As South Dakota Republicans belch a cloud of irrelevance with their joke presidential straw poll, a Minnesota Public Radio PoliGraph analysis shows one more reason we'll be keeping President Barack Obama on the job for another four years: he stabilized the economy and is clawing back the Bush-era job losses.
The President told a WCCO reporter that since he took office, we've created over two million private-sector jobs, with over one million just this year. MPR says, true!
Obama's benchmark is February 2010, the nadir of employment when the nation had 106.7 million private sector jobs, according to seasonally adjusted employment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Currently, we have more than 109.5 million private sector jobs - a difference of nearly 2.8 million.
Obama's also correct that more than 1 million jobs have been added since the beginning of 2011 [Catherine Richert, "PoliGraph: Obama's Economy Claims on Point," MPR: Capitol View, 2011.11.04].
The President then said he's proudest of stabilizing the economy, reversing 9% GDP decline and turning it into 4% GDP growth. MPR says, true again!
Right before Obama was sworn into office in 2009, the recession had already taken a toll on the economy. Case in point: gross domestic product had fallen by 8.9 percent in the last quarter of 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) - roughly the 9 percent Obama mentioned in his interview.
Obama is also correct that, in the first quarter of 2010, GDP had grown 3.9 percent over the last quarter of 2009 [Richert, 2011.11.04].
Occupiers still have plenty of reason to protest (and hey, Barack, when you going to get down to Zucotti Park or Rapid's Main Street Square to stake your claim to history and secure your 2012 victory?). President Obama still has lots of work to do. And he's likely to get four more years to do that work, just by telling the truth and pointing out that he's got performance while the other guys have nothing.
Related Update 11:40 MST: Anti-Obama forces should try some rhetorical econ-jujitsu: now that one of their favorite Koch-funded skeptics has admitted that the ClimateGate scandal was bogus and that global warming is real, conservatives should co-opt the global-warming argument and blame Obama for an economic recovery that caused a record-jump in carbon-dioxide emissions in 2010. Since we can't pass rational energy-security policy, could a good long recession be the only way to stop environmental degradation?
I like how politicians will pick out the moments things look ok and ignore the rest of it. You should be more skeptical when he goes back to GDP numbers from Q1 2010. There is no reason to do that other than to avoid the miserly growth since then. It is also not very informative to try to use jobs created without any context of corresponding job losses during that period and how many jobs need to be created to improve unemployment. President Obama is just the president and we put too much stock into the executive at times, but there is no reason to give him credit for improving the economy when the economy isn't improving. Its like taking credit for recovering unicorn populations.
PS The occupiers never had any reason to protest and deserve more ridicule than the tea party every did.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/19-million-fewer-americans-have-jobs-today-when-obama-signed-stimulus
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2011/xls/gdp3q11_adv.xls
I like how Obama-haters will pick out the moments thing look bad and ignore the historical trend. The economy was in free-fall after 7.5 years of Bush stagnation. Even at the slower GDP growth rates of this year, Obama still presides over a double-digit flip from the 9% decline we had when he took the baton.
And Roger, if Occupants have at least as much reason to protest as the Tea Partiers. The Occupants can at least be honest about the real enemy to democracy, income inequality and corporate co-opting of government, rather than the scapegoats behind which the Tea Partiers shelter their anxieties.
Democracy without constitutional limitation is little more than mob rule. The occupy movement is definitely a supporter of that. Income inequity is not a problem, it is just a justification they use to excuse theft and socialism. They see government corruption but just blame capitalism. The tea party has principles. OWS has only the outrage.
Roger: it's always fun to have you at Madville...now if I could just stop the stinging in my nose where the coffee has just been expelled.
Roger, the Tea Party is quickly becoming toxic in American politics. That is because it was co-opted as a legitimate grassroots movement almost from its inception. The truth is, the Tea Party movement was re-packaged, far-right conservative propaganda from the git-go, and now everybody knows it. Here's what Herman Cain had to day this week: "I am the Koch Brothers' brother from another mother... and proud of it." Vis a vis the Tea Party, it has ever been thus.
dangk et now itts in teh kybooord
[CAH: Larry gets bonus points for funniest post yet this weekend!]
