Hoover was tax cuts and balancing budgets, Roosevelt was stimulus

[Joanne98]

Here's another writer failing to grasp how profoundly crippled the empire is. Another voice from the sidelines calling the plays - another observer lamenting the loss of 3% GNP and rising employment numbers. (I think we need more housing and malls to sustain our GNP numbers Ed). Ed, help yourself to some more cool-aid - your addicted it appears.

"Clearly Massachusetts voters were sending the Administration a message". Wrong. That isn't all that clear. Voters are reacting to the noise of the mass media; mirroring the mass media which in general sends alarmist and frenzied messages of pending disaster. There is no perspective delivered with the thousands of signals emanating from the media; perspective will not sell news.

As for Massachusetts, we don't mind at all saying that most of Scott Brown's constituents were the losers in the great fissure that split the middle class into two halves with the Scott Brown voters in the bottom half.

Blame it on supply side; as the smoke clears - its more a trojan horse.

Supply side did wonders to expand the economy under Bush, pushing up expectations for a few more rounds - pouring lots of money into the economy and even floating the boats of many economic regions (south) that could never keep up with the northeast. But it came with a price as any zero sum game does.

The fissure that split the middle class has been in the works for a long time - a very long time - the US went from manufacturing to services over the course of 40 years and the endgame was the last thrust of Bush Administration - Guns and Butter - supply side policy - was the final straw. Supply side - service based economy - inflated real estate - Fed policy and the money inflation and then the fee's: hundreds of fees to keep up with the inflationary cost of maintaining living standards. Come to think of it; I'm fed up to. But I don't vote with my emotions like so many Americans do.

The voters of Massachusetts sent a vote that said - I'm fed up - a pure populist reaction based on the fact that the entire system - the marriage of government and special interests is a concentrated game that has shifted the tax (in total - all taxes and fees) on main street. (It's not just Federal and State Taxes; its the universal fee based service economy we now all live in).

I asked a few people last week on why they voted for Brown and the answers were garbled and indicated confusion and disgust at "everything" - the abrupt collapse of a mega financial system going into meltdown surpasses the routine pundit political analysis.

The typical response I found was I voted for Brown because I'm fed up with the status quo; I'm fed up with the government. The first guy I asked at work had a mixed response. I asked him why he was sending a vote to sabotage the health care initiative and he responded by stating that the government has no chance at reforming health care. Fair enough; I had to agree in parts. I asked him if he was happy with his health care "plan" -(he has one) and he stated he was outraged by it; he felt he was getting cheated by large insurance companies arbitrarily negotiating the cost of his medical services.

I then asked if he felt it was reasonable to introduce a public option to index the pricing of health care services. An index - like the gold standard - something that earmarks costs based on break even -absolute value of health care activities. That he understood; that was plausible and that the private sector could play off the index and introduce premium services or low cost services to compete at the index. I was alarmed to note that he understood this concept. But it didn't translate to the Congressional agenda of universal health care: poor communication I guess - strike one on Harry Reid.

He then went on to bitch about how everything is screwed up and that he was mad at politicians and democrats because he felt that somehow there weren't going to fix anything. That's why he voted for Scott Brown.

Is this the logic of the populist vote? At least this person was open to discussion - the other voter logic -slash -populist wrath stems from the emotional voters who just hate government in general and are looking for a silver bullet. These are the Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, O'Reilly constituents; profoundly ignorant of any details of American History. These people want the founding fathers - yes, that is their salvation and it usually stops there.

Continued>>>
http://broad-street.blogspot.com/2010/01/sorry-ed-but-hoover-was-tax-cuts-and.html

And the market will tank again tommorrow because the party that destroyed the economy just won a Senate seat. Teabaggers may be stupid but investors aren't. SELL SELL SELL!

[Captain Hilts]

1. But FDR originally campaigned criticizing Hoover's deficit spending!!!!

What FDR did that was great was diversify the number of people/organizations that could make economic decisions and design economic policy.

Unions were empowered.

Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation - that directed federal money to industry was balanced by individualizing many relief programs so that workers were not tied to their factories or to moribund industries. People could take their benefits and vote with their feet.

[FreakinDJ]

2. Hoover was a Miserable Failure just like Bush