… for the last year, the United States economy has been in recession.
No shit, Sherlock.
Of course the “nonpartisan” National Bureau of Economic Research waited until after the election to make the pronouncement. You know, God forbid accurate information influence an election one way or the other.
Dollars to donuts it doesn’t take a year to announce the end of the recession.
I’m not sayin’ that it’d influence our Gubernatorial election, but you could make the same argument about the projected budget deficit in our own state, FWIW YMMV…
Funny how stats come out after the fact, in both cases…
One year? That’s about two quarters too late to make a call like that.
Doesn’t seem like that sort of caution is required, considering Republicans lack the basic ability to discern cause and effect that my retarded aunt manages.
If the fact had been announced, we still would have been regaled with Republican morons/big lie spinners telling us they know it’s not true and the economy is strong thanks to their crappy stewardship.
@1 Uh, Brent, you must not own a TV … OR … you’ve had your head stuck in a rabbit hole all fall … because Rossi built his whole campaign around the “deficit” and Gregoire’s alleged fiscal mismanagement.
I guess for it to be considered a “real” recession by academic standards you need to have two quarters of negative growth. And though the economy has been shitty it only now reached that benchmark.
As I mentioned in the other threads, and last summer when it was first mentioned, the Feds have been juggling the GDP numbers by making “adjustments” to account for hypothetical inflation parameters, etc. so that a negative quarter would appear to be a positive quarter. At the time, they were widely disbelieved by the experts. After all, only a fool would believe that in the spring/summer of 2008 the financial services sectors were experiencing double-digit growths in profit.
Of course, you can’t juggle books in such a fashion indefinately. Like a dishonest bookkeeper trying to hide money which was embezzeled and then lost in the casinos, you can seldom count on a winning streak to get you out of trouble. But the Bush administration hoped they could get past the November elections, so that the results would show up under some OTHER President’s watch.
It reminds me of President Reagan’s first term, when he tried to get the tax cuts passed based upon tax revenue projections based upon estimates of economic growth which were wildly optimistic – what his budget direct called “the rosey scenario”. That’s how he argued you could cut taxes and still balance the budget. It didn’t work then, it won’t work now.
Brent@1–
Precisely!
Now it’s a deficit…err shortfall…..err future shortfall.
TEAM GREGOIRE and TEAM HORSESASS did a phenomonal job of shifting the debate from the real problem to what technically to call it!
It’s amazing that Obama announces his Cabinet picks…and the market plunges 700 points.
Last week, the KLOWNS credited Obama with the market increase. This week, Obama has no impact on the plunge…even though it happened during is telepromter reading aka speech.
That’s why I call you KLOWNS!
@8 “It’s amazing that Obama announces his Cabinet picks…and the market plunges 700 points.”
Oh, and I thought it was a reaction to Bush saying, “I’m sorry.” Or maybe a reaction to your insipid posts. Regardless, Republicans won’t control another branch of government for the remainder of Cynical’s pathetic, meaningless life.
5 Ivan
Nope. Wrong. Clearly, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
The phenomenon to which you refer, that is “two consecutive quarters of negative growth,” enjoys wide dissemination but has the status of an old wives’ tale.
If you were to crack a freakin’ URL, you would find out almost immediate that the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is more or less the official arbiter of recession in the US, and to which Goldy wisely refers in his post, defines a recession as
Yup. I don’t even think that the timing is as suspicious as Goldy does, though there’s very little I’d put past this administration. But we just don’t know these things very quickly while they’re happening.
Hey KLOWNS–
Your “Bush conspiracy theory” about nearly everything is laughable.
Even worse was Gregoire announcing a couple DAYS after the election that the upcoming Deficit was no longer $3.2 BILLION but now $5.1 BILLION AND the current Budget Surplus had evaporated.
No timing questions on that…just a mere coincidence, right?
Oh, but it’s HER staff that projected the Deficit….mere coincidence & timing!
Today, the stock market dropped 700+/- points.
Clearly they were reacting to the news that new rifts were spotted in the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica, which probably indicate imminent collapse.
11 Cyn
No, public knowledge, published by a legislative committee. At least, that’s where all of the previous estimates have come from.
@7 The real problem, Cynical, is that shitty Republican policies put the entire U.S. economy into its worst crisis since 1929. Why would Washington be immune when the whole global economy is getting dragged down into the mire created by Wingnut Whack-O-Nomics?
@8 Actually, I think the Dow’s plunge is more likely correlated to the meteorite that hit Canada this week.
