• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

US Median Income Lowest Since 1995

I really do feel bad for progressives when the morning of Nov 7 is here and they wake up to find that their savior Obama is done.
Yeah, The Taxman is doing so well here. Broadening the base...never saying anything dumb. What a hopeless clod.
 
No, it isn't. Unemployent in June 2009 was 14,727K. It peaked in October 2009 at 15,421K. Today it is 12,544K. Any questions?


Housing starts in August 2012 = 750K.
Housing starts in June 2009 = 585K.



bush-vs-obama-housing-starts-july-20111.jpg


As you can see housing starts have stabilized at rock bottom, not exactly something to be proud of.


His unemployment record is equally static and unimpressive.

"What was the unemployment rate when Bush left office and Obama was inaugurated? 7.8%

What was the unemployment rate after Obama's first full month in office (February 2009)? 8.3%


What was the unemployment rate at peak? 10.0%
What is today's (July 2012's) unemployment rate? 8.3%"

Now add to this the fact that median income is down, we have lost our AAA credit rating, gas prices have doubled, welfare is at record highs and what you have is a failed presidency.
 
As you can see housing starts have stabilized at rock bottom, not exactly something to be proud of.
Neither is having flat-out lied about both the unemployment and housing starts numbers. Any comment on your having done THAT???

Meanwhile, ask yourself who sent housing starts to those "rock bottom" levels of yours to begin with, and why that other guy didn't do something sooner to achieve stabilization at some higher level? Looks to me like just another garden-variety case of Republicans doing all the mess-creation work and Democrats coming along to do all the clean-up work. Nothing new there.

His unemployment record is equally static and unimpressive.
This is your idea of static and unimpressive???

MONTHLY JOB LOSSES
bikini_Mar_2011.jpg

What was the unemployment rate when Bush left office and Obama was inaugurated? 7.8%
What was the unemployment rate after Obama's first full month in office (February 2009)? 8.3%
Yeah, and it kept getting worse all the way into October, an example of the negative ecocomic inertia unleashed by Bush and the fact that employment is a lagging variable anyway. But are you saying here that your understandings are so poor that you expected Obama to have turned the skyrocketing unemployment rate around in less than one month? That would be a classic, but you can't put such stuff past right-wingers.

What was the unemployment rate at peak? 10.0%
What is today's (July 2012's) unemployment rate? 8.3%"
Now add to this the fact that median income is down, we have lost our AAA credit rating, gas prices have doubled, welfare is at record highs and what you have is a failed presidency.
Why is "tiday's rate" not the August rate? Didn't you like that one as much? Otherwise, no...all you have is a bunch of corrupt arguments and cherry-picked data that do not have the implications you try to attach to them. Median income is only continuing a decline that was begun under Republicans long ago, and this because income gains since the end of the recession have all gone not just to the top 50%, but to the top 10% or so, leaving only further income losses for those at lower levels. Our AAA rating actually means nothing to investors, and the rating downgrade was issued only as a slap in the face to stupid Republicans for their intransigence in refusing to face up to the necessity of tax increases. The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in July 2008 was $4.05. It mysteriously sank to $1.59 in December and was back up to $1.83 by Inauguration Day. Today, it's at $3.78. You of course calculate from an extreme outlier value and pretend that it was representative. That's fraud, in case you didn't realize it. Welfare is income-dependent. Don't like welfare? Write your Republican lawmakers and tell them they need to stop manufacturing so many poor people.
 
Last edited:
Neither is having flat-out lied about both the unemployment and housing starts numbers. Any comment on your having done THAT???

Meanwhile, ask yourself who sent housing starts to those "rock bottom" levels of yours to begin with, and why that other guy didn't do something sooner to achieve stabilization at some higher level? Looks to me like just another garden-variety case of Republicans doing all the mess-creation work and Democrats coming along to do all the clean-up work. Nothing new there.




This is your idea of static and unimpressive???

MONTHLY JOB LOSSES
View attachment 67135141


Yeah, and it kept getting worse all the way into October, an example of the negative ecocomic inertia unleashed by Bush and the fact that employment is a lagging variable anyway. But are you saying here that your understandings are so poor that you expected Obama to have turned the skyrocketing unemployment rate around in less than one month? That would be a classic, but you can't put such stuff past right-wingers.


Why is "tiday's rate" not the August rate? Didn't you like that one as much? Otherwise, no...all you have is a bunch of corrupt arguments and cherry-picked data that do not have the implications you try to attach to them. Median income is only continuing a decline that was begun under Republicans long ago, and this because income gains since the end of the recession have all gone not just to the top 50%, but to the top 10% or so, leaving only further income losses for those at lower levels. Our AAA rating actually means nothing to investors, and the rating downgrade was issued only as a slap in the face to stupid Republicans for their intransigence in refusing to face up to the necessity of tax increases. The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in July 2008 was $4.05. It mysteriously sank to $1.59 in December and was back up to $1.83 by Inauguration Day. Today, it's at $3.78. You of course calculate from an extreme outlier value and pretend that it was representative. That's fraud, in case you didn't realize it. Welfare is income-dependent. Don't like welfare? Write your Republican lawmakers and tell them they need to stop manufacturing so many poor people.

