shrub left us bleeding 700k jobs a month when he took office, and recoveries are not instantaneous.
That was only after bringing the nation out of a recession that was less that two months from being an official recession when he took office and having the longest run of continual job growth the U.S. has ever had.
The collapse was also the result of policies enacted prior to Dubya becoming president.
Originally Posted by
Brick Top 
Going by all past economic recoveries after recessions, by now the economy should have recovered a great deal and be much stronger than it is and unemployment should have dropped to levels below the 7.8% they were when Obama took office.
i would think that someone who brags so much about his years of wisdom would not need this historical fact explained to them.
It is a fact. If you compare this recession to all previous post WWII recessions, this recovery is lagging far, far, FAR behind where all the others were before the same period of time had passed.
When it comes to the economy the job of a president is to create an economic climate that is conducive to business growth and expansion. Obama has done the exact opposite and that is why the economy has not bounced back like it always has in the past. Business, mainly large corporations, are sitting on the largest amount of capital ever, but due to the uncertainty Obama has created and his outright hostile attitude towards business that capital is not being used, and will not be used until an economic climate that is conducive to business growth and expansion exists.
again, for someone who boasts about their age, you seem to have a selective memory about these things.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate
set the parameters for 1/1981 to 1/1984 and tell me if you still want to stand by your statement
Recovery from a recession is far more than a slight drop in the unemployment rate, a drop that didn't even lower the unemployment rate as low as it was when Obama took office. I stand by what I said.
| SATURDAY,
DECEMBER 17, 2011
Why Has the Recovery Been So Slow?
By GENE EPSTEIN |
MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR
The pace of post-recession recovery is the slowest the U.S. has seen in more than 40 years, and the housing crisis alone doesn't explain why.
Begin with a detailed score card. The recovery from the 2008-09 recession has been the slowest since any recession in the post-World War II era. It has taken nine calendar quarters since the recession ended in the second quarter of 2009 for real gross domestic product to climb back to its fourth-quarter '07 peak.
Assume the same rates of growth during the recoveries from the two previous recessions that rank second and third in severity since World War II -- '81-'82 and '74-'75 -- and the recovery from the recent recession should have taken half as long.
Try other comparisons. In the more than 41 years since 1970, the average quarterly rate of growth, calculated on an annual basis, has been 2.8% -- and that includes all negative quarters in recessions. By contrast, over the recent nine quarters of recovery, the annual rate of growth has averaged just 2.4% -- and as mentioned in last week's column, the Blue Chip consensus forecast calls for more of the same through 2012. Following the recessions of '74-'75 and '81-'82, the first nine quarters of growth averaged, respectively, 5.1% and 6.3%.
Try special excuses. Yes, it's true that the government portion of GDP usually increases year-to-year, and over the past nine quarters there was a small decrease. It's also true that rebounds in housing usually make significant contributions to GDP growth after recessions, and over the past nine quarters residential investment has also been running slightly negative.
So what if we "forgave" this recent period its problems with both government and housing, and recalculated all GDP growth excluding these two components?
Even after this heroic attempt to handicap the recent period, it still comes up woefully short. The plunge in real private-sector GDP excluding residential investment was the most severe since World War II, so according to the usual "rubber band" pattern, the rebound should have been proportional.
But over the past nine quarters, growth of real private-sector GDP excluding residential investment has averaged 2.6%, versus 3.8% and 4.7%, respectively, for the nine quarters following the recessions of '74-'75 and '81-'82.
ONE KEY SOURCE OF DISAGREEMENT about the subpar recovery lies in the role played by government policy. Has government been part of the solution, and therefore might it do even more to help solve our economic problems?
Or has government mainly been part of the problem itself?
