No Kidding… Disgraced Obama Economic Adviser Admits: "We Didn't Understand the Recession"
Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, September 1, 2010, 7:44 PM
Last year White House Offical Christina Romer claimed the Obama-Pelosi Trillion dollar stimulus was working.
But, that was last year.
Today, the disgraced Obama economic adviser admitted in her farewell speech that the Obama Administration did not understand the recession.
No kidding.
Business Insider reported:
As she prepares to leave The White House, outgoing economic advisor Christina Romer has delivered something of a valedictory speech to the National Press Club. The title: Not My Father’s Recession.
For Romer, her Father’s recession was the one in the early 80s, when unemployment surged above 10%, and Romer’s own father got laid off.
But the title basically tells you what you need to know: It’s different this time — this recession was not anything like the Fed-induced recession of her father — and the old recovery playbook could not possibly go as anticipated.
Here’s the key part of the text, via Brad DeLong’s blog:
But compared with the problems we face, the turnaround has been insufficient….
In a report that Jared Bernstein and I issued during the transition, we estimated that by the end of 2010, a stimulus package like the Recovery Act would raise real GDP by about 3 1⁄2 percent and employment by about 31⁄2 million jobs, relative to what otherwise would have occurred. As the Council of Economic Advisers has documented in a series of reports to Congress, there is widespread agreement that the Act is broadly on track to meet these milestones….
What the Act hasn’t done is prevent unemployment from going above 8 percent, something else that Jared and I projected it would do. The reason that prediction was so far off is implicit in much of what I have been saying this afternoon. An estimate of what the economy will look like if a policy is adopted contains two components: a forecast of what would happen in the absence of the policy, and an estimate of the effect of the policy. As I’ve described, our estimates of the impact of the Recovery Act have proven quite accurate. But we, like virtually every other forecaster, failed to anticipate just how violent the recession would be in the absence of policy, and the degree to which the usual relationship between GDP and unemployment would break down.
But despite her awful economic record Christina Romer still believes the answer is more stimulus.
Good-bye, Christina.
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Wading Across commented:
Hammering that square peg into the circular hole didn’t work before, so obviously it will work if we keep on doing it.
This reminds me of a Texas Aggie joke or a Boudreaux and Thibodeaux joke.
Though, to be fair to Aggies and Cajuns, they’re smarter than liberal Democrats stuck on stupid and Keynes.
kansas commented:
Stimulus would still work if it were used in the proper way. The stimulus is supposed to prime the pump by offering tax cuts and incentives to business thereby creating jobs, goods, and services. When you take the pump primer and drink it you never prime the pump. But it sure tastes good.
befuddled commented:
spend baby spend.
Chippy commented:
They didn’t want to understand the recession. They wanted to take advantage of it. Look for the remainder of the stimulus money to go into empowerment zones in the inner cities in the coming months. This is how Obama plans on trying to get re-elected. This is the David Axelorod strategy for 2012.
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Daniel commented:
Definition of insanity:
Repeating the same sequence and expecting different results.
JimmyT commented:
Her father was caught up in the Carter recession that Reagan reversed with tax and spending CUTS and she STILL thinks GOVERNMENT spending is the answer? Man did her daddy waste money on a college education.
Point9 commented:
Do not let them get away with claiming ignorance; this was a deliberate fleecing of the taxpayer to benefit Hussein’s Wall Street supporters, unions, attorneys and special interest groups. Nothing Hussein did had any intention of creating jobs, just ensuring that public sector union jobs wouldn’t be lost while the private sector shed millions of jobs. [8 million jobs lost under Hussein].
We got punked.
Paula-Okc commented:
And this clown is going to continue to teach this gawd awful failing approach to our future generations. What a disaster!!!!
regularguy commented:
They don’t even understand economics let alone the recession. On behalf of my debt-saddled, unborn grand-children, she can go eff herself.
gus commented:
I’ll try to be delicate.
Does this WOBBLY DUM DUM come across as NORMAL and INTELLIGENT to you???
I don’t care if she has a Doctorate delivered by Muhammad (praise be unto him) this broad is dim. Dumb as a box of hammers. And she doesn’t seem like a normal human being.
