Of course it is possible to having rising unemployment and positive job growth. I make no apologies for your inability to understand this reality.

And, dammit, I thought I told you I was a right-wing hit man, not con artist.

I know that you are not interested in facts or an honest debate, but I will engage anyway. Jaim said that economic growth under Bush and the GOP Congress was the worst since Hoover. The most accepted measure of economic growth among economists is real GDP growth. So far I have yet to see any evidence that such growth was weaker under Bush than any president since Hoover. Perhaps you can provide some?

“Colin’s” chart only goes back to Truman however.

Nonetheless the chart he links to shows that not only did Republican President Bush have the lowest payroll expansion (tying with two other Republican Presidents: Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush) at 02.3%, Republican President Bush also had the lowest Jobs created per year in office of any of the Presidents.

More than that, the chart reveals that job growth has been historically best under Democratic Presidents and payroll expansions were also best under Democratic Presidents.

So not only does “Colin’s” chart show that Republican President Bush had one of the lousiest economic records since at least Truman, it also supports the assertion that Republican Presidents have worse economic records than their opponents.

Democratic Presidents have BETTER economic records than Republicans

In the reality based world, an increase in “unemployment” means “negative job growth”.

But in right wing con artist “Colin’s” world, “higher unemployment” under a Republican means positive job growth.

Orwellian indeed.

The phrase is an imperfect one, but in common usage it’s absolutely correct. Of course job growth has to keep up with adults entering the workforce, or else we see the practical equivalent of negative growth.

You can keep making this claim but it doesn’t make it true. Isn’t either correct either in mathematical terms or with accepted definitions found in the English language. Again, just give me one reputable source to back up this claim.

But then again, you also made the claim that economic growth was the worst under Bush since Hoover, which you can’t seem to substantiate even after I did you the favor of directing you to some graphs.

It’s rather obvious that you’re not about to let facts get in the way of your argument.

The phrase is an imperfect one, but in common usage it’s absolutely correct. Of course job growth has to keep up with adults entering the workforce, or else we see the practical equivalent of negative growth.

Honestly, do you really think your semantic masturbation will hide the fact that the Bush/GOP years were abysmal for the American economy in terms of job growth and wage growth? Are you really trying to defend three million jobs created total over eight years compared to, say, the Clinton years, when tens of millions of jobs were created?

Yeesh. You wing-nuts really are lost in the wilderness. The first problem is admitting you have a problem (i.e., actual Republican governance ca. 2001-2008).

But if you are so sure of your position, please try to find a reputable source that says job growth was negative under Bush, because currently you are the only one making that claim.

Two million people are added to the unemployed.

That’s MATH, “Colin”.

It’s ‘Orwellian’ to say otherwise.

I can live with that one.

Really? Economic growth was the worst since Hoover? I think this is the first time I have seen this argument made. Perhaps you can explain this a bit further.

To help you here are a couple of graphs of GDP growth rates (the most accepted definition of economic growth) for the past 60 years or so:

http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=354

(interesting to note here is the sharp decline in volatility that begins in the early 1980s, which economists have referred to as the “great moderation”.

http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=230

Except the person invoking the term was Oliver Willis when he said “Clinton inherited the irresponsibility of Reagan-Bush but the very fundamentals of the market were upended under Bush II.”

I merely addressed the term with the accepted definition.

When real wages fall, and wealth continues to concentrate upward, demand naturally remains soft and will decrease.

And tax cuts cause this how? Because when the rich have more money they decide to pay their workers less?

In any case your premise is incorrect as real wages have slightly risen over the past 15 years or so as this GAO report notes:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ed5ihFI7DDAC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=employee+total+compensation+rising&source=bl&ots=Zr5bOKBcqn&sig=V7o_A0OuwugYB3pSu8uS6S3moAA&hl=en&ei=GpI7SpeQBYHVlAfZmryiDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5

Further, real wages aren’t the correct metric to look at, but total employee compensation which includes benefits such as health care. In real terms these have grown.

‘Ownership Society.’

