Do you think we are better off today then 4 years ago?

[professor]

Most people would agree that we are not better off as a country today, than we were four years ago.
The USA has a higher deficit. Higher unemployment..weaker military....we lost a lot of international prestige.etc....So why are people still backing Obama?

[Trevor]

One big reason is that the media still worship him as much as they did four years ago. They've done everything possible to derail Romney's campaign.

As for losing prestige, that was going to happen no matter who got elected. Okay, maybe you could argue that Obama made it worse, but nothing was going to prevent it.

[OLD1953]

Yes, absolutely we are better off than we were four years ago, in October of 2007. The idea that we aren't is kind of peculiar and certainly isn't based on any real numbers. Four years ago we had just had the Bush proposed bipartisan bank bailouts, housing had collapsed at a fantastic rate and the DOW was running not much above 7000. We had collapsing banks, we had just watched some of the largest institutions in the USA come begging for help, people were talking about the end of capitalism and the new Great Depression. This is October, not January of next year. Yes, deficits are important, but they are NOT the only important number in the economy.

The question that this is trying to misdirect to is "Are we better off than we were in 2005 before the bubble began to collapse". Well, of course not. However, a much better question would be "was there any path to a sustainable growth model from 2005 onwards?". And no, there wasn't, bubbles cannot blow to infinite size, and that's what would be required, that common crackerbox housing would be over a million dollars per unit in the center of the country by now, with prices increasing exponentially. Is there such a path to sustainable growth now? I surely wish I knew the answer to that.

[professor]

• Fewer Americans (as a percent of the population) are working than at any time since the early 1980s. And the ratio is considerably worse than four years ago.
• Thanks to the deficits, debt is ballooning as a percentage of GDP. It's much higher than it was four years ago.
• Gas prices are up from four years ago
• House prices are down from four years ago
• The household savings rate has declined from where it was four years ago
• The trend that has not improved is the growing number of Americans who are poor or near-poor.The number of Americans using food stamps just hit a record high (47 million).

[Trevor]

To be fair, though, Obama can't do anything about the housing market; neither can anyone in office. Gas prices... not much, either; it's more the media's hypocrisy.

[OLD1953]

It doesn't help that nobody uses properly normalized numbers, or almost nobody. US population changes over time, the working population changes as well, and the changes are not the same. Actual corrected job numbers would drop all the hocus pocus estimated adjustment nonsense and focus on numbers normalized to total labor pool less disabled. And the total labor pool should either be everyone who wants a job but doesn't have one, or all persons who have held a job in the last ten years, less retirees. None of those make for a pretty picture, so they aren't used.

Anyhow, four years ago we were sliding off a cliff. We might have been better off to just go on over and hit bottom rather than keep skirting the edge, but as far as comparisons go, we aren't on that teetering edge right now. Very likely we will go over after the election, no matter what happens at the polls, because the pressure to keep pushing back will have dropped as far as politics are concerned.

[at99sy]

The housing problem could have been solved very simply 4 years ago.
Cap all mortgage rates at 4%. Reduce all primary mortgage Principal balances by 50%.
Problem solved. It would help the people so that is why it would never happen. Bail out banks all
day long. Never the people. Save the banks-destroy the people.

[gerald]

The housing problem could have been solved very simply 4 years ago.
Cap all mortgage rates at 4%. Reduce all primary mortgage Principal balances by 50%.
Problem solved. It would help the people so that is why it would never happen. Bail out banks all
day long. Never the people. Save the banks-destroy the people.

It is a bit more complicated. First, whose bank deposits get destroyed? then also it involves the rule of law, precedent, consequences, property rights, etc. etc.

This problem was created, and is being maintained due to the denial of unpleasant reality. ( yes, reality can be difficult to prove but history is a guide )
An example of denying reality is the nation's housing and economic problems. In the 1990's we ran real a estate office with 30+ agents. As the lending requirements changed due to changes in the Community Reinvestment Act, for "social equality reasons" ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act we began to see a deterioration in the quality of buyers with their fluky loans and documentation ( now known as lier loans ) Banks were forced to make loans to the less qualified, -- causing many of the problems we see today. We got out of the business before the sh+t hit the fan. We know of brokerage office owners and agents who went bankrupt. Also much of the foreclosure problem is due to the "required" lending by lending institutions, as well as other issues.

The act may have "sounded good", but politics and "the devil is in the details" caused a very different out come ---caused by the denial of reality.---- "Do not make loans to the unqualified" --- qualified is based on a persons history, assets, loan to income, real value of property (not massaged appraisals or hoped for later values), down payment percentage, etc. ---- this goes against the concept of social "equality".

So, we now have what we have, it will most likely get worse until unpleasant actions are taken that are connected to "reality".

[Reality Check]

This says it all.

[inoka11]

I think in someways we are better than 4 years before. but as you have mentioned 4 years were indeed better