Ed Morrisey with an instant classic:
In January, Barack Obama and Democrats insisted that the 5.7% annual growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2009 showed that their stimulus plan had set the American economy back on track for rapid growth and job creation. The administration needed a big number for 2010 to allay fears that unemployment would stagnate at the current high levels for the long term. Unfortunately, they didn’t get it, with the 3.2% annualized GDP rate for the first quarter of 2010 falling below analyst expectations…
Ed’s so full of shit he can spin 3.2% GDP growth as a bad thing without even breaking a sweat.
Simply hacktacular.
r€nato
Remember when Jonah Goldberg cited the tanking DJIA in March 2009 – mere weeks into Obama’s first term – as proof of the business community’s verdict on Obama’s fiscal/economic recovery policies?
Heads they win, tails Obama loses. Now and forevermore, Peak Wingnut without end. Amen.
cleek
with 25% of the votes in, it’s official, McCain is the next president of the US!
norbizness
Remember when some other dumbass did something totally expected?
Captain Haddock
That’s his job. I can’t fault him. My problem is with the idiots who eat his bullshit up (including far too many relatives).
AxelFoley
I’m stealing this.
cleek
also, i once ran a 0:55 400m. that means i can run a mile in 3:40. and that means i hold the world record.
bow to me.
Alex
Ten seconds of Googling brought me to this. Ten seconds!
slag
@Captain Haddock:
That’s mighty generous of you. I fault lots of people who lie, cheat, or steal for a living. But then, I don’t believe in a totally free market either.
El Cid
If Sarah Palin had been elected Commander In Chief of the DC National Guard & Pawn, GDP growth would be like, a brazillion percent or whatever, also, too, and it would be in Real America, not with those fat cats in the Eastern Establishment.
funluvn
A wise man once said that the wingnuts are so predictable that we can now pre-mock them. It is so true.
David
He’s called “Special Ed” for a reason.
cleek
@Alex:
+10 awesome.
Evinfuilt
@Alex:
Your research has won the thread.
Mark S.
And what is the lesson for today, children?
Tax cuts and deregulation solve everything!
Punchy
OT (via Atrios):
Holy Mother of Jesus Christ. Don’t read this without a drink in your hand
nitpicker
This chart will make Republicans sick to their stomaches.
Joshua Norton
What do you get when you add an overwhelming absence of intelligence to an overblown sense of importance? Wingnut porn.
Or when they’re gathered in a large group it would be called “White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner”.
Linda Featheringill
@Punchy: You tried to warn me. I read the piece sober.
Can I curl up in a ball now and hide under my desk?
Mudge
They just can’t seem to realize that keeping the economy from falling into the pit and rapid growth are separate things. The stimulus stopped the plunge. Many analysts said the stimulus was far too small, had more tax cuts than needed and had far less aid to states than needed.
But everyone’s a deficit hawk now. A pity.
Noonan
I think Big Ed was going for hacktastic.
Linda Featheringill
@nitpicker: I like that chart!
It did give a good chuckle. I am still snickering. Tee Hee.
Zifnab
@nitpicker: Nonsense. Republicans are good for the economy. Don’t believe your lying eyes.
Chat Noir
I don’t think Obama or the Democrats have been anything other than cautious with regards to signs of economic improvement. They know we’re still in a deep hole, especially with regards to unemployment. As Obama’s said before, we didn’t get in this pickle overnight and it’s going to take some time for things to recover.
EconWatcher
Hate to say it, but that growth rate is not going to get unemployment down far enough to avoid a slaughter this November. Before I get tarred as an Ed Morrissey shill, let me say I think O may have saved us from version 2.0 of the Great Depression with the stimulus (the jury is still out–we have to watch Europe), and our current plight is W’s fault.
But given how far we fell, 3.2% really isn’t that great for this stage of the recovery. Recessions after asset bubbles just suck.
Paul L.
I remember under Bush Administration GDP growth got revised upwards.
Under the Obama Regime, GDP growth get revised downward.
Funny how that works.
John’s so full of shit he can spin 2.5% downward correction in GDP growth as a good thing without even breaking a sweat.
How much of the 3.2% GDP growth dues to increased Government spending?
Linda Featheringill
OT: For a pleasant thought, consider the dog at my feet who is dreaming, with soft yips and running feet.
