Saturday, September 7, 2013

Obama's Better Jargon, Boat of Gloat v.4

The White House has published some details on what the President calls the Better Bargain, trying to evoke something akin to the FDR's New Deal. From Wikipedia:
The New Deal was a series of domestic economic programs enacted in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They involved presidential executive orders or laws passed by Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were in response to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call the "3 Rs": Relief, Recovery, and Reform. That is Relief for the unemployed and poor; Recovery of the economy to normal levels; and Reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression.

The "Second New Deal" in 1935–38 included the Wagner Act to promote labor unions, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief program (which made the federal government by far the largest single employer in the nation),[4] the Social Security Act, and new programs to aid tenant farmers and migrant workers. The final major items of New Deal legislation were the creation of the United States Housing Authority and Farm Security Administration, both in 1937, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which set maximum hours and minimum wages for most categories of workers.

IMO, the keys to economic recovery from the Great Depression were reform of the financial system (SEC, the investment act, Glass–Steagall, FDIC, etc.), reform of labor laws that increased the power of labor (Wagner act, FLSA, etc.), plus Social Security, WPA, and the TVA. In contrast, Obama's Better Bargain consists (so far) of a few minor tax tweaks for business, a recognition that college tuition increases are out of control but a failure to understand that easy federal student loans have caused tuition to skyrocket, and empty talk about avoiding the bubble-bust housing cycle while in the midst of the second housing bubble.

There are no bold initiatives to take power away from financial institutions and give it to workers as FDR did. The weak attempt at financial reform, the Dodd-Frank act, has been only partially implemented, while most of it has been delayed, watered down, or ignored. Glass-Steagall remains repealed and financial profits as a percentage of the economy are spiking near all time highs while real median wages continue their long decline. He wants a bigger role for private mortgage financing but has no plan, while the Fed is buying $45 billion a month in mortgage backed securities.

I guess the President has been too busy trying to convince the rest of the skeptical world to attack Syria. A strange sense of priorities!

Obama's Bargain is mostly Jargon and for that he earns the Boat of Gloat.

6 comments:

  1. I'm such an optimist!

    I see the picture of your boat and can think only one thing. It's the best of all possible worlds!

    Put another way, the boat of gloat is not half empty. It's half full! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stagflationary Mark,

    Yes, it is half full!

    It's also sunny in the picture, better put on those Ecto Goggles.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I haven't felt this optimistic about gloating boats since Johnny Nash sang about blue sky back in 1972!

    As a side note, there is an annual Boats Afloat show in Seattle every year.

    Here is a Boats Agloat show. As an eternal optimist, this is the better show. It's free and visitors can see almost all of the boats at once, without the need to walk up and down the docks. Huge improvement in our quality of life!

    Gallows humor. Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Stagflationary Mark,

    Boats Agloat! Every one half full. Whatever floats your gloat.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Obama's Better Jargon, Boat of Gloat v.4

    I just realized something. It's not just jargon. It's Jargonauts!

    Argonauts

    "Argonauts" literally means "Argo sailors".

    Boats Agloat!

    Some have hypothesized that the legend of the Golden Fleece was based on a practice of the Black Sea tribes...

    The fleecing will be legendary until morale improves, lol. Sigh.

    ReplyDelete