What was your opinion of the economy when President Obama took office?

[kentuck]

Did you think we were in deep doo-doo? And that it was going to be a long, hard dig to get out of the hole?

Or did you think everything would be OK so long as we had a steady hand at the helm?

Or perhaps you thought we would be OK so long as we didn't do anything radical in regards to the banks and the economy?

Do you think the President has done a good job, under the circumstances, in regards to your idea of the state of the economy in January, 2009? He has done as good a job as could be expected, considering what he inherited?

What did you think about our economy in January of 2009? As the stock market was dropping like a rock, as we were losing 750,000 jobs per month, as consumer confidence was hitting the bottom, did you think we were going to crash upon the rocks?

Do you think differently about the economy today as opposed to January 2009?

[Ohio Joe]

1. Economic matters are not a strong point of mine but...

I did not think it was going to be either an easy or fast climb out of the shit.

[emilyg]

2. At that time I was doing OK. Now

it's tough - very tough.

[Warpy]

3. I thought we were in deep doo doo and needed to do something radical

and the last 3 years have not changed my mind in the least.

Unfortunately, the idiots went out to vote and the apathetic morons stayed home and nothing has been possible with the Clown House but getting unconstitutional antiabortion bills passed.

OWS has come at exactly the right time. Enough people might have been awakened to what has really been going on in this country since 1980 that there might be enough support for radical changes.

The longer they are put off out of fear of losing corporate support, the worse things are going to get.

[RKP5637]

4. I hope OWS grows by millions upon millions. n/t

[CrispyQ]

30. Posted a few days ago...

[NorthCarolina]

5. Not so very different from now I suppose...although gas and food were a bit cheaper back then.

It is amazing how the prices at the grocery store have sky rocketed these past couple of years.

[DesertFlower]

6. it was bad, but it's worse now.

we're doing okay. fortunately hubby is still working at age 64. if he didn't have a rare skill they would have let him go years ago.

[kentuck]

7. In what respect is it worse now?

The entire world economy was on the verge of collapse, we were losing 750,000 jobs per month, the stock market was on its way down to 6500 from a high of over 14,000, and people were losing their life-savings every day. How is it worse now??

[ixion]

11. because the issue that caused the meltdown: toxic derivatives, still exists, and it's worse now

than it was then.

The stock market is still being gamed, and is wildly above real market value.

While the job market isn't hemorrhaging, it's stagnant, at best.

We're worse off now, because the problem has not been solved.

[cthulu2016]

14. And the debt is higher and will for fiscal stimulus lower...

and monetary policy as as frozen as it was then, so there is every reason to think a second round will be handled even worse than the first.

[DesertFlower]

15. more people have lost their jobs,

their health care and their savings. more houses are in foreclosure. food prices are much higher.

i'm not blaming obama. i think it would help if the repubs would have agreed on his jobs plan -- rebuilding infrastructure, etc. the banks suck. i know quite a few people who have tried to get a mortgage modification -- only 1 succeeded. his payment went down $600 a month but instead of a 20 year mortgage he had to take a 30, but at least he's been able to keep his house.

[ZombieHorde]

8. I thought the economey was bad,

and I felt uncertain about its recovery.

[Motown_Johnny]

9. The economy had virtually collapsed, deep doo-doo is an understatement

Things are much better now by any reasonable measure.


Maybe some here can't focus on anything but their own personal situation but that is not the question you asked.

The economy is recovering from where it was in January 2009. It isn't as good as it was before the collapse but that is not the point. It is the Reagan/Bush/Bush economic policies that caused the problem and it is going to take long term progressive policies to make a real difference.

[msongs]

10. foolishly thought those who caused the crash would do jail time nt

[AnotherMcIntosh]

28. x2

[cthulu2016]

12. I believed that we were in a crushing non-cyclical crisis that

would last a decade or more unless our government did things that they not only did not do, but didn't even seriously consider.

I thought the prez and congress were utterly delusional about the scope and likely course of the crisis. I couldn't understand what planet they were living on.

Unfortunately I was right. I don't know what the hell these people were thinking. I never will. They are presumably better informed than I am... but they seem to have believed what they wanted to believe.

