Friday, October 31, 2008

The Dumbest Story Ever Told

Today’s GDP report showed a small contraction of 0.3 percent. But stocks went up nearly 200 points anyway. Many observers believe the thirdquarter downturn was not a catastrophe, especially if you factor in hurricanes and the Boeing strike. On top of that the short-term tax rebates ran out in the third quarter, and that helped depress consumer spending, which did fall 3.1 percent.

However, inventories are quite low after three quarterly declines. And business capex shipments actually rose slightly in the three-month period ending in September. So there’s no collapse, at least yet, in business investment.

Most analysts expect a much worse drop in the fourth quarter, ranging between a 3 and 4 percent contraction. But they are not factoring in a roughly $200 billion annual drop in consumer energy expenses that will accrue from the collapse of oil and gasoline prices. This is going to be a big consumer booster.

Meanwhile, credit markets continue to defrost and commercial paper is now rising again, as is inter-bank lending. So the economic story may not be near as bad as the consensus thinks. Remember, of course, the Fed is pumping in cash at a huge rate. That’s going to help the whole story.

The dumbest thing I heard today on the economy was a statement from Sen. Obama. He says the decline in GDP is “a direct result of the Bush administration’s trickle down, Wall Street first, Main Street last policies that John McCain has embraced for the last eight years and plans to continue for the next four.”

Wait a minute. Did I miss something here? After the bursting of the tech bubble and the 9/11 attacks, George Bush lowered tax rates across-theboard for individuals and investors. The stock market rallied uninterruptedly for five years. The economy expanded from the end of 2001 to the end of 2007. Are we to really believe the Obama narrative that cutting tax rates is the cause of this downturn? Not the credit shock? Not the Obama-supported government mandate to sell unaffordable homes to low-income people and to pressure Fannie and Freddie to securitize these loans? And not the oil shock, as well?

It was really tax cuts that caused this recession?

That’s the dumbest story ever told.

63 comments:

Intrade said...

HazeNYC said :

    tax cuts mades sense when there was a budget surplus but as soon as we started recording record deficits then yes, the tax cuts certainly did contribute to the current state of affairs.. if in only a small relative part. I believe the easy money of Greenspan's tenure especially on cutting the fed funds rate so low after 9/11 during an otherwise expanding economy brought upon greed and fraud, but most importantly it brought upon massive stupidity. The layman doesn't know squat about mortgage backed securities or swaps or complex derivatives -- all they knew was that they could "stretch the truth" on their mortgage applications.. but as little as 5% or No money down at closing.. obtain an interest-only loan so that their monthly payments would be sufficiently low to justify buying vs renting.. teaser rates that enticed middle class buyers who couldn't actually afford their home.. and the rest is history.

Intrade said...

nycrealamerican said :

    For qa smart guy you are a fing racist moron. Yeah it was the 100,000 poor blacks that bought a 200,00 home instead of a 175,000 home that destroyed the economy. Not the 5 million upper middle class whites who bought the 750,000 house that was really worth $550,000 when they could only afford the $450,000.00 house to begin with and then took all the "equity" out. Not the wall street lobbyist who insisted that all these loans not have to be given a rating when they were bundled together with solid lkoans and other securities? its the blacks on welfare. YOU MAKE ME SICK.

Intrade said...

catalyzer said :

    That's it - the problem is the oil shock! Such a shock! Who could have anticipated, 8 years ago, with world demand for a commodity growing exponentially, that its price would have skyrocketed. (Answer: anyone who was awake.) Instead of an energy policy we were given a fairy-tale about "hydrogen" (and let's not forget that other pillar of the Bush science and technology program - flying to Mars). And who could have anticipated that giving people loans to buy houses, based on the assumption that prices would continue to rise, would lead to a crash? (Answer: anyone with a brain.) We all knew this was coming; it is just unfortunate for McCain that the charade could not have gone on a little longer. This is all obvious to anyone smart enough to read this column; it is only a question if you choose not to see it.

Intrade said...

