Home > Opinion > Mort Zuckerman: President Obama's Economic Programs Have Failed

Mort Zuckerman: President Obama's Economic Programs Have Failed

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just a bunch of republican talking points by a shill that aren't really worth reading entirely, from a party and ideology that WILL NOT accept responsibility for all of its decades of failed policies. They just blame Obama and say he's the failure and his policies have failed. Yeah he failed to fix decades of neglect and bad decisions made by both parties in a few years. And how could he with the insane GOP and duplicitous and spineless dems in the congress? Totally unrealistic of anybody to think the shambles our economy was in would magically recover just like that. He's done alright in spite of them. No easy task. The GOP and right wing deliberately tried to sabotage the whole thing to avoid blame and take over again and it won't surprise me if the ignorant and masochistic American public votes them all back in again.

John of CO 5:40AM April 25, 2012

The way to fix it is: 1] Repeal NAFTA 2 Place import tariffs on foreign goods 3] Freeze health care prices charged to the consumer including prescription drugs 4] limit FDIC payouts to domestic banks not foreign banks or foreign owned banking corporations 5]impose an excess profits tax to curb inflationary trends 6] stop paying corporations to move away 7] limit entitlements to able bodied citizens and reward reward those collecting when they do enter the work force as an incentive to keep working 8] no more bailouts to any banks 9] education tuition and expense reform--an education should be a lifelong blessing--not a life sentance

David of MN 4:50AM April 25, 2012

Sounds like Mr Zukerman's personal opinion and the opinion of the Republican party which under Mr George W Bush created and handed off an economy in shambles to Mr Obama.
Hank Paulson, representative of Wall Street and king-maker for George W Bush played a huge gamble, sticking to his ego-based decision to not bail out Lehman Brothers, leading to a situation which could have ended the global economy in a couple of weeks.
The entire world was on the brink of collapse. AIG failed, and every other corporation and economy was on the verge of collapse.
Then John McCain called off his election campaign and asked Bush to invite Obama and himself for a major meeting. One of the two candidates was about to inherit the worst situation for mankind in 6,000 years, with a global interconnected economic system on the verge of complete social and economic chaos.
During that meeting on September 22nd 2008, Mr Obama came prepared. It was he who showed leadership which restored the economy to the extent it is today.
The hole dug was 16 trillions worth of losses. The hole was filled only to some extent with the bailouts, which when multiplied in the banking system brings us to only about the half way point.
The remainder of the hole is yet to be filled, mostly because the same Republicans who created the mess by eliminating regulations prevented further bailouts for main street by crying wolf about deficits, which in part the Republicans created via illegal wars and deficit spending from a surplus economy inherited in 2000.
Stop your rubbish you ignorant fool!

Someone of AR 4:17AM April 25, 2012

FYI Bill Hedges
You are parroting the false lines of blame shifting
trying to rewrite history with propaganda
by shifting the blame for the recession from Wall Street to Main St.
You are buying into a barrel of lies, false statements and half truths.
The recession was caused by Wall Street.
Derivatives(in the trillions of dollars) where Wall Street used the country's and the world's pension funds to earn fat fees, commissions and make trillions of dollars disappear.
Wall Street was turned into a "day trading" casino.
20% of the value of trillions of dollars in pensions disappeared overnight, but Wall Street made certain they got their fat fees and commissions.
Warren Buffet called derivatives, correctly so, "financial weapons of mass destruction".
Buffet stated that the financial crash would have happened with or without
mortgages going bad.
By the way, FYI most of the mortages that went bad were not people who bought more homes than they could afford. That is a false statement repeated by misinformed fools or shills simpletons on the radio and television. It was mortgage companies directly owned by wall street firms using high pressure call centers to con fix income people into changing their affordable fixed rate loans into negative amortization option Arms. They refinanced the same poor fixed income people over and over and over again zapping the equity out of their homes and saddling it with huge fees and commissions.
Those Wall Streeters should be in jail like the Savings and Loan crooks from the last Savings and Loan crisis.
However, big money has taken over our political system which means no consequences and no jail time for the real culprits sitting in their Wall Street penthouse offices.
The USA Treasury is backstopping hundreds of trillions in derivatives
for these companies that if some go bad, will take down the entire system
and make 2008 look like a boom time.

History8888 of CA 2:30AM April 25, 2012

Kevin of CA, I don't know what you are doing in the bathroom, but I don't believe that it is thinking.
Go to WalMart and study Economics with Zuckerman. It's on special this week.
Bill Anthony

William D Anthony, Jr, of KS 2:17AM April 25, 2012

I like Zuckerman's use of cartoons to back his macroeconomic policy analysis. Did you study economics at Walmart, Zuckerman?

