A long awaited day

[SMR 368]

Funny how the same people who blamed the "libs" for Bush's 28-30% approval ratings (and trivialized the importance of low approval numbers) are celebrating Obama falling below 50% (and making a big deal out of it). Apparently approval ratings are only important if it reflects your own views B)

I don't remember ever trivializing Bush's low approval ratings. His economic policy was terrible and not nearly as conservative as it should have been. I also don't blame libs. The libs always disliked him. His low approval ratings came as the far right and center right lost confidence in him.

But really, this is just more deflection.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Most economic indicators have dropped despite (or because of) Obama's flurry of activity.

Really? Is that what Glenn Beck professes? Or Rush? How about taking information from people that actually understand the matter?

Released: Thursday, November 19, 2009

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index™ (LEI) for the U.S. increased 0.3 percent in October, following a 1.0 percent gain in September, and a 0.4 percent rise in August.

Says Ataman Ozyildirim, Economist at The Conference Board: “After half a year of consecutive increases, the month-to-month growth of the LEI is stabilizing and the gains continue to be broad-based. Meanwhile, the coincident economic index has been essentially flat since June, after declining since November 2007. The composite indexes suggest the recovery is unfolding and economic activity should continue improving in the near term.”

Says Ken Goldstein, Economist at The Conference Board: “The data indicates that economic recovery is finally setting in. We can expect slow growth through the first half of 2010. The pace of growth, however, will depend critically on how much demand picks up, and how soon.”

The G economy grew. Government...

Meanwhile, people are still unemployed and losing their jobs nationwide. "ohhh but it would have been sooo much worse" of course, thats not provable.

Employment is always a lagging indicator. This is not new nor is it unique to this recovery. Ignoring the well known to try and score a point just fails. Are you Going Rogue, too?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Three Nobel Laureates in economics disagree with him:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/economy-w...onomists_a.html

But that really isn't the point. Obama has no economics background or experience. Even if a whole bunch of liberals agree that he does, that doesn't change anything.

So basically your argument goes like this - Obama is no expert on economic policy and has no experience with economics (prior to his presidency) and therefore his policies are inferior? What a weak argument. Obama didn't invent Keynesian Economics, he just embraced it like FDR and LBJ did. You can argue against the merits of that philosophy, but to dismiss whatever policies Obama makes as inadequate based on the rigid criteria you've described is being obtuse.

But lets look further:

Economists' Letter to Obama on Health Care Reform

By CATHERINE RAMPELL

This afternoon a group of 23 prominent economists — including two Nobel laureates as well as previous members of both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations — sent a letter to President Obama about the priorities for health care reform. The letter appears below.

For another take on the fiscal challenges for health care reform, see David Leonhardt's most recent column.

Dear Mr. President,

As the full Senate prepares to debate comprehensive health reform legislation, we write as economists to stress the potential benefits of health reform for our nation's fiscal health, and the importance of those features of the bill that can help keep health care costs under control. Four elements of the legislation are critical: (1) deficit neutrality, (2) an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans, (3) an independent Medicare commission, and (4) delivery system reforms.

Including these four elements in the reform legislation – as the Senate Finance Committee bill does and as we hope the bill brought to the Senate floor will do – will reduce long-term deficits, improve the quality of care, and put the nation on a firm fiscal footing. It will help transform the health care system from delivering too much care, to a system that consistently delivers higher-quality, high-value care. The projected increases in federal budget deficits, along with concerns about the value of the health care that Americans receive, make it particularly important to enact fiscally responsible and quality improving health reform now.

In developing our analysis and recommendation, we received input and suggestions from Administration officials, including the Office of Management and Budget and others, as well as from economists who disagree with the Administration's views.

