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Yesterday, This Week With George Stephanopoulos aired an interview with Vice President Joe Biden. Pointing out that unemployment is now 9.5%, Stephanopoulos said, "When the president and you all were selling the stimulus package, you predicted at the beginning that, to get this package in place, unemployment will peak at about 8 percent. So, either you misread the economy, or the stimulus package is too slow and to small." To which Biden replied, "The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy. The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there. so the truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited...It's now our responsibility. So the second question becomes, did the economic package we put in place, including the Recovery Act, is it the right package given the circumstances we're in? And we believe it is the right package given the circumstances we're in.... We are now only about 120 days into the recovery package. The truth of the matter was, no one anticipated, no one expected that that recovery package would in fact be in a position at this point of having to distribute the bulk of money." Full transcript here—and in other news, stock futures are down on concerns about the economy.
Biden: "Truth Is, We And Everyone Else Misread The Economy"
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"The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy."
We and everyone else would like to see Biden join Dick Cheney for a hunting outing. Biden's face deserves punishment for such a stupid comment.
Not everyone. Economists like Krugman and Roubini, plus a number of "left" writers and commentators in the blogsphere and other places, have been saying this for a year or more.
Dear Biden,
See: RON PAUL.
Love,
Katie
There was no misreading the economy, just plenty of number fudging and lying in order to get the bill passed.
Not a single person in this country, not one economist nor analyst nor labor expert, realistically thought the stimulus would prevent unemployment from reaching 10%.
On the bright side, at least we have a veep willing to admit the administration was wrong. If this was still two years ago, we'd be hearing, "The economy is just fine. It's just a small dip. It's all mental unemployment."
That is true, but he is also using the Bush-admin tactic of revising history to make it sound like everyone was in agreement, when in fact they were not.
“The fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology. We know that — that temporarily we’re in a mess, right? We’ve seen huge job loss, we’ve seen very large falls in GDP. So certainly in the short run we’re in a — in a bad situation.”
Are you supposed to be agreeing or rebutting? It's hard to read minds in comments sections when all you do is post a quote. If you're trying to rebut, that seems like an optimistic but not unrealistic view of the situation. Not like Bush declaring through five years that the war in Iraq was going perfectly well.
I was warned that if I voted for McCain, we would end up with a dimwit for VP. I did and they were right!
You voted for McCain and you're calling someone else a dimwit? Hehe. Talk about irony.
Simplified economics for instant-gratification junkies: Unemployment will stop rising when employers stop panicking and their monthly income stops decreasing. Then employers will stop firing people. Profits will go up again, and they'll start hiring again. US can give them all the stimulus they want, but that won't make them feel better. It will be at least a YEAR before businesses feel confident enough.
Obama is not Glenda the Good Witch!
You're going to have to wait!