While I suspect the latter, I withhold judgment for the time being, awaiting the 2010 update of the Vancouver, British Columbia-based Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom Index. Originally developed with the help of free-market economist Milton Friedman, the EFI tracks 42 separate measures equally weighted under five different categories, including "Size of Government," "Access to Sound Money" and "Regulation of Credit, Labor, and Business." In light of the bipartisan bickering that is likely to get even more heated as Republican hopefuls square off against President Obama on the economy's ills, it's worth noting that over the long-term, the EFI tells a relatively nonpartisan story.
For example, Economic Freedom moved higher in the administration of Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and even edged up under Bill Clinton, another Dem, to a 30-year high by 2000. The index then began to fall under the administration of Republican George W. Bush. Since research shows that fluctuations in the EFI, up or down, correlate with economic growth, that may be one reason why growth under Bush was noticeably slower than growth under Clinton.
Also noteworthy: The one-year fall in the EFI from 2008 to '09, the most recent year for which data are available, was the largest on record.
FOR SKEWED USE OF DATA on our economic problems, a good example is a Dec. 7 op-ed in the Washington Post by CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria. According to him, "data simply do not support" the idea that "the economy is burdened by excessive government regulation, interference and taxes."
What data? Well, says Zakaria, try the Kauffman Foundation's Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, which reports a large share of Americans starting their own business. But the Kauffman Foundation's own report -- in the executive summary, no less -- laments "the Great Recession and its high unemployment rates pushing many individuals into business ownership."
Or, says Zakaria, notice that a World Economic Forum survey ranks the U.S. as fifth in economic competitiveness.
But the survey report itself notes the "escalating weaknesses that have lowered the U.S. ranking in recent years," including concerns over "government's ability to maintain arms-length relationships with the private sector," "regulation as more burdensome" and "burgeoning levels of public indebtedness" -- some of the very things Zakaria dismisses as not supported by the data.
Such "escalating weaknesses" tend to correlate with slower rates of growth.
Data from the World Economic Forum are part of the Economic Freedom Index.
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748704746704577094521804811572.html?mod=BOL_hpp_dc
Originally Posted by
Brick Top
...the economy was on the verge of collapse when Dubya took office.
lol. hyperbole. false.
No, true.
Nondurable manufacturing employment peaked at 7.9 million workers in January 1995.
Components that peaked under Clinton included: food and kindred products (October 1995); textile mill products (November 1994); printing and publishing (May 199
; and rubber and miscellaneous plastics (February 2000).
Many of these jobs were once concentrated in the South.
Durable manufacturing peaked at 11.2 million workers in April 1998.
Components that peaked under Clinton included: lumber and wood (February 2000); furniture and fixtures (July 2000); primary metals (January 199
; fabricated metals (July 2000); industrial machinery and equipment (March 199
; electronic and other electrical equipment (November 2000); transportation equipment (October 199
; instruments and related products (March 199
; and miscellaneous manufacturing (April 199
. Some of the largest durables goods employment is in the upper Midwest.
No manufacturing component has peaked under President Bush.
Stone, clay, and glass a durable component peaked in January 2001, the month Clinton left office. Six other manufacturing components peaked pre-1993. President Bush inherited an economy on the brink of recession.
ECONOMIC DATA CONFIRMS SLOWDOWN BEGAN UNDER CLINTON
Economic Statistics Confirm U.S. Economy Was Shrinking While Clinton Was In Office. America went into recession long before the terrorist attacks of September 11th.
The new figures suggest
that the economy grew more slowly in
2000 than was previously thought: GDP rose by 3.8% (compared with last years estimate of 4.1% and an initial figure of 5%). (Unwelcome Numbers, The Economist, 8/3/02)
Market Indicators Confirm Recession Started On Clintons Watch. According to the Council of Economic Advisors, it was widely recognized that the economy was weak coming into 2001.
*
The NASDAQ peaked on March 10, 2000;
* The S&P 500 peaked on March 24, 2000;
* The Dow Jones peaked on January 14, 2000;
* Manufacturing employment started falling in August 2000;
* Industrial production started falling in July 2000; and
* Manufacturing trade and sales started falling in April 2000.
