And yet... even as 110,000 jobs were added in September '07, the unemployment rate ROSE.
And yet... 72% of the new jobs were low-paying, no-benefit, and (in many cases) part-time.
And yet... GWB has the lousiest record for household income growth for any administration since World War 2. Same goes for the GDP.
And yet... the overall net gain in jobs is 5.6 million since Bush took office: the worst since Herbert Hoover, who had a Great Something Or Other contextualizing his failure. To compare, Jimmy Carter added twice as many jobs in fewer years, during a period of high inflation.
And yet... the U.S. housing market is in total freefall, and more than 30,000 construction jobs disappeared last month alone.
And yet... the country's dependence on foreign investment is increasing, while the dollar is dropping against every currency of note... a toxic economic brew, unless you're foreign.
And yet... overall, the deficit has increased by $750,000,000,000 per capita for the Bush administration (aka "Longest Period of Job Creation on Record™").
But... none of that matters, because THE BUSH STREAK LIVES! Goooooo, trickle down!
Gosh, I wonder what NEXT month's isolated positive statistic will be?
I just love seeing economic ignoramuses exposing themselves in public, and permanently, too.
Cherry-picking data points and then drawing incorrect conclusions may be fun, but it does demonstrate a certain lack of ability.
For instance, unemployment frequently rises as jobs are added because people who were formerly not looking for jobs begin to do so. Oddly, enough, many of these people have few job skills or are new to the job market, so, guess what, they get, ta-da "low-paying, no-benefit, and (in many cases) part-time" jobs. Keep up this level of reasoning and it may be necessary to drag out the Cluebat(TM).
As for household income growth -- try adding in all benefits and measure *total compensation* you cretin. Total compensation is rising nicely, pretty much in line with the trend since 1980 or so. And I don't know how you're measuring GDP, but I can't find *any* data that show a lousy record of growth for Bush. Care to explain how you're cooking this data?
I'll give you Carter's job growth, but remind you that it appears to be a result of the Feminist Revolution, which roughly doubled the number of people available to be employed.
The US housing market is not in free fall (care to define that term and then defend it?). And some 85% of the people who couldn't have bought homes without subprime loans are doing just fine, thank you. Construction is notoriously volatile.
As for the dollar dropping, not so long the plaint was that it was too high. When it's too high, we buy cheap foreign goods. When it's low we get to sell US made goods. Pick one.
And I see that we evidently have an increased deficit of $225,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, which by my count is $225 sextillion. This appears to be just as accurate as your other statements, so I'm not really surprised.
Oh, no!!! The Next Depression is on us!! You guys have correctly predicted 4 out of the zero recessions in the past 6 years. Nice track record.
I typed "per capita" instead of "per annum"; my mistake. 750 billion times six is 4.5 trillion, not 225 sextillion.
Some of the other stuff you write is just loopy, though ("the housing market isn't in freefall; construction is notoriously volatile"). Some is sheer wishing and fantasizing ("ta da," good job data trumps bad job data, and anyway, the bad stuff is all because of the 17-year-olds getting their first crappy jobs at Taco Bell). You say that "total compensation" is the secret to success (and is "rising nicely") even as companies are stripping benefits, as compared to past generations of American labor. Your red pom-poms are showing, Dave. But as you argue that the housing market in 2007 is not a disaster, I'll take your "ignoramus" and "cretin" assessments under advisement.
Here's some more "cherrypicked" data for you to blink away like Samantha on 'Bewitched':
Personal bankruptcy has gone from a rare occurence to a routine one, with the number of households filing for bankruptcy rising from fewer than 290,000 in 1980 to more than two million in 2005....
Americans are also losing their homes at record rates. Since the early 1970s, the mortgage foreclosure rate has increased fivefold. From 2001 to 2005 an average of one in every sixty households with a mortgage fell into foreclosure a year....
Over a two-year period, more than 80 million adults and children - one out of three nonelderly Americans, 85 percent of them working or the kids of working parents - spend some time without the protection against ruinous health costs that insurance offers....
Twenty-five years ago, 83 percent of medium and large firms offered traditional "defined-benefit" pensions that provided a predetermined monthly benefit for the remainder of a worker's life. Today, the share is below a third....Between 1989 and 1998 - a decade in which 401(k) coverage exploded and the stock market boomed - the share of families whose pension savings allowed them to replace at least half of their prior income in retirement actually declined, as old-style guaranteed pensions rapidly became a thing of the past....
At its peak in the mid-1990s, income instability was almost five times as great as it was in the early 1970s. And while it dropped during the boom of the late 1990s, it never fell below twice its starting level, and it shot up again in recent years to three times what it was in the early 1970s....
