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Originally Posted by filtherton
I can give examples of bush attempting to take credit for the economy's rebound(heh.). Obviously, the president thinks he has some input in the health of the economy. Do you think that he has zero influence on the economy? Shit, our economy is so open to influence that the stock market falls if alan greenspan doesn't eat enough fiber.
As for productivity, it is an indicator of something, but productivity is only a small piece of the economic pie. Whether it is an indicator of a healthy economy depends on whether you factor in the health and well being of the average employee into your calculations. Higher productivity in this context means the employee is being asked to do more for the same amount of pay. Productivity usually increases as more people are layed off because those who aren't layed off are forced to fill the empty chairs of their excoworkers.
If you listen to the politicians talk, all of the positive trends in our economy are the result of their guy's policies and all of the negative trends are the result of the other guy's policies.
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This has been covered many times before. Every President is forced to take credit for the economy because those ignorant of these matters assign blame to him when it falters.
The stock market is not the economy. The economy is made up of millions of companies (from monsters like Wal Mart to the local newstand), thousands of industries, and billions of consumers. The economy is not easily influenced. The single person with any sort of control on the economy is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve (currently Alan Greenspan) and even his manipulation of interest rates (which immediately have a real effect on the economy) takes many months to significantly impact the flow of the economy.
Sustained productivity growth over the long term has a direct impact on employment. The more productive workers are the fewer workers required. If, as you state, productivity has increased primarily from the fact that people have been laid off and workers are being forced to do more how do you reconcile the fact that productivity has been increasing significantly for about a decade? This obviously would include the "low" unemployment period under Clinton's tenure.
Politicians can talk all they want but the reality is the President has almost no influence on the economy in 99% of cases.