Barack Obama's Irrational Exuberance

So what is the market saying now? This is why you are op-ed columnist and not an investor. Actually you are now an paid propaganda writer. Capitalism does work.

bluehill of AL 3:27PM February 21, 2012

If James of CA hopes to invest now and make big returns in five years then he's betting on Obama leaving office in 46 months after he loses big (and really, really big) in the 2010 elections.

In the end, energy is life. Cheap energy is prosperity.

Obama simply is opposed to both.

The Rhetorical Man has met the Incompetent Man and his name is Obama.

cedarhill of OH 5:28PM March 16, 2009

JFK cut taxes in 1961, and the economy roared ahead. Reagan cut taxes in 1981, and although it took time to squeeze Carter's hyperinflation out of the economy, it roared back in 1983 and 1984, as Pethokoukis pointed out. After the Internet bubble burst in 2000, George W. Bush cut taxes in 2001 and 2003, and despite the 9/11 attacks and the Enron/WorldCom collapse, the economy came roaring back in 2003-2007.

The current crisis has its roots in a policy imposed by the Clinton Administration in 1999, which forced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make risky adjustable-rate loans to insolvent borrowers. Obama himself, as an ACORN community organizer, was organizing thugs to stage sit-ins in Chicago banks and intimidate them into making risky loans. Republicans, including John McCain, tried to repeal this policy in 2005, but were filibustered by Democrats.

As long as house prices kept going up, people could sell and pay off the loans, but when housing prices fell and ARM interest rates were going up, people could no longer afford the payments. In addition, many bad loans were "bundled" as "mortgage-based securities", given high credit ratings, and sold to banks, who didn't look carefully at what they were buying.

So what does Obama do? Cut taxes? Not really. He wants to spend $787 billion in taxpayer money he doesn't have, most of it in 2010. Deficits now, projects later. For 2.5 million jobs (so he says), an average of $314,800 per job--way above MY pay grade. For businesses who are feeling the pinch, Obama kicks them when they're down. No wonder the market doesn't like the "stimulus".

Obama was calling this the greatest crisis since the Great Depression BEFORE the stimulus bill passed--now he's saying the economy is doing well, so HE can take credit. Wave a magic wand, pull a rabbit out of a hat, and everything's peachy in the world of Oz. Until Toto figures out that the guy behind the curtain doesn't know what he's doing.

President Barack Hussein Carter--we've seen this before--10% unemployment, 13% inflation, 20% interest rates, gasoline rationing, in 1980. It's time to stop the madness, before we go back to the 1980 "future".

Steve Z of CT 3:50PM March 16, 2009

The Democrats pushing through a racist agenda to get their preferred minorities into houses regardless of the person's ability to pay caused this crisis. Banks don't just collapse for no reason.

The liberal media did a wonderful job of keeping out all the instances of the Republicans trying to regulate Freddie and Fannie with the Democrats blocking all of this saying, "There is no problem with Freddie or Fannie".

Obama inherited this mess from Democrats, not from Bush. Obama will make it worse by pushing through horrific spending in a recession thereby repeating the mistakes that gave us the Great Depression.

Obama is pitiful of CA 3:19PM March 16, 2009