Informed Comment

Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion

Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Undoing Lex Luthor

The red increase in job loss is the climax of Republican White House control. The blue decrease in job loss is Obama and the Democrats. Sort of like when Superman flies around the world counter-clockwise to undo Lex Luthor's fiendish destruction.



h/t TPM docs.

End/ (Not Continued)

7 Comments:

At 3:40 PM, Blogger Jeffrey Yasskin said...

This is a silly comparison. The recession happened to peak in the 5 months around Obama's inauguration; it's not like even Bush was ignoring the problem. When we draw this graph for FDR, we use the absolute employment number to show a bounce in early 1933; by that metric we still haven't seen Obama's recovery a year after he took office. On the other hand, I believe with this metric, Hoover would get credit for turning the Depression around.

It's still an amusing graph, as long as we don't use it to try to prove anything.

 
At 4:07 PM, Blogger karlof1 said...

It should be said that the decline is the rate/number of jobs lost does not equal economic recovery. As is often pointed-out, teh federal government cooks the books on employment, CPI and GDP. Current US population is about 308 Million, 220 Million of whom would like fulltime employment--the actual labor force. The methodology employed by Shadowstats tells us about 21% are unemployed, or over 46 Million, with the recent downtick in the unemployed due to hiring done for the decadal Census and yearly tax-time jobs that while fulltime are temporary.

This blog reports over 1/2 of the states unemployment funds are now insolvent, and are forced to borrow from the feds to keep paying benefits.

And that's only a very small segment of the overall economic situation, none of which even hints at true recovery.

 
At 6:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

First reading more and now graphs? Graphs like this one are the reason why the Tea Party are joining the Republican party. After long hours of Sipping chamomile trying to analyze it, they reach the conclusion that it is upside down. Their statement: "If anyone still has a doubt on why we should join the Republican party, just look at this graph presented by the Democrats. It is upside down, they are always going to try and confuse us." Leila.

 
At 9:35 PM, Blogger Cacau said...

The date on which an administration (or a party, if we also want to include the legislature as a responsible party) first "owns" the prevailing economic conditions is a perennial debate, but I doubt if any serious person would say it's inauguration day. The graphic apportions less blame to Busco than is deserved.

 
At 7:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Could this not mean that there are fewer and fewer jobs left to export overseas?

 
At 6:27 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

come on - this would be the exact same graph if McCain had been elected, nothing Obama has done is related to what this graph is showing at least until the last couple of months

 
At 2:39 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh. My. God. Obama Clueless
by Paul Krugman

The lead story on Bloomberg right now contains excerpts from an interview with Business Week which tells us:

President Barack Obama said he doesn't "begrudge" the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay.... If the Bloomberg story is to be believed, Obama thinks his key to electoral success is to trumpet "the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies."

We're doomed.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/10-13

 

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