I’m not kidding.
wanumba commented:
“But we, like virtually every other forecaster, failed to anticipate ”
……..
Bald faced lie. Real economists weren’t consulted, just Socialist redistributionists. Small business owners’ and self-employed contractors’ KIDS have a far better undrestanding of how this works than this so-called educated egotistical pea brain.
HATE the Liberal Left “Voice” . Everything is parsed in this pretend aloofness from the grubby day to day, with no hint of responsibility for what happened … their man-made failures just ‘spontaneously generated’ and no one knows why.
That’s why they hate the Judeo-CHristian culture: it’s ALL ABOUT individual responsibility: actions have consequences. They spend their lives dodging responsibility.
Taqiyyotomist commented:
Chippy #4
“They didn’t want to understand the recession. They wanted to take advantage of it.”
Bears repeating.
Point9 #7
“Do not let them get away with claiming ignorance; this was a deliberate fleecing of the taxpayer to benefit Hussein’s Wall Street supporters, unions, attorneys and special interest groups. Nothing Hussein did had any intention of creating jobs, just ensuring that public sector union jobs wouldn’t be lost while the private sector shed millions of jobs. [8 million jobs lost under Hussein].
We got punked.”
Also bears repeating.
regularguy #9
“They don’t even understand economics let alone the recession.”
No. They understand the recession because they, using strategies such as Cloward-Piven, CREATED IT…in order that they could use it. See previous quotes. These commies are not ignorant…at least not on this matter.
They DO know, however, that the general TV-addled public IS ignorant, and can be hypnotized with words and numbers and intelligent-sounding babble. Obama DID get elected, after all. What they say actually WORKS…at least on the great, hulking percentage of our nation who have lost all semblence of reason and logic.
As Rushbo used to say: they, these professional Leftists, spend all day, every day, asking themselves ONE QUESTION:
“HOW CAN WE FOOL THEM TODAY?”
We should all be asking ourselves, to counter this tentacular beast that is the Professional Left, “How can we take the blindfolds off them today?” every single day.
Robert commented:
Honestly what I heard was that she doesn’t have a clue about any of it, either then, now, or future. I don’t know her background but the Obama administration is practically empty of business experience and it shows.
If these people really think they can impose huge new regulatory regimes while sucking up the capital into government and talking about more and higher taxes, while denigrating the business class, and then expect some kind of economic improvement just because they are spending a bunch of borrowed money, then they are the stupidest bunch of know-nothing government twits since the Depression.
What they really are is arrogant beyond belief, because there have been plenty of warnings and alternative points of view, they just don’t want to consider that someone who is not a neo-Communist might know something that they don’t.
Major Kong commented:
One has to be either willfully blind or pathologically stupid to not grasp that the entire Obama administration is hell bent to destroy this nation.
Rock commented:
I suspect most within the inner circle have little to no experience with balancing income and expenditures. Most probably have been fortunate enough to have bookkeepers, accountants, and tax lawyers handle their finances. Even then, many seem to have a problem with paying their own taxes. And we are to expected to trust them to manage the nations finances, with bill’s they have not even read, bull.
Now again just how big are the tires on that bus, it’s must be getting pretty crowded under there by now.
donh commented:
Christina Groaner was all smiles in the face of ugly 10% unemployment in the spring. She actually believed the thousands of temporary census worker hires was going to usher in a summer of recovery.
regularguy commented:
Taqiyyotomist’s comments: I stand corrected. Well stated. These rotten bastards don’t deserve the assumption that they innocently tried their best and were simply mistaken. You’re right–this economic sabotage really cannot be anything but intentional.
kato commented:
Hell, the Bush administration didn’t understand it either. He doled out about $80 billion hoping to spur consumer spending just as the consumer-spending party was beginning to crash.
Everyone saw what was happening in the real-estate market, but it was still pedal to the metal as far the government was concerned. This too, my conservative friends, is the legacy of the Bush administration.
But Obama used the recession to justify a massive redistribution of wealth to Democrat special interests plus the usual parasites. There is very little out of that trillion dollars that would spur real economic growth or job creation.
Guys like Geithner (Bush’s boy), Bernanke (Bush’s boy), Lawrence Summers and Romer, among others, know this is not the way to stimulate an economy. And guess, what? The economy has not been stimulated.
