Obama is pulling a GW Bush

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AngloNoise
Alberto Bisin

The GW Bush is the last (next to last?) version of the oldest trick in politics: exploit random events to scare people into accepting some extreme version of your agenda they would have never accepted otherwise.

The GW Bush of course consisted in

exploiting the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. to scare people into attacking Iraq.

Attacking Iraq was on GW Bush's extreme agenda for apparently two reasons: the personal reason was that Saddam Hussein had tried to kill G Bush father - and the son wanted vengeance; the real important reason was that the Neo-cons in the administration thought that the U.S. government's role in foreign policy was to expand democracy especially in the Arab world (the part of it which is not populated by "friendly regimes"). The GW Bush of course included every possible scare tactic known to man and a propaganda campaign based on a fundamental manipulation of the evidence, the evidence about the presence in Iraq of weapons of mass distraction, that is.

What's Obama doing that is this bad? Obama is

exploiting the 2008 crisis/recession in the U.S. to scare people into accepting a liberal (tax and spend) reform.

A liberal (tax and spend) reform was on Obama's extreme agenda for the real important reason that the Old-lib in the Democratic party, and now in the administration, think that the U.S. government's role in economic policy is to expand social protection to the middle class (the part of it which does not run businesses)

Obama's version of the GW Bush includes every possible scare tactic known to man and a propaganda campaign based ....... ok, here the analogy stops. We have not seen yet a fundamental manipulation of the evidence, the evidence about the gravity of the crisis, that is.

We'll check. "A pensar male si fa peccato ma spesso ci s'azzecca," used to say an old Italian politician (Translation: not trusting your fellow men is a sin, but it is often the correct thing to do").

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I don't quite see your point, Alberto. The crisis is there and it's damn scary: can we deny that? Politicians feel they should do something and sure does not surprise me that liberal politicians try a liberal reform. Repubblican would have tried a conservative reform. So what?

W was so much worse on so many levels, starting from the fact that IRAQ was never a threat and the very reasons for the war were actually based on sheer lies. Obama's reasons for acting now, OTH, are quite solid (the solution might not be the right one, but that is another point and not so obvious, anyway).

edit: also, the liberal reform was pretty much advertised during Obama's campaign and he got high consensus nevertheless. So I would not say people have been tricked into accepting it, now.

 

I don't quite see your point, Alberto. The crisis is there and it's damn scary: can we deny that? 

Can you deny 9-11? 

does not surprise me that liberal politicians try a liberal reform. Repubblican would have tried a conservative reform. So what?

Of course but this is besides the point. The liberal reform is 1) bigger than what people would accept, 2) irrelevant to the crisis (can't do without pointing to Michele's metaphor - band aid on the butt) 3) presented by propaganda as geared to the crisis. 

It's all there. Look, I like Obama - and have been made fun for this on this blog. But he is doing the same, sobstituting scare to arguments

I think the analogy is correct and is far from sinful. It's not surprising, though: there are a few things that make politics politics and a politician a politician, and exploiting X to scare the people into Y is one of them.

However, given the two alternatives, isn't it better to spend money to heal people rather than spending money to kill them?

Disagree. The Neo-con were convinced that they would have solved the whole middle east problem. They were not really about killing people. Delusional, yes. Cinic, yes. But visionary (wrong vision). 

Obama is doing the same. He'll kill less people. Agree. But he is possibly on train to make a 2 year recession into a 10 year depression. This is pretty bad. Sure, Iraq is much worse, but this is pretty bad. 

May I dare to write in italian ?

Concordo con Giulio: fa parte del DNA di qualsiasi politico scegliere di sfruttare le paure della gente per ottenere risultati, tuttavia non mi pare che Obama possa essere accusato di enfatizzare la crisi oltre i suoi limiti effettivi al fine di porre in essere strumenti non ipotizzati in precedenza.

Intanto non dimentichiamo che la prima iniezione di denaro pubblico è targata GW Bush col piano Poulson, quindi BO si è messo sulla scia del suo predecessore.

Inoltre, se è vero che we cannot deny 9/11, non dimentichiamoci che l'attacco alle torri gemelle fu un atto di terrorismo messo in atto da un gruppo limitato di persone e non un atto di guerra di uno sato sovrano, tant'è che la maggior parte dei commentatori e dell'opinione pubblica mondiale - all'epoca - era pienamente consapevole che l'attacco all'Iraq non sarebbe servito a catturare Bin Laden nè a vendicare 9/11.