NotBuyingIt said :

    I suppose someone in economic research could quantitize the issue, but it seems counter intuitive to think the CRA caused the downfall of AIG. Teaser rate mortgages and no down payment seem more likely causes, along with virtually no regulation. Eight years of deficit spending (huge when you add in the off-the-books amounts for the two wars), definitely suppressed the economy. The quoted remark doesn't blame the tax cut, you dummy, it's the whole package.

Intrade said...

kudlow_killa1 said :

    here we go again. the kudlow another-day-another-dollar algorithm.
1) read yesterday's news
2) pick the few things that are not "complicated"
3) reel them off to sound like economist
4) then make stupid, stupidly normative, racist, desperately controversial remarks
5) collect pay check
6) repeat
this idiot is beginning to piss me off. the least that can happen is that intrade, a cool innovative company, can put this guy on the chopping block. using anger to drive traffic to the site is not a good long term strategy.

Intrade said...

dr461 said :

    Kudlow is a tired old Republican hack. Maybe he once knew some things back when "supply side" economics were the rage during the Reagan years (as were double digit interest rates and inflation lest we forget). Now, he has not a clue as to politics, and the NEW globalized economy. The trend towards outsourcing and heavy foreign investments in the American economy has change the entire investing game, and he has nary a clue. All we get is ancient drivel from a "has been" who is much like Greenspan in his philosophy--look where Greenspan took us.

Intrade said...

cbc said :

    larry, you and greenspan need to talk...

Intrade said...

drdon said :

    It's time to give Kudlow a golden parachute so he can fade away into the dust with all of the other supply side, trickle down mummies. Like McSenile, he's now on the wrong side of history. We are taking our country back and we will reinstate social justice as the norm of the land.

Intrade said...

Bobfeld said :

    He won"t be around much longer. When the dems bring back the "fairness doctrine" he will be knocked off the air.

Intrade said...

Bobfeld said :

    He won"t be on the air much longer. When the dem"s bring back the "fainess doctrine"CNBC will have to get rid of him.

Intrade said...

Real America said :

    Kuddles the Klown makes Krusty look like Einstein.

Intrade said...

UnixDude said :

    LOL! Kudlow, I think this is the dumbest thing you have ever said.
Wow!
Will you please get off the tax cut nonsense. I imagine you must make probably a million or more a year out at CNBC. This is probably why you think all is dandy and just great. "Goldy-Locks, My Tush!"Well, most Americans don't make what you do and probably never will Mr. Kudlow. That's why the whole supply-side economics idea is such hog-wash. More like snake oil. The only thing I have seen for the past 8 yrs has been this country running up record sized deficits, loaning free money, and inflation t/o the roof for all of us who feel this from our modest salaries. Obama is correct that for all this nonsense that Bush and your cultish supply-sidders have fed us you have nothing to show for it but an incredible mess. I used to be a registered republican, and I dropped from the GOP this year proudly. All I have seen from you guys has been corruption, disregard for the financial health of this nation and the Rich truly got richer @ the expense of the middle class. Mr. Kudlow, your the idiot for calling others dumb for questioning the policies of what has to be the worst administration since I can remember. Do you even really get what's going on out there in our country. I don't think you do and shame on you for suggesting once again tax cuts for the rich. The worst ponzi scheme in the world.

Intrade said...

Canadian said :

    It is pretty easy to come up with platitudinous rhetoric to blame one side or the other for the problems that face America. But that is disingenuous and simplistic. And worse, such political hackery (for that is what it is) has no useful purpose in actually solving these problems.

Obama placing all the blame on the Bush administration (which is most certainly to blame in part, but only in part) is no worse than Kudlow claiming that the oil shock, 9/11, and the tech bubble are somehow to blame for the credit crunch. It is no worse than the absurd assumption that Obama and others in government pressured Fannie or Freddie to securitize loans - as if Liberal politicians, and not the private sector, had dreamed that one up.

