Calculated Risk gives us four indicators the National Bureau of Economic Research uses to call and date recessions and recoveries. They show just how far the economy has fallen since 2007:
These graphs show that no major indicator has returned to the pre-recession levels - and most are still way below the pre-recession peaks.
Real GDP is still 0.4 percent below where it was in 2007. Real personal income (minus transfer payments like unemployment benefits) is still down 5.1 percent from the peak four years ago and was down 11 percent at its worst, which CR says “shows the recession was much worse than originally thought.” Finally, industrial production is still down 7.6 percent, and employment is still down more than 5 percent.
Some recovery.
— The Guardian has a great interview with Tom Watson, the member of Parliament who, along with the paper’s Nick Davies, is one of the few heroes in the hacking scandal story.
We get his thoughts on the scandal, of course, and how the influence game was played against him. But most interesting is the brief biographical sketch we get, telling us of his regrets about “the politician Watson used to be, a man happy enough to play his part in New Labour’s often moronic dances with the Murdoch press, and issue shrill messages either aimed at, or inspired by, the red-tops”:
So, he has changed. “I have changed. This has been a profoundly life-changing event for me, in many ways. It’s certainly changed my politics. When I was first elected, I was a completely naive and gauche politician. You look at the pillars of the state: politics, the media, police, lawyers - they’ve all got their formal role, and then nestling above that is that power elite who are networked in through soft, social links, that are actually running the show. Why didn’t I know that 10 years ago, and why didn’t I rail against it? Why did I become part of it? I was 34. I’m 44 now. I was naive. But I’ll never let that happen again.”
Meantime, The New York Times reports on the cash-for-stories culture at the News of the World, which had a cashier window several years ago for that and more recently, a safe in an editor’s office. It also reports that the paper paid at least $200,000 in bribes to the police.
— This one’s a couple of weeks old, but it’s always worth noting good work: Brian O’Connor of The Detroit News had a great column blowing up some of the myths perpetuated in the debt-ceiling debate.
The facts, say economists who steer down the middle of rational analysis, are:
The U.S. deficit isn’t hurting the economy, and a big chunk of the spending behind it is creating what little recovery we’re making.
Future U.S. budget deficits are a problem starting after 10 years or more, largely because of the completely expected aging of the U.S. population and runaway health care inflation.
A balanced budget amendment isn’t the answer, and had one been in place during 2007, the Great Recession would have become the Great Depression II.
And he took apart that staple of dumb budget rhetoric: That governments should balance their budgets like families do.
But even most American families don’t live within the family budget. Instead, they’ve piled up $2.4 trillion in debt as of May — $1 trillion more than the projected deficit for 2011.“It’s a stupid premise,” says Fieldhouse of the Economic Policy Institute.
Indeed.
Hahaha, nothing in that list is anything "rational" economists say, that's straight out of the Democrats' talking points, drummed up from their economic fantasies. XD And that $2.4 trillion in consumer credit is the total accumulated amount, while the $1.4 trillion in govt debt is just for this year. The correct comparison would be to the $15+ trillion in accumulated govt debt this year, which blows accumulated consumer credit out of the water. And then you go and call others' rhetoric "dumb," wow, just wow, the stupidity and lies of you lefties is just mind-blowing, no wonder the Democrats and even the left-leaning Republicans were destroyed in the 2010 elections. We've got a lot more cleaning out to do in the 2012 elections, not to mention the ongoing destruction of the pinko mass media. You're going to have a lot more former colleagues showing up for handouts at the CJR offices, Ryan, because they're not going to be able to hack it in the more competitive online market, after their current employers are all dead and gone in the next couple years. :)
#1 Posted by Ajay, CJR on Thu 4 Aug 2011 at 08:09 PM
"Some recovery."
Yet you still promote the very policies that provided the false and dangerous sense of recovery, and you constantly cite the status quo interventionists while ignoring the non-interventionists who have been right all along.
"Indeed."
CJR's approach to journalistic excellence is rather politically intriguing.
#2 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Thu 4 Aug 2011 at 10:38 PM
"Hahaha, nothing in that list is anything "rational" economists say, that's straight out of the Democrats' talking points, drummed up from their economic fantasies. XD And that $2.4 trillion in consumer credit is the total accumulated amount, while the $1.4 trillion in govt debt is just for this year."