Everyone did a piss-poor job, except Bernanke who came closest of the players to understanding what was happening, but was at the helm of a Fed with no bullets, since rates were already at 0.25% and printing money cannot create demand or inflation in a liquidity trap.

[csziggy]

13. That it was bad and could get much worse

If Obama did not do the right thing. He did half the right thing with his stimulus, but it was not big or bold enough so we're just limping along.

Now I want to see prosecutions of those who put us into this mess and reforms that will try to keep it from happening again. Those are not happening so I am not sure where we will be going from here.

[Skittles]

16. the economy had crashed and I expeted Obama to make it priority number one

alas, he did not do that

is the economy better now? I think it lifted a bit and has been in a holding pattern, WELL BELOW where it should be

[reACTIONary]

17. Right off the bat, I decided that the economy was "fundimentally sound"...

... and then Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy! Right during my press conference! I wasn't too dismayed. I figured the best thing to do would be to cut government spending and give tax breaks to everyone who had large capital gains. As the market crash was called out on the floor during the TARP vote (I think the going rate was about 100 points per vote for a while there) I decided NOW is the time to go bat-shit crazy, call off my campaign and start running around the country in order to show how presidential I could be.

Then that little twerp announced that a president has to be able to do more than one thing at once. No drama! None at all!

I still haven't recovered. Its going to be decades.

[Turbineguy]

18. Things were desperate and the trend was down.

The stock market didn't hit bottom until March of 2009. Just getting the economy to stop contracting was an accomplishment. Especially with republicans desperate to destroy the country.

[tabatha]

19. We were speeding to hell, and Obama applied a brake.

Republicans would have accelerated and driven us over the cliff.

The only thing that is going to work is to vote in enough Democrats for Obama to get really bold.

He has gotten the maximum he could get out of a wall of opposition.

[SteveG]

20. When Obama became President

I thought the economy was in big, big trouble. I think his worst mistake in the early days was to say we could keep unemployment (U3) at 8% or less. I personally thought it would go to 12% even with a good stimulus package. (of course if McCain and the Sarah bird had been elected, my estimate would have been 18% or higher). I think he tried too hard early on to work with the Republicans and gave away to much in terms of tax policy, but overall I think that under the circumstances he has done about as well as anyone could. I honestly don't think Hillary would have done any better.

I think that now, as Obama has finally come to terms with the reality that if he supports something, the republican'ts are going to oppose it, so to hell with trying to work with them and really use the bully pulpit to hammer them. In my opinion the behavior of the hard core tea party types in Congress verges on Treason.

[doc03]

21. I was 61 and had weathered several recessions and none of them worried

me like that one. I think we were damn lucky it wasn't worse. I think the Stimulus is what saved us from going into a complete meltdown. I think the Stimulus should have had much more infrastructure spending than it did but I suppose that was the best could have been done politically. I think the biggest mistake this administration made was spending months passing a health plan nobody is happy with rather than focusing on the economy. I was pretty optimistic about things until this last election when the teabaggers took over. All you have to do is look at the jobs figures and you can tell things turned south as soon as the Republicans took the house. We are lucky we never went into a double dip and if the Republicans have their way we will be in one. Like I said I was 61 when Obama took office, the mill I worked in shut down that April and my IRA was down about 60%. I was fortunate I only had to ride out a year of unemployment to retire and my IRA has nearly completely recovered. We aren't out of the woods yet, we have the Republicans trying to tank the economy and who knows what will happen in Europe.

[gateley]

22. I thought it was going bad, teetering on the edge, and come toppling down on top

of Obama.

Any measures taken, I thought, were being too optimistic and people were unrealistic in their expectations. Even if we'd done more of the things WE thought Obama should have done, I don't believe our problems would be anywhere near being over.

I still think we're looking and little plusses here and there, and grasping on to them hoping they're an indication of a trend toward 'healing'. I think we're in deeper trouble than we ever thought, that the majority of Americans aren't aware of how we've been sold down the river for so many years, and that it will take an entire revamping of the system to recover.