Al contrario, l''ipotesi tax & spend (quanto meno il lato spend) è una opzione che una buona parte della comunità scientifica ed economica statunitense e mondiale considera capace di limitare i danni di una crisi che è oggettiva: insomma, non è una ricetta tirata fuori dal cappello per un pericolo inventato o gonfiato ad arte.

 

 

Sabino, anche con te sono in completo disaccordo. Intanto una cosa e' spaventare la gente dicendo che i Romeni stuprano per avere le ronde  e un'altra e' dire finirete tutti senza lavoro e triplicare il bilancio dello stato. 

E sul tax&spend ti sbagli: l'intera comunita' scientifica ed economica statunitense lo considera un errore; da 20 anni!

E io non sottovaluterei 9/11 come attacco: ex post e' facile, ma allora pareva proprio assolutamente reale che una guerra religiosa fosse stata lanciata all'occidente dal mondo arabo. La possibilita' di un attacco nucleare sporco su una citta' americana era (e forse e', non so) una realta' - forse piu' che non una grande recessione adesso. 

Naturalmente io mi diverto a provocare, ma secondo me l'ordine di grandezza di quello che ha fatto Bush e di quello che sta facendo Obama e' comparabile ex ante. La differenza vera sta nel fatto che la manipolazione di Obama si e' limitata a far credere (anche a te! Axel era predisposto, ma tu quoque!!) che tax&spend sia cosa accettata largamente, che siamo tutti keynesiani. Bush invece ha non solo convinto tutti che il terrorismo sia cosa accettata largamente tra i mussulmani; ma anche che Iraq aveva WMD. Il resto secondo me e' lo stesso

Ovviamente condivido al 100% quanto ha scritto Alberto. Kudos per Alberto, infatti, che quando ho avanzato la medesima ipotesi subito dopo il discorso d'inaugurazione non condivideva la mia posizione.

Era questo argomento che, seppure malamente, ho cercato di far capire dibattendo con De Long il quale, secondo me, sogna la disoccupazione al 20% per poter chiedere più spesa pubblica e più tasse perché la situazione è drammatica! Giuro che non ci siamo parlati (Alberto ed io) per concordare la posizione. È che, se si guarda ai fatti senza il paraocchi, è proprio tremendamente ovvio, e tremendamente grave. Come si fa a vederlo in Italia, dove GT&BS stanno usando lo stesso metodo, e non vederlo nel caso degli USA?

Il rischio reale è che le politiche economiche folli che si stanno adottando, assieme alle, ancora più folli, politiche economiche che NON si stanno adottando (leggi: rifare rapidamente e drasticamente il sistema finanziario) causino nel lungo periodo un danno umano e sociale peggiore (lo so, sembra incredibile, ma provate a fare i conti!) di quanto abbia fatto GWBush con le sue guerre di religione.

La politica non ci salverà proprio ragazzi, time to wake up. The state and the politicians were the main cause of this mess and their are not the solution: they are the problem, a problem that is getting worse every day, today included.

Infatti, Michele lo aveva detto. E anche Aldo.  Io ho tardato a scrivere questo post proprio per evitare di dare ragione a Michele e Aldo :) Ora non mi resta che argomentare che avevano si' ragione ma per le ragioni sbagliate. Ma non so se me la lasceranno passare. :) 

Sabino, cosa c'entra che in Europa c'era meno accordo sulla guerra? Naturalmente, 9/11 e' stato qui (lo so che ci sono stati attentati anche in Spagna e UK; ma era chiaro che la Spagna bastava uscisse per pararsi il c. - situazione molto diversa rispetto a US e in modo diverso anche UK). 

Mi spiace, ragazzi, piace anche a me Obama. Ma i danni che sta facendo sono immensi - davvero immensi, altro che tax and spend. Tax and spend significa aiutare gli insegnanti sindacalizzati e i produttori di auto, non buttare una decina di trillioni a tutto cio' che non si muove o si muove poco. 

GW could control the CIA quite effectively, or at least pull intelligence selectively without anyone knowing there was other evidence, I tend to believe Obama cannot tell the Census bureau to make up data, and he certainly can read their data selectively, but we know about ALL of the evidence available to him. At least I hope... 

Permettetemi di ammonire che non bisognerebbe mai sacrificare il buon senso per il puro perseguimento dell'eleganza intellettuale.

