Now Obama is running around proclaiming some sort of 'consensus' on global stimulus packages - which means that he wants every government, not just our own, to turn all their money over to the corrupt banking establishment. In a way, that might work. It would get our debt out of the hands of other governments and into a place where the US could theoretically tax it back into the treasury - if the US ever stepped up to cut spending and raise taxes to the intolerable levels necessary to avert the national suicide that is our current combination of welfare for the the unemployed, the retired and bankers.

Without other governments spending foolishly, however, it will be back to the US Treasury funneling money from those in office to those in closely related offices - all bankers and lawyers; either fools or crooks or both. And Obama is happy to play ball with all his friends. So much for the democratic messiah of the people - who is doing what all such democratic populists end up doing - funnelling cash to rich friends while lying about it to impoverished supporters.

And we are supposed to listen to YOU who got us into this mess?

Obstructionist!

I wish Obama and the Dems would plaster you all to the wall...I wish Americans would sweep you ALL right out of office in the next election.

OUT of the Senate, out of Congress, and let your damned Supreme Court have a fight with COngress nad see who wins!

You have wrecked us long enough! Everyone I know would have chosen the damn Carter gas lines as compared to what has happened to us since, incluidng a 50% divorce rate, which we NEVER had until Raygun started shipping our jobs away. We never used to worry about going to the doctor or being sick, other than fear of death...we never worrieda bout paying for HEATLH CARE or FOOD or feared being homeless...there were pleanty of jobs.

Now you're blaming the divorce rate on Reagan?

Is there a single liberal left with even a shread of intellectual honesty or are you all just mindless hateful automatons?

Obama's making things much worse by not admitting that the stimulus he used was wrong

macrol:

Obama's making things much worse by not admitting that the stimulus he used was wrong

macrol:

Obama's making things much worse by not admitting that the stimulus he used was wrong

First of all, that is not what he's saying. Secondly, if it were, telling the truth does not "make things worse" as the Bush adminsitration proved with all their lies.

This supposed 'outrage' about Obama - coming from Chimp's supporters - is enough to set off a laughing fit. Cons cheered on Chimp's financial mismanagement for nearly a decade, howled in glee as Chimp ran up a huge deficit - but now they're financial hawks? LMAO.

God Bless America.

What's even funnier is watching you guys continue to complaing about Bush's economy, with record market highs, statistically full employment and the strongest growth rate in decades, while praising Obama's slide to double digit inflation and double digit unemployment.

Even the democrats have common sense enought to be concerned, and you're having laughing fits.

Now that's funny.

I don't want to complain about Bush. I actually appreciate the job he did.

Do you really want to brag about record market highs? Really? You want to brag about the fact that deregulation led to three major unsustainable bubbles that ultimately crashed the global market? You want to brag about market highs that, if were real would have remained even with AIG and Lehman Brothers tanking because that would mean the money actually existed rather than just numbers on a page written with disappearing ink?

Bush had us in a recession since 2007. He just didn't admit until late 2008 when there was nothing that could be done. His employment record was for shit since he never created any new jobs and people were clinging on for dear life to the ones they had.

And the reason that the Obama administration look the way it does is because they are actually putting all the spending out in the open, including the huge amount that Bush/Cheney ran up prosecuting the war in Iraq. But conservatives are using that new number to club Obama for running up the deficit?

The stimulus was watered down because Democrats failed to do a big enough job the first time, thanks to the sniping and non-constructive efforts of the Republicans who were concerned more with making new policy fail than getting the economy back on track. And most of those republicans are ones that came in on the coattails of Bush's policies.

So now, there are a lot more people who are voting Democrat. Very much appreciated, President Bush.

Do you even know what a recession is outside of the liberal media chanting over and over in unison that we are either in one or heading for one? A recession is defined by two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, which didn’t happen until the end of 2008, after democrats had the government for two years.

So yes, I do want to brag about the record market highs and the exceptional economic growth.

Now, if you want to talk about the bubbles, yes, the Bush administration was responsible for the housing bubble, not by deregulation, but by lowering interest rates to the point where everyone and their brother were leveraging their teeth to get into the housing market. Lowering interest rates was the Bush administration’s way of stimulating the economy by spurring investment after the Clinton recession and the 911 attacks left us virtually devastated. It was democrats who made this investment strategy possible through their rewriting of the CRA in 1992 during the Clinton administration. Through the mismanagement of Fanny and Freddy, and their defense thereof, those loans defaulted leaving a lot of banks and mortgage firms in trouble.

Obama, on the other hand, has no plan. He is throwing money out into the void hoping some of it will resurface someplace. Unfortunately the business sector has no confidence in Obama and neither do investors, which is the bread and butter of our economy.