[kentuck]

24. I think a lot of people under-estimated the gravity of the situation...

I think the Administration was in denial when they thought the unemployment rate would not go above 8%. Either that, or they did not want to panic the public? I tend to think it is the former.

The economy was teetering on the edge and I thought the Administration totally underestimated the seriousness of the problem. Still, I believe it could have been much worse, especially for the banks and Wall Street. Instead of letting them suffer the pain, it seems to me that the Administration chose to let the people suffer the consequences of their bad decisions and we are still suffering those consequences. However, how bad would it have been if the banks and Wall Street had been left to pay for bad decisions? Where would the 401K's be today? Would the economy have been worse or better than at present? What would the unemployment rate be today? No one knows. We can only guess.

I do believe that President Obama and the Democrats had a mandate to make whatever changes they deemed necessary to save our economy in 2009 but, after several months of bickering and with the stock market regaining its footing, the Democrats lost that mandate. The Republicans eventually regained the momentum and decided to blame everything on Obama and the Democrats and were able to soundly defeat the Democrats in the election of 2010. I do believe history will record it as an opportunity squandered.

So now, here we are on the edge of returning to the same policies that put us in the dire straits of 2008 and the Democrats are hoping and praying that the people come to their senses and not vote the Republicans back into power. The Democrats had a chance to change the game and save this country from further decline but they punted. They failed the American people, in my humble opinion.

[gateley]

27. I think we need to look further back than 2008 - our standard of living, wages, jobs,

have been declining since the 80's. It's all been chipped away and I think the Iraq occupation kind of kicked everything up a zillion notches.

When I hear of legislation that has been passed (for e.g., when a corporation is found doing wrong it can only be find, the CEO can not be held responsible) it becomes horrifyingly apparent that they have been focused in their goal of making certain each and every thing that could come back to bite them has been covered -- then they just plunged ahead and didn't even have to be that sneaky any more.

Anyway, when I hear of this and that law in place that has taken away our recourse and given them free reign, I almost feel suffocated. They've thought of EVERYTHING. In EVERY industry, not just banking.

So even if we don't return to the policies that exasperated the situation already in full swing in 2008, there are countless other policies in place that are keeping us reined in. And, I just went off on a tangent, didn't I?

[CrispyQ]

32. It's a tangent, but a critical one.

We need to get the corporate behemoths under control. Until we address this, our democracy doesn't stand a chance. For me the rallying cry of OWS is, "It's the corporations, stupid."

Get their money & influence out of politics & the electoral system. Stop the revolving door between Congress & lobbying companies.




WTF is wrong with this cartoon? This isn't anything close to a representative democracy. Make it so a someone making $35k a year could run for congress/president if they wanted.

There is just so much to do & we lost control of the mechanism within which to do it, & those who could implement the changes, benefit from the status quo.

[gateley]

33. There are some pretty basic changes that APPEAR to me, anyway, that would

be easy to implement. Campaign finance, Corporate Personhood, reinstatement of Glass-Stegall for starters. I know many in Congress wouldn't be thrilled with these, but the American people are paying attention now (more than previously, it seems) so I think if presented well, the people would pressure their reps and hopefully force these changes.

In every area, we need to message better. We need a Progressive Frank Luntz!

It's all about the money, always, and that HAS to change. We've lost so much (frog in the boiling water) and we don't even realize it. I'm at the point where I assume I could be watched and listened to any time and anywhere. (I don't think they are, because, really, why me?) but I believe they have the ways and means and no qualms about doing it. Americans still think we're the Greatest Show On Earth, when in fact we lag behind other (surprising!) nations in so many areas.

[roseBudd]

36. actually moodys.com war gamed the do nothing scenario...

much much worse. We would be learning the meaning of deflation.

http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/End-of-Great-Recession.pdf

Letting GM fail would have likely taken down the entire supply chain and cost millions of jobs

To get an idea how serious this liquidity trap was, read what happened on the day the stimulus bill failed because GOP voted no

April 17, 2009

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/29/national/main4485321.shtml

FDR had a mandate, the Depression had been going on 3 years when he took office. He also had an electorate that had no social safety net. Starvation produces a hell of a mandate.

