Jophiel wrote:
As I've said before, Bush's lack of a true recovery (as opposed to one created entirely by the housing bubble) was shown through the complete and total collapse of damn near every metric to the worst of 2001 standards.
What does this have to do with anything? I don't recall a single person on this forum saying that Bush's economy was bad because the indicators were only rising because of a housing bubble. Feel free to attempt to find this argument being made, but I don't think you'll have any luck.
What was said, repeatedly, was that Bush's economy was bad because unemployment was "high" (high being mid 5% range mind you), and he was running a deficit. Those were far and away the most commonly used supporting facts on this board for any criticism of Bush's economy. Since my point here is purely to show the inconsistent measuring methods used by posters on this board, that would seem relevant. Bringing up something which no-one mentioned, but in hindsight had a large effect is nice and all, but it does not in any way counter what I said.
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Nothing Bush did created any sort of economic platform that could withstand any pressure (as opposed to Clinton's economy which retained most of its post 1993-94 gains even after the tech bubble). This is just fact whether you want to admit to it or not.
Except for the fact that it was the actions of the Democrats and Clinton which caused the bubble in the first place? Kinda missing that part of the story, aren't you? Another way to look at it is that had the Democrats not insisted on putting harmful language into the financial reform in 1999, the money that was funneled into the housing bubble would have instead been invested in more solid financial pursuits, and we not only would have had real solid growth, but the economic disaster of 3 years ago wouldn't have happened in the first place.
We can play blame game all day long Joph. The bigger question is what a president and party do in response to current economic conditions. And it's pretty clear that what Obama and the Dems did in response to the economic conditions were poor to say the least.
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Those who noted the cracks in Bush's esteemed recovery were correct whether you want to admit to it or not or try to wave it off with "broken clock" one-liners.
Which was no-one on this board. Hence, my point. Strangely, I don't recall *any* liberal economists calling for reform of the housing market during that time period either. I do recall conservatives calling for it and being shouted down with cries of "racist" and "hater of the poor" by the left though. Perhaps your memory is different and you could show me where reforming the housing market in order to prevent/correct for a rising bubble was a rallying cry of the left, but I just don't remember it.
But that doesn't stop you from implying some kind of "credit" is due. And it also doesn't prevent you from once again using the "but he did this!" technique to distract from the reality of right now.
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Then again, the indicators you're saying were the only ones mentioned weren't and you're just playing your usual games of vague, unsupported accusations that you can spin your way out of when pinned. How surprising.
I'm not being vague at all. The two factors which were overwhelmingly used on this board (and in a lot of other venues) to attack Bush's economy were the deficit and unemployment. You just don't want to admit that the exact same two factors which the left used to attack the economic performance of Republicans just a few years ago are now the two factors you want to ignore when assessing the performance of the Democrats. I suppose it's too much to ask that we use the same criteria? Guess so.
