Obama adviser Romer certain of economic rebound in 1 yr

[IDemo]

Source: Reuters

Sun Mar 22, 2009 9:49am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of President Barack Obama's top economic advisers said on Sunday that she was "incredibly confident" the president's efforts will turn the U.S. economy around within one year.

Christina Romer, head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said because of the programs Obama was implementing, "We will be seeing signs the economy is turning around ... (it) is growing again."

She told the "Fox News Sunday" program that she was "incredibly confident" that the president's programs will turn around the slumping U.S. economy.

"That's why we're taking them," she said. "We absolutely think they will do the job for the American economy."

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE52L0N820090322

[ixion]

1. I must respectfully disagree with Ms. Romer

And when things have not improved in a year, which I'm "incredibly confident" they will not, I expect Ms. Romer to retire to spend time with her family.

Of course, the sooner the better, as her misguided optimism will most probably make things worse.

[MercutioATC]

3. I couldn't have said it better.

:thumbsup:

[NJmaverick]

7. You only get your economic information from bitter PUMAs?

[MercutioATC]

8. No. I saw this coming a long time ago...and Obama's plan isn't going to fix it.

I don't even think Krugman has it 100% right, but he's a lot closer than Obama is.

[stillcool]

10. is there anyone who didn't see..

this coming a long time ago? What is the 100% right solution to the house of cards falling down? Should one method be tried before it is deemed a failure?

[MercutioATC]

15. Well, maybe everybody who lost 50% of their 401k's to start...

I don't have a 100% solution, but I do believe that until we deal with the CAUSE of the problem and stop trying to put band-aids on the symptoms, we're not going to fix it.

[stillcool]

21. The cause of the problem..

to me, is the same it's been for the last hundred years...allowing the robber barons to do whatever they want. The solution is always the same too..more regulation/laws..until the next time.

http://www.inthe80s.com/sandl.shtml
In the early 1980s, under Reagan, regulatory changes took place that gave the S&L industry new powers and for the first time in history measures were taken to increase the profitability of S&Ls at the expense of promoting home ownership.

What is important to note about the S&L scandal is that it was the largest theft in the history of the world, and US tax payers are who were robbed.

The problems occurred in the Savings and Loan industry as they relate to theft because the industry was deregulated under the Reagan/Bush administration and restrictions were eased on the industry so much that abuse and misuse of funds became easy, rampant, and went unchecked.

Savings and Loan Scandal
Here are some facts on the infamous S&L scandal of the eighties which we are still paying for.

* The Savings and Loan scandal is the largest theft in the history of the world.
* Deregulation eased restrictions so much that S&L owners could lend themselves money.
* The Garn Institute of Finance, named after Senator Jake Garn, co-authored the deregulation of the industry and received $2.2 million from industry executives.
* Neil Bush, George Bush's son, never servered time in jail for his part in running an S&L into the ground.
* Representative Fernard St. Germain, who was head of the House of Representatives banking, co-authored the deregulation and was voted out of office after other questionable dealings and was sent back to D.C. as an S&L lobbyist.
* Charles Keating, when asked if massive lobbying efforts had influenced the government officials, he replies "I certainly hope so."
* The rip-off began in 1980 when the government raised the federal insurance on S&L's from $40,000 to $100,000 even though the typical savings account was only around $6000.
* Some of the seized assets were a buffalo sperm bank, a racehorse with syphilis, and a kitty litter mine.
* James Fail invested $1000 of his own money to purchase 15 failing S&L's. The government reimbursed him $1.85 billion in federal subsidies.
* It sometimes took over 7 years to close failing S&L's by the government.
* When S&L owners who stole millions went to jail, their sentences were typically one-fifth that of the average bank robber.
* The government bail out will cost the taxpayers around $1.4 trillion dollars when it is over.
* If the White House had stepped in and bailed out the S&L's in 1986 instead of delaying until after the 1988 elections, the cost might have been only $20 billion.
* With the money lost from the S&L scandals, the government could have provided prenatal care for every American child for the next 2,300 years.
* With the money lost from the S&L scandals, the government could have purchased 5 million average homes.
* The authors of "Inside Job", a book about the S&L scandal, found criminal activity at every S&L they investigated.

[MercutioATC]

25. See, that's where I break with most people. I think WE are the problem.

Credit default swaps, bad mortgages, lack of regulation...I don't believe that any of these caused the situation we find ourselves in...they all helped feed the disease, but the disease was our desire for short-term gratification coupled with a near-complete lack of personal responsibility.

Our enemy isn't the corporation or the bank or the hedge fund manager...

...our enemy is Veruca Salt.

[stillcool]

30. I think the onus is on the government...

It's happened too many times before, and the crisis was foreseen long before the shit hit the fan.

[mike_c]

31. this is becoming really tiresome....