Yes, more banks are collapsing, the Fed is releasing more money for the economy, Treasury Secretary Hank “Flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants” Paulson now says he was wrong a week and a half ago and he needs to send the other half of the $700 billion bailout to his friends as well, and the NBER announced TODAY that we’ve been in a national recession since last December, which all mean only that Christine Gregoire is to blame.
Hey Cynical! I hope you didn’t hang onto Wells Fargo after you bought it at $32, because it dropped $5.48 today! Anyone buying bank stocks either is nuts or hates money.
Also announced today:
Cynical,
Go back to fucking your sheep, goats and other assorted livestock on your Montana spread.
Cyn, you seem to be repeating yourself quite a lot. Is there a history of Alzheimer’s in your family, or are you just trying to emulate your hero Saint Ronald?
There is a conspiracy in Wingnuttia to brand all cause and effect arguments as ‘CONSPIRACY THEORIES’ —
19
Is Cynical that indiscriminate? Can he not even remain faithful to one species?
17. Roger Rabbit spews:
Sold it long ago, bot it back & sold it again.
Tomorrow may be a great day for bargain shopping Rog! If Obama is the great miracle worker you claim he will be.
PS–
A wise person would be looking at Wells Fargo again if it hits under $21.
I see your NOV tanked again today.
Tough break!
20. ArtFart spews:
Actually AF, I do it because some of LEFTIST PINHEADS on this Blog seem incapable of understanding a coherent thought unless it is repeated ad infinitum!
You are obviously excused from that dungheap..
but please bear with me.
I’m sure you understand what I mean.
Proud Leftist–
Merry Christmas!
This is now our season to shine.
Got your Advent Calendar out?
I was reading the Book of Daniel the other day…Chapter 4.
I kind of feel like Gregoire & PINHEADED Seattleites are determined to build Babylon!
History does have a way of repeating itself PL.
Praise the Lord!
“Sold it long ago, bot it back & sold it again.”
Your broker must luv this trading activity, esp. for a stock you touted as a “long term hold” when you grandly announced your initial “purchase” to chase the dividend yield.***
***”purchase” …most likely a pure fabrication.
It’s official. We now enter the Bush recession. Isn’t this, like, his second one?
Recession? Must be Clinton’s fault :)
@25 “Praise the Lord!”
I can’t help but notice that all pedophiles being busted these days are white Christian Republican males.
http://www.republicanoffenders.com/Pedophiles.html
But that doesn’t bother you, does it?
@26 “***”purchase” …most likely a pure fabrication.”
He just makes shit up as he goes along. He sold his multiple homes, now he still owns them. He’s reached the point where he can’t keep the lies straight anymore. Has anybody any doubt that Cynical’s life really, really sucks?
27 PTBAA
Yep. The first “Bush recession” began in March 2001 and ended in November 2001 (courtesy NBER)
Steve Benen:
32 There’s a perverse sort of consistency there, isn’t there?
5 Ivan
Nope. Wrong. Clearly, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
The phenomenon to which you refer, that is “two consecutive quarters of negative growth,” enjoys wide dissemination but has the status of an old wives’ tale.
When a definition of a term enjoys “wide dissemination” it often means that people USE that definition. Bloombergs.com uses “A temporary downturn in economic activity, usually indicated by two consecutive quarters of a falling GDP.” as its definition of the word.
You pointed out that NBER uses a different definition that doesn’t rely on two quarters mark. That’s fine, I accept your point.
Of course, being that you seem to be an asshole who gets a sense of pleasure by typing out petty insults on your sperm-stained keyboard, you were eager to contradict me sounding… well, like an asshole. That’s alight, keep on keeping on, Daddy Love.
As to the cause of the depression:
If you listen to the right wingnuts, they claim the democrats were behind the subprime crisis and that the housing fairness act contributed to the crisis. While this pathetically stupid argument has been debunked many times (especially since the act only calls for equality for QUALIFIED buyers to prevent redlining), new information shows that (as expected) Bush was asleep at the wheel (as usual).
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28001417/
Here is some of the cause of the masive melt-down of the subprime crisis. Lack of regulation and lack of real regulators.
@34: Ivan
I actually thought your definition was the common one, too. However, in Daddy Love’s defense, he usually is not too unnecessarily derogatory. I usually agree with what he says.
I don’t think he meant it personally as an insult to you – although rereading his comments they seem rather harsh on you for what you did write.
The so-called “official” definition of a recession leaves much to be desired in terms of its clarity. For example,
it doesn’t quantify “significant,” leaving much room for debate. Here’s what Paul Krugman has to say on the subject:
The irrelevance of a word
So, GDP was up slightly in the first quarter. Does that mean that we’re not in a recession? The correct answer is, who cares?
The NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee defines a recession as
“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.”
Broadly speaking, that means that the economy is only considered to be in a recession when everything is going down. Historically, that hasn’t been a problem, since most recessions have been “V-shaped”: everything plunges, and then everything springs back, so there isn’t much ambiguity about whether the economy is worsening or not.
But since the mid-1980s we have been having “U-shaped” recessions in which the upturn is slow and weak. As a result, things that matter to a lot of people — like the unemployment rate, shown above — keep getting worse long after the official recession period, indicated by the shaded areas. Officially, the recession of 1990-91 was long over by the 1992 election, but people were still very worried about the economy, stupid. The 2001 recession officially ended in November of that year, but the job situation kept getting worse until the middle of 2003.
The point is that the official definition of recession has become delinked from peoples’ actual experience. Right now, we’re in an economy with deteriorating employment and incomes, collapsing home prices, and business retrenchment. Is it also an economy in recession? Who cares?
from: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c.....of-a-word/
Puddy’s way of thinking. “I guess Wall Street didn’t like Obama’s Security Cabinet”..
Geeez looks like Cynical beat Puddy to the punch, someone even more stupid than stupid.
I hear through the grapevine that the NBER is going to announce tomorrow that the earth is round, and that the sun doesn’t, in fact, revolve around it.
for the last year, the United States economy has been in recession.
fear not. congressman dave reichert is on the case.
Change We Can Believe In!
HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR!
Change??? What change?
No one can identify it…it’s MIA!
The KLOWNS are either too stupid or too arrogant to acknowledge they have been duped!
Change?
You KLOWNS are hysterical.
Your lives are still shit, bitching about small stuff while rich guys are still…..rich, if they were smart about their investments!
40. notaboomer spews:
Fear not…Dumby Darcy is one of Obama’s key economic advisors. She has a Harvard Degree in Economics, right?
cyniklown forgets…
HE LOST!!!!
BIAW spent Millions of $$$’s of members $$$’s and LOST.
Poor dumb son-of-a-bitch.
Uh, Cynical?
You’re asking about “change”, and crowing that President-elect Obama isn’t making the ultra-far-left very happy.
It was you Republicans that kept saying that President-elect Obama was a far-left liberal socialist. He said from the very start that he was a moderate that would look for bipartisan solutions to major issues.
Yes, some liberals actually believed your talking points instead of what he clearly said. This seemed odd to me then, as it does now. Most of them wouldn’t believe you folks if you said that it was light outside at noon, but when you described Obama as the “most liberal Senator”, they believed you instead of him.
Lots of bulbs on our chandelier, and a few of them don’t burn as brightly as we would like.
So, “change” is what you’re looking for? Ok, how about this for change. The President-elect is looking for people who are competent and diligent for senior government positions, rather than just picking his drinking buddies.
That is change that I can believe in.
RuJax–
You said I lost??
Lost what??????
Have my taxes gone up?
Gregoire is promising cuts WITH NO TAX INCREASE.
The size & cost & role of government are my issues….what have I lost??
If you are a guv’mint employee, YOU may have lost…your stupid job!
HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR! HAR!
John Barelli–
Good luck with all of that!
John–
I was PROMISED my taxes would go waaaay up and lazy asses would get all kinds of free stuff at my expense. Not the type of CHANGE I believed in.
It’s funny the losers on the Left have been duped!
Why, Cynical. I didn’t realize that you were making over a quarter million a year. Unless, of course, you’re talking about what the Republicans said that an Obama administration would do.
Candidate Obama made no such promises.
You’ll have to forgive us if we decline to deliver on what the Republicans promised we would do.
I realize that you folks worked hard to ensure that everything we Democrats promised would happen under your administration actually happened. Perhaps we should thank you for actually exceeding our worst expectations, but I really don’t feel all that thankful for that, so I doubt that we will reciprocate.
But thank you for your wish of good luck. Of course, having competent people in charge will go a long way in making that good luck happen.
Only a fool trusts Gregoire and her promise. You don’t understand the woman like I do. Taxes will be raised.
So how much tax money is Obama going to spend getting inagurated? That should go over real big with the 40% of people filing bankruptcy across the state.
Gotta love those Democrats. Where’s My F’n Bailout Bozzo’s.
Erm, Cynical – you do realize that Obama hasn’t actually been inaugurated yet, don’t you? Bush is still the president.
Try to keep up, K?
