1robin
Christian/Baptist
I have gotten to where I find politics such a partisan moral train wreck that I try to avoid it but somehow that hearing caught my eye then after I found out what had occurred during it, it blew my mind.
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CNN admits “Trump's right: The economy is doing well and he deserves some credit”
- Thread starter Shaul
- Start date
One of the articles did mention a bit of a bright side. That the recovery did last longer, even though the recovery rate wasn't as high.
That sounds like stating something bad in a positive way.
Let's focus on unemployment to simplify this equation.
Here is a chart for the years that Obama was president continued with Trump.
Bureau of Labor Statistics Data
You will see a clear change of rate as Obama took over. Then you see basically a constant rate of change. Both Obama and Trump the same rate of change. Obama gave Trump a good number and Trump is continuing the trend. It's still linear and negative.
The irony in the OP, is the need of acknowledgement for Trump from conservatives but yet they can't do the same for Obama who basically started the trend. He took a bad economy to a good economy. Trump is taking a good economy to a better economy. But like I said, they basically have the same trend, the same rate of change, same differential.
That is putting it lightly.
To be fair, a recovery is still better than a recession, no matter how slow.
But normally, we recover from recessions & depressions.
If the recovery is abnormally slow, & therefore takes longer,
this long lasting recovery doesn't seem to be a positive.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
But this was not your claim. You said we saw the same low unemployment rate under Obama as under Trump but your chart shows that is untrue. Obama left at 4.8% and we currently sit on 3.8%. That means Trumps numbers are about 25% better and keep in mind once you go below 5% every down tick is more amazing that the last. I am not sure that the rate of change is relevant here. We simply want to know how low the unemployment rate dropped verses how much money was shoveled into the furnace.
I agree that Obama's numbers ended up not too shabby but the problem was how long and at what rate he had been burning money to get them there.
Obama probably did inherit a bad economy but I wouldn't call the one he left us with good.Well it should be relatively easy to improve job numbers that are sitting around 10% especially when your printing money so fast the printers in DC are causing the lights to dim. Now I will give him credit for continuing his positive trend once he got the numbers below 5% but the investment it took to do so is unimaginable.
Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of these people who found work under Obama went to work for the Government. I think the government grew faster under him than even FDR, possibly. I also remember hearing about all the voodoo mathematics that went into Obama's job numbers. He just wrote off the millions that finally gave up looking for work. Can the same be said for trump's calculations?
I am not trying to negate Obama's employment numbers in their entirety just to contrast them fairly and put them in their proper context. I think if I shoveled the same amount of money into the fire as Obama did trying to "improve job numbers" I could have eliminated unemployment all together for at least a few years.
It was low just not as low as Trump.
But that wasn't the point. The point I'm making again and again, is the trend, the rate of change, the differential.
How many times do I need to repeat myself?
The chart clearly showed the same constant trend Obama achieved continued by Trump. Trump's slope remained the same y over x. Do you understand math?
You're speculating... That's all I'll say about any thoughts on policies without a corresponding chart or data to show correlation.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
Obama had a time period (after many years pouring in money where they weren't) where his numbers were good, Trump has had a period of time where his numbers are phenomenal. Agreed.
The difference (as far as causing it) between 10% and 5% is nothing compared to 5% to 3%.
Are you talking about direction (angle of tangent line) or the rate (angle of tangent to the vertical) that you think is so meaningful. I have a degree in math and I don't see the importance. What matters is return on investment in this context. You give me the money Obama spent and I will give you numbers you wouldn't believe. My tangent line would be flat at about 2%.
How about stopping repeating your self and start explaining your self. Are you trying to do what you accused the other side of doing in giving their guy all the credit and the other none.?
I ought to, I have a degree in it and almost a second one.You are, your trying to give your guy all the credit no matter how much he spent nor how long it took. You do not understand that similar tangent lines don't mean the same thing once you get numbers down below 5% and they also don't take into account how much money was shoveled in the hot box at the time. I don't get your point but your not getting mine either. That tangent line is not the key to what you think it is. Things are far more complex.
I used your chart for pity's sake, what else could you have possibly wished for. If you want (as I already did to another poster) I will include data corresponding to the money Obama had to invest to move the numbers and the voodoo mathematics contained in his unemployment statistics. Is that what you want?
Go ahead, include the chart. Otherwise, you're just speculating about money and the expectations of return on that money.
You've shown no correlation but just expressed expectations.