Contrast that with Obama inaugurated within months of a financial crisis, the bulk of the cascading spriral of layoffs still to come, over 700,000 job losses per month.

Plus the percentage of the electorate that doesn't read financial news, was oblivious to how narrowly we dodged the bullet of Depression 2.0. Obama not only did not have a mandate, (how do you convince macroeconomic illiterates of the necessity of breaking a liquidity trap wsith massive taxpayer funded spending?) Obama also had an opposition party nothing like what FDR faced.

IMO if we support OWS & the 99%, we must become financial sector literate. It's why I like the Economist, Financial Times, Bloomberg Business News, Forbes, on Facebook & why I routinely read the CapitalGainsandGames blog, love Bruce Bartlett and Mark Zandi, and were I prone to procreation would name my first born Bernanke. Bernanke saved our asses from a fate few younger than 95 years old can imagine.

[lefthandedlefty]

23. I am slowly crawling out of hole I got in between 02-08

Between fuel prices and the absolute raping I got from the Insurance co`s it has been a hard road and I truly don`t know if I will live long enough to fully recover.

[treestar]

25. I didn't realize it was going down until mid 2009

Then I noticed it improving as early as Jan 2010.

I had a verrrrry slow period in 2009 but it started back up early in 2010. Both 2010 and 2011 seemed like ordinary years.

Lately I see signs of improvement. Local businesses that shut down coming back. There's a third one still empty and I'm looking for it to start up again.

[BlueToTheBone]

26. In a death spiral. n/t

[bemildred]

29. In a death spiral. Not much better now. nt

[Fire Walk With Me]

31. Heading into the second Great Depression. I can link you to my statements that the economy would be

in trouble... Obama did some nice tricks to stave this off, but then dropped the ball quite mysteriously, in general.

Today? It's still capable of crashing. Some WANT it to crash so they can power and resource grab. And note the power grabs already in place: Goldman Sachs advisors are in position to rule in Greece and Italy. Google it up. "Disaster capitalism".

[GoCubsGo]

34. I thought it was a disaster.

I knew Idiot Boy and the repug Congress were going to destroy this country and its economy before the boob was even (s)elected. Sure enough, they did. Anyone who paid any sort of attention knew that was coming. I spent the night of the 2000 election crying because I thought the ratbastards would try to shut down the federally-funded environmental lab where I worked. I thought I would lose my job, and also my just-purchased house.

I was laid off a year and a half before the current President was sworn in, so I knew firsthand how completely fucked up things were. (Yes, they DID try to shut the lab down, whacked the funding to near nothing, and several dozen of us lost our jobs. ) I also understood that it's going to take decades to recover from this complete, unmitigated mess, and while I thought President Obama would improve the situation, I never believed that he or anyone else could put much of a dent in things in one or even two terms. I DID hope my situation would improve, but it hasn't.

I think today's economy is better. The situation has improved for for some, but not for me. At this point, I am at the end of my rope. Trying to get up the energy to clean up the house and call the realtor. My nightmare of election night 2000 came true.

[roseBudd]

35. I was petrified from Sept. 2008 on. I knew it was FUBAR, and we were staring into an abyss

[Enrique]

37. i heard them talk about "two more years" before unemployment went down

I heard that and thought "way too long!!!!"

I seriously did not think it was going to drag out as long as it has, still no end in sight.

[kentuck]

38. I cannot understand...

...how some folks, even some DUers, thought this was nothing more than a "normal" recession. Most could see the difference and the change that had happened to our economy and our banking system. How could anyone think this would be fixed in a short amount of time? For me, these folks were entirely out of touch of reality. And some still are...

And what was more disturbing was that this White House treated it as just a "normal" recession also. How could they make such an idiotic statement that the unemployment rate would not go over 8% with the stimulus package? How stupid was that?

Why did they not face the reality and call for the changes that were needed to actually fix this economy and the criminal activity that nearly wiped out the life savings of most Americans? Why did they not call for investigations and prosecutions?

Why did they not hire people with solutions? Why did they go to such extremes to protect the big banks and Wall Street? I still feel like we are treading water and that no real progress has really been made. It makes me sad. I cannot understand...