NEW YORK Times says it rhymes with "schneo-liberalism." I don't know what is schneo-liberalism. The writer, Farhad Manjoo, defines it as an economic disaster and a political dead end. Yet no Democratic bet has really called out the Obama administration’s policies. He is so cool to diss, I guess. Meantime, what is neoliberalism? Market-oriented reform policies such as "eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, lowering trade barriers" and reducing state influence in the economy, especially through privatization and austerity. Uhh kinda cool, isn't it? But does it work?
True, Obama responded to the recession with emergency measures designed to fix the immediate collapse of financial markets. The recovery from the start of the downturn in 2008 was slow yet it was still a growth. As Obama gave away bailout money to banks and corporations, unemployment was almost 10 percent in 2010. Although the rate lessened from that point, it was slow in the next six years. Obama left office with a 4 percent joblessness rate. It hasn't gone up from that point. Obama's economic team are still saying though that if the stimulus was instead $1.7 trillion, Obama could have done better. Really. Why don't they just accept the flaw and move on to the next strategy?
I already have a lot of problem/s with Obama's handling of the $800 billion, stimulus/bailout though. His advisers projected it would reduce unemployment to below 8 percent by the 2010 midterms. They were wrong; the stimulus did reduce job losses, but it was far too small to hit the stated goal — unemployment was 9.8 percent in November 2010. But then who knows if he indeed got $1.2 or $1.7 trillion? How could that be when he also upped Defense budget to all-time highs of $721 billion and $717 billion in 2010/11 from George W's $696 billion. On top of that, Washington also accepted a record number of refugees as economic teams grasp for ways to speed up economic recovery.
PERTINENT POINT:
Just in case Obama did up the stimulus package to $1.2 or $1.7 trillion, would that have a dent with his Defense budget/s of $721 billion and $717 billion, all-time highs. Obama also accepted a record number of refugees as he devised ways to speed up economic recovery. His basic fault: He confronted both economy and "security" at the same time with budget upgrades. George W committed that blunder already.