You are the one cherry picking data in an embarrassing effort to save this failed president.Any realistic look at his term in office and the real data involved proves he is an abject failure.
We can start with;

Trillions more in debt

gas has doubled in price

lost AAA credit rating

record high welfare rolls

forign policy has failed


unemployment persistantly over 8%

housing starts bumping along the bottom

home values bumping along the bottom

failed energy policy

fall in median income

I could go on forever but I am already late for work. As you can see though this partial list of obama failures is real life pertinent straight forward facts. Everything I have said is relevant to all of us on a daily basis and is a direct measurement on how well obama has done or not done I should say. Now feel free to spin away and contort numbers in any topsy turvy way you can find on your left wing web sites. Have fun.:lol:
 
Housing starts should be at rock bottom considering the number of available existing homes out there. Simple supply/demand working there.

Median income is a horrible statistic on which to draw any conclusions--it doesn't tell you jack about what income below or above the median is. If 2 people make $10K, one person makes $50K, and 2 people make $1B, then the median income is $50K because there are an equal number above and below.
 
Did someone just call Bush the worst president ever? :lol:

He was painfully average. Calling him the worst ever is like calling Obama the worst ever: it says more about the person saying it than anything else.
 
Where the hell is Rutherford B. Hayes when you need him the most?
 
sawyerloggingon said:
As you can see housing starts have stabilized at rock bottom, not exactly something to be proud of.

Housing starts have bottomed because the inventory of vacant homes hasn't cleared, banks are reluctant to sell off their holdings, demand is down due to a variety of reasons, etc. Do you even know what a bubble is?
 
I could go on forever but I am already late for work.
Work isn't all you're late for. Obama was presented with welcoming gifts that inlcuded the in-progress worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. He didn't start it. Braindead Republicans did that. Obama's job has been to end it. Despite braindead Republicans desperately seeking to keep him from doing that at every step along the way.

As you can see though this partial list of obama failures is real life pertinent straight forward facts.
Bunch of meaningless chicken scratchings. We've already seen blatant dishonesty in your unemployment, housing starts, and gas prices claims. I don't even want to know what you think foreign and energy policy failures might have been.
 
Did someone just call Bush the worst president ever? He was painfully average.
Fortunately for many prior generations of Americans, George W Bush was far, far short of average. Only a handful of Presidents have managed to botch virtually everything they ever put their fumbling little mitts on, fewer still who were able to pull that off over eight long years. You'd think just the law of averages might have saved the guy at some point, but no. It was just miserable disgrace and failure at everything from start to finish.

Disagree? Go ahead...put up a list of Bushie success stories. There must be something...he WAS very popular in Albania, after all.
 
Where the hell is Rutherford B. Hayes when you need him the most?
Rutherford B. Hayes was no prize, but there are very few historians who would call him a worse President than George W Bush. Worse than Grover Cleveland, yes. Worse than George W Bush, no.
 
Housing starts have bottomed because the inventory of vacant homes hasn't cleared, banks are reluctant to sell off their holdings, demand is down due to a variety of reasons, etc. Do you even know what a bubble is?
Housing starts have been increasing and market inventory is down by nearly 25% year-over-year to roughly 6.5 months worth of sales. What's been most plainly lacking is first-time buyers, this due to a limited supply of homes at lower prices and overly restrictive lending practices.
 
Fortunately for many prior generations of Americans, George W Bush was far, far short of average. Only a handful of Presidents have managed to botch virtually everything they ever put their fumbling little mitts on, fewer still who were able to pull that off over eight long years. You'd think just the law of averages might have saved the guy at some point, but no. It was just miserable disgrace and failure at everything from start to finish.

Disagree? Go ahead...put up a list of Bushie success stories. There must be something...he WAS very popular in Albania, after all.

Or Africa.

Nah, Bush was decent. Nothing great, nothing horrible. Obama is a little bit above average, but that's it.

I know the current partisan climate ("THE OTHER GUY IS THE DEVIL AND THE WORST EVER!") and the recency bias of the serial position effect team up to create large swaths of partisans that believe that recent presidents of different ideological bents are DA WURST EVAR, but it just ain't so.
 
Or Africa.
While Bush's work on AIDS and good-governance in Africa so far falls short of what the Clinton Global Initiative has been doing, they had a head start, and Bush did get points by comparison simply for not ignoring Africa while actually in office, the fact that he had simply run out of other places he could travel to notwithstanding. These efforts likely do stand as the one and only net positive contrbution that Bush was able to make in eight years. One entry does not comprise a list, however.

