Jan 28 2008
Did The NY Times Admit Bush Economy Is Historically Great?
When you get into pretzel logic loops, trying to exaggerate a claim, you can sometimes inadvertently end up making the opposite case as your logic twists around so much to try and make your fantasy a reality. That apparently happened in the NY Times today as they tried to make the current market correction (which is already disappearing in people’s minds) into a big deal – by admitting how good the Bush economy has been up to this point in time:
Mr. Bush has spent years presiding over an economic climate of growth that would be the envy of most presidents. Yet much to the consternation of his political advisers, he has had trouble getting credit for it, in large part because Americans were consumed by the war in Iraq.
Amazingly the truth does come through – even to the BDS driven NY Times. I guess that is a backhanded endorsement of the Bush economy if I ever saw one. 8 years of envious economic news marred by two weeks of unsubstantiated panic. I’ll take that any day. The two weeks is nothing out of 416 weeks – not even 1%. So that means 99+% of the time it was good under Bush. Glad to see the NY Times finally waking up – sort of. H/T American Thinker.
you have turned “economic climate of growth”…simply one symptom of the economy…into “…8 years of envious economic news marred by two weeks…” hardly the same. but you never let facts bother you so why would today be different. if you look at the big picture and the foundation that those eight years of growth were built on you would see why we are where we are. or you could simply ignore reality and continue cheerleading. sis-boom-bah!!!
I was just quoting the NY Times norm – settle down!
And yes the economy has been damn good considering 9-11 and two wars and tight fuel supplies….
All of which tells me we are much better than you nay sayers want to admit.
Doom on dude!!
thats my point…you took a quote from the times and turned into something it isn’t.
and some symptoms of the economy have been good considering a necessary war, an un-necessary poorly advised war, and the effect that bad choice, combined with unregulated speculators and diminishing supply, had on fuel costs. 9.11 was a blip.
of course we borrowed two trillion for a war we didn’t have to fight. what happens when that comes due?
you say we are much better…i say we could have been a whole f’ of a lot better. maybe you could change gop to gep…the good enough party.
Poor Norm – still spooked by how good Bush has done.
LOL!
So Norm, be specific, how and where is the economy bad?
New York Times Finds Bush Economy Was Good Before It Went Bad Two Weeks Ago…
The New York Times can’t help itself. It is a phenomenon that was observed by Ace and others for years. Even as the economy was going gangbusters and people were doing well, the Times and other media outlets were constantly engaging in doom and gloom….
aj…spooked by how good bush has done? i don’t believe in ghost stories.
kathie…
from when your demi-god took office: gdp growth is down…the nat’l debt is up and the gov’t deficit is up….the number of jobs created is down…unemployment is up…wages are flat…the number of americans in poverty is up…the number of uninsured americans is up…the avg total ins. premium cost is up…the change in median income is down…the cost of college is up…the cost of gas is up…personal savings is down and consumer debt is up…the trade deficit is up and the strength of the dollar is down.
george has thrown trillions of dollars in deficit spending at the economy and the effects have been marginal at best. and now the economy that we’ve been hearing is just rosy for 7 years, needs stimulus. so we are going to throw more billions at the wrong places. terrific. just add it to the tab we will have to pay china some day.
Having been in the financial world for 20 years, I can tell you this economy has been BEYOND incredible! The numbers simply tell the truth. And for all you who think you know a lot more than you really do, the real estate market is having a duly deserved correction, as ALL SECTORS have in their cycles. And still our markets are strong.
Record revenues to the treasury WITH TAX CUTS. Bring on more! This is the greatest country with the greatest entrepreneurs in the world. Creativity abounds for those who live in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!
And last week’s panic was caused by a bum at a French bank…to the tune of a $7 BILLION loss for ONE BANK, no? I expect more of this to crop up because….
Soros is on the move to harm this economy and we know it. Bring it on! Financial security is just as important as military security!
Did anyone watch “Fighting to the Finish” last night on Fox? It was so great to hear from George. He is absolutely the best. You can order the video at Amazon.com
And Norm, your posts could have been written soo long ago….typical nattering nabob of negativity hype. I’ve heard it for DECADES.
Good editorial online today about this. Never have so many been so worried about so little.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120147855494820719.html?mod%253Dopinion%2526ojcontent%253Dotep
“With housing so weak, the recent softness in production and durable goods orders is understandable. But housing is now a small share of GDP (4.5%). And it has fallen so much already that it is highly unlikely to drive the economy into recession all by itself. Exports are 12% of the economy, and are growing at a 13.6% rate. The boom in exports is overwhelming the loss from housing.
Personal income is up 6.1% during the year ending in November, while small-business income accelerated in October and November, during the height of the credit crisis. In fact, after subtracting income taxes, rent, mortgages, car leases and loans, debt service on credit cards and property taxes, incomes rose 3.9% faster than inflation in the year through September. Commercial paper issuance is rising again, as are mortgage applications.
