Reaganomics Vs. Obamanomics: Facts And Figures

**Roosveltrepub** · 11 Jul 11,, 12:36

A-1. Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years and over, prior years to date

Not exactly Julie

**gunnut** · 11 Jul 11,, 19:41

Originally Posted by DOR

gunnut,

Sorry if you don't like my answer, but calling me a troll is unwarranted.

"How long is a piece of string?"
The question cannot be answered.
Pointing out that it cannot be answered is not trolling.

"How long is a piece of string?"

Give me the answer in terms of units of length. I don't care if it's in mm or inches or some other bizzare unit.

That's what I have asked you repeatedly. When is this economy Obama's economy? You said when it turns around. I asked when will that be? You said when the job is done. I asked you to provide some metrics of measure which indicate the turn-around. You said there is no answer.

You are an Obama apologist. He is your god and savior. He cannot do any wrong in your eyes.

How about this, tell me if there's any Obama policy that you disagree with. I don't want to hear any compromises he reached with the republicans, because obviously those are not his policies. What Obama priciples do you NOT agree with?

**astralis** · 11 Jul 11,, 19:50

gunnut,

i think the point DOR is making is that this is a political argument, not an economic one. for conservatives, it may have been obama's economy from day one (or heck, even BEFORE).

for liberals, it may be never.

either way, not sure where this thread of debate is going...

**gunnut** · 11 Jul 11,, 20:02

Originally Posted by astralis

gunnut,

i think the point DOR is making is that this is a political argument, not an economic one. for conservatives, it may have been obama's economy from day one (or heck, even BEFORE).

for liberals, it may be never.

either way, not sure where this thread of debate is going...

I can't get an answer out of the guy. It's frustrating to debate with someone who cannot give a straight up answer.

1. When is this economy Obama's economy? When the job is done.

2. When is the job done? When the economy turns around.

3. What metrics do we use to measure the turn-around? There is no answer.

WTF?

By that logic, Bush had no role in the recession. It was Bush's economy until the recession hit. Then it was the perfect storm that he had no control over. Bush did everything right but could not prevent the global financial meltdown.

You'll never hear me say that. Bush had a hand in the economy. His economy overheated, coupled with questionable regulations that generated the meltdown. Huge expansion of the welfare state didn't help either.

I am not a Bush apologist. I give credit where credit is due. Unfortunately some of the more "enlightened" crowd live in a fantasy world where the Obama can do no wrong.

**Julie** · 11 Jul 11,, 21:19

Originally Posted by Roosveltrepub

A-1. Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years and over, prior years to date

Not exactly Julie

I'm getting confused about these controversial statistic data. The one I used was from a gov. site. Are they all valid, or just tells the tale in a different way?

**GVChamp** · 11 Jul 11,, 23:52

Seems relevant:

Doesn't seem to matter who's in charge or what you actually do to the economy, it grows along the same GDP path. The only big changes are business cycle changes.

**gunnut** · 12 Jul 11,, 00:48

Originally Posted by GVChamp

Doesn't seem to matter who's in charge or what you actually do to the economy, it grows along the same GDP path. The only big changes are business cycle changes.

Sure it matters who's in charge. The difference is ending the recession as soon as possible or prolong it by Keynesian policies.

**highsea** · 12 Jul 11,, 01:30

Originally Posted by GVChamp

...Doesn't seem to matter who's in charge or what you actually do to the economy, it grows along the same GDP path.

The dotted line is just the mean. No matter what the data points, you can always draw that straight line.

It doesn't mean that the slope doesn't change- you can make it any angle you want by selecting different starting and ending points.

IOW, you could project that slope out 50 years and say the economy will be this big. But if the average annual growth rate went down by half a point over that timeframe, you would be way off.

Then you would draw a new line, and say "Doesn't seem to matter what you do, it grows along this path..."

**highsea** · 12 Jul 11,, 01:41

Originally Posted by astralis

...the issue i see here is that there's no empirical evidence of whatever harm he's supposedly doing: how do you isolate the effects of (to take one example) the credit card bill, from, say, the decreased consumer demand across the US/global economy?

Certainly there is empirical data on that point. The credit card bill removed $1.6 Trillion in consumer credit from the US economy.

Virtually overnite.

As a keynesian, you should be arguing that the loss of that consumer credit decreased consumer demand by that amount. It's simply the inverse of your argument that government spending on credit increases consumption in the same manner.

**GVChamp** · 12 Jul 11,, 03:33

Originally Posted by gunnut

Sure it matters who's in charge. The difference is ending the recession as soon as possible or prolong it by Keynesian policies.

I don't invest much faith in the political system to combat recessions or manage the business cycle anymore. I'm pretty Monetarist and put most of the responsibility on the Fed. The Fed engineered the 80s recession, as far as I am concerned, and while I don't blame them for making it, they were the ones who needed to drag us out. It's less clear cut this time around, because of all the debt overhangs, but the Fed is still paying banks to essentially sit on their cash.

Originally Posted by highsea

The dotted line is just the mean. No matter what the data points, you can always draw that straight line.