(Council Of Economic Advisors, Talking Points, 9/20/02)
Congress Joint Economic Committee Says Signs Of Economic Slowdown Were Apparent In Mid 2000. By mid-year 2000
signs of an economic slowdown began to proliferate; it became apparent that an economic slowdown was underway. A number of key economic and financial indicators provided evidence of such slower growth and suggested that future growth could weaken. A brief summary of important elements of this evidence, for example, would include the following:
* Real GDP slowed from a robust 5.6 percent annualized growth rate in the second quarter of 2000 to 2.2 percent and 1.0 percent in the third and fourth quarters, respectively, before rebounding modestly to 1.2% in the first quarter of 2001.
* Key components of GDP such as real consumption expenditures slowed after mid-year as real income growth moderated, stock market values fell, employment gains lessened, and consumer confidence stalled and then deteriorated. Movements in retail sales generally corroborated these developments.
* Gross private investment also contributed significantly to this general slowdown with most key investment categories registering actual declines by the fourth quarter and advances of non-defense capital goods (ex-aircraft and parts) orders falling sharply after mid-year (on a year-over-year basis).
* The index of leading indicators trended down after January 2000.
* Employment advances slowed dramatically after mid-year. Gains in total non-farm payrolls, for example, averaged about 256,000 per month for the 2 1/2 years prior to mid-year 2000 and 44,000 per month after mid-year 2000. The average workweek also decreased after mid-year.
* The manufacturing sector also has weakened significantly since mid-year 2000. Industrial production, capacity utilization, the Natural Association of Purchasing Managers index, as well as manufacturing employment and workweek have all registered significant declines since mid-year 2000.
* Financial equity markets began to deteriorate about mid-year 2000 as well.
In short, there can be little doubt that a significant economic slowdown or retrenchment began about mid-year 2000 in the last quarters of the Clinton Administration. (Assessment Of The Current Economic Environment, United States Congress Joint Economic Committee, 7/01)
Clintons Chairman Of Council Of Economic Advisors, Joseph Stiglitz, Said Recession Started During Clintons Tenure. It would be nice for us veterans of the Clinton Administration if we could simply blame mismanagement by President George W. Bushs economic team for this seemingly sudden turnaround in the economy, which coincided so closely with its taking charge. But
the economy was slipping into recession even before Bush took office, and the corporate scandals that are rocking America began much earlier. (Joseph Stiglitz, The Roaring Nineties, The Atlantic Monthly, 10/02)
Stiglitz noted that during the Clinton Administration the groundwork for some of the problems we are now experiencing was being laid. Accounting standards slipped; deregulation was taken further than it should have been; and corporate greed was pandered to
. (Joseph Stiglitz, The Roaring Nineties, The Atlantic Monthly, 10/02)
Clinton Administration Grossly Overestimated Strength Of The Economy. Hidden in the morass of statistics, there is proof that the Clinton administration grossly overestimated the strength of the economy leading up to the 2000 election. Did the federal government join Enron and WorldCom in cooking the books?
Most startling, the Commerce Department in 2000 showed the economy on an upswing through most of the election year, while in fact it was declining. (Robert Novak, Op-Ed, Sunny Clinton Forecast Leaves Cloud Over Bush, Chicago Sun-Times, 8/8/02)
Drop In Investments In First Half Of 2000 Contributed To Recession. A plunge in investment that began in the last half of 2000, along with the declines in equity markets, was an important force in the recession. (Council Of Economic Advisers, Strengthening Americas Economy: The Presidents Jobs And Growth Proposals, 1/7/03)
Look at the plunge taken by the GDP at the end of Clinton's second term. Check out the blue line starting at 1999. It plummets
Remember, Dubya became president in Jan., 2001.
