Since they will never be reported in the popular press in favor of a Republican, they must be represented to the public effectively.
They will never be represented effectively by any Bush administration.
Posted on 05/31/2008 8:24:32 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
"It's the economy, stupid," James Carville famously said during the 1992 campaign, when a young Bill Clinton was running against the other President Bush. The same could be said during this presidential campaign. The headlines are full of economic bad news -- mortgage foreclosures, the collapse of an investment bank, higher gas and food prices and lower home prices. Voters routinely list the economy as their chief concern, and consumer confidence has sunk to low levels.
Yet at the same time, the economic numbers are not so bad. A recession is defined as two quarters of contraction. But we haven't had one yet. The gross domestic product has grown, albeit only by 0.6 percent, in the last two quarters. As my U.S. News colleague James Pethokoukis blogged after the most recent numbers came in, "Dude, where's my recession?"
By any historic standard, our economic numbers are good, though possibly headed in a negative direction. April's unemployment was 5 percent -- a figure that once upon a time was considered full employment. The Consumer Price Index was up 3.9 percent, largely due to price rises in energy and food. "Core inflation" was 2.3 percent. Productivity was up 2.2 percent.
Those are numbers that would have been taken as a sign of very good times when I was growing up. Then, we had recessions every four or five years and bad bouts of inflation in the 1940s, 1950s and 1970s, and unemployment sometimes surged to 10 percent nationally and to 15 percent in industrial states like Michigan. In contrast, we've had only two mild recessions since 1983, with a third now possible but not yet in view.
In those 25 years, we have had low-inflation economic growth more than 90 percent of the time -- something never before achieved in American history. Alan Greenspan titled his memoir "The Age of Turbulence, but the story he tells is one of the amazing resilience of the American economy. Hit by one shock after another -- a stock market crash in 1987, currency meltdowns in Mexico in 1994 and in Asia in 1997, the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998, and the Sept. 11 attacks and the Enron collapse in 2001 -- our economy has adapted and kept growing.
In the America I grew up in, the political effects of economic issues were clear. Voters, most of whom had vivid memories of the Depression of the 1930s, tended to vote for Democrats when the economy sagged. Political scientists produced formulas for predicting elections that were based largely on macroeconomic indicators: If the economy was growing, the incumbent party's presidential candidate would win; if it was in recession, he'd lose. But those formulas don't work anymore. If they did, Al Gore would have been elected by a comfortable margin in 2000.
Today, few voters remember the 1930s; the median-age voter has lived all his adult life in a period when low inflation economic growth has become the norm. Voters take a good economy for granted and are enraged by any irritation. But who is to blame? The subprime mortgage crisis was brought about by policies encouraging home ownership supported by George W. Bush and members of Congress of both parties. Monetary policy is made by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who has bipartisan support.
Polls suggest votes are not moving in response to local economic conditions. Recent polls in Michigan, the No. 1 state in unemployment, show John McCain running even with Barack Obama, even though George W. Bush lost the state by 3 percent in 2004. And Obama is running much stronger than John Kerry did in Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states with very low unemployment.
But then Obama is advocating fiscal and trade policies -- higher taxes on high earners, more protectionism -- which are the opposite of John F. Kennedy's and the same as Herbert Hoover's. Yes, the economy matters in politics, but not in the way it used to.
ping
The doomers have short memories.
Today, few voters remember the 1930s; the median-age voter has lived all his adult life in a period when low inflation economic growth has become the norm.I don't understand why more people don't shout it from the rooftops. It is cogent, concise, and relevant in an election year.
These numbers will be seen as good........once a democrat is in the White House.
It’s mostly riding on fuel costs.
This not only affects the average person at the gas pump, but also at the grocery store where the double whammy of high transportation costs, and elevated grain (corn) prices are causing “inflation”.
Those are numbers that would have been taken as a sign of very good times when I was growing up.
Yeah, and the numbers were calculated differently than when this chump was growing up. Let's see the numbers calculated the same way as back in 1960, say, and then we'll talk.
A 5% unemployment rate was considered “full employment” as late as the mid-1990’s, if not later. Are you suggesting a change in the methodology has resulted in the difference since then?
Funny how “the worst economy since the Depression” hits only in even numbered years divisible by four.
"Contrary to the current down-trending economic news, business activity has not slowed for the industrial construction industry. In fact, 2008 is exceeding 2007, a banner year, which saw grassroot plant construction in the U.S. grow from $60 billion in 2006 to $88 billion in 2007. Since 2006, grassroot industrial plant construction activity has doubled in 2008 up to $181 billion."
Didn’t the economy start to take a nose drive ( that is ? if we really are in a recession according to the Democrats and MSM ) right after the Democrats took control of Congress ?
