33 Shocking Facts Which Show How Badly the Economy Has Tanked

[dmcowen674]

I was listening to the news on the radio this morning on the way home from work and they said more than half of Louisiana folks blame Katrina on Obama.

 

[Attic]

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.

Main gripe is unemployment ratio when detached from labor participation rate, job growth detached from median incomes, housing recovery detached from house affordability related to median incomes, and overall recovery detached from wealth increases/decreases based wealth.

From the articles I read, mainly politico, cnn, zerohedge, stuff linked here, and various others I get strong conflicting info about the state of the economy, but generally find the more main stream sites are less willing to dig into anything beyond headline numbers.

 

[Brian Stirling]

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!

Here's how regulation works...

First, the regulations are pretty small and concise but industry lawyers look for loopholes and industry exploits them so the regulations get amended and hundreds of pages are added. Then industry lawyers look for loopholes again and industry exploits them so regulations get amended again and hundreds more pages are added. Repeat!

The primary reasons good jobs (manufacturing) have been outsourced are:

1. Labor is much cheaper elsewhere

2. It cost less to build and maintain a factory if pollution controls aren't needed

3. It cost less to build and maintain a factory if controls for worker safety can be omitted


Brian

 

[thraashman]

I was listening to the news on the radio this morning on the way home from work and they said more than half of Louisiana folks blame Katrina on Obama.

There's a thread about that actually.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2338043

 

[fskimospy]

Main gripe is unemployment ratio when detached from labor participation rate, job growth detached from median incomes, housing recovery detached from house affordability related to median incomes, and overall recovery detached from wealth increases/decreases based wealth.

From the articles I read, mainly politico, cnn, zerohedge, stuff linked here, and various others I get strong conflicting info about the state of the economy, but generally find the more main stream sites are less willing to dig into anything beyond headline numbers.

Well Zerohedge will just give you wrong information, or at least so much wrong information that it's impossible to tell the good from the bad.

As far as the other issues, I think you should look into it more. Most of what you're talking about here is simply the reporting on monthly job numbers, and so it's no surprise they don't delve into deeper issues in those articles. There have been a number about how median incomes and median wealth have suffered in the recession.

 

[boomerang]

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.

Every stat you see linked to there is prefaced in the opening paragraphs by the following:

The cold, hard reality of the matter is that the U.S. economy has been steadily declining for over a decade, and this decline has continued while Obama has been living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Your post is why I see little value in arguing with leftist logic. You get your panties all knotted up when somebody criticizes your tunnel vision view of the world and you haven't taken the time to even understand what you're arguing. If you're going to continue to argue that everything's rosy, why should anyone waste their time with you?

Stats that are pro Obama are wonderful and glorious and are to be celebrated and stats that are anti-Obama are ridiculous and racist. Sums up the entire leftist position.

Carry on. Get your Hillary mojo goin'. This guy isn't capable. Time to concentrate on the next "leader".

 

[fskimospy]

Every stat you see linked to there is prefaced in the opening paragraphs by the following:



Your post is why I see little value in arguing with leftist logic. You get your panties all knotted up when somebody criticizes your tunnel vision view of the world and you haven't taken the time to even understand what you're arguing. If you're going to continue to argue that everything's rosy, why should anyone waste their time with you?

Stats that are pro Obama are wonderful and glorious and are to be celebrated and stats that are anti-Obama are ridiculous and racist. Sums up the entire leftist position.

Carry on. Get your Hillary mojo goin'. This guy isn't capable. Time to concentrate on the next "leader".

Easily fooled people like yourself help to give statistics the bad name they have in politics. When others realize that you'll just eat up anything they serve to you and do so uncritically, they see no need to try to be better.

 

[Incorruptible]

It's not really shocking at all. Just looking at the economic policies of obama and it doesn't take much to realize he can't fix the economy. People need to realize that big government doesn't work and Capitalism is the answer to fix our economy.

 

[Double Trouble]

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.

