Mehdi, ENOUGH, ENOUGH, ENOUGH.

Your constant obessive putdown of Obama is tiresome.

Did Clinton inherit Lehman? The ans is, NO.

If Obama did not know how to manage the economy would he have taken the necessary steps to bring the US back from the brink of depression and out of a recession.

I am a liberal but I am sick and tired of your 'Abosolute Ideological' stance. Obama does what works, not what is Keynesian or Monitorist.

Apart from the above points I raised, do you think a black president in America has as much Leverage as Clinton, the man who is responsible for the radical deregulation of the financial industry, namely, the deregulation of the Glass-Steagall Act, designed to prevent financial institutions from getting 'too big to fail' (Robert Scheer, Truthdig.com, for huff post, june 2011).
ENOUGH MEHDI.

While Clinton is right about the stupidity of our government he actually Clinton doesn't entirely get it, it was his willingness to run a surplus that helped lead to the problems we have now.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-growing-government-deficit-actually-m...

We really need people to understand how our monetary system works, unfortunately the deficit hysterics are winning the day and people will suffer needlessly because of their stupidity.

Obama has a choice. Either he borrows more money to support the tottering infrastructure and support the colossal military machine, or he reduces support benefits to the 10% unemployed and the 40 million on food aid. If he borrows another $4 trillion, that pushes the debt above annual GDP and the country into bankruptcy and guarantees default a couple of years hence. That might sustain the economy a little beyond the next election, the total collapse would come halfway though his second term of office. If he doesn’t borrow, that pushes the infrastructure towards immediate collapse because there won’t be enough money (tax income) to support 10% unemployed and 40 million on food aid and maintain the military as well as everything else that’s dependent on government money. That would make Obama’s departure certain, and could put Bachmann in office wrapped in her religious security blanket with her wishlist politics.
http://www.yourmedievalfuture.com/

As you tools conveniently forget, Keynes also said that in times of economic growth, the government should be running a surplus, and public spending should be low. Neither of which was true in the American and British context. So if you're going to lecture us on Keynesian macroeconomics, at least get your facts right.

To be fair to Obama, he does have a few maniacs in Congress causing him budget problems...

One thing that doesn't help in the cuts vs spending debate is there appears to be precious little clarity over either what is being cut or its effect on ordinary people. The doomsayers predicted the cuts would have an immediately noticeable effect on people, whereas in reality the extent of cuts to local authority budgets were only revealed earlier this year (because they get their funding from multiple sources, they had to calculate the effects of cuts to numerous individual grants), and it's only in this financial year they're starting the first phase of cuts. Unsurprisingly "soft" services like youth centres and parks/recreation are the first to feel the bite; while for other areas (e.g. road maintenance) it may take a few years before the effects become noticeable. The new universal benefit and benefits/pensions uprating by CPI rather than RPI will only be noticed over the long term, as will the money saved by the controversial Atos Origin medical assessments of IB claimants (with allegations that they don't look at the medical history of claimants, or take any notice of assessments by other medical professions, or their pay is partially dependent on the number of people they assess as fit for work). Schools funding is in a mess, with Academies and Free Schools getting temporary extra pots of money, while local authorities have (allegedly equivalent) reductions in education budgets. HE funding is theoretically being cut, but since most students will be taking out loans to cover the cost, in reality it's more a case of moving money from one budget to another.

Still, it's interesting that even though local authority grants have apparently been reduced by less than 10% over five years, many are planning bigger cuts - my LA is planning to reduce by 20% (not just staffing but services and buildings) - again, most of those will probably take a few years to filter through and be noticed by people (and of course, while buildings may be emptied, they won't save much money until the council can sell them off, which may only happen once the economy recovers... and of course, the longer they're left unoccupied and possibly unmaintained, the lower the expected resale value will be).

Of course Clinton is right and Obama knows he's right, but politically, Obama has to be careful and although he talks of reducing the deficit, he wouldn't do it until the economy was strong. Unlike Cameron, he ain't stupid.

Mehdi, you're not a Keynesian. You advocate prolifgate spending in times of both boom and bust. You don't adjust your position relative to the state of the economy. You espouse, instead, some distortion of Keynesian theory. I didn't hear you, before the crash, arguing for a balanced budget?

conclusion = brown should have cut during the boom just as the tories have been saying.

Arif,
maybe so but let's be clear, Osborne made it very clear that the Tories would have matched Labour's spending pound for pound pre crash. The Tories can't have this both ways. They were either telling porkie pies back then or they meant what they said and are in no position to criticise Labour's spending pre crash.

How come virtually any of Medhi's comments turns into a Labour vs Tory debate?

No matter what your impressions of how labour handled things in the past, this is not the place to bring it up.

I have no idea about macroeconomics or Keynesian theory but I would have though it blindingly obvious that if your financial stimulus plan is based on growth then undermining investor confidence by cutting indiscriminately is not a wise move.

This was the laziest article. God Mehdi, you really are a hack. Would it kill you to think through an argument for more than five minutes and formulate an idea. You have no opinions and no politics, just a vague sense of what one ought to believe as NS Editor. In short, you are the everyday liberal charlatan narcissistically begging people to think he cares about something other than how to perpetuate his lifestyle. How did you get this job?

Keynesian economics has been proven to be totally unrealistic. Do your really want to be publically associated with that?

Also, many people consider Clinton to be a war criminal for his role in overthrowing Aristede in Haiti. Do you also want to be connected to a war criminal? Maybe you should think before you post.