My Question (s) Today

[DemocratSinceBirth]

And I will do my best to ask it without rancor or loading it up. I don't think pissing matches advance the debate.

I have done a lot of reading on The Great Depression. I have also interviewed folks who lived through it for a college paper that I did in the late seventies. As an aside, my dad , a city boy from the Bronx, went to work for a CCC project out west when he was fifteen years old.

Two of the things Herbert Hoover did to exacerbate the recession/depression was to raise taxes and balance the budget. We now know, as Lord Keynes and almost every economist, left, right, or center has instructed us is this is the worst thing you can do in a recession because it reduces aggregate demand by taking money out of the economy. Purchases by consumers account for seventy percent of the GDP. We need to get as much money in their hands as possible. According to Paul Krugman the recession is causing the economy to lose two trillion dollars worth of aggregate demand a year. That's a lot of money and needs to be replaced to restore the status quo.

We are now at a point where the two parties can not get anything done without the cooperation of the other, I would submit that inaction favors the Republicans. IMHO, they would prefer that nothing happens, the economy remains dormant, and they can use the issue in 2012 with even more devastating effect then they did in 2010.

My questions

What happens to the economy if nothing happens because it's deprived of the stimulus it needs?

What happens to President Obama and the Democratic party in 2012 if he and them are forced to campaign in an economic environment where unemployment is still hovering around ten percent?

Most importantly, what happens to our fellow American if the economy doesn't improve?

DSB

[greymattermom]

1. what happens?

Hoovervilles. My mother told me that her family did well during the depression, but men would come to their back door and her mother would give them food. Men will be coming to your backdoor soon, but now they have guns.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. I Don't Have Any Statistics To Back Me Up

But we live in a much more industrialized society and it's "much harder to just get by"/

[merbex]

3. What has the tax cut taught us? That what is really needed

is a jobs bill and someone who can implement it a la Harry Hopkins

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. Of Course

But the Republicans have no interest in a job bill for two reason. The first is that they don't believe it's the government's role and secondly that would help the economy thus increasing the president's chance of being reelected.

Neither party can do anything without the cooperation of one another.

[merbex]

7. Since you brought up FDR - let's look at his impact on the Dem Party

during his tenure as titular head of the Party while he was President:

He united Democrats around an economic theory( not to say that he called it what it actually was) and the notion that government could be an 'activist' to alleviate the suffering caused by unfettered capitalism.

That united Democrats throughout the country.

Where Democrats were divided was on social issues:race especially.

He put together a coalition that held together: labor, farmer, middle class for 40 years.

The GOP are unified as well on economic matters since Reagan.

The Democratic Party, since Reagan is not united on economic matters but we seem to be on social issues.

Bush got things done with I think no more than 52-54 GOP Senators.....why is that?

The GOP never let up repeating their unified economic message and they are rewarded for it.....the Democratic Party is at war within itself when it comes to economics.

The Blue Dog, Centrist, DLC economic bullsh*t alienates a sizable chunk of the American electorate

It's like messing with the Coke brand with 'New Coke'.......why?

Since we've had these disintegration within the Dem Party on economics we keep losing.

It should tell us something - Jamie Galbraith in his recent essay is trying to articulate this exact point.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. I Once Read An Essay By Arthur Schlessinger On FDR

He argued that FDR was really a small c conservative in that he conserved capitalism by ridding it of its excesses. I used to think and still do, to an extent, that a market economy is the best allocator of goods and services, and the government's role was to intervene to address the inefficiencies when they occurred. This was accomplished by having a robust safety net.

But now it seems capitalism is broken.

[Clio the Leo]

5. exactly nt

[daleanime]

6. I think those are good questions, but not the main one...

How many people do we sacrifice to save ourselves?







I don't think anyone should be thrown to the wolves, but then I'm 'unrealistic'.