October 31, 2010
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Three Political Questions
1. What was the average monthly private sector job growth in 2008, the final year of the Bush presidency, and what has it been so far in 2010?
2. What was the Federal deficit for the last fiscal year of the Bush presidency, and what was it for the first full fiscal year of the Obama presidency?
3. What was the stock market at on the last day of the Bush presidency? What is it at today? "
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1. The private sector, in 2010, through September, has added 863,000 private-sector jobs, which is an average of 96,000 jobs created per month. In the final year of the Bush administration, after eight years of experimenting with the conservative economic agenda, the economy lost 3.8 million jobs, for an average of about 863,000 jobs lost per month. [source http://www.bls. gov/data/ #employment ]2. The deficit has gone from $1.416 trillion to $1.291 trillion, a decline of $125 billion. For the deficit hawks who keep track of such things, it's one of the largest, quickest declines in nominal terms on record. [source http://www.cbo. gov/ftpdocs/ 119xx/doc11936/ SeptemberMBR. pdf ]
3. Since day President Obama took office, the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 have increased 40%, 74%, and 47%, respectively. See finance.yahoo. com for the respective indices on the appropriate dates.
Comments (7)
I was right about questions 1 and 3, and pleasantly surprised about question 2, because, yes, I'm an Obama fan.
Do these numbers reflect the actual situation in the real world, or is there some juggling and number crunching in play here? (Both the GOP and Dems are adept at juggling to make things look rosy) Then there's the three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Even if these numbers are the real McCoy, it's the coming burst of the bubble many of us fear; that is when Obama's wild spending of money that we don't have leads to hyper inflation and money that isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
Dick, I honestly and truly care not one whit whether it's Democrats or Republicans that lead us out of this goshawful mess we're in, as long as we're led back on the road to solvency. I drink nobody's Koolaid.
When Bush was president, I was thoroughly disgusted and thought ANYBODY would be an improvement over him or McSame. I, like many Independents, remember the Bush years, but will still vote GOP in hopes that the Republicans have seen the light. True, we may be disappointed just as we were disappointed with Obama.
Throughout history, both the Rs and Ds have given us good years, just as they've both given us bad years. Maybe next time the Rs are in it will be a period of good times.
Maybe not.
@dsullivan -
Don, the website I got these from (Triple Nine Society -restricted to members only , so I won't bother with listing it) featured a lively discussion between liberal and conservative members over these statistics. They are essentially correct - as far as they go. They do demonstrate that Obama is getting somewhat of a bum rap about his "wild spending". His rather modest stimulus program has probably checked the job loss rate and kept us from a more serious recession or even a depression. Much of the stimulus was a tax rebate (remember that check you received?) which along with the "cash for clunkers" program and energy-efficient retrofit programs. That encouragement of consumer spending along with infrastructure spending has been responsible for the modest job growth. Apparently the TARP was unnecessary - but that was Bush's idea.
In 1929-32, Hoover refused to use existing legislation and institutions to check the depression. A lot of FDR's new deal used existing law to get the country working again. His efforts were only partially successful - but he did much to give people hope. Obama and the Dems are, IMHO, guilty of very poor propaganda about their modest successes.
I don't hold up much hope for a GOP turn-around. The party has turned itself over to far right ideologues who have a fairly obvious agenda: Increase the wealth of their multi-national corporate contributers and to hell with the rest of us - or the USA.
@tychecat -
You may be right...but I hope not. But if you are, our only recourse is to "kick them out" in 2012 and keep Obama for four more. LOL, things will start feeling like a roller coaster ride if this keeps up. But we only have the Ds and Rs, and none of the third parties offer much, so whatcha gonna do?
I went back to the archives on my site and found this entry just before Obama took office:
Featured Grownups Topic
As America experiences a changing of the guard (so to speak) next week, I am wondering: if you could talk to a world leader, past or present, who would you talk to, and what would you say?
What I would have to say is pretty simple:
Mr. President, all I ask is that you do your best to get us out of the mess that the last president left us in. I know it's no easy task. In fact, it's a near impossible task. Here's a list of some of the things I hope you can fix:
1. Get us out of Iraq
2. Restore world respect for our country.
3. Try to get our economy back to where it was before Mr. Bush came in.
4. Rebuild our armed forces, which are now weakened to the point that they can't defend us.
5. Seal our borders to keep out illegals and terrorists.
6. Bring back the jobs that have been sent overseas.
7. Make a reciprocal trade policy with other nations--or "Do unto them as they do unto us."
I know that's a tall order, Mr President. Good luck--you'll need all you can get.
Dick, I don't realistically expect him to have accomplished any of this in two years, but what bugs me is that he either completely ignores these issues or shows only half-hearted attempts at working on them.
#1) My niece's son in Iraq wrote that combat units were simply re-designated as a noncombat units--with the same mission as before.
#2) Instead of gaining respect, he has done the opposite of Bush and kowtowed to other leaders. We'll get no respect that way.
#3) You and I have disagreed about this one.
#4,5,6,7) So as to avoid naughty language, I won't comment.
Then, of course, there's a couple of flies in the ointment: Obamacare and cap and trade.
Think I'll post it as my next entry.
Don's list of things he wishes the president would/could do is fairly typical of the thoughts of many/most Americans, IMHO.
Unfortunately, almost all of these goals demonstrate just how much power the president has - and doesn't have. Achieving all of them would require the assistance of Congress - and Congress has acted rather slowly or not at all - Probably because of a combination of Demo ineptitude and Rep obstruction. Obama came into office expecting some support from his party and the American people - he hasn't gotten much.
The one area where I think he has made some progress is #2. Despite what Don thinks, I have the feeling that America is more respected - and less feared - than during the Bush years precisely because Obama is smarter and more diplomatic - as well as more polite than Bush.
He also has a better Sec. of State
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