I know, Larry, huh?
Is Herman sayin' them Koch Bro's daddy was a mofo or wha....?
Okay, got that cleaned out, what a mess.
Remember the Tim Weisberg/Dan Fogelberg album: Twin Sons of Different Mothers, Bill? Genetics tells us we are all of African descent.I'm related to Herman, too!
But then: that means i'm related to amoebae, too....
And oranges.
Sorry about wasting good coffee larry.
Both movements are legitimately grassroots, Tea party and Ows people alike genuinely believe in what they are there for. The money and organization doesn't change that weather it comes from the Koch brothers or SEIU. All that tells us is what the organizers believe
Big diff between labor and management, Roger. Huge. Don't take it from me, the #1 Republican of all times said so. (And no, I don't mean the Gipper.)
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." — Abraham Lincoln
...so strange to have to continually re-educate the GOP as to their own supposed values. It's like having to take responsibility for the whole argument.
Bill,
Now you've done it. You've made all the Republicans who read this blog think Lincoln and Marx were roommates. There's not enough cognitive dissonance in the world to square their mythology with the Lincoln statement you posted.
I suppose they may surprise me and start arguing that inheriting wealth is a form of labor, but I doubt that even the most indoctrinated class warring GOPer can muster that argument with a straight face.
Roger, if you would have spelled it 'principals' instead, I might have been able to stifle...maybe.
The GOP is just a party, not a value system. I need neither a defense for a political tribe nor an education on my values. As far as Bills misuse of a quote I need only borrow words from the same speech:
large majority belong to neither class -- neither work for others, nor have others working for them. In most of the southern states, a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters; while in the northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men with their families -- wives, sons and daughters -- work for themselves, on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand, nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other.
Lincoln spoke about slavery. It had nothing at all to do with the proletariat
Yes, LK, they need to review their Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt lessons and remember what it took for Republicans to get their faces carved on Mt. Rushmore. No one ever gets to be an American hero by sucking up to corporate interest. Recall that the original Tea Party was basically a trashing of a shipment of corporate goods and, by extension, an unholy ruling class.
So Roger what do you call it when employers won't pay their employees a living wage?
Freedom. Workers are not forced to work for them. Henry ford didn't pay well because he had to, he wanted to get and keep the best workers.
The original tea party wasn't against capitalism. It was against the old mercantile systems of Europe
Hold on, Roger: Tea Party starts with highly placed media celebrities sparking the movement; Occupy starts with genuine dissidents, and you call them equally grassroots? Come on, that just defies reality.
Right. "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." Good point, Roger. Hence the OWC movement. That's really all there is to it, bottom line, I suppose.
One question, Roger. What happens when something "too big to fail" fails?
Are you really willing to find out?
Bill, I don't believe in preventing failure. So yes, if it is too big then it is likely too monopolistic anyway. The market will be more vital without them. Control the collapse and allow the market correct. The short pain is better than a lost decade.
Only Mama Cass and Obama think things are getting better everday.
The difference, dear Thad, is that Obama isn't just making up lyrics. He's citing facts that no one in this thread has yet denied. Roger might have had a full rebuttal brewing, but then he flew off spouting abstractions about theft and socialism and the freedom to get screwed by immoral capitalists who oligopolize the market and make practical freedom impossible.
"so strange to have to continually re-educate the GOP as to their own supposed values."
Bill,
You can say the same thing about Democrats. Check out some of Jefferson's quotes.
I didn't deny the information. I just demonstrated the meaninglessness of those numbers. GDP is not good and not improving. Unemployment is not going down and he is not creating jobs in any meaningful way.
My spouting abstractions keeps happening because you keep insisting the government is us. That's the abstraction you always spout. At least my abstraction is true
"the freedom to get screwed by immoral capitalists who oligopolize the market and make practical freedom impossible"
Cory, it is Big Governemnt, that the capitalists control, that allows it to happen. Ever think that the "immoral" part is not helped by the removal of the Bible from education?