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U.S. GDP Grows Just 1.3%

So then two years after the end of a recession we have 3 million more unemployed or under employed (154 million X 16.2%) and you think that is worthy of re-election? When does this become the Obama economy?
First of all, and I've said this before, I have not yet decided on who I am voting for. I will likely not decide until close to election time.

But seriously, Con, where do you get off even asking?

Here you are insinuating that Obama is not "worthy" of four more year because there's an additional 3 million underemployed after 29 months on the job.

But now let's compare that to other presidents you voted to give four more years to, shall we?

Ronald Reagan: 3,197,829 unemployed in a workforce 1/3rd smaller than today
1/1981: UR: 7.5%; WF: 108M = 8,101,950 unemployed
6/1983: UR: 10.1%; WF: 112M = 11,299,779 unemployed
Bush: 4,649,368 underemployed in a workforce 4% smaller than today
1/2001: UR: 7.3%; WF: 144M = 10,497,400 underunemployed
6/2003: UR: 10.3%; WF: 147M = 15,146,768 underunemployed
Bush loses 5 million jobs in 29 months to underemployment. Conservative: "4 more years!"

Obama loses 3 million jobs in 29 months to underemployment. Conservative: "Impeach! Impeach!"

Hypocrite, thy name be Conservative
 
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Bye, Sheik, Friday night and I am out of patience with you. Have a good one
Does this mean I can expect divorce papers from you again?



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Yes, in your link she does say she regrets making that FORECAST. It was never a promise, as she made abundantly clear in the disclaimer that appeared along with the forecast.

Here's a bonus tip: if the weather man says it's going to be 90 degrees and sunny tomorrow, that's not a promise. It's a forecast. If it turns out to be 89 and partly cloudy, that doesn't make the weather man a liar.
 
You could say the same thing about butterfly wings flapping in Australia, but that is the point. You can't predict what would have happened without it

precisely? no. roughly? yes. how? look at history. for example, had we not decided to engage in massive stimulus spending, but rather respond about along the lines to which we responded to the last 10 post-war recessions our per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) would be $3,553 higher than it is today, and 11.9 million more Americans would be employed, a number that climbs even higher if we compare our 1982 response, in which case annual per-capita income would be $4,154 higher than before the recession—that's an extra $16,600 for a family of four—and some 15.7 million more Americans would have jobs. That's enough jobs to employ 100% of the 13.5 million Americans currently classified as unemployed. In addition, we would have provided jobs for 30% of both the 2.4 million discouraged or marginally attached workers and the 4.8 million who have totally dropped out of the work force since January 2008.

Nor is the US experience unique. If you were to compare every major attempt to stimulate an economy in an OECD country since 1970, you would find that those that succeed are the ones that cut taxes, whereas those that fail are the ones that increase transfer payments.

but how can this be? isn't spending supposed to snowball, creating more and more wealth as it flows through the economy? well, no. it turns out that economies with high levels of debt have a multiplier effect of zero, and in open economies (such as ours) it is actually NEGATIVE.

We borrowed money for the stimulus, we didn't take it from tax revenues.

yes. that was my point. people who were looking to invest had their money sucked into Treasuries rather than something else. recoveries occur when the private economy begins to expand again; and instead we took the capital that was going to that expansion, sucked it up, and spent it on things like propping up state budgets for a year, buffalo museums and studying robot bees.
 
Yes, in your link she does say she regrets making that FORECAST. It was never a promise, as she made abundantly clear in the disclaimer that appeared along with the forecast.

Here's a bonus tip: if the weather man says it's going to be 90 degrees and sunny tomorrow, that's not a promise. It's a forecast. If it turns out to be 89 and partly cloudy, that doesn't make the weather man a liar.

except it's not 89. it's 130. not only was Romer wrong in scale, she was wrong in direction. we lost more jobs with the stimulus than we were warned we risked potentially losing without it.
 
except it's not 89. it's 130. not only was Romer wrong in scale, she was wrong in direction. we lost more jobs with the stimulus than we were warned we risked potentially losing without it.

Well, she was off by about two percentage points, and the error was not in calculating how many jobs would be saved or created, but rather, in underestimating the depth of the recession. In other words, they figured that unemployment would probably hit 10 or 11% without the stimulus. As it turns out, it would have hit 12 - 14% without the stimulus.
 
The economy would probably be better if he had done a significantly larger stimulus, but realistically he probably couldn't have gotten more than he did ... since he needed at least token republican support.

he had 60 senators and a plurality of 78 downstairs

The debt situation would not be quite so bad if he had been able to roll back some of the Bush tax cuts, but the republicans would not allow that.

