Liberal Forum

Recession count:

Carter : 2
Reagan : 0

Ranking the Presidents by G.D.P.

There is an element of unfairness in attributing economic growth to a president, of course. The government has limited influence on the economy, and the president can have limited influence on government policy, as anyone watching the current debate in Washington has surely noticed. Normal economic cycles mean that growth is likely to be less impressive for a president who enters office at the end of a boom, as George W. Bush did, and better for one who enters when growth is weak, as Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan did. If normal cyclical factors return, and President Obama has a second term, his record should end up much better than it currently appears. If he loses, he could be like Gerald Ford, who also took office during a deep recession.

With all those caveats, here are the annualized growth rates for real G.D.P. for every president who took office after the end of World War II.

Each president is given credit for growth through the quarter before he left office. For those who left at the end of their terms, that would be the fourth quarter of the election year. For Richard M. Nixon, who resigned during the third quarter of 1974, it is through the second quarter of that year.

Also shown are the figures for Presidents Bush and Obama that would have appeared had the numbers been calculated before today’s announcement of second quarter data and revisions to earlier numbers.

They are listed in reverse order of growth.

Barack Obama, 1.2% annual G.D.P. growth rate (previously 1.5%)
George W. Bush, 1.6% (previously 1.7%)
George H.W. Bush, 2.1%
Gerald Ford, 2.2%
Dwight Eisenhower, 2.5%
Richard Nixon, 3.0%
Jimmy Carter, 3.2%
Ronald Reagan, 3.5%
Bill Clinton, 3.8%
Lyndon B. Johnson, 5.0%
John F. Kennedy, 5.4%

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/ ... blogs&_r=0

GeorgeWashington » 08 Mar 2014 8:36 am » wrote:Ranking the Presidents by G.D.P.

There is an element of unfairness in attributing economic growth to a president, of course. The government has limited influence on the economy, and the president can have limited influence on government policy, as anyone watching the current debate in Washington has surely noticed. Normal economic cycles mean that growth is likely to be less impressive for a president who enters office at the end of a boom, as George W. Bush did, and better for one who enters when growth is weak, as Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan did. If normal cyclical factors return, and President Obama has a second term, his record should end up much better than it currently appears. If he loses, he could be like Gerald Ford, who also took office during a deep recession.

With all those caveats, here are the annualized growth rates for real G.D.P. for every president who took office after the end of World War II.

Each president is given credit for growth through the quarter before he left office. For those who left at the end of their terms, that would be the fourth quarter of the election year. For Richard M. Nixon, who resigned during the third quarter of 1974, it is through the second quarter of that year.

Also shown are the figures for Presidents Bush and Obama that would have appeared had the numbers been calculated before today’s announcement of second quarter data and revisions to earlier numbers.

They are listed in reverse order of growth.

Barack Obama, 1.2% annual G.D.P. growth rate (previously 1.5%)
George W. Bush, 1.6% (previously 1.7%)
George H.W. Bush, 2.1%
Gerald Ford, 2.2%
Dwight Eisenhower, 2.5%
Richard Nixon, 3.0%
Jimmy Carter, 3.2%
Ronald Reagan, 3.5%
Bill Clinton, 3.8%
Lyndon B. Johnson, 5.0%
John F. Kennedy, 5.4%

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/ ... blogs&_r=0

Let me see if I get what you're supplying to the conversation:

You are saying that Cater walloped all five of the republicans who served before him following the conclusion of WWII, and was only ever beaten by the very slgihtest of edges (3/10ths of a percent) by ONE republican - a man who borrowed during his tenure more than half of the entire GDP in the year that he was elected?