And she keeps elephants away from me, too.
maus
@Alex: Since the paper economy is so good, let’s keep firing people to keep our profits up. Stupid Democrats, they have no idea how good they have it.
AnotherBruce
@Alex:
But Alex, with all due respect, a 3.3% growth rate is higher than a 3.2% growth rate, case closed.
bobbo
Hate to say it too, but EconWatcher is right. See Yglesias on this also too.
Paul L.
@Alex:
About your Hot Air link for 3.3% GDP growth in Q2 2008
Which is still considered to occur during the Bush Recession.
Dave
@Paul L.:
In Bush’s last two+ years (2nd Quarter 2006-1st Quarter 2009) revised GDP beat 3.2% exactly once, 3.6% in the third quarter of 2007. Bush never even sniffed a rate of 5.6% and routinely saw rates below 3 or in the negative.
Oh, and the growth? From the actual BEA Report:
Do GOP shills/Obama Haters ever actually read the docs?
kay
@Paul L.:
I remember they revised upward last quarter, Under the Obama Regime, but your misty-eyed memories of when Daddy was in charge are probably more reliable.
“Fourth-quarter 2009 gross domestic product was revised upward to 5.9 percent from its initial reading of 5.7 percent, the government said moments ago. Quarterly GDP is always reported with an initial number, then, after more data comes in, a revision is reported.”
Nylund
@Paul L.:
The difference between 5.7 and 3.2 is indeed 2.5, but since one was for 2009Q4 and the other was for 2010Q1, this is not a revision. Are you referring to some other revision?
But since we were seeing negative numbers for quite some time, positive numbers are good! Not only that 3.2% is actually a good number historically for a developed industrial nation.
You usually only see numbers like +5 either immediately after a recession, or in developing nations.
Yes, we need tremendous growth to recover all the jobs lost in the crisis, but that just goes to show how badly things got effed up. We basically have to grow like an Asian Tiger to get out of the mess caused by the last administration. The fact that a historically good number like 3.2% won’t be enough just shows just how far this country fell.
Shorter wingnut:
“You’re not cleaning up our mess quick enough!”
That may be true, but it was a DAMN big mess. Just like the oil spill in the gulf. Drill Baby Drill.
D-Chance.
Can’t pass up this Kinky Friedman quote… often disagree with his politic, but he was the right choice for Texas guv in the last election cycle, given the alternatives.
And what was the governor (Texas governor Rick Perry) doing jogging in that remote, hilly area after the fashion of Sirhan Sirhan, party of one? He’d been living there, he said, since the governor’s mansion almost burned down several years ago in an unsolved arson fire. Many Texans have now come to believe that the fire was set by the ghosts of Davy Crockett and Sam Houston in an effort to get his ass out of there.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
You beat me Dave. but also this, too.
There has been a corresponding uptick in wingnuttery as Paul L and Mr. Ed clearly demonstrate.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
And to prove my point, ripped from the headlines at Memerandum.
John Boener
also John Boener
The party of Schizophrenics./GOP
kay
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
I don’t even follow this closely, and that was the lead on the commercial news radio in the car: consumer and corporate spending. I heard it probably ten times over 4 hours.
Do the 20,000 Rush Limbaugh/Seam Hanitty stations break for news?
Apparently not. How will we reach them? Christ.
There could be an evacuation order or something. We’ll have to ask Rush to break in with a “bulletin”.
r€nato
@Dave:
Facts lie. They have a well-known liberal bias, after all.
r€nato
@EconWatcher: Oh, I agree. Until the jobs start coming back, people are still going to be unhappy. Things are much better than they were, but saying ‘things don’t suck as badly as they once did’ doesn’t cut the mustard if you’ve been out of work for months.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@kay: All of them are completely insane, and for the insane, the news is whatever you think it is.
Uloborus
@EconWatcher:
Yeah, it’ll be awhile before jobs really recover. Not in time for November. HOWEVER, didn’t we have a discussion a while back about an article where some guy looked over the election statistics, and for elections stopping the jobs bleeding was almost as good as job growth? That the important thing was that people no longer felt that the economy was still sliding down into Hell?
I’d like that to be true. Jobs are definitely the Achilles Heel of the Dems this year. We’ll have to pray that the Teabaggers will just work extra hard to make sure nobody BUT a Teabagger would ever vote Republican.
