Bush: "I don't think we're headed to recession."

[iNow]

The relevance is America is a period of record credit card debt, not to mention debt in general.

 

Spending is a bad thing for the economy if you're spending on credit. Unfortunately that's something the present Administration doesn't seem to get...

 

Looks like I was making my edit at the same moment as you were posting this...

[ParanoiA]

Why does optimism increase or lose its effectiveness if that's the ONLY treatment ever given? Its efficacy would seem to be stagnant at this point.

I'm not sure I understand you -- are you saying that's the only thing the president ever does about the economy? I would say that that's not the case at all. Didn't he just sign the stimulus package two weeks ago? A drop in the bucket' date=' of course, but a bigger drop than any knuckle-headedly optimistic public statements, or so it seems to me. [/quote']

 

No, I meant if "optimism therapy" is the only treatment given, then I don't understand why its effectiveness fluctuates. Yet, like you said in the previous post, it does. I'm really just being rhetorical.

 

Because he's not an economist, he's a politician. Is there a shortage of available clinical analyses from the real experts inside and outside the administration? Fed Chairman Bernanke is speaking on an almost daily basis. You'll notice that much of what he does is cheerleading as well, but it's rather more analytical, direct, reflective of reality and (most importantly) indicative of upcoming Fed Reserve actions that have real impact.

 

Good point and excellent navigation. Which implies another question then...why the hell even comment? You're right, he's not an economist and so my insistance on a clinically analytical review from him is unreasonable, and further still, any comment from him on the matter is equally irrelevent. I know the answer to my question, I just can't help asking anyway.

[Realitycheck]

What the President should be doing is barking out orders, "Work harder. Spend more. Buy low. Sell high. Buy domestic."

[Pangloss]

Good point and excellent navigation. Which implies another question then...why the hell even comment? You're right, he's not an economist and so my insistance on a clinically analytical review from him is unreasonable, and further still, any comment from him on the matter is equally irrelevent. I know the answer to my question, I just can't help asking anyway.

 

Well that's how I see it, but I guess Bascule and iNow view it differently, and that's fine, I respect their opinion, I just think there are times when a President is SUPPOSED to say something positive because that's what the situation calls for -- you put out a certain positive face in public, and meanwhile you pedal like mad underneath the surface. Clinton and every other president have done exactly the same thing, so will president Obama. Republicans, conservatives and just general Clinton-haters constantly bashed Clinton for it for eight years, and I didn't like it then either, nor will I like it when they do it to Obama. I think that's making partisan hay out of a normal job function, but if it's intended as honest criticism, and not partisanship, I'm glad to hear it.

 

That doesn't mean that Bush isn't stupid or that he does understand the economy. I don't have a problem with criticism on those points at all (though I only partially agree with it) -- there have been plenty of valid examples of Bushisms and rash statements from the White House over the years. This just isn't one of them.

[ParanoiA]

That doesn't mean that Bush isn't stupid or that he does understand the economy. I don't have a problem with criticism on those points at all (though I only partially agree with it) -- there have been plenty of valid examples of Bushisms and rash statements from the White House over the years. This just isn't one of them.

 

I agree. It's the "thoughtless" bashing that bugs me (although I'm sure I'm guilty of this as well). Or the enmity generated by virtue of their position and philosophy masked in particulars. Why is every great president hated and loved? Partisanship. Why is Bush considered a devil rather than just a guy we disagree with philosophically? Partisanship.

[D H]

Clinton and every other president have done exactly the same thing.

Not every other president. Carter talked about a "crisis of confidence" that had overtaken the country. It was, IMO, this "malaise speech" more than anything else that led to the Reagan presidency. Not withstanding a 19th century fool running for President, will not go back to the gold standard. The value of the dollar depends a lot, a whole lot, on public perception. Grandstanding in public and working like mad in private to improve the economy is part and parcel of the President's job.

[Pangloss]

Carter WAS more direct and realistic than most -- it was one of the few things about the Carter administration that I applauded. But all that really got him in the end was accusations of pessimism and more ammunition for Reagan and Kennedy (I still think Carter was probably the most under-siege president in modern history, even including Bush). That's the problem for sitting presidents -- they're damned if they speak, and they're damned if they don't.

 

But I also remember Carter spinning positive economic news. Presidents always struggle with this trade-off between making realistic responses to obvious bad news and still trying to sound positive, and Carter was no exception. Carter had attacked Ford over his economic policy, but had been rather disastrously unable to turn things around, and was defending an economy that was probably an order of magnitude worse than the current one, when adjusted for inflation. But he still tried to spin things positive.

 

This article in Time Magazine, dating from 1980, seems relevent here, showing the press apparently translating positive economic spin one day and realistic policy announcements the next to mean that the administration didn't know what was going on (which, as with Bush today, could still be a fair assessment):

 

There was no indication, however, that the emerging program would solve the fundamental befuddlement in Administration economic management. Carter himself exhibited the confusion last week by saying at separate points in a single interview that the nation's economic situation had "reached a crisis stage" and that his economic policies "suit me fine."

 

Others were hardly complacent. Snapped J. Robert Fluor, chairman of Fluor Corp., a leading manufacturing and construction firm: "Carter has vacillated so much that I find it difficult to know what he wants or doesn't want." Sneered a New York banker in reference to the President: "Inflation has caught us between a marshmallow and a hard place."

 

(Also worth a read for the amusing sidebars of candidate Kennedy screaming for mandatory wage and price controls. And adding a bar and sickle to the American flag. Just kidding. About the bar and sickle, I mean.)

 

Anyway, in other words he's trying to do positive spin while also trying to be realistic about the situation, and it's becoming fodder for the axe grinder. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

 

This article seems to support what I'm saying more directly:

 

As Carter himself conceded, the nation is suffering the kind of economic ills that demand hard choices. The outlook for 1980, as set forth in the message: recession. After growing by a paltry .8% in 1979, the nation's output of goods and services is expected to decline this year by 1%. Administration officials tried to turn that lemon into lemonade by wistfully predicting that the slump "would be largely over by midyear." But that may prove optimistic.