Pirate's Cove

Exactly how bad is the current “recovery” when even the Associated Press feels the need to write an article telling us that it is really, really bad? The AP hasn’t been known for writing that many negative articles while Obama is in office. This one is horrific

(Washington Times) The recession that ended three years ago this summer has been followed by the feeblest recovery since the Great Depression, according an extensive review of the country’s economic ups and down over the past eight decades.

Since World War II, 10 U.S. recessions have been followed by a recovery that lasted at least three years. An Associated Press analysis shows that by just about any measure, the one that began in June 2009 is the weakest.

The ugliness goes well beyond unemployment, which at 8.3 percent is the highest this long after the end of a recession.

Economic growth has never been weaker in a postwar recovery. Consumer spending has never been so slack. Only once has job growth been slower.

More than in any other post-World War II recovery, people who have jobs are hurting: Their paychecks have fallen behind inflation.

The article points out that what has been so bad for this recession was the housing market crash, with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 seeing credit evaporate. There are obviously other issues, such as the economic issues in other countries, particularly Europe, which continues to prop up nations that are brain dead and on ventilators. And I’m sure it’s somehow Bush’s fault, even though he had a Democrat Congress when the poop deluged the fan. Obama’s poor policies surely couldn’t be at fault in any way, right?

America’s gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic output — grew 6.8 percent from the April-June quarter of 2009 through the same quarter this year, the slowest in the first three years of a postwar recovery. GDP grew an average of 15.5 percent in the first three years of the eight other comebacks analyzed.

The engines that usually drive recoveries aren’t firing up this time.

You’re shocked, right? Housing is down from an average of 34% to 8%. Consumer spending is at 6.5%, average being 14% in other recessions. Paychecks have shrunk. Savings are in the toilet. People have been out of work much longer than in any other post-recession phase. And there’s this

The economy shed a staggering 8.8 million jobs during and shortly after the recession. Since employment hit bottom, the economy has created just over 4 million jobs. So the hiring has replaced 46 percent of the lost jobs, by far the worst performance since World War II. In the previous eight recoveries, the economy had regained more than 350 percent of the jobs lost on average.

Team Obama can throw out all the blame on everyone and everything but themselves, but it comes down the notion that their policies not only didn’t help, they hurt. Rather than addressing the issues with the credit and housing industries, they passed legislation that avoids the base issues. Temporary credit programs result in temporary boosts in credit at best. Temporary programs for jobs produce temporary jobs. One of the problems with government has historically been a focus on the short term in order to win re-election, rather than doing the hard job and dealing with issues for the long term. And pretty much all of the Obama/Democrat policies were short term patches with no way to create long term economic growth. Add in policies and a political party that are hostile to the private sector, and you get the worst recovery ever.