Are Dems insane for vote for Obama again?

[zimmy]

Obama's economy: A snapshot - Job growth (1) - CNNMoney

[RIJIMMY]

Originally Posted by zimmy

Obama's economy: A snapshot - Job growth (1) - CNNMoney

before Obama even took office, most economists predicted that the economy would improve in 2010. It did, however it continued to improve at a much slower pace than expected and a smaller %.
There was no big surge and nothing that could be tied to O's stimulus. He is going to have to answer for that.

[Piscator]

Originally Posted by zimmy

Obama's economy: A snapshot - Job growth (1) - CNNMoney

Keep clicking to the next bunch of charts to get the whole story. Here are a few tid bits:

Part of the decline has come as some Americans have gone back to work, but also because many workers have dropped out of the labor force.

During the first three months of 2009, the economy slumped at an annual rate of 6.7%. Since then GDP has been growing and slowly recovering, but the rebound has been a lackluster one compared to those following prior recessions.

Home prices have moved up and down since the start of Obama's term. Lifted in 2010 on the back of the Recovery Act's homebuyer tax credit, prices later fell when the credit expired. But overall, the trend has been lower, and housing remains in a major slump.

Gas and food prices have had a few temporary growth spurts in the past few years, but overall, inflation has remained relatively low, held back by falling home prices and stagnant wages.

Three-and-a-half years ago, filling up at the pump cost around $1.60 a gallon. But then, gas prices began to climb, eventually topping out at nearly $4 a gallon in mid-2011, and coming pretty close again in 2012. Since then, prices have fallen back a bit, but at $3.35 a gallon, are still nowhere near 2009 levels.

The financial crisis of 2008 spurred a big chunk of spending increases and tax cuts to stem the pain of the downturn. That's a key reason why debt held by the public -- individual bondholders, big investors, and foreign governments -- has increased significantly since 2008. That jump will have to be paid off with interest.

Much of those emergency measures will end, so for the next decade annual deficits should be much lower than they've been recently. But over the long run, debt is still projected to grow faster than the economy. Policymakers will have to address it soon, or risk not being able to fund everything Americans expect their government to do.

The bank bailout and federal stimulus programs aimed at juicing the economy pushed up spending significantly in fiscal 2009, which began in October of 2008. Revenue, meanwhile, fell to 60-year lows as the economy slumped and millions of people lost their jobs. That, in turn, increased safety net spending.

[RIJIMMY]

Originally Posted by Piscator

Keep clicking to the next bunch of charts to get the whole story. Here are a few tid bits:

Part of the decline has come as some Americans have gone back to work, but also because many workers have dropped out of the labor force.

During the first three months of 2009, the economy slumped at an annual rate of 6.7%. Since then GDP has been growing and slowly recovering, but the rebound has been a lackluster one compared to those following prior recessions.

Home prices have moved up and down since the start of Obama's term. Lifted in 2010 on the back of the Recovery Act's homebuyer tax credit, prices later fell when the credit expired. But overall, the trend has been lower, and housing remains in a major slump.

Gas and food prices have had a few temporary growth spurts in the past few years, but overall, inflation has remained relatively low, held back by falling home prices and stagnant wages.

Three-and-a-half years ago, filling up at the pump cost around $1.60 a gallon. But then, gas prices began to climb, eventually topping out at nearly $4 a gallon in mid-2011, and coming pretty close again in 2012. Since then, prices have fallen back a bit, but at $3.35 a gallon, are still nowhere near 2009 levels.

The financial crisis of 2008 spurred a big chunk of spending increases and tax cuts to stem the pain of the downturn. That's a key reason why debt held by the public -- individual bondholders, big investors, and foreign governments -- has increased significantly since 2008. That jump will have to be paid off with interest.

Much of those emergency measures will end, so for the next decade annual deficits should be much lower than they've been recently. But over the long run, debt is still projected to grow faster than the economy. Policymakers will have to address it soon, or risk not being able to fund everything Americans expect their government to do.

The bank bailout and federal stimulus programs aimed at juicing the economy pushed up spending significantly in fiscal 2009, which began in October of 2008. Revenue, meanwhile, fell to 60-year lows as the economy slumped and millions of people lost their jobs. That, in turn, increased safety net spending.

too funny - I was going to post the same thing! The summary bullets for each graph are pretty negative for big O. The only area that really improved? The stock market! Hows that a message for "main st" vs. wall st??????

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by zimmy

Obama's economy: A snapshot - Job growth (1) - CNNMoney

He's been in office for 3.5 years. In that time, he added $5 trillion to he debt. In that time, unemployment is higher now than it was when he took office.

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

He's been in office for 3.5 years. In that time, he added $5 trillion to he debt. In that time, unemployment is higher now than it was when he took office.

4/5 of the $5trillion is from policies enacted before he took office. Unemployment is higher, but job growth is about +1million per month



Spending was high when he took office. He would have had to made major cuts to change the deficit picture, cuts that couldn't be made because of two wars and a recession. Anyone who has a basic understanding of economics knows that spending cuts are the worst thing that can be done for an economy during a recession. For example, look up the jobs projections if the fiscal cliff deadline hits and the cuts are made. In any case, attributing the $5 trillion to him is either ignorance of the facts or intentional distortion of them

• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.




• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion.
Obama spending binge never happened - MarketWatch

[buckman]

Originally Posted by zimmy

4/5 of the $5trillion is from policies enacted before he took office. Unemployment is higher, but job growth is about +1million per month



Spending was high when he took office. He would have had to made major cuts to change the deficit picture, cuts that couldn't be made because of two wars and a recession. Anyone who has a basic understanding of economics knows that spending cuts are the worst thing that can be done for an economy during a recession. For example, look up the jobs projections if the fiscal cliff deadline hits and the cuts are made. In any case, attributing the $5 trillion to him is either ignorance of the facts or intentional distortion of them

• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.




• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion.
Obama spending binge never happened - MarketWatch

Obama had a budget???

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by buckman

Obama had a budget???

You do know who passes budgets don't you?

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by zimmy

job growth is about +1million per month



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Not for his entire term, it's not. Zimmy, it's easy to say there is job growth when you ignore the months in which there was no job growth, and only consider months when there was job growth.

The last few months have seen job growth, I get that. But you don't get to ignore the bad months. If we ignore the last 3 months of Bush's presidency, the economy look spretty damn awesome.

Some good points in that post, though, seriously...

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Not for his entire term, it's not. Zimmy, it's easy to say there is job growth when you ignore the months in which there was no job growth, and only consider months when there was job growth.

The last few months have seen job growth, I get that. But you don't get to ignore the bad months. If we ignore the last 3 months of Bush's presidency, the economy look spretty damn awesome.

Some good points in that post, though, seriously...

The comments prior to it were about today compared to "4 years ago". It isn't about ignoring bad months, it is about what things were like then and what they are like now. Then, the economy was dumping 800,000 jobs a month. The net difference today is about a million jobs a month better. The whole thing is sort of ridiculous. For example, ignoring Bush's last three months tells less of the story than attributing at least the first 6 months or so of 2009 to him. In that case, he should also get credit for some of the improvement in the jobs numbers because of TARP and some of the other things he did.