San José State University
Department of Economics
| The U.S. Recession of 2001-2002 |
Recessions are defined in terms of declines in real GDP. By this definition the U.S. entered a recession in the third quarter of 2001 but statistics other than real GDP indicate that the problems for the economy developed in the summer of 2000. The current dollar and constant dollar (1996) GDP for the past sixteen quarters are shown in the table below.
| U.S. Quarterly GDP, Seasonally Adjusted, in Current and 2000 Prices | | |
|---|
| Quarter | GDP
billions
Current $ | GDP
billions
2000 $ |
| 1998 I | 8627.8 | 8396.3 |
| 1998 II | 8697.3 | 8442.9 |
| 1998 III | 8815.5 | 8528.5 |
| 1998 IV | 8984.5 | 8667.9 |
| 1999 I | 9093.1 | 8733.5 |
| 1999 II | 9161.4 | 8771.2 |
| 1999 III | 9297.4 | 8871.5 |
| 1999 IV | 9522.5 | 9049.9 |
| 2000 I | 9,629.4 | 9,695.6 |
| 2000 II | 9,822.8 | 9,847.9 |
| 2000 III | 9,862.1 | 9,836.6 |
| 2000 IV | 9,953.6 | 9,887.7 |
| 2001 I | 10,024.8 | 9,882.2 |
| 2001 II | 10,088.2 | 9,866.3 |
| 2001 III | 10,096.2 | 9,834.6 |
| 2001 IV | 10,193.9 | 9,883.6 |
| 2002 I | 10,333.3 | 9,977.3 |
| 2002 II | 10,426.6 | 10,031.6 |
| 2002 III | 10,527.4 | 10,090.7 |
| 2002 IV | 10,591.1 | 10,095.8 |
Source: Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis For the last two quarters of 2001 the current value of the GDP went down but, because of an estimated decrease in the price level, the real value of the GDP increased 0.2 of 1% from the third to the fourth quarters. While this cast doubt on whether a recession occurred in last part of the year 2001, there is evidence that some economic trouble developed in the economy from the middle of 2000. This can be seen from the chart for private domestic investment, shown below:
The chart shows that real private domestic investment which is made up of purchases of plant and equipment, new house construction and net inventory investment reached a peak in the second quarter of 2000 and has been declining since then. By the second quarter of 2001 this real investment was down by almost eleven percent, based upon the preliminary 2001 III figures. The decline is in plant and equipment investment and inventory investment; new resident fixed investment (new house construction) held steady. Inventory investment was substantially negative; businesses were selling off their stocks of goods and not replacing them.
As to what accounts for the decline in investment it is instructive to look at some other economic statistics. For example, in the chart shown below, it is found that corporate profits (after taxes) also reached a peak in 2000 and since have declined.
Profits, before tax and after tax, peaked in the mid-2000 and have been declining since then. Investment is geared to the potential future profits rather than current profits but a decline in the profitability of past investment would surely depress the prospects for future profits from current investments. It is notable however that the decline in profits from the end of 1997 to the end of 1998 did not have much of an effect on real investment in 1998. There was a slight decline in investment in the first quarter of 1998 and then an upsurge.
The chart for the stock market price level shows a similiar picture, a peak in 2000 and a decline since then.
Industrial production shows the same pattern, a peak in 2000 and a decline since then.
It is worthwhile to look at what was happening to interest rates over the last few years. A chart for three interest rates is shown below:
The discount rate fell substantially and the T-bill rate fell with it. The interest rate on corporate bonds, the rate which is more relevant for investment decisions, shows much less of a decline.
Since monetary policy of the Federal Reserve influences interest rates it is worthwhile to note what has been happening to the money supply.
It is notable that nominal M1 was declining throughout 2000. While M1 increased in 2001, and substantially so in the last few months of 2001, the increase did not offset whatever factor was accounting for the decline in investment.
The statistical picture of the economy is not complete without a look at what has been happening in the labor market.
The labor force continued to grow but a declining rate in 2000 and 2001. Employment peaked at the beginning of 2001 and has been declining since then. Unemployment which had been showing a wonderful downward trend until 2000 began to rise. Although recessions are defined in terms of real GDP it should be the unemployment rate that defines a condition of social and economic stress.