Il vostro disquisire su di un possibile parallelo (motivazionale e non solo - sic) tra il ruolo di Bush e di Obama nel perseguimento di tattiche propagandistiche non e` solo di cattivo gusto ma pure spiacevole in quanto pone in cattiva luce impianti teorici pensati per scopi essenzialmente pratici ed al servizio del bene collettivo, anziche` per le vostre sterili seghe mentali.

Per cortesia datevi un contegno.

oh come on....let's not be utterly ridicolous...

this stuff is unbecoming of you. it's CPAC-Rush Limbaugh B.S. spiced up with some near-sighted and trite CATO institute ideology...the next tall tale you will tell me is that Reagan was for small governemnt and fiscal responsibility and that Obama is a closet socialist who will collectivize all means of production and eat all the first born from republican families by 2012......then your credibility will reach negative values and we will all have a big laugh...

why do you want to hurt yourself in this way?

probably from your pampered and protected tenured academic position the situation seems less scary. lucky you...sleep well. those of us waiting to be downsized see it differently.

this is one of the most centrists and pragmatists presidents ever, surrounded by above-average economists, with a liberal agenda sure, but an agenda that was far from hidden, but rather in plain view for 2 years of campaign...he got well above 50% of the vote and he is not tricking anybody into doing who knows what. who thinks differently has been only listening to his own progaganda not to him...

why would tax cuts work when the prime rate hit even zero % and any tax cut will clearly go into savings rather than into increase in demand?

all your certainty scares me, because it is so prevalent among Republicans and we won't get out of this damn hole without some flexibility and courage to experiment.

 

Hei guys (Paolo, Max,...), you are completely off mark. I have all my Obama buttons, my shirts, I have danced drunk in Union Square when he won,.... don't give me shit, please. Don't give me the "you Republicans are always the same....". I do not accept this. I really don't. I am trying to make some arguments here. And it is painful for me because I come exactly from where you come. But calling "Republican" everything you do not like is not a great showcase of intelligence. Too easy. I have hoped for Obama to do something intelligent. I have looked at his middle of the road beautiful speeches with great expectations (downplaying the scary things he also said in those), I am looking at what he does and how he does it, and I have to conclude he is badly fucking up. He is spending like crazy, he will tax the hell out of any recovery, and he is refusing to fix financial markets. He is guiding us straight into Japan's lost decade, with a vengeance. I might be wrong. I even hope I am. But your calling this republican (o seghe mentali che fa lo stesso) does not make it wrong; it actually makes it right, because it explains how is it possible that Obama can pull this trick - because the world is full of people like you - exactly like the world is full of people who think Muslims are necessarily bad and Arabs worse and hence of course entering Iraq is good. There you go, another relationship with Bush: the quality of the arguments of the supporters.

 

why would tax cuts work when the prime rate hit even zero % and any tax cut will clearly go into savings rather than into increase in demand?

 

And where, pray, would the savings go? Under the bed? If banks do not lend the money they receive as deposits (plus the one lent by the FED) it's because the financial system is broken, and fixing it is THE priority, without costly distractions.

(Apart from the fact that I still have to understand why a crisis rooted in irresponsible overspending of borrowed money could be resolved with even more spending of borrowed money.)

Tralasciamo le iperboli e le affermazioni ingiustificate che altri, con la pelle più tenue e cosparsa di creme politicamente corrette, chiamerebbero "insulti".

Atteniamoci ai fatti, and let's do it in English just to make sure.

1. You write

 

your pampered and protected tenured academic position the situation seems less scary. lucky you...sleep well. those of us waiting to be downsized see it differently.

 

But then you present yourself here as

 

microbiologo molecolare ad Harvard Medical School

 

Split personality of just a plain case of propaganda taking hold of your inner self?

2. You also write

 

this is one of the most centrists and pragmatists presidents ever, surrounded by above-average economists, etcetera

 

Pragmatist he is for sure, especially on the account of the way he keeps dishing much more money on the friendly bankers than on his beloved social programs. Even according to the CBO (thanks to De Long for bringing this to my attention) he (the President) will be spending at most 100 billion dollars this year on "stimulus" items, whereas he's well on the way to spend at least three times as much to keep the jobs of incompetent bankers and insurers.

For the rest, instead, I would wait and see; including the fact that his advisors are "above average" ... you see, Bernanke, Mankiw, Hubbard, and so on, were (and are) also "above-average", still, this did not prevent the previous administration from making the mistakes it made ... You see, the advisor matters very little: it is the political will to go one direction or another that matters.

