[Carlhole]

Currency Blogger

During the forty years from 1961 through 2000, the United States had a Democrat as president half of the time (1961-68, 1977-80, and 1993-2000) and a Republican president for the other twenty years (1969-1976 and 1981-1992). Power was shared, and the switch-overs occurred infrequently, so that it is fair to associate performance with the ruling presidential party. It’s hard for a party to blame its record on the previous incumbent, if they had eight or even twelve years to straighten things out. I chose five vital economic signs to grade each party’s performance: real GDP growth, growth in employment, consumer price inflation, the change in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the change in the dollar against the mark and/or euro after 1998.

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Currency-Blogger is run by Larry Greenberg who has 34 years experience as an international economist and currency market analyst.

[americandream]

Currency Blogger

During the forty years from 1961 through 2000, the United States had a Democrat as president half of the time (1961-68, 1977-80, and 1993-2000) and a Republican president for the other twenty years (1969-1976 and 1981-1992). Power was shared, and the switch-overs occurred infrequently, so that it is fair to associate performance with the ruling presidential party. It’s hard for a party to blame its record on the previous incumbent, if they had eight or even twelve years to straighten things out. I chose five vital economic signs to grade each party’s performance: real GDP growth, growth in employment, consumer price inflation, the change in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the change in the dollar against the mark and/or euro after 1998.

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Currency-Blogger is run by Larry Greenberg who has 34 years experience as an international economist and currency market analyst.

Thanks for the link.

[Tyler_JC]

So Nixon is to be blamed for the 1973 oil shocks?

We're blaming Reagan for the Iranian revolution in 1979?

We're giving Clinton credit for creating the IT revolution?

We're blaming Bush for the crash of Tech Bubble?

I'm sorry, the economy runs on its own cycles regardless of who is in office.

The president can have some influence but this influence is often overwhelmed by external factors.

[Revi]

The Republicans like having the economy tank. Then they can lend more money, at higher interest.

We'll see what happens with the economy.

Obama can't screw it up any worse than Bush, can he?

[Duende]

cbxer55 wrote:

And I will never call b.o. (sniffs under arm) my president.

Yep, the wine and roses of the Bush Administration is coming to an end. It's too bad, we're all really shook up.

The thing I still can't understand is how the Republican party gets people like yourself in the the middle of nowhere to vote against their best interest.

[Javaman]

Currency Blogger

During the forty years from 1961 through 2000, the United States had a Democrat as president half of the time (1961-68, 1977-80, and 1993-2000) and a Republican president for the other twenty years (1969-1976 and 1981-1992). Power was shared, and the switch-overs occurred infrequently, so that it is fair to associate performance with the ruling presidential party. It’s hard for a party to blame its record on the previous incumbent, if they had eight or even twelve years to straighten things out. I chose five vital economic signs to grade each party’s performance: real GDP growth, growth in employment, consumer price inflation, the change in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the change in the dollar against the mark and/or euro after 1998.

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Currency-Blogger is run by Larry Greenberg who has 34 years experience as an international economist and currency market analyst.

You really need to look at which party controls Congress. That's where the real damage is created. Even then there are other factors to consider. The Supreme Court does some stupid things too.

[jbrovont]

This is jumping on top of a pile-up, but you need 13 samples to have data-set. Using the GDP to talk about the economy is fine if you're talking about the country - so is talking about CPI, but it's also important to look at things like median income, overall unemployment etc.

That said

So Nixon is to be blamed for the 1973 oil shocks?

The oil shocks were caused by middle east countries getting fed up with US foreign policy (yes, that's determined by the administration for the most part)

We're blaming Reagan for the Iranian revolution in 1979?

No, we're blaming Reagan for Iran-Contra. We're blaming Bush senior's operations as head of the CIA for installing the Sha and completely p*ssing off the Iranian people until they revolted under a false democracy.

We're giving Clinton credit for creating the IT revolution?

No, we're saying a healthy economy comes from solid educational policy, conservative lending standards and a fiscally responsible treasury.

We're blaming Bush for the crash of Tech Bubble?

No, we're saying that despite living 10,000 miles from Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, if you f*ck with someone long enough, they are going to come try to get a pound of flesh. We're also saying that if you raise intrest rates 15 times in 2 years when you mistake real growth for inflation and then you have a terrorist attack and a war on top of that, trying to pump an economy heading for recession full of bad debt isn't the way to improve the situation.

