Obama is an Idiot

The experience of the Great Depression was that government had to substitute for missing consumer spending until the economy healed itself. It took nearly 10 years for this to happen. In 1936 when FDR fell prey to the "deficit hawks" and decided to balance the federal budget the US economy fell into a mini-depression inside the Great Depression. From Wikipedia:

In June 1937, the Roosevelt administration cut spending and increased taxation in an attempt to balance the federal budget. The American economy then took a sharp downturn, lasting for 13 months through most of 1938. Industrial production fell almost 30 per cent within a few months and production of durable goods fell even faster. Unemployment jumped from 14.3% in 1937 to 19.0% in 1938, rising from 5 million to more than 12 million in early 1938. Manufacturing output fell by 37% from the 1937 peak and was back to 1934 levels. Producers reduced their expenditures on durable goods, and inventories declined, but personal income was only 15% lower than it had been at the peak in 1937. As unemployment rose, consumers' expenditures declined, leading to further cutbacks in production.

Well... Obama has decided to repeat this experience. Here is a Reuters report:

Obama to seek three-year freeze on domestic spending

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, under pressure from deficit hawks, will seek a three-year freeze on domestic spending in his 2011 budget that would save $250 billion by 2020, administration officials said on Monday.

Obama will outline the spending hold-down in his State of the Union address on Wednesday and will spell it out in detail on February 1, when he unveils his second budget.

Obama is under fire for a record deficit and has called for a bipartisan congressional commission to consider spending cuts and tax increases to improve the country's fiscal outlook.

Democrats are jittery after the Massachusetts election of a Republican for the Senate seat long held by the late Edward Kennedy, worried that it may be a warning sign for congressional elections in November.

Already stock markets in Asia are down 2-4% on the news (on top of the last weeks 5% slide). I foolishly thought that economists were trained and politicians were educated, but no. The idiots in charge are as stupid as they were in the 1930s.

I just hope it doesn't take a WWIII to get the global economy to recover from this mess.

I thought George Bush was evil and stupid. I now think Obama is stupid but I'm still waiting to decide if he is evil. But to throw more millions out of work so that he can "control the deficit" in the middle of a depression strikes me as evil.