Carly Fiorina, a Romney campaign surrogate and failed U.S. Senate candidate, argued a couple of weeks ago that the economic conditions President Obama inherited weren't that bad. By January 2009, she said, "the recession, we now know from the data, was over."
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) made a similar case yesterday, arguing that the economy was not in "free fall" when Obama took office. On the contrary, the far-right senator said, "President Obama's policies took effect ... and as a result the economy totally stalled."
Now, admittedly, I don't expect much from Johnson, but the public shouldn't forget what actually happened. Let's revisit a post from June, and look at the nation's GDP before and after "President Obama's policies." Note, once the stimulus kicked in, the economy immediately started growing.
And in this chart we see private-sector job growth before and after the stimulus. Note, once Obama's Recovery Act kicked in, job growth immediately improved. Also note how severe the job losses were when the president took office.
And here's a chart showing the Dow Jones Industrial Average before and after the stimulus. See that low point in March 2009? That's just before the stimulus kicked in.
I understand the tactic Johnson and Fiorina are using. If the public forgets just how awful conditions were when Obama took office, voters will also forget how much the economy has improved on the president's watch. It's in the interests of assorted hacks, cranks, and amnesiacs to argue that Obama wasn't really dealt that bad a hand, so there's no reason to give him credit for getting the nation on a stronger, more stable track. It's why Fiorina, with a degree of shamelessness that's slightly unnerving, claims the recession was "over" by the time Obama was inaugurated.
But for those who care at all about reality, the facts should matter. The crisis that began in late 2008 was the worst since the Great Depression. Nothing else comes close. The global economy stood on the brink of catastrophic collapse; then Obama took office; then his policies took effect; and the economy started to improve. Technically, the recession ended six months after Obama became president, which wasn't a coincidence.
Political players can and should argue about whether those policies were sufficient and what the effects would have been to alternate approaches, but the fact that the president took the lead in rescuing the economy during a once-in-a-lifetime crisis is not in dispute.
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Please don't confuse me with the facts. I don't need or want no stinking facts to vote. Oh and anyway as everyone knows statistics are just lies (well except of course when they prove MY point).
Hurts don't it republican.
Jane I think Bob was being sarcastic.
The S stands for Sarcasim ;). But I think Jane was being so too...if I was a republican it would hurt except of course I'd never see it.
Please don't lump all Republicans into the blind "follow the leader" a**holes who didn't learn anything from either the 2008 or 2010 elections. As a lifelong Republican, I am embarrassed at the bold-faced stupidity demonstrated by my party.
Some Republicans are smart enough to see through the smoke screen.
Well I don't see that I lumped all republicans into one, but
moderate republicans are becoming scarcer and scarcer. I live in an
area that is 70% republican and I have one in my immediate family and
I see how they go ever farther and farther right. When Nixon now seems
like a middle of the road president you know the GOP has shifted way
out to the right. My mom's childhood friend in Utah, Bob Bennett, who
always seemed like, to us, a pretty conservative guy (but not far
right and indeed pretty moderate for a Mormon--and no half my family
is Mormon I'm not insulting them just that most Mormons I know are
pretty conservative) was replaced by a Tea-party extremist...the
examples abound.
I'm very curious if there are any reputable models/reports that forecast approximately how bad the economy might have gotten if our President had not moved to bailout the auto and financial sectors? I've searched online and not been able to find anything. It seems like that would be helpful to know.
I don't know about forecasts/models, but I guarantee you the million job loss would have been blamed entirely on Obama and his re-election hopes would be slim.
Some of the effects can be seen in the analogous situations in Greece, Ireland and Spain, where instead of stimulus their governments opted for severe austerity measures. There are of course many differences, like the potential for their economies to rebound vs. the US, but for the sake of a "what if?" arguement, it's worth looking at.
Watch the next-to-last scene in "The Blues Brothers", the one where the Illinois Nazis have driven their orange station wagon off the unfinished bridge and are plummeting toward the ground hundreds of feet below.
THAT'S what the economy was like in January, 2009. The only question was how hard the crash would be when we hit bottom.
I know that isn't a good quantitative analysis, but it's a darned good analogy.
