Some interesting facts in this article - PSA - they ain't good

[Sho'Nuff]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016...ending-one-father-or-meltdown-us-economy.html

Here's some of the more interesting bits:

• Obama is the only president in the history of America to preside over 7 straight years of GDP growth under 3 percent.

• Obama will become the only president in America’s history to never produce a single year of 3% or higher GDP.

• The longest previous streak of under 3% GDP in the history of America was four years (1930 to 1933) during the depths of the Great Depression.

• There are 70 percent more Americans collecting entitlement checks than working in the private sector (148 million “takers” vs. 86 million “makers”).

• 13 of the 23 Obamacare State Co-Op Exchanges have failed (gone bust and broke). The remaining 10 have losses of over $200 million per year.

• In this Obama economy, 40% of American workers now earn less (adjusted for inflation) than a full-time minimum wage worker in 1968.

• Forty-three percent of student loan borrowers aren’t making any loan payments.

Trump might represent the end of when a republican candidate has a chance of being president. But it also shows how Democratic policies in general are starting to kill this country by a death of a thousand needles.

FWIW - some of the line items in this article unfairly attribute 100% of the blame to Obama.
He did come into one of the worst economic situations in recent memory. But he still bears at least some of the responsibility for failing to adequately address many of the above noted issues.

 

[theeedude]

From the brink of a second Great Depression to 4.9% unemployment. Not bad.

 

[JSt0rm]

From the brink of a second Great Depression to 4.9% unemployment. Not bad.

Its kind of amazing how bad bush fucked things up.

 

[Sonikku]

If only we had elected McCain. None of this would have happened.

Well, maybe. :hmm:

 

[IronWing]

Maybe there's a connection between eroding the purchasing power of the minimum wage and expanding entitlements? Maybe the taxpayers are subsidizing low wages for private industry?

Maybe there's a connection between longer life expediencies plus retiring boomers and the increase in entitlements?

How many of those not paying on student loans are still in school?

How is a President supposed to magically fix an economy when Congress refuses to act?

 

[zinfamous]

Trump might represent the end of when a republican candidate has a chance of being president. But it also shows how Democratic policies in general are starting to kill this country by a death of a thousand needles.

FWIW - some of the line items in this article unfairly attribute 100% of the blame to Obama.
He did come into one of the worst economic situations in recent memory. But he still bears at least some of the responsibility for failing to adequately address many of the above noted issues.

First bolded ties to your 2nd bolded--You can't honestly ascribe these numbers to failed democratic policies any more than you can to successful democratic policies that turned an imminent disaster into slow, measured, recovery.

Could the recovery have been faster? Yes, maybe, no? Do you know? I doubt anyone knows.

Of course he bears some responsibility in adequately addressing some issues, but it is one of those things that will take a decade or several decades of data to define that adequacy. Obama's major achievement is that he turned a very certain disaster into not a disaster; a recession into a recovery. No one can ever adequately praise the actions that prevented an outcome that we didn't experience--because we simply don't know that experience.

As for the failed state exchanges under the ACA--you're going to have to look to the republican governors of those states that directly chose to play team politics over the needs and of their citizens.

 

[IronWing]

The failure of the ACA should surprise no one. The private health insurance industry is simply incapable of delivering universal healthcare. The ACA is just another conservative road block on the road to a single payer system. Hopefully, healthcare spending won't finish destroying our economy before we get there.

 

[dank69]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016...ending-one-father-or-meltdown-us-economy.html

Here's some of the more interesting bits:

• Obama is the only president in the history of America to preside over 7 straight years of GDP growth under 3 percent.

• Obama will become the only president in America’s history to never produce a single year of 3% or higher GDP.

• The longest previous streak of under 3% GDP in the history of America was four years (1930 to 1933) during the depths of the Great Depression.

• There are 70 percent more Americans collecting entitlement checks than working in the private sector (148 million “takers” vs. 86 million “makers”).

• 13 of the 23 Obamacare State Co-Op Exchanges have failed (gone bust and broke). The remaining 10 have losses of over $200 million per year.