58. Rolling back the Bush Tax cuts alone will hit people of all income levels, so your 250k if a bald faced lie.
And oh by the way if this won’t be a great Christmas surprise for American’s everywhere who can’t afford to shop:
DIAMONDS FOR MICHELLE: $30,000 FIRST LADY RING?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....pport.html
How about sending all of us a bailout of a couple of pounds of Radium with encrusted Diamonds!
I see all these smiles in Washington Politicians, their retirements and medical programs are guaranteed free forever.
But all I see in Real Town America is financial fear.
Hardly a time to drop a $30,000 rock, pardon me!
Oh by the way tell Franken to call Gregoire and get Dean Logan’s Number!
OBAMA is so over his head. As a man in charge
of personnel for 27 years I know firsthand
the deer in the headlights look. OBAMA has the
biggest eyeballs I HAVE EVER SEEN. This is going to be good. Better stock up on bullets and beans losers.
Re: #49
So now the (complete dumbass known as) “troll” purports to have a clode personal relationship with the sittting Governor of our great State.
Who knew?
Uuuuuhhhh…
“Score-board! Score-board!”
Fucking loser.
Oh…I think it was…
…THE ELECTION????
Does the cyniklown REMEMBER?? Oh…the cyniklown is in deep, deep denial.
What absolute horseshit.
@8
@48
(253) Representin’!
58. Yeh the Stock Market loved his choices today! Only lost 700 points when he rolled out his Clintonites.
Heh By the way hows that Hiring Freeze Gregoire is suppose to have in place working?
I only got 22 new emails today from the State Employment database. And low and behold when I went out to it it no longer said there was a hiring freeze.
Now that is one hell of a way to balance a 6 Billion dollar defecit.
Hire a couple a billion more costs in state Pork.
Oink Oink
Hiring Freeze for State Agencies
In response to current energy prices and other economic conditions, the Governor has enacted a hiring freeze for Washington State cabinet agencies effective August 4, 2008, until further notice. Agencies that report to other elected officials and public higher education institutions have been encouraged to participate.
Agencies will be filling only critical positions impacting public safety, revenue collection, or core government services.
Please continue to consider and apply for available positions.
Recruitments in Process: Questions about recruitments already in process will be handled by individual employers.
“Now if this is not a dance around the Hiring Freeze Block I don’t know what is”
“Only positions that we post will not be viewed as part of the Hiring Freeze”
“The Gestapo state will continue to hire Revenue Collectors, that gives me warm and fuzzies”
“And any other blood sucking thief will hopefully apply!
Does anyone here not realize that investors don’t sit around waiting to make their financial decisions based on a teleprompted speech, or press conference?
Do you think Obama’s appointments came as a surprise to any of them?
Do you think that perhaps their investment strategies have more to do wit long term goals, fears, and confidence based on things other than what they already know?
The stock market investors already know what policies Obama plans to set in motion, so all of this so-called knee jerking is in reaction to other things, Like the health of the markets overseas, combined international efforts to reduce bankruptcies, and cut rates, etc…
Stock markets do not wait for speeches or appointments to make financial decisions.
Jesus you guys are waiting in the wings to blame anything you can on Obama.
“In other news, Kansas was hit by a tornado tonight…”
OMG! OMG! Did you see?! That tornado hit Kansas right when Obama sneezed!!!! It’s true! He’s the anti-Christ!! He makes tornadoes happen with just a sneeze!!!
*Get a brain people*
Anok asked:
Actually, even though most investors do as you say, it does appear that a significant portion of them are swayed by any breeze that comes along.
Does that make sense? No. I would devoutly wish that investors looked at the long term health of a company, then bought the stock based on the intent to own a portion of a healthy company.
But the fact that we see wild swings in the prices of large companies, along with the fact that the stock market rises or falls significantly immediately following announcements that anyone not living in a cave in Borneo reacts to with “no shit, Sherlock“, tells us that this is not entirely so.
Yesterday is a perfect example. A semi-official board announces that we’re in a “recession”. Nothing significant changes, just an announcement that we have been in a “recession” for over a year.
The Dow drops almost 680 points. The overall value of the market dropped 7.7 percent for no other apparent reason. The NASDAQ and S&P dropped even greater percentages.
Why? Did almost eight percent of the entire corporate structure of the United States somehow vanish? Did a major industrial city get hit with a meteor strike at the same moment as the announcement? Was the announcement followed by widespread riots, looting and pillaging?
No. Just an announcement from a group that most people never heard of, and that I would have to go check the story in order to be sure I got the name of the group right.
So, while I agree that your picture of how people invest is desirable, the evidence says that it is not realistic.