I could speculate too but at least I know I'm speculating.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
Well for right now I am going to take the quick way out and just copy what I posted to another person who asked for some data. The two points that were in question were the amount of money Obama pumped into the machine to try and get his numbers to look a little better and the other point was the claim that he is the president with the slowest rate of recovery since WW2. We will start with those and then see where we need to go next. Keep in mind these were done in a hurry and not in any particular order.
Yes, this is the slowest U.S. recovery since WWII
Obama Recovery Is Worst In Post WWII History | Investor's Business Daily
Obama Wins The Gold For Worst Economic Recovery Ever
And
Here's How Obama Spent $792 Billion On Fiscal Stimulus
Democrats' Stimulus Plan May Reach $700 Billion
7 Ugly Truths About Obama’s $787 Billion Stimulus | InvestorPlace
When you lump an entire medium sized post into one quote then start listing individual observations its hard to know which part of my post your statement is in reference to. I have shown no correlation between what?
I am taking some well established facts (some I have posted others I haven't) and just made some logical deductions from them so once again I don't know exactly what your talking about. That is why I take the time to quote complete thoughts individually so that we can both track what is being said.
From your own article:
Donald Trump is fond of saying Americans are living through the worst recovery in modern times.
He blames President Obama for the sluggish economy and claims he can do far better.
"Now look, we have the worst revival of an economy since the Great Depression," Trump said in the first debate. His running mate Mike Pence mentioned it in the vice presidential debate Tuesday night.
Trump is right if you look solely at the average rate of growth during this rebound versus prior ones.
"In terms of the average pace of GDP growth, this is the slowest expansion on record," says Lakshman Achuthan, co-founder of the Economic Cycle Research Institute.
The U.S. economy has only grown 2% a year since it bottomed out in June 2009. That's far below the typical growth in rosy times of over 4% a year that the U.S. has experienced since World War II. It's even below the rather sluggish rebound during President George W. Bush's tenure of 2.7%.
So it's a fair statement. There is data to back up Trump's claim (at least since just after World War II when the government started keeping quarterly records), but it comes with a big asterisk.
But it's a long U.S. expansion
Plenty of experts say "hold on." This recovery may be slow, but it's also lasted a long time -- far longer than usual -- and job growth has been good.
"We are in the fourth longest expansion in U.S. history," notes Achuthan.
Since World War II, the American economy has typically grown for about five years and then had a contraction. This expansion is already over seven years old.
Furthermore, the average pace of job growth in this recovery has already topped what happened during the 2001 to 2007 expansion under President George W. Bush (the Bush recovery was the slowest in terms of jobs growth, Achuthan says).
Over 14 million jobs have been added since the low point from the financial crisis. Job growth is as important -- if not more important -- than overall growth, many economists argue.
"We are experiencing the longest string of consecutive monthly jobs gains in economic history," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.
Your second article just shows how much money Obama dumped. From the two articles which I accept as facts, I can only deduce that the amount of money he spent helped create a long lasting recovery that over time was steady even if it didn't burst as much as other recoveries. So you're partially right but still either mistakenly concluded your comparison or frankly cherrypicked specific data to paint a negative picture. You did exactly what Trump did and spun the data in your favor.
And... This is my point with actual data. You cannot refute the data no matter how you speculate.
Still, Trump can only speculate how he would have done in the same economical crisis. I said it earlier, he was handed a good economy and continued the trend. I gave Trump credit.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
Sorry but I have a lot of trouble trying to pick through your posts because you don't format your posts the way most of us do. I understand it takes more work but it results in much more clarity. I can't pick through all this to see whether your saying something, your saying Trump said something, your merely talking about someone, and cherry picking through large articles to find a few sound bites is disingenuous.
I tell you what, restate exactly what point you originally tried to put forward in this forum. If I find that I think it will be worth going through the data line by line I will take you on. If not I might have to call it a night (It's been a long night of debating for me, I am tired, and I have to get ready to leave in a bit). Talking to you the way you format your posts is exhausting. I am still trying to decide if you and this subject matter is worth the time I will have to invest so give me your succinct official position and I will let you know. Deal?
BTW if you don't won't to make separate quotes one at a time you also can put comments from different sources and for different people in different colors if that is more acceptable.
dfnj
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately, the economic data does not support the Republican delusions.
Quandl
The problems with our country are not rocket science. We have no free markets to wring out the inefficiencies of CEO compensation packages. Wages are stagnant or negative with inflation. This is because the lobbyists force the politicians to pass laws creating cartels and monopolies in exchange for campaign financing.
George Carlin was right 20 years ago. He is even more right today. "There's a reason":
Did you honestly read all the articles you posted? Or did you just grab headlines that supported your views?
