Niall Ferguson: Obama’s Gotta Go

In short - it's important to note that Ferguson's audience isn't the public, or anyone in the fact-based sphere; he's auditioning for Wingnut Welfare. The guy is ostensibly a professor but makes his real living giving speeches to right-wing organizations and corporations at 50-75k a pop. He's not trying to elucidate or uncover any primal truths about Obama - he's performing the initial steps of a job interview.

First, Ferguson seeks to hold Obama responsible for correcting the 6 million jobs that were lost in the year BEFORE he was elected, by setting January 2008 as the baseline to judge Obama's performance by. This is absolutely ludicrous on it's face, and only used b/c it's a metric that allows him to deny that Obama has done a good job stopping the bleeding.

I picked the high point of January 2008 because it seems to me reasonable to ask how much of the ground lost in the crisis have we actually made up under Obama. The answer is not much. You may not like that, but it’s a fact

Second, Ferguson apparently had no idea that Census hiring is a repeated government function, and that the jobs hired for the census were always going to be temporary... he uses that data to somehow judge and doom Obama's stimulus efforts.

In short - it's important to note that Ferguson's audience isn't the public, or anyone in the fact-based sphere; he's auditioning for Wingnut Welfare. The guy is ostensibly a professor but makes his real living giving speeches to right-wing organizations and corporations at 50-75k a pop. He's not trying to elucidate or uncover any primal truths about Obama - he's performing the initial steps of a job interview.

Given that his understanding of facts has been shown to be rather shaky, and his conclusions are suspect, and he makes his living by telling the right side of our political sphere what they want to hear, why should anyone take what he says seriously? Why should his conclusions be given any weight at all? They clearly shouldn't.

What more, I asked in the last thread if you had actually read any of this. You didn't respond that you had, and I still believe that you didn't read a word of it before using it for support of a position you were making. That you did so in a thread dedicated to the idea that Liberals were susceptible to some sort of herd mentality is just, too funny.

Cycloptichorn

He used 1/08 to demonstrate the start of the crisis and to show where the economy was when the crisis started. Not to show where Obama started as that should be obvious that Obama was not President in 1/08.

How about this... quote part of his article you disagree with, then explain why it is wrong.

Your criticisms rely on others

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He used 1/08 to demonstrate the start of the crisis and to show where the economy was when the crisis started. Not to show where Obama started as that should be obvious that Obama was not President in 1/08.

But, the point is that 'the economy' was massively inflated - including in terms of jobs - by the mortgage bubble that the last admin allowed to grow and pop. You can't measure employment from that point and judge someone as a failure if they haven't returned to the artificially inflated benchmark. It simply makes no sense at all to do so.

Yet the question confronting the country nearly four years later is not who was the better candidate four years ago. It is whether the winner has delivered on his promises. And the sad truth is that he has not.

In his inaugural address, Obama promised “not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.” He promised to “build the roads and bridges, the electric grids, and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.” He promised to “restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” And he promised to “transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.” Unfortunately the president’s scorecard on every single one of those bold pledges is pitiful.

In an unguarded moment earlier this year, the president commented that the private sector of the economy was “doing fine.” Certainly, the stock market is well up (by 74 percent) relative to the close on Inauguration Day 2009. But the total number of private-sector jobs is still 4.3 million below the January 2008 peak. Meanwhile, since 2008, a staggering 3.6 million Americans have been added to Social Security’s disability insurance program. This is one of many ways unemployment is being concealed.

Quote:

How about this... quote part of his article you disagree with, then explain why it is wrong.

Tell ya what - I'll do that after you truthfully assert that you read any of this before posting anything about it.

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Your criticisms rely on others

When I quote and link to economists and analysts who point out how he's wrong, it's a failure on my part? I've never been accused of providing TOO MUCH backup evidence for my position before.

Cycloptichorn

Re: Cycloptichorn (Post 5087230)
Quote:
In short - it's important to note that Ferguson's audience isn't the public, or anyone in the fact-based sphere; he's auditioning for Wingnut Welfare. The guy is ostensibly a professor but makes his real living giving speeches to right-wing organizations and corporations at 50-75k a pop. He's not trying to elucidate or uncover any primal truths about Obama - he's performing the initial steps of a job interview.

EXCELLENT, Cyclop!

Do you believe in evolution, McG?

In justifying how Obama has not kept his promises (both campaign and in his inaugural speech) Niall's shows that Obama has not recovered the jobs lost in the crisis going back to 1/2008.

Absolutely. I do not have the time to read every single thing written

I think it's an initial litmus test on whether someone deals with the world rationally.

Do you believe in evolution?