Put in its proper context, Obama’s indictment of those “trickle down, Wall Street first, Main Street last policies” doesn’t simply refer to tax cuts in general, as Kudlow implies. It refers not only to the idea of providing preferential tax treatment to corporations and wealthy individuals on the logic that the resulting increased business investment will create jobs and higher wages for the working middle class, but also to an economically destructive culture of big business funding politicians in return for favourable regulation.

As the German industrialist and then heir to what is today the multinational conglomerate ThyssenKrupp AG, Alfred Krupp (1812-87) once said, “As the deer pants for cooling streams, so do I pant for regulation.” The problem here is an environment of self-regulation and one where even the external regulators have been bought out by those they are supposed to regulate. It is a problem that is broad and deep, and it’s going to require transformational change to fix. On that point Obama is absolutely right – we can’t look to McCain to solve these problems, because, like Kudlow, he is too ideologically entrenched in the perverse culture of industry buying out politicians to see anything wrong with it.

Intrade said...

Enough Already said :

    Supply-side dogma has run its course, and you stuffy, super-rich American elite had better realize it. You can't keep the vast majority of Americans poor wihle you get richer forever, it's not a stable system. But you had a good run: 3 wives, loads of coked up memories, top shelf booze. Who can blame you for desperately trying to keep it going? Hope you took pictures.

Intrade said...

Al said :

    For all of you that are rejecting supply-side economics for a more Keynesian approach, you have no idea what you are talking about. Government spending is the corner stone of Keynesian stimulus, along with tax cuts. That's what FDR did. Deficit spending is not such a bad thing when the economy is contracting. Reduce taxes AND spend more. Then the Keynesian multipliers kick in: GDP will increase by a multiple of the stimulus from more government spending and tax cuts. Those of you who so quickly reject supply-side economics should read a textbook on Keynes, since that is the school of economics you subscribe to without even knowing it. At least understand what you DO support before rejecting everything else.

Intrade said...

Nancy Brumback said :

    Since the end of the last Great Depression, the quality of the US economy has depended on a strong middle-class that worked hard and was rewarded for its labors with a decent standard of living. Over the past 30 years, the economy has changed to one in which the middle class is no longer sustained. Instead, the wealthiest elite are allowed to gamble massive fortunes regardless of the possible impact on our country and even on the world, affecting and even threatening the lives of billions of people. Today the wealthiest 10% control 70% of America's wealth. Do the wealthy classes deserve all that money? In the last 35 years, the richest one percent of Americans have had a 62% drop in their federal tax rate, and their incomes have increased over 80%. Have they been using that extra money to strengthen our country, or to fatten their own bank accounts? Kudlow and the other supply-side theorists say that tax cuts for the rich are the way to grow the economy, but guess what, for the majority of the American people, the economy is in the toilet. Free-market ideology is nothing more than a rationale and excuse for untrammeled selfishness and greed. It was said in the 80s that “greed is good.” Well, look where that has got us now.

Intrade said...

Al said :

    Why not give everyone a tax cut? Is it "fair" that the top 5% of earners pay 60% of the total tax revenues to the federal government? All of you are whining about equity here, but what is fair?

Intrade said...

JM said :

    Larry,

I think you are taking Obama out of context. His problem with the tax cuts seems to be that they've only helped those in the upper eschelon of society, further widening the disparity between those in the top 1% and those in the bottom 20%. The fact that most of these wealthier people are paying a good deal of their taxes at a 15% capital gains and dividend rate means that their income tax bracket shouldn't be lowered. Middle class people are suffering to pay their bills and if people like you Larry have to pay a little more in taxes, so be it. I don't think you'll have any trouble maintaining your current standard of living with a two or three percent income tax increase.

Obama's quote is obviously political pandering, to just try to further connect McCain to Bush, which frankly is a succesful, but unfortunate meansn of negative campaigning. Don't think that Obama thinks that GDP shrinking is actually a result of tax cuts from a few years ago.

Intrade said...

didcrywolf said :

    Tax cuts to anybody in a country expected to generate 2 trillion of additional USD (fiat currency) in 2009 is just perfect! heck your currency is pure crap already!

