Conservatives have no ideas what to do about recessions
POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Monday, March 9, 2026 17:30
VIEWED: 29022
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
BTW GEEZER, there was a huge recovery under FDR from 1930-1936. By the spring of 1937, production, profits, and wages had regained their 1929 levels.
Not per wiki. GNP and GDP didn't hit pre-1929 levels until into 1940. Unemployment in 1940 was 15%. If you have a cite for your numbers, I'd be glad to see it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression
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But in 1936, the Federal Reserve had tightened the money supply, and the US Treasury had insisted in budget cuts and increased taxes to "balance the budget". As a result, the economy took a swift downturn in 1937.
Once again, the data on wiki shows a slight downturn, but not much and not long. Cites for your claim would be nice.
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Your reading of the Great Depression, and the lessons to be learned from it, is superficial at best.
My reading of the Great Depression is that if 1000 economists give their opinion on causes and cures, you'll get 200 answers. Even the wiki article shows several. So who's right?
We can also look at the current EU versus the USA approach. The EU followed a tight money supply/ balanced budget approach, with the taxes of ordinary people going to refill private bank coffers and - as a result- the economies of all of southern Europe, Ireland, rural England and Scotland took a drastic downturn, the likes of which hasn't been seen since... well, since the Great Depression. Riots, 70% youth unemployment, the works. Hardly a picture of a recovering economy.
Yep. they tried this after getting so far in debt, and with so much deficit spending going on to support the economy, that things would have broken down one way or another.
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And you will probably shut your eyes and stuff your ears to the painfully obvious lessons of reality.
And I disagree with you too.
Still waiting for someone to explain to me how recessions in conservative administrations managed to end in generally less than a year, since you all claim they have no ideas as to how to stop them.
"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."
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Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
Only pointless because you choose not to deal with information that doesn't fit your pre-conceived notions, maybe - but sorry, Grampa, its not ME who dissapears when asked for cites.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/the-rich-get-richer-throu
gh-the-recovery/?_r=0
http://tcf.org/work/workers_economic_inequality/detail/a-tale-of-two-r
ecoveries/
https://www.stanford.edu/group/recessiontrends-dev/cgi-bin/web/resourc
es/research-project/wealth-after-great-recession-who-lost-who-recovered-and-why
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24065108/wealth-gap-widens-rich
est-1-percent-earn-biggest
And seriously - are you pretending that it didn't happen?
Are you fucking serious?
Umm. Story.
Those all happened during the "Great Recession" when Obama was president and the liberals' ideas for ending recession were being used.
Not sure how you can blame this on the conservatives.
"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OK? If you're going to make a point, stand with it.
My point is that no one has shown that liberals throwing money at recessions has had any greater effect on them than conservatives letting them self-correct.
Story has just shown that liberal response to the "Great Recession" has lined the pockets of the rich, so maybe that's success.
"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."
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Just wanted to let you know I'll be out of town and offline for the next week.
Maybe by next Sunday you can come up with a recession that liberal actions have resolved in less time that conservative inaction.
Based on Storymark's cites, you might also try to find a recent recession that ended during a conservative administration that left behind more economic inequality than the liberal resolution of the "Great Recession".
"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."
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Quote:Funny, I quoted wiki myself.
Not per wiki
Quote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1937%E2%80%9338
By the spring of 1937, production, profits, and wages had regained their 1929 levels. Unemployment remained high, but it was slightly lower than the 25% rate seen in 1933. The American economy took a sharp downturn in mid-1937, lasting for 13 months through most of 1938. Industrial production declined almost 30 percent and production of durable goods fell even faster.
Quote:See Wiki (above)
Once again, the data on wiki shows a slight downturn, but not much and not long. Cites for your claim would be nice.
Quote:BULLSHOID! I've disproved this several times already- charts, graphs, cites- the works. Are you as incapable of learning as rappy?
Yep. they tried this after getting so far in debt, and with so much deficit spending going on to support the economy, that things would have broken down one way or another.
Many of the EU nations which wound up in debt didn't do so until AFTER they hemorrhaged money into their overextended private banks. In 2006, government external debt in Spain was 17%, in Ireland was 20%, and in Portugal 48%. Hardly a problem and much MUCH better than England or the USA. Greece was the exception, at 86%. Please get that into your head, I really don't want to have to refute your STUPID IDEAS any more.
http://stats.areppim.com/stats/stats_gvtdebtxgdp_02x11_piigs.htm
And European banks, when they came close to failing, had nothing to do with government debt. There was a huge real estate bubble in Ireland, Scotland, and England. What are you going to blame THAT on... Fannie and Freddie??? [/snicker] German/ Nederlander/ and Finnish banks had overloaned on infrastructural ventures in Spain and Portugal. In Iceland, their three main banks failed because of... literally... self-dealing and embezzlement. Corruption, pure and simple. It didn't help that the banks operated under Basel II, which required much less capitalization as FDIC (for example) and that their savings banks were even more enmeshed with investment (speculation) than ours. It wasn't until the banks started to totter that the respective national governments went deeper into debt in order to bail them out, and under the realm of austerity that bailout money came directly from government social programs... ie, out of the mouths of the poor, and into the banks.
Quote:My point is that you have direct comparisons- Before and after in the case of 1935 to 1937, and side-by-side in the case of the EU and the USA today. But if you keep bringing clearly erroneous "facts" to the table with that old rhetorical dodge "some say", you'll muddy the discussion. Which is probably your point.
