Another Broken Obama Campaign Promise

[dales]

Team Obama said in ’09 stimulus would have unemployment below 6% by 2012

August 3, 2012
Sean Higgins
The Washington Examiner


Today’s news that the unemployment rate moved up to 8.3 percent is as good of a time as time as any to revisit the promises the then-incoming administration made in 2009 regarding the economic stimulus bill. Back then they said the stimulus would have unemployment below 6 percent by now.

Not only that but they claimed that the unemployment would be at that 6 percent level now even if the stimulus bill was not passed. That is, that they predicted the economy would recover to that level naturally. In short, the White Houses projections regarding stimulus and the economy were wildly off.

The report, entitled “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan,” was released on Jan. 9, 2009. It was put out by the office of the president-elect was written by economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein. Romer would become chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers for President Obama. Bernstein was Vice President Biden’s chief economic advisor.

Page four of the report features a chart projecting the unemployment levels with and without the stimulus. With the stimulus, the Romer and Bernstein predicted that unemployment would never rise past 8 percent, and would peak just under that in the third quarter of 2009 before steadily declining to around 5.6 percent by today. Without the stimulus, they predicted that unemployment would peak around 9 percent in the third quarter of 2010 before declining to around 6 percent today.

The then-Democrat majority Congress passed the $819 billion stimulus bill later that month. The projection turned out to be one of the few things connected to it that was shovel-ready. The unemployment rate reached 10.1 percent in late 2009. It has declined since then but has remained above 8 percent for 41 months straight, a record.

One note: the report assumed that the unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2009 would be 7.5 percent. It was in fact 8.2 percent. Economist Lawrence Lindsey later adjusted their forecast to reflect this and found that it projected unemployment to be about 6.3 percent by this time.

[rubato]

The stimulus was the largest they could get through congress at that time. Paul Krugman and many others said that it was too small which has proven true. They also said that it should be repeated which has also been proven true; but with Republicans blocking all legislation by that point it was impossible.

Obama gets credit for pushing through extensions to unemployment which provided a 'brake' to further economic collapse as the extensions provided <<some>> income and a way to pay the bills to those would would have been homeless otherwise.

Obama also gets credit for the temporary* cut to SS taxes which put money into people's pockets and made it easier for them to pay down debt and save.

Obama gets credit for both the Chrysler/GM bailout and the 'cash for clunkers' program. Both helped save the US car industry.

The Republican alternative would have been no stimulus and thus no recovery (as proven by the performance of all the countries which used the 'all austerity' approach). They would have allowed GM and Chrysler to go belly-up and this would have kept the country on the downward trajectory where the Republicans had left it.

The likely alternative would have been continued soaring unemployment and no recovery in GDP and a slide into the 2nd Great Depression.

Obama gets credit for stopping the total collapse which they created but he should have pushed harder for a larger stimulus and allowed the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000 to expire as planned.

yrs,
rubato

[dales]

Obama gets credit for both the Chrysler/GM bailout and the 'cash for clunkers' program. Both helped save the US car industry.

HORSEAPPLES!

It was a craven attempt to "payback" the political whores at the UAW.

The "cash-for-clunkers" took perfectly good used cars off the market and immediately the price of older used cars (like the ones I drive) went thru the roof.

Obama is the worse thing that ever happened to the working class American.

And if Mittens is elected, things will prolly get worse.

edited to undo numerous typos resulting from palsy

[rubato]

The price effect of cash for clunkers was very small and only effected very low-mileage cars. It had no effect on cheap cars which got decent mileage. Buying the scrapped cars would have cost low-income buyers much more in higher fuel bills over the next few years so overall it was a benefit to people buying low-priced used cars. And without it several factories would have shut down throwing thousands more people out of work and putting pressure on a lot of dealerships to close their doors putting even more people out of work and cutting local sales tax revenues for many cities in a time when they could not afford the loss.

C for C was a huge success on all counts.