WOWZA! Thank you for that support! I am actually PLEASED that there was finally one measure which, no matter how insignificantly or by what razor-thin margin, Reagan bested Carter. I mean, let's face it:

Jobs? Carter.
Shrinking government? Carter.
Civil rights/CIA prevented from spying on our own citizens? Carter.
Avoiding international conflict/dead troops? Carter.
Fiscal discipline? Carter.
Shrinking debt to GDP ratio? Carter.
No drug dealing by CIA? Carter.
No selling of WMDs to Iran? Carter.
No training, funding, creating of Al Qaida? Carter.
No supplying Saddam with WMDs to use on the Kurds? Carter.
No raping nuns, murdering priests or high-tailing it out of Lebanon in a cut-and-run? Carter.
Keeping his vice president honest, steering clear of the Medellin cartel, other unsavories? Carter.
No Major Flagg types snappy-saluting and Fawn Halling in the Whitehouse basement? Carter.
HONEST, FORTHRIGHT communication with the folks? Carter.
Protecting Social Security in a lock box? Carter.

Reagan's razor thin victory over Carter (3/10ths of a percent) - his ONLY success in any honest comparison of their records - came at the cost of the unborn.



Reagan cut top tax rates while saying of our school children, "Let them eat ketchup." Cutting taxes while increasing spending - a republican habit that has resulted in ALL of America's republican presidents being bigger borrowers that the democrats they followed since WWII - is not good government. It's POLITICS: "Hey, I'm your buddy - the Candy Man." Whatever you need, good old Uncle Sugar will provide - and your grand kids get the tab.

I don't think much of dems, but at least they have the balls to ask TODAY'S voters to pay a bigger piece of today's spending than they palm off on the precious, precious unborn. Reagan was the FIRST PRESIDENT SINCE WWII to increase the debt to GDP ratio, and the biggest borrower in history to that time.

FDR borrowed an average of 21 billion per year to get us out of a global depression and then fight history's biggest war ever. And that money was in the form of war bonds, purchased by AMERICAN CITIZENS, not multinational corporations - and not a penny of it stolen from Social Security.

Reagan? He borrowed 231 billion per year - the ENTIRE NATIONAL DEBT at the end of WWII, - every stinking year of his tenure, just to keep his corporate masters from paying their share on the windfalls he engineered for them through crony capitalism.



And that's just the money he BORROWED. Let's discuss the money he STOLE. The Social Security Amendment of 1983 was rammed through congress as a 30 year "fix" for social security. Instead, it was a tax hike on working people. In 1983, Reagan ginned up a panic that Social Security might be in trouble. He hiked withholding rates to the highest in history - punishing labor while cutting taxes on capital - and he KEPT THE SURPLUS. It was not deposited into the SSA account, and used to buy T-Bills. No. It was flat-out stolen and spirited directly into the treasury, to replace the money the richest were no longer contributing. He did it again in 1984. and in 1985. Then 86, 87 and 88. His first two years were the only two that he did not steal the ENTIRE SURPLUS from Social Security - after raising the rate.

What a rat Reagan was. That Johny Hinckley seemed like such a nice boy.

GeorgeWashington » 08 Mar 2014 8:36 am » wrote:Ranking the Presidents by G.D.P.

There is an element of unfairness in attributing economic growth to a president, of course. The government has limited influence on the economy, and the president can have limited influence on government policy, as anyone watching the current debate in Washington has surely noticed. Normal economic cycles mean that growth is likely to be less impressive for a president who enters office at the end of a boom, as George W. Bush did, and better for one who enters when growth is weak, as Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan did. If normal cyclical factors return, and President Obama has a second term, his record should end up much better than it currently appears. If he loses, he could be like Gerald Ford, who also took office during a deep recession.

With all those caveats, here are the annualized growth rates for real G.D.P. for every president who took office after the end of World War II.

Each president is given credit for growth through the quarter before he left office. For those who left at the end of their terms, that would be the fourth quarter of the election year. For Richard M. Nixon, who resigned during the third quarter of 1974, it is through the second quarter of that year.

Also shown are the figures for Presidents Bush and Obama that would have appeared had the numbers been calculated before today’s announcement of second quarter data and revisions to earlier numbers.

They are listed in reverse order of growth.

