Via the Minneapolis Fed (chart appearance edited slightly):
The bottom three lines are the last three "recoveries" from recessions. Unlike the ones before them you'll note the stunning lack of jobs reflected in the continuing increase of the unemployment rate after the recovery begins. While some earlier recoveries experienced this as well, by five months after the recovery began, all previous recoveries had seen the unemployment rate start moving in the right direction within five months. In contrast, the 1990 recession's unemployment rate did not even pull even with where it was when the "recovery" began until 14 months later. The 2001 recesssion's "recovery" was even worse.
In Chris's diary "David Frum is right: conservatives have suffered crushing, nearly irreversible defeats", I wrote a comment "I Just Don't See Obama As A Remotely Competant Politician", which drew the predictable response:
He is an extremely competent politician. He's our first black President for Christ's sake!
Well, this is what I'm talking about. Obama's grand accomplishment is not breaking a sweat while giving us a jobless recovery just like Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. His most-touted accomplishment is passing the REPUBLICAN alternative to HillaryCare from 15 years ago, but meanwhile tens of millions of people go without work, while homes continue being lost at an incredible rate, (The good news from USA Today: "Foreclosure rates up by smallest amount in 4 years".)
One could argue, "Well, he's a very good politician, you just don't like what his politics are." But a politician who undermines his party and his country cannot seriously be regarded as a competent politician. Presiding over the ongoing destruction of America's middle class with Bush-like cluelessness is not competence by any kind of remotely rational standard. And if the previous chart didn't quite get through to you, then consider the following one, which includes the 1980 "recovery" that lead directly into a "double dip" recession. The following chart shows every recession since 1980:
In fact, he's not even trying to be a competent politician.
If we continue seeing a "recovery" like we now have, Democrats may avoid a bloodbath in November. It's a good sign that we have significant job growth this past month, for the first time in years. But given how many workers have given up even trying, the immediate results of job growth should not be expected to reduce the unemployment rate, which reflects the rate for those actually looking for jobs. And even if the unemployment rate does start going down, that doesn't remove the very real threat of a double dip recession, especially in light of foreseeable bad news about the next wave of foreclosures, which could well hit just in time to sink Obama's chances of re-election.
In short, Obama's indifference to the suffering of tens of millions of Americans may or may not result in Democrats' loss of Congress in 2010 and/or his own loss of re-election in 2012. Because Republican victories would be utterly catastrophic, I have to hope that these losses don't come to pass. But Obama's governance so far has been disastrous for the middle class. Supporting disaster as opposed to catastrophe is not my idea of a good place to be politically. And a politician who gives us that choice is not remotely a competent one.
And that's not saying anything about his utter failure to even fight for a credible response to global warming, or his continued support for the Bush/Cheney "long war" approach to the "war on terror", the very existence of which is a victory for al Qaeda.
This is incompetence on a breathtaking scale. This is Nero fiddling while Rome burns. And the fact that Obama is a superb fiddle player (first black fiddle player evuh!) does not even come close to making any sort of difference at all.
|
STATE BLOGS
