Video: Reid celebrates “big day in America”
 

Video: Reid celebrates “big day in America”

posted at 10:48 am on March 5, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
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If Harry Reid wasn’t already finished in politics, this clip would absolutely bury him. As it is, it suffices as an example of the blindness of Beltway living. Celebrating the loss of 36,000 jobs in the American economy in February may be one of the most clueless political statements ever seen:

We lost 26,000 in January, which means the rate of job loss per day went up rather significantly. That qualifies as a “big day”? Is this what Democrats see as an improvement? It certainly speaks to the expectations they want to set with the American people, and should win the George Orwell Award.

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/0...ay-in-america/

Unemployment
 

I'm not about to defend the likes of Reid, but some perspective on the hole that was dug during the previous administration (and inherited by the current) is needed.

The below chart shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in terms of percentage (as opposed to the "number" of jobs lost). 0% loss on the chart represents when employment was the highest and then declined for each of the recessions indicated.

For the current recession, employment peaked in December 2007 and we are now 26 months out. The current employment recession is by far the worst since WWII in percentage terms, and 2nd worst in terms of the unemployment rate (only early '80s recession with a peak of 10.8 percent was worse).

http://www.patriotfiles.com/forum/imgcacheB/26674.png
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pMscxxELHE...onsFeb2010.jpg

Friday, January 5, 2007
 

Democrats Take Control on Hill

New Speaker Pelosi Shepherds Ethics Bills To Passage in House

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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 5, 2007


Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was elected America's first female speaker of the House yesterday in a raucous, bipartisan celebration of a historic breakthrough, and hours later she presided over passage of the broadest ethics and lobbying revision since the Watergate era.

Democrats took control of the House and Senate after 12 years of nearly unbroken Republican rule, with resolute calls for bipartisan comity and a pledge to move quickly on an agenda of health-care, homeland security, education and energy proposals. Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), the soft-spoken son of a hard-rock miner, took the helm of the Senate, after a closed-door session in the Capitol's stately Old Senate Chamber. But with the eyes of history riveted on her, it was Pelosi's day.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...010400802.html
by Congress

Deregulation
 

So...let me get this straight.. you're implying that the worst recession since WWII and resulting worst unemployment, coincides with when the American people elected a (slim) majority of Democrats in congress. Therefore, the fault of the recession lies at the feet of the Democrats - but you provide no examples of just what it was that the Dem's did to bring down the world economy. I guess it makes for good political spin but it's just an example of cognitive dissonance (finding ways to fit reality into a pre-existing belief system).

Most economists trace both the booms and busts of the past century (including the most recent) – back to the Federal Reserve System and either it's intervention or lack thereof. Others put the blame on Wall Street, which tends to be as greedy and careless with other peoples money as government oversight will allow. And that brings the mess back to deregulation.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke (nominated by George W. Bush and who served on his Council of Economic Advisers) said: "Regulatory failures and not low interest rates were responsible for the housing bubble, implosion and current recession."

"Deregulation" was the mantra of President Bush and his Republican predecessors, and many of the problems we are now facing are the result of this philosophy. Even Alan Greenspan (a longtime republican and libertarian) admitted before a Congressional hearing in Oct, 2008 that his ideology was wrong on regulation. He said that Fannie and Freddie Mac (a favorite target of conserv's) were factors but his hands-off approach towards the banking industry and the credit crunch had left him in a state of shocked disbelief. "I have found a flaw," said Greenspan, referring to his economic philosophy.

In 2002, John McCain introduced a bill to deregulate the broadband Internet market, warning that "the potential for government interference with market forces is not limited to federal regulation." Three years earlier, McCain had joined with other Republicans to push through landmark legislation sponsored by then-Senator Phil Gramm (Tex.), who was an economic adviser to his campaign.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act aimed to make the country's financial institutions competitive by removing the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies. Gramm's legislation, written with the help of financial industry lobbyists, essentially removed newfangled financial products called swaps from any regulation.

That bill allowed AIG to participate in the gold rush of a rapidly expanding global banking and investment market. But the legislation also helped pave the way for companies such as AIG and Lehman Brothers to become behemoths laden with bad loans and investments.

And it was Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who signed into law the legislation to specifically exclude exotic financial instruments like derivatives and credit default swaps from federal regulation under the Commodity Exchange Act.

Nobody's hands are clean with this mess but it was that stalwart of the Republican party, Ronald Reagan who said, "Government is not a solution to our problem, government IS the problem" and "deregulation" became the conservative battle-cry. Until now. I don't think you'll hear any Repub's singing the virtues of deregulation in the upcoming mid-terms.