This is how I see it as well. A lot of the "recovery" we've seen seems to me to be smoke and mirrors (the fed pumping in money, additional debt etc), part time jobs being created makes the unemployment picture look better than it really is and so forth.

Anyone who thinks it makes sense to pin all that on one president is a fool. The mess we have is the result of many actions over many years by many people. No matter what the politicians tell us when election season rolls around again, it's not going to get any better anytime soon.

 

[Atreus21]

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

I'm a crazy right wing nut job. I follow crazy right wing nut jobs.

I didn't lap it up like a kitten does milk.

 

[OCGuy]

Poor kids can only have the iPod 1, they can't get a new one.


Waaahhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

[First]

Sad that gym owner OP's life is so bad that he can't legitimize his assertions with reliable statistics. This is the reason said OP is a gym owner, and not a skilled businessman with an education.

 

[Brian Stirling]

I'm a crazy right wing nut job. I follow crazy right wing nut jobs.

I didn't lap it up like a kitten does milk.

So, what you're saying is ...???


Brian

 

[boomerang]

Sad that gym owner OP's life is so bad that he can't legitimize his assertions with reliable statistics. This is the reason said OP is a gym owner, and not a skilled businessman with an education.

OMG, derision based in conjecture from a progressive! I must find a skirt to go hide under!

You'll always be last in my book First. :wub:

 

[First]

...conjecture...

Nah, we've all seen this act. Hopelessly ideological conservative pretends to be successful business owner, but really never achieved anything in school or much in business, tries to talk about subjects he doesn't understand.

 

[boomerang]

Nah, we've all seen this act. Hopelessly ideological conservative pretends to be successful business owner, but really never achieved anything in school or much in business, tries to talk about subjects he doesn't understand.

First, you remind of something I stepped in once. I let it dry and when I scraped it off, it still stunk like shit.

You'll always be last in my book First. :wub:

 

[Incorruptible]

First, you remind of something I stepped in once. I let it dry and when I scraped it off, it still stunk like shit.

You'll always be last in my book First. :wub:

Nicely said. The left loves to resort to character assassinations and personal attacks when they lose the debate.

 

[thraashman]

Nicely said. The left loves to resort to character assassinations and personal attacks when they lose the debate.

You have to realize how silly this post is. You're praising a personal attack by a righty and calling out a much milder attack from a lefty.

You're why we can't have nice things in P&N. It was so much better in the couple weeks you were gone.

 

[First]

Dude, I'm a gym owner. Fuck.

Fixed.

Yeah, I know, dude.

 

[Spungo]

And the sock puppets are dodging.

Suppose a sock puppet goes down on you. Does that count as a blow job or a hand job?

Are the numbers in the OP legit? Some of them are scary.
-53 percent of all American workers now make less than $30,000 a year.
-40 percent of all workers in the United States actually make less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968.

Damn! Basically that means the average American works at Walmart or McDonalds.

 

[werepossum]

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.

Very well said. Increasingly our economy is a put-and-take fishery, where government creates money (via the Fed), borrows it (and a bunch more), and spends it. Obama gets the blame because he's in charge, but this is the mainstream of both parties' leadership. The only real difference is exactly how much more than we have we should spend, and how much seizure and redistribution we should have afterward.

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!

I agree there's nothing conservative about this, but it's as strong a position among political conservatives as among political liberals - as you note at the end. Political liberals drive jobs offshore with the stick of over-regulation and taxation; political conservatives drive jobs offshore with the carrot of lower taxation of the higher profits to be made in off-shoring. Whether one calls this economic theory conservative or liberal seems to depend mainly on how one feels about the political spectrum as a whole. Perhaps a better metric would be nationalist or internationalist.

Here's how regulation works...

First, the regulations are pretty small and concise but industry lawyers look for loopholes and industry exploits them so the regulations get amended and hundreds of pages are added. Then industry lawyers look for loopholes again and industry exploits them so regulations get amended again and hundreds more pages are added. Repeat!