3. Then you get technical and write

 

why would tax cuts work when the prime rate hit even zero %

 

You see, Max, I would never dare to speak of microbiology like I know what I am talking about just because I read a couple of rambling newspaper columns by the microbiology analogous of Paul Krugman or Bradford De Long ...

The prime is at 3.25% and most lending rates to consumers are higher, quite a bit higher, today than they were a year ago; here are the numbers updated daily. Further, every observer agrees that lending criteria have tighten up substantially, some say "dramatically". What this means is that consumers have a MUCH HARDER time to borrow now than a year ago.

What this also means is that, if consumer X likes to buy a car or a refrigerator (i.e. do the famous "consuming" that keeps up the "aggregate demand" the above-average economists surrounding Obama want to sustain by building empty schools in Milwaukee) that consumer X will have a very hard time to obtain credit and would be much better off having his own CASH! Hence, EITHER you are willing to claim (everything is possible these days) that cutting people's income taxes and leaving money in their pocket reduces (everything else equal) their propensity to consume OR you must conclude that cutting labor income taxes and leaving the money in the pockets of workers will INCREASE consumption and, hence, AGGREGATE DEMAND!

I am aware that Brad De Long and Paul Krugman desperately try to argue this is not the case (or, maybe, simply do not understand it) but I am actually confident that a smart microbiologist like you can figure it out by doing a simple thought experiment upon himself. And I am NOT trying to pull your leg here, I mean it. Just think about what YOU would do IF you had been thinking about purchasing the durable good Z.

4. Finally you appeal to

 

some flexibility and courage to experiment.

 

and here we finally agree. What people like Alberto, myself, and hundreds of "not alligned" (along party lines) economists are trying to do is exactly that. Point out that what we are facing is DIFFERENT from the past, that the standard models (first and foremost the one prescribing public spending as the "cure") could not predict nor can explain and that, BECAUSE of these reasons, we need to think out of the box and come up with original solutions instead of reaching, in pavlovian fashion, for the obvious and the often tried that almost always failed.

Thinking out of the box, that's what we are trying to do here: nothing to do with "Republicans" ...the only times I feel "republican" is when I have to shake hands with el Senor Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias ...

 

that's not a news, isn't it? the financial system is broken, overexposed, banks are scared of lending to each other and to the customers, and whatever savings they get are not invested anywhere. so they might as well be under a bed for all I know. for all practical purposes they are. And granted, irresponsible borrowing AND  lending AND lack of oversight are at the root of the crisis.

so? Can't they do more than one thing at the time? is it so absurd to propose that while (trying) to fix the bank system, the government may be able to support the demand temporarily in a moment where the private sector is de facto pulling out and where no amount of tax cut (even marginal rates tax cuts) is probably going to do anything at all? especially if that kind of infrastructure investment has worked other times (and please spare me the mantra that Keynes polocies prolongued the recession by 10 years, I see arguments going both ways)? I know you all have an allergy to Keynes, but how can you be so sure that these supply-side recipes that I keep reading on conservative think-tank writings are going to work in the current unprecedented chaos?

that's what I hear from the other side, many economists, and they are not all left-wing lunatics... that's all

Spero tu legga il lungo commento che ti ho appena scritto, e che provi a pensare con la tua testa.

In particolare, rifletti sulle seguenti domande:

- che evidenza hai che si stia davvero cercando di "fix" the broken financial system? Da quello che si vede si stanno solo donando alle medesime centinaia di miliardi perché continuino a pagarsi l'un l'altro le scommesse (chiamate "derivati") che fecero a suo tempo l'un con l'altro, sorbendo Dom Perignon ...

- tralascia pure le opinioni degli economisti a favore e contro lo stimolo. Leggitelo e poi chiediti: in che maniera i provvedimenti lì previsti serviranno nei prossimi 6-12 mesi a far crescere la domanda di quei beni la cui domanda sembra oggi cadere a picco? Ossia auto, frigoriferi, case, televisioni, mobili, eccetera? Prova a pensare concretamente: COME?

Fine... I'll go back to my corner, put on the donkey hat and do some more reading. By the way, my reference to the interest rate was guided by articles like these:

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7786282.stm

but maybe I should stop reading BBC and listening to NPR, I'm sure that would would be your advice.