Like I said earlier, your articles did not fully support your view and added caveats that you did not choose to mention. Do I need to link those articles for you again?
Anyways... So you chose to add bold face and colored fonts in your final comment as if that made it more organized. Too bad, you didn't start that way and could have used your own advice for all the long responses before.
Let me conclude. I agree with you that Obama didn't have the best recovery. Did I say he did? He recovered and had a very stable growth. He then presented a good economy for Trump to make better. He didn't have a bad economy nor did he have continuous failing trends.
But quick recovery to a stable economy is even better.
We had that when transitioning from Carter to Reagan.
No arguments there.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Absolutely and demonstratively false.
What you're doing is taking the position of a "materialist", but only if that materialism helps you-- to hell with anyone else. Both Obama and Sanders push their idea for the betterment of all in our country, not just some. They opposed the Trump cuts that will badly hurt the poor and many of the elderly, plus it is already ramping-up the deficit that our kids and grandkids will have to pay for.
But you don't care-- you have more money in your pocket, right?
@Revoltingest
@1robin
I'm going make some subjective observations and speculations here.
Many of you are arguing that Obama's economy was not as successful as previous recoveries. The data is clear and there is an agreement with various economists on that subject so I am not arguing that. Obama's economy was a slow recovery when compared to other recoveries.
But, that shouldn't confuse the point that Obama's economy was always a positive trend. As @Quetzal pointed out, it was a stable economic growth. Obama never led us into a recession, depression or a bubble.
Economic rise or burst can be two sides of the same coin when discussing depression and especially bubbles. How do you think Bush's economy resulted with one of the worst crashes in US history? The next part is subjective about defining a good economy. Some would want a quick rise, but if it's too large of an explosion then we place ourselves in areas of inflation where the value of money and capital actually do not represent their real-world equivalents. This is the cause of crashes seen with the start-ups and the housing bubble.
I won't argue that Obama had one of the slowest recoveries. That point is proven and done with. But he has one of the most stable economy created because of that fact that it was slow. He handed Trump a good economy. My point all along was the trend, the rate of change and the differential. Obama, when normalized over his 8 years always had a positive trend. This would be seen as the second differential of any of the data (unemployment, gdp, ...) along his 8 years.
Trump is now setting policies to unleash the economy. I've already said this would be easy to do. We can forego social and environmental issues to focus on the economy. So will he also see a crash by doing this but then having to sacrifice on other issues. We will see. But I will given him and Obama credit for what we are seeing today as I've already said many times.
Let's be truthful here. We are all speculating and giving our opinions on the economies. What we can't do is refute the data and facts. If you speculate that specific policies had effects on the economy then I expect data and charts to show a correlation between that policy and various measurements of the economy. Show me actual data, then I might be more accepting of your speculations.
@1robin
I'm going make some subjective observations and speculations here.
Many of you are arguing that Obama's economy was not as successful as previous recoveries. The data is clear and there is an agreement with various economists on that subject so I am not arguing that. Obama's economy was a slow recovery when compared to other recoveries.
But, that shouldn't confuse the point that Obama's economy was always a positive trend. As @Quetzal pointed out, it was a stable economic growth. Obama never led us into a recession, depression or a bubble.
Economic rise or burst can be two sides of the same coin when discussing depression and especially bubbles. How do you think Bush's economy resulted with one of the worst crashes in US history? The next part is subjective about defining a good economy. Some would want a quick rise, but if it's too large of an explosion then we place ourselves in areas of inflation where the value of money and capital actually do not represent their real-world equivalents. This is the cause of crashes seen with the start-ups and the housing bubble.
I won't argue that Obama had one of the slowest recoveries. That point is proven and done with. But he has one of the most stable economy created because of that fact that it was slow. He handed Trump a good economy. My point all along was the trend, the rate of change and the differential. Obama, when normalized over his 8 years always had a positive trend. This would be seen as the second differential of any of the data (unemployment, gdp, ...) along his 8 years.
Trump is now setting policies to unleash the economy. I've already said this would be easy to do. We can forego social and environmental issues to focus on the economy. So will he also see a crash by doing this but then having to sacrifice on other issues. We will see. But I will given him and Obama credit for what we are seeing today as I've already said many times.
Let's be truthful here. We are all speculating and giving our opinions on the economies. What we can't do is refute the data and facts. If you speculate that specific policies had effects on the economy then I expect data and charts to show a correlation between that policy and various measurements of the economy. Show me actual data, then I might be more accepting of your speculations.