`Black Swan' Author Taleb Says Obama's Stimulus Made Economic Crisis Worse

[dipsydoodle]

U.S. President Barack Obama and his administration weakened the country’s economy by seeking to foster growth instead of paying down the federal debt, said Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of “The Black Swan.”

“Obama did exactly the opposite of what should have been done,” Taleb said yesterday in Montreal in a speech as part of Canada’s Salon Speakers series. “He surrounded himself with people who exacerbated the problem. You have a person who has cancer and instead of removing the cancer, you give him tranquilizers. When you give tranquilizers to a cancer patient, they feel better but the cancer gets worse.”

Today, Taleb said, “total debt is higher than it was in 2008 and unemployment is worse.”

Obama this month proposed a package of $180 billion in business tax breaks and infrastructure outlays to boost spending and job growth. That would come on top of the $814 billion stimulus measure enacted last year. The U.S. government’s total outstanding debt is about $13.5 trillion, according to Treasury figures.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-25/-black-swan-author-taleb-says-obama-s-stimulus-made-economic-crisis-worse.html

[thunder rising]

1. The Banksters steal the money and the population must suffer for being stupid enough to let them

do it.

No police, firemen, teachers, and an unemployed hungry population is certainly a US I want to see.

[The Magistrate]

2. Another 'Austrian School' Fanatic Heard From, Sir, It Would Seem

[xchrom]

5. +1 -- I've heard him say this in other interviews - it's

Pretty jaw dropping in it's cruelty and narrowness.

[babylonsister]

3. What a jackass this guy is. nt

[comtec]

4. Look i'm as annoyed as the next progressive... but he certainly didn't make things WORSE

I'm looking at the trade value of the dollar v euro, and lemmie tell you, it's not pretty.

When i was over last year, it was trading at over 1.50 dollars to one euro.
it topped out at 1.6+ at the end of * and there was talk of it hitting 2.0 or being permanently at 1.5.

It is currently 1.35 and climbing (it was 1.337 monday)

Yes things aren't great, and he should have done more to stimulate things on teh lower end, like rebuilding a certain collapsed bridge?

But the piss-poor jobs growth numbers right now far surpass the 700k a MONTH that were being lost at the end of * and first couple months of Obama.

I don't think he's done or pushed for enough, but dammit, he has a metric fuckton of stuff to fix!

[opihimoimoi]

6. He has his opinion and I have mine::: He is off his meds....Obama did well.

[ixion]

7. k/r

for the truth.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ixion]

12. "When you are in a hole, stop digging," Words of Wisdom, in my opinion.

And I agree with your premise that a carefully -- honestly -- applied stimulus may have actually done something beneficial; yet since it all went into the pockets of the F.I.R.E. vertical (the "trickle down" always stops at the top), it failed to do much of anything, unless you happened to be a Wall St. insider.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. what truth is that?

How exactly would the economy be better off if instead of counter cyclical stimulus the federal government had cut spending in order to reduce deficits. Be specific.

[Trocadero]

9. well, that's one movie I won't be seeing

[AngryAmish]

10. Taleb's whole point is we don't know what we are doing - macro-economically

We don't. Again, it goes back to the knowledge problem. No matter how clever an individual or group of people are they just cannot understand something as complex as the world economy or even the US economy. Anyone who insists they do - and can predict the future - is either foolish or lying.

The call is for modesty in our actions. To think if we spend a ton of money the the economy will get better is and was foolish. Better to be safe, not get further is debt, is a wise thing.

Nobody can predict the future. Those people that have a "good track record" more often than not are lucky.

[sendero]

11. Nobody can predict the future...

... but some can look at certain facts and deduce a likely outcome.

There is a reason that a handful of economics/traders/academics foresaw this mess, and that is not "predicting the future" it is looking at the facts and figuring out what they mean.

In any event, as I have been doing for years here I will predict the future. The economy is going to remain pretty much the same, with high unemployment, low growth stagnant wages for years to come. If I were to veer towards the pessimistic, I'd say decades.

[Warren Stupidity]

14. His point appears to be traditional Republicanism

Where in the federal government should cut back on benefits and services for working people in order to reduce the tax burden on the rich, all in the name of a mythical frugality that really doesn't matter at all. Our government has carried greater debt burdens than we have now without wrecking the system.