33 Shocking Facts Which Show How Badly the Economy Has Tanked

[boomerang]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-...show-how-badly-economy-has-tanked-under-obama

I thought we'd have a little fun and do a fill in the blank.

It's all the fault of ______________.

Best answer wins an Obama Phone. You can get them by mail!

https://www.safelinkwireless.com/Enrollment/Safelink/en/Public/NewHome.html

 

[Atreus21]

As with any president, Obama has to bear some of the blame.

But as with Bush, I dislike attributing too much of our economic successes or failures on a single person.

 

[IronWing]

The linked rant just highlights the failure of conservative economic policies and free trade labor arbitrage. Obama for all his hope and change rhetoric has maintained faith with the failed economic policies of the past three decades.

 

[boomerang]

The linked rant just highlights the failure of conservative economic policies and free trade labor arbitrage. Obama for all his hope and change rhetoric has maintained faith with the failed economic policies of the past three decades.

So your fill in the blank is "conservative economic policies"?

Pretty shocking.

 

[IronWing]

So your fill in the blank is "conservative economic policies"?

Pretty shocking.

When that's the only flavor of economic policy we've had for three decades running, it isn't that difficult to identify the problem.

 

[fskimospy]

lol zerohedge. Why do people read that hilarious crap?

So so many of those numbers come from the fact that Obama took office during the most catastrophic economic downturn in a century, particularly the months of January-May of 2009. Most rational people would agree that his economic policies would have had limited to no impact during that time. Guess what happens when you take those months out? About half those "facts" disappear.

How anyone does much else than laugh at that website at this point is beyond me. My favorites are the constant appeals for people to buy gold.

 

[thraashman]

lol zerohedge. Why do people read that hilarious crap?

So so many of those numbers come from the fact that Obama took office during the most catastrophic economic downturn in a century, particularly the months of January-May of 2009. Most rational people would agree that his economic policies would have had limited to no impact during that time. Guess what happens when you take those months out? About half those "facts" disappear.

How anyone does much else than laugh at that website at this point is beyond me. My favorites are the constant appeals for people to buy gold.

I can pretty much tell how full of bullshit a list is if they put 2 specific things on it. First, if they mention the accumulation of debt under Obama yet ignore that he was handed the single largest budget deficit in American history and has decreased it by more than half. And the second is if they mention increase in gas prices under Obama but ignore than 7 months earlier the average gas price was the highest it's ever been in American history and was down when he took office due a historically bad economic collapse.

This list had both those things.

 

[fskimospy]

I can pretty much tell how full of bullshit a list is if they put 2 specific things on it. First, if they mention the accumulation of debt under Obama yet ignore that he was handed the single largest budget deficit in American history and has decreased it by more than half. And the second is if they mention increase in gas prices under Obama but ignore than 7 months earlier the average gas price was the highest it's ever been in American history and was down when he took office due a historically bad economic collapse.

This list had both those things.

The gas price thing is one of my favorites. Gas prices briefly dipped that low due to a worldwide economic meltdown.

http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx (look at the 8 year chart)

If we want gas prices that low again, all we need to do is destroy the world economy again! Ah well, stupid people are easily fooled.

 

[thraashman]

The gas price thing is one of my favorites. Gas prices briefly dipped that low due to a worldwide economic meltdown.

http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx (look at the 8 year chart)

If we want gas prices that low again, all we need to do is destroy the world economy again! Ah well, stupid people are easily fooled.

Also, I'm honestly not going to give a shit about what is said by anyone who posts under the name Tyler Durden. I've always though people who idolized that character from Fight Club were idiots.

 

[Smoblikat]

Oh god............listen, I hate our dictator with a passion. But he is NOT to blame completely for most, if not all of those things. He doesnt control how much healthcare costs, he doesnt control gasoline............

 

[fskimospy]

Also, I'm honestly not going to give a shit about what is said by anyone who posts under the name Tyler Durden. I've always though people who idolized that character from Fight Club were idiots.

Oh, then you'll love this. Every post made on zerohedge is done under the pseudonym Tyler Durden, no matter the author. That's how cool they think it is.

Seriously, look at the investment advice they have given during the financial crisis. If you followed it, you would be fucking broke. They should rename the site Zero Bank Account.

 

[Brian Stirling]

It doesn't matter what the crazy right wing nut jubs say as their followers will lap it up like a kitten does milk. Many of these politically motivated rants gets forwarded by like minded nut jobs to other like minded nut jobs in a kind of circle jerk that knows no end. To them the facts are an irrelevant inconvenience and can comfortably be ignored.


Brian

 

[Bowfinger]

lol zerohedge. Why do people read that hilarious crap?

So so many of those numbers come from the fact that Obama took office during the most catastrophic economic downturn in a century, particularly the months of January-May of 2009. Most rational people would agree that his economic policies would have had limited to no impact during that time. Guess what happens when you take those months out? About half those "facts" disappear.