• In this Obama economy, 40% of American workers now earn less (adjusted for inflation) than a full-time minimum wage worker in 1968.

• Forty-three percent of student loan borrowers aren’t making any loan payments.

Trump might represent the end of when a republican candidate has a chance of being president. But it also shows how Democratic policies in general are starting to kill this country by a death of a thousand needles.

FWIW - some of the line items in this article unfairly attribute 100% of the blame to Obama.
He did come into one of the worst economic situations in recent memory. But he still bears at least some of the responsibility for failing to adequately address many of the above noted issues.

You are neglecting the fact that Republicans blocked most of the policies he wanted to implement.

 

[thraashman]

So ... republicans fuck up the economy the second worst it's ever been in US history then proceed to filibuster any attempts to make things better in fact invoking its use more under Obama than it had been used in the entire previous history of the US. And despite that the deficit has been reduced by 2/3 and unemployment rate has dropped significantly while gas has been reasonably priced and the DOW has skyrocketed... But yeah, everything sucks and it's Obama's fault. Sound logic there.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I want to say this is a highly suspicious fact

• There are 70 percent more Americans collecting entitlement checks than working in the private sector (148 million “takers” vs. 86 million “makers”).

Its been talked about since the mid 80's that this will happen when the Boomers retire. We all want to retire at some point. I'll accept that both parties have never made a serious attempt at saving for this day. Absolutely not Obama's fault he's just the guy who is in office when it began.

 

[Brainonska511]

• There are 70 percent more Americans collecting entitlement checks than working in the private sector (148 million “takers” vs. 86 million “makers”).

That seems like a statistic meant to deeply mislead people. What's the breakdown on that - such as the number of retired people in 2008 versus the number of retired people now. Or the change in ratio between the number of people working versus the number of people not working.

 

[fskimospy]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016...ending-one-father-or-meltdown-us-economy.html

Here's some of the more interesting bits:

• Obama is the only president in the history of America to preside over 7 straight years of GDP growth under 3 percent.

• Obama will become the only president in America’s history to never produce a single year of 3% or higher GDP.

• The longest previous streak of under 3% GDP in the history of America was four years (1930 to 1933) during the depths of the Great Depression.

The CBO says that it is reasonably likely the US will never see growth above 3% again, barring some speculative bubble such as the one that drove growth in the middle of GWB's presidency.

As for the years in a row or the 'not recording a year of greater than 3%', that's functionally meaningless as it's an arbitrary distinction.

• There are 70 percent more Americans collecting entitlement checks than working in the private sector (148 million “takers” vs. 86 million “makers”).

This is a highly misleading figure. The first thing it misses is that plenty of those people collecting entitlement checks are ALSO private sector workers. Second, the 'americans collecting entitlement checks' includes the families/children of individuals getting government assistance while the private sector worker number includes only those people working. Not an apples to apples comparison.

• 13 of the 23 Obamacare State Co-Op Exchanges have failed (gone bust and broke). The remaining 10 have losses of over $200 million per year.

This is indeed a problem!

• In this Obama economy, 40% of American workers now earn less (adjusted for inflation) than a full-time minimum wage worker in 1968.

The fact that conservatives oppose a high minimum wage and that this figure is cherry picked from the highest real value of the minimum wage in US history aside, this is also highly misleading as it is comparing a group that includes part time workers to a group that does not.

• Forty-three percent of student loan borrowers aren’t making any loan payments.

This is indeed a problem!

Overall though, this is why it's a bad idea to get things from opinion pieces. The author is trying to push an agenda and it's pretty common for them to dishonestly twist data to fit their narrative.

Trump might represent the end of when a republican candidate has a chance of being president. But it also shows how Democratic policies in general are starting to kill this country by a death of a thousand needles.

FWIW - some of the line items in this article unfairly attribute 100% of the blame to Obama.
He did come into one of the worst economic situations in recent memory. But he still bears at least some of the responsibility for failing to adequately address many of the above noted issues.

What specific policies of his do you think are 'killing this country' and why?