Under DUBYA, The US created all these tax breaks to the richest which in turn accelerated the corruption of the Washington lawmakers, BOTH Republican and Democrats.
If Instead the rich had to pay a more sizable portion Mof income taxes, maybe JUST maybe, they would be more interested in getting their voices heard on how the money was spent.

My rule is I LOVE to spend other people's money but when I have OTHER people spend MY money I am MUCH more interested getting my VOICE heard....

Intrade said...

Brad said :

    Nycrealamerican must be one of those people who sees racism in everything. I'll admit I'm not that good with code words. Is low-income code for Black?

Intrade said...

"The Dumbest Story Ever Told" said :

    That would be the reasons your parents decided to get married.

Intrade said...

norseman said :

    Why should capital gains be taxed at a lesser rate than money earned by laboring for it

Intrade said...

slave357 said :

    kudlow, sometimes you must really write to see yourself writing. what part of I.O.U don't you understand?

as long as the I.O.U.'s keep getting bigger and bigger, the crisis's get bigger and bigger. the next one is only 5 more trillion away. it will seize up the financial market completely.

Intrade said...

DEVILDOG said :

    Krudlow, too bad you lose. No more easy street for supply side elitists like you. Can't wait to hear your whining on the 5th about Obama winning in a landslide. Hopefully, you'll have a heart attack and die making the world a better place.

Intrade said...

rashi2006 said :

    why is kudlow posting here? This is supposed to be a futures exchange not a right wing asshole convention. Post your brilliant insight on your im sure very popular blog. Thanks!

Intrade said...

TruConservativ said :

    What ever happened to "the buck stops here?" Bush and his supporters, like Kudlow, constantly pass the buck -- to the "credit shock," the "oil shock," as though those shocks had nothing to do with the policies of the administration. Watch, when the economy contracts again next quarter, Kudlow will find a way to blame Clinton -- who hasn't been in power for 8 years -- and Obama -- who hasn't taken control yet. And the buck passes on.

Intrade said...

MakeSense said :

    Blaming the recent policies for the current mess is not the dumbest story ever, it is a totally fair assessment.
And this for a number of reasons.

Yes, Bush' cut taxes. But the money for it had to be borrowed so it increased the deficits (as did his useless war in Iraq).
This is a direct factor in the current mess because:
1) Without all this extra borrowing the real interest rates would probably be lower now (supply and demand remember?), and
thus many people's mortgages might not have reset to higher rates they can't afford.
2)These tax cuts also led some rich people to use this extra money for real estate speculation, which drove up the prices higher then they otherwise would have been.
Bush' tax cuts together with Greenspan's ultra low interest rates where the direct cause of the real estate bubble, which has now brought such pain to the entire economy.

The cause of the problems is that "ordinary" people have no money and have reached the limits of how much debt they can carry.
At that point the economy can only come to a grinding halt because 70% of the economy depends on consumer spending.
Ultimately the health of a business (and the economy) always depends on the solvency of its customers.
Whenever the economic pie in a country becomes distributed too inequally (because low taxes for the wealthy) you get predictable problems.
The consumers out there can't keep up their 70% of the economy if they no longer get 70% of the national income.
Simple.

Intrade said...

scatloch said :

    Had the banks not loaned money to people who had no business buying a home, then they would not have to speculate and pray that the homes would continue increasing in value to offset stagnant wages. The homeowner was to flip the house and then have a greater equity state in another home. The selling of these loans, based on pie in the sky assumptions, was a mark of greed on the part of both and no regulation (which began to be undone under Clinton and increased under Bush). Finally, it does not matter who is elected President, when Congress does not make the hard decisions and force greater oversight and regulations that are common sense to the average American.

Intrade said...

Gunner said :

    The fix we're in has little to do with tax cuts. Sure, tax cuts provide more capital to the economy and higher revenues to the government coffers. But the government, read both parties, have not only spent us into oblivion, but its policy of requiring lending institutions to lend money to companies and people who couldn't reasonably be expected to pay it back has bitten us in the backside.

Alan Greenspan, Christopher Dodd, and Barney Frank have painted us into a corner that we couldn't get out of. Then George Bush pushed the nationalization of lenders and other businesses that will cause us problems in the future - government tends to run business the same way it runs the local DMV.

