Let me start this rant by saying when it comes to blogs I enjoy, Hub Blog is Nulli secundus second to none. In fact, it is nothing short of praecipuus precipuus excellent, distinguished and extraordinary!
On Friday, Hub Blog offered up a Grand Argumentative Compromise:
Anything below the Dow 7,000 could be theoretically blamed on Obama. The markets were going to fall to about the 7,000 level anyway, IMHO, based on historic norms, Obamanomics or not. Arguments that Obama’s responsible for everything since his inauguration — and the TV boys were making that argument last night — are simply looney-right nonsense.
I wrote in,
I wish I had you as a professor in college, what an easy grader! I might have even finished in four years instead of five. A ‘C’ for that un-stimulus bill over which he showed zero leadership? Wow. As for the stock market declines…yes, Bush got the ball rolling (downhill), but the decline has accelerated since February when the stimulus bill and the budget were released. His budget is a disaster and the market knows it. Bleeding evil rich bastards dry and raising costs on every citizen and business through a cap and trade scheme in the name of changing the weather is just plain insane. The stock market is voting with its feet. The most telling quote is from a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official in today’s WSJ, “The Obama budget did more to help us consolidate and coalesce the business community than anything we could have done. It’s opened eyes to the fact that this is about a social welfare transfer system, not about climate.”
This weekend the mighty Hub Blog returned fire and broke out the Latin to describe “movement conservatives” who are blaming the stock market meltdown on Obama,
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Guess which ‘movement’ is employing classic post hoc ergo propter hoc logic these days as it applies to the markets and as defined thusly:
The post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this therefore because of this) fallacy is based upon the mistaken notion that simply because one thing happens after another, the first event was a cause of the second event. Post hoc reasoning is the basis for many superstitions and erroneous beliefs.
If you guessed the same ‘movement’ that blamed last fall’s Wall Street meltdown on Barney Frank, ACORN and the CRA and now blames the market on Obama, you’ve won!
In a follow-up post, came this shot directed at Pundit Review,
You’re going to have to put up with my newfound enthusiasm for Latin for a while. I’ll pound it into the ground until Kevin screams for mercy.
Data venia With all due respect Hub Blog I will not be lumped in with “movement conservatives†lightly! I don’t mean to be difficilis difficult, but thems pugna fighting words for a pro-choice, pro-gay matrimonium marriage libertarian leaning fella like myself. I have been objecting to the left’s assertion that this whole mess is the GOP/Bush’s fault. I’ve never said that Barney, ACORN and CRA were entirely to blame for the problem. I’ve said they were key contributors to it, just as lack of effective government regulation and homeowner lies and greed were. Here are ipsissima verba the very words themselves,
We didn’t get to where we are today overnight. The crisis we face is the result of a million bad decisions.
Let’s start with us, the public. Many of us thought it was ok to stretch it on a mortgage, after all, prices only go in one direction, up. Plus it was more important to keep up with the Joneses than it was to live within your means. Another set of consumers thought that flipping houses was the way of the future, so they bought and sold, fudged some numbers on their loan docs and many eventually ran into a buzzsaw when the market turned. The third group of consumers as I see it are on the low end of the economic ladder, those who were offered mortgages, often at the behest of the government, that they either couldn’t afford or understand.
The geniuses of Wall Street saw all of this mortgage activity as a form of product development. A technology company develops next generation hardware and software products to sell. Wall Street R&D develops next generation financial engineering which result in new products to sell, like collateral debt obligations.
What about the government? Plenty of blame to go around here too. Attempts by the Bush administration to regulate Fannie and Freddie in 2003 were rebuffed by Democrats like Barney Frank
The GOP has to shoulder some of the blame as well, they controlled government for six years while this travesty was allowed to fester. They clearly saw the need for increased regulation as demonstrated by the administration’s attempts to regulate Fannie and Freddie in 2003 and again in 2005. The fact is the GOP had the majority yet didn’t get it the increased regulation they knew to be necessary in place. Same deal with the House Democrats yesterday, they have the majority, and they too failed to get something done.
Everyone is to blame, but some more than others. However, when did this all start? Was there an event that we can point to that led to these millions of bad decisions and the subsequent crisis we now face?
If you believe that Fannie and Freddie are at the core of the crisis, then the answer is yes.
New York Times
September 30, 1999
Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
What is so deliri crazy about that? How is that not an honestus honest assessment of the Wall Street mess? In fact, I’d have to say that is nec temere nec timide neither reckless nor timid. Wall Street, the public and government all deserve blame and they’ve all gotten it here.
When it comes to the stock market, haud ignota loquor! I speak not of unknown things! Experientia doce Experience teaches that the stock market looks forward, not backwards. Economic policy takes not weeks but months and years to have an impact. Nobody thinks the stimulus will start stimulating until the end of the year. Stocks are different. The market is a real-time measure of fidens confidence in the future. What the market sees is an environment where growth will be made even more difficilis difficult because of the policies proposed in the Messias Obama budget. Cap and trade, tax hikes and the other assorted BS it contains are malus bad for business, malus bad for jobs and malus bad for growth. The market knows this and is now aggressively discounting future earnings power because of it. It’s not a very radix radical theory.
Obama is tabulae rasae in quibus nihil scriptum est a blank slate with nothing written upon him and that is at the heart of this problem. Right now, Hub Blog would prefer nemine contradicente no one speaking against Messias The One and his responsibility for the market. No amount of Latin from Hub Blog will convince me that Obama’s policy proposals haven’t accelerated the recent stock market decline. I will continue to oppugn oppose, to contradict, or to call into question Obama’s policies and priorities because I believe they are malus bad for our country, starting with his God awful budget. Qui tacet consentire videtur He who is silent is taken to agree!
De fideli,
Pundit Review