You Cannot Win An Election With Strong Disapprovals Like This

[President von Cat]

I'm interested as to why support among independents has eroded this much in 2011.

My immediate conclusion is:

1. The economy seems to be faltering.
2. Obama wasted 2011 with a wishy-washy "don't leave me at the altar" approach on the debt debate, when he should have crushed Republicans.

Not all independents are bland centrists who want compromise for the sake of compromise. This entire debt debate has been a massive distraction and has taken the focus away from jobs.

[President von Cat]

Nope, its not wrong. Crushing Republicans would have done some good, in my opinion. Had Obama raised the debt ceiling on his own, well before the deadline, (or sh**t, had he just done the debt ceiling raise during the lane duck session) we likely would not have seen the stock market go haywire, and it wouldn't have undermined confidence in our political system.

[President von Cat]

Nope, its not wrong. Crushing Republicans would have done some good, in my opinion. Had Obama raised the debt ceiling on his own, well before the deadline, (or sh**t, had he just done the debt ceiling raise during the lane duck session) we likely would not have seen the stock market go haywire, and it wouldn't have undermined confidence in our political system.

You don't know what your talking about. That wasn't the big issue with the markets. Nor was really the downgrade which S&P already said they were going to do if the US didn't cut to its target. So if Obama would have just raised the debt ceiling S&P would have still just downgraded anyway.

The problem in the markets was still predominately Europe back then, still is now, and Chinese slowdown in manufacturing purchasing and risk of property developers default has been added to the list.

The debt ceiling issue was never that much of an issue for the markets.

Europe has been an issue all throughout the early 2010s. Yet despite trouble in Europe, the stock market did really well in 2010, and continued to increase into 2011. Market turmoil started getting noticeably bad after the debt ceiling debate, and so did all the talk about another recession. Yes, Europe has always shadowed economic outlook here, but if you look at all the leading outlets out there, the overall pervading worry isn't nuts and bolts economic data (which is actually much better than you'd think), but a lack of confidence in the American political system. In other words, we are so polarized that we can't do the right things to fix these problems.

Markets move on feelings, and especially on confidence. When you have a confidence gap, you run into trouble.

The debt ceiling fiasco was the straw that broke that camels back.
 

[President von Cat]

Wonkish, you're glossing over the debt ceiling debate, which is dishonest. It played a much bigger symbolic role than you are admitting. It wasn't just a blip on the radar.

This is a more articulate version of what I'm trying to say:

"While the global economy was struggling going into the third quarter, the inability to favorably resolve budget and debt problems in both Europe and the U.S. has seemed to erode consumer, business, and investor confidence. The Greek debt crisis remains in the news on a daily basis, currently without a solution. The failure of the U.S. Congress to address budget issues, the debacle over increasing the U.S. debt ceiling, and the downgrade of U.S. debt by Standard & Poor's all contributed to U.S. market’s steep decline. The problems in reaching an agreement on the debt ceiling highlighted the ineffectiveness of Congress in dealing with important economic issues. More so than in most time periods, the global economy is currently dependent on politicians and bureaucrats to act forcefully and intelligently. Policy decisions currently in the hands of government officials will have a significant impact on the global economy over the next year."

http://seekingalpha.com/article/297761-q3-2011-market-review-recessionary-fears-overwhelm-market

[President von Cat]

Stock price declines in and of themselves don't actually cause any damage to anything.

But that just isn't true, Wonkish. Not to mention the fact that it is vastly understating what the stock market did immediately following the debt debate.

When stock prices plummet, and they did for several days following the debt cieling debacle (and before the downgrade even happened), that scares people and ruins confidence in the economy. It hurts retirement funds too, and that makes people not want to spend money, which hurts the economy too.

Furthermore, the debt debate did hurt employment, because people stopped hiring because they were unsure if the country was going to default on its debt. No jobs in August, after a gain of 100,000ish in July? Not just a coincidence. And such a miserable jobs report feeds back into second-guessing the economy as well. Its just a nonstop loop of unfortunate consequences.

It created a massive, unnecessary cloud of uncertainty over everyone's lives.

[President von Cat]

Well essentially he did I just summarized it. Saying that minor stock price decreases and bond price increases caused consumer confidence to deteriorate leading to less buying and the less hiring is essentially the same thing as the statement I provided above except the one above is a summary position.

That is actually a poor summary of my argument. I did say that bad stock market news could further undermine economic confidence by feeding back in to a pre-existing panic/misery loop, and I said that the debt debate undermined confidence that our political system's ability to function.

But I didn't say the stock market "decreases" (I would call the DJI dropping more than 450 pointsin a single day more than a "decrease", but I digress) were what caused hiring to freeze. What I argued caused hiring to freeze was employers fearing that a financial crisis would be triggered by a failure to raise the debt ceiling. People were so scared that all hell was about to break loose, and it created a dark and unnecessary cloud over economic activity that month.

Now, as this thread has shown, you are free to disagree with all of that, but you aren't free to misrepresent it via a bad summary. You're entitled to your own set of opinions, but not your own set of facts.