Tuesday, February 10, 2009

While we circle the drain economically, hoping that President Obama can convince the holdouts to enact some stimulus legislation before we drown...if I hear another dumbass say something about how "FDR made the Great Depression worse" my head will explode. That is simply not true.As one can see above, GDP moved along in a generally upward fashion during FDR's presidency. The one blip of decline was related to budget-balancing in 1937. By the time WWII began (in late 1939), the US was well on its way up and out of the hole, so that by 1941 and US entry into the war, the Depression had effectively ended already with record GDP achieved years earlier.

Obama is looking at charts & graphs showing a precipitous fall in employment. Note the green line. That's where we are now. Where's the bottom? The US lost almost 600,000 jobs in JANUARY. What's this month or next going to look like? Obviously, the GOP economic free-for-all orgy of greed left one hell of a mess for the rest of us.

I give you the Bush-Cheney Recession (or Bush-Cheney Depression). The past eight years will inhabit some seriously dark chapters in history books.

1 comment:

spacejace said...

Nice Karl, one quesiton: can you make the second graph bigger (or if you click on it, bigger)? If not, how about associating the url (wherever it resides online) with the title, so when title ofpost is clicked on, it takes reader to the graph? I have a GREAT article by David Sirota on FDR's new deal myths I'm going to post in a couple days. talk soon.