Matt Yglesias

24 Responses to “Spending Freeze”

1. El Cid Says:
   September 26th, 2008 at 11:13 pm

   You have to recall that to this day, conservatives still argue that Hoover’s policies were a success and should have been continued.

2. MobiusKlein Says:
   September 26th, 2008 at 11:50 pm

   I heard that line and plotzed (McCain’s line that is.)

   I waited for Obama to rebut it, but no go.
   If he could state simply that if we seem to be sliding into a depressions, the worst thing would be to make more people unemployed …

   The WPA did quite a number of useful things, and people ate too.

3. observerfrommars Says:
   September 26th, 2008 at 11:54 pm

   Remember when Yglesias said this:

   That means that the threat of a WaMu failure wiping out the FDIC’s accounts isn’t hanging over our heads anymore and my understanding is that there aren’t other retail banks of WaMu’s size thought to be teetering on the brink at the moment.

   I wonder if he’s gotten around to reading this:

   Wachovia Corp. has entered into preliminary talks with a handful of possible buyers — the latest in a parade of banks to look for safety in the arms of a suitor amid concerns that the weak economy is pushing them deeper into peril.

   The talks came as Washington Mutual Inc.’s late-Thursday failure rattled the shares of other troubled banks. Shares in Wachovia fell 27% on Friday as investors fretted about its massive mortgage portfolio.

4. Braden Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 12:20 am

   It’s about the WORST POSSIBLE THING ANY PRESIDENT COULD DO IN A RECESSION. And Obama should have said so during the debate. I mean, freezing spending? What about that nice proposal from McCain to spend billions on nuclear power? Is that part of his nice spending freeze? It’s not only ludicrous to think that McCain will actually freeze spending, but it’s wrong on the principle of encouraging economic growth. I used to agree to disagree with conservatives about “supply side economics”, but now all I have is a deep well of contempt for anyone who refuses to recognize that in this great laboratory we call the U.S. economy, conservative economic proposals have failed, and failed spectacularly. If you can’t compete on the merits of your “ideals”, than step aside so that serious people can start to figure out how to rescue this country.

5. Nylund Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 1:12 am

   When the gov’t spends that money, it eventually ends up as someone’s paycheck. What happens to all them?

   If I got my basic economics down, GDP = C+I+G+NX. Take away a big chunk o’ G(overnment) and GDP will fall, and not just by what you cut, but from the multiplier effect, maybe 10x as much. All those people who got their paycheck “frozen” by John McCain would cut back on spending and it’d ripple through the economy.

   WWII got us out of the depression in large part because government spending went WAY up.

   If our economy was run with any sanity, we’d be earning a surplus during the booms which we could then use to finance deficit spending by the government to take the place of decreased private sector activity during the down times.

   McCain once said he didn’t understand economics, and it really showed tonight.

6. bperk Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 3:57 am

   There is no way to freeze spending without laying off government employees.

7. mike Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 12:44 pm

   I can’t wait until the election is over. You’re a whiny hack in the heat of an election.

8. BruceMcF Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 6:54 pm

   The reason that development economists with some exposure to Latin American financial crises are going to be nervous about the current US financial crisis is because it is not a liquidity crisis, it is a solvency crisis. Solvency problems papered over with liquidity policies for a year until things come to a crisis point is not an unfamiliar story to those of use who have looked at economies beyond the US border …

   … and if anything, the spending freeze is worse for a solvency crisis than for a liquidity crisis. The finance sector needs business to generate income to use to repair battered balance sheets, and McCain proposes a deeper and longer recession as the solution? Insane.

9. Downpuppy Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 7:33 pm

   If we freeze spending, then we get another George Bush budget. Does McCain have 3 firing brain cells to realize that he just announced he was running for another term for George Bush?

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