GDP shrinks 2.9%; Obama's economic growth gap grows to $1.6 Trillion

Investor' Business Daily ^ | 06/25/2014 | IBD Staff

[IBD editorial writer]

Shrinkage: Economists are writing off the sharp 2.9% drop in first-quarter GDP as a temporary contraction. Maybe. What isn't temporary is President Obama's massively subpar growth record over the past five years. [snip]

In the nearly five years since the Obama recovery started — just months into Obama's first term — real gross domestic product has increased only 10.2%. That's less than half the average growth rate for every other economic recovery since World War II, and almost a third less than the pace set during the Reagan recovery.

Looked at in dollar terms, if the Obama recovery had merely been average, GDP today would be $1.6 trillion bigger than it is. If growth had kept pace with the Reagan recovery, GDP would be $2.2 trillion bigger.

[PGalt]

Life Is a Gift from God

We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.

But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.

Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

Property and Plunder

Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property.

But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder.

The Law - Frederic Bastiat