Recovery?
 

Obama budget sees recovery gaining speed

Link

Well they have to make it look as good as they can get away with or no one will vote for them will they?

Seriously, what do you expect? Worst case scenario in an election year? I don't think so. ;)

Congressional Budget Office Predicts Gloomy US Economy
Link

Are you seeing "recovery" where you are? Maybe its just me and my situation, but I'm more inclined to agree with the CBO rather than the administration.

It depends what you call recovery classic, and it depends on your perspective.

I see the cost of things going up and up, which implies economic growth, but I don't see wages going up equally. In fact, that hasn't been happening here for over a decade, maybe more. The housing market is a complete blowout and interest rates are still going up.

No, I don't see recovery really. I see a country treading water and doing a pretty good job of it, but people are still doing it pretty tough mostly.

Yeah? And? The projections for the budget still have to be made assuming it passes.

You want projections assuming current laws?

HM, I appreciate your input. I'm more interested in what people are actually seeing.
Hopefully those in the real world. You and Glatt, you're in DC, that's a different world.
No offense intended.

I was just taking exception to the article's bizarre implication that the projections for Obama's budget should assume that it doesn't take effect.

The real story of how they are cooking the books....

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/...aningless.html

Merc, there is NO real story from that site.
Its illegal to quote bullshit that partisan.

Illegal? Really? It points out the fact that the recovery is not what Obama wants you to believe it is. It is foot noted and linked. Where is the problem?

MSNBC regularly - VERY regularly - talks about how the unemployment numbers hide the true rate because it only counts - and has historically only counted - those SEEKING employment. That's what labor force means. You can't measure a "desire" to be employed the way you can measure those TRYING to work. When Steve Liesman says "The workforce declined by 315 thousand and that makes it easier to get to the lower unemployment rate," Obama didn't "decide" to not count the 435,000 people who have given up looking for work - they GAVE UP LOOKING. Maybe you can argue that Obama CAUSED them to give up, but the DEFINITION of U3 unemployment hasn't changed. Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr... I don't know when we started measuring unemployment using this system, but U3 has meant the same thing. If you can show me that the U3 numbers used by Bush DIDN'T discount people who took themselves out of the labor force (as the article you linked to ADMITS: "And when it becomes "good news" to an administration that 315 thousand fewer adults even consider themselves in the workforce anymore..."), you might have a case, Merc.

I agree that the statistic is misleading, but it's just as misleading as ever as it was.

And caps don't mean I'm yelling, they mean I'm too lazy to use italics or anything.

Oh I have a case. A huge one. It is an election season. Obama owns the failure of the last three years and every bit of the failed economy.... The time of blaming Bush is long past.

Merc, I just don't get how you can blame one man for the state the US is in. Particularly since he inherited the problem.

He inherited a small portion of the issue, at the beginning. I don't blame him, I blame him and the Congress. More so the Congress, but he was rubber stamping the overly reckless spending of Pelosi and Reid. The Republickins play a part as well. But Obama has done just what everyone thought he would, spend without a plan to pay for it, just as I stated over and over when he was bringing his BS to the table and shoving it down the throats of the American taxpayer. He owns it and where ever we go from here.

If the reps were in, how do you think they would have done things differently?

eta: I ask this simply because most western nations did more or less the same thing as obama and his administration to lesser or greater success. It seems to have helped somewhat here in Australia although if there hadn't been a stimulus plan, perhaps the results would have been similar. It's very hard to know because it's one of those things where there's really no control group.

Well I don't know about Australia, but in the US it was mis-spent and wasted. Lately everyone is spouting off about the recent gains by GM (Government Motors) but completely and conveniently ignore the fact that the public will never get back 20 billion dollars of the bailout money that was used to rescue the auto industry. We have had numerous programs to bail out the banks and investment groups, while Obama hired them on the side, but nothing to help out the investors or home owners who took it in the shorts. Even his latest political ploy directly effects few.

That's called a cop-out, mate. Did Bush or did Bush (and Clinton, etc) NOT use the same U3 number, calculated the same way, as the "unemployment rate"?

So in the US stimulus package(s), no money went to individuals at all? Only to companies?

Mostly to businesses. Individuals did not directly receive money. But they did create some great jobs, at hundred of thousands of dollars per job, at least until the money ran out. A huge waste.

Interesting.

