Reports of Recovery Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
by Joel B. PollakAs President Barack Obama prepares for his State of the Union address in Congress, where he will no doubt claim credit for signs of economic recovery, new analyses by economists suggest that growth will slow and unemployment will remain virtually unchanged by year’s end.
According to economists surveyed by USA Today, much of the excitement around December retail sales was “hype,” and the fourth-quarter bounce was largely driven by post-earthquake/tsunami activity in Japan, not domestic policy. (When the economy suffers, the President blamed the earthquake; when it recovers, curiously, no earthquakes merit mention).
No longer buying Obama - in China or at home (Photo: CNN)
There is continued uncertainty in Europe, and even new uncertainty about slower Chinese growth. But the great drag on the economy remains the American housing market, according to economists, even though many of them expect prices to stop falling this year. Government interventions and bailouts under Obama and his predecessor may have deferred some pain but have prevented markets from full correction and recovery, reinforcing deep uncertainty.
The eagerness of many journalists to report the (real) positive developments of the past several weeks may have had as much to do with providing the president with a good message for the 2012 election year as with delivering good news to a public desperate for positive signs.
The 112th Congress has succeeded in restoring some fiscal and regulatory stability, but the president’s refusal to compromise on debt and deficit reduction has created new financial uncertainty. The U.S. is still the borrower of choice for global lenders–but only because the dollar remains the global currency, and because the rest of the world is in worse shape.
The President, for his part, continues deliberately to seek confrontation with his political opponents over even the most obscure details–confusing “taxes” and “revenues,” for example, in an attempt to paint Republican opposition to the former as intransigence on the latter. The result is a sense that the country is rudderless, its stagnant economy restrained by a government that insists on controlling more and more yet capable of managing less and less.
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46 Comments
If he means that things have gotten much worse when he mentions "recovery" then yes, recovery is on the march big-time these days.
When I read the title I exclaimed "no chit!".
"Reports of Recovery Have Been Greatly Exaggerated"
I know we are only 11 years in…………but this is the UNDERSTATEMENT of the CENTURY!!!
Statistics show that the median income of US families has gone down by a larger amount during the Obama "recovery" than the did during the recession. THAT is another first for Obama.
Heard an Obama commercial today where he claims he has created 2.7 million jobs in the "energy sector" …Funny, there are exactly 2.7 million jobs in this sector today.
Guess the "energy sector" only started when he came into office. The PR and lies he will say and do are stunning. Even more stunning are the peeps who will actually believe this Putzhead.
Is "recovery" a leftist code word for "in the tank"? Thought so.
The truth has always been that when the Communists flee Obama's side there will be no one on Obama's side.
Recovery? We are living in the Obama Depression.
And Al Gore invented the internet.
These phucque's live in a make believe world………unfortunately, we pay the price for their dementia.
I believe absolutely nothing I see on the Television Box.
You know, this is the drivel he will spewing tomorrow night – how great he and his administration have been in creating jobs …but is NOT enough and is WHY we have to raise taxes NOW, NOW, NOW !!!
After the Republican primary is settled, the voters will align with the candidate, confidence will start to return, BHO will lose by a landslide and happy days will return. I hear don't be too confident, but hey, I am! Peripheral vision is a good thing.
Me too, only I added Sherlock.
"The eagerness of many journalists to report the (real) positive developments of the past several weeks …"
There are no REAL positive developments. The unemployment rate isn't going down; the labor force is shrinking because people are giving up looking for work. Americans aren't getting out of debt; two-thirds of all the "deleveraging" for Americans is because of foreclosure. The stock market isn't up because people feel like investing again; it's up because of manipulation, central bank intervention, and the hope of further quantitative easing by the Fed. Volume has fallen off a cliff, and people have been exiting the market every single month for the past year. Furthermore, the "up" isn't anything to be excited about. The market is practically where it was in 1999. Yay?
On top of all that, our government is now more than $15 trillion in debt, and our debt-to-GDP ratio has passed 100%. We now are no better — and in many ways are worse — than the countries of Europe. This debt, regardless of the fairy tales Paul Krugman tries to peddle, will stifle this country and its economy if it isn't addressed soon.
Certain economic indicators are shaping up exactly as they did in the first half of 2008. We all remember what happened in the second half of that year.
…all the while wondering why they and their neighbors aren't fairing so well. Useful idiots.
The lib idiot at work was crowing about the "Success" of the job market under Obama. He got real upset when I showed everybody that the previous weeks' job numbers showed that the economy had created 125,000 jobs but 400,000 new people had filed for unemployment. I asked him how the unemployment rate could have gone down. After showing him the facts, I got the typical lib response when they are proved to be wrong, "Just screw you". Anybody with a brain in their head can see that the economy is stagnant, and nothing bozo-in-chief has done has helped.
