Why don't cons come up with their own economic stat comparisons?

Question

Don't just show the growth under Reagan and Bush Jr. Compare the percent growth under them with other presidents.

Somebody told me to include Carter, so here we go:

HERE'S WHAT I DID:
I got the real GDP stats from the Bureau of Economic Analyses. I took the percent increase over 4 year intervals. I then ranked them from best to worst. Out of (((18))) 4 year intervals, the supply siders Reagan and Bush Jr ranked 8th, 12th, and 16th.
1 FDR (44') 74.69%
2 FDR (36') 34.62%
3 LBJ (68') 21.81%
4 TRUMAN (52') 21.00%
5 JFK (64') 19.86%
6 FDR (40') 19.32%
7 CLINTON (00') 17.87%
8 REAGAN (88') 15.98%
9 CARTER (80') 13.67%
10 CLINTON (96')13.53%
11 IKE(56') 13.45%
12 REAGAN (84') 12.63%
13 NIXON (72') 12.38%
14 IKE (60') 10.91%
15 FORD (76') 10.62%
16 BUSH JR (04')9.03%
17 BUSH SR (92')8.81%
18 TRUMAN (48') -9.04%

http://www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdplev.xls

vinny,

Because I was comparing 8 year versus 8 year terms. Four years is not long enough to see how policies work.

However, if you were to read information about Carter you would see Carter was not much of a Keynesian. He opposed increased social spending because he thought it was inflationary and he supported deregulating the economy.

Rajin Cajin,

Get an historical plot of the Dow Jones. If you were to compare the percent increase in growth from the time Clinton became president to the BOTTOM of the "dot.com boom", you would still see growth bigger then anything seen today.

RajinCajin,

Those are not explanations. They are EXCUSES. Conservatives and liberals both have their own theories on how to best grow the economy. Unfortunately for cons, their theories rarely hold true and they are forced to come up with EXCUSES on why things didn't happen like they said they would.

Answer 1

Unemployment rates:

Carter up to 13%

Clinton 6.2% between 1993-1995

Bush Sr. spiked at 7.4

Regan crashed the economy in his first term to get rid of the massive infation under Carter which caused unemployement to go to 10.8% and then drop 5.3%.

Unemployment rate in May 2007 4.5%

Johnson years averaged 3.7%

Kennedy years averaged 5.2%

Truman 4.36% on avererage

Ike averaged 5.58% in his second term

Nixon/Ford averaged 6.72%

I've noticed that the numbers differ on some sites, which probably means there are more the one group calculating their own meaning of unemployment.

Answer 2

The problem with your "stats", they are short sighted. Case in point, growth under Clinton was caused by the dot com boom and silicon valley and the end of the cold war. Bush Jr. dealt with the inherited recession from Clinton and 9/11 and still managed to pull off his number.

Reagan dealt with Carters recession. FDR came from depression numbers, growth was fueled by war spending.

I'm sure each of your stats has "unexplained" reasons behind them as well.

EDIT: Buddy that's my business, I'm a trader with a finance degree! Also economic growth is not solely measured on the DOW. The DOW is just a collection of 30 stocks that try to represent the rest of the market. Read about the "DOW theory", google it. Learn a little more about what your trying to talk about. There are alot of other factors. Also you seem to have missed my point about Clinton. My point was the economic prosperity seen during a presidents tenure MAY not be a result of his policy! During Clinton the prosperity was because of the reasons Ive listed!

EDIT2: Let me offer this, No president is right and no president is wrong in my opinion. Sometimes the situation calls for lowering taxes and government spending to spur growth. Sometimes you need to leave it alone. And still other times you need to raise taxes and create programs for the poor and middle class which drives up disposable income that spurs growth. If the economic policy never changed we would be screwed!

To the guy below me. Deficit spending has been shown to inspire growth. Im not sure about the Nixon era but it sounds like that’s what you’re talking about.

Well Bob, Yes the inflation during the 70's was caused by the 60's Vietnam War spending, trade deficits, and the systematic rise in oil prices. The switch to the Fiat standard was a move, if I remember this right, to allow the dollar to become more stable. Would this cause more inflation during a time of economic turmoil, absolutely! Reagan inherited this problematic economy, while there no agreement that his trickle down theory worked our economy was stronger and outlasted the Russians. After the Cold war Bush Sr. started to reduce the national budget, a fact many Clinton robots seem to forget. And finally in 94 Clinton passed his economic package. Clinton, when he passed this economic package, didn't imagine that he would have surplus and the end of the decade. The surplus was due to the economic growth in the tech sectors and that created an increase in tax revenue and eventually the surplus that so many people tout.

Could the Presidents of the 70's put in place policys to reduce inflation. No, thats really a job for the Federal Reserve. However, the reduction in spending would have helped! By the 70's deficit spending had gone on too long. Time is never a cure when it comes to economic problems. New policys need to be used.

Answer 3

I think you can disregard both of FDRs terms as anything to indicate presidential policy effecting the economy. I believe it took all the way to 1939 for the economy to return to pre-depression levels. The growth during the war years was completely due to war production.
It's interesting, however, that LBJs term is so high then followed by Nixon being so low. The 1960s was a period of huge deficits. It's suprising, to me at least, to see huge deficits in the midst of big expansion. The two don't seem to go together.

edit:
Okay, I've got a question within the question for both the questioner and the guy above me (since he called me the guy below him.)
Wasn't the inflation of the 1970s caused by the deficits of the 1960s? It was LBJs deficits that led to dropping the gold standard. Was not the inflationary period that followed simply a correction in the value of the dollar, something that no economic policy could have prevented. And, wasn't time the cure for that inflation, not anything Reagan might have done?

Rajin:
The US dollar is not exact fiat. It is supposedly supported by the assets of the federal reserve banks, which are private banks. The assets in these banks grow with the economy and US production. It took a number of years for the US economy to generate the value of the currency circulated during the deficit spending era.
Your right in pointing out that time cannot cure the situation if deficit spending continues unabated. Your also right in regards to the FOMC's control of the money supply. The value of US production can increase with freer access to capital thru lower interest rates.
The danger with low interest rates coupled with deficit spending is inflation. The real reason we need monetary control keeps going back to government spending. Tax reductions, in my opinion, are only good for a quick rush and won't really provide long term benefits without a balanced budget.

Answer 4

Why did you leave out Carters administration numbers from your previous question?

Gotcha ; )