Thursday, September 13, 2012

Old and busted: "Yes we can!"
New and busted: "Nobody could have fixed this."

Here are some headlines from the past couple days:

Zero Hedge: "Jobless claims spike is fourth largest in 2012 as producer prices surge by most since June 2009."
Hot Air: "Great news: Middle class sinks to all-time low in 2011."
CBS News: "Survey: One-third of Americans in 'lower classes' since Obama took office."
NPR: "Gas sends wholesale prices up the most in 3 years."
and finally: "Does this look like an economy that's moving forward?"

And yet two years ago, when it looked like the economy was on the mend, the Obama administration was hanging the "Mission Accomplished!" banners:
We're asked to believe that the Obama administration knew all along that things would take longer than four years to improve. "I never said this journey would be easy," the president claimed in Charlotte. On the contrary, the president stated explicitly on Feb. 1, 2009, that if he failed to get the economy turned around in three years, he would be looking at a "one-term proposition."
If the Obama administration knew from the start that the so-called "hole" left by the previous administration was too deep to climb out of in one term, why did they repeatedly claim that the recovery was at hand? "Recovery Summer," the White House website promised, would begin in June 2010.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner authored a New York Times op-ed in August 2010 proclaiming "Welcome to the Recovery." Geithner wrote, "(A) review of recent data on the American economy shows that we are on a path back to growth." Though acknowledging continuing challenges, Geithner assured readers that "the actions we took ... to stimulate the economy helped arrest the freefall, preventing an even deeper collapse and putting the economy on the road to recovery."
It's pretty clear that Obama never thought his policies would lead to such a weak recovery and had no Plan B.  Should have told better stories.

6 comments:

http://www.businessinsider.com/are-you-better-off-than-4-years-ago-charts-2012-9?op=1 said...

The snag with this month's explosion of whining about "but HOW can we POSSIBLY be losing?" is that maddeningly sluggish improvement is still an improvement. Up is up. And also, that Obamacare doesn't cover lobotomies; thus, voters are still able to remember what happened to the economy - and most importantly, when. Suspending a Presidential campaign on September 24, 2008 because the financial system is collapsing, yeah, that kind of thing tends to stick in the collective memory.

Last week, Business Insider published 25 economic charts, measuring various aspects of the "better off than four years ago?" question. Obama comes off well in some of them, and not so well in others. I suppose you can just take the bad ones and add those to your list.

http://www.businessinsider.com/are-you-better-off-than-4-years-ago-charts-2012-9?op=1

BTW, "Mission Accomplished" being this generation's punchline for arrogant incompetence is a major part of the reason Romney's going to get creamed.

Eric said...

Yeah, I checked out those graphs. They're all in the category of "we had nowhere to go but up and they did."

The CBO found that the super-duper stimulus produced a job for the low-low price of a quarter-million per. So that's a plus too.

Also, taking $716 billion from Medicare - paradoxically - extends the program's solvency (with double-counting magic). Plus!

Record low labor participation? Funemployment! The private sector is doing fine.

Who needs a Swiffer when Chevy Volts can collect dust just as efficiently? Plus.

Also, let the word go out that this President won't suspend his campaign to pause for four dead diplomats and a bunch of embassies under siege. It's Vegas baby!

Git R Divided said...

The CBO found that the super-duper stimulus produced a job for the low-low price of a quarter-million per. So that's a plus too.

No, the CBO didn't find that. The CBO emphasized that it was issuing a "limited," "non-comprehensive" report of the stimulus costs per annum over a period of five years, including the near-term macroeconomic impact on the inflation-adjusted GDP, the effect on tax receipts (both local and national), the range of longterm effect on the U.S. debt, and estimated potential unemployment rates (including speculative shifts from part-time to fulltime work and possible changes in output), but the report did not reflect any lower-level expenditures of stimulus funding, transfer payments, crowding-out offsets, use of the homebuyer credit extension, or the impact of four-fifths of the spending increases or tax reductions that were attributable to ARRA provisions.

Someone with an axe to grind (and an aversion to both complex math and economic history) took two numbers out of the report, and did the EZ-Bake analysis.

Also, let the word go out that this President won't suspend his campaign to pause for four dead diplomats and a bunch of embassies under siege. It's Vegas baby!

Five dead, if you count Romney's chances.

Eric said...

Did I say a quarter-million per job? I meant $4 million. Hey, it's only money.

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/05/cbo-obama-stimulus-may-have-cost-as-much-as-4-1-million-a-job/

Keep holding tight to hope and change. After all high unemployment and an exploding Middle East worked out great for Carter's re-election.

Eric said...

And what great jobs they are!

Atlantic: "Our low-wage recovery: how McJobs have replaced middle-class jobs."

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/our-low-wage-recovery-how-mcjobs-have-replaced-middle-class-jobs/261839/

Anonymous said...

Keep holding tight to hope and change. After all high unemployment and an exploding Middle East worked out great for Carter's re-election.

Wipe the drool from the corner of your mouth when you type that.