It doesn't mean that the slope doesn't change- you can make it any angle you want by selecting different starting and ending points.

IOW, you could project that slope out 50 years and say the economy will be this big. But if the average annual growth rate went down by half a point over that timeframe, you would be way off.

Then you would draw a new line, and say "Doesn't seem to matter what you do, it grows along this path..."

The dotted line is probably a least squares regression line, and I know what you're getting at, but we've had HUGE variation in policies over the years, and GDP growth hasn't varied much. We're talking about going from 90% marginal tax rates with huge auto and steel companies to a service-based FIRE economy with substantially lower taxes and huge deficits, and it's pretty close to the same. Within the Western world, the US is the most productive economy, but it is no means by the juggernaut and the French and the Germans and the Dutch are right on our tail, and they have massively different labor policies. A lot dumber labor policies, I would say, especially in the case of the French.

Not saying that policy doesn't matter at all, ever, or else China would have never grown massively faster than India, the Soviet Union wouldn't have collapsed, etc. But other than FDR's NRA, I can't really point to any single Presidential policy, or even President, and say "yeah, this was good/bad and caused a huge difference in standard of living." Not with any strong confidence, anyways.

Oh, I am rather confident that GDP BEFORE Reagan actually grew faster, and you actually see GDP soaring above trend in the 60s, but I think this has nothing to do with Reagan or his policies and more to do with a global slowdown in productivity.

And while I have some degree of faith that reducing tax rates should boost economic growth, and we should limit government size, especially in setting in industrial policy, it doesn't really show up in the GDP stats enough for me to say "this is gospel truth."

**DOR** · 12 Jul 11,, 03:41

gunnut,

Q: “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
A: “There is no useful answer to that question.”

**Officer of Engineers** · 12 Jul 11,, 04:06

Originally Posted by DOR

gunnut,

Q: “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
A: “There is no useful answer to that question.”

There is one.

I HAVE NEVER BEATEN MY WIFE.

**Bigfella** · 12 Jul 11,, 09:32

Originally Posted by highsea

You also fail to address my points wrt the post 1982 economy after Reagan's policies were in effect. Your version of Reagan's presidency apparently ends in 1982...

I thought the reason for that would have been fairly obvious in a thread where the point of comparison is a 8 yr presidency vs the first 2.5 years of another.

**gunnut** · 12 Jul 11,, 18:10

Originally Posted by DOR

gunnut,

Q: “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
A: “There is no useful answer to that question.”

Strawman much?

What does that have to do with you not having an answer to my question?

What metrics do you use to measure the turn-around?

You, who claim to have worked as an economist in the private sector for 25 years, should have an answer. I'm not even asking when will the economy turn around. I'm asking what would indicate the turn-around. If you don't have an answer, how do you know the economy has turned around? You said this economy will be the Obama economy when the job is done and it turns around. How do you know when and if that happens?

**highsea** · 13 Jul 11,, 00:02

Originally Posted by Bigfella

I thought the reason for that would have been fairly obvious in a thread where the point of comparison is a 8 yr presidency vs the first 2.5 years of another.

I think the point of comparison is the relative success or failure of the policies. Reagan's starting point was much worse- 21% interest rates and 18% inflation, both presidents had equivalent levels of unemployment.

You were a young boy visiting America, Bigfella- I was just getting out of college and entering the workplace in a really bad economy. You might consider that I have a personal perspective on the subject that you lack.

All Obama really inherited was a banking mess, which could have been resolved with some pikes on Wall Street with a few heads attached. Main street would have chugged along mostly undisturbed. It didn't really affect us until the gov't made it into a crisis. In Obama's defense, it was the Bush administration that made it into a crisis, Obama just took advantage of an existing situation. Rahm Emanuel eats this stuff up- "never let a crisis go to waste"

Reagan's and Obama's are diametrically opposed approaches. Reagan inspired people, and he relied on the productivity of America to reverse the situation. And he never blamed Carter, and he never said "Oh, poor me."

Obama relies on the government to fix everything, which is something the American people just don't have faith in. He blames everything on his predecessor, and when his grand schemes don't produce results, he blames Fox News or the GOP or anyone else he thinks he can hang his failures on.

After 2-1/2 years of Reagan, we were confident things had turned around. After 2-1/2 years of Obama, we are confident things are getting worse.

I am not a fortune teller, so I can admit that the chances of Obama replicating Reagan's successes if given 8 years, is a number other than zero.

But am I confident of that? Can you give me a reason to be confident of that?

I don't have kids, but I have nieces and nephews who I care deeply about. In the last 2-1/2 years, we have added something over 11K of debt on each of them. I have a problem with this, and I want it to stop.

Yesterday's press conference. I'll paraphrase because I don't want to dig up the transcript. But good-ol' President Ping-Pong, he starts out by saying: "I wish I was here to discuss something we all like... like a new program". Then he pauses and thinks for a while and adds: "or the NFL".

I mean Jesus Christ! No one in America wants any more goddamn government programs! I tell you truthfully- he is virtually the only man in America that wants another government program.