How anyone does much else than laugh at that website at this point is beyond me. My favorites are the constant appeals for people to buy gold.

I especially enjoy that they are attacking Obama for problems the rest of us have been calling out for years. For example, they complain that the middle class is being decimated in their total share of American properity. Well no shit, Sherlock. It's a trend that started over 30 years ago, damning evidence of how badly the system has become rigged in favor of the elite few. The same applies to their shocking!!!!!!! revelation that the inflation-adjusted minimum wage today is substantially lower than it was in 1968. Duh. And who, exactly, cries the sky is falling every time someone tries to raise the minimum wage?

Then, of course, there's the usual misdirection and innuendo. Workforce participation is down. Yes, that's true, but not only are we recovering from the most severe recession since The Great Depression (as you point out), we're also seeing the Boomers retiring, a trend that's been anticipated and feared for decades. Home ownership is down. Really? What was that bubble that burst shortly before Obama took office, the one that crippled our economy? I mean really, who knew that the housing bubble collapsing would affect home ownership? Wow!

I'm not going to bother going down the list point by point, but I'll bet every single one of them has been discussed extensively in threads here. There's nothing new or surprising there. Further, a great many of them are quite directly due to Regonomics-era economic policies that righties like Boomerang endorse. To try to twist them around into an attack on Obama is blatantly dishonest and hypocritical.

 

[boomerang]

The wagons are circling...

 

[fskimospy]

The wagons are circling...

I like how people explicitly showing you why what you posted was dumb is "circling the wagons".

Look, a poorly informed website suckered you. It happens to the best of us.

 

[Bowfinger]

The wagons are circling...

And the sock puppets are dodging. How about you actually address the arguments raised instead blowing clouds of useless innuendo?



Right, that could happen.

 

[bshole]

Bowfinger,

This has to be one of your better posts. I imagine you (like me) are in the market. All these conservative haters are missing the market returns that the rest of us are reaping under Obama.

I especially enjoy that they are attacking Obama for problems the rest of us have been calling out for years. For example, they complain that the middle class is being decimated in their total share of American properity. Well no shit, Sherlock. It's a trend that started over 30 years ago, damning evidence of how badly the system has become rigged in favor of the elite few. The same applies to their shocking!!!!!!! revelation that the inflation-adjusted minimum wage today is substantially lower than it was in 1968. Duh. And who, exactly, cries the sky is falling every time someone tries to raise the minimum wage?

Then, of course, there's the usual misdirection and innuendo. Workforce participation is down. Yes, that's true, but not only are we recovering from the most severe recession since The Great Depression (as you point out), we're also seeing the Boomers retiring, a trend that's been anticipated and feared for decades. Home ownership is down. Really? What was that bubble that burst shortly before Obama took office, the one that crippled our economy? I mean really, who knew that the housing bubble collapsing would affect home ownership? Wow!

I'm not going to bother going down the list point by point, but I'll bet every single one of them has been discussed extensively in threads here. There's nothing new or surprising there. Further, a great many of them are quite directly due to Regonomics-era economic policies that righties like Boomerang endorse. To try to twist them around into an attack on Obama is blatantly dishonest and hypocritical.

 

[Jaskalas]

The linked rant just highlights the failure of conservative economic policies...

How is that stimulus money working out for you?

#2 Since Obama has been president, seven out of every eight jobs that have been "created" in the U.S. economy have been part-time jobs.

Oh... carry on then.

 

[thraashman]

How is that stimulus money working out for you?

Oh... carry on then.

However, since the passing of the ACA 87% of job growth has been in full-time positions.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...rueger-top-economist-obama-says-most-new-job/

 

[Attic]

Obama's problem is he is unwilling to honestly examine this stuff and call out the American people and both sides of the political spectrum on it. While he's very willingly to go after R, his biggest issue is not having the integrity to go after D, this allows R to disregard valid points Obama makes and allows D to wallow in misinformation. Of course Romney did the same thing during the election, just wasn't as skilled at it.

The economy is a disaster for the middle class and poor, and increasingly the upper middle class (~100K).

It is much easier to say things are getting better and *will* in the future only improve. All politcians do this, it's why they are so lousy at realizing the future they preach and why the painting always obscures the reality.

CNBC, though lousy source most info, just put out an article revealing that the median income is down 4.4% from the end of the recession.

Bottom line is the government fudges numbers and preaches the false numbers, so they don't have to look at the reality but more importantly not be held responsible against it.

Consider GDP and tax revenues ratio (historically low) and ask yourself if that might have anything to do with increasingly fake GDP numbers. It is much easier to say we need to increase taxes based on the false measure of GDP than to measure GDP with any integrity and realize the economy is not nearly as strong as it is claimed to be. I guess that works if taxes are really a workable solution, but accurately seeing a problem is probably the best way to find a solution,... even if taxing the rich is an easy way to gain support from the masses.

