the decade from hell
- Thread starter Irvine511
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Well, one could argue about all the things that went into impacting the unemployment rate during that time period, but the point remains that this was a very long period of sustained low unemployment in the country's history that is being ignored or is in fact unknown to many people in this forum. People claim this was the decade from hell, but one quarter of this decade had some of the lowest unemployment rates in the country's history.
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Irvine511
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the total lack of analysis is mind boggling.
Your analysis on this topic I agree has been lacking. You need to consider a few things before jumping on the liberal bandwagon and calling it the decade from hell.
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Irvine511
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we have an extensive piece of analysis by one of the biggest magazines in the world on one hand, and we have our most slavishly agenda-oriented poster on the other.
maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
we have an extensive piece of analysis by one of the biggest magazines in the world
One of the biggest LIBERAL magazines in the world. . .
phillyfan26
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To summarize this post:
"We could talk about why it happened, but that might mean that I'm not entirely correct, so let's go back to what I said so that I'm right."
mad1
ONE love, blood, life
wow, many of those photos (with respect!) capture so much emotion - 'the moment in time' really.
Im so glad they have given the option of viewing a photo that could offend or be disturbing, better than finding it thrust in your face.
thank you for posting that link. quite something.
Im so glad they have given the option of viewing a photo that could offend or be disturbing, better than finding it thrust in your face.
thank you for posting that link. quite something.
we have an extensive piece of analysis by one of the biggest magazines in the world on one hand, and we have our most slavishly agenda-oriented poster on the other.
Wonderful. More pointless labling of forum members.
Anyways, lets take a look at some of the points this so called extensive piece of analysis brought out, and what it left out:
Stocks are down 26%, meaning this is the worst decade from hell? The vast majority of people in this world don't even own stock.
Only $50,303 dollars in 2008. What a nightmare.
Its only after that that they actually start to deal with some truely relevant statistics like Poverty Rate and Unemployment Rate, but again, its only based on a snap shot of a point in time in 2000, and one in 2009. To the people at TIME MAGAZINE, the fact that the unemployment rate was below 5% for 27 consecutive months in Bush's second administration never happened! But of course, they will include pictures of people being killed and maimed from those months.
This is a laughably poor analysis of the past decade and is something that is cherry picked to promote an agenda.
An objective analysis would look at all the data from every month of the decade, not just the first month and the last month!
An objective look at loss of life figures, military casualties figures, Unemployment rates, inflation rates, GDP Growth rates, Debt as a percentage of GDP, the poverty rate are the types of things that need to be examined throughout each decade in order to assess which decade was better or worse.
The pictures won't show this was the worst one since the 1930s or even the so called "decade from hell". There are pictures from every decade showing the same type of hardship, pain, and loss of life.
Jive Turkey
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If thats not setting yourself up to be shot down, I dont know what is
Perhaps a better response to this point is that this is a flawed metric, in general. Sure, if you invested on January 1, 2000 and never bought or sold anything up to December 31, 2009, you'd have lost 26% on average.
If one was more active, and, say, sold riding a high or bought during a low--and "buying" can be as simple as maintaining a recurring 401K investment and "selling" as simple as doing periodic portfolio re-balancing, as suggested--then, certainly, I'd say it is more than possible to have profited during this decade. Having been a more serious investor over the last few years, I did hold during the market downturn, losing about 2/3 of my investments; but, due to maintaining my automatic monthly investments throughout this period and up to today, I've pretty much already recovered all of my losses in one year. And if I had sold before the market went sour in 2008 and bought again near the bottom, I'd have at least doubled my investment.
All in all, I'd say that the most bullish and bearish aspects of the last decade have been overstated, at least from a stock performance scenario.
financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
It occurs to me that during our threads on here on the economy and the downturn back in 2007 and 2008, every single call I made on here was right - and yet as of now, I'm actually down on my initial stake owing to a combination of poor timing and bad risk management. The markets can be cruel! Still, I'm down by less than the average fund manager, I'd wager.
Bluer White
New Yorker
What do you think about 2010?
The difference is, that is not directed at anyone in particular. Just the entire forum including myself.
Most people live pay check to pay check. There is nothing left to invest. For Billions of people, being able to obtain food and water on your own means your doing well. Again, metrics which show who has a job and who does not, or who lives in poverty are far more relevant in showing the hardship or lack there of for people in a given decade. The misery index from the late 70s is formed by combining the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. High rates of both create extreme hardship for a large segment of the population.
mad1
ONE love, blood, life
this new decade will have a lot of hell in it to.
The reason you did not get such a response is simple.