 

[antihelten]

That seems like a statistic meant to deeply mislead people. What's the breakdown on that - such as the number of retired people in 2008 versus the number of retired people now. Or the change in ratio between the number of people working versus the number of people not working.

It's a deeply misleading statistic, the number seems to originate from here.

Basically it only counts full time workers in the 86 million number, if you also count part time workers then the number becomes 129 million. If you also count people working in the public sector (and why wouldn't you), then you end up at 150 million.

Secondly the 148 million "takers" number is also highly misleading. Basically it counts 108 million people who lives in a household where one or more persons are receiving entitlement. In other words if you have 4 people in a home were only 1 receives entitlements of any kinds it would still count as 4 people on entitlement.

And of course finally as Eskimospy already pointed out there is undoubtably a lot of overlap between "takers" and "makers".

The CBO says that it is reasonably likely the US will never see growth above 3% again, barring some speculative bubble such as the one that drove growth in the middle of GWB's presidency.

As for the years in a row or the 'not recording a year of greater than 3%', that's functionally meaningless as it's an arbitrary distinction.

A much more meaningful way for looking at a given administrations performance would be to look at the cumulative annual growth rate, where I believe Obama has done fairly decently.

 

[Joepublic2]

But it also shows how Democratic policies in general are starting to kill this country by a death of a thousand needles.

Being a pedant here, but the phrase is "death by a thousand cuts" (roughly, eastern languages often don't translate precisely to western tongues). It's referencing this:

Lingchi (凌迟; 凌遲; língchí; ling-ch'ih, alternately transliterated ling chi or leng t'che), translated variously as death by a thousand cuts (杀千刀/千刀万剐; 殺千刀/千刀萬剮; shā qiān dāo/qiāndāo wàngu&#462, the slow process, the lingering death, or slow slicing, was a form of torture and execution used in China from roughly AD 900 until it was banned in 1905. It was also used in Vietnam. In this form of execution, a knife was used to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time, eventually resulting in death.

Lingchi was reserved for crimes viewed as especially severe, such as high treason, patricide, or matricide. Some Westerners were executed in this manner. Even after the practice was outlawed, the concept itself has still appeared across many types of media.

"Death by 1000 needles" makes me think of acupuncture, which generally isn't deadly or even painful.

 

[JSt0rm]

But it also shows how Democratic policies in general are starting to kill this country by a death of a thousand needles.

You are brain washed.

 

[jackstar7]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016...ending-one-father-or-meltdown-us-economy.html

Here's some of the more interesting bits:

Here's what's interesting to me: If you weren't paid for this then you're twice as sad.

 

[fskimospy]

A much more meaningful way for looking at a given administrations performance would be to look at the cumulative annual growth rate, where I believe Obama has done fairly decently.

Yes it would be much more meaningful. Obama's cumulative growth rate is still not very good actually, but then again starting in the middle of a financial crisis will do that to you. Economics research indicates that recoveries after financial crises tend to be slow.

http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/rogoff/files/aer_104-5_50-55.pdf

Examining the evolution of real per capita GDP around 100 systemic banking crises reveals that a significant part of the costs of these crises lies in the protracted and halting nature of the recovery. On average it takes about eight years to reach the pre-crisis level of income; the median is about 6.5 years.

By the standard of recoveries after financial crises we are doing very well. By the standard of average growth regardless of the situation... not so well.

 

[blankslate]

Hey OP you forgot to mention that President Obama's political adversaries gathered in The Caucus Room Restaurant soon after the President was inaugurated and agreed to block everything they could that he wanted to accomplish.

This is why it seemed like no matter how much the President tried to compromise he was shut down whenever possible by the republicans in the first 4 years

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2...Conspiracy-to-Commit-Legislative-Constipation

From a report on Draper's revelation by Ewen MacAskill in the Guardian UK (the bolding is mine):

During a lengthy discussion, the senior GOP members worked out a plan to repeatedly block Obama over the coming four years to try to ensure he would not be re-elected.

