rimrocker, that is so unfair! waaa. The scale zooms in too much. Here: I'm going to replot your graph using a proper scale of -100% to +100% Change in total employment, 35 months after the recession began +100% +50% -------------*----**--------------------------------------------------------- -50% -100% See? You can hardly detect a difference in the latest hard times.
Well, let that be a lesson to you. and everyone else too. From now on, if you post any data here, please shown the graph with the maximum and minimum possible y-axis values so that we can see everything in its proper perspective. Granted, for things like GNP or national deficit spending, the theoretical maximum is infinity, and they will have to be shown over the entire history of the nation, but we don't want any crafty, informative zooming in here, now do we. Tsk tsk! How dare the initial graph in this thread zooooom in so that the window only includes the local max and min over the period of interest.
Wicked B-Bob. rimrocker, Interesting graph ya got there. It deserves mention that it proves nothing by itself; the idiosyncracies of the recession must be considered before indicting anyone. And then I personally must get over my hesitation to give Presidents too much credit for job loss/gains. One thing I can hold a President accountable for is cutting taxes, and not predicting the economic impact properly. No jobs, huge deficits, huge trade deficit, possible shift to Euros (prob enhanced by our deficits and weak foreign policy). None too rosy.
Damn you B-Bob with your fancy book learnin' and your slide rules and your fizix degrees. If your so durned smart, how do you explain THIS here pitcher? What in the? Why's that boy's steerin wheel on the wrong side?
Holy crap. I am completely unprepared to respond to this enigma. Please ignore my earlier posts concerning graphs, as all my fancy-pants learning has let me down once more. But seriously, about rimrocker's most recent graph... As I look at it again, two things stand out to me. 1. Our nation's employment response to recession more or less has simply been getting worse over time. The worst reponses are more recent, and the best responses are older. Seems like a historical trend, to a degree, (though again, I don't think the current administration's response to the recession has helped at all). 2. There is an odd shadow of a girl behind the data, or are my eyes playing tricks on me?
I love this argument if everything was going well . .they would be hogging all of the glory and would NEVER says it was because of the past Admin Rocket River
aslong as we're using pictures does anybody remember the misery index? -- March 18, 2004, 9:56 a.m. Remember the Misery Index? Here's why the press doesn’t play this oldie anymore. By Jerry Bowyer BuzzCharts is in a nostalgic mood this week and has decided to play a hit from the "'70s, '80s, and '90s" — the misery index. During the stagflation days of the late '70s and the deep recession of the early Reagan years and the high-unemployment recession of the late George H.W. Bush years, reporters couldn't get enough of it. In fact, like most hits, it eventually become over-played. BuzzCharts is hoping for a comeback. For those who only began following economic statistics within the past 10 years, a definition is in order. The misery index, as the name suggests, is designed to measure the amount of misery felt by ordinary people in the economy. Since fear of unemployment and loss of purchasing power through inflation have pervasive effects in the lives of ordinary Americans, the misery index is simply the unemployment rate added to the inflation rate. Unemployment is based on the (recently neglected) household survey of employment, compiled by the Labor Department. And the inflation rate is based on the annual change in the Consumer Price Index. How does the current misery index stack up with earlier periods? You be the judge: The ranking for the average misery index for given periods in descending order are as follows: George Herbert Walker's average misery index is a massively large 10.7 percent. The Post WWII period's average is a rather large 9.5 percent. The average for Clinton's first term weighs in at a moderate 8.8 percent. George W.'s current misery index is 7.6 percent. The average for Clinton's second term is 6.8 percent. This means that George W.'s current misery index is roughly only two-thirds of his father's average. In other words, with the exception of the hyper-growth of Clinton's second term, the current misery index compares very favorably with every other time-period analyzed here. The point here is not that the misery index is the be all and end all of economic health. Instead, BuzzCharts believes that the decision by the press to ignore this particular statistic at a time when it shows robust economic health indicates a tendency to exaggerate bad news and to ignore good news. This gap between coverage and reality is what creates investment and entrepreneurial opportunities for those who pay closer attention than the general public.
