Hygro
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But when it comes to current events, economists that get exposure are the ones playing the media game and they mostly just express the same popular sentiment as anyone.
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Neonanocyborgasm
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Are you under the mistaken understanding that a stock index is reflective of a national economy? It is only reflective of the financial sector's activity. Also, keep in mind that a lot of it is psychological. Whenever there's bad news, or good news, or even the anticipation, there's an abrupt shift in the stock index, only to shift back to reality later.
Timsup2nothin
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Soooooo.....
You are saying that Republican administrations are bad news then?
Neonanocyborgasm
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They are bad news, but these figures don't prove it.
Timsup2nothin
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I don't really think it needs proving. It seems obvious upon cursory inspection.
Berzerker
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The Democrats and Republicans privatize profits and socialize losses, but over the last 30 years the pattern has been GOP corruption/apathy leading to a financial mess for a Democrat to ride into the WH. George Bush 1 kept the S&L ripoff quiet until after he got elected and then the housing bubble grew and popped under his son.
If Iraq invaded Kuwait, he wouldn't have gone to war and left the army in Saudi Arabia to enforce sanctions. If 9/11 happened on his watch, he wouldn't have invaded Iraq. We have two Bush's and a Clinton to thank for the worst policy, Obama got stuck with their mess and he might have made it worse. Many would argue the worst economic policy has been these trade deals, 'they took our jobs'.
If Iraq invaded Kuwait, he wouldn't have gone to war and left the army in Saudi Arabia to enforce sanctions. If 9/11 happened on his watch, he wouldn't have invaded Iraq. We have two Bush's and a Clinton to thank for the worst policy, Obama got stuck with their mess and he might have made it worse. Many would argue the worst economic policy has been these trade deals, 'they took our jobs'.
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Only people who are ignorant of economics. Remember, it's the liberal populist for the little guy Krugman who's saying that trade is good. Actually, it's every single economist of any competence in the world.
It is absolutely not controversial among economists.
It just happens to be something that people ignorant of economics find easy to scapegoat for their problems.
Timsup2nothin
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I am probably as opposed to US military adventurism as anyone alive and spend most of my time with like minded individuals...and I don't recall anyone, ever, saying "well Iraq invaded Kuwait, but we should have just let them keep it." Are you seriously saying that Trump has taken that position? Are you suggesting that it would have been a good position to take?
Berzerker
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I dont know that Krugman and every other economist in the world would have endorsed Nafta as a job creator for Americans
Berzerker
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I wouldn't have gone to war over Kuwait. Hell no... And then leave an army in Saudi Arabia to enforce sanctions on Muslims? Trump aint no Bush. I imagine Trump would have relied on the Arab states to resolve the matter backed up by world condemnation and diplomatic pressure designed to facilitate Iraq's withdrawal. Or he might have largely ignored it, he might not have wanted to destabilize Saddam's hold on power. Bush's initial reaction was to go that route but Maggie Thatcher insisted on war and Bush talked us into it. So we got multiple wars and thousands of dead people to impatiently put a king back on his Kuwaiti throne.
Berzerker
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Well, the argument I've heard is that we traded higher paying jobs in manufacturing and production for retail jobs selling the imports. I dont know how anyone can look at the merchandise on store shelves and conclude trade deals haven't cost us jobs. I thought that was a cold war policy, we wanted our enemies to be friends and our allies to become strong so we encouraged them to build stuff and sell it here.
Manufacturers have been moving jobs from high wage to low age places for over 100 year before NAFTA was created. All NAFTA did was send some jobs to Mexico that otherwise would have gone to China. It didn't increase job losses.
But the real trick is that if the companies can't send the jobs to a low wage place, they automate them out of existence altogether. That deal Trump and Pence made to keep Carrier jobs in Indiana? Now instead of Mexicans getting the jobs, no one is getting the jobs, because they simply will not exist at all any longer. Robots are getting the jobs, and the taxpayer is footing the bill for it.
Automation and productivity growth is what's killing the production job, not trade.
The problem for the working class is not trade. They're screwed with or without trade. The real problem is that the conservatives those people elect are pushing policies which prevent those working people from making a decent living at other jobs. Conservatism has been at war against the working class for 6000 years. And now they are again winning.
But the real trick is that if the companies can't send the jobs to a low wage place, they automate them out of existence altogether. That deal Trump and Pence made to keep Carrier jobs in Indiana? Now instead of Mexicans getting the jobs, no one is getting the jobs, because they simply will not exist at all any longer. Robots are getting the jobs, and the taxpayer is footing the bill for it.
