Going Down
Nov. 12th, 2008 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billroperYes, I understand that there is only one President at a time. I also understand that President-elect Obama is still a U.S. Senator and putatively the new leader of his party, as well as the soon-to-be leader of the country.
Given that the stock market has declined pretty abruptly on every day save one following the election, it would seem like just maybe someone ought to get out of Chicago, back to Washington, and show some leadership in trying to put together appropriate legislation. Given that the financial markets generally abhor uncertainty, it would also seem like it might be a good idea for our President-elect to announce which version of tax policy he intends to call for sometime soon, because he hasn't said.
Unless, of course, the objective is to see exactly how bad you can help things become before January 20th through your simple inaction. I'd like to believe that's not the objective.
Doing something would be a good start.
Given that the stock market has declined pretty abruptly on every day save one following the election, it would seem like just maybe someone ought to get out of Chicago, back to Washington, and show some leadership in trying to put together appropriate legislation. Given that the financial markets generally abhor uncertainty, it would also seem like it might be a good idea for our President-elect to announce which version of tax policy he intends to call for sometime soon, because he hasn't said.
Unless, of course, the objective is to see exactly how bad you can help things become before January 20th through your simple inaction. I'd like to believe that's not the objective.
Doing something would be a good start.
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 09:41 pm (UTC)It sounds like he is still involved as a Senator, although I'd prefer he went ahead and stepped down so that his replacement could get his feet wet and gain the seniority ranking from being there a month before the elected folks. He has taken a more active role since the election than either Clinton or either Bush did.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 09:45 pm (UTC)And if the plan requires a House member to introduce it, I'm sure that someone would be happy to do so for the President-elect.
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Date: 2008-11-12 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 09:51 pm (UTC)And as I said, the markets abhor uncertainty. Making a clear statement about what you intend your policies to be would tend to reduce that uncertainty, especially in the area of taxation.
All I know what I read on the internet
Date: 2008-11-12 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-13 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 10:05 pm (UTC)Appreciation
Date: 2008-11-12 10:09 pm (UTC)Nate
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Date: 2008-11-12 10:12 pm (UTC)Seems to me that Obama has been busy doing what he's supposed to be doing; building a transition team, working on the composition of his new administration, working on the transition with the existing administration.
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Date: 2008-11-12 10:20 pm (UTC)I asked for leadership, which I believe he was elected to provide. I am entitled to ask for that as a citizen.
Of course, sometimes when you ask for leadership, the answer is "No".
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Date: 2008-11-12 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-13 01:26 am (UTC)Quite honestly I don't know that anything anybody could suggest right now would have any effect on the psychotic stock market. The market hasn't been tied to anything for a while, IMO. We get good news, the market goes down. We get bad news, the market goes up.
Miracle?
Date: 2008-11-12 11:37 pm (UTC)Nate
no subject
Date: 2008-11-13 01:13 am (UTC)We know that Oh, So Well - look at the last eight years. If that's leadership .... don't step in it.
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Date: 2008-11-17 11:07 pm (UTC)In case you missed it, that's a rhetorical question. I already know the answer: if you did, you sure didn't bother posting that request here.
Bill, I really like you and I usually respect you. But we are on such different wavelengths on political discussion it's difficult to believe we're in the same universe.
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Date: 2008-11-18 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 10:48 pm (UTC)For the immediate future, the markets are going to pay attention to how Paulson says he is going to use the $700B plus any additional monies the Fed controls. Perhaps equally important, what the other governments are doing. Both of those represent real money, right now.
Beyond that, the regular financial news sucks, and anything to fix that is going to take more than just the announcement of a high level plan by Obama or Bush. If anything causes an immediate surge in the markets, it's just a short-term bubble.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 10:50 pm (UTC)Of course, he's going to be anything but lying on a beach. In just over two months, he's going to be on the hot seat as Commander in Chief for two crises we're calling wars, plus a whole host of older and smaller messes in the wider world, plus whatever new crap goes down between now and January 20. Being ready for that just might keep him a little busy.
Further, there's the fact that starting Jan 21, he's going to get hammered for every one of the thousands of political appointments in the executive branch that aren't filled yet and at the same time viciously excoriated for the few that didn't get vetted well enough and have a skeleton in their closet. He'll of course have a lot of help from his transition team on this, but he needs to be involved.
And lastly, there's the fact that we've had eight years of an administration that has routinely done just as it pleased without regard to Congress, the courts, or the Constitution. Pretty much every department policy, executive order, signing statement, and regulatory change from the Bush years deserves to be examined, and a whole lot of them need to be changed as soon as he has the authority. Again, he delegates a lot of the work here, but he has to provide the vision and direction, and he's caught between his critics who will shred him for any mistakes and his own supporters who will berate him if he doesn't act fast enough.
The responsibilities he faces as the incoming President are terrifying. I do have hope -- though not certainty -- that he'll be able to do a good job with all of it. I am absolutely sure, though, that he can't afford to waste a second on anything that he can leave to someone else.
The only reason, in fact, that I don't support the idea that he should resign from the Senate immediately is the faint possibility that Blagojevich could get hit by a bus without getting to name his successor.
