New meme: THE BUSH DEPRESSION

[Pluvious]

As our economy sinks into the abyss of corruption and collapse,
we know the seeds were sown by Reagan. But the coffin nails
were hammered down by Our Smirking Chimp's policies of tax breaks
to the wealthy, crony appointments, the "heck of a job" loyal
incompetents placed into critical job positions, and of course
his Grand Debacle the Iraq Invasion, with its attending costs
and resulting pressure on oil supplies and prices.

Bush wanted a legacy, he's made himself one:

The Bush Depression

He took Clinton's surplus left over from the imploded dot-com
bubble, and funneled it NOT into our country's infrastructure,
not the needed Social Security and future debts, but into the
coffers of Haliburton and their ilk.

Henceforth, we can give Georgie his legacy title, in all our
future discussions and dialog, let us all begin refering to
the economic mess unfolding by the day..

The Bush Depression

Thanks George !

[Xipe Totec]

1. When did reality become just another meme? nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. He has a point... when talking to Repigs these days

I do call this the bush recession... may start using depression except that it is not that obvious yet.

Sends them through the roof

Oh and the Iraq War is the Bush War.

Of course I've called them openly idiots for voting against their interests and chickenhawks since they support this bush war but are unwilling to don the uniform.. pick up their kit and go to the damn line.

It is called FRAMING the issue

[jbrownstein]

4. Bush Depression

AMEN

[calimary]

23. Welcome to DU!

Amen indeed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Welcome to DU, and I like the way you think

:hi:

[opihimoimoi]

5. If its a Drepression we fear....of what Level would it be? The worst kind? Mr Murphy said sumpthin

BOUT THAT....

[greyghost]

6. And it's going to be an ass kicker, Bush=Hoover.

[Faryn Balyncd]

7. Perhaps "REPUBLICAN Depression" or "GOP Depression" may be more accurate.

[Perry Logan]

8. Will it be worse than the Reagan Depression?

[greyghost]

9. I truly believe El Chimpo out did his hero.

[Zynx]

14. We don't have 12% inflation and 11% unemployment.

Bush has presided over what will probably be a worse banking crisis in terms of losses to commercial banks, but I doubt we will get there on other measures.

[Beausoleil]

16. We don't measure inflation and unemployment

like we used to under Raygun. We don't get to see the real numbers. That 12% inflation counted food and energy whereas the inflation numbers we are allowed to see today do not. Unemployment numbers have also been allowed to be fudged since Raygun also, it's much higher than 4.5%-5%.
It's much easier to justify 2% wage increases when you don't allow the people to see that their cost of living has increased 7% or 9.5% or 12%.

[Zynx]

17. The headline inflation number includes food and energy. Look it up.

They often quote the Core-CPI for economic purposes. Unemployment may well be higher than 5%, but it's not 11% by any measure unless you count underemployment, but that would have pushed Reagan's 11% up to 15-16%.

[Beausoleil]

18. Not sure what "headline inflation number" you're talking about

Also, I've only been able to verify a high of 9.7% unemployment under Raygun. Underemployment was probably not as big a factor then as today due to outsourcing. So it may be that today's unemployment is actually much closer to the high of 9.7% I've been able to verify since Raygun's 9.7 would probably not have been much higher counting underemployment.

Year Inflation Unemployment (1)
-------------------------------
1961 1.0% 6.7%
1962 1.0 5.6
1963 1.3 5.6
1964 1.3 5.2
1965 1.6 4.5 < Vietnam war spending increases
1966 2.9 3.8
1967 3.1 3.8
1968 4.2 3.5
1969 5.5 3.5
1970 5.7 5.0
1971 4.4 6.0
1972 3.2 5.6
1973 6.2 4.9
1974 11.0 5.6 < First oil crisis
1975 9.1 8.5
1976 5.8 7.7
1977 6.5 7.1
1978 7.6 6.1
1979 11.3 5.9 < Second oil crisis
1980 13.5 7.2
1981 10.3 7.6
1982 6.2 9.7
1983 3.2 9.6
1984 4.3 7.5


1. Inflation: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U (1982-84=100), not seasonally adjusted, table CUUR0000SA0. Unemployment: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Series ID : lfs21000000.

Do you have a ballpark figure or a reference for today's inflation rate (CPI) that includes energy and food?

[Zynx]

19. Those are yearly averages for unemployment.

Forgive me, but I look at economic data sets so frequently that I sometimes forget 99% of people don't. When you look at annual unemployment, they average it for the year. I believe if you look at December 1982 you will see 10.8% unemployment.

For CPI: http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/econodayframe.asp?page=http://www.nasdaq.com/econoday/index.html

The "headline inflation number" is CPI including food and energy. Economists often like to strip them out because they tend to be volatile, however I personally think that is foolish.

[Beausoleil]

22. Thanks!

We, the public, only really get to see the core CPI, though. Correct?

[Zynx]

24. Well, that's what economists comment on. The CPI is public, but often not reported on

in favor of the Core-CPI. I hope that helps.

[greyghost]

21. We are no were near the bottom of this one, the other shoe...

hasn't fallen yet.

[greyghost]

20. Damn straight, they started fudging the numbers back then.

[SammyWinstonJack]

10. Great idea for a bumper sticker!

[Duppers]

11. I think so too

I'll use the term.


The new bush coin:

http://blimptv.blogspot.com/2007/12/new-bush-coins.html

[Jeffersons Ghost]

12. K&R nice graphic

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

13. George Hoover Walker Bush

[ThatsMyBarack]

15. K&R!

For that photo! :patriot: