Obama: I Underestimated Magnitude Of The Recession

[chill_wind]

Obama: I Underestimated Magnitude Of The Recession
Susan Crabtree | July 6, 2011, 3:17PM


President Obama openly acknowledged underestimating the length and magnitude of the worst recession since the Great Depression in a response to a question during his Twitter town hall.

Always a tough question to answer, Obama was asked what mistakes he made in handling the economic crisis and what he would have done differently looking back on his first months in office.

Obama freely admitted that he would have tried to do a better job explaining "to the American people it was going to take a while to get out of this."

"Even I didn't realize the magnitude -- because most economists didn't realize the magnitude -- of the recession until" it was many months into his presidency, Obama said Wednesday.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/obama-i-underestimated-magnitude-of-the-recession.php?ref=fpa

"Most economists?"

[RagAss]

1. Because it was a Depression.

[BillyJack]

2. Not 'was' ..... "IS" a depression eom

[cutlassmama]

22. +1

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Alas I did... and I had the same tool

I even called on it... and surrendering to the Republicans will lead to another great recession if not outright depression... and I am talking on the TECHNICAL points of the terms

[WorseBeforeBetter]

4. LOL Just the economists you chose to listen to, Obama. (n/t)

[Renew Deal]

5. I think that's BS

He knew the stimuli should have been bigger. He let the republicans get away with shrinking it.

[BanzaiBonnie]

6. economists and the elite

are never on top of what's actually happening with the middle and lower classes.We know we're in a recesion or coming out of a recession before those at the top know. Why don't they look to the bottom, to those most affected by turbulent times, to learn the true nature of the economy?

[WorseBeforeBetter]

7. Certain "elite" economists knew; Obama chose not to heed their advice. (n/t)

[Elwood P Dowd]

8. The Underestimator In Chief

seems to be "underestimating" every fucking thing that's going on these days. Oh well, he makes a good speech.

[chill_wind]

9. And has he been listening to any of them since??

A year ago already...

300 Economists Warn Obama: Grave Danger Ahead


Three hundred economists released a letter to President Obama today with one message: focus on jobs, not on the deficit. Robert Borosage, co-director of the Institute for America’s Future and one of the authors of the statement, said the letter is “a call for action on the economy and a return to economic common sense” in a conference call with the media this morning. This is not the time for balancing the budget and slashing the deficit, he pointed out; rather, it is “the time for bold initiatives to rebuild America and to generate jobs and growth.”

The storyline that we have out of control government spending right now is “one hundred eighty degrees from reality,” said Dean Baker, ND20 contributor and co-director of Center for Economic and Policy Research on the call. What is the real problem here? Long-term, it’s spiraling health care costs. Without getting those under control, no matter what else happens the US will have a huge financial burden in the long run. “It’s not the deficit; it’s health care,” he warned.

Robert Kuttner laid it all out plainly: it’s “really about a high road to recovery versus a low road to fiscal balance.” The high road: increased public investment, leading back to easy fiscal balance. The low road: fiscal austerity now, at the cost of whacking the economy. Want a great example? Look no further than World War II. The modest deficit spending of the New Deal was no match for the spending in the run-up to war, which thrust the economy back into recovery.

And finally Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor, was perfectly clear on where he stands: “There is a serious danger that if we continue with the policies that we are now seeing in Washington, we’re going to have not just a double dip recession, but we are toying with the possibility of much more serious deflation and a US lost decade analogous to Japan’s lost decade.” There are only four sources of economic demand, three of which — consumers, businesses, and export countries — have problems of their own, he reminds us. Government is the last source when all else fails — and all else IS failing. If we can’t learn the lesson from these facts, Reich thinks we risk repeating 1937, when FDR listened to budget balancers and deficit hawks. His move “plunged us back into depths of very deep depression,” and he says we’re in danger of doing the same thing all over again unless we can “stop our obsession with short-term deficits and understand both economic logic and history.”

Read the full letter here.

Other economists are also making noise about this issue. The New America Foundation recently released “Plan B for Economic Recovery“, which included a statement from ND20 contributors Marshall Auerback and James K. Galbraith, called for a focus on jobs and progressive ideas to get the economy back on track. And Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein just ran an interview series, “Blue Skies,” that lays out different ideas to kick-start job creation from Dean Baker, Heather Boushey, Michael Lind, and others. Moral of the story: this recession demands creative and bold action, not a resort to fear.

more:
http://www.newdeal20.org/2010/09/16/300-economists-warn-obama-grave-danger-ahead-20341/

:-(

[slipslidingaway]

11. Thanks for posting that letter. n/t

[WorseBeforeBetter]

12. ^K&R^

[Amonester]

16. Maybe they're part of that "Professional Left" W.H. Officials made

fun of.

They chuckled between themselves.

Had fun.

[ohheckyeah]

17. That letter says about what I said in a letter to Jim Webb...

'when one is drowning it is not the appropriate time to haggle over the cost of a life preserver.'

Fuck the deficit right now. Spend the damn money to do what needs to be done to provide jobs and security for the elderly and poor.

[senseandsensibility]

19. Maybe an OP with this link is in order.

It kind of says it all.

[chill_wind]

20. Feel free. I posted it as an OP couple times in the past year, but not real recently.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x560332

[Bluebear]

28. !

[gkhouston]

10. So, it's about to get worse. Lovely. n/t

[customerserviceguy]

14. That's what I'm expecting

This debt ceiling thing is not going to go away quickly or easily. If there is a last-second deal, we're the side who blinks and gets screwed. If there is not, then the well-off have plenty of money to ride it out, and watch us make an even worse deal.

I doubt that the President will even be able to pin the blame on the other side.

[gkhouston]

18. The debt ceiling drama is about as genuine as WWF wrestling.

The only suspense is waiting to see what we're losing this time.

[roomfullofmirrors]

13. guess he/they are running out of smoke to blow up our asses. good.

if you can't even admit that there is a problem, you can't even begin to fix the problem. Incidentally, he's never going to bring the jobs back so don't hold your breath on that one. Nobody is.

[Fla_Democrat]

15. I thought the recession was over..

:shrug:

http://www.google.com/search?q=the+recession+is+over&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a







:smoke:

[girl gone mad]

21. "hoocoodanode?"

:rofl:

[21st Century FDR]

23. Mr. President, do you understand what CAUSED the goddamn recession?

Thirty years of bassackward regressive piss on the American people economic policies, including the ones advocated by the idiots YOU hired (Geithner, Summers, Ghoulsbee, etc.)

It's time to end this shit. And it's ALL shit, every economic policy since 1981.

[slipslidingaway]

24. kick nt

[donheld]

25. Duh! He chose to listen to Goldman Sachs people instead of

Elizabeth Warren and Paul Krugman. He's admitted this 2 years too late.

[Bluebear]

26. Nobody could have anticipated....nobody saw this....

:silly:

[Raine]

27. "Underestimated" how very reassuring

:sarcasm:

[gkhouston]

29. Uh huh... so maybe you should fire the asses who did the "estimating" for you. n/t