I think it is likely that he will have a second term and I think it will be productive mainly because I believe that the Republican party will begin to slack off on its obstructionism. Obama’s popularity is climbing, largely at the expense of the GOP. By Obama’s second term, the economy will be inching upward and the president will be riding a renewed wave of popularity (I predict it won’t be great, but better). The GOP will find themselves in the same position that the Dems were in for Reagan’s second term: they will be seen as drag on the agenda of a popular president.
With the GOP ceasing its active and often explicit attempts to harm the US economy, things will slowly get better for the nation.
[QUOTE=2sense]
This though “center” is defined in relation to opinion of the political and elite classes. So, skewed to the right.
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So, what you are saying here is that the US ‘center’ is skewed to the right? ‘But half the population is below average in intelligence!’, ehe?
As to the OP:
How can anyone realistically show you this? You do realize that it’s only 2011 (nearly 2012)…not 2016, right? The current trend seems downward, but no one knows what might or might not happen even next year, let alone in 4-5 years. The Euro-zone could go tits up and plunge the entire world into recession. China could melt down, as they seem to be tottering right now. The Middle East could explode in a new war. Belgium…well, don’t even get me started there! The point is, that no one can answer this question, since no one knows the future. Right now things seem fairly stable, financially, with unemployment trending slightly downward and the DOW and other indicators (well, some of them) being pretty good. But that could just be short term, and the whole thing could nose dive next month when the holiday season is finished. Or, it could be the start of a strong resurgence in the economy.
shrug But Bush WON’T be President. As for Guantanamo, that seems to be pretty similar to the way things were with the last president, of which I’m militantly unsurprised. However, he (Obama) DID get us out of Iraq, which is a pretty decent achievement. What happens there now is on them, and we have gotten our crank out from beneath our golf shoes in about as painless a manner as was possible in that fucked up situation. I definitely count that as a positive. If he can do the same in Afghanistan I’d say that he has measurably benefited the US by being president just there, regardless of whether the economy tanks or not. He has only limited ability to influence the economy or stuff like unemployment in any case…the purse strings are held by Congress, according to my handy dandy pocket Constitution.
Again, this is difficult to answer, since it involves using not only a time machine but also going into alternative universes to observe what someone else might or might not have done. I will say that, bad as things are today they COULD be much, much worse. We could, for instance, still be heavily committed in Iraq still. We could be fighting a war with Iran or North Korea. The economy could have completely gone tits up and we could be rediscovering the joys of hunting and gathering. Not to say that this is stuff that would have happened if Bush had pulled a Watchmen and done a 3rd term, making Iraq our 52nd state, but it’s hard to judge might have beens with anything but speculation.
Barring us being in a real inflection point/structural change in the economy, employment generally increases after a recession. I don’t know how the OP expects anyone to give him a mathematical proof of what the employment figures will look like 4 years hence. That has nothing to do with Obama-- economics just isn’t a predictive science like that.
Of course, 4 years is a long way away, and we could be in another recession by then. Anyone who tells you what the employment rate will be at that time doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
When was the last inflection point?
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At a guess it would either be 2000 or 2007, depending on your exact definition and what metrics you were using. As John said, we won’t know for several years, as you will need metrics to track to see if you are at such a point.
Unless you have a time machine, in which case please PM me with the details so I can craft my investment portfolio accordingly…
Good question. I don’t really know, but if I had to guess, it would have been sometime in the 70s when women flooded the job market. If you think about it, it’s amazing how the economy absorbed so many new workers, but I’ve read where some economists postulate that an economy grows or shrinks to fit the number of workers available. That kinda makes sense, since more workers means more money in the hands of consumers and more demand for goods and services. Obviously, it doesn’t exactly balance out, but there is a relationship.
There probably was an inflection point associated with the internet as well. Think of all the jobs that got killed because of that-- travel agent, anyone?
Don’t bother. And, if a guy with four arms ever should ask you, remember, you do not know how to make grape soda and you’re allergic to carbonated water.
