Obama's record. A snapshot of facts

[BigRedChief]

Obama Job creator?




Manufacturing




Obama the big spender?


Home Prices


Stock market

[blaise]

Huff Post stories = good
Drudge stories = bad

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by Mr. Plow

So you don't know they are wrong, but you are just assuming they are either wrong or distorted to fit an agenda.

There is little or no doubt that partisan sources are wrong more often than nonpartisan sources, and are less reliable because they are far more likely to be engineered to push an agenda.

Agree, or disagree.

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by blaise

Of course price increases don't matter. Obama is President!

- cosmo

Inflation hasn't been that bad.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

There is little or no doubt that partisan sources are wrong more often than nonpartisan sources, and are less reliable because they are far more likely to be engineered to push an agenda.

Agree, or disagree.

What's a nonpartisan source? FoxNews and CNN?

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by J Diddy

Inflation hasn't been that bad.

Hang on, it's barreling down the road directly toward us.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by J Diddy

Inflation hasn't been that bad.

The inflation that hasn't been that bad (I assume you're talking about the CPI) doesn't include the price increases for food, gas, tuition or health care.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by patteeu

What's a nonpartisan source? FoxNews and CNN?

It's not that easy, neither Fox nor CNN are monolithic.

CNN, for instance, employs Eric Erickson. But it also employs Jeffrey Toobin.

[headsnap]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Hang on, it's barreling down the road directly toward us.

it'll hit hard once there are no more corners to cut.

[qabbaan]

Originally Posted by petegz28

You're right, the increase in gas and food prices and the shrinking labor pool are all made up by the Repubs.

You might want to the the cashiers that when they take my money for food and gas.

A common trick to claim there isn't any inflation going on is to include real estate. Everyone knows prices are shooting up and packages are shrinking at the grocery store, and gas is nearly double what it was when his holiness took office, but look! No inflation.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

It's not that easy, neither Fox nor CNN are monolithic.

CNN, for instance, employs Eric Erickson. But it also employs Jeffrey Toobin.

Let's take BRC's first graph for example. Is it an unbiased fact to show that data set in isolation or should the context of a larger span of time be shown? The time span selected focuses on Obama's term, which makes sense, but if you look at the months preceding Obama's inauguration (for lack of a better chart I'll use one that projects an unlikely future as well)...



... we see that Obama's term started fairly deep in an employment trough. If anything, it should be easier to create jobs when so much labor is available than it would have been to create jobs at peak employment. Furthermore, a bigger picture view of this data shows that Obama's "break even or so" leaves us way behind where we were mere months before he took over. Even though you can't blame him for losses that preceded him, his performance is cast in a different light if it looks like he's returned us to an employment maximum than when it looks like he's barely recovered from the losses that did happen on his watch and now, despite tepid job growth numbers, a huge hill still remains ahead to get the country back where it was 5 long years ago.

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by patteeu

The inflation that hasn't been that bad (I assume you're talking about the CPI) doesn't include the price increases for food, gas, tuition or health care.

According to the BLS website it not only includes those, but lists those as examples of what it does include. Am I missing something here?

http://www.bls.gov/dolfaq/bls_ques3.htm

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by headsnap

it'll hit hard once there are no more corners to cut.

Quantitative Easing. I feel for the younger generation, those not yet established.

And for all of us.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by patteeu

Let's take BRC's first graph for example. Is it an unbiased fact to show that data set in isolation or should the context of a larger span of time be shown? The time span selected focuses on Obama's term, which makes sense, but if you look at the months preceding Obama's inauguration (for lack of a better chart I'll use one that projects an unlikely future as well)...



... we see that Obama's term started fairly deep in an employment trough. If anything, it should be easier to create jobs when so much labor is available than it would have been to create jobs at peak employment.

You're joking. You're telling us that it should be easier to create jobs when the economy is tanking. That's what you're saying?

That's patently absurd. When the recovery gets into gear, then yes, jobs will be added quickly. Many factors have kept the recovery in check, however, including troubles in Europe not of Obama's (or any other American's) making, continued off-shoring of jobs, anemic demand, continuing softness in the housing market and across the economy due to the truly devastating impact of the collapse of the housing bubble, and (according to some economists anyway), the Republican refusal to pass another stimulus package, leaving the economy limping along.

Changes in corporate culture are also involved here. In addition to uncertainty due to ongoing high unemployment and relatively soft demand, companies are squeezing more and more out of current workers without giving them significant raises, taking advantage of the high unemployment situation. Despite growing profits, they refuse to hire, which is leaving unemployment stubbornly high.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by J Diddy

According to the BLS website it not only includes those, but lists those as examples of what it does include. Am I missing something here?

http://www.bls.gov/dolfaq/bls_ques3.htm

That's interesting. The BLS apparently compiles different consumer price indices, one that includes all of those things called All Items Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) and one that excludes some of the more volatile items like food and energy along with "thousands of other consumer price indexes".

I was pretty confident that the inflation number reported by the government didn't include those things, but I have to admit that now I'm not sure one way or the other. I'm certainly less confident about the tuition and medical care part, but I'm still somewhat (but not totally) confident about the food and energy part.

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpifaq.htm#Question_12

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

You're joking. You're telling us that it should be easier to create jobs when the economy is tanking. That's what you're saying?

That's patently absurd.

I'm saying that it's absolutely easier to create jobs after the economy has tanked than when it's near maximum employment and cruising along at a moderate growth rate. All you have to do is go back and look at job growth rates in previous recoveries and compare those to job growth rates during the later stages of extended growth periods to see that I'm right. Obama's recovery is particularly anemic in this regard.

Originally Posted by Amnorix

When the recovery gets into gear, then yes, jobs will be added quickly.

Which is the point. Obama's recovery, like so many other Obama projects from Solyndra to stimulus to Arab outreach, has been a failure.