Love the blues brothers analogy! I completely agree but I just would prefer to see data. I don't need it to convince me that we're on the right track, I have been and still am an Obama supporter, but I think more factual evidence may show people how well he has actually done.
I feel like it would be as though we were in a plane in a nose dive - the President was eventually able to pull back hard and avoid the explosive crash, but we still feel the g-force as we pull out of the dive. Yeah, it was scary but we're on our way to clear skies.
I hate Illinois Nazis
The causes were different, but the consequences of the last time the US banking system was that sick FDR closed all banks for almost two weeks, some never re-opened, he banned private ownership of gold coin or bullion. We got the FDIC, Glass-Steagal, the SEC, etc. It took eight to ten years and World War II for the economy to recover. The Republican policies from October 1929 until March 1933 exported the US downturn to Europe, leading to the rise of Hitler and Mussolini. Nowhere anyone who doesn't want religious jihad and / or armegeddon wants to go to today. And yeah, Romney & Ryan 's economic and tax platform looks a lot like Hoover's.
The short answer is yes, there are models out there of how the economy would have progressed (or regressed) without the stimulus. Better yet, there is history. Congress didn't act upon the Great Depression until almost 3 years after the onset (after Roosevelt's administration was inaugurated). It took until we entered WW II to recover.
Thanks so much for the great responses! I guess it's time to go back and study some American History.
Lies are all they have. Lies are all they ever had. And now they're getting desperate, so they're going to be lying even harder and faster from here on out.
All the rainy days are his fault; all the sunny ones are due to my brilliant plan.
The problem that we, the American people, hobble our politicians with is that there isn't great enthusiasm for either increased taxes or spending cuts. So we mostly get a side show and unrealistic and unachievable "plans" and goals.
Actually, there's plenty of enthusiasm for both increased taxes AND spending cuts. The problem is that very few seem to be enthusiastic about BOTH. This "balanced approach" that POTUS keeps trying to sell just doesn't have any knee-jerk, raw emotional appeal to it.
The Stimulus package, according to Keynesian economics, was a way to head out of recession. However, now, since we have "recovered" it is imperative that we become more selective of where our government dollars go to see more and faster growth. A lot is being put into many social programs, some of which can be privately funded. We need to follow the lead of our Northern neighbors and cut spending on some social programs as hard as that may be. Only then can we return to the days of great prosperity.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-15/hardheaded-socialism-makes-canada-richer-than-u-s-.html
Wow, that's some weapons-grade bull@!$%# there. Your characterization of Keynesian economics is entirely incorrect -- stimulus isn't "a way to head out of recession," it's a way to stimulate demand when the economy is below capacity, in the situation when businesses aren't hiring because there isn't enough demand, and consumers aren't spending to create demand because they're worried about jobs. Sound familiar?
The recession technically ended in June 2009 and the recovery started. If you think that equates to "we have recovered," then I presume you won't object if I take your meal away when you start eating because "you have eaten."
Money is being put into social programs because the economy hasn't recovered and people are still unemployed or underemployed. Declaring that making those "privately funded" will produce more growth is either delusional or a cover to pretend you're not suggesting making ordinary people suffer more so people for whom it is not "hard" at all can keep their record-low tax rates. If it were actually possible to shift from having social programs funded by private sources at the same level instead of by the government, it would have no economic effect at all, so either you're calling for cutting social programs and cruelly making the poor suffer even more from the long-term effects a financial panic caused by rich financiers and speculators, or you're speaking economic nonsense.
The article you cite says that "for the first time in recent history" the average Canadian is richer than the average American. If you take that one time as a call to do what the Canadians are doing, you're cherry-picking, I suspect because it tells you something you already like. The more sensible response to that fact is to look at the many other times when we were richer than Canadians as a clue to what we should be doing.
That's a harmful way to recovery when it is more fair and easier just to bring in more revenue by getting the ultra wealthy to pay their fair share. Keep in mind we spent our way out of the debt incurred after WWII and already Obama has decreased the deficit by $300 billion since taking office...$200 billion in the last year alone. No other president in modern history has reduced the deficit and debt this fast except Clinton. Obama has reduced the debt by a fourth.