You have proven time and again that intelligent and objective responses from myself(shall we look at the history?) and other members lead to 1 of 2 things:
1.)You ignore them and go on an irrelevant tirade assuming all kinds of things from what was said.
2.)You change the subject or bring up something irrelevant.
So being incapable of responding to the kind of post you asked for in the past indicates to me that you have no concept of anything else, either.
It is really that simple.
Jive Turkey
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]@Strongbow
Yes, the unemployment was low. But a few things:
1.)As an average, remember, as someone else already pointed out, it was helped out by the very low rate that existed when Clinton left.
2.)During the sustained period of low unemployment, other indicators(most importantly average family income) show that for the people you talk about living paycheck to paycheck, it was a marked decline. Also, despite the lower unemployment, in terms of number of jobs created and the performance of the stock market, this was BY FAR, the weakest post war recovery. Clinton's term had 23 million new jobs, Bush, probably wound up about 2 million net, far from even the pace of population growth!
3.)You are trying to defend Bush, obviously. Well, he created the conditions for a massive melt down with his reckless borrowing and spending binge. Unemployment is not the only economic indicator, and you can do pretty well on this account, and on the general growth equation, when there is limitless borrowing and limitless new and unsustainable tools to facilitate this borrowing. That is of course until you have to pay the bill, which started to come due in late 2007! China, India, other creditors insisted that, if they were going to finance all of our public and private debt, that we better come up with some creative, high return tools in exchange! Easy credit, subprime mortgages, complex derivatives EXPLODED from 02-07.
So we have Mr Bush coming into office, getting us back into massive debt very quickly(before 9/11), a recession follows, unnecessary tax cuts and the Iraq war make the debt worse still. A recovery ensues, helped out by low interest rates, but its paid for with borrowed time and money. Greenspan, Bush's pal, sees a fast growing economy and leaves interest rates at a level unjustifiable given economic recovery for 2 years. Alot of easy credit there to be exploited by irresponsible lenders, borrowers and speculators. Most of the 2003-06 recovery and "prosperity" is people making up for their falling wages by using their houses as ATM machines to buy consumer goods. This is certainly far from sustainable, as 2007 through the present time have proven.
So even in the "recovery" period, which would have happened after any recession no matter the President, Bush is setting us up for the massive uptick in unemployment that took place in the last 2 years of his presidency!
Clinton= mess to strong growth, record new jobs, consistently declining unemployment with sustainable budget policies both on the tax and spending side.
Bush=Inherits best economy and most stable budget ever, leads to recession, to jobless recovery and quickly back into the worst economy since the Depression. For his term in office, unemployment is up, the stock market is MUCH LOWER than when he took office(this never happens) and we are in the worst budgetary condition ever!
Also, the VAST MAJORITY of Americans own stock, be it just their own investing(increasingly common) or through 401K's. That is of course why everyone was having a panic attack in 2008 when the stock market was tanking!
Ask anyone, from a philosophy professor to an engineer to a secretary to a business owner to the President, if they care about the stock market. They will certainly tell you yes, seeing as their retirement security largely depends on it.
You can't brush off a stock market that was much lower in 2009 than in 2000, no way, no how!
Yes, the unemployment was low. But a few things:
1.)As an average, remember, as someone else already pointed out, it was helped out by the very low rate that existed when Clinton left.
2.)During the sustained period of low unemployment, other indicators(most importantly average family income) show that for the people you talk about living paycheck to paycheck, it was a marked decline. Also, despite the lower unemployment, in terms of number of jobs created and the performance of the stock market, this was BY FAR, the weakest post war recovery. Clinton's term had 23 million new jobs, Bush, probably wound up about 2 million net, far from even the pace of population growth!
3.)You are trying to defend Bush, obviously. Well, he created the conditions for a massive melt down with his reckless borrowing and spending binge. Unemployment is not the only economic indicator, and you can do pretty well on this account, and on the general growth equation, when there is limitless borrowing and limitless new and unsustainable tools to facilitate this borrowing. That is of course until you have to pay the bill, which started to come due in late 2007! China, India, other creditors insisted that, if they were going to finance all of our public and private debt, that we better come up with some creative, high return tools in exchange! Easy credit, subprime mortgages, complex derivatives EXPLODED from 02-07.
So we have Mr Bush coming into office, getting us back into massive debt very quickly(before 9/11), a recession follows, unnecessary tax cuts and the Iraq war make the debt worse still. A recovery ensues, helped out by low interest rates, but its paid for with borrowed time and money. Greenspan, Bush's pal, sees a fast growing economy and leaves interest rates at a level unjustifiable given economic recovery for 2 years. Alot of easy credit there to be exploited by irresponsible lenders, borrowers and speculators. Most of the 2003-06 recovery and "prosperity" is people making up for their falling wages by using their houses as ATM machines to buy consumer goods. This is certainly far from sustainable, as 2007 through the present time have proven.
