Economic Rebound? What Economic Rebound?
Last week, the Associated Press’ Jeannine Aversa announced the top ten business stories of 2009, according to an AP survey of newspaper editors.
Not surprisingly, the top story involved the economy. Incredibly, the editors apparently framed it (or maybe the AP framed the survey question for them) as, “Recovery from Great Recession.” Further, Aversa later described the result as “Economy’s Fall — and Rebound.”
This result brings to mind a scene in Breaking Away, a truly underrated movie. In that scene, the story’s lead character Dave (played by Dennis Christopher) begins a brief stint helping out at his father’s (Paul Dooley) used car dealership. It’s brief because when an unhappy buyer returns his vehicle, Dave quickly gives him his money back. Dad’s incredulous response when told is “Refund? REFUND?”
My adverse reaction to Aversa’s description of 2009’s economy is similar to that of Dave’s dad: Rebound? REBOUND?
Her assertion is objectively false. You haven’t “rebounded” until you’re back to where you were. Even if economic growth for the fourth quarter comes in at 4% as some predict, the economy won’t even be 40% of the way back from where we were before the recession as normal people define it (“a decline in GDP for two or more consecutive quarters”) began.
More fundamentally, there’s the “little” matter of whether the recession is really over.
As normally defined, the answer of course is simple, which is why we should prefer objective standards for these types of things. The third quarter’s positive annualized growth of 2.2% does indeed mean that the recession ended after four quarters of negative growth that began in July 2008.
But the normal definition is not the one the press has been using. Aversa, AP, and most of the rest of the press have spent the past year telling us that the recession began in December 2007 because the supposedly apolitical academicians at the National Bureau of Economic Research subjectively ignored their own evidence and said so. Now all of a sudden, as seen in this excerpt, Aversa is no longer averse to the normal definition:
After four quarters of decline, the economy returns to growth during the July-to-September period, signaling the end of the deepest and longest recession since the 1930s.
If she were fair, balanced, and consistent, Aversa would be waiting for an NBER determination before concluding that the recession is over. Do you think Jeannine’s shifting definition might have something to do with the fact that it helps Dear Leader?
Even out here in Samaria, I can hear (when the Arabs aren’t trying to kill us the sound the American economy is making….
Gurgle, gurgle FLUSH!!! AND DOWN IT GOES!!
Recovery? Recovery? Tell me a better joke!
The AP ceased to be of any significance some time ago. Like the dying newspaper industry they support, they long since lost whatever credibility they may have had. The only ones who take the AP seriously now are the AP. Good riddance. Rest in peace.
Hey! No Fair! We spent 787 Zillion Dollars and unemployment stopped at 8 percent! It didn’t go any higher. Anyone saying that unemployment went higher than that is an evil republican teabagger clone. And, the seas have stopped rising and the planet is healing, I know this bc the Nova Scotians gave Obama the Nobel Peace Prize for Best Prez Ever!
Luckily, the press is subject to the market. When things get really bad, propaganda won’t be in demand.
So am I to assume because the flow from the wine keg has slowed as it drained that more wine glass’s are needed. Oh yea good times are upon us.
Another good analogy for “Rebound” would be football coach Jim Mora’s famous rant about making the playoffs: Playoffs? Playoffs? …. Playoffs!
Easy to find on YouTube.
Great piece. I hadn’t realized the “going Galt” phenomenon was so strong.
This article is just another racist attack on our new Leader.
The racist white males who have exploited and oppressed those who built this country must pay for their actions. We must take all their ill-gotten wealth and redistribute it as reparations to their victims.
President Obama will lead all people of good will into a new, prosperous world of peace and justice.
PEACE AND JUSTICE!
All our howling will avail us naught! The press frames and produces the information the majority of Americans are exposed to in their everyday lives. This propaganda is the foundation on which their view of the world, their country and their community are based. If the press says the economy is improving, they believe it must be so even if such belief flies in the face of the evidence of their own eyes and experiences. If the press says America is an evil influence in the world they believe it. If the press says the world is warming up, they will curse the heartless industrialists they’ve been told are responsible, even while shoveling several inches of unseasonable snow!
