The Republicans' best chance of beating President Barack Obama this year was to hang the sluggish economy around his neck. But even that chance broke against them. The Bureau of Economic Analysis just released data on local area personal income for the first three years of the Obama Administration. In 2011, for the first time since 2007, personal income rose in all 366 big metros studied.
In the Rapid City area, personal income per capita rose 5.9% in 2011. In the Sioux Falls metro, income rose 6.3%. But no metro in the country (and remember, these cities are real America, making up more than 80% of the population) saw income go down. Nationally, income grew at 5.2% in 2011, compared to 3.9% in 2010. Inflation went from 1.9% in 2010 to 2.4% in 2011.
Income grew darn near everywhere last year. Income grew faster than inflation, which remained below historical averages despite dire warnings that hyperinflation was imminent. The economy isn't great. Plenty of people are still struggling to find work. But these new economic numbers suggest and underlying reality of growth that may have undermined Mitt Romney's campaign strategy.
When I saw TV news about the big increase in Black Friday sales, I was thinking that perhaps the US economy was not as bleak as projected by Romney and GOP mythologists. Looks like you have found some data to support my feeling.
One more reason why people not wedded to GOP economic mythology or even aware of it were likely to vote for Obama since the Romney blather seemed like nonsense unrelated to reality to them.
That blue blob along the Front Range is troubling for the future of the Ogallala Aquifer already at risk to growth of industrial agriculture in the Platte River Basin: very scary.
Metro income up, well farm income has been up a lot the last five years. Drought was a little glitch in it. So the moral of the story is that it was the economy after all. Does America vote any other way.
Mitt Romney lost because a sitting President, Barack Obama, bought the election with our own tax dollars. He attracted more welfare recipients (advertised to add more food stamp recipients with our tax dollars), threw illegals a lifeline for two years, dodged Bengazi questions. He used every Chicago-style method to secure every voter needed including SSDI approvals. We'll soon learn what really happened as more people are sitting in the wagon than are pulling the wagon. That, combined with baby boomers rolling on to the SS retirement system and Medicare, combined with declining birth rates which equates to less taxpayers to support the Boomers...Look out! Inversion.
Alas, Rod buys the "gift" theory. I thought Bobby Jindal refuted that notion.
Romney lost because he so blatantly lied that people figured that out before the election. Also his narrow appeal to the 30,000 or so of the very richest was a doomed election strategy. Trickle-down from those very, very rich to the 47% of the "undeserving" is mythology and nonsense. Republican politicians are a very, very black pot when they start blathering about the imaginary black kettle of gifts to the un-rich.
Romney could be tapped for Postmaster General.
I sell a small luxury product to lingerie and women's stores, so talk to small and medium retailers through out the US. I've made it a point to ask how business has been. Most everyone says sales are up, although over Black Friday they were not as busy as in the last few years. I have not heard much about Go Small Saturday affecting the small stores much.
Retailers say people are waiting longer to buy and buying less, but still they have not done badly.
This last year my biggest new customers are online merchants and Asian export companies, with fewer of the smaller stores .
The mom and pops are having a difficult time because of more internet sales. They say a lot of shoppers come in, try stuff on for sizing, check prices online and buy online. In the not distant future it is projected retail stores will become "showrooms" and ordering will be done online and the merchandise will be shipped to you. (This is already happening.) That will put a lot of low skilled worker out of a job. Retail workers are a very big chunk of the workforce.
We have some interesting times ahead.
Romney lost because he lied like a rug, went to far to the right, could not connect with the common man, nor did he have any real concern about them. This was a wake up call to many people, as he highlighted the income gap of the classes and the devaluation of the American worker.
Even us drones perked up and voted.
Gayle, you point to a very interesting conundrum. Keeping stuff longer, making do with older stuff, buying less—those all sound like virtues to me. They sound like a good recipe for folks to get out from under their credit card debt. But rational, restrained spending is also a recipe for continued depressed demand and a sluggish economy. Is there a way to juice the economy up again without requiring folks to buy lots of junk they don't need?
Is there a way to juice the economy up again without requiring folks to buy lots of junk they don't need?
I suspect this is a much more difficult question than it appears to be. Conservation suggests less of nearly everything. Perhaps what is rational is not ever increasing markets and stock prices, but more level demand and production. Energy conservation is critical to a new economy.
People are not going to buy stuff from the internet if the prices are a few percent different or if there is or is not an internet sales tax. Finding that local prices are two or three times as much as Amazon or some other site is what drives people to internet purchases. Also local businesses unwilling to do any research on products or consider new products is also a factor. The internet has given customers an easy way to check if they are getting ripped off by their friendly local merchant.
Cory, what I am trying to say is we are going to be, and have started, moving into a new business model in the retail sector. There are going to be fewer low skilled jobs, which means there will be more unemployeed or those people will need to learn a skill to survive. Is it going to get worse, as there will be more unemployeed and more in need of social programs? The service and retail industries will only provide low paying jobs for x amount of people.
This also means more education, if it vocational or whatever, we will need more teachers and those people will need to find funding for education. Or do we need to look at our educational system and start training those people earlier?
Guess I am looking what the future holds in the big picture. See where I am going with this?