Yes, exactly. What is known misleadingly as “the center” is not defined by the opinions of the entire population. Fiscally the median American opinion is to the left of the middle of the elite consensus. And on some issues it is to the right. The point being that Obama will tack to the political winds rather than the direction the hypothetical average American wants the country to take.
Well almost every politican seems to be pretty sure that they can paint an accurate picture of the world a few years from now if they are elected.
Well every productive worker adds value to the economy so, yeah, more workers don’t hurt so long as they create value. In fact most projections of our long term economic growth seem to be tied closely to the rate of our population growth.
We probably had an inflection point when automation and free trade made a lot of jobs redundant and drove a lot of the new job creation overseas. I don’t know if you can or even want to stop that but these factors are not about to reverse themselves anytime soon. Just go to Detroit or Pittsburgh and you can’t help but see the effects of the dislocation this sort of transition has created.
I doubt a Republican Senate would approve any candidate Obama puts forward, not matter who he’s replacing. They might even pull the “let’s have pro forma sessions with 3 members trick” to avoid allowing him to use a recess appointment. Granted if it’s Tuhomas or Scalia being replaced this would actually tilt the balance of the court towards the liberal wing.
A newly elected & Tea Party rich Republican majority might finally go ahead and abolish (or at least drasticly neuter) the filibuster which would ofcourse really come back to bite them in the ass the next time they’re in the minority.
One thing is for certain; if Obama is reelected then the Republicans, even if they gain the Senate and keep the House, won’t be able to claim making Obama a 1-term president is their number one priority and will actually have to at least pretend to work with to run the country.
One can only hope the right wing would cut off their nose to spite their face. With Obama in the White House, he could veto everything they pass, so there would be a firewall against the Tea Party craziness. And we would be done with the filibuster forever.
Maybe their will be, maybe there won’t be. But given what I’ve seen from the other side as far as economic policy goes I’d feel better with another 4 years. Can you pick your favorite GOP candidate and “show me how the unemployment rate by 2016 will be less than it is now. Show me the numbers. Explain the math using the economic beliefs this guy has that more people will be employed then than now, and tell me why that is.”
I like how you set the bar in 2008, when Obama didn’t come into power until 2009, and none of his policies had taken effect until at least a few months after that. But given the fact that I was worried about a 2nd great depression back in late 2008 and early 2009, if I knew back then that we would be where we are now I would have felt a great sense of relief.
The elites are not skewered to the right. They are if anything skewed to the left excepting some industries (such as oil) which have enmity with the left. They can afford taxes far better than the upper middle class and socially they are ultra-liberal.
Anyways some thoughts on the Second Administration of Barack Obama:
-Afghanistan winds down, more or less successfully and Obama quietly withdraws the troops and proclaims victory
-The economy sluggishly improves, we probably have a “lost decade” like the Japanese
-Obamacare goes into effect and proves to be a massive bureaucratic mess
-Obama grants a few trivial cuts to Medicaid and Social Security
-The US continues to fall behind in space technology, another Sputnik moment may happen if the Chinese return to the Moon while we rely on unreliable Russian Soyuz capsules
-Court tilts slighly to the left as one conservative justice or Anthony Kennedy gets replaced by someone else
-Lots of inane battles in Congress like the one we’ve seen in the past year
-Steadily we become full on enemies with Pakistan, this will push us happily to an alliance with India. If there’s an Indo-American alliance in Obama’s term it will be his greatest positive accomplishment
-Iran develops nukes, it probably gets the same treatment as North Korea
The Congressional Budget Office currently projects annual growth of 3.6% from 2013 to 2016. That’s not lost decade kind of growth, that’s Bill Clinton-era kind of growth.
Since the OP (who seems to have gone missing) demanded facts not speculation, why are you right and the non-partisan bunch of economists down at the CBO wrong?
‘But half the population is below average in intelligence!’, ehe?