Of course we should eliminate fraud and abuse wherever we find it but the social programs are necessary and doing fine. Cutting the war profiteers profits, you know...the arms dealers with their 19 bedroom mansions in Virginia...cutting the bloated defense budget (which far exceeds the total of social programs) and letting the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy expire is all that is needed to get rid of the debt in 10 yrs. Leave the social programs alone except to enhance them. When the right refers to shrinking government they really mean getting rid of regulations so corporations can pollute and banks can con.
Now HOW can Canada be doing so well...why they're nothing but a European-style social welfare state! <sarcasm>
"become more selective of where our government dollars go to"
Trillions of dollars for Tax Cut that don't result in jobs are a waste.
A trillion dollars for a war base on fabricated lies is a waste.
Another trillion for Med. Part D was a waste.
Social programs did not bring America to its knees, its was the
greed of capitolism. The biggest difference between tax cuts
and those social programs, not much as far as who ends up paying for them
we invest each week into SS and Medicare, we also pay for the fail tax cuts
the top 2% save and invest off shore. Go to Canada, leave America.
T
Ask anyone with a 401k how bad the economy was when the President took the rein's.
Great point joca. My idiot teabagger father in law dumped all his stock taking a huge loss because a 'Black man' and a Democrat won the WH. Best I remember the stock market fell from 13,000 to 6,500 at it's worst, now it's almost 14,000. Nothing makes my day better than reminding him of this fact.
'Ask anyone with a 401k how bad the economy was when the President took the rein's."
EXACTLY! I had to fight back TEARS when I looked at my statement.
The problem with that is our tea bagged republican friends are so delusional their 401ks only took them 6 hours to recover their losses because they are exceptional stock market experts so they refuse to admit they got hit like everyone else. Saw one so called businessman claim if he didn't get to keep his Bush tax cuts then he would have to close up his doors, what was rather amusing is 1) he didn't see that as government handouts were what he was claiming supported his business 2) if customers are hurt from robmes tax plans he would be shutting his doors faster because he would have only tax cuts and no customers, wealthy do not shop at where everyone else shops no matter how many photo opts robme does at Home Depot.
"But for those who care at all about reality, the facts should matter."
And for those that don't live in reality just do this - if you still have a home, go outside and look at how many houses are still up for sale, have been boarded up, or bull-dozed down. If you still have a job, just look at your pay-stubs from 2007-2008 - pay attention to the amount of deductions. If you can go out and buy a few more "luxury" items you know - a movie with the popcorn, a new coat for the winter, a dinner out more than once a year - then you are doing better than you were under the last guy!
Vote Obama/Biden - cause WE don't need a repeat of the last bunch of failed, sorry, avarice filled, selfish 1%'s in office again, traumatizing US & the rest of the world!!!
Was up early this a.m. and flipped over to 'Fox and Friends' while MoJo went to commercial. Found Ben Stein on as a guest. He actually educated the hosts as to the real problems with the economy (Washington DOESN'T have a spending problem, edorsed Simpson-Bowles, reminded Fox viewers that the relationship between tax rates and economic growth aren't tied together in the way that Romney/Ryan are trying to convince people). Thought it might be something to put up on the show. It's a 2:17 clip.
http://www.infowars.com/ben-stein-more-taxes-needed-to-pay-down-bankster-debt/
Good for Ben Stein - I knew he was one of a handful of smart Republicans. And it was fun to listen to the "Friends" try to counter him, without coming anywhere close.
Of course, someone at Fox will now be tasked with discrediting Stein, and his next appearance there won't be for a while again, if ever.
Ha! Yes, Fox News probably won't have HIM on again any time soon and also judging by his last two interviews (Ryan and a Romney campaign staffer) I don't think Chris Wallace has much of a future on FN either...!
The Romney boys just jump the Prez and cut his hair, a chip off the old block.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeYUP
If your base is fiercely proud of its ignorance and has an open hostility towards learning, the scientific process and accurate information in general then they are extremely susceptible to any interpretation which satisfies their preconceived notions and prejudices. The Republican party has always been extremely adept at exploiting this to its fullest potential. Inventing some pleasant fantasy is so much less of a burden then having to actually accomplish something of worth. It takes far more skill to physically plumb and tile a bathroom than to simply imagine building a mansion.
