Economy Made Few Gains in Bush Years, Eight-Year Period Is Weakest in Decades

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: The Washington Post

President Bush has presided over the weakest eight-year span for the U.S. economy in decades, according to an analysis of key data, and economists across the ideological spectrum increasingly view his two terms as a time of little progress on the nation's thorniest fiscal challenges.

The number of jobs in the nation increased by about 2 percent during Bush's tenure, the most tepid growth over any eight-year span since data collection began seven decades ago. Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, grew at the slowest pace for a period of that length since the Truman administration. And Americans' incomes grew more slowly than in any presidency since the 1960s, other than that of Bush's father.

Bush and his aides are quick to point out that they oversaw 52 straight months of job growth in the middle of this decade, and that the economy expanded at a steady clip from 2003 to 2007. But economists, including some former advisers to Bush, say it increasingly looks as if the nation's economic expansion was driven to a large degree by the interrelated booms in the housing market, consumer spending and financial markets. Those booms, which the Bush administration encouraged with the idea of an "ownership society," have proved unsustainable.

"The expansion was a continuation of the way the U.S. has grown for too long, which was a consumer-led expansion that was heavily concentrated in housing," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a onetime Bush White House staffer and one of Sen. John McCain's top economic advisers for his presidential campaign. "There was very little of the kind of saving and export-led growth that would be more sustainable."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

[lostnotforgotten]

1. Previously Posted Under Editorials

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[SpiralHawk]

2. Ptoooey on Republicon economic claims to be 'conservative'

As laughable a lie as their claim to have 'family values'

[FreakinDJ]

3. The Bush Administration lied about the economic growth

"The Fundimentals of the Economy are strong" - and the administration was in Ken Lay's pocket.

Who is going to invest in any thing when you have such a disasterous admin presiding over 1 economic disaster after another

[santamargarita]

4. We go through this each time a Republican lies his way in or steals office...

...of course Bush has been the worst of all.

[elleng]

5. Interested to see studies

about changes in 'wealth' disparity during those years.

[MsLeopard]

6. But the 1% of the 1% think it's just great

The uber wealthy have had a FABULOUS time under this train wreck of an administration. The greatest upward transfer of wealth in the history of the planet, and now we're bankrupt in so many ways it will make you sick if you try to count them. The final insult will be no accountability, though I hope I'm wrong about that.

[quidam56]

7. Appalachia can't stand anymore...

of the Bush Legacy. http://www.wisecountyissues.com we've been bombed, blasted and bulldozed right into Third World America.

[bemildred]

8. War, boatloads of debt, and economic collapse.

Typical Republican administration. Give them enough time, and you will have all three.

[Alcibiades]

9. Some highlights from my recent TIAA-CREF statement

The 1-year performance of their CREF Variable Annuity Accounts:

Global Equities -42.29%
Stock -39.68%
Equity Index -37.50%
Growth -39.78%
Social Choice -23.45%
Bond Market 1.24%
Inflation-Linked Bond -1.78%
Money Market 2.44%

Lots of folks lost 40%, or more, this year. If I were 60 and had all my retirement invested in stocks on the advice of some asshole working for Wall Street interests, I'd be pissed. I expect many retirement accounts are posting similar performances. I went and moved my money into the inflation-linked bond this past summer, and got my wife to move her money into the government bonds category in her government pension last January--she did a lot better than I did. (Turns out my inflation fears were wrong, anyway, so I'll be moving what little I have into the money market investment.)

What gets me is that there are folks out there who keep saying shit such as "I will keep my money in stocks, because I don't want to get the timing wrong and miss out on all those gains." I am sure there are none of those folks here at DU, but, should any of your friends and family still feel this way, you should ask them:

If we both have money in stocks, but I pull it out before it loses 40% in a single year and you don't, who is better off in the long term?

It might be worthwhile to point out that many of the folks who have been employed as stock touts all these years, who have gotten folks to think this way, are now broke, unless they were actually taking their money out of stocks while advising everybody else to keep their money in.

[4_TN_TITANS]

10. What do they know?

History will prove that everybody but Bush was wrong.