Hahaha, that figure of consumer credit excludes mortgage and student loan debt, not that consumer loan debt hasn't been exploding from year to year since salaries stopped increasing:
http://chartingtheeconomy.com/?p=1153
So consumer debt figures if you include the whole shebang are a little over the value of GDP, which is 15 trillion.
More importantly, what happened to the savings rate?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11098797/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/t/us-savings-rate-hits-lowest-level/
Anyways, the thing to remember is that government is not a household, in that households don't appoint insane members to be in charge of finances, members who cut their revenues to negative territory when they have programs people depend on to feed and then put useless adventures in other people's countrie on the government's credit card.
Then, when the bills come due, they slip out of the room leaving the mess for someone else. Then when someone else is trying to clean up the mess, they have the balls to burst in the door and start screaming "LOOOK AT ALL THESE BILLS! I LEAVE THE ROOM FOR ONE MINUTE AND LOOK AT THIS MESS! GOD! We've got a lot more cleaning out to do in the 2012 elections, not to mention the ongoing destruction of the pinko mass media."
That kind of person isn't an Ajay. That kind of person is an A-hole.
#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 5 Aug 2011 at 03:36 AM
Thimbo, only in your fantasy world is it a problem that consumers have gotten a lot more access to credit in the last 42 years, particularly when it's only one-sixth of govt debt. As for total household debt, the dumb column Ryan linked to could have included mortgage debt if wanted but he chose not to, so that's on him. Either way, total household debt is much less than GDP, govt debt is about 50% more than household debt at least. Funny how you flatly assert the contrary, without even knowing the numbers, but how typical of how you lefties just make up numbers with no regard for the truth. Pretty hilarious for you to continually bash the Republicans for running up their portion of the debt, when the fact is the Democrats wanted to spend even more at every opportunity and Obama's piled up a ton more debt in 3 years than practically everybody else. But those little things called facts go right out the window when your faith is questioned and you start praying furiously to your religion of big govt.
#4 Posted by Ajay, CJR on Fri 5 Aug 2011 at 01:37 PM
Ho hum.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/releases/mortoutstand/current.htm
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/current/g19.htm
#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 5 Aug 2011 at 02:46 PM
Wow, thimbo, no wonder you don't know any numbers, you don't even know how to read tables and apparently don't even know how to find the right info. What would you do without me teaching you this stuff? :) Let me guess, just spout a lot of bullshit, as you will no doubt continue doing even after I show you the right stats. Your first link includes mortgages held by banks, which is not "consumer" debt. The correct number for total US household debt is $13.87 trillion, which can be found in the balance sheet tables of the Fed's Z.1 releases. Total govt debt is estimated at $18 trillion this year, or 30% more than all household debt, and that doesn't even include off balance-sheet liabilities like all the trillions of mortgage-backed securities held by the Fed, Fannie, and Freddie. Your second link adds zero new information so I have no idea why you linked to it, other than how you normally link to irrelevant sites all the time. :)
#6 Posted by Ajay, CJR on Fri 5 Aug 2011 at 05:57 PM
I don't know Ajay. It sure seems you've moved a bunch from - "XD And that $2.4 trillion in consumer credit is the total accumulated amount, while the $1.4 trillion in govt debt is just for this year. The correct comparison would be to the $15+ trillion in accumulated govt debt this year"
to "The correct number for total US household debt is $13.87 trillion, which can be found in the balance sheet tables of the Fed's Z.1 releases. Total govt debt is estimated at $18 trillion this year"
And let's just remember a) what that government debt is paying for (2 wars started by idiot conservatives)
b) who accumulated that debt. (again tax cut crazy conservatives)
c) who crashed the economy (conservatives for the trifecta!)
Yeah, I think it would be a grand idea to put those conservatives back in charge, They really know how to fix people's problems.
#7 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 5 Aug 2011 at 09:31 PM
Nope, because he chose to use consumer credit, which is only one component of total household debt. If he's going to do that, he has to compare the accumulated amounts, not accumulated consumer credit to only one year of govt debt. Perhaps it makes more sense to exclude mortgage debt, since consumer credit may be a better comparison to govt debt, but since you then wanted to include it, I showed that even then household debt is much less than govt debt. The wars were mistakes but they were pretty cheap mistakes, about $100 billion/year so far.