Steve -- You do a fine job of drawing attention to the coterie of citizens who choose to misrepresent reality for political gain.
But there is another kind of amnesia going on: most Very Serious People in the Village are complaining that the President has no Plan. Many also claim that he did nothing during his first term and is trying to obscure that fact.
The Minority Leader of the Senate said overtly that it was of prime importance not that his party assist the President in governing the country, but that they should do all they could to make sure that he was a one-term president. The dinner bash that Frank Luntz held in D.C. the day of the inauguration in 2009 set in place the tactics of "scorched-earth" intransigence that the Minority Leader would later overtly embrace.
The President entered office with major plans; as it became clear no negotiations were possible, despite his willingness to compromise, his plans shrank down to those he felt he could execute. Why is Rmoney promising all sorts of things HE will do -- as if the country were run by executive fiat -- while blaming the President for what he failed to do? Because we indulge his willful amnesia and misrepresentation of the facts. The President takes responsibility for his leadership, but note he is not blaming the Other Side who promised they would take the country down before they'd give him -- and the rest of us -- a taste of victory. No one likes to win ugly. No one enjoys watching sausage being made. Making legislation has turned out to be even more noxious, so far too many blame the most prominent person involved for the entire mess.
The President is not responsible for gas prices. He is not in control of the worldwide market for oil, or the decisions of the Chinese government. It is not, nor should it ever be the policy of any government department to see that the price of oil is low enough to satisfy all consumers. It is the job of government to ameliorate what it can, to temper negative extremes where it has the power to do so, to weigh the overall concerns of the nation rather than the pocketbooks of just those with enough money to pay for a voice in Congress. We will not agree with all his choices and emphases, but it is now up to us to judge whether he has acted in overall good faith. That is the judgment I have made in deciding whom I will support.
Government is a group effort. One part of government can balance the others in good faith or, as we've been seeing, in self-immolating bad faith. The former is what the Framers envisioned; the latter is what Washington warned about ("factions").
We must not forget that. We must show our own good faith and good sense, and make our decisions based on the preponderence of the evidence.
The Romney boys just jumped the President and cut his hair, a chip off the old block.
Forward with Obama !
The accepted definition of a recession, for decades, has been two consecutive quarters of negative GDP. According to that, the recession began in the fourth quarter (officially December) of 2007 and ended in the second quarter of 2009, the first full quarter of the Obama presidency. I worked at a bank during those years that marketed its own credit card, and we saw a lot of warning signs during the entire summer of 2007.
Previous recessions that began under both Democrats and Republicans used the same definition.
Out of curiosity, where would those arrows be on this chart (or, even better, an updated version of it)?
http://i.imgur.com/b8bPY.jpg
By comparing it to other charts (particularly Krugman's chart which notes census hiring, which gives an easy way to match them up, I believe that "0" on your chart happens to correspond to January '09. If so, the arrow, which is at April '09, would be right about at the peak of the "census hiring" deviation."
Steve, you're missing the strategic aim here.
Romney's "plan" is based on the idea that just by having The Man Who Knows How to Make the Economy Work in office, the Job Creators will instantly revive their Animal Spirits and launch a massive economic revival.
It follows that, necessarily, the ecoisnomy was already back on its feet thanks to the dying efforts of the (Republican) Bush Administration, but that the inauguration of Obama the heart went out of the Men Who Count and we immediately went into an uncontrollable dive again, not to recover for half a year. And there we have languished for more than three years.
This supports the "Obama has cost the country millions of jobs" theme, the "all you need is
RoveMitt" theme, and of course the "he made it worse" theme.This is why Romney don't need no steenking "plan:" Romney is the plan. His Republican Private-sector awesomeness is all we really need.
First of all consumers are the "job creators". To suggest that Romney IS the plan is laughable.
The Romney/Ryan economic recovery plan seems to be based essentially on tax cuts, with defense spending stimulus, to back them up. Reagan used basically the same plan in the eighties, but the global circumstances (and ours) were much different, and even then, he ended up almost tripling the national debt.
Bush did essentially the same thing, using the housing bubble as a stimulus "backstop" to his earlier tax cuts.
