How Bush compares with Hoover on jobs

[charrison]

Linkage

The real point is that the effort to link Bush with Hoover is a classic case of what a psychiatrist might call transference. During his four years in office, Hoover followed the very policies being advocated most ardently these days by the Democrats ? tax increases, trade barriers and higher spending on social programs. If anybody is following in the tradition of Hoover, it?s Kerry and Edwards, who are advocating the same castor oil for the economy.

Also note that the critics carefully limit their Hoover comparison to the number of jobs lost. True, under Bush, jobs have declined 2.2 million, about the same as under the four years of the Hoover administration from 1929 to 1933. But in 1929, when the population was 121 million, a job loss of two million was a national catastrophe. It sent unemployment rocketing from 3.2 percent in 1929 to 23.6 percent in 1932. In 2004, when the population is more than 280 million, a loss of two million jobs means a national unemployment rate of 5.6 percent, sorrowful for the individuals involved but hardly a national calamity.


...

FDR scrapped his own balanced budget pledge as soon as he took office in 1932 and opened the spending spigots. By 1936, the deficit had risen to 5.5 percent of national output ? even higher than the Bush deficit is expected to be. And while the number of jobs did expand, it was still 3.2 million jobs short of the 1929 high water mark. By 1936, unemployment still stood at 16.9 percent, nearly triple today?s national unemployment rate.

Even after another four years of New Deal economics, including a hefty tax hike that did little to narrow the deficit, unemployment was still 14.6 percent. But we don?t hear Democrats talking about an FDR disaster.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Seems like Gephardt(and the others who bleat these things) should be talking about Hoover and/or FDR as "disasters" instead of Bush

CkG

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Would higher taxes at least reduce inequality and ?unfairness,? as Kerry and Edwards are claiming? The data on this issue only go back to 1947, but it?s worth remembering that in the 1990s, after Bill Clinton?s 1993 increase in the top income tax rate, inequality actually increased. The top five percent of income earners went from having 17.4 percent of all income in 1990, at the end of the Reagan decade, to 21.1 percent in 2000. The bottom 20 percent lost ground.

What a tool . . . the actual tax burden (local/state/federal) has increased dramatically for lower income earners and fallen for the top bracket . . . while deficits have EXPLODED. If change regressive taxes (FICA) then you can reduce inequality in the system. Clinton's tax increase helped reduce the deficit but likely had minimal effect on income distribution b/c other factors were more dominant.

Bush may not have a great economic record, at least so far.

Umm . . . what a tool . . . not even the most partisan hack could possibly claim Bush has a great economic record. And the notion of a future great economic record is wishful thinking.

But comparing Bush with Hoover is a bit like comparing a pothole in the road to Death Valley. And it suggests that Democrats don?t have a firm grip on what makes an economy tick.

Here's one for economy ticking . . . it's the unfunded liabilities that continue to be ignored by this administration while it piles up more current account deficits. Odds are Bush will be collecting speaker fees when that bomb goes off. Granted, I cannot imagine anyone would pay to hear Bush mumble.

 

[SuperTool]

A viable middle class is a threat to Republican cheap labor dreams

 

[chess9]

SuperTool:


No, no, no.

The cheap labor jobs are going overseas. ONLY the cheap labor jobs, of course.

The Bush/Greenspan/ManCow Economy is going to have us all doing nothing but the hoity-tioity heavy intellectual lifting jobs befitting our soon to be royal status. You know, the comparative advantage of our economy will spring board us all into 7 figure annual salaries any day now.

Most economists are complete numbskulls....The same people who gave us trickle down economics are now telling us how lucky we are to be losing jobs.

Meanwhile Pittsburg steelworkers can't get a job, N.C. textile workers are working at Wal-Mart, and Ohio auto parts manufacturing employees are on the verge of suicide. But, then, economists don't want to talk about just a few (2.2 million) jobs. They're only interested in THE BIG PICTURE.

Bwuahahahahaha!!!

Am I laughing or cyring?

Where is Moonbeam?

-Robert

 

[XZeroII]

The PROBLEM is that everyone in this country is looking for the 'quick fix'. They cry and cry about how unemployment is at 6% (which isn't even that high to begin with), and they want that number lowered RIGHT NOW! They want the economy to pick up and move like a runaway freight train and they want it to happen yesterday. Then they cry about low taxes (a first in history, probably), then they cry about a high deficit!

It boils down to the fact that the average american has gotten considerably dumber when it comes to economics. They think that economics is a short term thing and they problems with the economy can be fixed overnight. Well, that is simply not true. It takes years to fix an economy and if you ask me, Bush has done what any other president would have done with the exception of Gore who said that he would jack up taxes in order to get us out of a recession (which is the exact opposite of what you are supposed to do).