Most Americans are fools! They’ve been trained to be fools first by their public schools and then by their expensive universities. Their parents, peers and icons in the movie and music industries reinforce their foolishness until it becomes part of who they are. They live their lives thinking, acting and voting as fools! Then they wonder why our country is going to hell in a handbasket! But not to worry, being fools they are quite happy to allow the dieing news industry to tell them who to blame! OF course, it’s never themselves!
@4 bill
I am going to disagree with you, in the most respectful way!
The news industry has sold out to the dark side. It started shortly after the turn of the 20th century, picked up steam prior to WWII and really hit high gear in the 60′s. By the end of the 70′s they were wholly in the employ of evil and have not changed a dime since then. During all that time, they were going strong, making money and stalking the halls of power as kingmakers (and king breakers!)
The news industry is dieing because they were short-sighted and did not anticipate the effect of electronic information access on their business model. Therefore, they did not figure out how to make money from electronic access to their product. They are dieing because their market has undergone a paradigm change they still have not caught up with. It’s not that there is no demand for the slimy garbage they offer; it is that their current and future audience wants this content electronically, and free.
O’bummer got elected by people who are consumers of the MSM slop. That in itself is evidence there is great demand for this propaganda. It’s merely the media’s preferred delivery system that the public rejects. If the MSM could figure out how to make money off a person’s electronic access of their content, they’s be rolling in money and as powerful as ever!
We intelligent, reasonable, educated and aware Americans are still woefully in the minority! Until we change that, we are doomed to suffering at the hands of the left.
I clicked on my e mail this morning and as always there was an uplifting AP story with typical cheery headline,”Jobless claims fall unexpectedly as layoffs ease”. There are several such bursts of optimism from the AP awaiting me every week, like the Chinese Water torture. Damn few retractions or headlined corrections though, even when for example, the unemployment numbers are adjusted.
Doesn’t the AP realize they have an obligation to the morons who believe, or are desperate to believe, this constant pimping for the Administration. Can’t they grasp that,a] they are a news organization, and b] the news will and does catch up with them and that long term they are only hurting the incompetent mess in the White House while discrediting themselves in the process ?
“Catch 22″ the novel:
Yossarian visits his hospitalized friend,
tells the nurse to change to empty IV drip;
The nurse swaps the empty IV bag with the
full urine bag, and leaves; All same-same
Federal Reserve pumping money through the
banks of a dead economy.
We are broke and we are printing money to spend. Instead of pulling back our spending so we can afford it, our government seeks new schemes for increasing taxes and ratchets up the spending on the anticipation that new forms of taxation will pay for it. Meanwhile, our Congress leaves us to argue about whether the health care bill will cost us trillions or just billions more dollars that we don’t have. What a ridiculous mess!
I guess I will have to agree with several of the above posters who contend the average American accepts and believes the gibberish the Sock Puppet media feed them. I also agree with bubblehead when he states the cause is lack of education, courtesy of our public schools and public/private universities. Millions of Americans have become indoctrinated fools who don’t even appear to be intelligent enough to realize just how simple-minded they have become. They are perfect dupes for the Pelosi/Obama/Reid thieves who steal liberty and self-determination from Americans while they sit and watch. Hope they enjoy their future lives as indentured, government-dependent clones.
The American economy is greatly based on consumerism. The folks can consume the news and feed on media wanna-be optimism but without jobs and credit the economic engines are going to starve down on wind power. We are just passing the Santa Claus effect and bracing for a long cold winter. Inflation is one of the wolves at the door. The street budgets are going lean while the fed budget is going bloated. An economy going steady would be very optimistic until June. Diasters, man made and other wise are available and will not promote wealth even with smooth talk, number doctoring,and apologies.
c’mon, you sound ridiculous letting propaganda get in the way of the post. no, you don’t need to return to the starting point to call this an economic rebound. forget the ideology for a moment – if you can? – look at the data. nearly every economic indicator is far improved from what it was when dubya handed over the keys. you hate obama & the dems? yeah, we know. blah, blah, blah. get over it. he’s the president. meantime, you and the others on this message board ought to judge his economic performance onthe facts. if they fail to measure up, then kick his ass out. if they improve, then give credit where it’s due.