As for "crashing" the economy, no party has that much power, at least in our mixed economy up to now. The most any govt can do is make the pre-existing economic roller coaster marginally worse or better or throw an occasional wrench in the works, and Bush was a mixed bag while Obama's been making things worse. His signal failure was not to realize that all his big dreams of "spreading the wealth around" once he got elected went down the drain once the economy tanked. He should have focused on getting the govt the hell out of the way of the economy instead, so it could recover on its own, but he just spent like crazy and pushed through his liberal agenda- headlined by Obamacare, which was plain income redistribution and nothing else- as though there weren't bigger priorities. He will pay the price for that ignorance in 2012.
#8 Posted by Ajay, CJR on Fri 5 Aug 2011 at 10:25 PM
"Perhaps it makes more sense to exclude mortgage debt, since consumer credit may be a better comparison to govt debt, but since you then wanted to include it, I showed that even then household debt is much less than govt debt."
Yeah, so what? the government has greater responsibilities than most households and stupid republicans keep cutting its funding while increasing its spending.
The point is the government isn't something that should react to the market like a household, because the government is supposed to act as a balance to correct market failings. Right now the market is failing, which is why good policies, expensive policies, are required to correct the problems.
"The wars were mistakes but they were pretty cheap mistakes, about $100 billion/year so far."
A trillion in legacy costs here, a trillion in legacy costs there, soon you're talking real money being burned in the desert.
"As for "crashing" the economy, no party has that much power, at least in our mixed economy up to now."
Love the cognitive dissonance. Never take any responsibility for anything.
Conservatives know how to solve problems.
#9 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 5 Aug 2011 at 11:40 PM
Ajay, you're a fool. That $2.4 trillion is only credit card debt. Total household debt was more than $11 trillion as of May, per the fed. And since when is Moody's a raving liberal pinko outfit? Their economists say precisely the same things, as do economists from big banks, another hotbed of hippies. We now have conservatives arguing from an ideological -- nearly theological -- standpoint, while anyone whose point of view is based in reality is painted as a wild-eyed commie liberal. Pathetic.
#10 Posted by Brian O'Connor, CJR on Sat 6 Aug 2011 at 08:41 AM
Thimbo, Lol, the govt has greater responsibilities? XD What a laugh, the private sector is still 60% of GDP, despite govts simply stealing 40% of our money away from us, and we don't shit it away on useless projects like the cretins in Congress. Yes, Republicans try to cut taxes as a first step towards cutting spending, but unfortunately both parties keep raising spending, and at every opportunity the Democrats want to waste a ton more. Haha, now the govt doesn't have to react to the market the way everybody else does? Love how your fantasy world can just make up new rules. :) There is no "market failing," merely a recession, which have been going on since time immemorial. If you really think the dimwits in Congress know how to fix a recession, rather than simply taking this opportunity to steal more money and power, no wonder we're in the trouble we're in now, as long as the politicians can always depend on hoodwinking fools like you.
No realistic assessment of the wars expects trillions in future costs, despite whatever made-up numbers you may be reading. Funny how you use words like cognitive dissonance yet can't back them up with any meaning, that's just stupidity. :) Both parties take too much credit for the economy, when they have very little to do with it. The only way they affect it is by how much of a strain they put on it with their dumb regulations, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little bit less. The fact that you buy their hokum about Clinton being responsible for the '90s boom or Bush for the boom up to 2007 or Bush or Obama for the ensuing bust and continuing recession marks you as the kind of dimwit that they pander to, completely ignorant about how the world works yet irrationally confident about your religious leaders that you pray to every night, in your case Obama and the Democrats.
