State of the American Economy

Why do people imply that those of us who oppose President Obama think President Bush (II) was a great president?

I voted for George W. Bush and I thought that overall he was better than President Obama has been thus far.

But overall, I found President Bush pretty disappointing on a number of levels. Including failing to control federal domestic spending.

That's a bit disingenuous, though. The 2009 outlays for Bush were ridiculously high because of TARP (and probably some stimulus money - see the footnote for the WSJ, not sure that's excluded in Dayton's source). All those things were supposed to be "temporary" (and TARP, for once, clearly was). Using that as the new baseline and then calculating growth based on that doesn't seem quite right.

Good rundown of the situation from Politico.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/the-fiscal-cliff-deal-that-almost-wasnt-85663.html

If Boehner really did tell Reid to go fuck himself, his estimation just went up a bit in my eyes!

Also, I believe Bush's budgets didn't include the cost of the wars, which were funded by special appropriation.

What's with all the goalpost moving? Again, no one is suggesting that "you" thought Bush was a great president. The statement keeps getting thrown out that Obama is a horrible president because he's spending too much. Is this supposed to be compared to other presidents, or is it a stand-alone comment that also applies to every other president for the last twenty years or so?

Not really. The baseline may have been raised, but not all that much if you pretend TARP didn't happen in 2009, and the spending went up accordingly.

And that you think such an exchange is a good thing pretty much invalidates your hand wringing earlier in the thread. Boehner is an ass who cares more about political gain and power than he does about good governance. And even so, we got a deal without ruining the country.

You just defined 90% of the politicians who are active at the national level!

Right. Because tafkats didn't say what he said.

Then you shouldn't have let your Evil Twin access your account, because he was Bush's Biggest Fan on TBBS and here.

Who the bloody hell are you talking about?

I said exactly what I said.

I just didn't say what YOU said.

.... and the US economy adds 215,000 jobs in December!!

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/eco...added-215-000-jobs-dec-survey-shows-1B7812002

I hope this news doesn't make anyone too depressed.

Quoted because (A) it's good news from out there in the World That Isn't WF and (B) because it's fun to watch the ODS victims say "No, it isn't."

Are those full time positions, or temps hired for the holidays?

That's why they make seasonal adjustments. The numbers are tweaked to account for these things in order to give an apples to apples comparison between any given months. Actual job creation was probably quite a bit higher, but these adjusted numbers won't reflect the folks who are now being laid off as the season ends.

A little more detail:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/03/us-usa-economy-instant-idUSBRE9020B920130103

Not bad. While I've no love for Obama and will not give him any credit having more American citizens working (in the private sector at least) is a good thing no matter who is in office.

Total bullshit.

That's great!

Another 85,000 or so for December and 300,000 a month for the next year and we might just start to recover from the morass we've been sunk in for the past 4 years.

Because 215,000 maybe almost keeps pace with the number of new job seekers entering the market on any given month.

Oh, on a purely anectdotal note, last night I was making small talk with the store manager about Christmas closeout items and he shook his head and said "We've got so much stuff. We're going to lose our shirts on this Christmas."

A couple things.

While Obama hasn't had any "wars", the costs of Afghanistan and Iraq hardly ceased the second we declared "Mission Accomplished." Even if we hadn't been dealing with an insurgency, there are long term costs associated with any military excursion. Rebuilding, maintaining new hardware that has been requisitioned, paying veteran benefits, etc. So while it would be accurate to say that Obama has not had any wars, it would be inaccurate to speak as if the previous wars have had no consequences on current spending, both in terms of current costs and interest on national debt accumulated from those wars (the interest on $2.5 trillion is quite a bit).

Prove it.

I think you're supposed to prove it...you having made the claim and all.

For starters note the decline in active duty military personnel from 1993 to 2001.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004598.html

Next note the reduction in active duty U.S. warships for the same period.

http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org9-4.htm#1993

Finally, note the reduction in active duty USAF combat aircraft for the same period.

http://www.afa.org/mitchell/reports/MS_TAI_1110.pdf

Looks like it was the continuation of a trend that started in the early to mid '80s. Maybe the end of the Cold War had something to do with it?


ETA: that post is funny as hell if you read it in a Sheldon Cooper voice.

There were big military cuts on the table before Clinton was elected. It was called the "peace dividend." See, because we'd won the Cold War, the thinking was that we no longer needed to be able to fight, say, a major land war in Europe while fighting the Chinese in Asia and holding down the fort in the Western Hemisphere.

Problem was, around that time this guy named Saddam Hussein decided he was tired of fighting a deadlocked war against our enemy, Iran (who used to be our friend while Iraq, aligned with the Soviets, was not our friend) and decided to stomp the shit out of a tiny oil rich nation south of it, at which point we took everything we'd built to stomp the shit out of the Soviets and used in a dress rehearsal against B-list Soviet gear.

At that point we should've learned the lesson that we should've learned after WWII, with the Korean War and we should've learned before that with Hitler's expansionism: That the US, as a world power, was stuck having a large, well equipped, well trained standing army--in spite of our founders' distaste for standing armies and America's preference for citizen soldiers.

It would be interesting to see if Bush would've went ahead with the planned cuts after Desert Storm or if he'd have adjusted things.

It is also interesting that a huge chunk of Clinton's success at balancing the budget comes from this Peace Dividend that Reagan gained by winning the Cold War. Another huge chunk comes from Bush passing NAFTA and opening the Internet up to commerce. Clinton was in the right place at the right time to benefit from big spending cuts and huge new sources of revenue and he was bright enough to not fuck it up and clever enough to take credit for it.

Yes. President George H.W. Bush began major defense cuts after the Cold War ended in 1989 (my belief and others) or 1991 (others beliefs, not mine which is the one that matters in my class).

But that in no way excuses the even further cuts made by the Clinton Admin. during his 8 years in office.

Especially as Clinton repeatedly got the U.S. involved in various other military conflicts at the same time.

I wonder what the chart would look like if adjusted for growth in GDP.

BLS report is out. Only 155,000 jobs were actually added. That 372,000 new unemployment claims were also created as well doesn't really paint as rosy a picture. Job participation is at 30 year lows.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100354384

The fact that unemployment held steady after the "Fiscal Cliff" nonsense seems like a good thing to me.

Wow... usually ADP estimates and BLS numbers aren't so far apart. I wonder what happened?