that very clear in his speech last evening. If Obama continues to expand the size and influence and power of government as his basic approach to all of America’s problems, then we conservatives are just going to have to oppose everything he does. Because we don’t believe in that approach. We are CONSERVATIVES.
18 fact based // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:54 am
“The Dems are doing what they want and what they can not what they must. They are elevating ideology over necessity..”
yes unlike Govs like Bobby Jindal who want to throw unemployed folk in their state under the truck and onto the street rather than accept money for extended unemployment benefits
and
are worried about cutting capital gains rates when the stock market has given back 12 years of capital gains and real estate investors are getting foreclosed upon and businessmen are cutting to the bone not reviewing new capital investments
with the massive layoffs on wall street I dont know who, other than the employees of the cato institute and the wsj editorial board will be left to support candidates running on this agenda..
and btw I have yet to see you guys list SPECIFIC govt expenditures you will cut to offset the revenue lost in your tax cuts. If you dont show every dollar of lost revenue you will offset, you should stop pretending to care about the deficit….
19 JJWFromME // Feb 25, 2009 at 9:56 am
sinz54: Building the TVA, the Triboro Bridge and the Hoover Dam had nothing ostensibly to do with the Great Depression. But they employed people and invested in infrastructure. I’m not an expert, but I believe this is good Keynesian economics. Investing in health care, education, and energy could be too. The health care system is broken. The education system needs upgrading. Our present energy practices are unsustainable in the face of future scarcity, our foreign policy, and climate change. These are infrastructure investments. They also help the present economy by creating jobs and priming the economic pump (again, see Keynes).
20 larryo // Feb 25, 2009 at 10:16 am
We conservatives are NOT going to let you liberals get away with your vast social engineering agenda under the false label of “economic stimulus.” But you had no trouble with the social engineering going the other way under President Doofus and his evil hoard, did you? There was no huge uproar from the right when Bush’s patently illegal spying program was revealed, the right was not all up in arms when it became apparent that FEMA had been gutted and its crisis managers replaced with conservative political hacks and there was no mass movement on the right for increased regulation of the institutions and players who were obviously turning our economy into their casino was there? You are not concerned about “social engineering” – admit it! You don’t want the children of the middle class going to college and reading Thomas Paine and James Madison – that is the death knell for American conservatism and you know it.
21 JJWFromME // Feb 25, 2009 at 10:24 am
Again, you have to put it in context. This is the jobs outlook: http://www.speaker.gov/img/jobsrecessions.jpg
22 larryo // Feb 25, 2009 at 10:27 am
Obama says to them, “Thank you for your suggestions, but I’ve decided to do what I always wanted to do anyway.” Maybe you missed this, sinz, but there was an election in November, and the winner came out with quite a mandate from the sovereign. It is that mandate he is undertaking – his policies are supported by the overwhelming majority of the American public by all accounts. This distinguishes him from the former President, whose first term “win” is still open to substantial question but who acted as if he had a mandate and who undertook the most radical conversion of American government in history all for the benefit of the top 1% of American wealth holders and the vested interests, incidentally growing the government in unprecedented proportions. And all this occurred with the hearty approval of “conservatives” such as yourself. Please – spare us the self-righteousness.
23 sinz54 // Feb 25, 2009 at 10:37 am
Larryo: That’s perfectly fine with me. You Obama supporters can simply tell the American people “To the victor belongs the spoils,” and stop babbling about “bipartisanship” and “changing the tone in Washington.” You have the votes in Congress to run the country pretty much the way you want, without trying to get us conservatives to give you convenient political cover. So go ahead and do what you will. Be the hard-core political partisans I always thought you were, behind Obama’s honeyed words.
24 JJWFromME // Feb 25, 2009 at 10:45 am
You have to put the best policies in place. A camel is a horse built by committee. You want your policies to be a horse, not a camel. One of the parties has to be the author of policies to get something coherent. The Democrats won the last election, in all senses of the word. It is up to them to design the best policy. If Republicans had been in charge, they would have similarly reached across the aisle at some stage, but they would have done the same in the end. You want your policies to be a success, not a camel.
25 JJWFromME // Feb 25, 2009 at 10:53 am
Needless to say, we’re talking about some deep philosophical differences here. If the differences weren’t so deep, you wouldn’t have Amity Schleas trying to rewrite history: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/amity-shlaes-strikes-again/
26 dendup // Feb 25, 2009 at 11:13 am
Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
[aloud]
Captain Renault: Everybody out at once!
27 AZT // Feb 25, 2009 at 11:15 am
I am not sure where the Republicans are going with this social engineering mantra. all forms of living in a society is social engineering. unless you live in the boonies in a house with no plumming, electricity (oh no you have a computer, that can’t be possible) and clean water, ride a horse through the wilderness to get to your work and use herbal medicines that you grow in your garden to cure yourself, I am afraid to break it to you but we are all part of social engineering.
