Where is the US economy headed?

http://www.answers.com/topic/dick-cheney

Cheney was born in 1941. So he wasn't eligible for the draft until 1958.

The US fought in the Korean war 1950 to 1953. In 1950 Cheney was 9, and in 1953 Cheney was 12 years old.

The US military fought in the Vietnam war 1965 to 1973. In 1965 Cheney was 24, and in 1973 Cheney was 32 years old.

The draft was ended in 1973 when Cheney was 32.

Following high school, Cheney earned an academic scholarship and attended Yale University in 1959. He decided after three semesters to take some time off from Yale. He saved up enough money and returned to Yale only to leave again the following semester partly due to poor grades. [5][6]

In 1962, when he was 21, he pleaded guilty to two DWIs in Wyoming. [7] [8] He was reputedly dissatisfied with his work at the time, and in an May 7, 1991 New Yorker interview said that he found himself "working, building power lines, having been in a couple of scrapes with the law." He said that the arrests made him "think about where I was and where I was headed. I was headed down a bad road, if I continued on that course."

Refocusing on academics, Cheney first matriculated to Casper Community College in 1963 and thereafter to the University of Wyoming where he began earning straight A's. He received his bachelor's degree in 1965 and master's degree in political science in 1966 both from the University of Wyoming.
He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a doctoral candidate, but he left and entered politics before completing his doctorate. Cheney was selected for a one-year fellowship in the office of Representative William Steiger, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin.

Cheney received three draft deferments: two student deferments and one for being a new father.

Dick Cheney's public service career began under the Nixon administration in 1969 when Chenney was 28.

I can't say that I disagree!

Phony Michael Steele? The PUPPET of the Repugs? He's laughable for one and the people who pay him don't believe him. Obama is playing the hand he was dealt, from the 2 wars, the billion dollar bailout in Sept. 08, from Bush & Co., a plummeting stock market, unemployment, inflation, the trashing of the US Treasury by Bush & Cheney and the deaths of over 4000 servicemen in 2 wars over oil, that the US was "conned" into believal Iraqui oil would pay for the war! Oh yeah? Show me where a nickle went to pay for this unjust and unfair war that Americans are paying for with their blood!

CI:

okie, FYI, teeny did not measure presidents by their military backgrounds. How do you create such nonsense?

That's what I'm wondering!

He's a PROFESSIONAL DRAFT DODGER! In 1958, I was 13! One year after 1962, my friends who were NOT in college, got drafted! Where was Cheney? Hiding behind his wife's skirts is where!

If only it were that simple.

Obama was able to look at the cards BEFORE he sat at the table and threw his money in. He CHOSE to get himself into this position by convincing America that he had the solutions to the problems that plague us. His solutions have so far, failed.

True that! Obama went in with his eyes wide open, and knew the problems before he took office. We must also admit that the problems that faced Obama when he took office were over-whelming for anybody (any human) no matter how intelligent or skilled they were at winning the presidency of the US.

That being said, I have also criticized Obama on many aspects of his stimulus plan, because he did not control wasteful spending or established enough rules and regulations to take advantage of getting those monies returned to the taxpayers.

As for TARP, Bush authorized the first funding for it, and for the most part it was the right idea but wrong in the execution of it. Here again, the government failed in its fiduciary responsibilities to make sure it had enough rules and regulations to get those monies back, and control the spending of those monies to stimulate our economy by providing credit to small businesses and consumers who had good credit which failed to happen.

Many big financial institutions gave out big bonuses from that money which would otherwise have meant bankruptcy for them, and rewarded the same people who got them into trouble. That was stupid.

According to most economists, our economy is healing, and those TARP and stimulus plan funds prevented another great depression. I tend to agree with this conclusion. If not for those bailouts, more people would have lost their jobs, their homes, and a great deal more of their 401ks and retirement savings.

This is going to be a long, painful, jobless, recovery, and this slowdown in job loss will continue for 12 to 18 more months IMHO. We need to stop the bleeding of jobs before we can feel confidence that our economy has finally turned the corner.

My estimate for that result is about five more years.

As much as we might like to think of this recession etc as a purely U.S. phenomenon, the truth is that this financial crisis has played out also in Europe and Asia. Actions taken there involved bailouts and hurling money at stimulus programs.
Would you describe those efforts as failures?
Are the leaders of those countries as inept as you think Obama is?
Can you point to any country that took a different approach that has worked out better?
Thank you.

Germany's stimulus monies went for the right causes; keeping workers in their jobs, and their great recession was not as painful. However, it's been my observation about the German economy that their government has always maintained make work jobs for the hard to employ workers of their economy at barely sustainable wages. What has helped them is their century-old universal health care that provides health care for all their citizens. Without their UHC, barely sustainable wages would not have worked.

What surprised me most was during my last visit to Berlin (some years ago) where I could purchase capucchino or a sausage sandwich at very reasonable cost in a "big" city.

What I also noticed is that for a "big" city, it was relatively clean. Those government make-work jobs did many positive things that we can all learn from, but I don't see any US government replicating the German policies that controls cost.

The International Labor Organization lists unemployment in Germany at 7.8% in September. Lots of footnotes warning about making comparisons.
When I lived in South Africa, there was zero percent unemployment if you were white. The employer of last resort was the South African Railway.