Brian, you might try learning how to read before you start calling people fools. I already linked to the current household debt figure of more than $13 trillion and noted that the $2.4 trillion was only consumer credit. So you are simply repeating information that I was already more specific about, who's the fool here? :) If you think Moody's or any big bank puts forth the dumb political talking points laid out in the original column, please link to it. I bet they don't, which is why S&P just downgraded the US credit rating. Funny how you accuse others of ideology or theology when it is only you liberals doing so, as evidenced by the fact that I have actual numbers and know how to read, while you simply sling wild-eyed accusations that are clearly not based in reality. :)
#11 Posted by Ajay, CJR on Sat 6 Aug 2011 at 02:11 PM
"No realistic assessment of the wars expects trillions in future costs, despite whatever made-up numbers you may be reading."
A very conservative estimate:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf
"Based on one illustrative scenario (rather than the two estimated in previously years), CBO updated its previous projections for the cost of all three operations for the next ten years from 2012 – 2021 in February 2011.
Over the next ten years, CBO projects that war costs for DOD, State, and VA could require an additional $496 billion assuming troop levels fall to 45,000 in 2015 and remain at that level. This estimate is between its previous estimate for a faster drawdown by 2013 and a slower drawdown by 2015.
If this CBO projections are added to funding already appropriated, the total cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and enhanced security or other contingency operations could reach $1.8 trillion by FY2021."
And, of course there are less conservative estimates:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/29/us-usa-war-idUSTRE75S25320110629
"Funny how you use words like cognitive dissonance yet can't back them up with any meaning, that's just stupidity. :) "
Nah, I just find it funny that you can blame Obama and the Democrats for the bad economy and then turn around and absolve Bush by claiming governments have no effect on the economy. And to do that in the same sentence, that's a beautiful cognitive pirouette.
"The fact that you buy their hokum about Clinton being responsible for the '90s boom "
Didn't claim that, in fact Clinton was the one who signed the two crucial parts of financial deregulation which caused the crisis (the one which allowed chimera banks and the one that freed derivatives from oversight).
But when the indicators were flashing red, when the FBI was alerting people that an epidemic of mortgage fraud was taking place, when housing prices surged well beyond historical ratios between income and asset value based on loan products which were guaranteed to fail, the government lead by Bush appointees did nothing. They failed at their JOB . When people fail that badly, a true believer in market determined results would say "those guys should never hold a position of responsibility again." I mean really, how can anyone look at the legacy of the Bush years and claim "We've got a lot more cleaning out to do in the 2012 elections, not to mention the ongoing destruction of the pinko mass media." "only in your fantasy world is it a problem that consumers have gotten a lot more access to credit in the last 42 years" "As for "crashing" the economy, no party has that much power, at least in our mixed economy up to now. The most any govt can do is make the pre-existing economic roller coaster marginally worse or better or throw an occasional wrench in the works, and Bush was a mixed bag while Obama's been making things worse. "
This stuff is just retarded.
#12 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 6 Aug 2011 at 10:51 PM
Thimbo, the pdf you linked to had almost the exact same estimate of the costs of the wars as I did, about $100 billion/year summing up to $1.3 trillion so far. Then it goes on to estimate another $500 billion in costs over the next decade, which fits perfectly with what I said about it not costing trillions in the future. Of course, you then include the $1.8 trillion figure, which is the total accumulated cost expected in 2021, not the future cost I was talking about and which the report backed me up on. As for your less conservative estimate, it supposedly includes the cost of dead Iraqis, not just our govt costs, and "many billions more in expenses that cannot be counted." Like I said, not realistic.
Yes, I didn't realize that every statement must seem cognitively dissonant to a dimwit who thinks that "crashing the economy" is the same as "making things worse." And nowhere did I actually blame Obama for the bad economy, I said he was "making things worse." The world must be a very confusing place when you don't know how to read. :D Hate to inform you of actual facts, but the Bushies were actually trying to rein in Fannie/Freddie, all while Frank/Dodd railed about how they would never fail. When the govt fails repeatedly, regardless of whether it's Democrats or Republicans in charge, a true believer in the govt con simply says, "We need to get our people in charge." I believe in getting rid of the position, I don't care who you want there. Funny how this is all a "legacy of the Bush years," yet somehow Barney Frank repeatedly pushing Fannie/Freddie to pump up the housing bubble never comes up. Yes, my common sense pronouncements seem retarded to the retarded. ;)
#13 Posted by Ajay, CJR on Wed 10 Aug 2011 at 08:01 PM