Automation and productivity growth is what's killing the production job, not trade.
The problem for the working class is not trade. They're screwed with or without trade. The real problem is that the conservatives those people elect are pushing policies which prevent those working people from making a decent living at other jobs. Conservatism has been at war against the working class for 6000 years. And now they are again winning.
Timsup2nothin
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So other than in your imagination Trump hasn't endorsed such a plan. Good to know that we didn't elect even more of a dingbat than I've already accepted that we have.
Arbitrary invasion of neighbors based on "well if you go back a few millennia that was our territory" isn't acceptable behavior, period. The aggressor needs to be tossed, period. By a worldwide coalition, as it was.
Unfortunately when arbitrary invasion of not even a neighbor based on "well, we are dangerously paranoid and besides no one can stop us" came along the worldwide coalition that should have come together and tossed us out of Iraq on our heads lacked the fortitude to do so.
jackelgull
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Iraq's claim to Kuwait didn't go back millenia though - they based their claim off Ottoman divisions of Mashriqi, which had Kuwait lumped into an administrative unit with the rest of Iraq. This claim was a century old. It's still bad, and rebuffing the claim for the sake of territorial integrity was a good thing - it's just that I think it would take a person so completely divorced fro reality to invade something based on a millenia old claim. Like probably a Paradox gamer.
Timsup2nothin
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Thanks for the correction. I like to be accurate. But at the end of the day whether it was a millennia old or a century old, the fact remains that no one can afford to let aggressor nations arbitrarily invade their neighbors.
civvver
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Those numbers seem to imply you give Clinton full credit for the dot com boom, while completely ignoring the dot com bust, similarly blaming the entire housing market bubble on bush as well as the unfortunate timing of 911. The timings of those windows, while not totally arbitrary since they are the inauguration days, are very suspect. For example ~18 months into bush presidency the dot com bubble burst along with 911 dropped the dow to around 7600. I don't think it would've mattered one iota if Gore was president, that bubble was set to burst and 911 happened.
On the other end the housing market crashed right as bush was leaving office. The dow actually peaked in September 2007 around 14000. If you shift the numbers 18 months bush presidency got us recovered from 911, almost doubling the djia. And then it popped when the housing market crashed, but who's really responsible for that? Weren't all the banks deregulated under Clinton's watch? Or maybe we should take the issue to its root in Reaganomics.
Look I am not trying to argue Bush was a good president (he wasn't) or that Clinton and Obama were awful ones (they weren't awful). It's just that the timings in the economy and with some pretty huge historical events seem to have a much greater impact on the stock market indexes than any of those presidents did. Obama did a pretty nice job cleaning things up from 2008, but I'm not convinced a republican would've totally botched it, just as I'm not convinced Al Gore wouldn't have faced the exact same issues Bush did. Democrat congress members voted to invade Iraq as well after all.
If you really want to slam dunk on Republican administrations I'd just argue Reagan time and time again. It was Reagan's middle east policies that blew up stability there and at least greatly contributed to 911, the future Iraq wars and everything else, and Reaganomics, supply side bs that eventually blew up the housing market and wall street and caused a lot of those issues.
Timsup2nothin
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There is absolutely no reason to think that Gore would have even brought that to a vote, and no indication that a Gore administration would have fabricated the intel that made such a vote seem reasonable at the time.
Similarly, while the Republicans have complained steadily about Obama's "weak" recovery every plan they have put forward, upon analysis does indicate that any one of them would have totally botched it.
The dot com bubble burst in March 2000, while Clinton was still President.
civvver
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Maybe it started then but it certainly hadn't bottomed out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble#Soaring_stocks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market_downturn_of_2002
"In 2001, stock prices took a sharp downturn (some say "stock market crash" or "the Internet bubble bursting") in stock markets across the United States, Canada, Asia, and Europe. After recovering from lows reached following the September 11 attacks, indices slid steadily starting in March 2002, with dramatic declines in July and September leading to lows last reached in 1997 and 1998."
"This downturn can be viewed as part of a larger bear market or correction that began in 2000, according to a report by the Cleveland Federal Reserve.[1] After a decade-long bull market had led to unusually high stock valuations."
Again if clinton had remained president through the bursting of his bubble just like bush did those numbers would look dramatically different. Same with if bush's bubble hadn't burst til he left office.