Richard WarnickAre you better off than you were eight years ago?
It’s been an awful eight years. As Bush presided over the biggest loss of jobs since Herbert Hoover, the right-wingers told us never mind, the markets are doing fine. As the gap between rich and poor widened, they said it’s OK, the wealth will trickle down.
Via Think Progress, here’s Bushonomics in a nutshell.
Marcy Wheeler breaks down the numbers:
DOW January 19, 2001: 10,587.59
DOW September 29, 2008: 10,365.45NASDAQ Jan 19, 2001: 2770.38
NASDAQ September 29, 2008: 1983.73CPI, January 19, 2001: 175
CPI, September 29, 2008: 219Dollar exchange with Euro, January 19, 2001: 1.068
Dollar exchange with Euro, September 29, 2008: 0.695
CBS News’s Mark Knoller notes that the national debt has grown 71.9 percent since Bush took office, “more than under any previous president.”
September 29th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
We haven’t finished paying for the Bush years yet, and the economy is only part of it. The question is whether we can recover from the Bush years in the next four years, the next eight years, or the next twenty years.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Actually, Rich, I am substantially better off than I was 8 years ago. That’s my responsibility, not governments.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Tom Grover:
I just clicked on your name and started to hear Sean Hannity.
How do we pay off a moral deficit?
September 29th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
September 29th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I am better off financially than I was eight years ago. I am also eight years older and expect to have made financial progress in eight years. I expect to make additional progress in the next eight years.
Several years ago I began making investments with the assumption that oil would be more expensive and the dollar would be weaker under the Bush administration. Those were good bets. I also now anticipate a fairly long and deep recession, possibly with stagflation. A year ago I anticipated a downturn, but not one half as bad as we are likely to get.
I take responsibility for my own economic well being, but a mismanaged economy makes my job a lot harder. It is not hard to imagine an economic disaster that would seriously impact my personal economy. Just google the phrase “worst since the Great Depression.” I think I will be OK, but a lot of good, hardworking, and well-educated people won’t be. I am starting to see more layoffs and cutbacks in my field.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Expect aging and dying as this is the only true reality we can account for.
Your career is a manifestation of someone’s, and your own ego.
That, a quarter, a rolled up newspaper, and cup of coffee, is what most American that work, really awake to. Apart from their treasure.
The rest is a walt disney type of provision.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
T-fal (glenn):
Give it a rest.
You can run, but your one-of-a-kind style of bull shit prose ensures you cannot hide, at least so long as your endless spew of dribble is set forth on internet blogs and notwithstanding, even, your clever use of different IP addresses!
September 29th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
It is actually serious business that a lot of people will lose their jobs and their homes in the coming recession. No amount of cynicism can erase that painful fact.
Decades ago people thought we could smooth out the business cycle. Maybe we can, but it requires serious people to be in charge of the government. Bush-Cheney with their “deficits don’t matter” mentality, do not qualify as serious people as far as the economy goes.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:33 am
That’s drivel to you James. It is not now, nor has it ever been “dribble”.
Leo deficits have not mattered to all kinds of presidents from both parties. I don’t know what it will take to make people understand 7th grade civics, that the branch of government responsible for approving budgets, isn’t the president, but Congress.
This constant harping on the presidents makes you appear ignorant.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Seriously Richard?
You’re giving way too much credit to Bush. Presidents can do a lot to mess up the economy and little to help it. It concerns me when people attribute the entire performance of the economy over a period of 4 or 8 years to one particular person, even the president, whether democrat or republican. Markets go up and down no matter what government does. It was doing great for much of the Bush presidency until recently. It was doing great for most of Clinton’s presidency. I don’t attribute these swings in either direction to either of them. They can affect the long-term status of the economy through policy but not enough in a few years to attribute all this to them.
I thinking you’re also forgetting that Congress is somewhat involved in this stuff.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Ok, Glenn, whatever you say!
Matt. Welcome, it is always nice to have another Bush apologist on board.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Matt, the overall economy was not “doing great” during the Bush administration despite good times for the markets and the very wealthy. I’ll refer you to my post from last December: A Rising Tide Lifts All Yachts.
Americans are divided into haves and have-nots, with fewer and fewer people self-identified as haves. The point is, this can go on only so long until the economy runs out of steam and Wall Street takes a hit. The housing bubble postponed the day of reckoning, but here we are!
September 30th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Richard,
Certainly the divide between the rich and the poor is a problem. However, unemployment rates have been around the lowest in the last 100 years (4-5%) this decade and the stock market continued to reach its highest point again and again. I guess it just depends on how we want to define the economy.