The primary reasons good jobs (manufacturing) have been outsourced are:

1. Labor is much cheaper elsewhere

2. It cost less to build and maintain a factory if pollution controls aren't needed

3. It cost less to build and maintain a factory if controls for worker safety can be omitted


Brian

This is true, but I think where the Libertarian Party misses the mark is two-fold. First, a lot of those regulations are good, even if sometimes abused. Copper Hill, Tennessee was once one of the most polluted areas on Earth. You could once tell what die lots North Carolina paper factories were using by the color of the French Broad River. And northeastern rivers like the Potomac were once notorious for actually catching on fire. All that is within my adult lifetime. No one wants to return to those days, but without regulation companies that are willing to behave thusly will always have a big competitive advantage over companies that behave responsibly.

The other area where the Libertarian Party misses the mark is that lack of regulation does not change the fact that it will still be much cheaper to build, maintain and operate factories in third world nations even if America threw out all our regulations. The third world population is simply willing (even eager) to live a lifestyle far below what we will willingly accept. Our welfare people live a better lifestyle than do much of the world's workers, even better in many metrics than the average European, and yet none of us want that lifestyle. Once we maintained a competitive advantage via technology, but Clinton sold that (his only unforgivable sin in my eyes) and there is no way to get it back.

I see no way for us to enjoy anything like our current lifestyle and still participate in an open market. Even if we restricted our open market to nations with similar labor rates and regulatory burdens, we'd have to give up being the world's lone superpower and the world's policeman; our defense costs are simply too high to be competitive. And once we give up being the world's lone superpower, that power inevitably devolves to Red China. Not exactly desirable.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Very well said. Increasingly our economy is a put-and-take fishery, where government creates money (via the Fed), borrows it (and a bunch more), and spends it. Obama gets the blame because he's in charge, but this is the mainstream of both parties' leadership. The only real difference is exactly how much more than we have we should spend, and how much seizure and redistribution we should have afterward.


I agree there's nothing conservative about this, but it's as strong a position among political conservatives as among political liberals - as you note at the end. Political liberals drive jobs offshore with the stick of over-regulation and taxation; political conservatives drive jobs offshore with the carrot of lower taxation of the higher profits to be made in off-shoring. Whether one calls this economic theory conservative or liberal seems to depend mainly on how one feels about the political spectrum as a whole. Perhaps a better metric would be nationalist or internationalist.


This is true, but I think where the Libertarian Party misses the mark is two-fold. First, a lot of those regulations are good, even if sometimes abused. Copper Hill, Tennessee was once one of the most polluted areas on Earth. You could once tell what die lots North Carolina paper factories were using by the color of the French Broad River. And northeastern rivers like the Potomac were once notorious for actually catching on fire. All that is within my adult lifetime. No one wants to return to those days, but without regulation companies that are willing to behave thusly will always have a big competitive advantage over companies that behave responsibly.

The other area where the Libertarian Party misses the mark is that lack of regulation does not change the fact that it will still be much cheaper to build, maintain and operate factories in third world nations even if America threw out all our regulations. The third world population is simply willing (even eager) to live a lifestyle far below what we will willingly accept. Our welfare people live a better lifestyle than do much of the world's workers, even better in many metrics than the average European, and yet none of us want that lifestyle. Once we maintained a competitive advantage via technology, but Clinton sold that (his only unforgivable sin in my eyes) and there is no way to get it back.

I see no way for us to enjoy anything like our current lifestyle and still participate in an open market. Even if we restricted our open market to nations with similar labor rates and regulatory burdens, we'd have to give up being the world's lone superpower and the world's policeman; our defense costs are simply too high to be competitive. And once we give up being the world's lone superpower, that power inevitably devolves to Red China. Not exactly desirable.