So even in the "recovery" period, which would have happened after any recession no matter the President, Bush is setting us up for the massive uptick in unemployment that took place in the last 2 years of his presidency!
Clinton= mess to strong growth, record new jobs, consistently declining unemployment with sustainable budget policies both on the tax and spending side.
Bush=Inherits best economy and most stable budget ever, leads to recession, to jobless recovery and quickly back into the worst economy since the Depression. For his term in office, unemployment is up, the stock market is MUCH LOWER than when he took office(this never happens) and we are in the worst budgetary condition ever!
Also, the VAST MAJORITY of Americans own stock, be it just their own investing(increasingly common) or through 401K's. That is of course why everyone was having a panic attack in 2008 when the stock market was tanking!
Ask anyone, from a philosophy professor to an engineer to a secretary to a business owner to the President, if they care about the stock market. They will certainly tell you yes, seeing as their retirement security largely depends on it.
You can't brush off a stock market that was much lower in 2009 than in 2000, no way, no how!
phillyfan26
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In summary, the economy was so good when Bush took office that the only possible way to fuck it up was ... to do exactly what Bush did. And it was so good beforehand that it took Bush almost eight years to fuck it up entirely.
But he did.
But he did.
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Does Congress not get any of the credit? Specifically Speaker Gingrich.
No, and let me tell you why.
First and foremost, the biggest contributing factor to the deficit reduction, economic growth and ultimate surplus was, by any objective standard(many economists, including right leaning Alan Greenspan agree) the 1993 deficit reduction bill. This was proposed by Clinton and passed by a Democratic Congress without ONE SINGLE REPUBLICAN VOTE! This bill cut $255 billion in spending over 10 years, raised taxes only on the top 1% for $245 billion in revenue. This led to less borrowing by the government, less debt and lower interest rates, which fueled an economic expansion.
1994, The Republicans and Gingrich take over:
Every single year, starting with the 1995 government shutdown, Gingrich proposed a budget with massive tax cuts for the top 1%, eliminating the estate tax and the cap gains tax, etc. In short, the same kind of budget Bush proposed.
Clinton vetoed and vetoed and vetoed, and since they lacked the super majority to override the vetoes, the Republicans were forced to accept legislation more to Clinton's liking.
The Republicans never passed a single budget on time, and all of the budgets passed in the 1990s reflect Clinton priorities.
Before you give them any credit, just look at the facts. The entire time Clinton is in office, the Republicans present budgets that look exactly like the Bush/Republican Congress 2000's budgets. These budgets do not pass, Clinton budgets do. This leads us to surplus and prosperity. Clinton warns us about these proposals being budget busters with every single veto. Well, what happens when their guy gets in to rubber stamp these budgets? Clinton is proven right.
Fast forward to 2001. The Republicans still run Congress, in 2003 they run both Houses of it again. The only thing missing is the prosperity--and Bill Clinton!!
So common sense should end the argument right there!
Plus, are you in your right mind? Specifically Gingrich?? Here is a man who becomes speaker, fails in getting his priorities passed, faces a Republican rank and file revolt by 1997 and then resigns in disgrace in early 1999 under a cloud of ethics charges. Under his watch, the Republicans lost the 1998 midterm elections when a Democrat was President, all a direct result of the fact that Gingrich was running on the issue of Clinton's penis. Of course, the whole time, he is using his Congressional office phone to dial up hookers. What he did to Clinton was abominable. He destroyed whatever credibility the Republicans ever had as reformers, and revealed the true agenda of the right to this day: personal destruction of any Democratic President. What the media refers to as the politics of personal destruction is largely a product of the Gingrich days! It was the exception(Joe McCarthy) to the rule before that.
The man is a scumbag and a disgrace pure and simple. What family man of values divorces his wife while she has cancer, makes her sign the papers on her death bed, runs off with some 30 yr old bimbo, then puts his family on welfare? Then claims to be the person who ended welfare as we know it, when Clinton was talking about it as far back as 1980 and had proposed a reform bill the Republicans killed in 1994.
I am not a Republican, but I do not understand for the life of me why any of my Republican friends want this guy representing their views in any way, shape or form! Pick a person who actually has some sense of integrity and decency, you will not win in 2012 with same old Newt claiming to be some new Washington outsider ready to take you back to the good old, bad old days. You would think after the Palin disaster that guys like Pawlenty, Tom Ridge and Charlie Crist who discuss issues, are not programmed to talking points and are actually upstanding people would be given a shot. However, I do not think any of those 3 mentioned would be on the short list of anyone with any influence in the GOP today.
