
The 2010s Were an Economic Tragedy - smacktoward
https://slate.com/business/2019/12/the-four-mistakes-that-turned-the-2010s-into-an-economic-tragedy.html
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mdorazio
Bit of a weird article that tackles broad economic policy to show how recovery
from the recession might have gone faster. But it doesn't really mention any
of the actual tragedies in my opinion - rise in inequality, decline of "good"
jobs in favor of gig and contract work, out of control healthcare costs, and
continued student loan burden on workers.

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egdod
Are we talking about the same 2010s? Because they were the opposite of a
tragedy economically.

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planetzero
"worth of spending cuts over the last six years of Obama’s term. Those,
combined with tax hikes and the waning stimulus spending, acted as a powerful
weight on the economy"

Not sure if I agree with this. Tax hikes and spending cuts are what's required
to build back a damaged economy. These obviously worked over time, as we now
have one of the best economies in decades. This combined with the regulations
Trump got rid of to enable more fracking/keeping the price of oil way down.

I remember all of the people on the local news that were interviewed just as
everything was crashing that talked about how they outright lied on their
application about how much income they were making to get a house/piece of
property...and now went into foreclosure when they couldn't make the payments.

"by leaving the housing market to spiral downward and households to struggle
with their debts"

We shouldn't be propping up anyone. Some things need to fail to recover
properly. This was the right move.

"As a Senator and presidential candidate, Obama had publicly supported more
dramatic efforts to rescue homeowners, specifically legislation that would
have allowed so-called “cramdowns,” where judges could slash mortgage debt in
bankruptcy court"

Why should anyone get bailed out for a making a poor decision? Most people
will never learn from this and will most likely need to get bailed out again.

"Even Donald Trump’s trade war—another needless self-own—didn’t plunge the
economy into another downturn, in part because some people in power seem to
have learned lessons from their past mistakes."

I have to laugh about mentioning the trade war. Almost every Democrat
candidate wants this because it will lead to less CO2 emissions from China if
we are purchasing less goods. But when Trump enacts it, it's a needless trade
war.

"But this was decade was not a slow march to a happy ending. It was
miscarriage of economic policymaking that left millions without work for far
longer than they needed to be. If we remember that—and why it all
happened—maybe we won’t have to go through it all again."

Creating artificial demand by just throwing government money at it wouldn't
have solved the issue any faster. I sure hope we've learned our mistakes from
the past, but I already have seen politicians wanting to start forcing banks
to loan out money to groups of people that most likely will never be able to
pay it back...starting the ball rolling for another financial crises.