If you can explain how the ownership society — which achieved little other than things like expanded health savings accounts and the “American Dream Downpayment Initiative” designed to provide down payment assistance to approximately 40,000 low-income families caused the housing bubble I’m all ears.

You were correct about the CAFE standards, my mistake. Also what I should have said was no coherent energy policy, none that was aggressive enough in reducing our vulnerability TO said oil shock.

So your complaint is, what, that Bush didn’t didn’t make the U.S. independent from foreign oil in 8 years? I imagine you are angry that Democrats blocked proposals to expand domestic drilling?

You are aware, of course, that using alternative energies would have raised energy costs and provided a drag on the economy right? After all, if alternative energy cost the same or was cheaper we would already be using it.

And what causes a weak dollar?

There are many factors which you can read about here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_market#Economic_factors

Perhaps foremost among them is interest rates. As you can see a decline in interest rates in the US corresponds pretty well with the increase in oil prices:

http://www.mortgageguideuk.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/us-rates.gif

Borrowing too much money to fund government spending that nobody is willing to find support for taxation unless it is the other guy. The key is to promise the most to the masses and claim to tax only a small minority to pay for it all.

You may not have noticed but the projected budget is much larger for the next 10 years going forward then it was for the last 8 years going back. Much larger.

Traditionally the way a government handles a check they can’t cash is to inflate thier way out of it.

You may not grasp how the creation of money by the government has a tendency to decrease it’s worth but don’t worry the whole world will help with the lesson.

Well it’s possible I misunderstood, but it’s also possible that you should have been more specific if you had a specific definition of ‘fundamental’ in mind. I’ll be happy to address any fundamentals you liked, but we’ll go with your response. I tend to view things like taxation, energy policy and job creation as fundamental in the economy, but to each their own.

Tax policy

Bush reduced the top marginal tax rate from 39.6% to 35%, the capital gains tax from 20% to 15% and dividend tax rate from 39.6% to 15%. I am not sure how this counts as the “upending” that Oliver describes. I am also unsure of how this contributed to an economic decline, but perhaps you can explain.

Gladly.

I understand that as an economic libertarian you tend to view the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer as a healthy market operating as it should, but the rest of us don’t see it as such. When real wages fall, and wealth continues to concentrate upward, demand naturally remains soft and will decrease.

job creation

The high under Bush was 7.2% in December 2008, his last full month in office, while the low was 4.4% in March 07′. At Bush’s presidential midpoint it was 5.2% in January 05′.

Others have already done an adequate job answering your claims about Mr. Bush’s job creation numbers.

Sources of growth

Now, maybe you can fault Bush for reappointing Greenspan, but this was a pretty uncontroversial move at the time. Likewise Bush can perhaps be faulted for not eliminating the mortgage interest deduction or reining in Freddie and Fannie, but then again those were pretty difficult to achieve politically. Indeed, Obama’s policies thus far seem bent on preserving housing prices rather than deflating the sector.

‘Ownership Society.’

energy policy

Actually, there was an energy bill signed in 2005 and an increase in CAFE standards signed by Bush in 2007 from 27.5 mpg to 35 mpg. As with most government interventions in the economy this achieved little positive.

You were correct about the CAFE standards, my mistake. Also what I should have said was no coherent energy policy, none that was aggressive enough in reducing our vulnerability TO said oil shock.

The oil shock, meanwhile, is likely due to the weak dollar (indeed, this is probably also why oil is rising at the moment):

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90041682

And what causes a weak dollar?

I can live with that one.

Actually, the more I think about this the more ridiculous it is. The assertion by Duros that “We had negative job growth, in fact, which is a pretty good trick” was in response to my statement that “Unemployment under Bush was rather unexceptional” in which I cited statistics for Bush’s entire tenure.

The response only makes sense as encompassing Bush’s entire time in office. During that time job creation was positive.

End of story. Anything else is just absurd spinning.

This is Orwellian. 3 million jobs were created. That isn’t negative. End of story.

And because no endpoints were chosen we have to assume he was referring to the entire presidency.

It’s like walking 3 miles an hour on a treadmill going 22 miles per hour.

“Negative growth” doesn’t even began to capture how badly you’ll be thrown off that treadmill.