Maybe I should have parsed the statement better. The act of deficit spending does not matter. The important thing is that the spending be beneficial, stimulative, or necessary. Cutting taxes to fight two wars and make big pharma rich might not qualify. But, I will take staving off depression and preserving as much demand as possible whilst TRYING to rebuild revenue and stimulate growth.

That there is debt and deficit, wah. Almost four centuries of Anglo-American history have taught us government borrowing is the route to growth and power. Stable and sustainable are just buzzwords from Bernanke. He knows we need deficit spending for the foreseeable future. The west has taxed much, much more and spent much, much more, and emerged from periods of heavy borrowing stronger than ever. If anything, we should be mashing the accelerator until the private sector gets too hot that inflation looks scary.

I don't know the numbers well enough to compare 1980 to 2009 without doing some research, but on the data from that article, 1980 is worse than 2009 on 6 of those 9 metrics.

Changes in housing prices are roughly comparable, and 1980 does better only on disposable income and lending.

That doesn't change that this has been a slow recovery, of course, with the corresponding political impact.

Edit: And probably more relevant: the recession was much worse, so faster post-recession growth is required to return to the pre-recession baselines in a comparable period of time.

I mean, in those graphs, the only metric where the recovery from this recession looks particularly bad compared to the other most recent recessions is disposable income, and when you look at corporate profits and exports, things look surprisingly good. Lou, are you about to go #occupywallstreet?

Yeah, but Rupert Murdock's rag says it's worse, so it's worse.

Safe to say that is not going to happen, me going all occupy.

Wook - don't accept the premise of his argument, namely that a recovery on the time scale of this recovery was inevitable. It wasn't.

That's the premise I'm attacking? Like, obviously a return to boom times on this time scale wasn't inevitable, because we're doing better than pretty much every post-1980 recession, and we're not booming.

You can borrow my mullet and tent. You'd need your own hipster wardrobe, piercings and tats.

That would be without historic precedent, no? Here is more comparative data if you like to wonk around.

http://www.minneapolisfed.org/public...tive/index.cfm

So then what are you disappointed about? I mean, the picture those graphs paint is a typical-to-decent rate of recovery for modern times, but one disproportionately benefiting those at the top compared to those at the bottom. But, like, cutting payroll taxes and paying for it with an increase in the capital gains tax is like socialism and ****, so what's the big deal? Personal disposable income lagging corporate profits is like the GOP ideal at this point.

Still doing better than 1980 and 2001, and just off the pace of 1990. Also, this graph shows the depths of the recession, and this one was far deeper than any of those.

Far deeper recession should lead to far sharper recovery.

That graph you posted seems to disagree.

This is false.

Why?

better right?

He read it in the WSJ for 50.

Maybe I am wrong, but if you return to full employment from a 10 percent decline in employment versus a 5 percent drop in employment wouldn't the return need to be far greater?

Well I certain didn't do independent research or cite "goldbugblog.com".

The return would need to be far greater, yes. But it wouldn't necessarily be faster, esp. when there were many more problems than just unemployment.

Sure, but you initially wrote sharper. Yes the economy has further to go than if unemployment had only dropped to 7%, but that has isn't an argument for 'the recovery should be happening faster.'

Sorry, zags vs OSU is a pretty good game. I do appreciate all y'alls views lots of smart people on this forum.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-...s-preparedness

Can someone explain how this is good?

Its an election year.

The economy was far better 2 years ago than today. Home prices were lower and dropping making them more affordable. Gas prices were lower. Just because a bunch of government workers lost their jobs, everybody thinks there is something wrong. More banks that go bust the better. If you want a car work in a car factory. Stimulus is nothing more than stealing from the workers and savers. Don't listen to the propaganda on CNN and Fox. The question to ask is are home prices cheaper today than yesterday. Ron Paul wants to cut $1 trillion, he should shoot for $2 trillion.

Look at the state dinner today, all rich cronies from the past living on the government dime. Instead of seeking to be a teacher, why not build yachts for rich people? If nobody builds yachts there will not be yachts.

End the capital gains tax, business tax, and dividend tax.
Force $13,000 per student union teachers off the government dole so kids can go to $3000 voucher schools they beg to get in.
Force a pay schedule for every medical procedure like in Japan, end all the $500 office visits.