The four key measures are:

• Deficit neutrality
  . Fiscally responsible health reform requires budget neutrality or deficit reduction over the coming years. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) must project that the bill be at least deficit neutral over the 10-year budget window, and deficit reducing thereafter. Covering tens of millions of currently uninsured people will increase spending, but the draft health reform legislation contains offsetting savings sufficient to cover those costs and the seeds of further reforms that will lower the growth of spending. Deficit neutrality over the first decade means that, even during the start-up period, the legislation will not add to our deficits. After the first decade, the legislation should reduce deficits.
• Excise tax on high-cost insurance plans
  . The Senate Finance Committee's bill includes an excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans. Like any tax, the excise tax will raise federal revenues, but it has additional advantages for the health care system that are essential. The excise tax will help curtail the growth of private health insurance premiums by creating incentives to limit the costs of plans to a tax-free amount. In addition, as employers and health plans redesign their benefits to reduce health care premiums, cash wages will increase. Analysis of the Senate Finance Committee's proposal suggests that the excise tax on high-cost insurance plans would increase workers' take-home pay by more than $300 billion over the next decade. This provision offers the most promising approach to reducing private-sector health care costs while also giving a much needed raise to the tens of millions of Americans who receive insurance through their employers.
• Medicare Commission.
  Rising Medicare expenditures pose one of the most difficult fiscal challenges facing the federal government. Medicare is technically complex and the benefits it underwrites are of critical importance to tens of millions of seniors and Americans with disabilities. We believe that a commission of medical experts should be empowered to suggest changes in Medicare to improve the quality and value of services. In particular, such a commission should be charged with developing and suggesting to Congress plans to extend the solvency of the Medicare program and improve the quality of care delivered to Medicare beneficiaries. Creating such a commission will make sure that reforming the health care system does not end with this legislation, but continues in future decades, with new efforts to improve quality and contain costs.
• Delivery system reforms.
  Successful reform should improve the care that individual patients receive by rewarding health care professionals for providing better care, not just more care. Studies have shown that hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on care that does nothing to improve health outcomes. This is largely a consequence of the distorted incentives associated with paying for volume rather than quality. Health care reform must take steps to change the way providers care for patients, to reward care that is better coordinated and meets the needs of each patient. In particular, the legislation should include additional funding for research into what tests and treatments work and which ones do not. It must also provide incentives for physicians and hospitals to focus on quality, such as bundled payments and accountable care organizations, as well as penalties for unnecessary re-admissions and health-facility acquired infections. Aggressive pilot projects should be rapidly introduced and evaluated, with the best strategies adopted quickly throughout the health care system.

As economists, we believe that it is important to enact health reform, and it is essential that health reform include these four features that will lower health care costs and help reduce deficits over the long term.

Reform legislation that embodies these four elements can go a long way toward delivering better health care, and better value, to Americans.

Sincerely,

Dr. Henry Aaron, The Brookings Institution

Dr. Kenneth Arrow, Stanford University, Nobel Laureate in Economics

Dr. Alan Auerbach, University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Katherine Baicker, Harvard University

Dr. Alan Blinder, Princeton University

Dr. David Cutler, Harvard University

Dr. Angus Deaton, Princeton University

Dr. J. Bradford DeLong, University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Peter Diamond, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Victor Fuchs, Stanford University

Dr. Alan Garber, Stanford University

Dr. Jonathan Gruber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Mark McClellan, The Brookings Institution

Dr. Daniel McFadden, University of California, Berkeley, Nobel Laureate in Economics

Dr. David Meltzer, University of Chicago

Dr. Joseph Newhouse, Harvard University

Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, Princeton University

Dr. Robert Reischauer, The Urban Institute

Dr. Alice Rivlin, The Brookings Institution

Dr. Meredith Rosenthal, Harvard University

Dr. John Shoven, Stanford University

Dr. Jonathan Skinner, Dartmouth College

Dr. Laura D'Andrea Tyson, University of California, Berkeley

Edited November 23, 2009 by Galt's gallstones

[SMR 368]

Three Nobel Laureates in economics disagree with him:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/economy-w...onomists_a.html

But that really isn't the point. Obama has no economics background or experience. Even if a whole bunch of liberals agree that he does, that doesn't change anything.

So basically your argument goes like this - Obama is no expert on economic policy and has no experience with economics (prior to his presidency) and therefore his policies are inferior? What a weak argument. Obama didn't invent Keynesian Economics, he just embraced it like FDR and LBJ did. You can argue against the merits of that philosophy, but to dismiss whatever policies Obama makes as inadequate based on the rigid criteria you've described is being obtuse.

But lets look further:

Economists' Letter to Obama on Health Care Reform

By CATHERINE RAMPELL

This afternoon a group of 23 prominent economists — including two Nobel laureates as well as previous members of both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations — sent a letter to President Obama about the priorities for health care reform. The letter appears below.

