How do you spell stagflation?

The Dems did not assume control of Congress until January, 2007. The "downturn in the economy" began well before that. As did the dickbrained policies that caused it.

 

Six years of a stagnant stock market.

Gasoline prices that had more than doubled from 2001 to 2006.

Miniscule growth in low-paying jobs.

Average household income (adjusted for inflation) LOWER by about $3,000 from 2001 to 2006.

Care to rethink that post? Or will a simple "delete" suffice?

 

The economy does not roar as it did from 2003-'07 on "$7/hr" jobs. You know it, I know it, the American people know it.

But you keep reading from the DNC talking points.

 

Volcker's idea was that all the diddling around at the edges didn't solve the stagflation problem. So drastic action was necessary if the country was to ever get out of its economic malaise. And, oh yeah, it KILLED the housing market, then, too. Imagine a home loan with a 30-year fixed rate as high as your highest credit card. That's how the 3-year, and 5-year variables came into popularity. I remember in my brief time living in Fort Wayne, Ind., that the subdivisions in our area were full of streets that had no houses, or streets that had names but were only intersections. (Fortunately, the company my dad worked for bought our house whenever it made us move.)

I'm not saying Volckermania should return. I don't know enough about economics to figure that out. But I've seen others make the argument that's it better, collectively, to take our medicine now and have this disappear in a few years, rather than let it drip, drip, drip for a decade.

 

Only if he gets credit for the growth from 2002 to 2007.

 

But isn't that the belief that was largely discredited in the 1930s? At least that's the way I remember my history books telling it:

That the Hoover administration believed the way out of the Depression was to avoid govt interference and allow the free market and Adam Smith's invisible hand to guide us out. Things only got worse and worse.

Then FDR's Keynesian-inspired New Deal went the opposite way and tried to steer us out with massive govt spending, stimulus programs, and tinkering with just about everything. Things gradually got better.

 

Full employment in economic terms is usually defined as between 4-6.5% - yet Chicken Little's on the board seem to think 5.5% spells doom.

All I have to say is be careful what bars you set because the next President or any other for the foreseeable future will have trouble being deemed a success if you try to paint the W years as an economic wasteland. Thanks to the Internet people can't call 5.5% doom anymore yet glory about a Democratic reaching 5.5% levels and being labeled a savior.

Just for fun compare the first years of the Bush 43 years against the first term of Bill Clinton 42

 

The stock market was over 14,000 and hardly stagnant until the credit problem, which had nothing to do with any Bush or GOP policies. In fact, the credit problem came about from lefties whining that less-qualified people had more trouble getting loans -- which was as it should have been.

As for gas prices, your 2006 figure relies heavily on the spike caused by Katrina. Gas was back down to the low 2-dollar range before the latest run-up, which occurred again, when? After the Dems took over control of congress. Before the latest run-up, gas was nowhere near double what it was in 2001. And besides that, do you really want to blame Bush for the increased demand in China and India? That would be telling.

No, I don't care to rethink my post. Things have gotten much worse since Pelosi and Reid took over. To deny it is simply to lie.

 

The New Deal helped, but the economy never truly recovered until WWII soaked up a lot of the labor pool.

 

2001: Bush takes office with an $86 billion budget surplus thanks to sound economic management by the previous administration.

2008: The surplus was wasted. Bush's budgets have run up a $527.9 billion budget deficit, 4 percent of the United States' annual gross domestic product.

Under the Bush-Cheney administration, American real gross domestic product has grown at an average annual rate of 2.8 percent. In the 51 years prior to that, real GDP grew at an average annual rate of 3.5 percent.

Under the Bush-Cheney administration, personal income has grown at an average annual rate of 1.8 percent. In the 51 years prior to that, personal income grew at an average annual rate of 3.4 percent.

Under the Bush-Cheney administration, payroll jobs have grown at an average annual rate of 0.2 percent. In the 51 years prior to that, payroll jobs grew at an average annual rate of 1.8 percent.