Bill Clinton has a better grasp of economics than Barack Obama

[Anonymous]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/64024.html

But that doesn't really matter because Obama doesn't care about economics.He is intent on wealth redistribution. Wow the vultures are circling the wagon on this presidency.

[Anonymous]

At least he knew the economy was in trouble. Your last nominee couldn't admit that things were broken.

[Anonymous]

Did you actually read the article?

Politico loves inflammatory headlines, but the content of their articles is often quite different.

[Anonymous]

Clinton had a better team around him form top to bottom Obama has a bunch of people hoping to ride out the storm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Clinton had a better team around him form top to bottom Obama has a bunch of people hoping to ride out the storm

Clinton is highly intelligent and his campaign slogan was, "It's the economy, Stupid." He knew what was important and eam picked an economic knew what to do. Obama knew nothing and picked a team that knew even less.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clinton had a better team around him form top to bottom Obama has a bunch of people hoping to ride out the storm

Clinton is highly intelligent and his campaign slogan was, "It's the economy, Stupid." He knew what was important and eam picked an economic knew what to do. Obama knew nothing and picked a team that knew even less.

Obama mostly picked Clinton's team.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clinton had a better team around him form top to bottom Obama has a bunch of people hoping to ride out the storm

Clinton is highly intelligent and his campaign slogan was, "It's the economy, Stupid." He knew what was important and eam picked an economic knew what to do. Obama knew nothing and picked a team that knew even less.

Obama mostly picked Clinton's team.

Too bad he didn't pick all of them, particularly Robert Reich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clinton had a better team around him form top to bottom Obama has a bunch of people hoping to ride out the storm

Clinton is highly intelligent and his campaign slogan was, "It's the economy, Stupid." He knew what was important and eam picked an economic knew what to do. Obama knew nothing and picked a team that knew even less.

Oh, if only we had a Clinton now. Of course I think the country would be in an entirely different place today if it had been Gore instead of Bush.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
Too bad he didn't pick all of them, particularly Robert Reich.

I agree about Reich, but just about the only one Obama should have picked.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, but I don't think economists understand this economic downturn. They are relying on outdated modeling. It is scary.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but I don't think economists understand this economic downturn. They are relying on outdated modeling. It is scary.

No, politicians are relying on outdated economists. Several economists -- one of whom actually won a Nobel Prize -- have been fairly accurate in their prognostications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but I don't think economists understand this economic downturn. They are relying on outdated modeling. It is scary.

The economists understand the situation all too well, but nobody is listening. We have an excess of housing inventory and a credit bubble. Until we work out the inventory problem and de-leverage, consumption is not going to go up. Every econ grad student knows this like the back of their hand. Governments can't legislate that away any more than you can wish your home value to go up or your mortgage to be smaller. Government can make things a little easier or a little harder, but in the end this is between you, the banks, and the real estate market.

Given this, the only way to change the unemployment picture is for the government to spend. This is where the politicians are not listening.

We have two options:
(1) Wait for the situation to heal itself
(2) Spend to take the sting out of it until it heals.

The Fed has an additional role, which is to provide liquidity to prevent a credit collapse. They have done a remarkable job. Remarkable. Mostly because the public does not comprehend what they do and therefore did not get in the way. The peanut gallery was complaining about the billions in TARP while the Fed was playing with trillions.

You can say a lot of things, but you can't say the economists do not understand what is happening. You can say that we are ignoring what they know.

[Anonymous]

If what PP says is what economists think, then it supports the fact that they don't understand the situation. Overextended consumers is a symptom rather than a cause. The underlying issue is that financial engineering temporarily increased the amount of available credit through the secondary debt market. The crisis was caused by a mismatch between risk and it's pricing. Once the risk models failed, then that market completely dried up. It cannot come back because it is not possible to engineer high risk debt into a low risk product. Banks' capital limitations are here to stay, and so is our lackluster economy.

We may not be Japan, but we'll surely have at least one lost decade. Sayonara y'all

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If what PP says is what economists think, then it supports the fact that they don't understand the situation. Overextended consumers is a symptom rather than a cause. The underlying issue is that financial engineering temporarily increased the amount of available credit through the secondary debt market. The crisis was caused by a mismatch between risk and it's pricing. Once the risk models failed, then that market completely dried up. It cannot come back because it is not possible to engineer high risk debt into a low risk product. Banks' capital limitations are here to stay, and so is our lackluster economy.

We may not be Japan, but we'll surely have at least one lost decade. Sayonara y'all

You weren't listening. The goal is not to return to debt levels like we had before. The goal is to de-leverage. Banks are doing all the lending that should be done. You can get a home loan or a credit card if you are a good risk for the offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clinton had a better team around him form top to bottom Obama has a bunch of people hoping to ride out the storm

Clinton is highly intelligent and his campaign slogan was, "It's the economy, Stupid." He knew what was important and eam picked an economic knew what to do. Obama knew nothing and picked a team that knew even less.

This is a good summary. I think he would have been more well-suited to being press secretary or a company spokesperson. Or just some guy in PR.