44 senate democrats voted FOR extending the bush/obama/clinton/boehner/mcconnell tax cuts for the rich, only 14 in dissent

in pelosi's place it was 143 to 112

Senate passes package extending Bush tax cuts - politics - Capitol Hill - msnbc.com

The health care reform law would have been better, and would have saved more, if it had a public option, but the republicans would not have that.

Update: List of Dem Senators Who Don't Support the Public Option | CarlBentham's Blog

in general, it appears you don't know what you're talking about
 
It was never claimed that the unemployment rate would not exceed 8%

Economist Christina Romer regrets saying jobless rate would stay below 8 percent

As she prepares to step down as President Obama's chief economist, Christina Romer said Friday that she wishes she could redo one of her first official acts for the president: last January's forecast that a big shot of federal spending would save millions of jobs and keep the unemployment rate under 8 percent.

The forecast was wrong.

Asked about the report, Romer said in an interview: "One could have presented it differently. If we'd only talked about the effect of the stimulus on the change in unemployment [instead of predicting the unemployment rate itself] . . . it would have been better. The thing I obviously couldn't control is the baseline forecast, and that's the thing I'm getting criticized for."
 
Is that a lie? Is it 2013? Did he not just offer to cut the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years?

no. he made a speech in which he mentioned 4 trillion in 12 years and a speech in which he mentioned 4 trillion in ten. asked to back this up, the CBO responded that they can't score speeches.

nor does 4 trillion over that time period consist of halving the Bush deficit. under the budget Obama submitted, the deficit every year for the next decade is larger than Bush's

Obviously these sorts of pledges are only promises to try, as we all know that President cannot cut spending or raise taxes without Congress' cooperation.

interesting, then, isn't it, that he had his Democratic Allies in the Senate kill spending cuts?
 
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To that, would you agree or disagree that a long-term deficit reduction plan with significant spending cuts tied to the debt limit would be better than a short six-month extension with minimum cuts?

the cuts aren't significant

heck, they're not even itemized

ie, get real

NO LONGTERM ADVANCES OF CREDIT WITHOUT CREDIT

ie, not without CREDIBLE fiscal consolidation

it's the only RESPONSIBLE thing to do

america won't be fooled again, mom is watching, try her at your peril

no more CREDIT without a REAL plan

washington needs an intervention
 
no. he made a speech in which he mentioned 4 trillion in 12 years and a speech in which he mentioned 4 trillion in ten. asked to back this up, the CBO responded that they can't score speeches.

nor does 4 trillion over that time period consist of halving the Bush deficit. under the budget Obama submitted, the deficit every year for the next decade is larger than Bush's


Obviously these sorts of pledges are only promises to try, as we all know that President cannot cut spending or raise taxes without Congress' cooperation.
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When did Bush run an $8 trillion deficit? I guess I missed that. Or are you confusing the debt with a deficit?
 
Did he not try to prevent the top Bush tax cuts from being renewed?

apparently not hard enough

Obviously these sorts of pledges are only promises to try

vote obama, 2012!

he only promises to try...
 
it was a prediction

and it was WAY off

romer/bernstein forecasts unemployment at about 6.5% by now

see the krugman link above

party on, peeps
 
Well, she was off by about two percentage points

even this is incorrect - because Romer was claiming that we would be at 7% of the 2009 workforce. instead we are at about 9% of the 2011 workforce, which is considerably shrunken. You see, long-term unemployment is now worse than any period since the 1930's (it may be worse in some sectors, I would have to check), which means that our current "unemployment" rate is artificially low due to the large numbers of people who have dropped out of the workforces alltogether. If you were to assess our unemployment based on the 2009 workforce, our percent of unemployed would climb significantly higher.

and the error was not in calculating how many jobs would be saved or created, but rather, in underestimating the depth of the recession

this, also, is incorrect. the "saved or created" is magic numbers; they can be made to say anything but aren't reflective of actual, you know, jobs anywhere. basically they took a large amount of money, assumed a particular multiplier (see post 256 on the wisdom of that), and said "ta-da!" "Hooray! X Number Of Jobs Created Saved Or Created".

In other words, they figured that unemployment would probably hit 10 or 11% without the stimulus.

no, they didn't. they have only come out with that number since unemployment climbed way above what they had predicted, and higher than they threatened we would see without the "stimulus". Had unemployment climbed to 10 or 11%, they would have claimed to have saved us from 15%. had it been 15%, they would have said "yes, well, at least we saved you from 18%". its a non-falsifiable thesis. no matter what the actual result, just claim that elsewise it would have been worse.
 
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