Some large companies outside of finance and home building are reporting lower profits, but the over-reaction to very spotty negative news is astounding. For example, Intel’s earnings disappointed, creating a great deal of fear about technology. Lost in the pessimism is the fact that 20 out of 24 S&P 500 technology companies that have reported earnings so far have beaten Wall Street estimates.”
Funny how Norm hypes about the costs of this war when it is only one percent of the GDP and the total defense bill is just 4 percent of the national budget. Bringing everyone home from Iraq and/or Afghansitan will NOT divert enough money to help the social programs that are extremely wasteful. IRS waste alone costs far more than the total costs of both wars.
Not everybody shares your rosey view of this economy. This is what Martin Feldstein, one of the leading conservative economists in the country and President of the NBER (the organisation that officially declares and dates recessions), told the Senante Finance Committee on January 24th:
“The National Bureau of Economic Research’s (NBER) president, Martin Feldstein, told a Senate panel today the chance of a US recession is now greater than 50 pct.
Feldstein also warned a recession this time around could be much worse than previous downturns. The NBER is the organisation that officially declares and dates recessions.
‘I believe that the probability of a recession in 2008 now exceeds 50 percent,’ told the Senate Finance Committee today. ‘If it occurs, it could be deeper and longer than recessions of the recent past.’
Feldstein, an economics professor at Harvard and previously an economic adviser to former President Ronald Reagan, said the risks of recession are great enough to warrant another rate cut when the Federal Reserve meets next week. â€
* * *
“He cited the increased consumer price index, rising unemployment, lower persoonal income, and drops in home prices, retail sales, housing starts, and manufacturing activity.â€
If you actully paid attention to the news, you would know that most of the economic experts have been and increasingly continue to share Feldstein’s opinion.
By the way Ivahadit, suggesting the world market panic and emergency rate cut were due to the $7 billion french bank scandal is a joke. The mortgage/bank problems have been going on for months now – have you not seen that American banks have lost huge sums the last few quarters. Pull your head out of the sand.
How can anyone look at Feldstein’s comment and not instantly think “total bull!” Look at the 50% number – that’s no mathematical estimate, that’s Feldstein saying “gee, I dunno, toss a coin.”
And actually, the European panic on MLK Monday which started this go-round was 100% due to the French scandal – that’s what happens when a major player is forced to unload billions of dollars of long positions at fire sale prices – which is what happened that day.
The real estate market was way overvalued, it needed to come down. In fact it is still overvalued. and it will stop coming down when people start buying real estate again. That is how it works.
When Clinton ran for reelction in 1996 the unemployment was 5.3% and that was considered great at the time. Now we hear people panic at 5%.
WWS:
I heard today that the French trader in question was being charged with fraud among other things. They say it was the biggest scam of its kind in history.
Terrye,
Home prices sure have been overvalued! When a 2,000 square foot house in California sells for over a million dollars something is eventually going to give. Of course, most of the extreme rises in housing prices have occurred out east and on the left coast, so it really isn’t surprising that the media jumps on the news and overblows it all. They forget about those of us who live pretty normal lives in those flyover states.
Those 5 -7 states that are experiencing the worst housing problems are affecting all of us in an extreme way because the media reports it as if it’s nationwide.
Funny how those housing reports and bad economic reports hit about the same time there was great news coming out of Iraq. If they can’t throw this election over the Iraq war (after all they’ve leaked just about every secret we’ve had to fight this war) then they’ll try and tank the economy and blame it on the evil Bush. If they can’t succeed, Soros will do all he can to help them out.
Also funny how you didn’t hear about all that great economic news in the media when it was happening, oh yeah, they had a war to lose! Funny how those priorities get in the way of the truth…
Cutting taxes and increasing spending at the same time, financing the difference on the national credit card, will pump a lot of money into the economy, creating a “climate of growth”. But it’s not sustainable and sooner or later the birds will come home to roost. Apparently the administration’s solution to these roosting birds is to put some more debt on the credit card.
Yes, Terry, it hasn’t been covered in this country much at all (except on a few financial pages) but this was indeed the largest bank scandal EVER in history. More than 4 times the size of the Barron’s scandal that rocked London a few years ago, and much bigger than the Enron losses also. (although of course Enron was not a bank)
It will be interesting to see if they can make the charges stick. Reportedly, he wasn’t doing it for his own profit – no one is sure why but one guess is to make a name for himself at the bank. Of course, I don’t know French law – but in this country there’s no crime if an employee makes very bad decisions that his bosses should have caught but didn’t. That’s just bad management, and the usual penalty is that everyone in management is fired and the company in question goes out of business. Of course, this is one of the biggest banks in France, so the French govm’t will probably pony up the $8 billion in capital that SocGen has said that they need to go forward.
Cutting taxes increased revenues to the Federal Government, so “cutting taxes” cannot be put onto the same plane as “increasing spending”.
No question the economy has been stellar under Bush’s tenure, especially considering what he was dealt — a recession handed from Clinton, a weakened military, a slumber from the world’s challenges, 9-11 (which was not a blip), Katrina — and the primary reason, of course, is the tax cuts. We need to make them permanent.