Now the government has run up new deficits - over $1 trillion dollars since the begining of this fiscal year that started only a month ago. The money that was used to back the expenditures was mearly printed. This much money being introduced into the economy will be wildly inflationary.

Now Barack Obama, as president, will raise taxes on the business class. It is said that businesses don't pay taxes - their consumers do. The last time this was tried was by Herbert Hoover. This will prove to be a disaster the same as in the 1930s as this is exactly what caused the Great Depression.

Mr. Kudlow doesn't quite get it. But then again, neither does the government or the electorate.

Intrade said...

rhino86 said :

    Does this have something to do with loans to the unqualified, encouraged by democrats? Yes. But would it have had this impact on the credit markets if banks had not levered the loans to infinity and skirted regulations by selling insurance on the bonds they were supported to have sold? No fucking way.

Intrade said...

Lord Keynes said :

    Forget tax cuts.. raise them on every one and begin to lower debt.
THERE WILL BE NOT TAC CUTS
WITH EITHER JERK

Intrade said...

iamthebest said :

    Did you ever compare the types of people gathered at Democrat and Republican rallies? Generally speaking the Republican types are happy beautiful people (inside and out, whereas the Democrats are fairly ugly (physically and psychologically). The Dem's look like the miscreant types we all made fun of in high school. They are now located in the media, hollywood and in the schools. Now is their time take revenge! They need government to solve their problems because they cannot do so as individuals. Ultra liberal women literally hate Sara Palin- because to be her-is their dream. They are so jealous! They can never be her because of their inward selfishness and evil heart. No man really wants them other than to use them as a piece of flesh for a short time! (Far left liberals are very good at hate speech - conservatives are not- Ann Coulter (and myself) fill the void - It is so much fun to see you squirm when exposed!

Intrade said...

MichaelM said :

    Just some simple facts, as facts seem so lost in this important debate:

The top 1% of US income taxpayers earn 19% of all reported income and pay 37% of total income taxes paid.

The top 5% earn 33% and pay 57% of the total.

The top 10% earn 44% and pay 68% of the total.

The top 25% earn 66% and pay 85% of the total.

The top 50% earn 87% and pay 97% of the total.

The bottom 45% pay ZERO income taxes.

(source IRS 2004)

Intrade said...

Daemon55 said :

    The dumbest thing is your misquote. Obama said Bush policies caused the meltdown. You interpreted that as saying tax breaks for the rich caused the meltdown. It's not only a lie, the words are right there to see, it's a dumb lie.

Intrade said...

Reasonable Man said :

    No reason to get exercised about anything Kudlow says. He is so obviously (ususally ridiculously) partisan he doesn't even attempt to fairly comment on anything said by someone not in the GOP.

Intrade said...

how is this guy an economist said :

    if anyone has ever watched kudlow's program they'd see he has been time and time again incredibly wrong on the economy all year long until it was blatantly obvious the system was near collapse.

Intrade said...

Crow said :

    Income is less important than wealth in this debate. Wealth is much more unequally distributed than income. In 2004, the top five percent held almost 60% of the wealth in the United States, the top 20 percent almost 85%.

It is difficult to imagine a free economy where 80% of the population only has access to 15% of the wealth. The entire economy (and society) is necessarily dependent on those holding 85% of the wealth. Long term capital gains, btw, (i.e. gains from wealth) are taxed at a much lower rate (15%) than income.

If any one thing is to be blamed for the over-speculation in housing and capital markets I would point to that high concentration of wealth. Individuals with that much wealth are much better able and more willing to take risks, and certainly can't scrutinize their investments. Risk is a good thing, properly moderated. But we've seen the results of unmoderated risk taking.

A more equitable distribution of income taxes will not even begin to address the main problem, wealth inequality.

Intrade said...

Steve said :

    Kudlow is a partisan hack, and not a very good one. His words do not belong on this otherwise excellent site.

