07/03/2009 05:20:37 AM EST

Barack Hoover Obama ...

posted by toosinbeymen

The best and the brightest blow it again.

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Kevin Baker's article in July 09 issue of "Harpers", partially reprinted here: http://tinyurl.com/my23hh, makes a compelling case.

"Obama’s failure would be unthinkable. And yet the best indications now are that he will fail, because he will be unable—indeed he will refuse—to seize the radical moment at hand.

Every instinct the president has honed, every voice he hears in Washington, every inclination of our political culture urges incrementalism, urges deliberation, if any significant change is to be brought about. The trouble is that we are at one of those rare moments in history when the radical becomes pragmatic, when deliberation and compromise foster disaster. The question is not what can be done but what must be done."

Stuart Whatley in Huffington Post: "Obama's Agenda: Hope, Change and Lobby-Centricity?"

http://bit.ly/zzC9O

"Executive branch officials may be forcibly insulated from lobbyist influence, but the policies they will be enforcing will carry the stench of special interests through and through. A prime example is a recent bill to reform federal regulators' bank takeover powers that was written by the finance lobby's lawyers."

Is anyone else slipping into pessimism?

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Barack Hoover Obama ... | 10 comments (10 topical, 0 hidden)
''Hoover'' (none / 0)
I didn't want to say it.  But I'm glad that somebody did.

One of Hoover's greatest failures was that he chose to not act when unemployment skyrocketed.  If he had done something -- anything -- to try to reverse that trend, he might have been remembered entirely differently.

Nevertheless, we also must remember that Roosevelt had to be dragged kicking and screaming toward progressive policies.  And even then, he tried to seek bipartisan support with Republicans.  That, of course, resulted in the recession of '38.

Already it's clear that the magnitude of unemployment has caught this president by surprise.  But he's not seeking fresh voices or alternate opinions among his economic advisors, even though it's clear that the massive amount of money given to the banks as part of his recovery and stimulus plans has done almost nothing except give that industry more money to use for political contributions.

Obama is a star, and a very popular one.  In fact, he's a hit a parties.  It's just too bad that he's not an economist and that he listens only to bankers for advice.

by EveningStarNM on 07/03/2009 05:55:19 AM EST

Mythbusters (none / 0)
One of Hoover's greatest failures was that he chose to not act when unemployment skyrocketed.

Hoover did the opposite of what you think.

by Twba on 07/04/2009 12:45:34 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Your own link shows Obama looking like Hoover (none / 0)
But as for your attempt to contradict me:

http://www.digitalhistory.u h.edu/database/article_disp lay.cfm?HHID=466

Hoover was willing to help the banks, as is Obama, but did nothing to help people as they lost their jobs and their homes and even the means to eat.  It was left to Roosevelt to implement programs that created jobs.

Hoover stood by while poor and middle-class people suffered, preferring to help the already-rich instead.

by EveningStarNM on 07/04/2009 03:22:46 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Hooverville Diary (none / 0)
Hoover stood by while poor and middle-class people suffered, preferring to help the already-rich instead.

Your assertion is contradicted by Hoover's own words.

We might have done nothing. That would have been utter ruin. Instead we met the situation with proposals to private business and to Congress of the most gigantic program of economic defense and counterattack ever evolved in the history of the Republic. We put it into action.... No government in Washington has hitherto considered that it held so broad a responsibility for leadership in such times.... For the first time in the history of depression, dividends, profits, and the cost of living, have been reduced before wages have suffered.... They were maintained until the cost of living had decreased and the profits had practically vanished. They are now the highest real wages in the world.

Creating new jobs and giving to the whole system a new breath of life; nothing has ever been devised in our history which has done more for ... "the common run of men and women." Some of the reactionary economists urged that we should allow the liquidation to take its course until we had found bottom.... We determined that we would not follow the advice of the bitter-end liquidationists and see the whole body of debtors of the United States brought to bankruptcy and the savings of our people brought to destruction.

by Twba on 07/13/2009 08:28:04 AM EST

[ Parent ]
I'll bet you think that's a valid refutation. (none / 0)
When was it written, twba?  When Hoover was trying to justify and excuse what he did to our country?

Sorry, but this is too old, and I'm not going to spend anymore time on this article.

Try to catch up, will you?

by EveningStarNM on 07/13/2009 04:52:07 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Obamaville (none / 0)
When was it written, twba?

You didn't google it to see what book it came from?

Try to catch up, will you?

That's what I was doing when I replied this morning, catching up with unanswered replies on my hotlist.

by Twba on 07/13/2009 06:40:01 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Wow! (none / 0)
So Hoover wrote those words in 2009!  Amazing!

by EveningStarNM on 07/13/2009 07:29:53 PM EST

[ Parent ]
wooh (none / 1)
If you had clicked to look inside the book, you could have searched for the quote. Hoover wrote those words in 1932.

by Twba on 07/20/2009 02:30:01 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Or as John Stewert puts it. (none / 0)
That's great, now fix the economy.

by richardshort2001 on 07/03/2009 09:58:15 AM EST

obama is an economic moron (none / 0)

this guy is like bush with his massive stimulus bill, neither of them has worked

 

by nashvi11e on 07/04/2009 07:55:47 PM EST

Barack Hoover Obama ... | 10 comments (10 topical, 0 hidden)
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