So did you all know that the newest republican talking point I've heard is that the current economic problems were caused purely by the media? Well, it may not be THAT new, but it's gotten louder as the problems have gotten worse (and similarly Obama's ratings have gotten higher). John R. Lott, Jr. said in April:But over the last half-year, the media and politicians have said we were in a recession even while the economy was still growing.
Gas prices are going up. The economy is slowing. Talk of recession is seemingly everywhere. While the majority of people rate their personal finances positively, consumer confidence in the economy has plunged to a 16-year low, well below what it was during the last year of the Clinton administration when we were in a recession. My republican friend at work came by my desk yesterday to tell me that Iceland was nearing bankruptcy (which I already knew), but he commented "and it's all because of one U.S. Election."
Confused, I asked him what he meant, and he told me that "the economy was doing great in December," but after Obama was nominated, the media started chanting "recession." According to this theory, this drove fears, causing a lack of confidence in the market, starting a chain reaction.
Now, I'm not saying the media is blameless, but the idea that the economy was "fine" and only started getting bad when the media made up the idea that it was heading south is obviously ludicrous. Then, adding on the idea that they did it because they knew it would help the nominee to the challenging party is just downright despicable. I don't blame him, of course; he didn't make this idea up. He's just been tricked.
The other thing that really gets me is that they're using alot of the same talking points they use to say that Bush inherited "Clinton's recession," which is, of course, a laugh. One of the ways they've done that is to redefine "recession."
Lott again:Last week, Barack Obama proclaimed "As most experts know, our economy is in a recession." Hillary Clinton made similar staements last fall. Yet, as any economist knows, a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth, and we haven't even had one single quarter of negative growth reported. The economy slowed down significantly during the end of last year, but that was after a sizzling annual GDP growth rate of 4.9 percent in the third quarter. My friend used that same definition to prove that Clinton left at the beginning of a recession. However, The NBER does not define a recession in terms of two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP. Rather, a recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. For more information, see the latest announcement on how the NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee chooses turning points in the Economy and its latest memo, dated 07/17/03. The craziest thing to me is that this is all so simple to look up. I didn't know if he was right about the definition of recession, but googling for 10 seconds proved to me that he was wrong. And, not only that, but the President is not the driving force for the economy. Sure, his words and actions make changes to the citizens' confidence, and that is important, but he's hardly the commander-in-chief of the U.S. economy. Republicans are grasping at straws here and redefining a very important word so that it has one simple definition that fits their agendas. However, "recession" is a very complicated word with a very detailed definition. Whether we're in one now or were in one when Clinton left office is not a decision I can make, because I'm not an economist, but clearly my Republican friends feel otherwise.
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