Another Lackluster Economic Report: Dip to 1.5% Growth

And the news only gets worse, the White House tried to sneak out the news on a Friday when many reporters are already gone, debt will increase by another trillion dollars this year.

BearMtnHIB wrote: It didn't take 8 years to get here- we had a decent economy for 7 years under Bush- the kind of economy that many today wish we could get back- if we only had things as good as they were back then.

It was a house of cards and all came tumbling down on Bush at the end. He said we were going into a depression before Obama even took office.

Nice try.

This Nobel laureate thinks it will take a generation to recover.

The administration crows that the economy grew—by some 16 percent—during its first six years, but the growth helped mainly people who had no need of any help, and failed to help those who need plenty. A rising tide lifted all yachts. Inequality is now widening in America, and at a rate not seen in three-quarters of a century. A young male in his 30s today has an income, adjusted for inflation, that is 12 percent less than what his father was making 30 years ago. Some 5.3 million more Americans are living in poverty now than were living in poverty when Bush became president. America’s class structure may not have arrived there yet, but it’s heading in the direction of Brazil’s and Mexico’s.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/feat ... bush200712

Inequality is now widening in America, and at a rate not seen in three-quarters of a century

That is a flat out lie.

Inequality is shrinking in America.

In 2007, the top one percent earned 26.7 percent of all after-tax income. In 2009, that portion fell to 22.3 percent.

Inequality, in other words, fell during those years. We are now in an age of High-Beta Wealth, where the incomes of the One Percent have become far more manic and prone to wild drops than the rest of the country.

Source; http://finance.yahoo.com/news/falling-fortunes-one-percent-152338859.html

Raees wrote:

BearMtnHIB wrote: It didn't take 8 years to get here- we had a decent economy for 7 years under Bush- the kind of economy that many today wish we could get back- if we only had things as good as they were back then.

It was a house of cards and all came tumbling down on Bush at the end. He said we were going into a depression before Obama even took office.

Nice try.

This Nobel laureate thinks it will take a generation to recover.

The administration crows that the economy grew—by some 16 percent—during its first six years, but the growth helped mainly people who had no need of any help, and failed to help those who need plenty. A rising tide lifted all yachts. Inequality is now widening in America, and at a rate not seen in three-quarters of a century. A young male in his 30s today has an income, adjusted for inflation, that is 12 percent less than what his father was making 30 years ago. Some 5.3 million more Americans are living in poverty now than were living in poverty when Bush became president. America’s class structure may not have arrived there yet, but it’s heading in the direction of Brazil’s and Mexico’s.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/feat ... bush200712

So Obama increased the weath inequality? How about the 4 years of Pelosi's Congress? These Dems are Republicans in disguise!

I guess when Democrats run out of answers the only thing left is to blame Bush. Wake up, Obama has been at the helm for the fast four years. Obama asked for the privilege to be President and accepted the position along with the burdens of the job. In addition he claimed he could turn the economy around in one term, nay three and a half years. Obama's attempt at fixing the economy has been a 100% failure.

Inequality is shrinking, at first glance that should be good news. It's not good news, inequality is shrinking because more and more people are dependent on the Government for income, food, and housing.

A Government left to grow and grow out of control will eventually displace private industry, I don't want to live in an America that has an economic model that looks like Cuba.

archer wrote: Of course you can't....that is because you don't read what is actually posted but respond to what you THINK a liberal posted. I am willing to make the cuts necessary.......but not all on the backs of seniors, the poor, the unemployed and uninsured. We need to cut across the board....AND.....we need to raise more revenue. The liberals want a balanced approach, cut spending and increase revenue......that is how a family would deal with high debt.......you can't cut enough to reduce the deficit without really hurting this country, we have to raise more revenue. Bush did exactly what was the worst thing for a government, or a family.....when he had a surplus......instead of saving it for a rainy day, he squandered it by giving tax cuts to everyone, even those who really didn't need them. That's like a family finally having a decent savings account and blowing it on a new car they don't need.

Federal revenue, expressed as a percentage of GDP, was already on its way down when Bush took the oath of office. That decline accelerated in the wake of 9/11, dropping nearly two percentage points, without a change in the revenue structure by the way, in one year. The following year, tax revenues dropped even further as a percentage of GDP. The tax revenues as a percent of GDP didn't start climbing again until after the across the board tax rate cuts that were enacted in 2003 and they continued to climb until the start of the recession. The surplus in tax revenue generated by the dotcom bubble disappeared when the bubble burst. The tax structure was the same as it was the year Clinton left office yet the tax revenues were declining. The tax cuts resulted in tax revenue for the federal government rising, not falling. The same thing was true for the recession that Reagan inherited. Tax revenues as a percentage of GDP were falling until the tax rates were reduced in 1983. After that, tax revenues climbed and remained steady at slightly above 17.5% of GDP for the remainder of his presidency.

The same isn't true of Obama's answers. Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP has fallen every year he has been our president. Tax revenues as a percentage of GDP haven't been this low since the Truman years. What kicked off the recovery in 1949/50 was the same remedy that is being proposed now which was enacted, over Truman's veto I might add, in 1948 by a Republican Congress. Tax rate cuts and decreased government spending. Not decreasing the amount the spending increases, actually decreasing the number of dollars the federal government spends from one year to the next. That's the leg of the stool that is missing right now. The federal government keeps spending more money while they have less of it coming in. That isn't something that a family would do when their income dropped, they wouldn't increase the amount of money that they spent, drastically I might add, faced with a loss of income. The history is there archer. Reducing tax rates fuels economic growth. Reducing tax rates and decreasing the actual amount of money spent in Washington from one year to the next supercharges it.

As a side note, the federal debt grew despite the so called "surplus" in Clinton's final years because of budget items that were "off the books". The total amount of the federal debt hasn't gone down from what it was since Harry and Bess were living in the White House.

Raees wrote: It's terrible the economy is taking so long to recover but I know it took 8 years to get here so it's not going to be a short-term recovery. What I worry about are forces outside the U.S. that can send our economy into another tailspin.

Talk about over simplification!

No, it didn't take 8 years to get there. After the 2000 recession ended, we had steady growth, far better than now. And unemployment dropped from a high of 6% in 2003, to a low of 4.6% in 2007 (oh those good old days!). It was in 2008 (beginning Dec 2007) that the economy began to sink.

Can you give an example of when it ever took over 3 1/2 years to get out of a recession until now? A depression yes, but a recession?

I actually thought at the time that Obama was very lucky he got elected president when he did because I figured he'd be a hero no matter what since it should be inevitable based on history that the economy should improve during his term. But instead, unemployment got worse and has remained worse, even after throwing away over $800 billion to supposedly reduce it to 5.6% by now.

Raees wrote: It's terrible the economy is taking so long to recover but I know it took 8 years to get here so it's not going to be a short-term recovery. What I worry about are forces outside the U.S. that can send our economy into another tailspin.

What I worry about are the fools who blindly follow Obumo and would give us 4 more years of this crap.