Over here, money in the form of cash was given to pretty much everyone. I don't think anyone missed out. It certainly helped keep money flowing through the economy in the right direction and has been labelled a success in some corners.

Others are critical, but that will always be the case. I'm not an economist, so I can't really say, other than that the money we got went mostly to the bank anyway in the form of mortgage repayments and I suspect that was probably the case for many individuals.

Much of the money was widely distributed but it was also given as favors to overwhelmingly supporters of the Demoncratic majority at the time. All the parties do it when they are in power, it just so happens this was the time they held the responsibility for where the money went and they were not shy about who got it.

Merc, you've conveniently ignored replying to this... Care to do so now?
Also,
Indirectly, but ...
$300 billion in tax cuts
$116 billion: New payroll tax credit of $400 per worker and $800 per couple in 2009 and 2010.
$14 billion in first time home-buyer tax credits
$15 billion: Expansion of child tax credit: A $1,000 credit to more families
$14 billion: Expanded college credit
$4.7 billion: Unemployment compensation benefits in 2009.
$4.7 billion: Expanded EIC tax credit
$4.3 billion: Home energy credit
$1.7 billion: for deduction of sales tax from car purchases,

Based upon the total amount spent perhaps, but in reality the total was NOT all directed at creating jobs.
Much of it was to stop the hemorrhaging of jobs left over from the previous administration,
another part was an investment in infrastructure, Education, Healthcare, Transportation, Communications and IT development... and on and on... and those INdirect funds described above.

Cite your source. Let's have a close look at how much was spent on what you say it was spent on, and how much actually got to the people. Even the last one, which I would guess is the cash for clunkers was got a huge F. SO let's take a close look at your source and pick the numbers apart....


BUT that is not how it was sold to the American people and you know it... "Millions of Shovel Ready Jobs!" Bullshit.....

Great how did that work out from the day he took office. Bush is long gone. Obama owns the last three years.

Wow! look at all the number of great jobs they produced and how much the spent making them! I must be crazy for thinking the pissed our taxpayer dollars away...

http://stimuluswatch.org/2.0/

Again - - - Merc, you've conveniently ignored replying to this... Care to do so now?
Lets burn one strawman before we create any more. One step at a time, k?

Lets look at the U3 numbers under Bush and then under Obama and see if there is a difference.

U3:

http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate.jsp

U6:

http://portalseven.com/employment/un...00&toYear=2012

Wow! huge difference. Either way all up under Obama. So what's your point?

The fact is that Bush never needed to talk about the U3 or the U6. The fact is that BECAUSE unemployment is up under Obama he needs to talk about the lower value. It has nothing to do with BUSH (again). This is about Obama and the unemployment rate under the time Obama was in office. Bush was not running around spouting off about how low unemployment was with the lower value because he never had to do it. It was not a problem for him at the time. This whole issue about Bush and the U3 vs the U6 is a complete and total Straw man argument just like dragging DOMA and same sex union is a Straw man. You both lose again.

How'd that work out for ya?

I'm just not interested in answering every little pencil dick nuance of a point that someone disagrees with me over, it is just such a waste of time..... but I did it for you.

Compare Bush U-3 to Obama U-3 and Bush U-6 to Obama U-6
The differences are about the same.
Compare, like the Am thinker the Bush U-3 to the Obama U-6
and you too can rant and rave all day. Still won't make it a valid argument.
It will just be Bullshit, extremist partisan Bullshit.

OK From your link: We'll use the U-3 (Official)Unemployment Rate
Bush started with 4.0% and when he left it was 7.3% -------+3.1%
Obama started with 7.8% (yep it went up a full 1/2% in one month!)
and continued to rise for 10 months.
and it is currently 8.3% ----------------------------------------+0.5%
Bush's unemployment increase was 6x worse than Obama

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Again from your link: We'll use the U-6 this time
Bush Start 7.1 ----- End 13.5 -----------------------------+6.4%
Obama Start 14.2 - End 15.1------------------------------+0.9%
And Again
Bush's unemployment increase was MORE THAN 6x worse than Obama

Now I ask you ... What is YOUR point?

