From Mullings: "Two years ago, the Democrats, with great fanfare and much spiteful mirth, took control of both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate promising great changes and great advances.
Are you better off …?
Just to review the bidding. On January 5, 2007 (just about the time Nancy Pelosi and her cronies took control of the House):
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at about 12,400.
- The New York-based Conference Board said its consumer confidence index was at 110.3.
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics had the unemployment rate at 4.6%
- According to CNN gasoline a gallon of gasoline, in January 2007, averaged about $2.20.
That was then. This is now:
- Last Thursday at about 1 pm Eastern, the Dow had hit a bottom of about 10,500 before Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke intervened. That is a drop of about 15% in the Dow from two years ago.
- The Conference Board's latest take on the pulse of consumer confidence had it at a
very thready 56.9 in August - a drop of about 48% - The unemployment rate in
August was reported at 6.1% by the BLS an increase of 33%. Gasoline prices
are at about $3.70 a whopping 68% jump. What's changed?Rep. Barney Frank (D-Ma) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Ct) took control of the House and Senate Banking Committees.
Rep. George Miller (D-Ca) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Ma) took over their respective Labor Committees.
Rep. John Dingell (D-Mi) and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) became chairs of the Energy Committees.
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Thursday, September 25, 2008
Fasten Your Seatbelts, Folks. We're In for a Bumpy Ride.
Don't kid yourselves, we are in a battle for this country and the other side isn't going to play fair. I warned of the situation in Ohio in August. Lo and behold, the proof from Proof. The left is unhinged and unmedicated and they're not going to let something like abiding by the law stand in the way of a presidential power grab and their ability to bring America (and her capitalist system) to her knees. And there's something pretty smelly, like an old fish smelly, about the timing of this financial crisis.
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5 comments:
I like how conservatives seem to declare all the economic success in the 90's to Reaganomics and not that acting administration (Clinton)...and then in the early 2000's the downfalls in the economy were the trickle down effects of the Clinton administration and not that acting administration (Bush)...and now in the past two years we have serious economics issues, they must be blamed on the Democratic lead congress. I'm not defending the current Congress, I believe them to be very ineffective however I don't think all the current pitfalls and downturns of our current economic situation can be attributed to them, even though at first glance it seems easy to make that case. Most of these issues can be traced back 5-10 years and the banks situation all the way back to the 80's. (but I wouldn't dare blame Reagan :) ) At best you could suggest that this Congress hasn't prevented this economic collapse, but they surely didn't cause it.
Anonymous, I appreciate your comments, but certainly politicians aren't known for letting facts get in the way of a good blame game. I think Dems planted the seeds of this mess and Republicans didn't do enough to stop it. I do think the timing has a suspicious stink to it. The whole economy crashes 40 some odd days before the presidential election just as the Dem side is dropping in the polls? What a coincidence!
Would that be the same coincidence as just before the 2004 elections we have a bunch of terrorist threats and the country goes on orange or red or whatever silly color alert? I'm not a politician so I do let facts influence what I have to say... I'm politically liberal but financially conservative so I would agree that the Democratic policies may have contributed to the current mess but ultimately the fault belongs on the Banks & the people. I'm with those who are against the bailout though. And personally I don't think that the Democratic Congressional leadership is smart enough to powerful enough to "crash" the Amercian economy strictly for election purposes. I'm not sure which side was the more involved side in pressuring banks into giving out more loans to help speed up the economy but those would be the people that I would blame. And I would think that would have had to take place during the 06' bubble, which was back during the days of the Republican controlled congress.
The seeds of this mess were sown with the Community Reinvestment Act which was put on steroids by the Clinton Administration in the 90's as a way of buying votes from low income immigrants and minorities in the inner cities. You vote Dem, we'll make sure you get a $700,000 California home even though you work at the McDonald's drive-in. That was the seed. The Republicans idea of addressing the issue, was bringing it up in conversation. I'm not saying Dems created this mess from scratch 40 days out from the election. I'm saying, they, from their congressional committee posts, pricked the swelling financial mass just to watch it explode at a very oportune moment.
I'm willing to agree the Dems (but not in the last two years as you originally said) helped create this mess...but the CRA was changed as recently as 05', how do you blame this mess on these Democrats? Either way I'm with the House GOP on how to fix this mess, let the market decide. Hopefully they can minimize whatever the President & Demorcratic leadership try to push through.
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