You have to consider the alternative.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

The bare facts are that C for C only effected cars costing less than $4,500 and which got 18 mpg or less (epa combined). No other category was effected and thus there was zero effect on cars in those groups (more expensive or higher mileage).

_______________________

http://usedcars.about.com/b/2011/04/04/ ... d-cars.htm

Cash for Clunkers Not Causing Shortage of Used Cars

By Keith Griffin, About.com GuideApril 4, 2011

On April Fool's Day, I had a little fun and posted a blog entry about President Obama restoring the Cash for Clunkers program in an effort to distract the country's attention from the current wars the country is partaking in.

Then, in research for another blog entry on rising used car prices, I saw comments along the lines that Cash for Clunkers was driving used car prices because it took so many good used cars out of the market. Well, that's just a bunch of bunk.

I went back to an article I wrote on the final statistics for Cash for Clunkers. The program took in 690,000 clunkers; basically vehicles worth $4500 or less that got less than 18 mpg. There was no advantage to trading in a vehicle worth more than $4500 as part of Cash for Clunkers. So, that defeats the argument that Cash for Clunkers is causing the short of good, small used cars.

Also, the government reported that that 84% of trade-ins under the program were classified as trucks (pickups, SUVs, minivans etc.) The top five traded-in vehicles were Ford Explorer 4WD; Ford F150 Pickup 2WD; Jeep Grand Cherokee 4WD; Ford Explorer 2WD and Dodge Caravan/Grand Caravan 2WD. There's nary a small, fuel efficient vehicle in the bunch.

... "
_________________________________________

[rubato]

Actually getting the low-mileage cars off the road was better for low-income people more than the reverse. In 5 years you would save almost 3/4 of the purchase price of the car in reduced fuel bills even if the car crushed was the 'best' allowable and the car bought was the 'worst' allowable. In all other cases you saved even more.
____________________________
…………. …………. ..... clunker …. non-clunker
$/ gal …………. ..... 3.80 ……… .....3.80
MPG …………. ..... 18.00 ……… .....26.00
Mi per year …………. 10000.00 …. 10000.00
Gal/yr …………. ..... 555.56 …….. 384.62
Fuel cost/yr …………. $2111.11 ……. $1461.54
Savings/yr …………. ……… ……… $649.57
% savings 1 year ……… ……… ....... 14%
% savings over 5 years …………. ....... 72%
_____________________________


yrs,
rubato

[dales]

If a person can only afford a cheap used car (<$4.5K) and is out of job.....I suppose they would be considered "collateral damage" by Obama's ill-conceived fustercluck c-f-c pgm?

Yeah, we got a lot of crappy, low mpg,- sh-t boxes sent to the crusher but at whose expense?

Low income people CANNOT AFFORD TO FINANCE A CAR be it new, used, or salvaged.

Hell, they're trying to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table, and buy clothes for their children w/o lining the pockets of some car sales person!

This pgm was a thinly disguised sop to the UAW who B.O. owed big time for them greasing the skids.

[loCAtek]

Tell me about it.

[rubato]

Try reading dale?

CFC had no effect on the availability or price of higher-mpg cheap cars.

It did have a small effect on low-mpg 'clunkers' but buy those cost so much more in fuel costs that they were a crappy deal for low-income people.

There was zero effect on the avail. of $3,000 used cars which got > 18 mpg

It did help the UAW slightly in keeping factories open but it helped the rest of us a lot more in keeping GM and Chrysler from going under as well as their dealer networks &c. And all of the GM workers were off of unemployment and making enough to spend and keep the economy going as well.

I don't know why you hate UAW workers enough that you'd rather punish them even when doing so hurts you and everyone else even more.

But there are a lot of idiots who would rather punish those they think are guilty than save the innocent.

yrs,
rubato

[Crackpot]

Anyone who think the Auto bailout was a gift to the unions has no idea what the unions had to give up/take on as a result of them.

[dales]

Yes, I do..........c/p.

They no longer earn a non-sustainable wage and produce sub-par products.

But they're still employed.

