Obama Wins The Gold For Worst Economic Recovery Ever
President Barack Obama announces the Economic Recovery Advisory Board. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If mismanaging an economic recovery were an Olympic event, President Obama would be standing on the middle platform right now, accepting the gold medal.
Deep recessions are supposed to be followed by strong recoveries, but, under Obama, the worst recession since the 1930s has been followed by the slowest economic recovery in the history of the republic. In a very real sense, there has been no recovery at all—things are still getting worse.
To win the gold for economic mismanagement, Obama had to beat out some very tough competitors, including the previous Olympic record holder, George W. Bush. Let’s look at how Obama pulled it off.
For those not familiar with the sport, the Olympic “Worst First Three Years of Economic Recovery” event is a pentathlon—it’s composed of five individual trials.
The trials making up this pentathlon are as follows: 1) total employment growth; 2) unemployment rate reduction; 3) per capita GDP growth; 4) change in the Real Dow; and 5) change in real produced assets.
Because the goal is economic mismanagement, in the total employment growth event, the lowest number wins.
Obama was victorious in this trial by producing an increase in jobs during the first 36 months of his economic recovery of only 1.72%. This handily beat out Bush 43, who turned in a jobs gain of 2.93% during his recovery, and the team of Bush 41 and Bill Clinton, who delivered 3.64% more jobs during theirs. And, Obama absolutely creamed Ronald Reagan, who produced an increase in total jobs of 8.97% during the first three years of the economic recovery that he oversaw.
Obama struggled in the “reducing the unemployment rate” event. It was easy for Obama to do worse than Reagan, who had reduced the “headline” (U-3) unemployment rate by a massive 3.8 percentage points during the first three years of his recovery. However, in terms of turning in a bad unemployment performance, both the Bush 41 – Clinton team and Bush 43 had started with an unfair advantage.
Obama’s recovery came out of the blocks with an unemployment rate of 9.5%, which was far higher than where either the Bush 41 – Clinton team started (6.8%) or where Bush 43 began (5.5%). Accordingly, it was much harder for Obama to do worse than those two, because he would have to produce a smaller reduction in the unemployment rate than they did.
When the scores were first totaled, Obama (at 1.3 percentage points of reduction in the unemployment rate) was far behind both the Bush 41 – Clinton team (at 0.3 percentage points), and Bush 43 (at 0.1 percentage points).
However, Obama appealed to the judges, pointing out that, when measured by the more comprehensive “SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate” published by Shadow Government Statistics, he had actually managed to increase unemployment by 2.0 percentage points during his economic recovery. Meanwhile, the other three competitors had reduced their jobless rates, no matter how you measured them. The judges agreed, and they awarded first place in this event to Obama.
The officials then studied the replay tapes, and gave Obama extra credit for managing to push the U.S. 2.5 million jobs farther away from full employment during his economic recovery. The other three contestants could not match that.
Next up was the “real per capita GDP growth” event. Obama won this one decisively.
The total increase in real GDP per capita during the first three years of Obama’s recovery was only 4.34%. This was worse than Bush 43 (5.98%) and the Bush 41 – Clinton team (5.61%). Once again, Ronald Reagan brought up the rear in this important area of economic mismanagement. He produced a stunning 15.36% gain in real per capita GDP during the first three years of his economic recovery.
The last two trials in the Olympic “Worst First Three Years of Economic Recovery” pentathlon relate to building a prosperous future for the U.S. economy.
The Real Dow is the Dow Jones Industrial Average divided by the price of gold. It is a proxy for the driving force to invest in economic growth, rather than to park capital in “safe” investments like gold and government bonds.
In the Real Dow event, Obama had to settle for second place. Bush 43 beat him soundly by managing to depress the Real Dow by a massive 35.6% during the first three years of the economic recovery that he oversaw. However, in terms of economic destruction, Obama turned in a creditable performance, pushing the Real Dow down by 11.6% during his first three years of economic recovery.
In this event, the Bush 41 – Clinton team did not seem to be clear on the concept. The Real Dow rose by 13.5% during their watch. And, once again, Ronald Reagan came in dead last, producing a massive 89.9% increase in the Real Dow during the first three years of his powerful economic recovery.
Obama finished strong by blowing away the competition in the “change in real produced assets” trial. Produced assets comprise the physical infrastructure of our economy, and economic progress depends upon building up our stock of produced assets.
During the first full year of Obama’s economic recovery (2010), real produced assets actually fell by 1.41%. This is the biggest drop during the 60 years for which data is available. It is also the only decline ever observed during an economic recovery.
Ronald Reagan finished second in this trial with a 0.16% increase in fixed assets during 1983. The Bush 41 – Clinton team and Bush 43 tied in this event. They both produced a 3.42% gain in real produced assets, in 1992 and 2002, respectively.
We should all be proud that Barack Obama has won the Olympic gold medal in the “Worst First Three Years of Economic Recovery” event, and reward him accordingly in November.
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