Hank Paulson: Without Bailout, Unemployment Could Have Reached 25%

[jefferson_dem]

FWIW:

Hank Paulson: Without Bailout, Unemployment Could Have Reached 25%

If the federal government had not bailed out Wall Street banks, unemployment could have skyrocketed to 25 percent, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in an interview that will air this Sunday on CBS News Sunday Morning.

The unemployment rate currently stands at around 10 percent, which Paulson said was "the best possible outcome." He said he did not like the idea of a bank bailout but considered it crucial to save the economy.

"What was very hard for me was advocating things that I hated," he said. "And having to defend them to members of Congress that found it repugnant to have the government have ownership positions or put equity in banks."

Congress, however, was not willing to go along with the plan, Paulson said, unless he would be able to sell the idea to the American people.

"They wanted us to tell the American people how bad things could get," Paulson said. "I shuddered, because I thought, to the extent we scared people, it was going to make the crisis worse."

He says he faced an "awful reality."

<SNIP>

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/01/28/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry6152317.shtml

[Cirque du So-What]

1. If ALL the unemployed were counted

not just the ones drawing unemployment compensation, the figure would probably be closer to 25% than 10% anyway. If not for government intervention, we could be looking at Great Depression-era unemployment figures.

[Pirate Smile]

2. Then it probably would have been 40-50% otherwise.

[pinqy]

5. For the gazillioneth time...

The unemployment rate does NOT come from and has nothing to do with Unemployment Insurance and NEVER has. The definition of Unemployed used to calculate the unemployment rate is:

People are classified as unemployed if they meet all of the following criteria: They had no employment during the reference week; they were available for work at that time; and they made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons laid off from a job and expecting recall need not be looking for work to be counted as unemployed. The unemployment data derived from the household survey in no way depend upon the eligibility for or receipt of unemployment insurance benefits.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

[mkultra]

7. i love this meme. Its just not true

If you did a little research, you would find that the BLS UE numbers are derived from a household survey that asks people if the are fully employed. The survey results do not include UEI claims whatsoever.


Your confusing unemployment with "new jobless claims"

feel free to check it out.

[Cirque du So-What]

8. You're misusing the word 'your'

feel free to check it out.

http://www.wikihow.com/Use-You're-and-Your

I can do teh snotty like nobody's bidness!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. Ah, but here's the difference.

mkultra very likely knew the difference before he made the simple mistake, and it was just a simple mistake.

It wasn't based on a fundamental lack of understanding.

[Cirque du So-What]

10. Bluh BLUH

[mkultra]

11. yeah, i know

its just a bad habit i posses. my grasp of grammar is fine, but for some reason i have been using the "your" form incorrectly since i was young. I have no idea why. It may be because i have been using a computer for so many years. You might also notice that i do not capitalize my "I"s None of this occurs when i write.

Unfortunately for you, this ad hominem argument doesn't change YOUR proximity to the truth.

[no limit]

3. I wonder where he is pulling that number from? I can take a guess...

[treestar]

4. I suppose that could be

Or else this is just another recession. If on par with the depression, then that's where it would have been.

So we learned something from the Depression and were able to take steps to avoid another.

[rocktivity]

6. Rocktivity: Without the Bailout Bonuses, Unemployment could have been even lower

:eyes:
rocktivity