[Info-vax] HP stopping VMS paper documentation ?

[George Cook]

In article <4ed861f0$0$20241$c3e8da3$9deca2c3 at news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> writes:
> George Cook wrote:
> 
>> Bush created too much prosperity.  Well, actually, the fed created too
>> much by keeping interest rates too low.  The result was a runaway
>> housing boom which, with the help of Barnie Frank and his comrades,
>> caused the mess we are in.  People forget that Bush kept unemployment
>> near 5% (i.e., full employment) at least partly with tax cuts until
>> the bubble burst.
> 
> 
> Bush got in and inherited the .com bubble burst amplified by 9-11
> (especially the self inflicted harm to the airline industry).

Yes, Bush did a good job of avoiding a major recession after 9-11.
We pulled out of the minor recession quickly and spent the rest of
the decade upto 2008 with good GDP growth and full employment.
Unfortunately, Bush did not have control of the Fed or in his final
years control of the Congress.

> Construction stood out as the saviour, the beacon of economic activity
> to compensate for everything else having gone sour, so the made that
> happen as much as they could.

If you mean the Fed and Democrats in regard to housing, then I'd agree.
But if you mean the Repulicans who spent most of the decade trying to
rein in housing excesses (i.e., sub-prime mortgages), then you are wrong.

> The "easy" rules had been in place for a ong time (under democrats) but
> I suspect that they got abused during 2001-2008.

Bush and congressional Republicans tried repeatedly to end the abuse
by Fannie and Freddy, but congressional Democrats foiled them at every
turn (see videos of congressional hearings dating back to at least 2003).
Bush never had 60 votes in the Senate.

> Manufacturing jobs continued to be lost during that period. And the auto
> industry wasn't doing well either. Remember that they also went belly up
>  in the bank meltdown of 2008-2009.

Yes, GM and Chrysler had ceded too much control (i.e., constantly
giving in to every unreasonable demand) to the unions and as a result
were still producing inferior products at too high a cost.  But only
those two needed help to survive the crisis.  Ford took no government
money.  What the other two needed was a severe shock to the system in
order to regain control from the unions and liquidity.  Because they
couldn't get liquidity from the banks, the government had to step in.
The last US airline, American, to still be hobbled by unions has finally
had to enter bankruptcy in order to throw off the union yoke.


George Cook