Barack Obama, 1.2% annual G.D.P. growth rate (previously 1.5%)
George W. Bush, 1.6% (previously 1.7%)
George H.W. Bush, 2.1%
Gerald Ford, 2.2%
Dwight Eisenhower, 2.5%
Richard Nixon, 3.0%
Jimmy Carter, 3.2%
Ronald Reagan, 3.5%
Bill Clinton, 3.8%
Lyndon B. Johnson, 5.0%
John F. Kennedy, 5.4%

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/ ... blogs&_r=0

Carter was handed a roaring economy and drove it into the ground:
1977 4.6% $2,086.0
1978 5.6% $2,356.6
1979 3.2% $2,632.1
1980 -0.2% $2,862.5

golfboy » 10 Mar 2014 8:05 am » wrote: Carter was handed a roaring economy and drove it into the ground:
1977 4.6% $2,086.0
1978 5.6% $2,356.6
1979 3.2% $2,632.1
1980 -0.2% $2,862.5

Let's have a peek at the raw numbers, shall we?

Year Growth GDP
1977 4.6% $2,086.0
1978 5.6% $2,356.6
1979 3.2% $2,632.1
1980 -0.2% $2,862.5


Now, then. Carter's first year was 77 - but the economy he inherited and grew from ended in 1976 - just as Reagan's economy is measured against what he was handed - the year 1980.

So, Gerald Ford caught a home-bound flight on these numbers:

Year Growth GDP
1976 5.4% $1,877.6


That means Carter grew the economy from what he inherited - 1,877,600,000 - to what he left Reagan to work with: 2,862,500,000. If I can verify that I'm carrying the right aughts, I cipher that Carter grew America's economy to 152% of what it was when he took it over. That's half again, in four years which included the energy crisis, Three Mile Island and the financial reckoning precipitated by abandoning Bretton Woods. It was Nixon's decision to convert to Fiat currency, but it fell to Carter to negotiate the nation through the resulting choppy waters.

Of course, you have already been shown that Forbes places Carter immediately behind Reagan on the list of economically effective presidents - and Reagan ranks pretty high, behind only one republican - fourth place Eisenhower. Win, Place and Show are all held by democrats, if we can trust Forbes. Personally, I hold Carter in higher esteem because he shrunk government and lowered our debt to GDP ratio during tough economic times (he had to follow far less effective republicans), whereas Reagan is famous for doubling the national debt and exploding our debt to GDP ratio.

And then, of course, I know you're aware that Carter beat the bejeezus out of Reagan on jobs, and never sent WMDs to Al Qaida, Iran or Saddam for use on civilian populations. Just stuff I prefer in a president, is all. That, and Reagan the first president to tax social security benefits, and amnestied illegals, and got 300 Marines murdered then cut and ran to focus on creating Al Qaida and giving Saddam WMDs and the greenlight to use them exterminating Kurds in the U.S. sanctioned Halabja Chemical Attack.



Also, your head has poop on it, because you are a poopy head.

Carter was handed a roaring economy and drove it into the ground:
1977 4.6% $2,086.0
1978 5.6% $2,356.6
1979 3.2% $2,632.1
1980 -0.2% $2,862.5

Inflation outpaced economic growth in every year of Carter's presidency. Will Cannon ever address it???

tharock220 » 10 Mar 2014 12:14 pm » wrote:Inflation outpaced economic growth in every year of Carter's presidency. Will Cannon ever address it???

Gee I wonder if that would have affected the COLA increases under Reagan, causing increased deficit spending?

Cedarswamp » 10 Mar 2014 12:18 pm » wrote:
Gee I wonder if that would have affected the COLA increases under Reagan, causing increased deficit spending?

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united- ... production

As I suspected, industrial output grew far faster under Reagan than Carter. It's no wonder average real income grew under one and shrank under the other.

tharock220 » 10 Mar 2014 12:14 pm » wrote:Inflation outpaced economic growth in every year of Carter's presidency. Will Cannon ever address it???

