In fact it saved our butts.
The scary part is that this Republicon Regressionary Recession cost us 16% of GDP, whereas the last Deregulatory GOPster Debacle the S&L Crisis only cost us 6% of GDP. Meaning that the Cons have gotten almost three times more effective at fucking things up in the last 30 years. We're listing to starboard now, one more turn at the tiller from these guys and and we'll capsize!
Check this out: http://mydd.com/2010/7/28/the-blinder-zandi-report?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mydd+%28MyDD%29
EXCERPTS:
A paper by economists Alan Blinder, (McCain advisor) an economist at Princeton and a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve , and Mark Zandi, (Clinton advisor) the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, finds that without the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that bailed out the nation's financial sector, the bank stress tests, the emergency lending and asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, and the Obama Administration’s fiscal stimulus program - the much maligned American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) - the nation’s gross domestic product would be about 6.5 percent lower this year.
Additionally, Dr. Blinder and Dr. Zandi find that the US economy would have lost an additional 8.5 million jobs, on top of the more than 8 million lost so far; and the economy would be in the midst of a deflationary asset spiral, instead of low inflation. Overall, they conclude that the aggregate effects of the TARP and the ARRA "probably averted what could have been called Great Depression 2.0."
Mr. Blinder and Mr. Zandi emphasize the sheer size of the fallout from the financial crisis. They estimate the total direct cost of the recession at $1.6 trillion, and the total budgetary cost, after adding in nearly $750 billion in lost revenue from the weaker economy, at $2.35 trillion, or about 16 percent of G.D.P.
By comparison, the savings and loan crisis cost about $350 billion in today’s dollars: $275 billion in direct cost and an additional $75 billion from the recession of 1990-91 — or about 6 percent of G.D.P. at the time.
Saved our butts? A good case can be made for TARP 1 (Bush's TARP, the one that is being paid back with interest) but TARP 2 can only be judged to "save our butts" if you are a UAW slug. Since much of the ARRA (porkulus bill) remains unspent, I'd like to see how that has helped.
ReplyDelete4 Weeks, 5 Days, 6 Hours, 39 Minutes :)
The article I linked does credit Bush's TARP for keeping the economy from going over the cliff. It's regretable that we had to take the citizen's money and give it to the crooks and greedsters who caused the crisis in the first place, but it was necessary. And of course it contributed to the debt at least in the short run, but of course Cons like are only concerned about spending and debt from the Obama administation. Because of course you're hypoctites.
ReplyDeleteAs a member of a race far superior to UAW members, you no doubt are smarter than the Economists that advised Clinton and McCain and who did the analysis. So if you'd really like to see how it helped you can go look at their work, see how they came to their conclusions and report back here. I'd also appreciate a timeline of the ARRA spending so that you can demonstrate just much was spent and when.
Oh don't forget that from the $787 Billion total you'll need to subtract the $288 Billion (37%) that was allocated for tax incentives which will never be "spent". I'm sure the GOPropagandists are most diligent in making this adjustment before embarking on their manipulations.
Tax incentives are, as we know, a poor way of creating short term stimulus on the economy, but you boys insisted that they be included as a condition of passage.
Speaking of the UAW and paying back with interest. GM and Chrysler are paying back their bailout (separate issue from the ARRA stimulus by the way) with, wait for it . . . INTEREST. Hypocrite.
"Mission Accomplished", eah?. Heh.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIs this what you meant by "GM and Chrysler are paying back their bailout"?
ReplyDeleteNo. http://www.economist.com/node/16846514
ReplyDeleteNow where's that ARRA spending timeline you need to demonstrate you case?
133+ a share? Fat chance bub.
ReplyDelete4 Weeks :)
Another rebuttal I just came across, "Second, there's the $81 billion invested in the automobile sector, most of it in General Motors and related entities. Of that, $67 billion remains outstanding, and GM's upcoming initial public offering is likely to make only a small dent. Treasury now expects that it will ultimately lose $17 billion on its efforts to aid the auto industry."
ReplyDelete4 Weeks :)