{"id":4461,"date":"2010-11-03T21:35:19","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T01:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4461"},"modified":"2010-11-03T22:22:11","modified_gmt":"2010-11-04T02:22:11","slug":"and-wait-for-some-serious-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/03\/and-wait-for-some-serious-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"and wait for some serious pain…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
I have a lingering question that was born during the debate about the Stimulus in early 2009. I think I first thought it on January 15, 2009 when John Boehner said<\/strong><\/a>:<\/div>\n
\n
"There was no Republican input at all involved in what House Democrats outlined today," Boehner, R-Ohio, said at a news conference at the Capitol. "I just took a moment to look over the draft from Chairman [David] Obey and the draft or outline from Chairman [Charlie] Rangel. Oh, my God. I just can’t tell you how shocked I am at what we’re seeing. You know it’s clear that they’re moving on this path along the flawed notion that we can borrow and spend our way back to prosperity.<\/font><\/strong>"<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I had spent several months boning up on things I never wanted to understand – financial bubbles, John Maynard Keynes, Derivatives, the New Deal, the history of regulation and deregulation, etc. I knew that an economic stimulus was a good idea. I hoped for a WPA, a sweeping financial reform, etc. But I never expected "Oh, my God.<\/font><\/strong>"<\/div>\n

Back to my lingering question. The 1929 Stock Market Crash happened a mere 7 months into the Presidency of Republican Herbert Hoover, after years of prosperity under "Silent Cal," Republican Calvin Coolidge. Over the ensuing three plus years, unemployment rose to 25%, banks failed, people lived in shacks and tents, and ate at soup kitchens. The suffering was palpable and felt by almost everyone. FDR had pain on his side. <\/p>\n

When it happened in September 2008, it was a softer, gentler fall. Even the Republican Administration was quick to act [TARP]. It seemed for a time that we were going to pre-empt a repeat of history and short-circuit the Second Great Depression – and we actually did. But I wondered if it would be possible to do everything that we needed to do up front. My logic was simple. We didn’t hurt enough<\/font><\/strong> – at least not enough to anticipate the need for radical changes in lots of areas – a big Stimulus, government takeover of failing Institutions, some kind of job core program<\/u> to make up for the unemployment that was coming. Those things are counter-intuitive. And plus, we had the accumulated debt from the Reagan\/Bush\/Bush years leaving us with no real buffer.<\/p>\n

I was disappointed when Krugman and the other economists said that the response wasn’t enough – pissed at them because I wanted it to be enough, but they were right, it wasn’t. But I think I was right that we didn’t hurt enough – yet<\/font><\/strong>. We still don’t. Not enough for people to tolerate radical measures. So, I’m guessing that it’s going to have to play out in real time. Boehner’s "Oh, my God<\/font><\/strong>" may have been the death knell to a preemptive strike.  They’ve used Obama’s only possible solution  [spending] to brand him and gotten themselves elected on some very wrong premises. So it’s our turn to say, " Oh, my God<\/font><\/strong>" and wait for some serious pain [ask the Japanese<\/strong><\/a>]…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a lingering question that was born during the debate about the Stimulus in early 2009. I think I first thought it on January 15, 2009 when John Boehner said: "There was no Republican input at all involved in what House Democrats outlined today," Boehner, R-Ohio, said at a news conference at the Capitol. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}