In his book, Draper opens with the heady atmosphere in Washington on the days running up to the inauguration and the day itself, which attracted 1.8 million to the mall to witness Obama being sworn in as America's first black president.

Those numbers contributed to a growing sense of unease among Republicans as much the defeat in the White House race the previous November. The 15 Republicans were in a sombre mood as they gathered at the Caucus Room in Washington, an upscale restaurant where a New York strip steak costs $51.

Attending the dinner were House members Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions. From the Senate were Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl. Others present were former House Speaker and future – and failed – presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and the Republican strategist Frank Luntz, who organised the dinner and sent out the invitations.

The dinner table was set in a square at Luntz's request so everyone could see one another and talk freely. The session lasted four hours and by the end the sombre mood had lifted: they had conceived a plan. They would take back the House in November 2010, which they did, and use it as a spear to mortally wound Obama in 2011 and take back the Senate and White House in 2012, Draper writes.

"If you act like you're the minority, you're going to stay in the minority," said Keven McCarthy, quoted by Draper. "We've gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign."

The Republicans have done that, bringing Washington to a near standstill several times during Obama's first term over debt and other issues.

How much would republican presidents in the past 30-40 years have accomplished if democratic politicians had acted like shit-heads and done the same thing on every issue?



_____________________

 

[werepossum]

The failure of the ACA should surprise no one. The private health insurance industry is simply incapable of delivering universal healthcare. The ACA is just another conservative road block on the road to a single payer system. Hopefully, healthcare spending won't finish destroying our economy before we get there.

Funny how even programs which were 100% Democrat, without receiving (or needing) even a single Republican vote, are "conservative road block".

I do agree with single payer though. The Dems have intentionally broken the private health insurance industry. I was talking to one of my doctors Wednesday about how much worse my insurance had gotten in the last five years and he pointed out another issue - insurance companies (including Medicare/Medicaid) are increasingly resistant to authorizing tests. We just switched to UHC because our BCBS-TN increase this year was a whopping 67% - and they are asking the state for an average 62% increase for 2017. Our deductible under UHC has increased to $6,000, so our insurance doesn't pay a dime until we're almost $12,000 out of pocket (including premiums), and if they do not authorize an MRI, not only does it come straight out of my pocket (which it will anyway, although thankfully in pre-tax dollars) but it won't count against the $6,000 deductible. Small businesses, to which both parties pay lip service as America's economic engine, are increasingly being driven out of the insurance market.

I want to say this is a highly suspicious fact

Its been talked about since the mid 80's that this will happen when the Boomers retire. We all want to retire at some point. I'll accept that both parties have never made a serious attempt at saving for this day. Absolutely not Obama's fault he's just the guy who is in office when it began.

The entitlement check thing is a bit different, since it also includes the vastly increased number of people receiving means-tested assistance. The retirement issue mostly comes into play with the percentage of Americans who aren't employed, since the reasons can vary between "can't find a job" (i.e. bad economy) and "don't need a job" (i.e. good economy, at least for investors.) A better metric than just people receiving checks would be those receiving means-tested checks - although with the flood of people getting on Social Security disability, this likely misses the true picture too. However, this is a push piece, so the author simply uses the larger metric.

The CBO says that it is reasonably likely the US will never see growth above 3% again, barring some speculative bubble such as the one that drove growth in the middle of GWB's presidency.

As for the years in a row or the 'not recording a year of greater than 3%', that's functionally meaningless as it's an arbitrary distinction.

This is a highly misleading figure. The first thing it misses is that plenty of those people collecting entitlement checks are ALSO private sector workers. Second, the 'americans collecting entitlement checks' includes the families/children of individuals getting government assistance while the private sector worker number includes only those people working. Not an apples to apples comparison.

This is indeed a problem!

The fact that conservatives oppose a high minimum wage and that this figure is cherry picked from the highest real value of the minimum wage in US history aside, this is also highly misleading as it is comparing a group that includes part time workers to a group that does not.

This is indeed a problem!

Overall though, this is why it's a bad idea to get things from opinion pieces. The author is trying to push an agenda and it's pretty common for them to dishonestly twist data to fit their narrative.

