Unemployment drops to 7.8%

[_krose]

I would still like to see a response to this repeated question.

I wish it were 3% or lower and that Obama's policies had been much more successful than they seem to have been.

I'm not trying to be combative, Jason, but I would like to know what policies you think would have been more successful. There may be something to Paul Krugman's idea that a much bigger stimulus was needed to make a real difference, but I don't know how much difference that would have made either.

What do you think he should have done that would have substantially lowered unemployment?

As it is for Barak Obama for his entire presidency. " It's all George Bush's fault."

As I said earlier, neither president had a significant hand in the downturn, but Bush certainly had a larger one (deregulation, etc.).

In fact I'm having a hard time identifying an Obama action that increased unemployment, or something he should have done (and could have done, given the dogged dedication of the opposition) during the last three years that would have made the economy better.

If you can tell me, please do. As it is, I don't see a valid reason to assess any blame at all to the current administration.

[_Drifting]

Krose, here is a very useful page showing what Romney has stated he 'will' be doing as President...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012 ... -will.html

For instance:

I will create an environment where our businesses and workers can compete and win.
Americans are crying out for more jobs,
less debt, and smaller government—and I will deliver.
As president, I will get our economy back on track and get our citizens back to work.I will go to work to get America back to work by making America once again the most attractive place in the world for jobs creators and innovators and investors and jobs—the jobs will begin to flow like they have in the past.
I will help usher in a revival in American manufacturing.I will instead make America the most attractive place in the world for entrepreneurs, for innovators and for job creators and get America working again!
I will make America the most attractive place in the world for entrepreneurs, for innovators, and for job creators.
I will make sure that America’s workforce is prepared for the modern economy.
On Tuesday, I will present a detailed plan to get America back to work and to grow our economy.
I will remove the crippling uncertainty that is preventing businesses from hiring.
And finally and perhaps most importantly, I will restore economic freedom.
Today, I want to talk with you about why economic
freedom is so critical—and how, as president, I will restore it in order to get our economy growing again.
He lost our AAA credit rating; I will restore our AAA credit rating.
As president, I will show the good things that can happen when we have more—more business activity, more jobs, more opportunity, more paychecks, more savings accounts.
I have already spoken of the actions I will take to strengthen our economy.

[_Drifting]

Ryan reiterated Mitt Romney’s five-point plan that calls for creating 4 million new jobs by making North America energy independent and championing small businesses.

“Don’t raise taxes on small businesses because they’re our job creators,” Ryan said.

He later said President Obama “thinks that the government ought to be able to take as much as 44.8 percent of a small business’s income,” but that he and Romney would limit the small business tax rate to 28 percent.

Obama has called for letting an income tax cut on the wealthy (which would hit some small business owners) expire while reducing corporate tax rates from 35 to 28 percent, and to 25 percent for manufacturers.

When pressed by moderator Martha Raddatz to identify which loopholes and deductions would be closed to pay for the 20 percent across-the-board proposed tax cut, Ryan did not provide specifics.

[_Drifting]

Biden added that private-sector jobs are growing, referring to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that shows 5.4 million new private sector jobs during the last 31 months.

[_krose]

Bumping because I would still like a response.

[_Jason Bourne]

What do you think he should have done that would have substantially lowered unemployment?

If you can tell me, please do. As it is, I don't see a valid reason to assess any blame at all to the current administration.

Krose

Sorry. I must have missed these. Really I don't know for sure. I wonder how effective stimulus is because it is directed at specific things without a market involvement. Rather than pick where to spend the money why didn't they just lower taxes by $750 billion and let the people decide where to spend the money. Really in essence this is what the payroll tax reduction did. But it alone was not enough. Maybe early in the Obama administration cutting taxes on everyone say under $200K per year by an equivalent of $750 Billion for one or two years then letting the people spent the money may have worked better.