Today, after the post-Reagan personal computer revolution and the post-Reagan end of communism, we no longer have the "closed" domestic economy we had in the eighties. Instead of additional disposable income stimulating job growth, it is more likely to go for developing new consumer markets abroad or capital equipment domestically, to reduce labor costs, insterad of creating jobs. [Note: the Bush housing stimulus was unique in that if did create a lot of blue collar skilled and unskilled labor jobs in construction.]
That makes it more likely that a Romney Presidency would turn toward more defense spending, faster, as the tax cuts themselves fail to create jobs.
A question for Governor Romney on Monday should be: How do you ensure that the size of the increase in defense spending you are proposing does not engender a new global arms race?
Agree with all but the arms race. To have a race you need an opponent. At the moment no country would be foolish enough to join that race. A Romney-led US would find itself needing to start another war somewhere in order to justify the spending and then plunge further into debt sustaining the war effort...
No nation state wants to kick sand in Miss Liberty's face, but the reason the Russians have given for backing off Nuclear disarmament is that they believe that Islamic extremists pose a credible threat. We didn't take that seriously thru 9/10/2001, and we seem to think that killing Bin-Laden accomplished something meaningful. Of course the NY Times Sunday Magazine, in August 2001 ran a story on Bush's initiative to focus Star Wars outward to protect us from Klingons. I can't give you the link, but I only wish I was making this up. Besides a boots on the ground invasion lets us re-start the draft, and that may be R&R's secret plan on unemployment; ship the 47% overseas. England did that for centuries.
Thursday's Child - Hmmm...JFK was largely elected on the basis of the "Missile Gap" (along with a little help from Mayor Daly, in Chicago). Later, it turned out, there was no Missile Gap.
Reagan turned toward defense spending to outspend the USSR and drive them into bankruptcy. At least that was the story AFTER they fell. Few would have predicted that, and it turned out that again the CIA over-estimated the sterength of the USSR (not complaining...I'd rather have them over-estimating, than under-estimating).
I am confident that the neo-cons have a long list of enemies or potential enemies. Romney has, I believe, called Putin "a threat." He and Ryan have objected to a total pull out of all U.S. forces from Iraq. Romney has made threats of imposing tariffs on the Chinese...and there are many economists who will tell you that the return to a tariff regime with Smoot-Hawley in 1930 turned a recession into a global depression.
Cbeck his website...I could be wrong, but I believe he's on record to increase defense spending by some $200 billion per year, over ten years. And, I suspect he would restore the Polish and Czech missile site program, as well as boost Star Wars spending.
Doesn't have to be an actual war. Reagan didn't have an actual war. He avoided deeper Middle East involvement by pulling Marines out of Lebanon following the suicide bombing of their barracks outside of Beruit. And, he clandestinely armed the Afghans to fight the Russians, plus the deals with the Iranians over hostages and the Contras, in Latin America.
What increases in defense spending do is "up the ante" and force "rivals" to turn away from their own economic plans to boost their defense spending. A lot of excuses...the Chinese recently launched their first aircraft carrier.
And, defense spending combined with a neo-con preemptive war strategy? Yeah, I think that would get a lot of Russian and Chinese attention. Anbd, right or wrong, a lot of the world, including some prior allies, thought we went into Iraq against international law.
bacon331 - interesting. I would have thought the reason for the Russian action on SALT would have been the Polish and Czech anti-missile sites...and that we're negotiating around that.
Bacon: Very interesting and very possible.
Obama was given the kind of janitorial clean up job rich white folks reserve for the hired help. Now that he's cleaned things up, and turned the neighborhood around, the rich white folks want back in.
Let's not forget that this is the land of the quick fix and limited attention span. We like our food to be fast (even if it kills us), we like our tv shows to be short (and shallow), we like our politicians to speak in soundbites (even if there is no follow-through), we like to make money quick (through high yield investments regardless of the high risk and potential to fail). So is it at all surprising that the GOP is succeeding in its pitch that if Obama hasn't fixed it yet he never will? It is a load of nonsense, but appealing for those who don't want to spend too much time working things out or remembering past last Thursday (like my uncle who watches Fox).
