This Is Change?
Under Bush:
- Iraq Invasion: Hurry, we need this, emergency, rush, no time to argue, trust us
- Patriot Act and Related Legislation: Hurry, we need this, emergency, rush, no time to argue, trust us
- TARP I: Hurry, we need this, emergency, rush, no time to argue, trust us
Under Obama:
- TARP II: Hurry, we need this, emergency, rush, no time to argue, trust us
- Stimulus bill(s): Hurry, we need this, emergency, rush, no time to argue, trust us
Change we can believe in.
On a related note, Greg Mankiw looks at this graph in the TED spread:
And says:
[The TED spread's] decline suggests that the TARP is working and is certainly good news
Really? You get all that from this chart? I am not an economist, but I would have said the TED spread spiked up and came back down quickly in a very similar manner to any number of fear-induced price spikes, and had already fallen a fair ways before TARP was approved and had fallen a lot before the first dollar flowed (it is hard to read the chart, but by October 24 it had fallen to around 2.5). This strikes me as pretty post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning. One could as easily say that the recent fall in oil prices was due to the most recent energy bill from Congress, but I am not sure even the most hard-core statist could say that with a straight face.
The longer-term history of the TED spread shows many such spikes, all of which came to earth quickly without a trillion federal dollars:
stan:
The "RUSH" to invade Iraq took how many years? And how many UN resolutions? I seem to recall that there was extensive debate. Every major figure in the Democratic Party agreed with the conclusion based on intelligence information provided by the CIA. The CIA had been studying Saddam's capabilities for many, many years. The intelligence was corroborated by the intelligence agencies of every one of our allies. Again, how many different UN resolutions?
Yeah, just like the rush to the TARP passage. NOT. The number of YEARS that went into the decision to go into Iraq was greater than the number of DAYS given to the TARP decision. And if you want to limit the Iraq decision to the time following 9/11, then the number of MONTHS exceeded the number of TARP DAYS.
January 16, 2009, 8:56 amDKH:
Agree with stan above. There's too much of a try to be cutesy here rather than give a considered analysis of whether too little time was spent making these decisions. It may be an interesting and correct point, but I don't buy it with the presentation here.
January 16, 2009, 10:21 amMilena Thomas:
No, I disagree. I liked cutesy. Obama shouldn't be the only one with a monopoly on cutesy around here.
January 17, 2009, 7:53 pmStuhlmann:
I know you are probably not going to be satisfied with what Obama does as president, but can't you at least let him get in office and do something before you start criticizing how he gets legislation through Congress?
January 21, 2009, 8:46 am