How can he?

golfboy » 10 Mar 2014 11:59 am » wrote:Carter was handed a roaring economy and drove it into the ground:
1977 4.6% $2,086.0
1978 5.6% $2,356.6
1979 3.2% $2,632.1
1980 -0.2% $2,862.5

Cannonpointer » 10 Mar 2014 11:30 am » wrote:
Let's have a peek at the raw numbers, shall we?

Year Growth GDP
1977 4.6% $2,086.0
1978 5.6% $2,356.6
1979 3.2% $2,632.1
1980 -0.2% $2,862.5


Now, then. Carter's first year was 77 - but the economy he inherited and grew from ended in 1976 - just as Reagan's economy is measured against what he was handed - the year 1980.

So, Gerald Ford caught a home-bound flight on these numbers:

Year Growth GDP
1976 5.4% $1,877.6


That means Carter grew the economy from what he inherited - 1,877,600,000 - to what he left Reagan to work with: 2,862,500,000. If I can verify that I'm carrying the right aughts, I cipher that Carter grew America's economy to 152% of what it was when he took it over. That's half again, in four years which included the energy crisis, Three Mile Island and the financial reckoning precipitated by abandoning Bretton Woods. It was Nixon's decision to convert to Fiat currency, but it fell to Carter to negotiate the nation through the resulting choppy waters.

Of course, you have already been shown that Forbes places Carter immediately behind Reagan on the list of economically effective presidents - and Reagan ranks pretty high, behind only one republican - fourth place Eisenhower. Win, Place and Show are all held by democrats, if we can trust Forbes. Personally, I hold Carter in higher esteem because he shrunk government and lowered our debt to GDP ratio during tough economic times (he had to follow far less effective republicans), whereas Reagan is famous for doubling the national debt and exploding our debt to GDP ratio.

And then, of course, I know you're aware that Carter beat the bejeezus out of Reagan on jobs, and never sent WMDs to Al Qaida, Iran or Saddam for use on civilian populations. Just stuff I prefer in a president, is all. That, and Reagan the first president to tax social security benefits, and amnestied illegals, and got 300 Marines murdered then cut and ran to focus on creating Al Qaida and giving Saddam WMDs and the greenlight to use them exterminating Kurds in the U.S. sanctioned Halabja Chemical Attack.



Also, your head has poop on it, because you are a poopy head.

Carter was handed a roaring economy and drove it into the ground:
1977 4.6% $2,086.0
1978 5.6% $2,356.6
1979 3.2% $2,632.1
1980 -0.2% $2,862.5

tharock220 » 10 Mar 2014 12:14 pm » wrote:Inflation outpaced economic growth in every year of Carter's presidency. Will Cannon ever address it???

I have addressed it several times. Nixon pulled America out of the Bretton Woods Agreement and took us off a precious metal standard. Fiat currency is volatile, and Carter took the office when the predictable and necessary adjustment came due.

On top of that, the energy crisis was a major driver as well. This is stuff you know or ought to know.

golfboy » 10 Mar 2014 12:37 pm » wrote: How can he?

In his defense, he's admitting they're raw numbers.

Cannonpointer » 10 Mar 2014 12:55 pm » wrote:
I have addressed it several times. Nixon pulled America out of the Bretton Woods Agreement and took us off a precious metal standard. Fiat currency is volatile, and Carter took the office when the predictable and necessary adjustment came due.

On top of that, the energy crisis was a major driver as well. This is stuff you know or ought to know.

You're making excuses about why your OP is wrong from what I can tell. The cause of the inflation is irrelevant. The effect of inflation on the numbers you're posting is.

Cedarswamp » 10 Mar 2014 12:18 pm » wrote:
Gee I wonder if that would have affected the COLA increases under Reagan, causing increased deficit spending?

Throwing money around like a drunken sailor while cutting taxes might have some effect on deficit spending - but better we

wait...




Squirrel!

tharock220 » 10 Mar 2014 12:28 pm » wrote:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united- ... production

As I suspected, industrial output grew far faster under Reagan than Carter. It's no wonder average real income grew under one and shrank under the other.