Obama's words are accurate, they only need to be fleshed out. The disastrous policies of the Bush administration here are not the tax cuts (though those were ill-advised, too), it's the DEREGULATION of the finance industry. Gramm-Leach-Bliley in 1999 and the Commodities Futures Modernization Act in 2000 opened up banking and real estate to rampant speculation--it wasn't Fannie or Freddie or ACORN or the CRA at all. The vast bulk of the sub-prime lending was done by UNREGULATED companies. Sheesh.

Deregulation means eliminating the cops who would have been watching for and preventing fraud. Fire the cops, and fraud starts to become rampant. Most of the perpetrators made a fortune. Most of the institutions that got burned were victims of the fraud, not the perpetrators.

Intrade said...

John in Michigan, USA said :

    To Crow, norseman, and all the others complaining that capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than income:

Time for you to LEARN.

First look at MichaelM's post with IRS facts - 45% of US taxpayers PAY NO INCOME TAX. This is due to refundable credits. Therefore their income tax rate is ZERO (0%) or NEGATIVE. Their capital gains, if they have any (and some do, as even these 45% own houses) will be 5% (since people earning below about $30,000 pay a lower capital gains rate than others) or 15%.

So for 45% of Americans, their income tax rate is MUCH lower than their capital gains rate.

People earning between 45% and 75% of the typical income pay about 13% of all income tax. It is hard to calculate their effective income tax rate, but it is probably at or below 15%. For this group income tax rate and capital gains tax rate is about equal.

Only for people earning 75% or more of the typical income is their income tax rate greater than the capital gains tax rate.

But there's more to it than that! Short-term capital gains are taxed at much higher rates.

And still more! Some capital gains are derived from company profits. Profits are taxed once as corporate income, again as capital gains. This double taxation means the effective tax rates on this type of capital gains is much higher than the published capital gains tax rate.

But it gets worse - The Democrats want to repeal the Bush capital gains tax cuts which will RAISE the capital gains tax rate on the poor from 5% to 10%, so when they sell their houses, they will pay more! WTF?!?

Intrade said...

eagleyes said :

    Do we still have a "goldilocks" economy?? By the way, Obama never said the tax cuts (for the big boys) was the cause of this mess. What he did say (correctly) is that Dubya's tax cuts contributed to the redistribution of wealth from the many to the few.

Intrade said...

eagleyes said :

    The dumbest story ever told is Kudlow's Goldilocks Economy!!

Intrade said...

rich said :

    Wow, for a second, I thought the article was going to be the belief that Obama might win is causing the stock market to meltdown.

Intrade said...

Cameron said :

    I have to admit that Mr. Kudlow does have a point about the Bush tax cuts. They did help boost the economy and got us out of the small recession that we were entering in 2001. I believe that Sentor Obama is incorrect when he states that the Bush tax cuts wer not good for America and when he blames Bush for the way that the economy is today. It is no more Bush's fault that we have a bad economy then it is Clinton's when we had a good economy. President's and there policies do affect the economy, but there are always other forces at work that can help or hinder those policies. If president's really controlled the economy as much as people think, we would never have a bad economy.

Intrade said...

psychomotikon said :

    umm...am I missing somethign here, but don't we actually have to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afganistan? Don't my neighbors have to eventually pay for their 4000 squaref foot grosstrosities? Bush's tax cuts were just hush money for stealing 2 elections. It won't happen again.

Intrade said...

12tilis said :

    kudlow would embrace sponge bobs ideas if he ran on a republican ticket. so his second best choice palin!

Intrade said...

feetontheground said :

    every time we run a deficit and spend a dollar we do not have we have the tax increase associated with that. i guess bush does not want to take responsiblity for that. then we have the interest we have to pay on that until it is paid off ... so, a deficit spent dollar is more than a dollar's tax increase, as well as a tax increase because to get the same amout of revenue we have to tax more to make up for having to pay interest on the debt.

these conversations are mostly delusional partisan politics.

Intrade said...

Jerry said :

    Kudlow get lost. What a hack. Like the Huffington Post. An insult to "free market."

Intrade said...

