maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Strongbow has no concept of anything, never mind basic statistics.
She has a long history of proving this.
Wait. . .
Strongbow is a SHE?
Really?
Strongbow has no concept of anything, never mind basic statistics.
She has a long history of proving this.
Those 27 months coincide more or less with the bubble period - i.e., unsustainable. Asset price bubbles are of their nature unsustainable.
the total lack of analysis is mind boggling.
we have an extensive piece of analysis by one of the biggest magazines in the world
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.
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.
To paraphrase the question Ronald Reagan posed years ago, Are you better off today than you were at the beginning of the decade? For most of us, the answer is a resounding no. Let us count the ways. For one thing, the stock market is down 26% since 2000, making this the worst decade for stocks. (Inflation-adjusted, it's even worse.) I remember Warren Buffett telling me at the beginning of the decade that there was no way the go-go returns of the 1990s were going to continue and that we had better get used to meager returns going forward. Buffett saw it coming.
For the average working stiff, it was a pretty lousy 10 years. The median household income in 2000 was $52,500. Last year (the most recent year available) it was $50,303.
The vast majority of people in this world don't even own stock.
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.
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.
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.
Wonderful. More pointless labling of forum members.
Little San Francisco.
If thats not setting yourself up to be shot down, I dont know what is
Wow, what an intelligent, objective, respectful and forum appropriate response.
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.
Clinton= mess to strong growth, record new jobs, consistently declining unemployment with sustainable budget policies both on the tax and spending side.
Does Congress not get any of the credit? Specifically Speaker Gingrich.
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.
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.
]@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!
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!