Bernanke: Recession Could End in 2009
“This outlook for economic activity is subject to considerable uncertainty, and I believe that, overall, the downside risks probably outweigh those on the upside…If actions taken by the Administration, the Congress, and the Federal Reserve are successful in restoring some measure of financial stability–and only if that is the case, in my view–there is a…
“This outlook for economic activity is subject to considerable uncertainty, and I believe that, overall, the downside risks probably outweigh those on the upside...If actions taken by the Administration, the Congress, and the Federal Reserve are successful in restoring some measure of financial stability–and only if that is the case, in my view–there is a reasonable prospect that the current recession will end in 2009 and that 2010 will be a year of recovery.” — Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke
> “Thus, those that actually need care and do not have the means, get the care.”
This single comment of yours shows me that you have no understanding of “the harsh realities at hand.”
Have a good day. We’re done here.
snark,
again,you are wrong.
regarding the hip replacement issue. The US system is a free market system with very genrous “social” programs added into the mix. Thus, those that actually need care and do not have the means, get the care. This does not deny the fact that you will not have to wait for a hip replacement in the USA as you do in Great Britain.
What you are comparing to Sweden is in fact a free market system combined with a generous societal safety net that has made the American medical system the envy of the world. As I stated, the medical innovations of the past 100 years have been largely funded/researched/developed here in the USA. Look it up.
What’s more, we are dealing with a system servicing 300 MILLION lives. not 10 million or 20 million. So, of course, sweden or norway or belgium will have excellent systems, probably better than ours, because they only deal with a fraction of the people we see here in the USA. and again, they don’t take on the bulk of the world’s poverty problem or immigration. The WHO does not factor this in to their calculations of the “best” medical systems. Of course, these other nations benefit from American innovation, but we will never get the credit for that, just as we don’t get credit for covering Europe for their military needs. And they do have many (i.e. Putin).
Stop playing socialist college sophmore and start dealing with the harsh realities at hand.
Snark;
I’d be careful here. Galbraith was a respected Harvard economist who was a key JFK advisor. He is a lion of the liberal establishment. I’d be also careful about putting too many of my chips on Krugman. Krugman stating that Galbraith wrote for the public is truly laughable. Krugman is the person with a NYT column. Galbraith worked in the sphere of academia and government. Furthermore, Krugman’s specialty is the econmics of trade and comparitive advantage. This is what he won his Nobel prize for.
I think if you would take a poll among economists as to who has “gone Hollywood” – Krugman or Galbraith, there would be no contest.
Hey What, I haven’t read any John Kenneth Galbraith, but I have read Paul Krugman, who I think is – and has been – rather spot on. The Wikipedia page you linked to says this:
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Paul Krugman, the influential, Nobel Prize–winning Princeton University professor and New York Times op-ed columnist, has denigrated Galbraith’s stature as an economist. In Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in an Age of Diminished Expectations, he calls Galbraith a “policy entrepreneur” – an economist who writes solely for the public, as opposed to one who writes for other professors, and who therefore makes unwarranted diagnoses and offers over-simplistic answers to complex economic problems. He asserts that Galbraith was never taken seriously by fellow academics, who viewed him as more of a “media personality”. For example, Krugman believes that Galbraith’s work The New Industrial State is not considered to be “real economic theory”, and that Economics in Perspective is “remarkably ill-informed.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Legion – It’s funny that you should bring up the old “hip replacement” canard.
You do realize the the vast majority of hip replacements in the USA are paid for by Medicaid, right? So in the end, this is a comparison of two socialized health insurance programs, not a “free market” to “socialized medicine” comparison.
As far as your “we have the best health care in the world” argument, it is patently false. The US pays more for their health care than any other country. Our quality of care, as measured by the World Health Organization, ranks 37th.
Our system is broken. About 1/3 of all health care costs are administrative. A single government insurance program would be far more efficient.
thanks benson for further elucidating my point. I’ll take on the second point about socialized medicine in order to school our mutual friend snarkslope.
“..really? It seems to work for every other wealthy nation.”
NO, IT DEFINITELY DOES NOT.
Let’s start with first things first. Europe has benefitted GREATLY from American taxpayer largesse, in that we have been providing blanket military protection for Europe for the past 50 years. With the burden of protecting themselves militarily off for 5 decades, they have been quite liberal with the social programs including medical coverage. The US unfortunately, in its role of counterweight to despotic, misguided ideological nutcases around the world (i.e. Stalin, Tito, Franco, Cheauchescu, Khomeni, Young Ill, Mau, Castro, Breshniv, Khadaffi, Kruschev, Pol Pot, Milosevic just to name a few) has had to assign a hefty portion of it’s GDP to the military protection of the free world.