William D Anthony, Jr, of IL 2:14AM April 25, 2012

This article is hollow, endlessly quoting statistics that do not support the point Zuckerman is trying to make, that "Obama's policies have failed."
Zuckerman knows that much of the tidal force that resulted in the loss of jobs preceded and had nothing to do with Obama's policies. He also knows that much of the resistance to reform in critical areas such as education, visas and outsourcing came from the right, not from Obama.
That was just intellectually dishonest.

Eric Dolson of OR 1:26AM April 25, 2012

It should also be noted that young Americans in particular, hit hard by rising health-care costs and student-loan fees, are simply emigrating increasingly, leaving the USA for good- and this is a direct result of the outrages of (mainly) Republicans like Paul Ryan making it so tough for the poor and middle class to attain social mobility. This is especially true for Americans of European descent, who can emigrate rather easily to countries like Holland, Germany, Belgium, Scandinavia, Italy, France, Ireland and other countries that welcome their ethnic Diaspora from overseas. Costs of education, health-care, day-care and everything else are much lower there because they have a true, old-fashioned conservative society that looks after its own people, not the Third-World corruption and purchase of power by the super-rich banksters, supported by Republicans, that's increasingly eating the USA alive. Many other Americans are going to Asian countries like Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia or even to South/Central American places like Panama, Costa Rica, Brazil, Chile, even Argentina or Uruguay, because the sense of community and cost-of-living are better. They learn the language (esp German which is increasingly the global language of tech) and work hard, and tend to do much better than in the US, which is increasingly stacked against them. And it's not just young people emigrating, increasingly it's Americans of all ages.
I'd never imagine I'd see mass emigration by America's best and brightest, from top college grads and professionals down to enterprising shop-owners and blue-collar workers. But it's happening because our political system is so corrupt and ineffectual, tilted against its own people.

Caton of IN 12:55AM April 25, 2012

I'm a Republican myself and I usually like Mort Zuckerman's columns, but he's utterly clueless on this one. He thinks Obama's economic programs have failed? I'm sorry, but any observer of any party affiliation knows that President Obama inherited a tremendous mess from George W. Bush, something that would take years to begin cleaning up. And even then, so much of what Barack Obama has tried to enact has been blocked by obstructionist Republicans. Obama has done remarkably well considering what he had to deal with coming into office, which if anything has become even worse than what FDR did.
I'll note that this is one of the reasons why so many of us Republicans are leaving the party. We joined it years ago because it was a party of ideas, of free markets and of smart approaches to balance society- improving the USA's ridiculous divorce laws for example, reducing taxes on expats (who are hit hard when they set up businesses to export goods) and other derangements in the US economy.
Now, the GOP seems to be about nothing more than obstructionism, monopolies and crony capitalism which is the exact opposite of real endeavors in a capitalist free market. The Republicans tend to support corruption in things like health insurance- a monopolistic system that would never survive in a free market, with CEO's making $50 million per year salaries- which is rising much faster than inflation and stifling free enterprise and entrepreneurs. The GOP also defends our corrupt bankers and student loan system, also stifling ambitious young Americans when they finish college.
There's increasingly little reason at all to support the GOP, as they move farther and farther away from historical conservatism and more toward this infatuation with corruption and feudal elites like in Latin America and other Third-World countries. Paul Ryan for one is singlehandedly destroying what's left of the GOP's credibility, trying to provide monopolies to cronies for Social Security and Medicare, increasing student-loan burdens and other outrageous policies. All this while Scott Walker's cronies get juicy no-bid contracts for public goods in Wisconsin, their counterparts trying the same in Indiana, South Carolina, Michigan, Ohio and Florida. The Republicans have little to offer more, and I'm getting very close to leaving them myself.

Caton of IN 12:44AM April 25, 2012

This seems to be the Democratic view on things. If you aren't working, it is because of outside forces holding you back, pushing you under, slowing you down. If you don't have a job, the problem isn't you; it's out there in the mysterious world. I don't agree with this view at all. How about this view? If you aren't working, it is because of you. It is because you don't want to work, don't present yourself well, have too high of expectations, or simply don't have the will to create a job for yourself? If you can't find a job after putting out 2o applications, you need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself, "What's wrong here?" And that's where the answer will come from. If you don't believe me, just take an ad on Craig's list for a personal assistant and assess the quality of applicants who apply. My guess is that many will not like the low pay and lack of benefits and will not even apply. Those who apply might have an agenda other than wanting to work hard for you. The truth is jobs are out there and will always be out there for hard workers. If you don't have a job, just go in your bathroom and look above the sink. The problem should be right there.

Kevin of CA 12:19AM April 25, 2012