General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Krugman: repubicans are "desperately trying to claim that the economic recovery now underway is an [View all]sendero
(28,552 posts)... for a long time and I've lost my enthusiasm for that deal but I will make a couple of points.
"Inflation adjusted" is only meaningful is actual inflation numbers are used. Nobody who is paying attention thinks our "CPI" is even in the ballpark of accurate. Nor are the GDP numbers.
I'll tell you what I tell everyone here, when the ZIRP is ended then and only then will our economy be approaching anything resembling a "recovery". ZIRP is the Fed's life-support equivalent to a respirator in the ICU. And it is of itself doing plenty of damage as we speak.
All those fancy cooked numbers do not impress me, call me when interest rates are back to something like normal.
BTW - the state of the economy doesn't have much to do with Obama IMHO. The whole world economy, especially Europe and China, but including many other regions, is softening as we speak. And softening from an already pretty weak level (well except for China). The problems we face are huge and systemic, and the world is so interconnected we cannot "recover" on our own any more.