Political Crossfire Forums

The fundamental reason for recessions and depressions is that people have lost faith in the economy. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, made worse by the ridiculous mantra of "no growth = Doomsday."

Our economy goes into a recession on average every 7 years or so, NO MATTER WHO'S IN OFFICE..

As for it is partisan? Of course it is, everything is nowadays. The same people who pat Bush on the back for getting us out of Clinton's dot com bubble bursting recession give Obama NO credit for getting us out of Bush's housing market bubble bursting recession.

This answers all your questions.

Ah, thought you asked at first if the economic view is partisan.

The answer is no and yes. The housing bubble would burst regardless how we viewed it. On the flip side, being pessimistic does make things worse.

Would our economy fix itself if the GOP just suddenly felt better? No. But it would help.

I think there are 3 words that summarize the OP, or my response to it: perception is reality.

It's quite simple. People are very shallow. If they have a job, and are doing well, then everything is wonderful. While I think that democrats, when a dem is in the oval office, tend to be this way more than republicans who seem to be able to view the "big picture" a little easier, the partisanship definitely crosses party lines.

For me, personally, I'm doing much better now financially than I ever was in my entire life. I'm doing far better than I was doing while Bush in office. However, the gov't, the president, had nothing to do with it. It was my hard work, and my personal money spent on schooling, that did it for me. However, I can see and I know a lot of people who are hurting, and hurting badly. Just because I'm doing well doesn't mean there aren't millions out there that are suffering. I see it with my own eyes. I see far more people hurting now than I did under Bush, so I definitely perceive the economy to have been doing better under Bush, and the numbers prove it beyond any doubt.

So I agree, the economy is hurting right now. I don't care who is in office, I would be very upset if I had voted for a man that said he would fix the problems and all he has done for 4 years is blame the previous president. That shows a lack of responsibility and a lack of character. How someone could pull the lever again for a man like that leaves me scratching my head.

All President Obama has done is blame President Bush, and yet you've maintained that he's spent too much money fighting the recession through a Keynesian lense.

Humans astound me with their logical fallacies. You can either argue he's done nothing or acted incorrectly, not both.

Let's assume, for your sake, that you opined with total hyperbole. Is there any economic policy that would have ended the recession sooner and softened the unemployment figures? A few years ago on the old forums a lot of conservative posters argued that the automakers, banks, and even home owners should go bankrupt so that the entire economy was reshuffled over the span of two decades, so I'm curious as to the nature of your perception. Had we went that way, our economic situation would have undeniably been much worse at this moment in time (the point of debate was over the long-term future), so what was the third option? McCain wouldn't have done anything drastically different: Obama's policies were just a continuation of Bush's last minute Hail Mary. The only obvious differences would have been less retroactive regulations and probably more tax breaks (creating larger deficits).

Most people are completely ignorant about the affairs of others. Their perception on others differs than self-perception at large. Look at the figures of underemployment and unemployment for 2011: about 25%. The pessimism about others employment (+60%) was exaggerated.

Does the market react to volatile partisan politics? Clearly, yes. Is it inherently partisan? I don't even know what that means. I think often times, the economy exposes the silliness in partisan politics.