Obama's destruction of the economy is complete.

[fromderinside]

I'd bet dollars to donuts that if Mittens the Pander Bear had won the 2012 election, and we were seeing economic indicators like this, conservatives would be shouting from the rooftops how President Romney "saved the economy."

Forgotten would be the refrain we've heard during the long recovery that the "President really doesn't have any control" over the economy. The "real unemployment rate" would be ignored as it was right up until the Obama administration, the 2 dollar a gallon gas prices would be hailed as an afterglow of smart energy policy on the part of President Mitt, and every uptick in the stock market would be another "see, I told you so" directed by every right wing pundit at those pesky liberals who thought a Democrat in the White House was actually a good idea.

Back in the day when I heard my late grandfather would say things like "dollars to donuts" and tic-tac-toe and pong were all the rage on them new fangled computers this insight would be praised to the rooftops with stuff, like "No, really they would do that". now however its

nm

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Did I call it or what?

The benefits of W's tax cuts for the rich are finally trickling all over everyone.

If you must attribute massive causal power to a president in saving the economy, why not Bush?

Most of the bailouts and deficit blowouts started in his term.

Obama's term is largely characterized by shrinking deficits aka "austerity".

 

[SimpleDon]

Sure, but regardless both numbers have dropped, and U6 has actually dropped by 2 more percentage points - which makes for an even more compelling story.

I'm not saying things didn't improve--they certainly did. I'm just saying they aren't the rosy picture that U3 paints.

Like any of the economic yardsticks the value of the unemployment numbers is that it measures the same things over time and we can see the trend over time. Precision is more important than accuracy.

The U3 unemployment numbers reflect only the number of people who are actively looking for work, the number of people who are receiving unemployment compensation, effectively. U5 adds in the unemployed who have given up looking and U6 adds in the people who are working part time who want to be working full time.

Here is a plot of the recent trends of all three. You see that they track together, as you would expect.

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Graph is from: http://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate

 

[arkirk]

Did I call it or what?

If you must attribute massive causal power to a president in saving the economy, why not Bush?

Most of the bailouts and deficit blowouts started in his term.

Obama's term is largely characterized by shrinking deficits aka "austerity".

I think we have just seen a stock market and big bank recovery. According to Dubbiya the recovery was a "jobless recovery." So you recover. So what! It is not a true recovery of the American People. Social Security gets no COLA in 2016. Medical costs are skyrocketing..... I have friends who are going broke paying their Obamacare bill. Republicans are in charge. In a way, you cannot blame Obama entirely for what is going down, but do not kid yourself...OUR ECONOMY IS NOT ACTUALLY RECOVERING. The employment situation is little better with these jobs that are affecting the chart being minimum wage service sector jobs.

 

[SimpleDon]

Did I call it or what?

If you must attribute massive causal power to a president in saving the economy, why not Bush?

Most of the bailouts and deficit blowouts started in his term.

Obama's term is largely characterized by shrinking deficits aka "austerity".

Overlooking the minor fact that it was the Bush administration whose incompetence by their failure to regulate allowed the financial sector to do what Wall Street always does when left to their own devices, they nearly destroyed the economy by causing the financial crisis and recession. All because the Bush administration really, really believed in deregulation, really, really believed the financial sector could regulate itself. Obviously, they were wrong.

The Bush administration's unintentional stimulus was huge, part of a 1.4 trillion dollar budget deficit, additional spending that was the automatic response to recession that is part of capitalism's self-correction response that dismal was talking about. Their intentional stimulus was some 150 billion dollars, a drop in the bucket compared to the contraction of the economy.

 

[SimpleDon]

Here is what Yellen has said that she looks to determine the status of the current labor market. She doesn't just look at the official unemployment statistic, she looks a 9 different measurements of the status of labor and jobs in the US and how they compare against an average of four years before the Great Recession. Four of the nine are doing better now with only one, labor participation rate, that I mentioned before, not at least half of the way back from the depths of the recession.

It is from Bloomberg, which I hope that everyone finds acceptable as a source. The original is here: http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-yellens-labor-market-dashboard/

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[Loren Pechtel]

Here is what Yellen has said that she looks to determine the status of the current labor market. She doesn't just look at the official unemployment statistic, she looks a 9 different measurements of the status of labor and jobs in the US and how they compare against an average of four years before the Great Recession. Four of the nine are doing better now with only one, labor participation rate, that I mentioned before, not at least half of the way back from the depths of the recession.

It is from Bloomberg, which I hope that everyone finds acceptable as a source. The original is here: http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-yellens-labor-market-dashboard/

View attachment 4680​

It's the very last one on here that makes me say things are nowhere near as rosy as a simple look at the numbers would indicate. Many people have been forced out of the labor market and that's not recovering.