[SuperTico]

cbxer55 wrote:

And I will never call b.o. (sniffs under arm) my president.

Yep, the wine and roses of the Bush Administration is coming to an end. It's too bad, we're all really shook up.

The thing I still can't understand is how the Republican party gets people like yourself in the the middle of nowhere to vote against their best interest.

HEY NOW !
He's happy. He took his "check" and bought a new foor for the trailer and had enough left over fer ona them thar noo biblez.

A true conservative woulda never cashed that thar socialistik check eh ?

God I'm glad I'm outa there..........

[shady28]

Currency Blogger

During the forty years from 1961 through 2000, the United States had a Democrat as president half of the time (1961-68, 1977-80, and 1993-2000) and a Republican president for the other twenty years (1969-1976 and 1981-1992). Power was shared, and the switch-overs occurred infrequently, so that it is fair to associate performance with the ruling presidential party. It’s hard for a party to blame its record on the previous incumbent, if they had eight or even twelve years to straighten things out. I chose five vital economic signs to grade each party’s performance: real GDP growth, growth in employment, consumer price inflation, the change in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the change in the dollar against the mark and/or euro after 1998.

[align=center][/align]

Currency-Blogger is run by Larry Greenberg who has 34 years experience as an international economist and currency market analyst.

There are all kinds of reasons outside of policy that this can be attributed to. In fact, the shallow conclusion your number indicate may be quite the opposite of reality.


Basically what I'm saying is those numbers mean absolutely nothing because they include no context as to the situations in which they were taken. They vastly oversimplify things.

An example, in October of 2007 Merrill Lynch's CEO Stan O'Neil stepped down after much criticism. Since the new CEO, John Thain, took over Merril's stock has plummeted and lost 2/3 of its value.

So, is John Thain to blame? In fact, John Thain is trying to clean up the mess left by Stan O'Neil. O'Neil left when the consequences of actions he took as CEO started to catch up to him.

Here's a little snippet on O'Neil :

"O'Neal, who rose to power five years ago, was known for shaking up top management and putting a greater emphasis on riskier bets rather than the safety of just selling stocks."

Here's a little chart for consideration. Look at the inflation adjusted DOW. Now, just exactly when was it that the economy started heading south???

[Nickel]

I'm sorry, the economy runs on its own cycles regardless of who is in office.

Good point. If you hadn't been busy cherry-picking examples designed to let the Republicans off the hook, you'd probably have dug up positive occurrences in GOP times and downers in Democrat times. If they're "cyclical", and obviously the outcome of presidential elections is not, then it all cancels out. So we're left with the statistics of general performance, and it demonstrates that Democrats are typically better shepherds of the economy -- to the extent, as you say, they influence these things -- than the Republicans. It's very easy to demonstrate. Democrats tend to raise the revenues they need to fund the programs they champion. Republicans tend to cut taxes, but spend anyway -- which is another way of saying they tax (or rather, steal from) their grandchildren and the unborn to transfer that money into the pockets of the defense industry, while relieving the rich people alive today from shouldering that responsibility.

[GoghGoner]

Gay marriage is the first example to pop into my mind today. Intolerant environments lead to unproductive business cycles.

Domestic partner registries and civil unions ensconce a separate but equal principle leading to de facto segregation for the nearly 600,000 gay and lesbian couples identified in the census. The absence of marriage recognition for same-sex couples will create financial and logistical liabilities for business leaders, adversely affect employee morale, complicate employment and benefit polices hugely, and makes it harder for companies to relocate staff and their families.

America's most successful companies have paved the way to workplace equality for all of their employees, straight and gay. Same-sex marriage provides the simplest mechanism for making all of America's companies more successful and their gay and lesbian employees more productive.

[Tyler_JC]

1. Should Nixon have let the Israelis get slaughtered by the Syrians and Egyptians?

It was a surprise attack and the Arabs intended to wipe Israel off the map. I fundamentally disagree with your worldview if you think that we shouldn't have helped Israel in that particular conflict.

2. The Shah became the monarch of Iran in 1941. The CIA deposed Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953. Bush Senior was working for a small offshore oil drilling company in the 1950s, not the CIA. I don't understand your timeline.

3. Fiscally responsible treasury? More like a fiscally responsible (and hostile) Congress. The Republicans in Congress fought Clinton's spending proposal and created gridlock in Washington for most of the decade. Neither Clinton nor the GOP Congress could increase spending significantly. It's one-party rule (like the 2002-2006 period) that leads to overspending, not gridlock.

