shape of the recession

T2 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > “shovel money into the economy and run up gigantic > deficits…how would that affect the economy in the > short-term?” > > Um, are you studying the CFA? No, I did that already >Those are > STIMULATIVE measures! Which means what? Stimulative doesn’t mean healthy, it just heats it up so it can flame out. > I don’t like Bush one bit > but you are crazy if you blame him for this (or > give Clinton credit for the 90’s) and don’t > deserve the CFA. Geez, maybe they should take mine back. Or maybe you have a few things to learn from me.

Teach on! You’ve yet to make any argument that supports that this is Bush’s fault. Why exactly is someone who has completed the CFA still posting on anonymous CFA message boards?

Uh oh…Wait till you have a CFA question (or any finance question for that matter) and see if it isn’t JDV that takes his time to help you & 1000’s of others with an insight that you don’t have. One suggestion…slow down turbo!!

What’s your point? The CFA had very little macro in it and he’s making absolute statements on a topic that is not cut and dry. He may be a great analyst, but he’s making statements that he hasn’t backed up on a topic he hasn’t proven any expertise in. You have no idea what my background is either, by the way!

Stop making it personal, but if you’d like to tell everybody your background go ahead.

I’m not blaming Bush for a recession; those are part of the business cycle and can’t be completely avoided. The issue is that the fiscal, tax, and war parts of national policy are (mostly) under his control, and he can even jawbone the Fed a bit on the monetary part. The goal appears to be to stimulate the economy as much as possible to push any contractions to the next President’s term, except that we’ve come up against the economic equivalent of insulin resistance and are now essentially an economic diabetic.

Not to come to Bush’s defense, but the Democrats (who have now controlled congress for 19 months) just raised the debt ceiling to $10.6 trillion. There has also not been meaningful progress on a withdrawal from Iraq since the Democratic takeover, despite the clear mandate from the American people in the fall of 2006. I think it should be clear now that both parties are full of empty rhetoric and are both to blame for the current state of things. That being said, W’s tenure (and a Republican congress for most of it) was marked by one of the largest fiscal expansions since FDR and LBJ. Obviously there were other factors contributing to the current debacle (monetary policy especially) as bchadwick mentioned, but W deserves a share of the blame, as well as Greenspan/Bernanke, Angelo Mozillo, and many others. The stimulus is going to be about as effective as dashing a teacup into the bowels of hell to put out the fire.

Blame the leader. He would’ve gotten the glory… One of the silent creepers of shame is the official acceptance in our leadership society of the roll of “jawboning” as a policy tool. Ignore it.

GDP growth measured in terms of increase in consumption is the main outcome of these stimulus packages . how does it add any real value in the long run?. no productive capacities are being added. people just spend the money on not-so-cheap gasoline most probably. its not like jobs are being generated or productivity is being enhanced.most probably some retailers get a bit of the profits. the rest is simply a transfer of wealth to the middle east or probably china. consumption never increases wealth.savings /investment in production definitely does.

I’m gonna have to go with an ‘S’.

Got to go witha lower case u. Also this economy isn’t bush’s fault. Although I don’t like him as a president but the economy is more of a result of bad consumer spending, lax credit because of the good times created by 2% interest rates early in the decade, and people thinking that the risk of their mortgage securites was somehow mitigated by the securitization process. Also we can continue to live in this environment until someone bites the bullet and says “sorry america we don’t want your debt anymore” when that day comes be ready for a recession that this country has not seen in quite some time. Until then Though We still Dancin

I like the Hebrew letter nun, personally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nun_(letter)

Weird that we were discussing this two weeks ago. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080825/uneasy_economy_shape_of_the_downturn.html Will economy’s path be shaped like a U, V, W or L?

I just don’t know how you blame George W. Bush for a recession that is clearly global in nature. In fact, isn’t Europe already in a recession? And aren’t places such as Spain already in a deep recession? Makes no logical sense that Bush’s Iraq policy or fiscal policy is causing the EU to contract.