You're missing the fact as to how much of the regulatory legislation is actually created in this nation as a direct result of major players within industries lobbying for needless regulations to increase the cost of entry for would-be competitors entering their industry. Consequently it is these very same major companies who best understand how to navigate these regulations which does not involve using "loopholes" as that would bring down the wrath of government, but by creating exemptions and benefits for themselves that fall in line with the political agenda of other groups. No one in the Libertarian side is saying that rampant and wanton reckless pollution is okay by businesses but the real question being asked and the real issue is whether or not said regulation in the long term has harmful consequences, is redundant in the face of industry standards/self-regulation already in place and only serves a political piece for a ambitions politician or is just a band aid approach that in fact rewards, exempts etc companies who often have a much larger role in creating said regulatory legislation which they benefit from the most as compared to their competitors.

A great example is how GE can and does LEGALLY take advantage of the tax code via "GREEN" energy tax credits for developing products that meet the certification process to have a "GREEN ENERGY APPLIANCE" sticker slapped onto these products which they than write off via this tax credit. All of it is legal, all of it is supported by politicians who put this as a carrot into the tax code which companies like GE use to the fullest but calling it a "loophole" or "exploit" is false when what they are doing all falls in line with how the law was written.

 

[Engineer]

The foundation is nearly gone....down the building will fall. Those at the top will escape with corporate jets and golden parachutes.

 

[werepossum]

You're missing the fact as to how much of the regulatory legislation is actually created in this nation as a direct result of major players within industries lobbying for needless regulations to increase the cost of entry for would-be competitors entering their industry. Consequently it is these very same major companies who best understand how to navigate these regulations which does not involve using "loopholes" as that would bring down the wrath of government, but by creating exemptions and benefits for themselves that fall in line with the political agenda of other groups. No one in the Libertarian side is saying that rampant and wanton reckless pollution is okay by businesses but the real question being asked and the real issue is whether or not said regulation in the long term has harmful consequences, is redundant in the face of industry standards/self-regulation already in place and only serves a political piece for a ambitions politician or is just a band aid approach that in fact rewards, exempts etc companies who often have a much larger role in creating said regulatory legislation which they benefit from the most as compared to their competitors.

A great example is how GE can and does LEGALLY take advantage of the tax code via "GREEN" energy tax credits for developing products that meet the certification process to have a "GREEN ENERGY APPLIANCE" sticker slapped onto these products which they than write off via this tax credit. All of it is legal, all of it is supported by politicians who put this as a carrot into the tax code which companies like GE use to the fullest but calling it a "loophole" or "exploit" is false when what they are doing all falls in line with how the law was written.

I'm aware of that, and I do think we can (and should) cut out probably 1/3 to 1/2 of our regulations. Problem is, why would we think that government would cut out the RIGHT 1/3 to 1/2 of our regulations? In reality the regulations cut would probably be the ones which were most onerous to the most powerful politicians' power base. Thus we could easily get more pollution with little real decrease in unnecessary regulations.

I think to a great degree this is an inevitable result of having such a huge and powerful government, as power held will always be exercised. When government holds life or death power over individual businesses and even industries, no amount of restriction is going to stop lobbying; at best it could drive it to arm's length and/or underground. My own preference would be to decouple taxes and regulatory burden by removing corporate income taxes and moving to a consumption-based sales tax, so that domestic and imported products have exactly the same American tax burden. (The consumer pays for all taxes and burdens in the end anyway, as that is merely part of the cost of doing business.) Tax breaks like Energy Star would then become consumer-level, and ideally temporary in nature. We target a specified efficiency and set a target date by which all such products much meet the standard, with a tax break for those which meet the standard early.

 

[Jhhnn]

Are the numbers in the OP legit? Some of them are scary.
-53 percent of all American workers now make less than $30,000 a year.
-40 percent of all workers in the United States actually make less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968.

Damn! Basically that means the average American works at Walmart or McDonalds.

So, uhh, supply side trickledown Reaganomics aren't what nutcases like incorruptible claim they are? The top 1% share of income doubled in 30 years at the expense of the lower 50%?

Some of us figured that out 30 years ago. Some of us are so well indoctrinated that they never will.

Job Creators! All they need is another tax cut, less govt interference & more Freedom! to create a Capitalist Utopia! Honest! True Story, Bro!

It's just a Utopia for them, of course. What do the rest of us get, other than Cornholio?