When you double the national debt to prime the economy instead of being a fiscal conservative like Carter, it will certainly APPEAR that your unborn children's money is "yours." After all, you're spending it, right - and your kid owes it?

That IS what occurred, is it not? I'll be delighted to learn how you feel you can spin the fact that Reagan borrowed, during his tenure, an amount that was half of the entire GDP of the economy he inherited.

Please help me to understand why I should respect the economy of a man who built it on massive government stimulus and massive government debt. He made FDR look like a piker. We're feeling the pain NOW, but you want to brag about the "good times" when the party was still rolling, and ask me what's my major malfunction for talking about the hangover?

Cannonpointer » 10 Mar 2014 1:05 pm » wrote:
When you double the national debt to prime the economy instead of being a fiscal conservative like Carter, it will certainly APPEAR that your unborn children's money is "yours." After all, you're spending it, right - and your kid owes it?

That IS what occurred, is it not? I'll be delighted to learn how you feel you can spin the fact that Reagan borrowed, during his tenure, an amount that was half of the entire GDP of the economy he inherited.

Please help me to understand why I should respect the economy of a man who built it on massive government stimulus and massive government debt. He made FDR look like a piker. We're feeling the pain NOW, but you want to brag about the "good times" when the party was still rolling, and ask me what's my major malfunction for talking about the hangover?

Again, we're not talking about your respect for Reagan's economy, we're talking about your thesis which is a comparison of their individual economies. You're losing your initial argument, and you know this. So your response has been to attack the Reagan's policies, but doing so does not support your initial assertion that Carter's economy as better.

http://www.businessinsider.com/gdp-adju ... ion-2011-5

The way the government calculates real GDP is to start with nominal GDP--the actual change in the output of the economy as measured by adding up all the actual sales prices ("nominal")--and then "deflating" this number by subtracting an estimated inflation rate.

tharock220 » 10 Mar 2014 12:57 pm » wrote:
You're making excuses about why your OP is wrong from what I can tell. The cause of the inflation is irrelevant. The effect of inflation on the numbers you're posting is.

Oh, that.

Hey, dollars are dollars - not my fault republicans ****-canned the gold standard and went to fiat currency. What - I have to explain everything? I'm only one man - one powerful, handsome, brilliant man. But just one man.

Okay, okay, so I forgot I had an OP to defend here. Lemme go look a minute.

Okay, I am back, and your challenge is a small disaster. I have been having a rollicking good time for weeks, **** in your plastic hero's mouth. And now you have sliced my achilles tendon with the fact that Carter's o'er-ballyhooed growth was ersatz, due to inflation.It does hurt to lose that club, but it was kind of splintered from Glory Hole's and Goo-Boy's heads anyway.

I never liked that stick. Yeah. I'm glad it's gone.

Okay, okay, it hurts. It doesn't make me happy. But my thesis - my general, grand unified uber-thesis - is that Reagan is a dick sucker and carter is too sexy for his legacy. So, my case took a whack, my thesis just got weakened. I am not knocked out. In fact, I am still waiting for an answer to my question of you. And while I wait for that answer, take a look at this and see if you can pull ANOTHER kryptonite suppository out of your kiester, because SuperCannon is still all up in your gutshot geezer's legacy, son.

tharock220 » 10 Mar 2014 12:57 pm » wrote:
You're making excuses about why your OP is wrong from what I can tell.

I just want to kind of isolate this part of your post and look at it as a stand alone.Making excuses why my OP is wrong. The part of me that gets along in society knows I should not be proud of that accusation. But how many times does a guy get a chance to make excuses why his OP is wrong?

I feel juicy. Hell, I feel Quigley Down Under.

Okay, back to work destroying Reagan. Hope you're staying with me. Just imagine - if you totally defeat my evidence for Carter, you can brag to your friends that you are the man who proved how much Carter sucked. You'll astound them - you might just turn their world upside down!