Obama: 'Instant gratification' fueled bust

[defendandprotect]

Obama: 'Instant gratification' fueled bust

White House Economic Update
Mike Allen Mike Allen –

President Barack Obama acknowledges in a major economic speech Tuesday that "times are still tough" and warns that a culture of "instant gratification" had produced neglect of major national problems that wound up undermining the economy.

"By no means are we out of the woods just yet," the president said in remarks prepared for delivery at Georgetown University. "But from where we stand, for the very first time, we are beginning to see glimmers of hope. And beyond that, way off in the distance, we can see a vision of an America’s future that is far different than our troubled economic past.

Obama contended that the nation's "day of reckoning" on the economy was caused partly by "a fundamental weakness in our political system."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090414/pl_politico/21231


IF THE BAILOUTS WEREN'T 'INSTANT GRATIFICATION' . . . I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS --

ESPECIALLY AT THE EXPENSE OF TAXPAYERS--!!!

RE-REGULATE AND REINSTITUTE GLASS SEAGALL ACT --

[defendandprotect]

1. Bernanke sees 'tentative signs' of improvement

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090414/ap_on_bi_ge/bernanke

IMPROVEMENT, FOR WHOM....?

The Federal Reserve is making economic/political decisions which our Congress
should be making -- we elected the -- we didn't elect the Federal Reserve Bank.

[Democrats_win]

2. Meanwhile crooked Fraud Street folks sit in their luxury seats at 2 new baseball stadiums.

Why should we care what caused this if the government isn't going to prosecute any of the criminals on Fraud Street?

The Fraud Street crooks built a new Yankees Stadium and Sh*tty Bank sponsored the new Mets stadium. Two big banks have now reported profits in excess of $1 billion. Yeah, they needed a bailout.

And what about the victims? The dirty banksters intend to hound them for every last penny despite the fact our government wrongly gave the banksters sweet deals on the bailout.

We the People? SUCKERS!

[DJ13]

3. It wasnt instant gratification, it was a lack of good wages

Im not happy that Obama is sounding more like a DLC Dem than the person I voted for last year.

[glitch]

7. Blaming "instant gratification" exceeds even DLC ignorance.

This is Republican level.

[obiwan]

20. And human greed. By everyone involved.

[Mithreal]

26. Greenspan knows a lil something about that. nt

[acmavm]

4. Instant gratification? Is that the definition for Americans having

to use credit because their paychecks didn't keep up with inflation AND the cost of living? So if they needed a new car, they had to use credit. Or new clothes for the kiddies. Or what the fuck ever.

It would really be nice to be able to just put all this down to greedy Americans, but that just will not work.

[HughBeaumont]

5. Ees not ecksessve spendin. Ees low wages. No Tha Differnce.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/HughBeaumont/76

Credit where credit is due, please. Stagnant wages vs. vaulting costs is the problem. Risk shifting from the rich to the middle/working/poor classes over the past 30 years is the problem. WE are not the lion's share of the problem. It’s the wealthy that need to start playing ball. We’ve sacrificed ENOUGH.

[madfloridian]

6. Sorry but that infuriates me.

He is blaming the victims.

[blindpig]

14. More than that

When 'we' is inclusive of the people and the finance industry it is a pass for those bastards, can't have the pot calling the kettle black. What a cop-out.

[Fireweed247]

8. If they are going to blame us little people, they could at least give US the bailout

What the hell :grr:

Apparently Obama does not realize at least half of American's real financial difficulties are because of medical debt and high medical insurance costs?

[leftstreet]

10. The Serfs have no Lobbyists whispering in the ears of the pols

Our elected officials have absolutely no idea what life is like for the rest of us. They believe their corporate lobbyists and consultants - who prey on their fears of not being re-elected.

[maxsolomon]

9. what about those who showed restraint in their use of credit?

and faithfully pay the debts they do have?

is it our fault too?

[Romulox]

11. Blame the poor while shoveling taxpayer money to the rich!

:puke:

[Maven]

12. "Instant gratification?" Yes it was a lack of personal responsibility by working people, Pres Obama

Not the TREMENDOUS GREED which your people are now rewarding by shoveling trillions more to the people who put us here.

[Hanse]

A knee jerk response was their form of instant gratification.

They took Obama's attack on instant gratification personally.

[Uzybone]

13. No one who knee jerked in this thread

took the time to read or even listen to the speech. If republicans did this we would call them brain dead. Clue: its a Politico headline, it should not be taken at face value.


""For too long, too many in Washington put off hard decisions for some other time on some other day.
There’s been a tendency to score political points instead of rolling up sleeves to solve real problems. There is also an impatience that characterizes this town — an attention span that has only grown shorter with the 24 news cycle and insists on instant gratification in the form of instant results or higher poll numbers. When a crisis hits, there’s all too often a lurch from shock to trance, with everyone responding to the tempest of the moment until the furor has died away and the media coverage has moved on, instead of confronting the major challenges that will shape our future in a sustained and focused way."

[glitch]

15. You are correct, my error. nt

[Maven]

16. ...

"And although there are a lot of Americans who understandably think that government money would be better spent going directly to families and businesses instead of banks – "where's our bailout?," they ask – the truth is that a dollar of capital in a bank can actually result in eight or ten dollars of loans to families and businesses, a multiplier effect that can ultimately lead to a faster pace of economic growth."

Have to agree with a commenter at the NYT. This is trickle-down all over again.

[Uzybone]

23. You may be right on that (I think you are wrong)...

but it doesn't excuse the complete lack of interest in the facts. If conservatives went blabbing away after reading a slanted headline, we would call them fools.