For another take on the fiscal challenges for health care reform, see David Leonhardt's most recent column.

Dear Mr. President,

As the full Senate prepares to debate comprehensive health reform legislation, we write as economists to stress the potential benefits of health reform for our nation's fiscal health, and the importance of those features of the bill that can help keep health care costs under control. Four elements of the legislation are critical: (1) deficit neutrality, (2) an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans, (3) an independent Medicare commission, and (4) delivery system reforms.

Including these four elements in the reform legislation – as the Senate Finance Committee bill does and as we hope the bill brought to the Senate floor will do – will reduce long-term deficits, improve the quality of care, and put the nation on a firm fiscal footing. It will help transform the health care system from delivering too much care, to a system that consistently delivers higher-quality, high-value care. The projected increases in federal budget deficits, along with concerns about the value of the health care that Americans receive, make it particularly important to enact fiscally responsible and quality improving health reform now.

In developing our analysis and recommendation, we received input and suggestions from Administration officials, including the Office of Management and Budget and others, as well as from economists who disagree with the Administration's views.

The four key measures are:

• Deficit neutrality
  . Fiscally responsible health reform requires budget neutrality or deficit reduction over the coming years. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) must project that the bill be at least deficit neutral over the 10-year budget window, and deficit reducing thereafter. Covering tens of millions of currently uninsured people will increase spending, but the draft health reform legislation contains offsetting savings sufficient to cover those costs and the seeds of further reforms that will lower the growth of spending. Deficit neutrality over the first decade means that, even during the start-up period, the legislation will not add to our deficits. After the first decade, the legislation should reduce deficits.
• Excise tax on high-cost insurance plans
  . The Senate Finance Committee's bill includes an excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans. Like any tax, the excise tax will raise federal revenues, but it has additional advantages for the health care system that are essential. The excise tax will help curtail the growth of private health insurance premiums by creating incentives to limit the costs of plans to a tax-free amount. In addition, as employers and health plans redesign their benefits to reduce health care premiums, cash wages will increase. Analysis of the Senate Finance Committee's proposal suggests that the excise tax on high-cost insurance plans would increase workers' take-home pay by more than $300 billion over the next decade. This provision offers the most promising approach to reducing private-sector health care costs while also giving a much needed raise to the tens of millions of Americans who receive insurance through their employers.
• Medicare Commission.
  Rising Medicare expenditures pose one of the most difficult fiscal challenges facing the federal government. Medicare is technically complex and the benefits it underwrites are of critical importance to tens of millions of seniors and Americans with disabilities. We believe that a commission of medical experts should be empowered to suggest changes in Medicare to improve the quality and value of services. In particular, such a commission should be charged with developing and suggesting to Congress plans to extend the solvency of the Medicare program and improve the quality of care delivered to Medicare beneficiaries. Creating such a commission will make sure that reforming the health care system does not end with this legislation, but continues in future decades, with new efforts to improve quality and contain costs.
• Delivery system reforms.
  Successful reform should improve the care that individual patients receive by rewarding health care professionals for providing better care, not just more care. Studies have shown that hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on care that does nothing to improve health outcomes. This is largely a consequence of the distorted incentives associated with paying for volume rather than quality. Health care reform must take steps to change the way providers care for patients, to reward care that is better coordinated and meets the needs of each patient. In particular, the legislation should include additional funding for research into what tests and treatments work and which ones do not. It must also provide incentives for physicians and hospitals to focus on quality, such as bundled payments and accountable care organizations, as well as penalties for unnecessary re-admissions and health-facility acquired infections. Aggressive pilot projects should be rapidly introduced and evaluated, with the best strategies adopted quickly throughout the health care system.

As economists, we believe that it is important to enact health reform, and it is essential that health reform include these four features that will lower health care costs and help reduce deficits over the long term.

Reform legislation that embodies these four elements can go a long way toward delivering better health care, and better value, to Americans.

