Diminished Expectations

I find myself more and more these days trying to give historical context to current events, to clarify current events for the various millennials in my life.

Here’s a big one:  while the media is turning cartwheels about the “Obama Recovery” (happening an unprecedented eight years after the crash – worse than the Great Depression), the best quarter of GDP growth in this “recovery” is lower than the worst quarter of Reagan’s recovery, from 1983 through 1987.

But never mind – the media will keep the narrative of Obama the Economic Lightworker warm and dry.

But with Hillary Clinton in the picture, there’s another wrinkle.   John Hinderaker notes at Powerline (with some emphasis added):

n 1992, Bill Clinton announced that “It’s the economy, stupid.” That was pretty much the sole theme of his campaign. He ludicrously claimed that the country was then experiencing “the worst economy since the Great Depression,” a lie that the press, to its everlasting shame, not just allowed but often endorsed. So what was the level of GDP growth that Clinton relentlessly denigrated?

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the quarterly growth numbers for 1992, in chained 2009 dollars, were 4.8%, 4.5%, 3.9% and 4.1%. That’s right–the growth that Bill Clinton derided as the “worst economy since the Great Depression” was around four times what we are now seeing under Barack Obama. And Hillary Clinton promises to continue Obama’s anti-growth policies.

I remember the recession at the tail end of the Bush 41 administration – as the economy adjusted from a Cold War economy to civilian spending – very well; it slowed down my transition from radio to IT by a few harrowing months when I was welcoming a couple of new children into the world.  But it was a short recession with a sharp recovery (“Thanks, Ronald Reagan, for that “peace dividend!”) that led to 15 mostly-prosperous years…

…whose various windfalls are long in the past.

52 thoughts on “Diminished Expectations

  1. Bubba, it’s not Emery’s beliefs that cast doubt, it’s his thought processes. I don’t know many successful engineers that would try to support an argument with links that have little to nothing to do with the subject at hand, or links to laughably discredited sources. He’s just not very clever or thoughtful.

    Maybe his mental decline is due to close proximity with leftists over a period of years, I dunno.

  2. Swiftee, if you can’t believe it, that’s awesome–means you’ve not been around some of the pieces of work I’ve been around. I, sad to say, do not labor under that blessing. :^)

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