Only the federal government, taking advantage of the near-zero rates it has induced, has been stimulated to spend, spend, spend. The government is piling up the debt, knowing the day of reckoning is still a few years off. When interest rates ultimately rise, we’ll clearly see the real damage that Obama and the Pelosi-Reid Congress have done. Like our black president, it will be “historic.”
Rock commented:
I agree with you Robert – I’m not sure where these folks get their pedigrees. Rushing into law a few days after getting inaugurated a $1 trillion hodgepodge of stale programs that couldn’t get approved on their own merit coupled with giving checks to people who don’t even pay taxes – is NOT a stimulus program or even anywhere close to a well conceived response to an economic problem. It’s mindboggling amateurism in full view of the Amercian people, anyone can add, and the world.
Rock commented:
How is it these democraps keep doubling down on stupid? Their like weeds in the yard, pull em out, spray em, burn em and still they come back and spoil what is beautiful.
desertdweller commented:
As long as this administration refuses to believe consumer and business ATTITUDES define this economy, the longer those ATTITUDES will be that THE ECONOMY SUCKS.
We ain’t hit bottom yet, folks.
StrangernFiction commented:
I personally think that the left is spearheaded by pathologically arrogant individuals who have an insatiable appetite for power and control. No matter how much power and control they have, they want more, and the decrease in freedom that results is destructive. In this sense I absolutely agree that they are out to destroy.
Opus #6 commented:
Are they sure they don’t want to ram another unsustainable social program down our throats? Socialize another 1/6th of the American economy?
#(@*#! These jerks make me SO mad. This was done with a willful and wanton disregard for the economy and the best interests of Americans. It was all about Obama’s political ideology at all costs. And now we are in big trouble. Big surprise.
ogee commented:
Totally pathetic person.
gus commented:
Opus, you almost always understand common sense.
I have researched EXACTLY who, Christina Romer is.
She is a ELITIST EDUCRAT who has ZERO experience in the REAL WORLD… duh.
Her HUBBIE is likewise.
Obama’s CADRE of FOOLS theoretically are GENIUSES…… until REALITY comes into the picture.
But my earlier point still stands. Did/Does Christina Romer, seem like a NORMAL work a day American???
She is a book worm/libtard FREAK.
Her existance is THEORETICAL her EDUCATION isn’t real. Nor is Obama’s
Chkn Fryd commented:
Supply side tax cuts ARE the unsustainable social programs, and they were done with “willful and wonton disregard for the economy.” At least that’s what W’s advisors told him before Cheney had them silenced. If renewing the Bush tax cuts over and over again had been working we wouldn’t be here right now. And while Conservatives think we’ve done enough, they aren’t prepared to do what it takes.
Just because Obama hasn’t cleaned up the mess yet doesn’t mean that W and Conservatives didn’t make the mess. Put that in your Uncle Miltie and smoke it.
ogee commented:
@Chkn Fryd
September 1st, 2010 | 11:44 pm | #27
Now where have you been?
“doesn’t mean that W and Conservatives didn’t make the mess”
You really believe that don’t you?
Someone needs to inform you that “this mess” was created by the Dems who control congress and federal reserve since 2006 and before that the required mandate to give every deadbeat a home loan who wants one. No Income, No job, (ninja loan) No problem…on behalf of the dems, here’s your loan.
Everyone but YOU knows THAT!
Well now you know too.
P. Aaron commented:
These people are the experts?
Chkn Fryd commented:
ogee @ 28: That program was championed by W. And Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were set up so that the govt. would take the fall and shareholders would syphon off profits, just the way Gingrich and Kudlow wanted them to.
Again, Clinton primed the derivatives market to explode, W set the timer, and it went off on the Dems’ watch. No more. Or do you also blame W for 9/11 using the same “it happened on his watch” logic?
At least Greenspan had the good sense to say he screwed up. And you blame the Fed?
sandy commented:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-6116297-503544.html?tag
Check out this CBS Poll. Obama fails on every issue. You can also take the poll. I hope they give the results to him.
bobdog commented:
I just looked at this poll. 67% of all respondents graded Obama’s performance as president as a failure. The largest response to every single question in the poll was failure.
