Is This the Only Chart That Matters in Election 2012? Obama's Epic Unemployment FAIL
Over at the American Enterprise Institute's blog, economics writer James Pethokoukis re-ups a bigger version of what is quite possibly the only chart that matters for the 2012 election. It shows the unemployment rate with and without Barack Obama's recovery plan, including the bold projections of his economic advisers back before the first "recovery summer" was upon us like a plague of joblessness. Then just to rub it in, Pethokoukis includes the actual unemployment rate. Hat tip: INSTAPUNDIT
Pethokoukis is basically in the tank for Romney-Ryan, but that's neither here nor there. It's pretty clear that Americans aren't warming to Mitt Romney, who is totally meh as a candidate - given his creation of the nation's first healthcare mandate, support for stimuli past, lackluster style, and inability to actually discuss cutting government spending in any real way, that's not surprising. To pretend that Romney and the GOP offer a distinct choice from the policies of the past 12 years (GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan voted for many of the worst of them, including TARP, No Child Left Behind, The Patriot Act, Medicare Part D, and more).
But it may not matter, either, given Obama's demonstrated inability to goose the economy (and that's not even to mention his punts on other issues such as civil liberties and transparency that have disappointed even his ardent supporters).
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One side of the mouth: With double or triple the stimulus, we would have been out of this horrible Bush-created depression by now.
Other side: Recovery summer is a success! Those poo-poo head Libtabushianservatives wuz wrong!
One side of the mouth: With double or triple the stimulus, we would have been out of this horrible Bush-created depression by now.
AKA, the Krugman orifice.
You ruined my day by bringing up that braindead fuckwad.
That's not a mouth!
I love it when people can actually believe they can "solve" a recession by merely delaying it until after their next election.
Damn it, SugarFree nails it in one. I've seen way too many people, including not just random Team Blue internet commenters but also major players like New York Times editors, argue that of course the stimulus was a success, and if it wasn't, it was because the evil Republicans wouldn't let it be a success. Pointing out that this is damn near the definition of an unfalsifiable belief just makes you the recipient of the next Two Minutes' Hate.
YOU QUESTIONED THE ORTHODOXY. EXPEL THE NON-BELIEVER.
Can we call it the Tony/Shrike axis?
Tony says we need more stimulus and Shrike says the economy is going back flips.
Both blame Bush.
This chart is racist.
If the "actual" (term used loosely) unemployment line were black, I'd agree. But I only know "red" as American Indian, and everyone hates indians, so it's not racist.
Despite repeated assurances that Obama is "toast".
This chart + the national debt chart + the gas price chart = Obama is finished.
http://feministing.com/2012/08.....0-reasons/
The irrational love can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until Obama gets a second term.
And you won't see it reported anywhere in the so-called "mainstream media" but Romney has been leading Obama in the Gallup poll of registered voters for a couple of weeks now.
can't really be excited about that. IN this case, even more than the last, there is no discernable difference between these two horrible ass-clowns.
Really? I'm not a big Romney fan, but let's drop the Reason party-line of they are both the same.
Would California be the disaster it is today if main-line Republicans (not Arnold) had been running the legislature and Governor's office for the past couple of decades?
Bad analogy. We've had way more back-and-forth in the seat of Federal power than California has over the last few decades. And things aren't exactly going swimmingly at the federal level.
So if... IF there had been any power swings in California, I'm guessing that at best, it would be only marginally less worse.
I don't get it. Texas has been run by Republicans exclusively for a few decades, while it isn't perfect, it's sure a shitload better than CA.
Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Virgina, Colorado - they have had mixed government - and they are a ton better than CA.
The lesser evil is still evil.
So we go for the greater evil?
No, we reject the false choice between two evils because they are not the only two choices.
Would California be the disaster it is today if main-line Republicans (not Arnold) had been running the legislature and Governor's office for the past couple of decades?
Maybe. And if my uncle had tits and a vagina, he'd be my aunt.
Oh, I think TEAM RED would be less bad (note: still bad) than TEAM BLUE this time around.
How much that yields in the end, eh, I don't know.
I'm more worried about Congress - the Senate will continue to be a bunch of mopes, RED or BLUE. The House has some small hope of getting better - but only incrementally.
... can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned ...
Isn't this a quote from someone (I think Mises?) regarding a benevolent tyranny versus a misanthropic tyranny?
You're thinking of Hayek's "The Road To Terminators".
"I'll be black."
Is it supposed to be going Q1 Q3 Q1 Q3 on the X-axis or is it missing the Q2s and Q4s?
The data is there, the labels aren't. There are 6 dots / months in each section.
So we're getting a fourth term of George W Bush no matter who wins.
It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Maybe Bush really is still in charge. A silent coup.
I think it is his wife pulling the strings.