Damon said :

    Why doesn't Kudlow talk about the decline of the dollar during the 8 years of the Bush administration? The one trend that explains the both rise in US equity markets and the rise in commodities is the devaluation of the US dollar. The grow in the economy under Bush was a "nominal" growth due to the weak dollar.

In contrast, under Clinton's "high tax" regime, we had a great economy, low interest rates, low unemployment, a budget surplus, AND a strong dollar.

Intrade said...

CaldwellFarms said :

    A very thoughtful comment which I picked up on a web site. I am in complete agreement. The orange jump suits are too good for these people including Kudlow.

by literaryguru | November 1, 2008 at 09:37 pm

If... As America sits poised for what is the most momentous election of a generation, there is one possibility that lacks a realistic prediction: Obama loses. The frontrunner of a groundswell that began more than 2 years ago, the personification of a backlash to the Republican stranglehold on America’s character, Obama holds the hopes and dreams of a generation on the brink of spiritual and economic bankruptcy. If he fails, expect shock, anger and violence.
With a confident lead in the polls and an opponent using nothing more than malicious rhetoric to drag him back, a loss at this point would enrage a public desperate for change; desperate for a way out of the bleak condition the Republican Party has left this damaged superpower. With nothing more than an Obama T-shirt left to remind them of the one last chance at hope that was stolen by lies and political games, the frustration and rage that will follow will manifest itself in the streets of Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Miami and New Orleans. America itself will bleed.

You can expect people who lost their homes, their jobs and their lives to turn to aggressive and even criminal means to feed their families. Expect millions without healthcare to trade hope for anger. Expect the middle class, losing their futures to corporate America's greed, blatant sense of entitlement and government collusion, to act in a manner subversive to the government that stole their retirement. Expect renewed attacks from foreign enemies, galvanised by the idea of 4 more years of arrogant, neoconservative foreign policy without a shred of diplomacy in its mandate. Expect the Iraqi people, tired of American possession of their country, to return to the levels of violence from 2 years ago. If Obama loses, there will be consequences that no one seems to be talking about.

I just thought I’d mention it.

Intrade said...

hmp said :

    The "prosperity" of the last five years, like the "prosperity" of Republican administrations since Reagan, is the result of running up the national debt, and redistributing wealth to the upper class which committed it to financial assets.

If we want to truly understand the depth of Kudlow's understanding of the markets and the economy, replay some of his program tapes, where he praises the "goldilocks stock market," and the "greatest story never told" about the American economy. As recently as this past summer, Kudlow didn't see anything coming.

While whining about it, he has begged for the various socialist bailouts of the markets, which patently demonstrate how wrong his "Free Markets" premise has been.

Kudlow and his rich buddies are all about "ME," not satisfied that they already own everything, and crying about actually having to still pay SOMETHING in taxes. The middle class (and the economy as a whole) fared far better during the 60s, when income tax rates were far far higher than they are now. Median real income increased 39% during the sixties, and have fallen since.

The Reagan era is now finally over, and all we have left is the hangover and the bills our children and grandchildren will have to pay.

Intrade said...

brain said :

    Nice Republican talking points at the end there.

Intrade said...

SRQ said :

    Yeah, so Obama's wrong about the economy. Duh. So, is Bush, McCain, Kudlow, and nearly everyone who ever talks about the economy. Recessions are caused by a necessary contraction of investment following a period of inflation, easy credit, and mal-investment. It happens every time. Want to stop recessions from happening? Fire the FED and go back to 100% gold backed banking.

Intrade said...

asdf said :

    jjjjjjjjjjjjjj

Intrade said...

jim said :

    Kudlow: You've been so biased in your columns I'm surprised you're not introducing the brilliant John McCain ("The fundamentals of the economy are strong") at his rallies. "Spreading the wealth" has always been a Republican goal as income for the poor and middle class declines while the rich get richer. The top 1 percent of earners pulled in about 8 percent of all income in 1972. Today, the top 1 percent suck up about 22 percent of all income. Which camp are you in, Kudlow?

Intrade said...