28 Chekote // Feb 25, 2009 at 11:20 am
sinz. The way you solve the problem is to develop a plan and tell the markets that we will do no more than what’s in the plan. This plan a day is killing the markets by increasing uncertainty.
29 Chekote // Feb 25, 2009 at 11:22 am
I am sick and tired of talk about bipartisanship, non-partisanship, post-partisanship. It is a stupid Washington game. I think that politicians should stand up for what they think it is right for the country. I you agree with POTUS vote with him. If not, vote against him. But don’t get suckered into the “partisanship” debate.
30 AZT // Feb 25, 2009 at 11:24 am
Chekote: I totally agree.
31 AZT // Feb 25, 2009 at 11:25 am
on taking a stand fro what one thinks is the right thing with respect to the others of course.
32 JJWFromME // Feb 25, 2009 at 11:32 am
“This plan a day is killing the markets by increasing uncertainty.” This sounds a lot like the canard George Will used against Paul Krugman about why the Great Depression lasted so long:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yAyQV8gOjo
I’m not sure on this, but I think Krugman would say that if the economy’s bad enough the unemployment and lack of demand overrules the kind of signaling you’re talking about…
33 Chekote // Feb 25, 2009 at 11:34 am
JJW. What do you do for a living? I mean other than to ready Krugman?
34 Chekote // Feb 25, 2009 at 11:36 am
I mean read Krugman
35 Chekote // Feb 25, 2009 at 11:38 am
Unless we can fix the financial system soon. we will be in a depression by the end of the year. This should have been the #1 priority.
36 JJWFromME // Feb 25, 2009 at 11:47 am
Chekote: I’ve been reading Krugman for years. He was the one who got me interested in political blogs back in the day: http://www.pkarchive.org/column/080304.html I think I’ve always had something of a rationalist’s critique of Republican policies (although I’m not a pure rationalist, like many who comment on the Intertubes). I had a Republican relative in state politics with whom I debated the issue of climate change with for years. I think that experience is what got me so passionate about politics. But by day, I’m a mild mannered software company employee.
37 Chekote // Feb 25, 2009 at 11:56 am
JJW. I figured you never run a business. I am self-employed and you cannot make decisions if you don’t know if you are going to get bailed out, or if your competitor or client is going to get bailed out. We need clarity. The government needs to clearly define the role it intends to play (whatever it is) and give everyone a shot at adjusting their business plan. BTW, do you know why all the Ponzi schemes are coming to light? Markets being down are increasing redemptions and at the same time the same bad markets are causing lower new investments. When redemptions are up and new investments are down, the Ponzi scheme falls apart. You see free markets do work! While SEC couldn’t find Madoff even though he was right under their nose and alarm bells were soundng all around them. Yet, people like Krugman have more faith in the bureaucrats than the free markets.
38 JJWFromME // Feb 25, 2009 at 12:06 pm
No doubt markets work. I am not a socialist. I disagree with you about Krugman. He started his career working for the Reagan administration, and was a pretty standard classical economist. He was hired by the New York Times to cover the tech boom. He basically got pulled to the left by Bush and subsequent discovery of some things about the conservative movement that he found alarming. As do I.
39 Oneon1isto // Feb 25, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Chekote: I’ve run a small business. You mean to tell me your business planning is dictated somewhat on bailout planning? Please, I call your bluff. Like we even factor that into how we make decisions. I agree that we need more clarity on the role government plans on playing–and sticking with–but come on…don’t pull that card. As for those of you who don’t think Republican thinking played a role in the stimulus, their ideas very much did play a role. Much of the tax cuts in the stimulus were Republican grown ideas. Even if they didnt organize the bill specifically to their exact standards, their policy ideas were baked in there. So don’t tell me for one second that there wasn’t an indirect influence. You remove yourself from the discussion entirely, like I hear trumpeted so often in these forums, and you become like the Sunni’s were in Iraq: there but with no voice. You underestimate the power of a voice, well directed.
40 AZT // Feb 25, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Krugman also predicted the burst of the housing bubble more than 2 years ago but most of my republican friends laughed calling him “yellow” just because he wrote for NYT.
41 Chekote // Feb 25, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Oneo. You agree with me that we need government to clarify its role and stick with it. Why?
42 Chekote // Feb 25, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Oneo. The GOP is part of the discussion. They just did not vote for the final package. I just love the way all these supposedley smart people fall for the phoney traps of “If you don’t agree with my plan, it means you have no plan”. Or if you don’t vote for the bill, you voice is not being heard. I suggest that you look at the polling of the porkulous bill. It is extremely unpopular. The mortgage plan is unpopular. So the GOP is being heard. The GOP is part of the conversation.
43 Oneon1isto // Feb 25, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Chekote: arguably, the government and Fed are the only domestic players that matter now, and broad uncertainty about the steps these two are taking to regulate and redeem the financial sector are affecting the markets. Our psyches are so attuned to the market as a performance indicator (which it isn’t) that as we watch the thing buck, it makes regular ole folks nervous, which puts more strain on businesses big and small. But as a business owner, I certainly would never factor any of this into my planning. Especially as a small business owner. I wouldn’t look towards bailout money. I’d focus on my customer base, identify what’s making them nervous, and try to allay fears in relation to my dealings with them. I certainly wouldn’t factor anything the government did into my decision making. Now health care…that’s something I’d watch for, cause that’s a chunk of my bottom line.
