’)Via Paul Krugman comes this graphic illustrating via global industrial production how the policies of Obama are pulling us out of the economic death spiral that started on Bush’s watch.
Breaking News
CBO Report: Health Care Reform Reduces Deficit By $1 Trillion
The spin begins now before the headlines tomorrow morning.
Public not buying it, though.
CNN poll: 54% disapprove of Obama economic performance
You mean the same poll showing an overall 54% approval rating?
I was going to mention the other aspects of the poll, Oliver, but some of your aspiring site monitors would’ve said “Look over there!” and “Worldwide industrial production, Dennis?”
Who would have thought that Dennis has an internal threadjack monitor?
Like a very astute commenter at the Krugman link said:
Smart guy.
That and Krugman didn’t mention anything about The Won’s economic policies and their effects on global industrial production; whether they are pulling us out of a death spiral or about to lead us back into one.
Dennis, the graph is for world industrial production, not US industrial production. There a lot of other countries in the world doing a lot of things to turn their own economies around, including India and China, as another comment in that thread mentioned:
To suggest that this graph says anything at all about the global impact of the stimulus package, without a lot more data and information, is just stupid. That’s probably why Krugman didn’t mention it.
Anonymous Blog Troll or tenured Ivy League professor and Nobel Prize winner? Tough call.
Well, Indeed, it would be to my amusement that tenured Ivy League professor and Nobel Prize winner would claim that his policies sparked a worldwide recovery from an economic death spiral. Since neither he nor Krugman has made that claim, though, your post makes no sense.
Imagine that.
Quaker got a Nobel Prize the other day in a box of Cracker Jacks. The luster of that particular resume line has, shall we say, faded.
I did?
I’m always the last to hear anything!
Did you even read the commentary to the blog post, fafaroo, Mr. Deep Thinker?
Here, I’ll reprint it for you:
Bold is mine, fafaroo, to emphasize what you in your haste to satisfy your transferred obsession, obviously missed.
The graph doesn’t give enough information for anyone to use it to either support or bash Obama’s stimulus package, so neither Oliver nor the commenter you highlighted, and by extension you yourself, are accurately reading the graph.
I’m interested in the economic policies of countries like India and China noted by the other comment. If, as the commenter says, India and China took far more aggressive approaches to government spending than the US did in response to the crisis, that doesn’t really say much for the conservative line on the stimulus package.
Overall though, the graph suggests we have dodged a bullet at the same time governments around the world started spending more money, not cutting taxes or doing nothing.
Amazing, fafaroo,
You portray yourself as a very studious and deep thinker, but you weasel out on every argument. I never criticized Krugman for anything on that graph, I just said he didn’t draw any conclusions either way about what impact Obama’s economic policies had on global industrial production, as Oliver’s blog post claimed. I didn’t even criticize Oliver for saying what he said, just that Krugman didn’t make that contention. The comment I highligted from Krugman’s blog post made that same point, that the turn in global I-P started 8-9 months ago, before the stimulus or any of Obama’s policies had any effect (save for preventing the banks from failing, if you want to give him credit for that).
Weasel you say? What are the “tenets of the Laffer Curve?” What are “several” of same? If you’re not sure, perhaps you could consult Professor Krugman. Thanks in advance for not weaseling out!
Dennis, whatever you want to say about the US stimulus plan’s impact on the turnaround, it’s safe to say that the turnaround resulted from massive government spending, in general, around the world.
It wasn’t tax cuts. It wasn’t sitting on our hands and letting the market correct itself. It wasn’t anything that conservatives advocated and are still advocating. It was massive government stimulus spending in the major national economies around the world.
China, for instance, pumped $586 billion into its economy beginning in November 2008.
To say that Obama’s stimulus plan didn’t impact the turnaround even as the the massive stimulus spending of other governments did, is seriously stupid.
Good to know we’re having an effect, Dennis.
Global industrial production and The Messiah saving the world, Quibbie?
I’m for it.
Next?
“how the policies of Obama are pulling us out of the economic death spiral”
All Obama and his cronies have done is print money. Nothing has been fixed. The same folks that got us into this mess (who should be behind bars)are the ones telling us how to get out of it. More bailouts, more debt, more lies.
And President Palin would have saved us all with tax cuts for the baby Jesus.
Ford sales up 3%, Obama’s Chrysler down 30%.
All in all, do you think Barack Obama has been a better president than George W. Bush, or do you think Bush was a better president than Obama has been?
Obama better 57%
Bush better 34%
No difference/both the same (vol.) 6%
No opinion 2%
And do you think Joe Biden has been a better vice president than Dick Cheney, or do you think Cheney was a better vice president than Biden has been?
Biden better 54%
Cheney better 38%
No difference/both the same (vol.) 6%
No opinion 2%
Thank you for playing, Dennis.
Off topic, fafaroo.
It’s the economy, stupid.
Worldwide industrial production, fafaroo?
Obama is a better president than Bush, Dennis?
On the other hand guys, the stimulus didn’t magically fix everything immediately. So, um, fail!
It did yield an unemployment rate two percentage points higher than the White House said we’d get if we didn’t pass the stimulus bill, though. How could these geniuses get that so wrong?
You’re right Dennis–time to get those impeachment papers drawn up. Oh…wait. That means Biden or (mwahahaha) Pelosi becomes president.
Dennis, is your argument that Obama has failed because he didn’t magically turn the economy around in his first month in office or that his administration failed because it didn’t accurately gauge just how bad the economic situation was in the first place?
And either way, people still think he’s a better president across the board, than Bush.
Across the board huh?
Obama’s handling of the economy: 46% approve, 54% disapprove.
Obama’s handling of Afghanistan: 42% approve, 56% disapprove.
Obama’s handling of illegal immigration: 36% approve, 58% disapprove.
Obama’s handling of the federal deficit: 39% approve, 60% disapprove.
Obama’s handling of Iraq: 44% approve, 53% disapprove.
William I was referring to the question in which Obama was compared directly to Bush and the results:
Which, given the other numbers you cite, doesn’t say much about Bush, does it?
Well I’m no economist amigo, but it seems to me that the various justifications for stimulus spending I read at the time have more or less predicted the outcome. If for whatever reason (and I won’t rule out calculated exaggeration for the sake of drumming up support) they were a mite too optimistic, that doesn’t change the fact that it still looks to have been infinitely preferable to sitting on our hands. It seems to me this carping about how they said unemployment wouldn’t breach ten percent is a bit like carping at the weatherman because he said it wasn’t going to rain today.
One problem with these polls is being too simplistic. I mean, how many people disapproving of Obama’s economic performance see him as being too centrist, not enough Krugman, or some other factor impacting them personally… which has nothing to do with the philosophy of teabagging?
“Better than the Depression”? Is that like “Pres Obama doesn’t suck”?
If Palin had been elected America would have been sold to China by now.
The only problem with the stimulus package was that it should have been bigger, since it created so many jobs but could have created more.