Perhaps most important, advocates of private accounts believed that they would ultimately transform how Americans viewed government and each other. By encouraging Americans to rely on themselves, tax-favored accounts would also make people more deeply invested in the market, more distrustful of direct government programs, more reluctant to join broader risk pools - and more likely to vote for conservative politicians.
Also, from a variety of sources:
The real median household income declined 3% from 2000 to 2004.
The percentage of households earning $25,000 to $99,999 (roughly middle-income range) shrank 1.5% from 2000 to 2004.
Last year (2005), real average weekly earnings actually fell 0.4%.
Median household income has fallen an average of 1.15 percent per year under Bush. It rose an average of 1.65 percent per year under Clinton. The number of Americans below the poverty line fell 2.29 percent annually in the Clinton years, but has since gone up 4.33 percent annually in the Bush years.
The savings rate for Americans is the lowest it has been in 73 years.
Credit-card debt is at an all-time high, averaging $9,312 per household.
Simply comparing the annual growth of GDP under each administration would be misleading, because the population continues to grow. Per capita GDP -- in other words, how much output there is each year relative to the total population -- is a more accurate measure. While per capita GDP rose 2.42 percent under Clinton, it has risen just 1.62 percent per year during the Bush presidency. In large part, this is because fewer people are working.
Workers are now paying $1,094 more in premiums annually for family coverage than they did in 2000.
Under the Clinton administration, the share of Americans covered by health insurance went up 0.12 percent annually. Under Bush, there has been a 0.55 percent yearly decrease. Even more striking is that 5 million more Americans were without health insurance in 2003 than in 2000 and 3.8 million fewer Americans had employment-based health insurance.
Since 2000, employment-based health insurance premiums have increased 73 percent, compared to cumulative inflation of 14 percent and cumulative wage growth of 15 percent during the same period.
Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance in the United States have been rising five times faster on average than workers' earnings since 2000 (Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, from National Coalition on Health Care).
The average employee contribution to company-provided health insurance has increased more than 143 percent since 2000. Average out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, co-payments for medications, and co-insurance for physician and hospital visits rose 115 percent during the same period (Hewitt Associates LLC, from National Coalition on Health Care).
50 percent of all bankruptcy filings were partly the result of medical expenses. Every 30 seconds in the United States someone files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious health problem (Himmelstein, D; E. Warren; D. Thorne; and S. Woolhander; from National Coalition on Health Care).
If standard of living is measured as the per capita share of the gross domestic product (GDP), the U.S. ranks at best 7th behind Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, Ireland, Denmark and Iceland.
Not only did the Clinton years produce many more jobs than the Bush years have, but they also produced more full-time jobs compared to part-time jobs. This is an important indicator because in an economic slowdown many displaced and new workers resort to part-time work as a second-choice option. Granted, some people might prefer part-time work because they have children or attend school. But, overall, a decrease in the ratio of full-time to part-time jobs implies that a greater share of workers have less stable work with fewer benefits.
Republican Congressman Gil Gutknecht (MN 1), quoted by the Wall Street Journal: "Why is there still economic angst in the United States? The answer is the average working American hasn't had a real pay raise."
It's unfortunate to see some rightwing blogtypes resort to snide hyperbole ("The Next Depression!" "I blame the tax cuts")... not for reasons of intellectual clarity, but because it's far easier to caricature, mock and ignore a phony cartoon opponent than its is to acknowledge a mixed economic package of ups and downs.
I shouldn't have to explain this, but as it seems there are children in the room, I will. All of the above negative economic data doesn't mean the U.S. economy is in complete shambles. All it means is that the selective whooping over particular bits of upbeat data amid a sea of complexity and counterexamples is little more than empty, partisan noise.
That noise may soothe your preexisting biases, or it may upset them, depending on what your ideologies are. But pretending a single data point reflects vindication for your "side" is pure wankery.
Of course, wankery helps some people sleep at night. So if you need it that badly, tug away.
Here's some numbers - my family has gone from from a two income to one income family in the last 7 yrs, BY CHOICE. We are in the best shape ever financially. Any lack we have, and debt we have is OURS, not our communities to deal with.
Health Insurance is ridiculously expensive, primarily (not only) because we have become a society that outrageously litigious.
Bankruptcy & credit card debt rates being so high just shows that personal responsibility & bad choices are rampant in our society. What a surprise.
7 comments:
Yayyyy, isolated positive statistic!
And yet... even as 110,000 jobs were added in September '07, the unemployment rate ROSE.
And yet... 72% of the new jobs were low-paying, no-benefit, and (in many cases) part-time.