What specific policies of his do you think are 'killing this country' and why?

Glad to see you admit that at least some things aren't rosy. I agree on the 3% growth. Historically, whenever we've had an abnormally severe recession, we've stimulated the economy with tax cuts and increased government spending. As we've lost our manufacturing base, much if not most of the new consumer spending goes for foreign manufactures, so a large portion of that money passes out of our economy. It's still taxed, but only once, and generates much less secondary economic activity in America. So it's difficult for me to see how we can recover to over 3% growth except by borrowing even more heavily (which is a drag on future economic health) or by unforeseen economic bubbles, which tend to lose most of the wealth generated in the accompanying crash. No matter how much stimulus we pour into our economy, only a fraction of that will continue moving through our economy. Combine that with the fact that America is not an attractive place for investment and we have a huge permanent drag on our economy.

It's also worth remembering that most of these policies are also supported by the Pubbies. W did his own huge Medicare entitlement, for instance. In my opinion, a lot of our problem is from the assumption that the party in power caused all our problems, so voting in the other party will fix them. That is very seldom true.

 

[umbrella39]

Posting in a shit and run I don't understand what I am posting as evidenced by my comments Sho'Nuff thread...

 

[fskimospy]

Glad to see you admit that at least some things aren't rosy. I agree on the 3% growth. Historically, whenever we've had an abnormally severe recession, we've stimulated the economy with tax cuts and increased government spending. As we've lost our manufacturing base, much if not most of the new consumer spending goes for foreign manufactures, so a large portion of that money passes out of our economy. It's still taxed, but only once, and generates much less secondary economic activity in America. So it's difficult for me to see how we can recover to over 3% growth except by borrowing even more heavily (which is a drag on future economic health) or by unforeseen economic bubbles, which tend to lose most of the wealth generated in the accompanying crash. No matter how much stimulus we pour into our economy, only a fraction of that will continue moving through our economy. Combine that with the fact that America is not an attractive place for investment and we have a huge permanent drag on our economy.

It's also worth remembering that most of these policies are also supported by the Pubbies. W did his own huge Medicare entitlement, for instance. In my opinion, a lot of our problem is from the assumption that the party in power caused all our problems, so voting in the other party will fix them. That is very seldom true.

People like to say that we've lost our manufacturing base but that's not really true. Our manufacturing output is as high as ever and continuing upwards. What we have seen is a fairly serious decline in manufacturing employment, which is different.

What we really have in this case is a major expansion of automation when it comes to manufacturing which increases the returns for capital and decreases the returns for labor. It's not that much of that new spending is going overseas, it's that much of that new spending is going to fewer individuals here because a car that took 100 people to build 50 years ago takes 5 now. (made up numbers)

It's also important to note that trade overall comprises a bit over 20% of US GDP and that includes both imports and exports, so the vast majority of stimulus spending is staying within the economy.

 

[piasabird]

Has Obama ever gotten a budget approved?

 

[piasabird]

The FED spent billions of US dollars to help banks overseas.

 

[Brainonska511]

Has Obama ever gotten a budget approved?

Budgets don't really mean anything. For the most part, they are a political piece of paper that people like to wave at one another.

 

[theeedude]

People like to say that we've lost our manufacturing base but that's not really true. Our manufacturing output is as high as ever and continuing upwards. What we have seen is a fairly serious decline in manufacturing employment, which is different.

What we really have in this case is a major expansion of automation when it comes to manufacturing which increases the returns for capital and decreases the returns for labor. It's not that much of that new spending is going overseas, it's that much of that new spending is going to fewer individuals here because a car that took 100 people to build 50 years ago takes 5 now. (made up numbers)

It's also important to note that trade overall comprises a bit over 20% of US GDP and that includes both imports and exports, so the vast majority of stimulus spending is staying within the economy.

Yep, it's basically same as this chart:

Except applied to manufacturing except farming. No one is complaining that not enough Americans are toiling in the fields, but somehow doing repetitive tasks that robots can now do is a great thing.