So yes, I think Bush deserves some kudos and I think democrats have a reason to worry. Even the people who haven’t been paying a whole lot of attention are starting to regret voting for a celebrity instead of a competent leader.

Terrortoon wrote: "Do you even know what a recession is outside of the liberal media chanting over and over in unison that we are either in one or heading for one? A recession is defined by two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, which didn’t happen until the end of 2008, after democrats had the government for two years."

The National Bureau's Business Cycle Dating Committee maintains a chronology of the U.S. business cycle. The chronology identifies the dates of peaks and troughs that frame economic recession or expansion. The period from a peak to a trough is a recession and the period from a trough to a peak is an expansion. According to the chronology, the most recent peak occurred in March 2001, ending a record-long expansion that began in 1991. The most recent trough occurred in November 2001, inaugurating an expansion.

Business Cycle Dating Committee, National Bureau of Economic Research

So the "Clinton recession" actually was the first of two Bush recessions. The second Bush recession began in December 2007, not late 2008 as you claimed. By the way, Democrats took over the Congress at the start of 2007, not during 2006 as you seem to believe.

The committee identified December 2007 as the peak month, after determining that the subsequent decline in economic activity was large enough to qualify as a recession.

Determination of the December 2007 Peak in Economic Activity

"Unfortunately the business sector has no confidence in Obama and neither do investors, which is the bread and butter of our economy."

Yes, obviously the stock market, which lost what? 40% of its value over the last year or so of Bush has continued its plunge under Obama. The Dow, which was around 8000 the day he was inaugurated has dropped to 8100 today. A remarkable record.

Recession: The Newspaper Definition

The standard newspaper definition of a recession is a decline in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two or more consecutive quarters.

This definition is unpopular with most economists for two main reasons. First, this definition does not take into consideration changes in other variables. For example this definition ignores any changes in the unemployment rate or consumer confidence. Second, by using quarterly data this definition makes it difficult to pinpoint when a recession begins or ends. This means that a recession that lasts ten months or less may go undetected.

Recession: The BCDC Definition

The Business Cycle Dating Committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) provides a better way to find out if there is a recession is taking place. This committee determines the amount of business activity in the economy by looking at things like employment, industrial production, real income and wholesale-retail sales. They define a recession as the time when business activity has reached its peak and starts to fall until the time when business activity bottoms out. When the business activity starts to rise again it is called an expansionary period. By this definition, the average recession lasts about a year.

The U.S. is Halfway to a Recession

Thursday October 30, 2008

According to statistics released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis:

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- decreased at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the third quarter of 2008, (that is, from the second quarter to the third quarter), according to advance estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 2.8 percent.

The standard definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of declining real GDP. We will know by the end of January whether or not the U.S. is 'officially' in a recession.

That being said, I think the media gets a little too caught up in the "is it, or isn't it?" question. Had, instead, real GDP instead rose at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the third quarter of 2008 then we wouldn't meet the first part of the recession criteria. But there is not a great deal of difference between a 0.3 percent rise and a 0.3 percent fall, given that both are not statistically different than zero and either figure would indicate that the economy is quite weak.

If there is anything more I can help you with, please let me know.

Let me get this right. You say that the NBER definition of a recesion is better. SteveH gives you the release from the NBER stating that the recession started in 2007, and you still claim that the recession didn't start in 2007?

Just from your posts, no, I do not think there is anything you can help me with.

PS. Can you name one Bush policy that the 110th Congress failed to rubber stamp? the only thing that Congress didn't give Bush is Social Security Privatization.

I posted articles.

Depending on the definition you use, you can say that the recession may or may not have started in 2007. By standard definitions, however, the recession didn’t actually start until the end of 2008. By either definition, the recession didn’t start until Democrats took control.

Democrats took control of what, toonie?

Do you really think anyone besides you is stupid enough to think the slim majorities held by Democrats after the 2006 elections made any difference in US policies - economic or otherwise? You seem to think everything went wrong between November 4th and January 20th of 2009.

I guess you're so ignorant that you've never heard of the terms "Veto" or "Filibuster".

Everyone with even half a brain knows the Democrats had no power except to stave off more of the stupidity and incompetence of George W. Bush and his republican rubber-stampers (that they so clearly demonstrated for the first six years of Bush's presidency).

If there had been two more years of the rubber-stamping, just think about how badly fucked-up the country would have been by the end of 2008.

It's just the same old bullshit excuse-making you neo-con-tards have become so famous for.

Oh yes, poor democrats, “We’re in power but we can’t do a fucking thing except try to get special jets and pay off cronies. Thank god the people who vote for us are too fucking stupid to know that we set the agendas, decide what does and doesn’t get voted on, have our people overseeing the committees, and set the budgets for the year”.