What do you think about everything else I said, which I think is a lot more important?
September 30th, 2008 at 11:48 am
re: Matts’ comment. While seeming to place all of the blame on poor little individual GW, that is not at all the case. His is merely the symbolic receptacle for ‘All o the Blame”.
I think it is fair to spread it all the way from G, hisself, through hank paulson, dick cheney, all the war profiteers and, really right on down to the republican voter. Thankyou very much. How would you do it?
Glenn AKA: A week ago there was some kerfluffle that dumped some of my comments and those of some others. I was angered. Angered even more when it was revealed that it all occured in an effort to trim you out. Boo!
Everyone: If there’s a commenter who you think you are not interested in, or whose stuff you think you can anticipate, feel free to scroll past. I wasn’t aware that censorship was what we were about. It saddened my to come to that realization.
Buck up troops. They say it’s a free country. Don’t let em down!
September 30th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Matt– Unemployment numbers are misleading, because when your unemployment insurance runs out the government no longer counts you as part of the labor force. Look at job creation instead.
Did you know that President Bush is the first president to preside over negative job growth since Herbert Hoover?
Relative net job growth starting with Inauguration Day, Clinton versus Bush.
Source: Paul Krugman, The New York Times.
In answer to your question, I think presidential administrations have more influence on the economy than anything else, if only because of the size and power of the federal government. Certainly presidents take credit for economic growth– they can also accept the blame for economic decline.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I don’t think presidents should accept credit or blame for the economy, it’s the people who mostly determine that unless the government gets way out of hand, which you might believe to be the case with Bush I guess.
As I’m sure you know, the economy is complex. We could discuss economic indicators all day. I’m certain I could find many that show that our economy in the last 8 years (if only I didn’t have more important things to do), though not the best ever, has been close to it. That negative job growth and the decline of the economy from about 9/11/01 until 2004 had a lot more to do with 9/11 than anything else. Certainly, Bush’s (and Congress’) spending on the war has hurt too, but the economy has rebounded very well since 9/11. Americans, overall, are better off economically today, yes, even with the current economic crisis, than we have been in almost every other period of American history. This doesn’t mean that every person is better off but in general we are. I’m not a big fan of Bush either, I just think we need to get the facts straight.
One more thing: if you want to give credit to the president, then I think it would be fair to blame that negative job growth on Clinton since it happened at the beginning of the Bush presidency. Ever heard of leading and lagging indicators? Economic indicators are evidence of the effects of previous policies, not present ones.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Matt– When you can find the time, please bring us your evidence (”many indicators”) that Bush has presided over a U.S. economy that is close to being “the best ever.” I know I’ll be waiting with great interest to see what you can come up with.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
It’s not right at the moment, or the last couple years, but what I mean is that Americans are more prosperous and better off in general now than just about any time in the history of the world. And it’s all thanks to hard working people who have done it without the “help” of government.
By the way, why do you only reply to my comments about Bush and nothing else? What to say about my comment on leading and lagging indicators? You seem very single minded.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Richard,
Your graphic is a little misleading by way of omission.
It doesn’t include any information about the dot com bubble or the crash due to 9/11. By not including dates and other relevant information, it presents only the view that Bush’s administration has failed.
It also doesn’t take into show the effects of globalization, changes in population; e.g. It fails to provide any means to measure the relative size of the population.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Matt– You made no sense. You blamed the job losses on 9/11 and also on the Clinton administration, without explaining cause and effect in either case. I know about lagging indicators, but you offered no evidence. Like I said, I can wait. Take a week if you need to. I’d really like to see your case for a “best ever” economy under Bush.
Bob S.– It’s Paul Krugman’s graphic. If you have one that includes all of the excuses why nothing is Bush’s fault, please post it.
September 30th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Richard:
You’re right, it may be a combination of all those factors, or it may not (oh, it really feels good to admit when someone else brings up a good point…you might want to consider trying it sometime :) ). Does anyone really know how specific policies of anybody affects the economy? We can guess, but it’s such a complex machine that I think not. Thanks for the “conversation,” but I’ve got to run for the day.
P.S.–It’s only about Bush, right? Bush, Bush, Bush…one-track mind. I can’t wait until Obama is president, I’ll probably be visiting this blog a lot more often to bring up some of these same arguments you’re making against Bush :)
September 30th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
See you later, Matt. Welcome back anytime. And yes, I’m sure we’ll be casting a critical eye on President Obama to see if he can deliver on his grand promises. Politics ain’t beanbag.
October 1st, 2008 at 12:05 am
WAAAY better off than I was 8 years ago.