Comments on: Couldn’t Help But Comment (041708)

By: TBlumer

TBlumer — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 03:23:04 +0000

#5, I looked at the jobs comparison here in Jan. 2007:

Bush Economy Long-Term Employment Growth Is Looking Quite â€˜Clintonianâ€™

Re your take:
- No Bush budget took effect until Oct. 2001, and he didn’t create the bubble that was bursting that year. I have consistently said that you can’t start playing the blame game on an admin or a congress until a budget they passed takes effect.
- Unless you’re a truther and think Bush is responsible, the 9-11 attacks set the economy back 6-12 months. I would argue 12.
- Bush 43’s 2001 cuts weren’t structural and investment-oriented, and thus didn’t have the desired impact (unfortunately, we’re mostly making the same mistake again this year instead of cutting rates across the board again, which is what finally got the expansion going full throttle in 2003, and would work this time too). Bush and Congress should have cut rates across the board after 9-11, maybe even retroactively to 1-1-01.
- Clinton benefitted from the fact that the 1990-1991 recession was already in the rear-view mirror when he took office. Bush 41, to be consistent, deserves the credit for the first three Qs of 1993.

From current data (updated since the table at the post), I count 8.2 million jobs added in the 4-1/2 years from June 2003, when they finally got the tax structure reasonably right, to Dec. 2007. That’s 150K per month.

Something that’s never brought up about the Clinton admin job-growth numbers is how much GOP-inspired welfare reform contributed to them. The number of families on welfare dropped by about 2.3 million from 1996-2000, meaning at least that many people entered the workforce (and probably more, since a lot of teen-aged family members probably started getting into the workforce sooner). The multiplier effect of having so many new producers instead of non-producers may have added a million or so more jobs. Clinton had to be dragged kicking and screaming into signing Welfare Reform, but of course takes credit for it like it was his idea now, and considers it part of his legacy. Go figure.

By: Invictus

Invictus — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:05:37 +0000

Interesting stuff. I noted in your previous post when I clicked through to it that you mentioned “June 2000 through February 2001 (a nine-month period), the economy only added 612,000 jobs â€” a tepid performance well below the rate of growth in the workforce.” First, it seems that the 612,000 has been revised upward to 645,000, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s interesting is that it was not until January 2001 that the nine month job total actually fell under 1MM jobs (it was 809 in Jan ‘01). Other than in that “handoff” month, Clinton did not have ANY nine month period during which nonfarm payrolls summed to less than 1MM. Bush has had 46 such periods (not counting Jan ‘01) out of 86 rolling nine month periods, or more than half the time. Clinton also produced about 237k jobs on average, while the Bush Boom has produced less than 65k per month. Impressive performance by W.

By: TBlumer

TBlumer — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:39:25 +0000

#3, I think the investorwords.com definition, which was universally used until at least the mid-1980s, is right, and NBER isn’t.

I have blogged on it here in March 2006 (with an Oct. 2007 update) — “On the Timing (and Existence) of the Last Recession.”

Even if I buy that there was a recession according to NBER’s definition (as I said, I don’t buy their definition), they blew it on the timing.

By: Invictus

Invictus — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:10:33 +0000

Hate to burst your bubble regarding the definition of recessions, but the organization that officially dates them, the NBER (http://www.nber.org/cycles.html) “does not define a recession in terms of two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP. Rather, a recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.” I’d take their definition — since they actually do the dating — over any website’s. And, for the record, it looks like most of the metrics they rely on have peaked (though this week’s surprise print on Industrial Production was certainly welcome news).

By: TBlumer

TBlumer — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:52:11 +0000

#2, No I didn’t. My detection methods are sometimes a bit slow.

Thanks for the heads-up…..

Just read his entry. OMG, I didn’t know Hillary actually mentioned the church bulletin yours truly originally brought out.

I think this means I’m not on Tim Russo’s Christmas list. :–>

By: largebill

largebill — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:49:01 +0000

Tom,

Don’t know if you noticed, but NRO’s Campaign Spot in talking about last nights debate posted a link to your entries about Obama’s church bulletins. Cool.