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Next four years


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I have been on the record for not liking either Obama or Romney in this election. Now that Obama has won re-election, lets baseline his results.

Factcheck put Obama's results in the first four years in a handy dandy graphic. (Link)

I wanted to put out a stake in the ground now, and see if Obama can improve on some key statistics

1) Total Federal Debt. I think the next four years will see a continued explosion of federal debt. This president lacks the committment or the understanding that this is a problem. The cliff is there yet we ignore it like lemmings. Next step is to increase the borrowing limit, AGAIN, which will be the first indication I am right. How much will federal debt grow in the next four years? Obama in his ads said he will reduce the debt/deficiet through targeted cuts and asking the wealthy to pay a bit more. I believe he'll increase taxes on the wealthy (which would result in a drop in the bucket) and he'll make a big fanfare over cutting some defense but the net results of those actions will make no difference and the debt will grow big again. I think our children are screwed. Greece/Spain/Portugual here we come!

2) unemployment. I don't think unemployment will get better at all. Even the recent improvements are done with smoke and mirrors and aren't sustainable true employment. I wonder if the BLS will continue to "adjust" data or whether we'll see real numbers now that election season is done. The only ones who will see improvement are our ever increasing army of beaurocrats and certain unions. Everyone else is hosed.

3) wars in Iraq/Afghanistan: I actually believe Obama will achieve his 2008 campaign promise and end the wars in his second term.

4) Persons in poverty: This will continue to grow. This economy is flawed at the moment with credit that is too easy to get and a government that bails out failures all too often. This is tied to #2 above.

5) Gas will go up greater than the CPI, book it

6) Real family income: i think this will continue to erode as our government continues to print money.

7) S&P 500: Stocks are headed for another big fall. I think S&P at best will be the same in 4 years.

Don't bother posting about how I am wrong or right, this is just a prediction. I don't care. I am simply looking at a reasonably unbiased slice of data at a point in time and seek to follow Obama's progress against some key statistics. Hopefully, in four years we'll still all be on the message board and Squishy and ghdi et al can bump this post and tell me how wrong I was. Gratz, you guys got your man, he can't possibly continue to blame any other circumstances other than his own actions/leadership. Lets see how he does. I sincerely hope I am wrong.

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The pessimism is a bit nauseating, but I will try a counter. Not calling you right or wrong.

1. Obama has repeatedly stated that the deficit is a problem and stated dozens of times during the campaign that it is a priority this term. It is also not something he can fix by himself. It takes the Congress and both sides to get this accomplished. Since before day one of his first term, the GOP has admittedly stated their goal was not to work with this President and they accomplished that goal. I agree w/ you in certain respects. I don't think this is an easy problem to fix, but I don't see the explosion that you do. I think they will get it down to more manageable levels. They have to get it down.

I personally believe this was the most effective non-candidate ad I saw during this cycle (I didnt see it in 2010). I don't believe what it suggests, but it definitely is thought-provoking:

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2. Unemployment has been getting better, but I agree that it has been too little. I think it will continue to go down and will be around 4-5% when Obama's second term is over.

3. No argument.

4. This is obviously tied to #2, but I also disagree with this. I agree entirely that the economy is flawed, but I don't think its a momentary thing. I think it's conceptually and fundamentally flawed that neither side will be able to fix without a complete overhaul and re-thinking of how the economy works on a global level. I predict that by the time Obama leaves office the economy will have stabilized and there will be less on food stamps and a lower poverty level, but I don't see it improving drastically. I don't think any # in poverty is tolerable, but there will always be some and I do think it will be at a more "tolerable" level in 4 years.

5. The President has no control over gas prices. This is a substantiated fact. We consume 20% of the entire world's supply and export next to nothing in comparison. Domestic production is UP since Obama took office (drilling is up acc to your link). The bigger problem is how dependent we are on the oil teat. The problems Sandy caused in relation to gas were extraordinary to me (I did not experience the 70s). Gas prices are not a cut and dry issue that can be tacked to any president. Alternative energy is clearly the way of the future and has obviously been a priority in Obama's administration (again, your link). I think they will continue to work towards this technology and we'll see some real progress on that front , but I agree, I don't think gas prices are going to go way down, but I also don't think we're headed to European-style gas prices.