That being said,
The United States has 300 Million people. Not 10 or 20 million like some of these industrialized nations you speak of. Secondly, the United States takes on much of the world’s immigration, including much of the sick and infirm as a matter of course.
That being said,
take the UK for example, a wealthy, industrialized nation. where you have to wait on average 12-24 months for a hip replacement. Want an organ transplant? good luck getting that through the National Health Care system where surgery is rationed. Meanwhile here in the the U.S. , you have the insurance, you have the procedure scheduled by the surgeon of your choice.
take Canada for another example, a wealthy, industrialized nation. Again, healthcare is rationed. The wait is so long that it is routine for Canadians who have the money to skip the national health system and take the drive into Michigan for the heart surgery, they need to have done without delay.
Surveys in both of these wealthy industrialized nations reveal a public deeply dissatisfied with the health care they receive. they are grateful to have healthcare, of course , but perceive the delivery of it to be subpar and the availability of it to be less than adequate.
As far as the doctors themselves. They feel that the practice of medicine, throughout history held in the highest societal regard, has been relegated, in many cases to a vocational pursuit.
As far as the “47” million uninsured, that are so frequently alluded to in political discussions. Independent studies of these uninsured americans has revealed the following:
-fully 1/3 of the 47 million included in the ranks of the uninusured are illegal immigrants to this nation. That is, their health is the purvue of the nation they are legal subjects of, not the United States of America.
-1/4 of the 47 million are healthy, adults who could afford to pay for healthcare but choose not to, for whatever personal reasons. They would be eligible for sliding scale programs, COBRA programs or simply major medical to cover catastrophic/emergency illness.
-another 1/4 of the 47 million are children who would qualify for either medicaid or one of the federally funded SHIP programs, if their parents took the time to enroll them.
Adding the numbers together and calculating the truly uninsured leaves something along the lines of 10 million uninsured Americans.
10 million uninsured Americans can be easily handled by federally issued medicare or medicaid cards as needed. Without resorting to a wholesale undermining of the entire US healthcare system which makes up about 1/5 of our yearly GDP. A socialized system would also take out the capitalist engine of innovation which has been the driving force of medicine for the past century and has given us such triumphs as the Polio vaccine, Chemotherapy, Antibiotics, Artificial limbs, Anti-depressants/anti-psychotics, Joint replacements, bone stimulators, Magnetic Resonance Imagery, Positron Electron Transmission scans, Gene therapy, etc, etc.
Once again, if the president wants to help US medicine, he will start with serious Tort law reform. Loser pay laws and an end to the ongoing lottery system of medical malpractice that drives up costs at the expense of society.
> “most economists agree that the New Deal only succeeded in extending the Great Depression.”
Name one – just one – credible economist who believes that.
This one you delusional retard!!
John Kenneth Galbraith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith
John Kenneth “Ken” Galbraith, OC (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006) was a Canadian-American economist. He was a Keynesian and an institutionalist, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism and progressivism. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the 1970s and he filled the role of public intellectual in this period on matters of economics.
Take your dumbass to Barnes and Noble and buy this book!
His 1954 bestseller The Great Crash, 1929 describes the famous Wall Street melt down of stock prices and how markets progressively become decoupled from reality in a speculative boom. The book is also a platform for Galbraith’s keen insights, and humour, into human behaviour when wealth is threatened. It has never been out of print.
The What
Someday this war is gonna end…
Snark;
Here is a link that mentions Morgenthau’s famous testimony:
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id=8928362
I hope that 3 or 4 years down the line, we won’t be hearing similiar testimony from Geithner.
Snark;
I’m not sure if many economists would argue that the New Deal extended the Great Depression. However, what is still up for debate is whether the New Deal did any good at all. If you look at the statistics concerning employment, industrial activity, stock market, etc., one can make the case that it didn’t have much effect. In testimony before Congress, Roosevelt’s treasury secretary Morgenthau conceded that it had done little (I think this testimony was in 1937 or so). Many econmoists argue that what really got the US out of the GD was WWII. See Amity’s Shlae’s recent book “The Forgotten Man” for further details.
I think the reason this issue takes on more importance today is that we are “lower on ammo”. What I mean is that back in the 30’s, the US could issue more debt to pay for the New Deal, as we were still a creditor nation. Now we’re up to our eyeballs in debt.
I hope that I am proven wrong, but I am very worried about the effects of the stimulus program. Let’s see what happens.