Let's take a look...
In this first graph, the one being spread around by the Obama camp, we see a graph that runs from December 2007 through December 2011...(Click on the chart to enlarge it...)
Clearly we can see how the graph begins to show a reduction in job losses within a few months of Obama taking office in January, 2009. Gross Job creation (I don't know if these are new jobs created or old jobs re-created. For my purposes here, I won't differentiate) kicks in around early Spring in 2010, which began the current streak of 22 months of job creation.
This chart provides us with only a year of the Bush Administration's performance. I wanted to see further back, prior to the dates in the above graph. Let's look at this chart which shows the bulk of the Bush tenure in the White House. The title of the chart is different from the previous chart but they're measuring the same thing...(Again, please click on the chart to enlarge it...)
A little more complete picture emerges, eh?
Yes, the Obama administration is growing jobs consistently, but the Bush administration had done so for roughly four years, from January 02 (reduction in jobs lost) to actual job growth through January 06. It's a little unfair to Mr. Bush to snag the worst of his numbers and compare to the rosiest of the Obama numbers.
Unemployment and job creation are pretty fluid metrics if we look at the bigger picture. Bush had two significant downturns during his eight years, and his period of growth didn't seem to gain back the losses fully. Obama walked into a terrible situation and while it looks better than it has for along time, we're still topping out at around two hundred thousand jobs per month. Which is less than the high end numbers Bush was able to realize between '04 and '06.
There's plenty to cherry pick to make either president look better or worse than they really deserve. I do think its a bit self-serving for the Obama camp to clip off most of Bush's healthier years. I know why they did it, but its still a bit weak.
so the point of the image still stands that obama inherited a crappy situation and that situation has gotten consistently better, unlike what some people... cough republicans cough... would like you to think. in all reality it doesn't matter though, because they will say that the job creation could have been so much better if obama would stop strangling business with his horrible regulations and taxes... blah blah blah.. and he will say he saved the economy from a downward spiral... blah blah blah... regardless, republicans as assholes and democrats are pussies.... I prefer pussies over assholes...
ReplyDeleteAgreed, but the jobs created by bush were mainly minimum wage jobs. Not exactly a way to revitalize a economy
DeleteAnd your evidence for your statement is? I seriously doubt there would be months and months of 200,000+ jobs created, that were all minimum wage jobs. That is absurd.
Delete@Anon Yes, Obama got the bad economy, but he hasn't been the one helping it. Much of this was due to global currency issues and crashes that were corrections long overdue, due to bad predatory type lending and similar. Many of the jobs that Obama has created, are not really positive job creation. They are expanding the government workforce with no money existing to pay for them, so this is not sustainable or good growth.
ReplyDeleteNo other way to describe this post...Moronic in the extreme.
DeleteOn the contrary, the government workforce is getting smaller. Currency issues at present don't have the same impact in the US as in Europe. The stimulus package put into effect by Obama is why there was job creation. And as any economist and informed citizen knows, the stimulus package was too small. The concept is called Counter-cyclic spending. As one can see austerity in europe has had a reverse effect. Because both sectors private and public have stalled.
Delete"And as any economist and informed citizen knows"
DeleteYou mean, "as any Keynesian economist thinks he knows" - Keynes' chickens are coming home to roost, and there is a surge in Austrian economics.
There will never be a stimulus package big enough for your camp. You claim economics is on your side - look up "broken window theory". It's parallel is the idea that govt can somehow take private sector money and create more jobs than the private sector.
Recent credible studies have shown that additional fed govt spending after the core costs can impact the economy anywhere from 10c to 75c LESS than the same dollar in the private sector. Another term you may want to look up is "crowding out".
The original poster is not a moron, he makes several good points that "many economists and informed citizens" would absolutely agree with him on.
The problem that many people blame on Keynes, higher debt, is hardly a reality here in the US. Where deficit spending has lead to higher debt (duh), this is not to say it has to. Our problem is we deficit spend nearly every year, even when the economy is growing! 1957 was the last year we did not practice deficit spending! It took us until 1920 to pay the debt we had at the end of the Civil War in 1865, of course by then we had added over ten times that amount to our debt; we owed nearly 26B. All of this before Mr. Keynes could even convince his own government to spend to create jobs. The fact is spending to foster demand works. However, spending to maintain demand in a healthy economy is a foolish waste of money that should be used to push down debt or even placed in the treasury to be spent the next time demand drops. The business cycle is cyclic; it will go up and it will go down. When it goes up we should save money to prepare for when if falls.
DeleteAnd as the population increases, additional jobs are needed just to maintain the workforce, let alone expand it and reduce the unemployment rate.
DeleteActually, the public sector has been losing jobs on a staggering rate over the last several months...Look it up, my friend...
ReplyDeleteThat would be because the republican congress won't allow (due to unpresidented filubustering) dems to spend any money on the government because the government (meaning government people and their jobs) are the "problem", so republicans want to cut and slash anything related to the government. I've never heard of such an irresponsible idea. What are these jobs? Well lets see... Well there's police. Yes lets cut their hours/pay/numbers. Awesome idea! Wait, rampent crime might not be as cool as it sounds. Next we have fire fighters. I like the fourth of july, and I get transfixed when I look into a flame. That doesn't mean I want to watch my home and everything else burn to the ground because there's no one to put the fire out, or the cuts mean less technology to communicate where the fires are, where the other units are, if there are other units at all, when the fire was reported, I could go on. Oh, another one of those evil government jobs are the teachers! You know, the people who taught us, who teach our kids, and who give us our education so that we can live a successfull life. We know this because we can look at the people who don't graduate high school and see what they have to do to ge by. There are exceptions, but they are flukes. An education can be the number one factor in determining one's success. So lets open our eyes. Government isn't bad just because someone (repbulicans) says so. When we say "public jobs" that what they are, government jobs. We need these positions. Do you think corporations are going to fix our roads, bridges, teach our children for free, help pay for everyone's education who cant afford it them selves, assist low income families to buy food, to find affordable housing, provide affordable or free insurance for children, etc.? No! If it doesn't help their bottom line, it won't happen. Yes, the government is extremely in efficient, yes lots of money is wasted, but we should focus on fixing it, not demonizing it and firing the very people in our communities we depend on. Yes, public sector jobs are down, but that's because the republicans don't want to release money to pay government employees, which, by the way, is a tiny fraction of government spending, and therefore would not greatly effect the deficit. But then again, the republicans aren't interested in helping americans, only saying "no" to Obama. They need to get their priorities right.