THIS, merc, is a straw man. Of course unemployment is up - a lot of jobs were lost before Obama took office, a lot were lost after. Maybe it IS legitimate to blame Obama for the current state of the economy. But THAT IS NOT WHAT YOU SAID. Your argument, or at least your link's argument, is that Obama is actively manipulating the numbers, in a way that is dishonest and, more importantly, specific to his administration to make the situation look better than it is.
That. Is. Flat. Out. False. Obama is using the same (sorta-doctored-overly-rosy) data that has ALWAYS been the "standard" number used to define unemployment rates.

Find me ANY case of ANY president citing ANY unemployment statistic that isn't the U3. ONE SINGLE CASE of ANY sitting president citing anything but the U3 as the "unemployment number". Your argument (as i understand it based on your link) is that using the U3 the way the U3 has always been calculated is not only unfair and inaccurate but something Obama did to skew the numbers in his favor. You have not proven that is something Obama did in opposition to standard Presidential procedure.

Bush isn't running for re-election.

It's not the cash for clunkers program, it is a tax deduction. You have always been able to deduct your state income taxes from your federal taxes. But recently two changes went into effect:

1.) you can also deduct your state sales tax paid (either an IRS-calculated estimate based on your disposable income and the sales tax rate in your area, or the actual amount you spent if you're neurotic and have saved every receipt for everything you bought all year long.)

2.) On top of that estimate, you can also add the sales tax for any big-ticket items you have a receipt for, not just new/used cars but boats, motorcycles, home renovation--anything you spent over a few thousand bucks on.

We have benefitted greatly from #1 for several years now, since Texas doesn't have an income tax but instead has a very high sales tax rate, and we benefitted from #2 a couple years ago when we traded in the ancient truck for a slightly-less-ancient Corolla.

In addition, we have also personally benefitted directly from (as in, measurable money in our bank account that wouldn't be there otherwise):

I'm only talking about Bush because you posited that this is something DIFFERENT Obama is doing to skew the numbers. It is not. It is the same measurement using the same data collected the same way.

We know this recession is directly traceable to fiscal mismanagement openly endorsed during George Jr's watch. We know the same mismanagement in the 1920s to enrich the rich resulted in a stock market crash in 1929 and massive job losses four years later - 1933.

We know the same type mismanagement and time scale resulted in massive job losses that also take years to recover. The problems in 1929 and 2008 are similar. History says these problems will take almost ten years to resolve.

We also know that other mismanagement (ie housing, Mission Accomplished) are being paid for today with unemployment and lower living standards - as economics takes the well deserved and predicted revenge. We also know another rock has yet to fall - pension funds. During the previous decade, companies such as GM intentionally shorted their pension funds to use that money as profits. Because GM was selling products that cost more to build than the selling price. When does the pension fund debacle hit? Even GM declares a record profit while ignoring their record pension fund deficits. We have yet to get through the housing fiasco. Are just beginning to pay for a lie called Mission Accomplished. And have yet to start paying for another fiasco created by the American 2003 surrender in Afghanistan.

Also pending may be expenses since two countries need nuclear weapons. Because a mental midget defined an Axis of Evil. Another legacy.

Despite all this, the economy continues to grow. Even American international relations are finally on an upswing. Rather amazing - unless you happened to be the fewer who are doing most of the work. Then the word ‘tired’ might apply.

Oye. Seriously, how many times are you going to reword the same thing and/or quote yourself as a reference and post it into every marginally applicable thread?

Ibram, that is mercy's argument. and for him it is true. "you're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts", I'm sure you've heard that one. This kiind of stuff represents "facts" for mercy, and supports his opinion, widely and loudly stated that Obama is the ruin of America. It is for him.

It is for a lot of people, people who've just made up their minds. You know some, we all know some. Hell, sometimes I'm some.


Not for mercy; it is useful to keep this in mind when communicating with him.

this is a rather pointless attempt to rebut his argument, as though his attempt to persuade you could be turned around and you could persuade him with a better argument. He's not trying to persuade you. He's just spouting off what he thinks is important. There's no dialog here, that's a mistake I frequently make when engaging him, and you're repeating my mistake.

A dialog means we take turns talking and take turns listening. Yeah... not happenin.

See if your Am thinker has anything cogent to dispel these facts. Ya know what, don't waste your time. If he did, he would be manipulating the data to suit his own agenda.

I'm patiently waiting... regardless of BigV's logical post.

Does anyone take anything Merc says seriously anymore? I stopped doing that that ages ago.

I don't think so. I think he's a plant by the Obama administration to make all opposition look nutty.