6. As long as the Fed goes unchecked, I sadly agree with this. This goes deeper than any President's term though. I don't see this changing, but I hope it can at least be curbed. I do predict there to be more stability here.

7. I think the market will have its ups and downs, but I don't predict a cataclysmic collapse or anything permanently damaging occurring. The nature of the market is volatile these days, but I do think there will be growth rather than any regression.

I believe Obama had every right to blame Bush for a lot of our current problems (some of them were created well before Bush), and its believed by most economists that it takes 3-5 years for an economical policies effect to be felt by the regular man. However, any problems that exist by the time Obama leaves office that have either been exacerbated or created between now and then, the blame is firmly on his shoulders.

Edited by ghdi
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I don't expect him to end the wars, or if he does take all the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan he will just bring the war to other countries. He's not this peace-loving anti-war president that the Democrats portray him as. I don't remember where I saw it, but I read months ago that Obama already told other heads of state that he plans on going to war with Iran. He has more troops deployed than Bush did, and has spent more on the wars, even adjusted for inflation. He has drone strikes terrorizing people in Pakistan resulting in over a million refugees, and has also bombed Yemen and Somalia. The only thing Democrats can hang their hat on when it comes to war is that he withdrew most of the troops from Iraq, but he just withdrew them exactly when Bush had planned. He actually tried to extend it but wasn't able to because negotiations fell through. The fact that so many people drive around with Obama for Peace bumper stickers shows how little people care about facts and being an educated voter, they just care about their least favorite party losing. It also shows what a bad job the media does of keeping the public informed.

http://mises.org/daily/5231

http://news.antiwar....o-stay-in-iraq/

http://stpeteforpeace.org/obama.html

Edited by devilsfan26
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http://www.naturalne...redictions.html

10 Dire Consequences of Obama's Re-Election Victory

"Remember: Obama is anti health freedom, anti food freedom, anti GMO labeling, anti medical freedom and anti farm freedom. He's the one who issued an executive order claiming government ownership over all farms and farm equipment, in case you forgot that little fact.

"He's also the guy who just recently issued an executive order merging Homeland Security with local corporate entities to grant the executive branch of government a power monopoly over the nation, bypassing the courts and Congress. You probably haven't even heard about that one, because he secretly signed it during Hurricane Sandy."

Edited by devilsfan26
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Federal debt would have grown regardless of who won. No one wants to give up entitlements. You can cut everything else to the bone and the federal government won't take in enough money to cover that.

Note, some economists say it doesn't matter or doesn't matter all that much. I have no idea who is right.

All other things economics might have been affected at the margins if Romney had won. Reagan was the last president who really had a noticeable effect on the economy, for better or worse depending on your point of view. As things stand now, we're really just fussing over a relatively small amount of changes to tax rates. While it's my belief that, in his heart, Obama does not like private enterprise, he isn't proposing anything that's all that radical.

Edited by Daniel
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As upset as I was about Obama's reelection, I tend to agree with Daniel's sentiment that Romney was probably not going to make headway on significant debt reduction. The fight to cut entitlements seems to be unwinnable. I have seen little evidence to the contrary.

We'll never know because no specifics were ever discussed besides cutting planned parenthood and pbs.

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Truth. Do you think Romney would have won if he had specifics? I mean, I would have liked more info but that doesn't mean it would have been politically wise.

I don't think it would have mattered, Obama won by 2.5 points, Silver estimates he could have lost by that margin and still held the electoral edge, so Romney needed a 5% swing. That's 6-7 million voters, needed half to change their vote.