The trend in consumer outlays (consumer purchases plus interest payments on consumer debt) is shown in the chart below along with the statistics on consumer disposable income. The difference between the two curves is personal saving. Personal savings has been showing a declining trend but at about the beginning 2000 personal saving went to virtually zero, as shown below.
As I clearly stated, Dubya did not cause the 2001 - 2002 recrssion. The bottom was dropping out of the economy when Clinton left office. If the final drop had happened less than two months earlier, it would have happened while Clinton was president, and anyone who knows anything whatsoever about a president's actual influence on the economy and on economics and how extremely slowly it takes for an economy to go from strong to weak or weak to strong would be more than capable of understanding that in the less than two full month Dubya had been president when the 'official date' for the recession was set, there was no way in the world that it can rightly and honestly be blamed on him.
[h=1]Myths of Clinton Economic Boom Exposed[/h]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS5NpMbhWZs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Jgkko85co&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNghDjJqMdM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p9KT77Cur8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1TWR4Ff5SI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbNP-xCzlrQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMf8uiLgkDU&feature=related
And unless you really want to be laughed at don't bother to bring up the mythical Clinton surplus!
why didn't you mention obama being left with an economy that was "on the verge of collapse", despite the situation he was faced with being much worse than the one that faced shrub? more hackery, perhaps?
Unlike the case with Dubya where Democratic propaganda totally brainwashed people like you into believeing that the economy was strong and growing until Dubya became president everyone knows that Dubya left during a recession and Obama came in during one. I saw no reason to state the obvious. But there was reason to make a comparision between how each handled the recessions handed to them.
Originally Posted by
Brick Top
And event that Dubya and Congressional Republicans repeatedly asked and practically begged Congressional Democrats, starting in 2001 and right up until the implosion, to help them head off before it became disastrous, but of course Congressional Democrats refused to accept that there was a problem in the making and repeatedly refused to help head off the disaster.
LOL!
wow. SPIN! spin, brick top, SPIN!
republicans controlled the house and senate until 2006. bush bragged about his ownership society. i have already documented this. you continue to LIE about this.
SPIN!
Talk about spin!
Watch this and see/hear Democrats lie and refuse to help when Republicans tried to convince them that something had to be done to head off the looming housing/lender disaster. Democrats said they were "pissed off" over wasting time on a non-issue and called the hearing a "political witch hunt" and they went so far as to say that the loans were so safe that more of them should be made. In the end the collapse proved Democrats to be wrong, and therefore culpable in the economic disaster by, for years, refusing to listen to the warnings of Republicans and by refusing to help Republicans to head off the disaster. The Republican warnings, sadly, turned out to be absolutely correct, even though Democrats adamantly rejected them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yga7TlsA-1A&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPSDnGMzIdo
You were right that Republicans controlled the House of Representitives when Bush took office. At the start of the 107th Congress Republicans held 222 seats to the 210 Democrats held. That was not a strong enough majority to push through any and all legislation it wanted.
And try to remember that the House alone is not Congress and at the beginning of the 107th Congress the Senate was an equal 50 seat/50seat split. Again, not a majority that would allow Republicans to push through any and all legislation it wanted.
Republicans needed Democratic support and, as the videos prove, the Democrats flat out refused to accept there was any problem brewing and abjectly refused to help Republicans head off the imminent financal collapse.
go ahead and tell me reagan did better during the less severe early 1980 recession with a straight face. i dare ya.
I won't bother because you would dredge up some of the mountainous amounts of skewed figures that make what Regan accomplished appear to the very different, in a negative way, from reality.
again, for someone who is quite the braggadocio about his age, you sure seem to have forgotten (or willfully ignored) a lot of historical facts for partisan gain.
In your care you either do not follow events closely or are so solidly biased that you refuse to accept anything other than the propaganda that you have been programmed to accept.
And I pity you and all those like you who are incapable of seeing and then accepting the truth.