[Of course I have a political point to make...who wrote the article made a strong political point! che stiamo qui a pettinar le bambole? but I don't see how you can uncouple your economics from your politics. they feed into each other, I was under the impression that believing otherwise was as delusional as believing in any god (ps: mine was a unfortunate figure of speech, as we can agree on something right now: there is no god, none, either small or capital G)]

Of course there is a political point. But there is an argument as well. So much so that the political point I made is adversarial to my political side. Your point is that I sound as Rush L. I have no idea what RL says (a part from the discussion raging these days about his hopes that Obama fails - which I certainly do not share - I fear he'll fail, because he is going wrongly at the problem). I do not know what he stands for, nor do I care. I have been accused of being a closet communist for my views about Obama and now of being a right wing nut. It happens. It feels bad at first, but then it sinks in and it feels good to see people incoherently trying to classify what you write. You should try it some times. Say something right wing if it you think it's correct. It's liberating :)

I think it is hard to deny that Obama's team does not want to "waste the crisis". Still, the comparison with Bush seems unduly harsh.

First, as already noted by Alberto, "We have not seen yet a fundamental manipulation of the evidence".

Second, Bush had not been elected based on a plan to invade Iraq (and 9/11 is not a valid justification, since Bush knew perfectly well that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or al Qaeda and that the WMD stories were unsubstantiated by evidence). Obama instead has been elected on a platform that is pretty much what he's doing now (rightly or wrongly does not matter here).

Sure, he could ask Congress to take out of the Stimulus Bill all those provisions that are not really stimulus related, put them in separate bills and "sell" them separately, but frankly I don't feel like asking so much of a politician.

P.S.

The Stimulus Bill (which I have not read) seem to contain a lot of classic "pork" that is neither stimulus-related, nor obviously part of Obama's agenda. I believe the tradition is to blame Congress more than the President for that kind of things.

Ecco, io scrivo un pezzo urlando il mio disgusto per quello che sta facendo Obama. Sono schifato da come Geithner sta evitando di agire sulle banche,  e poi sul Corriere di oggi leggo la seguente dichiarazione di Bossi: 

 "Dunque «serve un sistema di controllo legato al governo» che sia in grado di verificare l'effettiva erogazione di credito alle imprese. «Tremonti vuole affidare il controllo alle prefetture», ha proseguito Bossi che si è detto d'accordo su questa soluzione."

"Alle prefetture"; l'ho letto 3 volte. non ci potevo credere. "Alle prefetture". Prometto, mi trattengo la prossima volta su Obama e Geithner, che per quanto loro non saranno mai cosi' in  fondo. 

guarda che non è una ipotesi, l'idea di usare le prefetture è già contenuta nel provvedimento sui Tremonti bond.

A tutti gli effetti, almeno in Italia, la crisi  si sta rivelando un'occassione d'oro della politica per  tornare a controllare il mondo del credito.

Scusa Alberto, ovviamente l'idea di conferire ai prefetti il potere di controllo sull'effettiva erogazione di credito alle imprese - in relazione alle garanzie governative di cui si parla - è un'emerita castroneria.

Fortunatamente non è proprio così e, more solito, Bossi ha capito a modo suo (oppure finge, la questione rimarrà irrisolta ....): si tratta solo di mettere a disposizione il luogo fisico - le sedi prefettizie - dove equipes composte dagli attori economici (sostanzialmente rappresentanti di banche ed imprese) possano verificare l'andamento della cosa, che oggi suscita molte polemiche, in un modo incontestabile (bah, ci credo molto poco ....).

In ogni caso è del tutto inutile, ma il coinvolgimento dei prefetti - che delegheranno un collaboratore a far atto di presenza ufficiale - serve solo ai nostri amati politici per dimostrare quanto prendono sul serio la situazione. Insomma, è solo una forma di propaganda, tipica, del resto ....

Non si tratta di un'invenzione di Bossi ma di norme e prassi che sono assolutamente plausibili nell'Europa continentale, che sara' bene ricordare e' parecchio statalista. Il monitoraggio dell'erogazione del credito da parte delle banche e' coerente se non conseguente alla Costituzione italiana vigente (che e' statalista e catto-comunista, ma nondimeno e' stata approvata e promulgata a grande maggioranza, e corrisponde ancora alle idee e alla mentalita' di buona parte dei sudditi). Il monitoraggio delle banche da parte delle Prefetture e' contenuto nei provvedimenti di Tremonti che - secondo quanto scrive il Corriere della Sera - seguono un modello gia' sperimentato con successo in Francia.