otherwise, you just sound like another partisan shill
For those who want it straight, take a look over here: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/Gary+Lamphier+Troubled+economy+ideas+mojo/2394985/story.html
15. del norvin:
c’mon, you sound ridiculous letting propaganda get in the way of the post. no, you don’t need to return to the starting point to call this an economic rebound. forget the ideology for a moment – if you can? – look at the data. nearly every economic indicator is far improved from what it was when dubya handed over the keys. you hate obama & the dems? yeah, we know. blah, blah, blah. get over it. he’s the president. meantime, you and the others on this message board ought to judge his economic performance onthe facts. if they fail to measure up, then kick his ass out. if they improve, then give credit where it’s due.
otherwise, you just sound like another partisan shill
______________________________________________________________________
Care to show some proof of your claim all indicators are better under Obama? I know off the top of my head that 100% worse and another that is 400% worse. Those being unemployment and the debt.
Facts…..
Hey, not to worry, we’re going to have a new, expanded, government based middle class. When you have “systemic” failures with connecting the dots between Islam and isolated individual acts of domestic mayhem, I can’t wait for the new health care system; I’m sure delivering cat scans and prescription drugs will just as labor intensive, expensive, and efficient as the current “intelligence system.” Maybe we should farm out intelligence and health care delivery to the drug cartels? They seem to do a better job of it–street drugs are still cheaper today, adjusted for inflation, than penicillin was thirties ago–and regardless of one’s religious affiliation.
#15, you say that “nearly every economic indicator is far improved from what it was when dubya handed over the keys.”
That would NOT include unemployment (7.6% in Jan., 10.0% in Nov.). That would NOT include jobs (134.3 mil in Jan., 131.0 mil in Nov.).
AP’s Aversa cited an auto industry that is at best treading water at very low levels (not “far improved”), foreclosures (getting worse), and small/mid-sized bank failures (still happening) — which leads me to think that you didn’t bother reading Aversa’s article or my column.
Then there’s the ISM Non Manufacturing Index that slipped into contraction in November after only two months of expansion, the trillion-dollar spending-driven deficits NOT created by Bush 43 that extend as far as the eye can see, the ever-mushrooming size of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts (latest guess is $400 billion, which is going to be low if there isn’t some serious general economic recovery, and soon), absolutely cratering federal tax collections (which if they continue at the current rate will will be $200 billion less than last year, when CBO guessed they’d go up this year by about $160 billion).
That’s about eight items. I would say I’m at the point where you can cite data until the cows come home, and you’ll never get to “nearly every.”
And I didn’t even get to the point that Pelosi, Obama and Reid have really been primarily responsible for tanking the economy since June-July of 2008.
#7 Yes We Did:
“This article is just another racist attack on our new Leader.
The racist white males who have exploited and oppressed those who built this country must pay for their actions. We must take all their ill-gotten wealth and redistribute it as reparations to their victims.
President Obama will lead all people of good will into a new, prosperous world of peace and justice.
PEACE AND JUSTICE!”
How many times can the same moron post the same gibberish? This is the second time I have cut and pasted these exact comments from this guy. Sheesh!
Mr. Blumer,
Excellent points in your post.
Though individuals, sadly there are MANY, such as ‘del norvin who don’t heed the saying, ‘There’s none so blind as those that will NOT see’.
The emphasis being the word ‘not’.
For many it’s impossible/ near impossible to discern fact from emotional fiction..
I want to know where the hell this economic recovery is…we’re still searching…. It’s hiding…at the bank..
If thinking Obama is a freaking fool and poorer than poor leader makes me a racists..then color me racists!!!…in bold colors please!!!
recession? we all thougt it was/is a depression
We own stock in a big name bank. We have not lost any stock…but the value has gone underground. If we got $100 in dividends last year, we now get $1.00…the whole thing is disgusting. Recession recovery my sweet backside.