I feel no sympathy here.

btw: the non-UAW plants in the south are quite profitable and the UAW has been thwarted numerous time trying to organize VW, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, et.al.

[Crackpot]

that hasn't been happening for well over a decade Dales Most just don't pay attention.

[dales]

What hasn't been happening in over a decade, c/p?

Non-union plants in the south?

[Crackpot]

the non sustainable wages and sub par products. The unions saw the hole the american Auto industry was diging itself and decided to act unlike GM who just gave lip service and chrysler who got raided and left for dead by the krauts.

THe unions staarted shedding their own dead weight back in the mid 90's

[dales]

The UAW saw the writing on the wall*

*Taken from the Book of Daniel.

Now the UAW is in the lion's den and I don't look for anymore miracles to happen (Barrack or otherwise).

[Big RR]

Sub par products? while I generallly agree, just remember it wasn't the UAW workers designing them or setting the QC/QA standards--this was the province of the non-union workers seeking to maximize the return on investment by reducing the costs. Crappy quality was intentionally desinged in, as was short product life.

[Rick]

short product life

Wasn't that planned obsolescence?

[Big RR]

Exactly. And failure to predict market shifts in terms of product quality (not to mention mileage) is hardly the fault of thos assembling the cars; that lies squarely in the laps of management at the highest level. I won't argue that the unions milked the cash cow quite a bit as well, but the major problems occured because of bad management, not bad labor.

[dales]

On a personal note:

Purchased a brand new Ford Escort S/W in 1988.

20k miles - radiator system went south.

40k miles - auto transmisson (crappy ATX unit) took a massive squat.

60k miles - blown head gasket.

Affixed to the lower right part of the windshield - "Proudly Assembled by UAW Wokers"

Traded this piece of shyt in for something "Proudy Assmbled in Japan".

(btw: my ex still drives this car and outside minor problems, it's still running with an excess of 200k miles)

From this moment on.....I WILL NEVER PURCHASE A CAR ASSMBLED BY UAW PEOPLE.

Does the UAW make decent cars?

I dunno, let other people find out, I wil never gives them a dime of my money.

-30-

eta:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/chrysle ... nion-hall/

Chrysler Workers Again Caught Smoking & Drinking On the Job — ‘Steps Away’ from Union Hall

Posted on July 14, 2011 at 11:13am by Jonathon M. Seidl



Last September, Fox2 in Detroit uncovered Chrysler workers smoking pot and drinking beer during their breaks. At the time, the plant and Chrysler were outraged and fired the workers. That tough response should have sent a message. But apparently it didn’t. Fox2 has now uncovered more Chrysler workers doing the same exact thing.

“This time our video shows workers a mile from the plant, but just steps away from a United Auto Workers hall,” the outlet reports. “It’s the same kind of problem at a different location with a new method of having a good time; inhaling lunch before finishing a plant shift.”



<snipper>



Chrysler has responded with some harsh words. Scott Garberding, senior vice president of manufacturing, said that as soon as the workers are identified, they would be suspended indefinitely without pay:


“I just want to say I am both hurt and angered over what your cameras captured. Again, we have Chrysler workers in a compromised position, without regard for the impact of their actions, the reputation of their coworkers, the plant, of the company, not to mention their own reputation and that of their families. As a company, in the last two years we’ve come too far and made way too much progress to let the bad actions of a few put a shadow on the rest of the employees. And to be clear, we’ve got a code of conduct at Chrysler and some of the activities that we saw in your video are clearly outside of the code of conduct and unacceptable. The employees that we identify, as soon as we understand who they are, will be suspended indefinitely without pay and anybody else involved will be dealt with swiftly. It’s very frustrating to us, we take it very seriously. We have a lot of very committed folks at Chrysler. We are very proud of our team. We have some folks who apparently do not want to be part of that team.”

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you - UAW people getting loaded on company time.

[Crackpot]

the Escort was always a POS Well once you fixed the problems with the early ones they were bulletproof but few got past the head gasket, breaks.....