44 JJWFromME // Feb 25, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Chekote: One more thing. I have very little faith in the SEC bureaucrats that the Bushies appointed:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/14/republicans_and_the_credit_cri/
45 Oneon1isto // Feb 25, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Chekote: and good, I’m glad you think they’re part of the discussion–they should be. Harumphing won’t get us anywhere. Although I’m not sure what polls you’re reading. Across an aggregate I keep seeing a 60/30 approval/disapproval of the stimulus bill, roughly the same though a little higher for Obama’s approval.
46 Oneon1isto // Feb 25, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Word of advice, JJW: posting from TPM isn’t going to get you anywhere here. If the article highlights a fact from somewhere a little less left leaning, you might gain traction. Otherwise you’re probably just spinning your wheels.
47 JJWFromME // Feb 25, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I would look at a right leaning site if it had something like a SEC power point slide on it, as this one does. There is supporting evidence for what’s written on the page. This is an annoying habit on the right. If it doesn’t come from an ideologically approved source, it’s dismissed out of hand. This is a big problem. You can have problems with *opinion.* But a fact is a fact. It doesn’t matter where it comes from.
48 Bulldoglover100 // Feb 25, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Obama is pulling an 80% approval rating on the stimulus today. We MUST deal with that and stop the slamming using worthless retoric and we must stop whoever Jindal is using as a speech writer and guiding him. Today in the WaPo is this rendetion of his speech……….Jindal’s proposal for creating jobs is “lowering income tax rates for working families, cutting taxes for small businesses and strengthening incentives for businesses to invest in new equipment and hire new workers and stabilizing home values by creating a new tax credit for homebuyers.” But here’s the problem: the credit markets are frozen. As a result, businesses aren’t investing, small businesses aren’t hiring and people are losing their jobs or can’t find new ones. Americans are hurting and are looking for answers. They didn’t get anything new, innovative or imaginative from Jindal………………So regardless of if we like that take on Jindal or not the part about being wrong is on target. We MUST fix ourselves before we will have any credibility in this country again and articles such as this one David felt the need to write do not help us in that area. Our poll numbers are as low as they can go and there does not apprear to be any end in sight.
49 dendup // Feb 25, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Republicans have put forward various alternative to the Obama approach. One is the payroll tax holiday. Republicans have in the past framed repeal of the Bush tax cuts as a tax increase. After a payroll tax holiday, many people would experience its resumption as a large tax increase. Would Republicans then decry its return as another Democratic tax increase? If this is a serious proposal, Republicans need to own this aspect of it.
50 sinz54 // Feb 25, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Chekote: I don’t think the problem with the Obama approach is “uncertainty,” the problem is unnecessary disappointments. The stock market builds in expectations about future earnings, profits, and yes, government actions, as investors invest for the future. That’s why you can see a stock decline in price, even when the company made a decent quarterly profit–because the profit just wasn’t as big as the company’s investors had hoped. One big reason the stock market tanked recently, is that Geithner had promised a big fancy new program to unstick the financial markets. Then he went before the entire world’s news media and spouted nothing but vague generalities, disappointing investors who had been hoping for more specifics. We heard later it was because Geithner still had doubts about the plan his staff had drafted, so he decided not to talk about it yet. In retrospect, the markets would be doing better if he had gotten out word in advance that his people are still not sure what to do. At least then nobody would have had their hopes dashed. Dashed hopes are what drives down markets.
51 sinz54 // Feb 25, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Bulldoglover100: I don’t know where you’re getting your numbers from. Rasmussen has support for Obama’s stimulus package declining this past week: Only 34% of voters still say it will help the economy; 32% say it will hurt; and 26% say it won’t either help or hurt. (http://tinyurl.com/dk7bw9)
52 Chekote // Feb 26, 2009 at 12:32 am
“I’d focus on my customer base, identify what’s making them nervous, and try to allay fears in relation to my dealings with them.” My clients are in the financial industry. Their fear is not knowing what the government is going to do next. So we are on hold. Stop being so smug.
53 Chekote // Feb 26, 2009 at 12:35 am
Oneo. Here are a few polls:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/federal_bailout/54_say_no_to_all_bailouts
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/housing/55_say_government_mortgage_help_rewards_bad_behavior
54 Chekote // Feb 26, 2009 at 12:43 am
JJW. The SEC and regulators in generals are ineffective regardless who is in the White House. Most of the examiners don’t have the experience or expertise to understand the products they review. I was check out the testimony before Congress of Harry Markopolos http://www.c-span.org/Watch/watch.aspx?MediaId=HP-A-15082 he explains very why regulators are so ineffective. I was a regulatory examiner for several years and he is right on target.
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