How does Germany's unemployment rate compare to the US and other developed countries?

With a bunch of whatever the plural is of asterisk (noting differences in calculation methods):
United States: 10%
Italy: 7.4%
United Kingdom: 7.8%
France: 10%
Ireland: 13%
Spain: 19.3%
The Scandinavian countries seem to be in the mid-single digits.

The Europeans however have a better quality safety net...10% in Europe does not equal 10% in America at the family level. This negatively impacts both the confidence level of the public as well as the career path of the politicians who allowed both the unemployment as well as the shredding of the safety net.

America was not always this barbaric, and the people know this.

I someh0w always knew that Spain was a basket case economically, and even criticized their decision to join in the Euro. Ireland was doing well, because of their high tech industry, but with the world recession, they've been hit badly like California. With their standards in education, their potential for their country's economic competitiveness should be above average in the future.

As for the Scandinavian countries, they have some of the highest income tax rates of the developed world, but enjoy better economic stability and happier, longer lives.

People in the US just can't seem to understand this simple reality.

I know that it is meaningless to try to compare stats like unemployment across national lines. Too many variables. Hence the need for sacks full of asterisks.
What I was responding to was Maporsche's claim that Obama had bungled handling the economy when the melt-down occurred. I was suggesting that Bush and Obama reached for the same arrows in the quiver as did leaders in other developed countries: keep the banks from failing through some sort of bailout and spend money to try to stimulate the economy.
My question was whether any country took a different approach, and was the outcome any different?

How true! Unemployment stats from different countries have different meanings, and even a basket full of asterisks won't be sufficient to explain all of them. We're not even sure they've used the same standards in measuring their unemployment rates which opens up a whole new kettle of fish.

Well, that's not exactly what I said.

I'd said that Obama knew full well what he was spending millions of dollars trying to win when he ran for president. Nothing about the current economy is a surprise for Obama and Bush and he worked together very closely on all of this since November 4th (and likely before).

I don't think it's unfair to say that Obama's policies haven't exactly panned out the way he told us they would. He was FAR off on unemployment projections. The stimulus hasn't produced any jobs (maybe saved some, but surely not produced any). Are things better than they would have been w/o Obama's actions? I'm unsure. I know our future looks pretty disgusting though, in large part because of the money Obama and Congress have decided to spend. There is plenty of time for me to be proven wrong; I hope I will be.

maporsche, You have several problems with your opinions, so I'll try to identify them for you.

You wrote:

What about Obama's policies? Where hasn't his policies panned out? Please be specific, because I know for a fact that not all the stimulus plan monies have been distributed or spent; some will even go into next year.

You wrote:

If you've been reading any articles in the WSJ or business pages of your local newspaper, you would have known that many economists credit Obama for putting the breaks on this great recession. I agree with them. The bleeding of jobs of over half million every month has been reduced substantially with both TARP and the stimulus plan.

You wrote:

The future looks brighter because of the money spent by Bush, Obama, and the congress. Without these spending, the world financial crisis would have been much worse. Most developed economies did the same thing; they bailed out their banks and financial institutions, because they knew that without banks their economy would collapse.

That's not to say that they spent all the money wisely or well; they failed their fiduciary responsibility when they gave out billions to banks and finance companies, and auto companies, without the necessary safeguards and regulations to make sure they were used for their intended purpose of freeing up the credit market to credit worthy small businesses and consumers, and to ensure the return of that money when our economy improved. They emphasized helping wall street more than main street, and increasing the national debt on the backs of main street.

I believe Obama deserves criticism for many things, but I disagree with those who believe doing nothing was an option.

While I DO respect your opinions on these matters; I can't help but think that you at least partially feel this way because of your substantial investment monies being protected by Obama's actions.

Without a doubt, Obama's actions have helped the INVESTMENT class MUCH MUCH more than anyone else.

I find it rather arrogant that you feel that you can simply state that my opinions are wrong, and by implication, yours are correct.



I was specific. Obama said that unemployment wouldn't rise about something like 8.5%, as you know, we are over 10%.

He said that he'd do something to regulate the banks and make sure that no banks are too big to fail, and that this won't happen again (for the same reasons). I haven't seen any progress there. Not that I'd expect a finished poduct by now; but we should have some progress being made.

We haven't seen any increase in jobs. The fact that you're somewhat content with only losing 500,000 jobs per month should be indicitive of the real problem we face (apathy), and how little progress has actually been made. Just to keep up with people graduating college/high school we need to add something like 200,000 jobs / month, and here we are losing many many more than that.



I have subscriptions to Money, Business Week, The Economist, and the Harvard Business Review. I work for a major financial company, and I follow the news more than anyone I know. I know that these expert econimists are saying. I simply do not trust them, nor do I believe them. I'm surprised you do given their very recent inability to predict the great recession (as you call it). Not just inability to predict the recession, but they were making claims that were 180 degrees opposite to what actually happened. You keep trusting those guys CI. If you're wrong, at least it's not your future that's been mortgaged.....it's MINE.



Yes, the investment class would have lost a lot of the "money" they've managed to "create" over the last few decades. Life for 6.5 billion humans would have moved on, w/o much of a problem I suspect.



Really, I'd like to nominate this for the Understatement of the Year Award. How would one go about doing that?



Yes, of this I'm aware.