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Date: 2008-11-13 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-13 03:20 am (UTC)Considering the way he ran the campaign and everything else, I'd say he's careful and deliberative on things. Not indecisive, but he's not going to be hurried.
Over and above that, he's been a tad busy.
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Date: 2008-11-13 02:47 am (UTC)Obama is neither a fool nor a slacker, and I'm pretty sure he's working on that very issue this week. Among many others.
Frankly, any complex policy that could be produced so quickly should be regarded by the markets (and anyone else) with deep suspicion. Provided thy were rational, of course. Uh, never mind...
no subject
Date: 2008-11-13 03:13 am (UTC)Been there; done that.
On a more serious note, are you really contending that uncertainty about Obama's tax policies (which have been outlined pretty clearly for quite some time now) is the cause of the market problems? Most companies are losing money hand over fist. You have to have profits to be taxed on them.
Obama needs to get his team together and be ready to hit the ground running on January 20th. That's more important in the long term than any short term grandstanding.
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Date: 2008-11-13 03:15 am (UTC)I think he's been doing about as much as he can without being accused of trying to shove the Bushes out into the snow before he's inaugurated.
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Date: 2008-11-13 04:06 am (UTC)You had pretty high hopes for George Bush, and he must have disappointed you in many ways. Certainly the civil unions thing never happened, for example, and the Bush tax cuts, though vigorously applied for the following 4 years, didn't do all that much to fix the economy, at least as far as I can see, nor did he do anything about the AMT that I recall (it seems to me that the obvious thing is to index it to inflation--in 1970 dollars, or 1986; either one). Nor did he do anything about unfunded liabilities in Social Security or Medicare. Yet you managed to be fairly patient with him.
It isn't fair to expect you to be *as* patient with Obama, since you start out not liking him. I understand that. I freely admit that I wasn't as patient with George Bush as I will be with Obama.
But maybe a portion of that patience would be reasonable?
Also, a bit later you made an observation on the stock market that I think still holds true (from All that Social Security Jazz: But there's another advantage: in the long run, the stock market will earn a higher rate of return than Treasury securities. Yes, I know that the market cratered in 2000 when the Internet bubble burst and that there are risks involved. If there was no risk involved, then you would not get a better long-run return.... In this case, risk means "volatility", the chance that the asset will be worth either more or less than you would forecast at some time in the future.
Your point was that the stock market is volatile; it goes up and down, sometimes not very predictably. We're in a recession right now, people who handle stock hear about layoffs and consumers spending less and they naturally think that stocks will have lower returns until things turn around. Rallies and drops seem mostly to be a case of random movements appearing to be a migration and people following the herd for a few hours until it all falls apart again. This is disturbing, but I think it's part of the stock market's natural life cycle. Indeed, I plan to make my 2008 IRA contributions tomorrow.
I really think it will be okay. In four years, you can come back to me and see if I think then that I'm right now :-)
Dude, REALLY?
Date: 2008-11-13 06:29 pm (UTC)Um, why doesn't the current "LEADER" of our country show some leadership?
Also, as proven by the current crop of political morons who obviously never took an economics class, (but you have, Bill, so shame on you for not remembering this), THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT - CANNOT - CONTROL THE STOCK MARKET.
Hell, Wall street doesn't even control it anymore - you know who does? Hordes of hysterical, uneducated idiots trading online, and slightly more educated idiots in control of pension funds, etc. The market is going to flail for a while. Suck it up. Lots of people did stupid things, and now we are seeing the end result of it. There WILL be pain, a LOT of it, before this is over. Accept that. Hell, invest some capital in the market while it's in a tailspin and take ADVANTAGE of it.
The market will eventually correct. Assuming the idiots in office actually let poorly run companies fail. Like they Should. If they continue to squander tax dollars to prop up companies that should be allowed to fail, then the pain will be intensified, and delayed.
But please do not ask a guy who hasn't even taken a job yet to fix the stupidity of the guy who is currently holding the job. you are smarter than that.
And, for the record, the only people in Washington while congress is in recess are exactly the ones you DON'T want him strategizing with.
Re: Dude, REALLY?
Date: 2008-11-13 06:40 pm (UTC)Right now, it is unclear (despite what some other posters have said) what economic and tax policies President Obama will be promulgating in concert with the Democratic-controlled Congress that we already have and that will be operating with larger majorities next year. I am not asking him to wave a magic wand and fix things. I am asking him to share his plans so that the market can react accordingly.
And, of course, the current leader is somewhat constrained by what the Democratic-controlled Congress will approve, especially since we have already seen demonstrated that they can't (or won't) manage to whip their own votes into line. It is, however, the Democrats in Congress who I expect will do the most to preserve companies that should be allowed to fail by approving funding without any attempt to correct the underlying problems.
I could be wrong. (And, as you may have noted from an earlier post, I have been buying equities lately...)
Re: Dude, REALLY?
Date: 2008-11-13 07:13 pm (UTC)Re: Dude, REALLY?
Date: 2008-11-13 07:32 pm (UTC)Re: Dude, REALLY?
Date: 2008-11-13 09:10 pm (UTC)