Todd33
Diamond Member
- Oct 16, 2003
- 7,842
- 2
- 81
that's right. recession began in 2000. bush began term in January 2001.
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is the private, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization charged with determining economic recessions, the U.S. economy was in recession from March 2001 to November 2001 [3], a period of eight months at the beginning of President George W. Bush's term of office. However, economic conditions did not satisfy the common shorthand definition of recession, which is "a fall of a country's real gross domestic product in two or more successive quarters," and has led to some confusion about the procedure for determining the starting and ending dates of a recession.
The NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee (BCDC) uses monthly, rather than quarterly, indicators to determine peaks and troughs in business activity,[4] as can be seen by noting that starting and ending dates are given by month and year, not quarters. However, controversy over the precise dates of the recession led to the characterization of the recession as the "Clinton Recession" by Republicans, if it could be traced to the final term of President Bill Clinton. A move in the recession date in a 2004 report by the Council of Economic Advisors to several months before the one given by the NBER was seen as politically motivated.[5]
Even if Bush inherited a baby recession, he left a large one erasing all growth in those eight years, thus the rich-poor gap looking neutral. Of course we know the Bush tax cuts helped the rich immensely and they will recover much more, hence the Obama looking positive.