Since they will never be reported in the popular press in favor of a Republican, they must be represented to the public effectively.
They will never be represented effectively by any Bush administration.
As I recall an unemployment rate even higher than 5% was considered full employment during some of the 1980s owing to the number of people between jobs -- going for a better job.
On the other hand, back in the 1960s and before that 3% unemployment was full employment. Of course back then many had steady, life-long jobs. I'm talking about the ordinary Joe, there were and still are lots of us but things have changed. We talked about the economy in those days and we still do.
RE: changes
The Current Population Survey (CPS) measures the extent of unemployment, it was changed in 1994 by a major redesign of its household survey. Perhaps the unemployment rate calculation was indeed affected by such things as marginally attached workers and temporary employment while searching for a full time job.
I prefer the payroll survey for historical trends, but I don’t remember if its methodolgy has been changed.
I was talking strictly about the official unemployment rate by CPS and how it compares today with its official rates from years prior to 1994 -- I've been meaning to see if marginally attached workers were always excluded thus omitting from the unemployment rate huge numbers of out-of-work, part-time, and temporarily-employed people wanting full time jobs.
You people really need to stop simply believing government propaganda and using your brains to think for yourselves.
http://www.fundmymutualfund.com/2008/01/monthly-jobs-report-birthdeath-model.html
Yes. Are you stating the obvious, that you can’t compare numbers calculated differently ?
A grade school mathematician understands that apples and oranges are different.
I hate the term ‘the economy’. It should be expressed as multiple micro-economies, different subsectors thriving at different rates. Some up at times and some down at times. It’s never constant.
There are some sectors that are in a depression such as auto for a long time.
Right now transports are booming! That certainly is a good sign!
Funny how so-called conservatives just see media conspiracy when if they’d do some of their own research they’d see that maybe, just maybe, there was some basis to the warnings.
You can diss someone like Soros all you want for his politics(which I do), and discount everything he says on any subject, but his track record on the markets has been very good and you’re a lot poorer if you bet against him, at least in the markets.
Residential real estate peaked in the frothiest markets in 2005.
So we agree the older numbers could have overstated unemployment or inflation and the newer numbers could be more accurate. Excellent!
A grade school mathematician understands that apples and oranges are different.
Most doomers failed grade school math.
I agree that the Bush administration is so poor at PR that I wonder how he ever got re-elected.
However, other than touting that government payrolls increased, there are no good numbers in the employment report.
The newer numbers could also be less accurate. Gee, no agenda to your comment, hmmm ?
I’m not claiming which is better (altho I have my opinion) - I’m claiming that the person who said 5% has historically been a good number cannot compare today’s number with historical numbers without recalculating the data.
Most Doomers failed grade school math ? Find a better argument or provide a source.
I have no more agenda than you do.
I’m not claiming which is better
Really?
I’m claiming that the person who said 5% has historically been a good number
You don't think 5% has been a good number? A great number?
cannot compare today’s number with historical numbers without recalculating the data.
Doomers don't care about data. It would be wasted effort.
Most Doomers failed grade school math ?
Yes.
Find a better argument or provide a source.
If you look at the quality of doomer math on FR, you'll see I'm right.
You must be talking to someone else, nic.
Nope, talking to you.
Your comment was a cut on the Dem-leaning news media, and I was suggesting to you that they are in part correct, altho they couldn’t give you the data or the rationale either.
OK, I know which I think is more ACCURATE, but that wasn’t the basis of my original comment. Go reread it. For the record, I think all the methods used since the inception of the Census and BLS have problems but ... we need to be honest and admit that you can’t compare the headline percentage from 2008 to 1958 based on the underlying calculations without comment to the methodologies.
5% is a number, neither good nor bad. Based on educational skills, I’d say 5% is a great number considering the number of woefully illiterate people living in this country. However, countering that with the knowledge that the 5% does not include welfare bums and people who have just dropped off the unemployment rolls, I’d say the number is probably understated.
And here’s where you totally turn me off - “Doomers don’t care about numbers”. What a silly statement. A lot of apologists for Republicans and Democrats don’t care about numbers either. You know, Statistics lie and liars figure...
Yeah, I know. :) I see so many “we’re doomed” sarcastic comments on threads like these that it drives me crazy.
I like to deal in reality. If the data supports the headlines that’s great, but when it doesn’t it’s a disservice to everyone to let it go by without comment.
IMO
No kidding.
However, countering that with the knowledge that the 5% does not include welfare bums
Has it ever included "welfare bums"?
and people who have just dropped off the unemployment rolls,
What do you mean?
I’d say the number is probably understated.
Well, if you compare our population (over 300 million) to our employed (about 146 million), our unemployment rate is over 50%.
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