"diving in beyond the shallow end" or "Out of my depth"
Thoughts on the Economy
Stimulus Package - The stimulus package gets a C+ from me. It invests in roads, education, and a host of other things to help plug the spending gap in the economy created by the sharp fall in consumer spending. There's about 1% of it thats garbage (as far as being stimulus) but for the most part it fulfilled its primary goal. If as the party of opposition would have preferred, we cut government spending you would not only have the sharp decline in consumer spending but a huge drop in government spending with it crashing the economy further. This gets a C+ though because if anything, it may not have been enough investment.
Bank Bailouts - This gets a D- from me, and here's why. My money, or my borrowed money, was spent to purchase banks that would have otherwise gone out of business because they gambled big, they gambled bad, and they played the markets like addicts instead of businessmen. Yes, letting some of these large banks and investment firms fail would have crashed the economy worse (see also Lehman brothers collapse causing the collapse of AIG which could have caused the collapse of most other large banks and could easily have meant us having 30% unemployment right now instead of 8%.) but just throwing money at them is a continuation of their waste. If we're going to own them then we should have common stock, and exercise the control of our ownership. Additionally, when we bought them we should have treated it like a hostile takeover. We own it, all previous contracts should have been subject to immediate review, and the Secretary of the Treasury, or the Fed Reserve could appoint a board, or board members to watch out for our interests. As it stands we gave them money with few conditions, and gained no control. We needed these banks to opporate like responsible businesses (like many smaller banks do) and they failed, we needed these banks to increase lending and they failed, we needed these banks to quantify the value of their bad assets and they failed, we needed these banks to work with their debtors to salvage their bad assets and for the most part they've failed. We did however prevent a more dramatic collapse of the economy which happened when the paper market froze up in October.
Mortgate help. C-. It will help some people who really need it.
Budget - This actually gets a B. For the first time the actual costs of the ongoing wars is not hidden in the budget. If you compare budget to budget the #'s have gone up, if you compare budget to budget + hidden war costs though the #'s have gone down. Hooray for fiscal transparency. Yes we're still spending a lot, but in the current economic climate thats a good thing. Now if we weren't borrowing and investing and keeping the economic pumps primed it would be a bad thing.
Regulatory Reforms - Thus far I grade this a F+. We still have unregulated Credit Default Swaps, you can still buy insurance on someone elses investment. Regulations need to be written on short selling. The Glass-Steagle act needs to be put back into place to put up a wall between commercial and investment banks. The securitization of debts needs thorough regulation. The bankruptcy laws need to be rewritten so as not to penalize people who played fair, and profit companies who don't. The laws governing credit cards need reform to allow banks to make an honest profit, but to end the predatory practices of many of the major players. A late payment or a missed payment should not allow these companies to act with a cart blanche towards the offending account. These companies now have an interest in seeing their customers fail. That has to be fixed. We need enhanced regulation of our mortgage laws to prevent brokers from making loans that are shit and running off with their ill gotten profits by selling the crap loans as securities. We need to fully fund the SEC, AND the SEC should be an agency that people have to compete to get into and be qualified to work at. No more just letting any fricking tax attorney that gave you a campaign donation have a job there. They missed Madoff because they were just plain stupid. And finally, the failing grade comes because of the fact that the administration appears to have missed most of these lessons, which will come back to bite us again.
The confidence game - A+. Consumer confidence has tripled to 45% in the past 2.5 months. Positive feelings accross the globe due to confidence in the President. Hope of healthcare reform, which would aid many many businesses and millions of Americans as well, and save millions of dollars in reimbursements for Emergency care that we all pick up because someone wasn't able to take care of their medical problems via their doctor or before it became an emergency.
Stimulus Package - The stimulus package gets a C+ from me. It invests in roads, education, and a host of other things to help plug the spending gap in the economy created by the sharp fall in consumer spending. There's about 1% of it thats garbage (as far as being stimulus) but for the most part it fulfilled its primary goal. If as the party of opposition would have preferred, we cut government spending you would not only have the sharp decline in consumer spending but a huge drop in government spending with it crashing the economy further. This gets a C+ though because if anything, it may not have been enough investment.
Bank Bailouts - This gets a D- from me, and here's why. My money, or my borrowed money, was spent to purchase banks that would have otherwise gone out of business because they gambled big, they gambled bad, and they played the markets like addicts instead of businessmen. Yes, letting some of these large banks and investment firms fail would have crashed the economy worse (see also Lehman brothers collapse causing the collapse of AIG which could have caused the collapse of most other large banks and could easily have meant us having 30% unemployment right now instead of 8%.) but just throwing money at them is a continuation of their waste. If we're going to own them then we should have common stock, and exercise the control of our ownership. Additionally, when we bought them we should have treated it like a hostile takeover. We own it, all previous contracts should have been subject to immediate review, and the Secretary of the Treasury, or the Fed Reserve could appoint a board, or board members to watch out for our interests. As it stands we gave them money with few conditions, and gained no control. We needed these banks to opporate like responsible businesses (like many smaller banks do) and they failed, we needed these banks to increase lending and they failed, we needed these banks to quantify the value of their bad assets and they failed, we needed these banks to work with their debtors to salvage their bad assets and for the most part they've failed. We did however prevent a more dramatic collapse of the economy which happened when the paper market froze up in October.
Mortgate help. C-. It will help some people who really need it.
Budget - This actually gets a B. For the first time the actual costs of the ongoing wars is not hidden in the budget. If you compare budget to budget the #'s have gone up, if you compare budget to budget + hidden war costs though the #'s have gone down. Hooray for fiscal transparency. Yes we're still spending a lot, but in the current economic climate thats a good thing. Now if we weren't borrowing and investing and keeping the economic pumps primed it would be a bad thing.
Regulatory Reforms - Thus far I grade this a F+. We still have unregulated Credit Default Swaps, you can still buy insurance on someone elses investment. Regulations need to be written on short selling. The Glass-Steagle act needs to be put back into place to put up a wall between commercial and investment banks. The securitization of debts needs thorough regulation. The bankruptcy laws need to be rewritten so as not to penalize people who played fair, and profit companies who don't. The laws governing credit cards need reform to allow banks to make an honest profit, but to end the predatory practices of many of the major players. A late payment or a missed payment should not allow these companies to act with a cart blanche towards the offending account. These companies now have an interest in seeing their customers fail. That has to be fixed. We need enhanced regulation of our mortgage laws to prevent brokers from making loans that are shit and running off with their ill gotten profits by selling the crap loans as securities. We need to fully fund the SEC, AND the SEC should be an agency that people have to compete to get into and be qualified to work at. No more just letting any fricking tax attorney that gave you a campaign donation have a job there. They missed Madoff because they were just plain stupid. And finally, the failing grade comes because of the fact that the administration appears to have missed most of these lessons, which will come back to bite us again.
The confidence game - A+. Consumer confidence has tripled to 45% in the past 2.5 months. Positive feelings accross the globe due to confidence in the President. Hope of healthcare reform, which would aid many many businesses and millions of Americans as well, and save millions of dollars in reimbursements for Emergency care that we all pick up because someone wasn't able to take care of their medical problems via their doctor or before it became an emergency.