She was quiet for 8 years...too quiet.
Or it's the old man. He ran the CIA for a while, you know.
I forget, did he preside over an almost competent period of the CIA, or was it just that he didn't do anything stupid in regards to Castro?
He was just there to clean up after Church.
The dipshit should have predicted 25%, European-style unemployment without the Stimulus. Obama could look like a hero right now in his echo chamber of an inner circle.
He does look like a hero within his echo chamber of an inner circle.
Think of Obama's echo chamber more like a reverse cone of silence...
Obama doesn't need the echo chamber; he's far above that. He looks like a hero to himself first, then acts second. Every act of his is heroic.
So we've confirmed that Romney is Turd Sandwich and Obama is Giant Douche, right?
No, we've concluded that Obama is a turd sandwich and Romney is the douche-ey filling.
Obamney is a Giant Turd Douchewich.
That's racist, straight up
And you feel hurt because libertarian ideas aren't catching on in a big way.
Correct. Krugmans ideas are all the rage. The chart above proves it.
The real issue for this election is inequality, for as you see, Science? has now proven that ALL people would prefer a more equal/socialistic society though they may not "consciously" recognize it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19284017
They may have successfully proven that most people are not very bright. A totally "equal" society is one in which we do not recognize and reward hard work and intelligence (not that one can't make money in other ways, I'm just mentioning that those two tend to help). Such a society would inevitably be very, very poor. I'm pretty sure cave men had reasonably egalitarian societies that would be pretty comparable to what we'd get if we tried to really equalize everything as Rawls would like. Perhaps they should try asking people if they'd prefer to live in America, with its rampant inequality, or in a cave with a life expectancy of 28. They might get somewhat different answers.
Nope. The American People? really ARE fucking stupid enough to elect the current Turd in Chief, AGAIN. It's not at all clear that the Bamster will be sent to the unemployment line speaking and book-signing circuit where he belongs.
Not that Romney's a whole lot better, usual disclaimers etc. etc. etc. But Jesus - not A second Bamster term. No...
To be fair, if you were given a false dichotomy plus overwhelming subject ignorance, you *might* vote Obama too.
1) From 2009-2012, name what Obama did that Romney wouldn't have done.
2) From 2009-2012, name what Romney would have done that Obama didn't do.
Kagan and Sotomayor
For #2, Approved the Keystone Pipeline, and been much better in general on energy.
Romney is no economic dummy. He knows that fossil energy alone could boost the GDP by a few percentage points over the next four years.
Not destroy the Gulf oil business.
Some regulatory restraint.
Require a budget from Congress (even Dubya did this).
Not support or sign that disaster of a healthcare bill. (Romney might have signed one, but not that one)
I hope Romney would have Agriculture buying meat.
I'll give you Keystone. Health care bill, not so sure.
I'll give you Kagan and Sotomayor, but point out that the last Republican justice is the one that put Obamacare into jurisprudence. So I'm not 100% convinced that Romney's choices would be a ton better.
I give Obama slightly better grades on gay rights.
I'm still not sure which one to dislike slightly less.
How is he better on gay rights?
Please, give us more '90 reasons' posts! Those are hilarious.
Obama hasn't "punted" on civil liberties and transparency. He's run up the score for what used to be the other side.
A punt ... to the nuts?
I'm re-reading Childhood's End, and it occurs to me that now would be a good time for the Overlords to make an appearance.
Oh, that sure was a cheerful and uplifting read. Felt like sticking my head in a gas oven after that one... I think I reread the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy just to purge the melancholia out.
I was thinking the early part, where everything went utopian. We'd be dead by the less happy parts towards the end.
Speak for yourself, non-telepath.
I am pretty sure they came during an economic boom.
The life styles of the adults described in the book were opulent.
The life styles of the adults described in the book were opulent.
Right, so the perfect time for the Overlords to show up in DC.
I think the Overlords created the economic boom. By the time everything went, well, [SPOILER OMITTED] and [SPOILER OMITTED], the Overlords had been running things for many decades.
I don't think this is a sentence: "To pretend that Romney and the GOP offer a distinct choice from the policies of the past 12 years (GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan voted for many of the worst of them, including TARP, No Child Left Behind, The Patriot Act, Medicare Part D, and more)."
Okay, okay. It's my fault.
I had a steady job for a couple of years there, and didn't like it. So I personally crashed the economy and sabotaged the Recovery Stimulus, to keep the "get a job" chorus off my back.
I voted Libertarian in 2008. I'd love to vote for Gary Johnson in 2012, but there really is a choice this election. 2008 was Giant Douche versus Turd Sandwich, but this is more like Giant Douche versus Elephant. I'm not too fond of elephants, but they really are better than Giant Douches. If it's going to be close, I'm going to vote for Romney/Ryan.