Why do you call everyone who criticizes Obama's policies a "bitter PUMA?" We have the right and duty to participate in our democracy, and that includes holding politicians' feet to the fire when they're apparently floundering ineffectually or when we think they're failing to solve a pressing national problem. And I know MANY of the folks criticizing Obama's latest decisions were NEVER supporters of HRC-- many were among her most vocal critics here. Calling them PUMAs, or suggesting that they are somehow aligned with PUMAs, is both wrong and beside the point.

Opinions differ. You apparently think that Obama is on the right course. That's fine-- you should defend his policies rather than ridicule those who question them. That's just a rhetorical cheap shot, nothing else.

[NJmaverick]

5. "I expect Ms. Romer to retire to spend time with her family"

I guess women belong in the kitchen and not on presidential advisory panels, in your mind.

[Deja Q]

9. I think he means holding Ms. Romer accountable if she fails.

Firing might be too much a reprimand, but then what she says does have a direct effect on 300+ million people, amongst other ramifications.

[NJmaverick]

13. I doubt that "spend time with the family" comment would have been made

if Romer was a man.

[jmowreader]

16. We all wanted Shrub to spend time with the family

Unfortunately, Shrub acts like his "family" is named either Bonanno, Gambino, Colombo, Genovese or Lucchese.

[elocs]

28. Male or female, "spend time with family" is the cliched excuse given

when anyone "leaves" a government job without having been overtly fired.

[mike_c]

32. it's a common euphemism, and yes...

...it's commonly invoked to explain the sudden departure of males from inside the Beltway, too. Surely you've heard some variant on the theme of "He announced his resignation today, citing the need to spend more time with his family."

[ixion]

17. "spend time with family" is code for

"leave in disgrace"

Nothing to do with the sex of the person. ;)

[No Elephants]

18. That was said of Andrew Card and other fired male officials. In fact, Colbert

made a joke of it at the white house press dinner for Bush a few years ago--saying Scott McClellan had left the White House to spend more time with Andrew Card's family.

[steven johnson]

19. I agree she has "misguided optimism"

I'v heard blue sky and sunshine before. I don't see the 'light at the end of the tunnel' the way she does.

[Deja Q]

2. Growing, thanks to Americans getting more American-economy-paying jobs?

[Jennicut]

4. Romer has lots of background studying the Great Depression

She is one of his better advisors in my opinion.

[No Elephants]

20. She may, but this is not the Great Depression. I hope she's right anyway, though.

[NJmaverick]

6. I think that a year is a reasonable time table

[Gin]

12. the banks may be lending in a year..and we may have cleared their balance

sheets in a year....but what about all the unemployed? Will that be cleared up in a year?

If recovery only means getting the banks to lend again and paying for all the financial mistakes made...then she may be correct... (IMO)

[NJmaverick]

14. I think Unemployment will level off in the next few months

then there will be a gradual decrease. In a year's time it will be good, with room for improvement, in my opinion.

[Zynx]

24. Unemployment will take a long time to come down. It always does.

[IDemo]

26. The trouble being, where will jobs be created?

Not in manufacturing, certainly, or nowhere near the level that existed before this era.

[MikeNearMcChord]

34. Agreed I haven't heard anything about banning outsourcing

or scraping free trade deals that will create more jobs here. All I am hearing is the fellatio being performed on Wall St, while Main Street is being treated like a first time felon in his first night at San Quentin.

[xchrom]

11. recommend -- i'll take any good news i can get. nt

[Alcibiades]

22. I like Romer

much better than the Wall Street shills who Obama has chosen to run the economy, but I think she's wrong.

We are in the deepest doo-doo seen since 1929.

[nyy1998]

23. I agree with you there.

It's probably the worst recession since the Great Depression but it is no where near as bad as the Depression, thank god.

To those people who think she's being optimistic. Actually this report by Gauti Eggertsson of the New York Fed actually show that she might be understating this:

http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/economists/eggertsson/ContractionaryTaxes.pdf

Basically he argues that the multipliers are probably around 2 or so.

For reference, her multipliers were 1.6 for spending and 1.0 for tax cuts(refer to her speech to the University of Chicago).

[madrchsod]

27. but that`s not what st paul of the big gold medal says

if only obama would let him sit at the big table all our problems would solved.
:sarcasm:

i think obama selected the people he was comfortable with and who would give him the best advice possible to solve the problem. i have no doubt we will see improvement at the end of this year---if---the blue dogs in the senate are neutered.

remember....there`s primary elections starting across the one year from now.

[steven johnson]

29. Newsweek: If U.S. follows crisis norm, expect 4 years of recession

The March 21st Newsweek says that if the United States follows the norm of recent banking-crisis episodes, it may take four years to return to its pre-crisis level. But the current crisis is far more global than any seen since the '30s, when most countries took a decade to grow back to where they had started.

Don’t Buy the Chirpy Forecasts

[mbperrin]

33. John Kenneth Galbraith said it best:

"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."

[Mithreal]

35. Will one year become the new Friedman unit for the economy?

Too soon to tell, of course.

[w4rma]

36. There is no way on Earth that the economy will rebound using the current zombie bank plan. (nt)