I already provide health insurance for all of my employees, pay half their premiums until they have been with me for three years and then I pay for their insurance coverage in full. If they add family members it comes out of their own pockets. I also have no employee who earns less than $10 per hour. In fact, now that I am thinking about it, I have no employee who makes less than $11 per hour. Miraculously, I still make a very nice profit at the end of the month. The thing is, if you owned a business too you would know how much bull shit it is when the Republicans act like Obama's policies are hindering the business ambitions of entrepreneurs. It's just not the truth. Wall Street would like you to believe it's true because they no longer have free reign to fuck people.
Even if it is a political ploy by Obama, how is it any different than the Republicans passing medicare part D right before the 2004 elections? I guess they bought themselves about 3 million old people votes with that one, right? How many of those Americans who are out of work are too damned lazy to compete with a hispanic person who is willing to work their ass off? I can tell you from personal experience that you will be hard pressed to find a white person who can, or is willing to, out work a hispanic person. I have four guys who work in my warehouse and perform deliveries. The white guys that I have hired always have a sense of entitlement, like they can only work hard for so long before they are entitled to a break, an hour lunch, etc. and want to bitch about things like bonuses and are forever bitching about how much they are making an hour even before they prove that they are worth more. They are also the ones who want to make me out to be the bad guy because I am ambitious and have accomplished a few things in life. The hispanics come in, work quietly and often without direction, find things to keep themselves busy, take responsiblity for their work duties and self-police one another. They rarely ask for anything but when they do it is because they need it, or they deserve it, or both. The four guys currently working for me have been with me at least a year and, if it's up to me, I will keep them as long as they will work for me. I am almost at the point that I discriminate against white people because my experience has been that they are lazy and always expect a handout.
Not true. Two other recessions that have occurred since the Great Depression have had much higher GDP declines than the 2008 Recession including the Recessions of 1937 (-18.2% ) and 1945 (-12.7% ) vs only -5.1%. Two have had higher unemployment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States
The data is from the past 10 recoveries. How is that cherry picking? Regardless the early 80's Recession was in some ways more severe than the 2008 Recession and lasted nearly as long. 1 year 4 month vs 1 year 6 months. I have supplied data to back up my premises that this recovery has been anemic compared to past recessions due to Obama's policies. Do you have data that suggest otherwise?
The 1937 Recession was very big and often considered to be the double-dip of the Great Depression. I guess that's why you left it out of your graph. And here is what your own source says about the "1945 recession",which you also did not include. The decline in government spending at the end of World War II led to an enormous drop in gross domestic product, making this technically a recession. This was the result of demobilization and the shift from a wartime to peacetime economy. The post-war years were unusual in a number of ways (unemployment was never high) and this era may be considered a "sui generis end-of-the-war recession". Because it did not include the Great Depression NOR the two recessions that you just cited. Cherry picking the small ones. In what ways, exactly? 2.7% GDP drop versus 5.1% in 2008. We generally call that HALF as severe. Have you been paying attention? Your data has been challenged.
Yes it was very big as well as the Recession of 1945. They were much bigger than the 2008 Recession that you claimed to be the biggest since the Great Depression. The study analyzed the last 10 recoveries over the last 60 years. This is more than ample data to conclude that the 2008 recovery has been anemic. The author of the study did not cherry pick the smaller recessions during the last 60 years. He chose them all and it was discovered the deeper the recession the stronger the recovery. GDP decline was as high as 26.7% during the Great Depression compared to just 5.1% during the 2008 Recession. Those two recessions peak GDP decline were 18.2% and 12.7%. There's no comparison. Higher unemployment and inflation. Still waiting for your data that supports the notion that the 2008 recovery has not been anemic.
No one has said that the recovery is stellar so stop putting words in everyone's mouth and listen to what is being said. Your comparison is ill-conceived and here is why: 1) The US economy in 1937 is absolutely nothing like the US economy in 2012. In 1937 there was no such thing as globalization but today our economy is largely dependent upon the well-being of other large economies around the globe because of globalization. Just watch the Dow and see how it reacts to positive (if there is any!) or negative news from Europe. 2) spending from the New Deal absolutely dwarfs the spending done by GWB and Obama. In turn we got our current interstate system, the Hoover Dam, National Parks and an infrastructure that was prepared to meet the demands of the economic boom that followed. Today we have such partisan dysfunction that we could never agree on something as elementary as repairing and upgrading infrastructre....too much of a risk that it might make the other side look like they are doing something constructive. 3) That was 70 fucking years ago. We were still using the Gold Standard then. Even if you go back to the recession of the early 80's you see an economy that was alien to the one we have today. Just the fact that we now have a 24 hour news cycle that exacerbates information worse than a 8 year old boy after a fishing trip provides such a stark contrast between then and now. Trying to make this comparison would be akin to comparing our military in 1937 to our military today and saying that our military in 1937 was stronger because we had more man power. It took us years to figure out the depth of the Great Depression and I am sure it will take us years to figure the true depth of this recession. I still think it is a depression but no one wants to say that word out loud.
There is nothing wrong with saying Obama has NOT been the best fit for this. You speak of bipartisan dysfunction, Obama made that bed when HE forced through a healthcare bill that none read. The best thing he could of ever done, while the Dems controlled EVERYTHING, was to fix the tax system and make Deep cuts. Instead we get a Democrat health bill that "we have to pass to find out whats in it". Good work team. Yea, the cuts would have hurt, but I believe we would be at a point now where we would see a clear upside. Instead, we got ANOTHER stimulus that only inflated a weak GDP number. I do not blame the GOP for refusing to raise taxes when there is ZERO indication of SPENDING slowing down.
Partisan dysfunction didn't begin with the health care debate. Partisan dysfunction has been part of our problem for the past 12 years or so. I could just as easily point to Mitch McConnell telling reporters three days after the President was inaugurated that the Republicans' goal was to make him a one term President. the worse thing he could have done was to make deep cuts at that time, or right now for that matter. We have been back and forth over this time after time and I am sorry that you cannot seem to understand that there is a time and place for spending and now is the time. Implementing strict austerity measures, as you have suggested, would have sent us spiraling into a deep depression and then you would be blaming that on Obama. Look at Europe. They did implement strict austerity measures and look where it has gotten them. Our situation looks flat fucking rosy compared to theirs right now so I will say that the jury is still out on whether the spending measures were wise fiscal policy or not. Name one constructive thing that the GOP has done as it pertains to the economy in the past 16 years. Just one.....
These two (one simply the demobilization after WWII) plus the Great Depression were conveniently omitted from the data presented earlier, but now you wish to use them when you think it helps your argument. Not only cherry-picking a time frame, but cherrypicking a new one for a new post. But he picked a cutoff that omitted three very large recessions. Sorry, he has been exposed, mon ami. Stating the obvious. If recovery is defined as returning to pre-recession levels, then it is impossible for the deepest recessions NOT to also have the strongest recoveries. So why do they call it The Great Recession? No, its not a Depression, that was averted. But it was still a bloody huge recession any way you measure it. How can you deny this? Don't put words in my mouth. What I said was that the article failed to include The Great Depression (and a couple of others, apparently). Six months after Obama took office the GDP was positive. Six months. The average recession in your time frame (using your source) was 10 months with the longest (Reagan's) at 16 months.
