Comments on: FRONT PAGE How Business Works…And Why Obama Doesn’t

By: kowalski

kowalski — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 00:10:50 +0000

In my view the economy is much worse than it was when Obama was elected and that’s because of Obama. Why? Because at least when Obama was elected we had successfully deflected the main, immediate financial crisis. What we’ve gotten in the next three years is an Administration that really never wanted to correct it: it wanted to take *advantage* of the crisis for ideological reasons – which they continue to do at this moment.

Do I really have to reiterate the past again? I guess I do.

http://philip.greenspun.com/politics/economic-recovery

Most of the things he talked about in that essay, if they had been seriously undertaken when Obama took office, would have prevented the kind of economic stagnation we’re looking at now.

And we shouldn’t just talk about that in abstract terms – we’re really talking about millions of people who have suffered and are going to continue to suffer. I knew when I read that essay it was probably the most prescient thing I’d read about how to re-boot America from the problems we had, and I also knew that almost none of it was going to get done.

And almost none of it has.

By: kowalski

kowalski — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 00:07:14 +0000

If we had an incumbent Republican President, the front page of the New York Times and the Washington Post and every other large media outlet in this country would be occupied each day with stories of people who are in their early adulthood and have had their dreams and hopes curtailed, extinguished, frustrated and beaten back by the economy they’re trying to compete in. An economy that was created by the design of the people who are now in the Executive Branch.

We are not hearing those stories, and so we can assume they don’t think that’s a problem. The sane people know it is, but the media don’t. And Hollywood doesn’t care: they’ll still be artists and media mavens even if people have to pool their money to watch their stuff.

By: kowalski

kowalski — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 23:57:43 +0000

The problem with a bad President and an even worse Congress in office is that the economy goes from being a positive-sum game to a negative-sum game for everyone.

We keep hearing about how the recession ended several years ago but from where I sit, it never really ended. It’s continuing to recess because the unemployment rate has remained just about the same – in terms of the *real* unemployed it has gotten worse. Those people are a drag on their families, they’re a drag on the welfare state, and because they can’t find gainful employment they will continue to be a drag.

The big story this summer is the number of unemployed young people, from high school to recent college graduates. They’re unemployed because businesses are still not hiring.

We know what the Obama answer is: continue to grow the public sector and spend more money on government to employ those people. The money has to come from somewhere: their paychecks are taxpayer dollars. All of us know where it’s going. His policies are leading directly to it.

By: kowalski

kowalski — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 23:44:40 +0000

But I just recommended it and I think the editors should do their best to keep it in the Reco’d column. Please recommend this diary entry.

In the past 3.5 years business has been worse for all the businesspeople I know regardless of party affiliation than at any time in history. It did NOT have to be this way. The “hole” they talk about digging out of was deep, but they made it *deeper*.

By: From ME to You

From ME to You — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 06:34:57 +0000

I had a similar discussion with a liberal leaning friend along those same lines. When I asked him what the primary purpose of a business was he gave some lame leftist replies about jobs and services and such! When I pointed out that the primary purpose of a business was to make a profit for the owner and proceeded to show him that everything else was how that purpose was realized he was ...dumbfounded! A spark of recognition was struck and I am trying to fan that into a flame.