It is hard to seriously consider the judgment of anyone who eats up MSM spin so greedily.

[The River]

22. Good Catch

He was talking about the pols and pundits that seem to say or do
anything to keep their numbers up and make it look like something
positive is happening immediately.

And yeah, the knee jerking on this thread almost
dented my computer screen from the inside.
Ouch!

[Spazito]

25. It continues to amaze me that anyone would take ANYTHING Politico publishes...

and post it as 'gospel' without triple checking it first! Politico is a polished up version of the now defunct Talon News, polished only in that it uses a slightly, and I emphasize SLIGHTLY, more nuanced way of deliberately misleading or outright lying about what was said AND the context in which it was said when it relates to anything Democratic including the Presidency.

[Mari333]

17. delete again

.

[Marie26]

18. Isn't that the Republican spin? nt

[Hanse]

19. Yup.

[Hanse]

21. The responses in this thread are useful.

It really tells you who's who in the bigger scheme of things.

[SpartanDem]

24. Kneejerking assholes

He didn't blame workers nice job as usual in twisting his words.


This recession was not caused by a normal downturn in the business cycle. It was caused by a perfect storm of irresponsibility and poor decision-making that stretched from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street.

..
There is also an impatience that characterizes this town — an attention span that has only grown shorter with the 24 news cycle and insists on instant gratification in the form of instant results or higher poll numbers


http://cspan.org/pdf/obama_041409.pdf

[JackRiddler]

27. Means nothing unless you tell us WHOSE instant gratification we're talking about...

Because the instant gratification desired by buyers of plasma TVs or negative-principal mortgages not decisive. It determined nothing. The consumers could desire something all year long, but they only got it if the financial entity gave them the credit line or the mortgage deal at exorbitantly usurious rates.

It was the instant gratification of the financial sector that mattered, because they were the ones in the position to make their own decisions (or to enable stupid decisions by consumers). They wanted to sell more bonds this quarter, inflate shareholder return and therefore bonuses, accumulate ever higher quantities of leverage and fictional nominal asset values to justify ever more ambitious acquisitions and schemes... They wanted to write the rules, so they did -- Citigroup back in 1998 started breaking the old rules separating investment banks, commercial banks and insurance companies even before it got to write the new ones (thanks to Phil Gramm and LARRY SUMMERS).

[defendandprotect]

29. Unfortunately, very few actually read the article . . .!!!

My comment was aimed at the bailouts for capitalism . . .

supplied by this administration.

[Fire1]

30. Yep and they lapped it up and to hell with the interest. The

average joe didn't know a damned thing about the derivitives market and it had no impact whatsoever on what he splurged on and what he didn't. Bottom line, the man recognizes the bullshit played by the banks and is in the process of fixing it and YES that means propping their asses back up because our economic system is fuckin built AROUND THEM! By so doing, he wants the government to have legal oversight of these institutions so this shit won't happen again. What the fuck else could you possibly want THAT MAKES FUCKIN SENSE!!!

[defendandprotect]

28. To be fair . . . please read this ---

Obama contended that the nation's "day of reckoning" on the economy was caused partly by "a fundamental weakness in our political system."

For too long, too many in Washington put off hard decisions for some other time on some other day," he said. "There’s been a tendency to score political points instead of rolling up sleeves to solve real problems. There is also an impatience that characterizes this town — an attention span that has only grown shorter with the 24 news cycle and insists on instant gratification in the form of instant results or higher poll numbers. When a crisis hits, there’s all too often a lurch from shock to trance, with everyone responding to the tempest of the moment until the furor has died away and the media coverage has moved on, instead of confronting the major challenges that will shape our future in a sustained and focused way."

Obama's speech, titled "A New Foundation," invoked a biblical parable by saying the nation "cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand."


AND . . .

"It is simply not sustainable to have a 21st-century financial system that is governed by 20th-century rules and regulations that allowed the recklessness of a few to threaten the entire economy. It is not sustainable to have an economy where in one year, 40 percent of our corporate profits came from a financial sector that was based too much on inflated home prices, maxed-out credit cards, overleveraged banks and overvalued assets; or an economy where the incomes of the top 1 percent have skyrocketed while the typical working household has seen their income decline by nearly $2,000.

"For as some were chasing ever-bigger bonuses and short-term profits over the last decade, we continued to neglect the long-term threats to our prosperity: the crushing burden that the rising cost of health care is placing on families and businesses; the failure of our education system to prepare our workers for a new age; the progress that other nations are making on clean energy industries and technologies while we remain addicted to foreign oil; the growing debt that we’re passing on to our children. And even after we emerge from the current recession, these challenges will still represent major obstacles that stand in the way of our success in the 21st century.

[Deja Q]

32. I still trust him, implicitly. And you bet I'm grateful McCain lost.

His mentioning how the 'typical working household has seen their income decline' shows he is seeing what is going on.

Things will work out.

[defendandprotect]

33. We have to look for progress beyond defeating Repugs . . .

[Deja Q]

31. Such as short-term profits with no long-term thoughts, greed at workers' expense, offshoring too?

Nobody will deny people racking up $50k+ in credit card debt is a bad thing.

Some people have student loan debts of even $100k.

One medical disaster leads to bankruptcy.

Core costs of living are as much a factor as offshoring and the ripping away of good paying jobs for good work done. They are out of hand and do not compensate for the jobs being offered.

Yes, there have been problems in the political system.

Yes, there has been greed.

But it should not and can not be aimed solely at the working class. Too many graphs and charts showing wages not keeping up with inflation despite higher productivity, amongst other things, cannot be wrong.