Now consider that it’s a CBS audience that took this poll. You know, Katie Couric’s audience.
squeaky commented:
when i needed windows i didn’t ask the lawn man for information. obama’s administration should have a “buyer beware” tag. when you hire someone solely on blind faith…..
[Auto Sector Barely Breathing After Clunkers
By Gerri Willis
Published September 01, 2010
| FOXBusiness]
http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2010/09/01/auto-sector-barely-breathing-clunkers/
Arch commented:
Earth to Obama:
Threaten to take profits from people who hire people and you will get high unemployment rates.
Require insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions and the cost and price of coverage will increase.
Require employers to cover employees’ health care and they will work their staff overtime and resist hiring.
These are features, not defects.
Over.
Militant Conservative commented:
kansas
September 1st, 2010 | 7:53 pm | #2
Never works because it takes monies from the private sector. It always fails. bad idea.
Chkn Fryd
September 2nd, 2010 | 12:26 am | #30
Community reinvestment act was created by CARTER
it went nowhere due to no enforcement.
CLINTON threatened prosecution via the AG JANET RENO if these bad loans were not made to those who could not pay them back.
BUSH 43 and of all people MCCAIN tried to stop this but was out voted by the house and senate democrats.BARNEY FWANK AND CHRIS DODD said they were fine and nothing was wrong.
Get your facts straight son. I hated the first stimulus that BUSH did. IT NEVER WORKS. TAX CUTS TAX CUTS TAX CUTS. They work every time.
powder is dry.
Militant Conservative commented:
Good Gwad chkn droppings for brains. sheesh.
Ignorant fool
befuddled commented:
“President Bush asked Congress on Saturday for the authority to spend as much as $700 billion to purchase troubled mortgage assets and contain the financial crisis.”
“The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Division A of Pub.L. 110-343, enacted October 3, 2008), commonly referred to as a bailout of the U.S. financial system, is a law enacted in response to the subprime mortgage crisis authorizing the United States Secretary of the Treasury to spend up to US$700 billion to purchase distressed assets”
“So we can blame $350B on Bush and $1,287B (the $787B second bailout, the second $350B chunk of the first bailout, and the $150B of sweeteners in the first bailout) on Obama and Congress.”
Marie commented:
She is the Chief Economics Advisor to the President of the United States. And she didn’t understand the Recession?
befuddled commented:
bush does the noble thing and plays the fall guy for the democratic financial implosion. how noble is obama? he talks about driving and mopping the floor. the only thing the president has picked up is a golf club. the only thing he’s driven is a bicycle. the only work he has done is fundraise, throw white house parties, vacation, payoff special interest groups, campaign, and destroy america.
get back in their faces. don’t let them tell you to sit down, shut up, or step aside.
Arch commented:
The CRA was initially passed to force banks to lend to qualified borrowers in the inner cities. Clinton mandated that 50% of all these loans were given to minority borrowers regardless of their ability to repay them.
As long as housing prices were increasing, the banks could flip defaults and cover their losses or sell them back to fannie & freddie, who sold them to Wall Street where they were bundled with other assets in complex financial instruments. In 2008 alone, the Bush administration made 17 requests to congress concerning fixing this problem.
Frank, Dodd, and Schumer stonewalled so it could be used as an October surprise. Chuckie blew it by sending a letter to his friends telling them to pull out of IndyBank, causing a run. In September 2008, when McCain pulled ahead of Obama, they sprung it, and the market crashed.
Robert commented:
Chkn Fryd
You’re point of view is superficial at best. You go on about tax cuts as if they are responsible for the national debt.
Yet the current spending binge dwarfs the possible returns from any tax collections, along with any past spending. And we see no evidence whatsoever that the Democrat party has any plans to cut spending.
If they do, we all know it will be in military expenditures and little else.
So, your ideological myopia leaves you inadequate to issue any meaningful commentary.
Arch commented:
If we can’t put people in jail for what they have done, why have laws at all?
Chisum commented:
Problem Bank List
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/09/graph_of_the_day_for_september_15.html
Neo commented:
More stimulus ???
fightinggranny commented:
Sadder than sad is the fact that this economist is going back to “Teach”. Know why the young adults are so fouled up in their thinking. Purge the Progressives from the system.
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