Well said Tom Blumer. It’s up to folks like you to put the truth out there in places like Pajamas Media. The official policy of our oligarchy and their media Sock Puppets (good name for ‘em Saltherring!) is “pretend and extend.” I wish there were more articles like this in regular news outlets. Unless folks are plugged into the financial blogosphere, many aren’t going to perceive just how much of a train wreck our economy is, and how we’re heading no where but downwards (cliff or hill, who knows…). 2010 is going to be Very Interesting.
Plenty of dems/libs see the very same truth too… We’re all on the same side when it comes to the economy (unless one is a radical leftie or a brain-dead troll, aka “useful idiot”). But oh well, those in power prefer to use the MSM to keep the little people distracted from the 8 gazillion pound gorilla in the room via the partisan bickering.
Anybody else curious as to what Yes We Did means when he says “peace and justice?”
del norvin, apropos of messes and who left them behind them; er, ah, just which party controlled both Houses of Congress after the ’06 elections? Please, in kindergarten the little ones shirk responsibility for things gone wrong but step forward for things done right. Now I realize we are dealing with liberals[?] and the lines between children and adult liberals do get blurred, but one must bite the bullet & be able to accept responsibility for both good and bad.
Bush deserves blame for not using the veto, the Democrats take the rest, especially for the housing debacle. Lot’s more if you need it.
Don’t copy your childish hero The O. Just how much longer is that trash in the White House going to hide behind Bush while taking credit for anything that may go right. And pal we’ve got a long way to go. Those deficits, a weakening dollar, the inevitable tax increases, and not just on the rich, what a lie that was.
Hang in there baby.
#15 said, if they fail to measure up, then kick his ass out.
We will. 2012 can’t get here fast enough.
Perhaps a better baseline would be year 2007 when the Democrats took over. For that point, the economy is a complete shambles. They were supposed to correct the situation, not exacerbate it.
With Clinton’s executive directions to Cuomo’s HUD regarding mortgages and Fannie?Freddie corruption, we can state that the fuse was lit on the Real Estate time-bomb and the subsequent economic collapse.
Obama has the USA exactly where he wanted to have it by now..that’s why he plays golf and watches Avatar while we worry… The man is laughing at us.
HAPPY NEW YEAR FOLKS!!!!
HERE’S HOPING THAT IN 2010 WE MANAGE TO STOP OUR COUNTRY’S DOWNWARD SPIRAL…AND GET RID OF OBAMA, PELOSI AND THE OTHERS.
2010 IS GOING TO BE A TRIAL ELECTION FOR 2012
According to Costofwar.com the cost of the wars came down $26.5 Billion this year.
del norvin, where are you? Big mouth, serious aggression, expected stupidity, gross arrogance in the face of moral and political vacuity, and support of the trash in the White House.
A real humanist. But where are you & and what are you>?
Do you define your slimey self by your politics ??
And in medical news, doctors pronounced the radical new therapy of treating patients with broken legs solely with morphine a complete success. “Just you wait!” said Dr. Stanley Soetoro. “They’re going to be running marathons tomorrow, and they’ll feel great!”
Hope you like The One – he is getting a second term. ACORN has already decided that. Do you honestly think now that they their guy in, they are going to quit?
Hope and Change (You will lose the first and beg in the street for the latter)
Yes We Can (kneecap America)
So, America, how you liking them apples?
Refund?, Refund?!!
You’re forgetting about playoffs, Playoffs! (Also, isn’t this being spun a little bit?)
One of the most frightening aspects of this supposed “rebound” is not even mentioned in this post. Michael Barone wrote an article a couple of days ago pointing out that while private employment suffers, public sector employment has barely been touched.* As of November 2009, 17% of our nation’s job force worked in the public sector. With the “stimulus” funds kicking into high gear next year, and the private sector groaning under new taxes and new regulations, it will probably get even worse. It won’t be long before 1 in 5 working Americans work for some level of government.