 

[sm625]

The linked rant just highlights the failure of conservative economic policies and free trade labor arbitrage. Obama for all his hope and change rhetoric has maintained faith with the failed economic policies of the past three decades.

There is nothing conservative about forcing the offshoring of labor due to extreme over-regulation and outright treasonous bribes. Yes, literal bribes to get countries to offshore. Bribes made using taxpayer money. The same taxpayers who then re-elect the ones who set up these bribes.

There is no incentive to create jobs in the US because of the bureaucratic bloat. The only way to do it is to leverage massive corporate size/pricing power (WMT) or suck off government deficit spending (GE,UTX), or by sucking off Federal Reserve (GS,JPM,BAC), or to position yourself around government policy (KELYA). Isnt KELYA (Kelly Services) the #1 employer now? That is brought on directly by Obama. The rest is liberal/progressive policy all the way. Huge bloated government responsible for almost all of it. Over 95%. Even most of the so called "free trade" derogatory framing nonsense is only made possible through huge government intervention, again a progressive notion hijacked by lobbyists. It's all about massive corporations lobbying to get money to go offshore. Very little offshoring is totally organic in the sense that it had absolutely nothing to do with being somehow paid to do it. In each and every case of offshoring you can trace the reasoning back to profits made possible through some sort of tax deal or grant or regulatory compliance costs being so high that you just cant hire. Sorry but you just cant do it if it costs more than it can make. You just cant. I dont know why these idiots dont understand that.

But people not only want to sit around and take it until there is nothing left, they want even more of it. In 2016, the only alternative to this raping is going to be another Bush type who pretends to be conservative but follows the exact same policies just like Bush and Obama and Clinton. Bloat, regulate, offshore, destroy. Spend moar, and go to war!

 

[Attic]

However, since the passing of the ACA 87% of job growth has been in full-time positions.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...rueger-top-economist-obama-says-most-new-job/

It's all about time frame and the adjustments (Read:Magic) put into the government numbers and the intelligence of the enlightened folks who can read into it to find a conclusion rather than looking at the data and drawing a conclusion.

You think R and D disagree because the data is actually different? Both idiots merely distract the masses from being able to focus on truth so that they can maintain control of the masses. Hey, maybe the do know more than everybody else and that's the right way, who needs truth in an increasingly growing empire of lies these days?

 

[thraashman]

It's all about time frame and the adjustments (Read:Magic) put into the government numbers and the intelligence of the enlightened folks who can read into it to find a conclusion rather than looking at the data and drawing a conclusion.

You think R and D disagree because the data is actually different? Both idiots merely distract the masses from being able to focus on truth so that they can maintain control of the masses. Hey, maybe the do know more than everybody else and that's the right way, who needs truth in an increasingly growing empire of lies these days?

That's the point. This whole list is all about time frame and adjustments. It's trying to make you believe that prior to Obama everything was perfect and that from the second he was inaugurated the economy reset like magic.

 

[Attic]

That's the point. This whole list is all about time frame and adjustments. It's trying to make you believe that prior to Obama everything was perfect and that from the second he was inaugurated the economy reset like magic.

I didn't read it like that, but can see the point given the ominous nature of it's headline and the likelihood it was intended to call out Obama.

A few points are questionable at best and deceitful at worst, but overall it serves to challenge the notion that the economy is improving to the degree the MSM and Obama are running with.

Many many people are still hurting as bad, or worse than during the height of the great recession. I've been given the impression this issue has been ignored in favor of putting out the idea that housing is booming therefore the economy is saved.

From what I've seen the TBTF have been given more power and the financialization of our culture (that has lead to disastrous results for most) has grown stronger under Obama even if it was growing stronger as well during Bush.


How do meaningful problems get solved if they are not honestly acknowledged? This leads to death of addicts and it leads to suffering in nations.


Edit: Just watched Obama on student loan debt. Felt the same way, he talks about how nobody wants to be in debt (of course), but failed to acknowledge that the system is reliant on the masses being bogged in debt. If you remove consumer debt, or the magnitude of debt to income levels of the masses, the economy implodes. He also failed to draw any conclusions about federal governments involvement in issues and how it nearly always drives up the cost of the subject at hand.

 

[fskimospy]

I didn't read it like that, but can see the point given the ominous nature of it's headline and the likelihood it was intended to call out Obama.

A few points are questionable at best and deceitful at worst, but overall it serves to challenge the notion that the economy is improving to the degree the MSM and Obama are running with.

Many many people are still hurting as bad, or worse than during the height of the great recession. I've been given the impression this issue has been ignored in favor of putting out the idea that housing is booming therefore the economy is saved.

From what I've seen the TBTF have been given more power and the financialization of our culture (that has lead to disastrous results for most) has grown stronger under Obama even if it was growing strong as well during Bush.

I'm not sure what articles you've been reading, but the media articles I see on the economy basically say that it is improving slowly, but at a rate that is insufficient to make up the lost employment ground any time soon. I find that to be pretty accurate.