They seem to be very enthusiastic about that task so far.
r€nato
@Mudge: what really drives me nuts are the idiots who insist the stimulus was a huge waste, things would have gotten better on their own and it wasn’t necessary to do anything.
That’s exactly like saying that the fire department wasn’t needed; your house fire would have extinguished itself in time.
Mnemosyne
@Paul L.:
I think Paul is trying to bring back that “mental recession” thing that the previous administration was trying to push — “There’s not a real recession — it’s all in your head! Pay no attention to those unemployment figures!”
Davy Bongos
We’ve got to stop this trend before we become as bad as godless Soviet Communist Russia:
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=2266
kay
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
It’s better here. The whole feel is different.
I know this isn’t rigorous and mathematical, my “feelings” but economists have failed me, and they’ll have to re-earn my trust. Not likely!
I’m going with anecdote. There’s only 9,000 people in this town, so it’s not that difficult. It’s my “sample”.
Colette
@Alex:
One clicky-unit of clicking brought me to this:
Coincidence? I think not! Wingnutmatter-Antiwingnutmatter collision has imploded his site. (Well, we can hope, anyway.)
burnspbesq
@Linda Featheringill:
Got room for one more under that desk? Jeez …
cleek
@Colette:
what a wimp.
there’s a copy of the post on this Facebook page.
Maude
There might be some empty slots opening up at BP soon.
Maybe some people with sense will get the jobs.
Nah.
Bullsmith
The non-logic is spectacular. “They tried to say 5.7% was this huge positive sign, but that number makes 3.2% look smaller in comparison! “
HRT
“Falling below analysts predictions,” which Ed goes on to note were 3.5%. Seems pretty close to analysts predictions to me.
Bill H
Yes, 3.2% increase in GDP is fine, but new unemployment claims still at 480,000 does not exactly thrill me. We still seem to be in the endless “jobless recovery” mode that works for everybody except those who need to work for a living.
Yeah, I know, I’m being an asshole.
S. cerevisiae
BP is a dead co. walking, they might as well declare bankruptcy now. This will make the Exxon Valdez look like a quart of Valvoline.
Randy P
@Bill H: No, just realistic. There have been some good numbers, some signs that EVENTUALLY we will crawl out of the employment hole. I heard good “new housing starts” numbers last month, which I think is supposed to be a pretty good sign, leading eventually to improvements in employment.
R. Johnston
Given expected population and productivity growth, 3.2% GDP growth is just about enough to prevent unemployment from rising. In the current climate, that really isn’t all that good.
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
What Econowatcher and R.Johnston said. Looking at Okun’s law, this isn’t going to shift the unemployment rate by much. Especially as there is much shitcanning of state & local employees coming down the pipe.
Too bad the administration & Reid didn’t use the same tactics as they used on FinReg to get through a bigger stimulus, instead of cutting a deal with President Snowe, or at least to shout loudly that we needed a much bigger stimulus than the one that passed.
Tunch
John, update the post to h/t Alex for identifying this:
toujoursdan
@Mark S.:
And exactly which country has lower taxes with similar services, economic and political stability and infrastructure? Canada, Germany, Australia, Sweden, Japan, Korea? Nope. The U.S. is a country where most businesses don’t pay tax already and has some of lowest personal taxes of any developed country (and in our modern history).
Where is that advanced, developed libertarian paradise?
Tunch
Fuck me, I can’t block quote it right.
I notice that in addition to being an absurd hack and painfully wrong about this crisis, Morrissey is also wrong about the “Clinton” recession, which actually began after Bush was elected.
dm
What short memories people have. Google charts US GDP growth rates since 1961. Note that the Bush administration only broke 3.2% annual growth once.
Chris Murphy
Mr. Cole, I’m afraid you are the one who is full of shit here. Morrisey is quite right to describe 3.2% growth as disappointing. It takes 3% annual growth just to keep up with population growth. To lower the unemployment rate by just 1% would require 5% growth for a full year. historically, except for the last jobless recovery under W. growth rates coming out of a recession are substantially in excess of 5%.
Given the current unemployment rate of 10% (underemployment rate of 17%) growth rates of only 3.2% would leave us with appalling unemployment rates for more then a decade.
Before accusing someone else of being a hack you really should make some effort to know what the hell you are talking about.