My point is that no one has shown that liberals throwing money at recessions has had any greater effect on them than conservatives letting them self-correct.
You'll be out? How convenient for you.
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So much to be corrected here Geezer! Are you going for Auraptor's record of most amount of wrongness in a single thread?
I'll come back later as well, to help correct some of the falsehoods, and ask some more questions that Geezer won't be able to answer.
It's not personal. It's just war.
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An Australian Labor Government introduced the stimulus package in response to the GFC, which resulted in Australia being one of the few countries in the world to ride through the crisis with continued economic growth. People largely kept their jobs, their homes and kept spending.
of course people still whined about how badly off they were, indoctrinated by our largely Murdoch controlled media.
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Geezer quite obviously doesn't know any real-world economic facts, so all he can do is what all libertarians do: quote some irrelevant libertarian fantasist who can only talk about how things "sh/w/could be" in some ideal libertarian world. As far as I'm concerned, I think I know what to do about depressions/ recessions like this one. Keynes has got part of the answer, but the problem is that if you shovel money at the rich- like Obama has done- then all you will do is cause speculation instead of investment. And if all you do is shovel money at the less-than rich- and you let your manufacturing capability disappear, as we have done over the past 40 years- then all you will do is cause inflation.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
My point is that no one has shown that liberals throwing money at recessions has had any greater effect on them than conservatives letting them self-correct.
Did you just ignore this for a reason?
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Originally posted by M52NICKERSON:Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
But as noted above, recessions ended when conservatives were in power, in about the same length of time as when liberals were. Something ended these recessions. If not the conservative administrations, then tell me what?
Having conservatives in power does not mean they went with conservative ideals. Just look at Reagan in the begining he cut taxes and spending but truned right around started to raise taxes as well as increase spending which grew the national debt. The only differnce between Reagan's policies and liberal ones what what he threw money at.
GW Bush had a very light recession but as the unemployment rates went up he increases benifits for the unemployed...again not very conservative.
I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.
Conservatives have not let recessions self correct. Of the recessions you posted under conservative Presidents all had some type of stimulus brought about.
I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Funny, I quoted wiki myself.Quote:
By the spring of 1937, production, profits, and wages had regained their 1929 levels. Unemployment remained high, but it was slightly lower than the 25% rate seen in 1933. The American economy took a sharp downturn in mid-1937, lasting for 13 months through most of 1938. Industrial production declined almost 30 percent and production of durable goods fell even faster.
And this is supposed to be a victory for Liberal reaction to recession/depression? After nearly eight years, the unemployment rate was slightly lower than 25%, so there were a lot of folks not making any wages while business was making profits. Then again, this partial recovery was not sustainable, as the increased unemployment and production decline of 1937-38 show.
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BULLSHOID! I've disproved this several times already- charts, graphs, cites- the works. Are you as incapable of learning as rappy?
So show me where you "proved" it.
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Many of the EU nations which wound up in debt didn't do so until AFTER they hemorrhaged money into their overextended private banks. In 2006, government external debt in Spain was 17%, in Ireland was 20%, and in Portugal 48%. Hardly a problem and much MUCH better than England or the USA. Greece was the exception, at 86%. Please get that into your head, I really don't want to have to refute your STUPID IDEAS any more.
http://stats.areppim.com/stats/stats_gvtdebtxgdp_02x11_piigs.htm
Did you even read this cite?
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The Maastricht convergence criteria demand Euro zone members to keep government debt under 60% of GDP. By the end of 2010, PIIGS were well above the benchmark (ECB Fiscal Dashboard) :
•Portugal : 93%
•Ireland : 96%
•Italy : 119%
•Greece : 143%
•Spain : 60%
This huge public debt comprises loans by domestic and foreign creditors. Although high debt entails serious issues irrespective of the nationality of the creditors, the portion of debt borrowed from non-residents — commercial banks, governments or financial institutions — poses a particular problem. While domestic loans may be paid in local currency to resident creditors upon whom the government holds strong bargaining power, external debt, including interests, must be paid in the currency in which the loan was made to creditors capable of harsh financial retaliation in case of non-compliance.
A big chunk of PIIGS public debt is owed to non-resident creditors. As shown in the chart, this portion is above or close to the Maastricht mark in several countries of the PIIGS area. The long term trend of the external public debt follows an upward path, with annual average growth rates going from 5% to 19% (doubling time of 14 to 4 years), generally higher than GDP growth rates.
A debt crisis occurs when a country with a weak economy is unable to produce and sell goods and generate a flow of profitable returns strong enough to repay external debt. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is one of the agencies that keep track of the country's external debt and drive the recovery process in coordination, in the case of PIIGS, with the European Central Bank (ECB) and the EU Commission. The debt crisis stroke in sequence Greece (23 Apr 2009), Ireland (21 Nov 2010) and Portugal (6 Apr 2011), after they had employed a number of subterfuges to turn around Maastricht rules, hide the real situation of their national accounts, and escape the consequences of their finances mismanagement. Unfortunately, since 2009, in an environment of widespread GDP stagnation and correlated poor export performance, government external debt pursues its rise in Portugal, Ireland and Spain, and keeps at high levels in Greece and Italy, sending an advance warning of an increasingly severe situation to come.
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