Honestly that's tough to do and little things like that probably wouldn't have done enough. Still though it would be a nice precedent if candidates actually had to map out what their vision was in detail, have it scored by the CBO or some neutral agency so that we can spend less time talking about the rhetoric and more about which policies make sense going forward.

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Truth. Do you think Romney would have won if he had specifics? I mean, I would have liked more info but that doesn't mean it would have been politically wise.
It could have hurt him, and helped him. It is just a matter of what it would do more.I think him saying, I'm going to cut taxes across the board 20% without basic specifics of how he would do this added to the perception that Mitt Romney is a man who will say anything to get elected.

That seemed to be the cornerstone of his campaign too, and it was vaguely explained at best.The big 3 things we spend money on are Defense, Medicare/Medicade, and SS. He proposed a large increase in defense spending, and a vague new medicare plan. Without actually addressing those things, his plan didn't add up. Especially when you consider that the country wants to cut the deficit.

How can we cut the deficit effectively without raising revenue (taxes) and cutting some spending?

Edited by oofrostonoo
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How can we cut the deficit effectively without raising revenue (taxes) and cutting some spending?

A few other ways. You could inflate the currency. That's what lead to low deficits in the 1970s. No one wants to propose that though, even if that's what they're doing.

The other thing is to hope for another economic boom of the mid to late 1990s type. That had really very little to do with who was in charge in Washington, but was, vaguely speaking, the dot-com boom.

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  • 2 months later...

Public Debt to GDP during Obama's first four years. I have no faith that this will get better. The economy is floundering (GDP actually contracted in December) and debt continues to explode. I have no confidence in either party to address our impending equivilency to Greece. How long can we kick the can down the road before it rolls back on us and kills us?Q4%20Debt%20to%20GDP.jpg

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What are you saying, Onddeck? That the Fed will be able to print money and pay for government expenditures in perpetuity? That China will always prop up the dollar and buy U.S. debt.?

I'm not an economist, and I've more or less given up on trying to make any sense out of monetary policy. All I'll say though is that there continue to be no shortage of people around the world, including the Chinese, that are willing to buy Treasury debt at very low interest rates. I don't think it means that you can continue printing money at such a accelerated rate forever, but it doesn't seem to be a problem in the short term.

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What industry comes out of Greece?

Louisanas GDP is about 5m more than the entire nation of Greece.

Comparing the US to Greece is a great anecdote for low information voters, but for people grounded in reality it doesn't really check out.

How large Greece's economy is not the whole issue, but rather debt as a percentage of GDP. We're not there yet, but probably will be in about 10 to 15 years. The better comparison is Japan, and they're not doing so well either.

Ultimately though, whether it's Obama or the Republicans, the national debt will increase, absent some huge economic boom (such as the dot-com boom of the mid/late 90s) that won't have much to do with who is running the federal government. The fact is, the nation is aging with more retirees that will live longer and require more expensive medical treatment supported by fewer workers. You can come up with any little scheme that you want to trim costs, it's all rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. You can futz with the tax code all you want. Since Eisenhower, with multiple changes to the tax code, the percentage of GDP of receipts has been roughly the same, whether or not the rich are paying their fair share.

The voters have only themselves to blame. Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and they deserve to get it good and hard.

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How large Greece's economy is not the whole issue, but rather debt as a percentage of GDP. We're not there yet, but probably will be in about 10 to 15 years. The better comparison is Japan, and they're not doing so well either.

Ultimately though, whether it's Obama or the Republicans, the national debt will increase, absent some huge economic boom (such as the dot-com boom of the mid/late 90s) that won't have much to do with who is running the federal government. The fact is, the nation is aging with more retirees that will live longer and require more expensive medical treatment supported by fewer workers. You can come up with any little scheme that you want to trim costs, it's all rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. You can futz with the tax code all you want. Since Eisenhower, with multiple changes to the tax code, the percentage of GDP of receipts has been roughly the same, whether or not the rich are paying their fair share.

The voters have only themselves to blame. Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and they deserve to get it good and hard.

Edited by oofrostonoo
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