The state of the union is poor. I do welcome our Dear Leader to run on HIS record. His record is poor. His attitude is poor. I am more poor than before. I Am hoping for some change though.
Nobama 2012
But the pipeline…..he said no?….China?…..So they are our friends now?….no?…..WTF?
All this happens when you elected a man to the White House who never existed. The white collar college funky has brought a menagerie of half-baked and failed theory into the real world, and three years later, he’s still hasn’t figured out it doesn’t work. Obama is a living example of ‘exaggeration.’
Careful Banana. Upsetting liberals can be addicting. ; )
Without serious changes to our monetary system, over-sight of the federal reserve, and personal accountability from banksters and their surrogates in government and MEDIA alike this county is guaranteed to continue it's rapid decline into 3rd world status.
YOUTUBE– FALL OF THE REPUBLIC PT 2 THE PRESIDENCY OF BARRACK HUSSEIN O B A MA
The only candidate not owed by the banking cartel is R O N– P A UL
aNTI iSRAEL AUTHORS LIKE pollack want Israel to continue to be a vassal state of america. All True Zionist wish her to be free to make her own decisions.
except when yer cross-eyed………
Barry is toast, I agree, UNLESS the GOP manages to put up a dirty, lying progressive snake just like Barry.
And that is just exactly what we are witnessing take place……
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory like the feckless progressive party that the GOP has become.
Is that what I do when I piss off Paulbots?
it's a recoveryless recovery
He's going to be scolding us for not getting with his program…..
I can see him pointing his boney finger,right now….
Thank you for posting this. My mom and I often chuckle when we hear the "good" news about the economy. I'm still struggling and my ex will return from Afghanistan with no job and who knows if he'll find one. Tons of other people I know are struggling.
And I'd be happy to tell him where he can stick that finger.
Recovery for the Owebama Administration is just the the new "norm" , high unemployment , high food prices and High energy costs . I guess we all know what change looks like now .
no place it's already been….
I'm sorry Joel but, why do we hold the forecasts of economists with tales of future woe more credible than those with tales of future prosperity?
I mean, almost daily we hear the word "unexpected" (well not much anymore since we called them out on it) coming from the mouths of economists. They may use different words to describe the same thing these days but, the fact remains, they are more often wrong than right.
Why should we assume this new batch of prognostications predicting a continued bad spell, be any more correct?
Heck, if war breaks out next week with Iran, the economy will boom as it does when most wars break out (when there's lots of action at the beginning anyway!)
Just askin'.
As an aside, if war does break out, let's get us some healthy reparations for our efforts this time m'kay?
Obama and his toadies clearly see no problem with lying to further their agenda, just as they see the constitution not as a speed bump, but a mere crack in the sidewalk to be trod over and ignored.
During the South Carolina debate on Friday, 5 million people watched it, while 24 million people combined watched Jersey Shore and American Idol… I think that is fairly indicative of the hurdles we face.
It's what I do, when I piss-off the Mittenistas…..
HA!
He can kiss my grits …as can all of Congress. They are traitors – each and everyone!
"As President Barack Obama prepares for his State of the Union address in Congress, where he will no doubt claim credit for signs of economic recovery" LMAO
I wouldn't quite call them all traitors, but I would call most of them cowards…..
Hmmm. I agree on most of them being cowards. Got a name, just one, of a Congressman who has not betrayed this country?
In one way or another?
I'm at a loss….
I can still remember the last two Bush years and the hemorrhaging of jobs. This is a vast improvement over those days. And thanks to the president, we still have an automobile manufacturing industry to lead us out of the slow economy.
Four more years.
The one bit of good news is it's now been 5 years since the housing bust (yes the recession has been going on that long). This is good news because there won't be anymore of those interest only 5 year ARM resets driving foreclosures. The bad news is that a full recovery will never happen until the federal government gets out of the way so that people can get jobs to pay mortgages. We've been underbuilding by a million homes a year, so whenever it finally recovers be prepared for a severe housing shortage.
The flip side of housing bottoming out is that there will be nearly $350 billion in commercial real estate loans that are going to come due this year. This will be the most since the beginning of the crash. Many businesses simply won't be able to pay, and this will wreak havoc with banks.
I can still remember the last 2 yrs with no steady job & you want me to go for 5 more? Bought a VOLT yet? God protect us from fools like you.
I think the Oba Mao tee shirt in the picture says it best.
Well I wasn't exactly predicting a vigorous recovery summer (3). Although if the Supreme Court throws out Obamacare and/or it looks as if the Republican is going to win the presidency I think the recovery will start up in anticipation of a better 2013. Obama doesn't get enough credit for the damage to the economy between the election and his inauguration. Business knew what he was like and started to baton down the hatches before he ever took office.
You mean the first 2 years of Nancy Polosi's speakership?
I used to try to watch the State of the Union address by Obama, but apparently my blood pressure is highly sensitive to bald-face lies, and i feared my head would eventually explode.
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