Nah, Bush was decent. Nothing great, nothing horrible.
Decent? What in God's name was there that even approached decent? Iraq? The economy? Abu Ghraib and Gitmo? His bold steps forward on health care, energy, and immigration policy? DHS? Education? The environment? Foreign policy? Civil rights? Katrina? What? There is an eight-year litany of very nearly wall-to-wall disgrace and failure. Do point out the decent parts that are somehow being covered up.

Obama is a little bit above average, but that's it.
Obama is like FDR. This is no average for what he's been asked to do. And FDR of course didn't have to deal with a hostile, terrorist Congress while doing it. We'll have to see how it all shakes out over the next four years, but I would guess that he'll be at least knocking on the door of upper quartile status.

I know the current partisan climate ("THE OTHER GUY IS THE DEVIL AND THE WORST EVER!") and the recency bias of the serial position effect team up to create large swaths of partisans that believe that recent presidents of different ideological bents are DA WURST EVAR, but it just ain't so.
Try to be serious. Recency bias and the serial position effect are tiddlywinks notions related to small-scale short-term memory storage and recall. They have nothing to do with history. You're either a researcher in the field plumbing for grant money or are a quite considerable way off base.

Returning to reality, there is nothing about lately that precludes it from having witnesssed one of the worst presidencies of all time. All that's necessary is for there recently to have been a President whose failures and shortcomings were so glaring and numerous as to qualify him for such a position. Quite a powerful case can in fact be made for exactly that having happened.
 
Household Incomes Fall In August, Down 8.2% Under Obama - Investors.com

WEBhsld0926_345.gif.cms
 
While Bush's work on AIDS and good-governance in Africa so far falls short of what the Clinton Global Initiative has been doing, they had a head start, and Bush did get points by comparison simply for not ignoring Africa while actually in office, the fact that he had simply run out of other places he could travel to notwithstanding. These efforts likely do stand as the one and only net positive contrbution that Bush was able to make in eight years. One entry does not comprise a list, however.


Decent? What in God's name was there that even approached decent? Iraq? The economy? Abu Ghraib and Gitmo? His bold steps forward on health care, energy, and immigration policy? DHS? Education? The environment? Foreign policy? Civil rights? Katrina? What? There is an eight-year litany of very nearly wall-to-wall disgrace and failure. Do point out the decent parts that are somehow being covered up.


Obama is like FDR. This is no average for what he's been asked to do. And FDR of course didn't have to deal with a hostile, terrorist Congress while doing it. We'll have to see how it all shakes out over the next four years, but I would guess that he'll be at least knocking on the door of upper quartile status.


Try to be serious. Recency bias and the serial position effect are tiddlywinks notions related to small-scale short-term memory storage and recall. They have nothing to do with history. You're either a researcher in the field plumbing for grant money or are a quite considerable way off base.

Returning to reality, there is nothing about lately that precludes it from having witnesssed one of the worst presidencies of all time. All that's necessary is for there recently to have been a President whose failures and shortcomings were so glaring and numerous as to qualify him for such a position. Quite a powerful case can in fact be made for exactly that having happened.

So now we know what the official liberal position is. Cool.
 
Did someone just call Bush the worst president ever? :lol:

He was painfully average. Calling him the worst ever is like calling Obama the worst ever: it says more about the person saying it than anything else.

Herbert Hoover?
 
Are you judging the official liberal position on one post?

His post seemed to be made up completely of talking points meant to promote one side over the other: I doubt he's an actual plant, but he does seem to be a cheerleader. Never a good quality.
 
His post seemed to be made up completely of talking points meant to promote one side over the other: I doubt he's an actual plant, but he does seem to be a cheerleader. Never a good quality.

Everybody does that. You don't know him well. He is one of the better posters here.
 
No one should do it. Let's not check our critical thinking at the door (which is what saying Bush is the worst president ever while saying Obama is FDR) in order to forward partisan politics. If anything, that type of mindless hyperbole only hurts their position and implies that the otherwise solid viewpoint is irrational.

But lol @ "everybody does that". Ya think that might be the problem?
 
No one should do it. Let's not check our critical thinking at the door (which is what saying Bush is the worst president ever while saying Obama is FDR) in order to forward partisan politics. If anything, that type of mindless hyperbole only hurts their position and implies that the otherwise solid viewpoint is irrational.

But lol @ "everybody does that". Ya think that might be the problem?

Part of it.;)
 
Housing starts have been increasing and market inventory is down by nearly 25% year-over-year to roughly 6.5 months worth of sales. What's been most plainly lacking is first-time buyers, this due to a limited supply of homes at lower prices and overly restrictive lending practices.

If the economy had come back as it should people would be snapping up houses at these bargain basement prices and housing starts would be on the rise.
 
Back
Top Bottom