Sincerely,

Dr. Henry Aaron, The Brookings Institution

Dr. Kenneth Arrow, Stanford University, Nobel Laureate in Economics

Dr. Alan Auerbach, University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Katherine Baicker, Harvard University

Dr. Alan Blinder, Princeton University

Dr. David Cutler, Harvard University

Dr. Angus Deaton, Princeton University

Dr. J. Bradford DeLong, University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Peter Diamond, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Victor Fuchs, Stanford University

Dr. Alan Garber, Stanford University

Dr. Jonathan Gruber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Mark McClellan, The Brookings Institution

Dr. Daniel McFadden, University of California, Berkeley, Nobel Laureate in Economics

Dr. David Meltzer, University of Chicago

Dr. Joseph Newhouse, Harvard University

Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, Princeton University

Dr. Robert Reischauer, The Urban Institute

Dr. Alice Rivlin, The Brookings Institution

Dr. Meredith Rosenthal, Harvard University

Dr. John Shoven, Stanford University

Dr. Jonathan Skinner, Dartmouth College

Dr. Laura D'Andrea Tyson, University of California, Berkeley

This is actually a different letter and cites different economists and laureates. The letter I cited was about the stimulus, not healthcare reform.

[Ban Hammer 13,150]

This is a repeat of the unfounded claims of the campaign when the media repeated claims that Obama had/has an economic background. But Obama hadn't done, and still hasn't done, anything to prove even a basic understanding of economics. He had never managed anything, studied economics, or run any sort of business or organization. The extent of Obamanomics has been that increasing government spending will revive the economy regardless of what it is spent on. That is the only conclusion that can be made after he signed a $787 Billion stimulus that he hadn't read (when we discovered that the stimulus covered AIG bonuses, there didn't seem to be anyone in Washington that claimed to have read and understood the stimulus cover to cover other).

Well them pesky economists need to listen to you instead of their own expertise.

Don't let facts get in the way of your argument...

Top Economists Overwhelmingly Favor Obama Plan: 80% Say He Has Better Grasp of Economics

The Economist magazine surveyed members of the prestigious National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and responders overwhelmingly think Obama far surpasses McCain in his grasp of economics and think Obama's plan is superior. (h/t to Freakonomics). These numbers are truly staggering! Sorry Marty! (former head of NBER and McCain supporter)

As with the Scott Adams poll, economists overwhelmingly choose to self-identify as Democrats and support Obama. This is no fluke and NBER is the cream of the crop.

(By the way, apparently the Economist is one of Palin's faves!)

Oct 2nd 2008 article. i wonder what they think now....

[nowhereman 1]

Funny how the same people who blamed the "libs" for Bush's 28-30% approval ratings (and trivialized the importance of low approval numbers) are celebrating Obama falling below 50% (and making a big deal out of it). Apparently approval ratings are only important if it reflects your own views B)

I don't remember ever trivializing Bush's low approval ratings. His economic policy was terrible and not nearly as conservative as it should have been. I also don't blame libs. The libs always disliked him. His low approval ratings came as the far right and center right lost confidence in him.

But really, this is just more deflection.

I was referring to the rampant rhetoric back in 2007-2008 from the Right (nationally) & of course the rampant rhetoric on VJ about Bush's record breaking low approval ratings. There were a lot of people who actually believed that the "libs" were behind the low numbers (even though nowhere near 70% of Americans are liberals... only about 20% are).

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Obama haterz better enjoy the <50% numbers while they last. There's ever more bad news on the horizon. Bad for you folks, that is. Which means that there are good news for America mounting.

Economists: Job Growth Will Resume 'Within The Next Few Months'

There's hopeful news about the economy as Thanksgiving Week begins:

It is revising -- upward -- its forecast for how well the economy will do next year and now believes that job growth will resume within a few months, the National Association for Business Economics announced this morning.

NABE's 2,300 members are economists and others who use economics in their work. Its latest quarterly survey of 48 professional forecasters signals that "while the recovery has been jobless so far, that should soon change. Within the next few months, companies should be adding instead of cutting jobs," NABE President Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Point Loma Nazarene University, said in a statement released with the group's findings.

The organization now expects the economy will grow at a 3% annual rate this quarter and 3.2% in all of 2010. It predicts growth in employment starting in the first- or second-quarter of next year. And, its members believe "housing starts and residential investment will rise sharply in 2010."

Edited November 23, 2009 by Mr. Big Dog