I must reluctantly agree with everything you say here, although it almost makes me psychically ill to do it.
Hahaha...tell him that it took Bush eight years to screw it up, therefore Obama should get eight years to fix it.
I can't read these facts I'm sorry. I just found out that my eyes are working for the left wing media, I don't trust them any more. Any raw data that challenges what my beliefs are is simply a conspiracy and my eyes are in on it, I know it.
It just sums up the Romney campaign... "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance... then baffle them with bull@!$%#".. It could also be the Fox News slogan..
It's quite the reverse here in Britain. We were also hit by the global recession in 2008 and our Labour (sort-of Democrats) government increased public spending to get us out of it. By 2010, signs of growth were beginning, but along came an election and the idiots in this country voted in a Conservative (the dreaded GOP equivalent) government who instigated punitve 'austerity' cuts and sent us crashing back into recession.
Of course, the UK Conservatives have used the national deficit as an excuse to implement their ideology of dismantling the welfare state and privatising our National Heatlth Service to make a quick profit for their rich buddies... The Sheeple in this country have the same selective amnesia and nod in agreement as our Prime Minister takes even more money from their pockets to give tax cuts to millionaires. Jobs are being lost in the thousands and businesses are going bust left and right. Take the UK as a warning of what will happen if Rmoney (sic) becomes your President
I am sure many voters can testify based on personal experience that the stimulus has made them a home owner, they love that gas prices have doubled, the recovery of the Dow Jones Index made them rich, their business goes better than ever, it's hard to find retail space, they just got a new Mercedes and they are very happy that non of the promises made 4 years ago have been kept. Pity, that I don't know a single person that would say that. Maybe, the stats don't reflect what the average person experiences. maybe the average person's statistics are quite different. And maybe the average person is sick and tiered of "the lesser of two evils", which is still evil. Maybe the people have initiated real change by siding with a presidential candidate that stands for the peoples interest and values. that candidate is Gary Johnson. Find out for your self if your a betting on the right horse http://www.isidewith.com or look up Gary Johnson. The ones that do are typically pleasantly surprised.
I heard recently that US corporations are sitting on something like 5 trillion dollars in cash. If true, why aren't these "job creators" creating jobs with that money? The owners of these companies are, I am sure, the same class of person as Romney - rich and wanting to get richer. I am afraid that they will continue to have this recalcitrant attitude toward job creation after the President is re-elected. They should all be tried for treason.
I think it is closer to 3 trillion, but who's counting? During the recession, I saw with my own two eyes how employers downsized in order to survive, but when the recovery started they decided that the recession had given them a new business model. That is something like "hey, we survived with half the employees, and now profits are through the roof. Why not make this permanent".
The bank I worked for remained profitable throughout and after, in spite of cutting half their employees, cuts in benefits, no 401k match, no bonuses. Recruiters I spoke with during those times said they were hearing a lot of that.
Think about it. If all employers adopted that policy, it would become very difficult for an employee who is being run into the ground to move, because nobody would be hiring. Instead, those owners and executives were piling up money on their books, a lot of which ended up in their own deep pockets.
...and thus dies the theory of tax cuts for big business = more hiring
I think that a big problem is with managers depending on computer modeling to predict the near future. The mortgage bubble popped because it had not happened and was hence not considered possible. In 2005, I was working for a unit of a large Multinational; we were running two shifts until the second shift supervisor was fired as a scapegoat. The job was advertised in company, no interest, re advertised outside, a qualified applicant was hired, he gave his old employer thirty days notice, relocated and showed up for work on Monday only to be told that the job was eliminated on Friday. Multi million dollar, new warehouse, with state of the art automation, now closed because the computer program chose to eliminate half of the work week over a thirty thousand a year job. At eighty plus hours a week we made money, at forty hours a week we didn't pay for the utilities and rent, and so the jobs were outsourced to China. The business plans that survived the Bush recession were okay but they have no tools for growth and recovery.
No demand for product = no jobs. The death of supply side economics.
Living without a memory or a brain must be extremely difficult. All anyone has to do is look at the facts! Oops, that is impossible, Teapublicans don't accept facts they and Faux Noise doesn't make up.