Yadda said :

    Larry, so yo got a call from GE telling you to shutup? Why isn't your show on anymore? GE is corrupt.

Intrade said...

VIETVET said :

    YOU AND THOSE LIKE YOU ARE EVERYTHING THAT'S WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY. WE NEED TO GET OUR COUNTRY BACK FROM YOU AND YOURS BEFORE THIS COUNTRY DISAPPEARS. REMEMBER, WE'RE ONLY ABOUT 230 YEARS OLD. NOT VERY OLD. YOUR KIND WILL DESTROY WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN MANKIND'S GREATEST EXPERIMENT. PLEASE LEAVE!

Intrade said...

manthan33 said :

    hey larry how is socialism?

you love it dont you?

you also love making love with george w bush dont you?

Intrade said...

dave said :

    Mr. Kudlow I believe the gist of the trickle down logic goes something like this: cutting taxes allows everyone to profit. It especially allows large earners to profit. These profits are presumably reinvested in the economy, causing it to grow and raising the wealth of all. This is all fine and good. However, as large swathes of the companies and inviduals invest these profits, we might expect bubbles to form in asset classes which are in vogue. Housing, say. When these bubbles collapse it tends to mess with neighboring asset classes. When bubbles collapse in a big way, banks fail. When banks fail in a big way, governments fail. This, of course, we wish to avoid.

So is cutting taxes a bad thing? No, and Obama wouldn't say it is. But can adopting a completely hands-off approach to regulation, which Obama refers to as on of "Bush's failed policies," a bad thing? Yes.

Hence, while Obama's description of our shrinking economy as a result of "Bush's failed policies" may leave out some of the lineage, it is by no means untenable.

Intrade said...

See the future said :

    Mr Kudlow, I've been reading your comments and have found that your comments tend to lean so much to the right that it has become painful to digest them. Obviously you have reaped tax cut benefits during the Bush years and so have I. But I stronly disagree with your position. Bush has not done a single deed that merits any accomplishment: 9/11, Katrina, economic melt-down, Iraq. He may not be the cause for the economic melt-down but he should have seen/read signs for this melt-down coming. This Republican President, Bush, has managed to grow this government to a size that hasn't seen in years plus the deficit that is a national embarrassement. His incompetence has completely changed the faces of the American economy. Government has bought the banks, and the mortgage industry, we have been allowed to live off of $ from the Chinese, thus the never-seen deficit. Bush may not be at fault but he sure hasn't done anything to help or prevent the crisis. We're bordering a socialism in our economy and colonialism in our foreign policies, thanks to Bush. This country is no longer that free-economy, small government we all love. This all changed in the Republican Presidency and that's what's at stake in this election.

Intrade said...

Jeff said :

    The dumbest story I heard was the governor of California explaining that Obama should have used the campaign funds he spent on his 30-minute infomercial to pay off the debts of the American banks. According to Gov. Schwarzenegger, he could have rescued several major banks. Now who's missed the boat?

Intrade said...

Toxicbananas said :

    Cameron, is it mere coincidence that Bush I had a poor economy, Clinton had one of the best in our history. And then with Bush II it quickly went to poor economy, and then from poor to really bad. This guy talks about "economic growth" under Bush without mentioning any numbers. Compared to the growth under Clinton it looks like we're walking backwards.

It's not all coincidence. Deregulation leads to corruption, and corruption is simply bad for the economy.

Intrade said...

SRQ said :

    What I think is so funny is that all the Obama sheep are incapable of realizing that Obama isn't perfect. Anyone who implies that Obama isn't the greatest man who has ever walked the earth is immediately attacked as spouting "Republican talking points." Ha ha. Hey Obama sheep: get a clue! All politicians are crooks, even yours. BTW, tax cuts always make sense and always benefit everyone. Those evil rich people you seem to hate so much? You can tax them enough to put YOUR job in jeopardy. Baaaaaahh.

Intrade said...

SRQ? said :

    100% gold backed banking? Are you nuts man? Either I can't detect your sarcasm (you can work on that) or you can't read a history book...