And yet... GWB has the lousiest record for household income growth for any administration since World War 2. Same goes for the GDP.
And yet... the overall net gain in jobs is 5.6 million since Bush took office: the worst since Herbert Hoover, who had a Great Something Or Other contextualizing his failure. To compare, Jimmy Carter added twice as many jobs in fewer years, during a period of high inflation.
And yet... the U.S. housing market is in total freefall, and more than 30,000 construction jobs disappeared last month alone.
And yet... the country's dependence on foreign investment is increasing, while the dollar is dropping against every currency of note... a toxic economic brew, unless you're foreign.
And yet... overall, the deficit has increased by $750,000,000,000 per capita for the Bush administration (aka "Longest Period of Job Creation on Record™").
But... none of that matters, because THE BUSH STREAK LIVES! Goooooo, trickle down!
Gosh, I wonder what NEXT month's isolated positive statistic will be?
I just love seeing economic ignoramuses exposing themselves in public, and permanently, too.
Cherry-picking data points and then drawing incorrect conclusions may be fun, but it does demonstrate a certain lack of ability.
For instance, unemployment frequently rises as jobs are added because people who were formerly not looking for jobs begin to do so. Oddly, enough, many of these people have few job skills or are new to the job market, so, guess what, they get, ta-da "low-paying, no-benefit, and (in many cases) part-time" jobs. Keep up this level of reasoning and it may be necessary to drag out the Cluebat(TM).
As for household income growth -- try adding in all benefits and measure *total compensation* you cretin. Total compensation is rising nicely, pretty much in line with the trend since 1980 or so. And I don't know how you're measuring GDP, but I can't find *any* data that show a lousy record of growth for Bush. Care to explain how you're cooking this data?
I'll give you Carter's job growth, but remind you that it appears to be a result of the Feminist Revolution, which roughly doubled the number of people available to be employed.
The US housing market is not in free fall (care to define that term and then defend it?). And some 85% of the people who couldn't have bought homes without subprime loans are doing just fine, thank you. Construction is notoriously volatile.
As for the dollar dropping, not so long the plaint was that it was too high. When it's too high, we buy cheap foreign goods. When it's low we get to sell US made goods. Pick one.
And I see that we evidently have an increased deficit of $225,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, which by my count is $225 sextillion. This appears to be just as accurate as your other statements, so I'm not really surprised.
Oh, no!!! The Next Depression is on us!! You guys have correctly predicted 4 out of the zero recessions in the past 6 years. Nice track record.
I typed "per capita" instead of "per annum"; my mistake. 750 billion times six is 4.5 trillion, not 225 sextillion.
Some of the other stuff you write is just loopy, though ("the housing market isn't in freefall; construction is notoriously volatile"). Some is sheer wishing and fantasizing ("ta da," good job data trumps bad job data, and anyway, the bad stuff is all because of the 17-year-olds getting their first crappy jobs at Taco Bell). You say that "total compensation" is the secret to success (and is "rising nicely") even as companies are stripping benefits, as compared to past generations of American labor. Your red pom-poms are showing, Dave. But as you argue that the housing market in 2007 is not a disaster, I'll take your "ignoramus" and "cretin" assessments under advisement.
Here's some more "cherrypicked" data for you to blink away like Samantha on 'Bewitched':
Personal bankruptcy has gone from a rare occurence to a routine one, with the number of households filing for bankruptcy rising from fewer than 290,000 in 1980 to more than two million in 2005....
Americans are also losing their homes at record rates. Since the early 1970s, the mortgage foreclosure rate has increased fivefold. From 2001 to 2005 an average of one in every sixty households with a mortgage fell into foreclosure a year....
Over a two-year period, more than 80 million adults and children - one out of three nonelderly Americans, 85 percent of them working or the kids of working parents - spend some time without the protection against ruinous health costs that insurance offers....
Twenty-five years ago, 83 percent of medium and large firms offered traditional "defined-benefit" pensions that provided a predetermined monthly benefit for the remainder of a worker's life. Today, the share is below a third....Between 1989 and 1998 - a decade in which 401(k) coverage exploded and the stock market boomed - the share of families whose pension savings allowed them to replace at least half of their prior income in retirement actually declined, as old-style guaranteed pensions rapidly became a thing of the past....
At its peak in the mid-1990s, income instability was almost five times as great as it was in the early 1970s. And while it dropped during the boom of the late 1990s, it never fell below twice its starting level, and it shot up again in recent years to three times what it was in the early 1970s....
Perhaps most important, advocates of private accounts believed that they would ultimately transform how Americans viewed government and each other. By encouraging Americans to rely on themselves, tax-favored accounts would also make people more deeply invested in the market, more distrustful of direct government programs, more reluctant to join broader risk pools - and more likely to vote for conservative politicians.