Either way, no, the Republicans do not get any credit for a successful economic program that they opposed tooth and nail the entire way. The record of them doing so is there for anyone who looks.
Please, check the history.
There is no excuse for not complying with the rules of the forum.
There is nothing wrong with debating issues and topics, but when you go from discussing the topic to discussing a particular forum member, with labling and mis-characterizations, then your out of bounds.
Its not appropriate to be making that type of a comment in this forum.
phillyfan26
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Play nice, kids.
The 27 consecutive months that the unemployment rate was below 5% while Bush was in office occured in his 2nd term, more than 5 years AFTER Bill Clinton left office. Unemployment started to rise when Clinton left office, and rose into the first years of Bush's first term. The 27 month period is far removed from that.
Actually it doesn't. The poverty rate declined to some of its lowest levels in history during that time. Average family income was not mentioned. What was mentioned was median household income in 2000 VS 2008. Once again, just a snapshot of two different years, neither of them covering the 27 month period when unemployment was below 5%.
Again, that misses the fact that millions of jobs were created during the Bush years and retained for a long period of time. Cherry picking data from just two years, 2000 and 2009, is not going to tell you really what it was like during the entire decade. You need to consider every month during the decade! For long periods of time during the Bush administration, the economic situation was very, very good. The monthly unemployment and inflation numbers show this, as do the annual poverty rate figures.
The vast majority of people in the United States were much better off two years ago, three years ago, or in fact in any month during the Bush administrations 8 years than they have been at any time since Obama took office.
I'm just trying to get people to look at the past decade objectively. Unemployment was not the only economic indicator I mentioned. I also mentioned inflation rate, poverty rate, GDP growth rate, and debt as a percentage of GDP.
The average debt as a percentage of GDP was lower during the Bush years than the Clinton years. All in all, when you look at the numbers, the 00s were better than the 90s when it came to overall debt as a percentage of GDP.
Despite the more difficult crises that the Bush administration was forced to deal with, national debt as a percentage of GDP was still lower at this time than it was during the Clinton Administration in 1996.
Easy credit and deregulation started before Bush came into office.
But the point remains, most people were living very well during the time people in this thread are claiming was the "decade from hell" or the worse decade since the 1930s.
The unemployment rate, inflation rate, and poverty rate remained low into 2008. 2007 was a very good year for the average American in terms of whether they had a job or were living in poverty.
Unemployment did not start to significantly rise until Bush's last 6 months in office. The other 18 months you refer to had unemployment at or below 5% which is very low by any historical standard!
Oh, by the way, recovering from a recession is not at all automatic. But if it is, I'm sure Barack Obama will have unemployment levels back down below 5% as they were in early 2008 by the end of 2010.
The US did not pull out of the recession, turned depression from 1929 until nearly 15 years later. So no, there is no such thing as an automatic recovery that any President can count on. Clinton did end well, but it was far from being that simple. Debt as a percentage of GDP actually went up during Clinton's first 4 years in office. The majority of the solid economic numbers did not occur until his second term.
Again, this is another gross oversimplification and generalization of the past decade. If you actually take time to look at the monthly unemployment numbers, inflation rate, poverty rate, GDP growth, debt as a percentage of GDP numbers, your going to find that things went up and down multiple times over the course of those 10 years.
What does not get any mention at all in the above paragraph is the 27 consecutive months of having unemployment below 5% in Bush's 2nd term. The 4th longest period in US history and the 2nd longest of the past 40 years. Good times indeed when compared to nearly any other period in US economic history.
Actually its only about 50%, at least as of 2002 from a study done by The Mutual Fund Industry group - Investment Company Institute.
LOL, if you have to luxury to worry about a retirement you are indeed well off. Its not the Philosophy professor, engineer, business owner or President that suffers when the economy gets hit hard. Its the ditch digger, janitor, sandwich maker, and others who work in retail services and construction or temporary jobs. The savings rate for many of these people is zero, with bills and other expenses sucking up everything that is made. They do not have 401K or health care. When we talk about unemployment, inflation and the poverty rate, these are the people that get hit the hardest, not the people contemplating what they will have in two decades or more for some retirement. Retirement did not really exist until the 20th century and is typically only enjoyed by certain classes of people in first world countries.
Again, only half of households in the country are involved in the stock market in some way shape or form. In fact, when you exclude people who just happen to have some plan through their employer, it goes down to about 20%.
Unemployment, inflation, and GDP growth can impact everybody immediately. Those are the numbers that you tell how it is on main street where most of America lives and works.
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