4. The interest rate hikes were orchestrated by the Federal Reserve, not the President of the US.

[GoghGoner]

4. The interest rate hikes were orchestrated by the Federal Reserve, not the President of the US.

The make-up of the Fed is due to Bush. I am guessing that during Obama's term we will see appointees who actually regulate a bit.

Board of Governors

Ben Bernanke, February 1, 2006 (first: August 5, 2002), Bush
Donald Kohn, August 5, 2002, Bush
Kevin Warsh, February 24, 2006, Bush
Randall Kroszner, March 1, 2006, Bush
Frederic Mishkin, March 1, 2006, Bush
District Bank Presidents

Boston: Eric: Rosengren, July 23, 2007, Bush
New York: Timothy Geithner, November 20, 2003, Bush
Philadelphia: Charles Plosser, August 1, 2006, Bush
Cleveland: Sandra Pianalto, February 1, 2003, Bush
Richmond: Jeffrey Lacker, August 1, 2004, Bush
Atlanta: Dennis Lockhart, March 1, 2007, Bush
Chicago: Charles Evans, September 1, 2007, Bush
St. Louis: William Poole, March 23, 1998, Clinton
Minneapolis: Gary Stern, March 16, 1985, Reagan
Kansas City: Thomas Hoenig, October 1, 1991, Bush I
Dallas: Richard Fisher, April 4, 2005, Bush
San Francisco: Janet L. Yellen, June 14, 2004, Bush

[Serial_Worrier]

1. Should Nixon have let the Israelis get slaughtered by the Syrians and Egyptians?

It was a surprise attack and the Arabs intended to wipe Israel off the map. I fundamentally disagree with your worldview if you think that we shouldn't have helped Israel in that particular conflict.

Most Ron Paul and doomers hate Israel, so yes Nixon should have let Israel die. However Israel was prepared to launch their Jericho-2 Nuclear missiles in just that scenario. That is why Nixon gave help, not out of the kindness of his heart, but to prevent a regional nuclear war.

[jbrovont]

Thank you for the correction on the Shah! I'm glad I at least inspired you to go read up on some of these issues.

I'm not sure how to ask this in a non-confrontational way (I'm sorry if it comes off like this), but what is your opinion on the the source of the conflict in the middle east?

1. Should Nixon have let the Israelis get slaughtered by the Syrians and Egyptians?

It was a surprise attack and the Arabs intended to wipe Israel off the map. I fundamentally disagree with your worldview if you think that we shouldn't have helped Israel in that particular conflict.

2. The Shah became the monarch of Iran in 1941. The CIA deposed Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953. Bush Senior was working for a small offshore oil drilling company in the 1950s, not the CIA. I don't understand your timeline.

3. Fiscally responsible treasury? More like a fiscally responsible (and hostile) Congress. The Republicans in Congress fought Clinton's spending proposal and created gridlock in Washington for most of the decade. Neither Clinton nor the GOP Congress could increase spending significantly. It's one-party rule (like the 2002-2006 period) that leads to overspending, not gridlock.

4. The interest rate hikes were orchestrated by the Federal Reserve, not the President of the US.

[cube]

...
Obama can't screw it up any worse than Bush, can he?

Allow me to repeat what Tyler_JC said:
"I'm sorry, the economy runs on its own cycles regardless of who is in office."

[Quinny]

Results are purely coincidence. mmmmm!

...
Obama can't screw it up any worse than Bush, can he?

Allow me to repeat what Tyler_JC said:
"I'm sorry, the economy runs on its own cycles regardless of who is in office."

[Tyler_JC]

The results are not purely coincidence.

A politician can have some influence on either extending a downturn or reviving a weak economy.

But this influence is FAR more limited than most people assume.

Building infrastructure only yields dividends long after the project has begun. The US interstate highway system took decades to complete.

It would be very difficult to separate out the interstate highway system from the rest of the economy in order to isolate its influence.

Let's look just at the past 16 years.



When Clinton took office, the savings rate was 6-7%. Currently the savings rate is less than 0%. We are spending more than we are earning.

When you convert savings into consumption, you boost GDP in the short term. Some of the economic growth that has occurred over the past 16 years must be attributed to the fall in savings. This was an extremely important shift in consumption patterns that doesn't have much to do with whether the President has a "D" or an "R" on his name tag.

[TommyJefferson]

Arguing whether democrats are better than republicans is like arguing whether Stalin was better than Mao.

It's a total waste of time.