That’s bad enough, but it’s even worse when you consider that public sector benefit costs have been rising at a much higher rate than private sector**, and that public employees have generous retirement pensions and benefit packages compared to the private sector. This means that if current trends continue, at some point in the future the shrinking number of private sector employees engaged in wealth building activities will have to support a huge number of wealth consuming public sector employees, public sector retirees, and social security and medicare beneficiaries. How can this be done without having a catastrophic effect on our economy?
* http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/It_s-a-wonderful-life-working-for-the-government-8697601-80294522.html
** http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2009-04-09-compensation_N.htm
To paraphrase Vladmir Lenin, “Crush the middle class between the grinding wheels of taxation and inflation.”
@ 35. cavan: Crush the Middle Class
Exactamundo: The Argentine Letter
included an example given by a
college professor of economics:
A three layer pyramid of power,
with arrows indicating a minority
migration from middle to upper,
and a majority migration from
middle to lower.
It could happen here, if we let it,
if the system did not crash first,
_and_ if the Web did not inform us;
If we (the Middle Class) allow this
to happen, we will deserve the Govt.
we get, and we will get it good and
hard.
#8 and 9 (bubblehead) You are exactly right. And this is the reason I don’t buy all of the talk about the Republicans winning back congress this year and the white house in 3 years. It sounds good and I want to believe it but half the country will again buy the media BS and reject the “evil republicans” in favor of the same corupt democrats.
And yes, without a strong “conservative” candidate, Obama will be reelected. From all indications, we will get another RINO candidate. With another RINO, it will be an easy win for Obama, since the game is pretty much rigged in his favor already. He will get 30% from voters who will vote for the democrat no matter who he is. He gets another 10% from minorities who vote skin color. The media will only have to whip up an extra 10% of “White Guilt” to drag him over the finish line. Easy task, considering so many RINO voters have also been infected with white guilt desease.
20. Anonymous:
#7 Yes We Did:
“This article is just another racist attack on our new Leader.
The racist white males who have exploited and oppressed those who built this country must pay for their actions. We must take all their ill-gotten wealth and redistribute it as reparations to their victims.
President Obama will lead all people of good will into a new, prosperous world of peace and justice.
PEACE AND JUSTICE!”
How many times can the same moron post the same gibberish? This is the second time I have cut and pasted these exact comments from this guy. Sheesh!
*******************
Dumbo is quoting Marx , Lenin , Saul Alinsky , Van Jones Rev Wright and of course Obama .One suspects his IQ is less than Room Temp.
We saw both great economics destroyed in South Africa and Formerly Rhodesia now Zimbabwe when Blacks run those countries into the ground with massive crimes , murders and totally Corrupt Govt.s there …… America is giving Billions in HELP to both crap nations .90 % of Africa is still dark ages ad quite primitive where #7 should live in a mud hut with his Kin folk
But of course Obama is destroying America if we allow his thuggery to continue here as well .
@ Alabama Infidel # 37, who wrote:
“From all indications, we will get another RINO candidate. With another RINO, it will be an easy win for Obama, since the game is pretty much rigged in his favor already. He will get 30% from voters who will vote for the democrat no matter who he is. He gets another 10% from minorities who vote skin color. The media will only have to whip up an extra 10% of “White Guilt” to drag him over the finish line.”
The 10% who will vote their skin color ARE 1/3rd of the 30% who will vote Democrat no matter what. They need to generate 20%+ from the independents in the middle to win, and they won’t get there.
The GOP won’t nominate a RINO because the Tea Partiers will stay home or 3rd party if they do.
#7 – Rev. Jones is holding your Kool-aid for you.
39. The GOP can’t nominate a RINO, because a RINO will lose in the primaries. I looked at the National Debt Clock last night, and apparently there are still more underemployed people than there are government workers. Whether this is good or bad, I leave up to you to decide.
Unemployment increases government spending. Government spending increases debt, debt increases unemployment.
It’s the economics of ever decreasing circles.
“look at the data. nearly every economic indicator is far improved from what it was when dubya handed over the keys.”
Del, show me a single economic indicator that has improved since Jan 22, 2009.
Evidence please!