DeleteI would like to see the numbers on whether the federal govt is losing employees or the net loss is due to state governments losing employees.
DeleteIf you think the Republicans are just howling about teachers and road construction, you're crazy. If only those were the only govt employees we paid for!
Also, except through the occasional grant money, the Republican congress has nothing to do with hiring cops or teachers - that is your local government.
The reason there has been "unprecedented filibustering" is because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has not allowed Republicans to have any input into bills. Republicans are presented with bills they never had the opportunity to help create, sometimes good bills for the most part, but with provisions Republicans would never vote for, such as tax increases. A good example is the Jobs Bill. Why put into an important bill things that go against the conscience of Republicans?This has happened again, and again, and again, and again. Since these bills are unacceptable to Republicans, they have only one option, filibustering. If the Senate and Reid were more reasonable and allowed Republicans to participate, the filibuster rate would decrease significantly.
DeleteReally Bill,
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that the public sector has lost jobs - do you mean that government is shrinking??? Under the leadership of "Big Government" Obama?
Maybe you should rely on facts, rather than nicknames that no one uses. I know a guy whose nickname is "moose". He's not a moose, he's a human.
DeleteYes, I surely am...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/02/19/us/job-losses-in-the-public-sector.html
"In cities like San Jose, Calif., rising retirement costs and falling tax revenues have contributed to the loss of government jobs in recent years." FALLING TAX REVENUES...LOSS OF GOVERMENT JOBS. So let's cut more government, right? NOT!!
DeleteBush's healthier years were due to Clinton morons.
ReplyDeleteAnd Clnton's healthy job market was due to the Gingrish led Congress, idiot.
DeleteThat's he difference between Bill "I Like Chubbies" Clinton and Barack "I Just Sat There For 20yrs" Hussein Obama II - Clinton had either the sense or disinterest to disagree with the REPUBLICAN-led congress that followed his first two-years in office; you wanna see something interesting, check THOSE before/after numbers. Obama & Co. being the Socialist Know-It-All Academics that they are, don't have the sense to step back and let the American Free-Market run it's course - the fool is dicking with the U.S. economy and has absolutely no idea how badly he and his Academic Theorists are stifling it - can you say, "I'll just go around Congress" and "The Founding Fathers made it difficult for me to do everything I want"?!!.. Yes, that idiot atually thinks he's SMARTER than the Founding Fathers of the Greatest Country in the history of the planet!! What a TOOL!!!..
unhinged...low on lithium...
DeleteYou wonna tell me that 750,000 job loss is better than 250,000 job GAINS. Am a Republican, i dont blame Bush the bubble was created by Reagan and Clinton.Some times regulations works
ReplyDeleteThe Bikini Graph doesn't lie. Also this: Economic Indicator: Unemployment Insurance Initial Claims and Private Sector Job Growth (New jobs data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics): http://www.esa.doc.gov/Blog/2012/03/01/economic-indicator-unemployment-insurance-initial-claims-and-private-sector-job-grow
ReplyDeleteThe four-week moving average for the week ending on February 25th edged down to 354,000, continuing a downward trend that started just before the recession ended but was interrupted in the first half of 2010 and of 2011. Claims have dropped markedly over the past several months, falling from the low 400,000s, often associated with payroll job growth, to the mid 300,000s. This continued drop in initial claims bodes well for payroll employment in February. As you can see in the chart above, the two series have inversely tracked each other closely over the past few years. Simply put, when fewer people are filing for unemployment, it typically means more people are staying employed. All else being equal, fewer layoffs translates into stronger payroll growth. Given that private sector job openings also are on the rise, private-sector analysts say the conditions are right for a solid February jobs report. Hopefully this is exactly what we’ll see next week when BLS releases their employment report for February.
Bush speechwriter: Krugman was right: http://www.salon.com/2011/08/05/paul_krugman_and_david_frum/
When a former former speechwriter for George W. Bush says nice things about Paul Krugman it’s worth taking notice. Krugman was one of Bush’s toughest critics; to suggest that he was correct in his savage evisceration of Bush’s economic policies is apostasy of the highest order.
But Frum goes even further than that in his post “Were Our Enemies Right?” Frum suggests that the entire conservative movement has fundamentally misunderstood how to manage the economy...
The Cheney whitehouse is the reason were screwed now
ReplyDeleteThis blog is a great idea, and I've enjoyed reading it so far. In the spirit of (what I think is) this blog's purpose, we should keep the dialogue civil, and fact-based.
ReplyDeleteCould someone verify this info. From what I get Obama currently has a job creation run rate of 5.2M Jobs / 29 Months. or roughly 1.75K jobs / month. I swear I heard Romney bragging about how he will create 12M jobs over the next 8 years if elected. So that's 12M / 96M or a rate of around 125K . If this is about right then he is projecting a slow down relative to the current administrations job growth. Has no one pointed this out?
ReplyDelete