Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Mr Mephisto
Well, after much searching I finally found a graph that shows a number of seperate factors and how they have changed (generally for the worse) under Bush.
There are three pages of explanation and comprehensive references to explain this graph if you don't understand or disagree with the data as presented.
This article is also relatively up to date, having only been published about two weeks ago.
I hope this satisfies onetime2 and KMA-628 in their understandable request for more balanced data and information.
Mr Mephisto
|
While interesting, comparing the economic performance while Clinton was in office, perhaps the most staggeringly positive economy in the history of the US (and possibly the world), to the tenure of the very next President who presided over the inevitable fall of said economy and an attack that deeply effected a key economic center (NYC) and countless industries (airlines, hotels, financial services, etc) doesn't exactly lend itself to calls of thorough economic analysis.
Certainly this adds a little more context than your original charts but only marginally more since it only compares the terms of the two most recent Presidents and the economic realities of Bush are inexorably linked to the performance under Clinton.
Hell, this article doesn't even mention the recession that occurred during the second President's term. "Accounting" for the fact that Clinton was in office for 8 years and Bush only 3 1/2 does little good when a fair portion of his term was occupied by the recession.
Other factors that this analysis ignores:
You can not look at jobs data over the last decade plus without discussing, in detail, how the remarkably high productivity growth
relates to the overall employment picture. In fact, the productivity increases the article points to as "one of the only bright spots" in Bush's tenure and the productivity growth seen during Clinton's terms have lead to fewer jobs. The more productive a worker is, the fewer employees required by businesses to achieve production needs.
Now, on to GDP. Rather than look at GDP growth from year to year because, with the exception of the mild recession stemming from the tail end of the 90's boom, it paints a pretty good picture for Bush. While looking at GDP per capita is valuable, it is far from the economic panacea this article presents it as. First and foremost, the growing population includes children, elderly, and infirmed. These are hardly factors even remotely controllable by a President. GDP is absolutely the best single measure of the economy and excluding it is questionable at best.
Median household income is not the "best measure of American families' well-being" because it doesn't take into account the stored wealth of the population. Home values, investments, savings, assets, etc play no part in this data. Additionally it doesn't take into account their liabilities. Consumer debt (credit cards, auto and home loans, etc) play a big part in the well being of the family yet play no role whatsoever in this analysis.
Not trying to knock you down at every turn here Mephisto, just trying to get the point across that the economy is incredibly complicated and even a wonderful three page article with endnotes cannot give a complete assessment of the economy by looking only at the two most recent Presidents' terms and focusing on half a dozen or so indicators.