Also, from a variety of sources:
The real median household income declined 3% from 2000 to 2004.
The percentage of households earning $25,000 to $99,999 (roughly middle-income range) shrank 1.5% from 2000 to 2004.
Last year (2005), real average weekly earnings actually fell 0.4%.
Median household income has fallen an average of 1.15 percent per year under Bush. It rose an average of 1.65 percent per year under Clinton. The number of Americans below the poverty line fell 2.29 percent annually in the Clinton years, but has since gone up 4.33 percent annually in the Bush years.
The savings rate for Americans is the lowest it has been in 73 years.
Credit-card debt is at an all-time high, averaging $9,312 per household.
Simply comparing the annual growth of GDP under each administration would be misleading, because the population continues to grow. Per capita GDP -- in other words, how much output there is each year relative to the total population -- is a more accurate measure. While per capita GDP rose 2.42 percent under Clinton, it has risen just 1.62 percent per year during the Bush presidency. In large part, this is because fewer people are working.
Workers are now paying $1,094 more in premiums annually for family coverage than they did in 2000.
Under the Clinton administration, the share of Americans covered by health insurance went up 0.12 percent annually. Under Bush, there has been a 0.55 percent yearly decrease. Even more striking is that 5 million more Americans were without health insurance in 2003 than in 2000 and 3.8 million fewer Americans had employment-based health insurance.
Since 2000, employment-based health insurance premiums have increased 73 percent, compared to cumulative inflation of 14 percent and cumulative wage growth of 15 percent during the same period.
Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance in the United States have been rising five times faster on average than workers' earnings since 2000 (Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, from National Coalition on Health Care).
The average employee contribution to company-provided health insurance has increased more than 143 percent since 2000. Average out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, co-payments for medications, and co-insurance for physician and hospital visits rose 115 percent during the same period (Hewitt Associates LLC, from National Coalition on Health Care).
50 percent of all bankruptcy filings were partly the result of medical expenses. Every 30 seconds in the United States someone files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious health problem (Himmelstein, D; E. Warren; D. Thorne; and S. Woolhander; from National Coalition on Health Care).
If standard of living is measured as the per capita share of the gross domestic product (GDP), the U.S. ranks at best 7th behind Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, Ireland, Denmark and Iceland.
Not only did the Clinton years produce many more jobs than the Bush years have, but they also produced more full-time jobs compared to part-time jobs. This is an important indicator because in an economic slowdown many displaced and new workers resort to part-time work as a second-choice option. Granted, some people might prefer part-time work because they have children or attend school. But, overall, a decrease in the ratio of full-time to part-time jobs implies that a greater share of workers have less stable work with fewer benefits.
Republican Congressman Gil Gutknecht (MN 1), quoted by the Wall Street Journal: "Why is there still economic angst in the United States? The answer is the average working American hasn't had a real pay raise."
It's unfortunate to see some rightwing blogtypes resort to snide hyperbole ("The Next Depression!" "I blame the tax cuts")... not for reasons of intellectual clarity, but because it's far easier to caricature, mock and ignore a phony cartoon opponent than its is to acknowledge a mixed economic package of ups and downs.
I shouldn't have to explain this, but as it seems there are children in the room, I will. All of the above negative economic data doesn't mean the U.S. economy is in complete shambles. All it means is that the selective whooping over particular bits of upbeat data amid a sea of complexity and counterexamples is little more than empty, partisan noise.
That noise may soothe your preexisting biases, or it may upset them, depending on what your ideologies are. But pretending a single data point reflects vindication for your "side" is pure wankery.
Of course, wankery helps some people sleep at night. So if you need it that badly, tug away.
Oops, too much inconvenient information. How about this? DOW JONES HITS ALL-TIME HIGH WOOOO ALL IS WELL WE'RE NUMBER ONE WE'RE NUMBER ONE WOOOOOOO
Ahhhhhh...... that's much better.
Here's some numbers - my family has gone from from a two income to one income family in the last 7 yrs, BY CHOICE. We are in the best shape ever financially. Any lack we have, and debt we have is OURS, not our communities to deal with.
Health Insurance is ridiculously expensive, primarily (not only) because we have become a society that outrageously litigious.
Bankruptcy & credit card debt rates being so high just shows that personal responsibility & bad choices are rampant in our society. What a surprise.
That was an excellent, excellent overview, FreeToFly. We can learn so much from it.
Also, why doesn't the media report that the unemployment rate is really 0%? Everybody in our house has a job.
Finally, global warming is a proven myth, because one weekend back in August it felt cold in my neighborhood.
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