On the other hand I have long wondered when people complain that government stimulus does not work why they think that. The money goes somewhere-to teachers, police, firemen, contractors doing the so called shovel ready jobs, etc. So it goes into someone's pocket. And that someone is going to spend it somewhere some how. Since money is ultimately fungible it all goes into the economy whether tax rates stay up and the government does the spending or if the taxes are cut and people have more money to spend.

I do think with world wide forces on the economy very different than what they have been in the past perhaps this slow response to anything is not to be unexpected.

Maybe not very good answers but there are my thoughts.

[_cinepro]

I said earlier, neither president had a significant hand in the downturn, but Bush certainly had a larger one (deregulation, etc.).

Which "deregulation" were you referring to? As far as I've heard, the biggest act of deregulation that led to the crash of 2008 was the repeal of Glass-Steagall regulations prohibiting banks from expanding into securities trading. This was done near the end of Clinton's presidency. Granted, it was at the behest of congressional republicans, but it wasn't Bush.

Also, had Bush (or anyone else) been able to place limits on Fannie May and Freddie Mac during the real estate bubble, it would have severely limited the scope and severity of the damage. Bush and his administration (as well as others in congress) tried, but were thwarted by the GSE's lobbying efforts and their influence in Washington among others in Congress.

The republicans made plenty of mistakes as well, but the complexity and size of the crash of 08 was too big for one party to have made it on their own.

[_cinepro]

Here's another way to look at the jobs numbers:

[T]here hasn't been one day during the entire Obama presidency when as many Americans were working as on the day President Bush left office.

-Economist Edward P. Lazear

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... 94296.html

[_Brackite]

so can we infer from your comments that if a president brings the unemployment rate down a couple of points from where it stands at the midway point of his/her presidency, then that president is good for the economy and deserves to win reelection in a landslide?

Apparently, the American people who voted for Reagan back in 1984 sure believed that he deserved to win in a landslide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... tion,_1984

[_Gadianton]

On the other hand I have long wondered when people complain that government stimulus does not work why they think that. The money goes somewhere-to teachers, police, firemen, contractors doing the so called shovel ready jobs, etc. So it goes into someone's pocket. And that someone is going to spend it somewhere some how.

Not even a Keynesian should think that government stimulus always works (though the "always run a deficit" slogan is dangerously close). Imagine an economy at "full employment" and generally regarded as prosperous. Could the government make things even better by deficit spending, and send the economy to the moon? The intuition here is that the government would "crowd out" private investment with fiscal policy. And the government's idea of what to invest in should not be on par with what the market will opt for, even for a Keynesian, as a Keynesian does accept a market as the right economic model. To believe fiscal spending would make us even richer at "full employment" would urge us very far left to central planning -- we might as well give the government all our money and let them build everything, if they can make capital allocation decisions this much better than the market can.

Keynesians believe occasions arise where the economy gets stuck below full employment. They believe a "market failure" prevents the normal mechanisms from kicking in for a rebound. At this point, they believe intervention can get the economy past a snag. This does not mean that the investments; bridges, health care, or whatever, need to be spectacularly picked, they just need to be adequate to kick-start the engine.

Those who doubt Keynes argue that crowding out, among other things, will still be relevant in scenarios below "full employment," that if healing through investment is needed, the private sector will already be accommodating and government investment "crowds" this out. But there is a broad spectrum of beliefs among those who doubt Keynes.

What it really boils down to is whether or not "busts" or recessions present us with market failures. If they do, then intervention from government is on the table as a solution. Most conservatives would argue that some scenarios are extreme enough -- the great depression for instance -- where intervention must happen, but in general, fiscal and monetary policy just slush around to no avail, or worse. On the extreme right are folks like me -- far more to the right than Droopy and BCSpace in market belief -- who do not believe downturnes are the result of market failures at all, meaning, there is never a real motivation to intervene. If the economy is 20% of what it was last year, then it's 20% of what it was, perhaps a meteor hit the earth, and fiscal/monetary policy will just shift things around or hinder recovery, no matter how extreme the scenario.