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Kim Priestap

I love my family, America, the Constitution, the free market, classic literature, great coffee, handbags, tall boots, and cool gadgets.
I deeply admire Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman, CS Lewis, and Thomas Sowell.

You can expect me to post about these topics as well as anything else I think is interesting.


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"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ~ CS Lewis

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Posts tagged economy:

May 30, 2012 with 1 note
        tags: Barack Obama. Economy. jobs.

Barack Obama’s economic recovery doesn’t even reach the level of mediocrity

From IBD:

In his recent speeches on the campaign trail and at official functions, President Obama typically touts the fact that over the past two years, the economy has created more than 4 million new jobs, with more than 1 million in the past six months alone.

At a fundraiser last month, he called this “extraordinary progress.”

But the economic recovery that Obama has presided over has been far from extraordinary. It hasn’t even been ordinary.

In fact, it’s come in well below average on several key indicators compared with the previous 10 economic recoveries, dating back to 1949, according to an IBD analysis of various economic data.

And on several measures, the current recovery — which started five months after Obama took office and is now in its 35th month — is the worst on record since World War II.

Here are the results.

Employment: By this point, the average job growth in the past 10 recoveries was 6.9%. Under Obama, jobs have grown by just 1.9%, according to data from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve.

Had the current recovery kept pace with just the average recovery over the past 60 years, there would be 6.5 million more people with jobs today, and the unemployment rate would be below 7%, instead of above 8%. That assumes several million more Americans would have joined the workforce. If the current anemic labor force were unchanged, those 6.5 million jobs would drive unemployment to 4%.

GDP growth: The Obama recovery has also performed far worse than average when it comes to GDP growth. After 11 quarters, the economy is still only 6.8% bigger than it was when the recession ended. In contrast, GDP was 16% bigger, on average, by this point in the previous 10 recoveries, the Minneapolis Fed data show.

The current recovery is so slow, in fact, that it just barely beats GDP growth 11 quarters after the 1980 recession ended — even though there was the intervening long and painful 1981-82 recession. And unless GDP shoots up in Q2, the current recovery will soon be the absolute worst since the Great Depression.

Be sure to read the rest of the article. 

May 16, 2012 with 2 notes
        tags: economy. presidential election.

Gallup: Economic Ratings and Public Satisfaction with Direction of United States Suggest Obama May Be a One-Term Proposition

From Ace of Spades:

His numbers resemble those of George H.W. Bush (the first Bush).

Perhaps the broadest indicator of the public’s mood comes from Gallup’s satisfaction measure, which asks Americans if they are satisfied or dissatisfied with “the way things are going in the United States at this time.” The 24% of Americans currently satisfied is most similar to the 20% recorded in May 1992 during George H.W. Bush’s first and only term. Bush was also the only sitting president of the last four to lose his re-election bid. By contrast, satisfaction was above 35% in May of 1996 and 2004, in advance of Bill Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s re-elections. And it was 48% in September 1984, the closest time period Gallup has to May of Ronald Reagan’s re-election year.


This is even worse, it seems:

The extent of Americans’ concern about the economy — as evident in their top-of-mind mentions of it as the nation’s “most important problem” — is greater today than for any president seeking re-election since Jimmy Carter in 1980. The current 66% mentioning one or more economic concerns is substantially higher than it was in May 2004 or May 1996, and moderately higher than at the same point in 1992 and 1984. Americans’ mentions of the economy did surge in August 1984 to 65% — comparable to where they are today — but fell to 51% by September.
May 11, 2012
        tags: Barack Obama. economy. RNC.

The RNC has a very quick response to Obama’s admission that he forgets how awful millions of Americans have it living in the current recession, the same recession his policies have only prolonged.  

(Source: hotair.com)

February 17, 2012 with 2 notes
        tags: economy. jobs.
If the American people saw this chart, they’d become furious every time one of Obama’s supporters says his policies prevented our economy from collapsing. 

If the American people saw this chart, they’d become furious every time one of Obama’s supporters says his policies prevented our economy from collapsing. 

(Source: redstate.com)

February 16, 2012
        tags: economy. CBO.

The rate of unemployment in the United States has exceeded 8 percent since February 2009, making the past three years the longest stretch of high unemployment in this country since the Great Depression. Moreover, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the unemployment rate will remain above 8 percent until 2014. The official unemployment rate excludes those individuals who would like to work but have not searched for a job in the past four weeks as well as those who are working part-time but would prefer full-time work; if those people were counted among the unemployed, the unemployment rate in January 2012 would have been about 15 percent. Compounding the problem of high unemployment, the share of unemployed people looking for work for more than six months—referred to as the long-term unemployed—topped 40 percent in December 2009 for the first time since 1948, when such data began to be collected; it has remained above that level ever since.

—From the Congressional Budget Office’s most recent on jobs and the economy. So much for Obamanomics. 

(Source: cbo.gov)

January 31, 2012
        tags: CBO. economy. unemployment. Barack Obama.

The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday predicted the deficit will rise to $1.08 trillion in 2012. 

The office also projected the jobless rate would rise to 8.9 percent by the end of 2012, and to 9.2 percent in 2013. 

These are much dimmer forecasts than in CBO’s last report in August, when the office projected a $973 billion deficit. The report reflects weaker corporate tax revenue and the extension for two months of the payroll tax holiday.

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Congress’s own independent number cruncher, the Congressional Budget Office, undercut President Obama’s rosy outlook for the nation’s economic and job outlook.

Read more about the report here.

January 28, 2012 with 10 notes
        tags: Barack Obama. economy. GDP.
This is sadly so accurate.

This is sadly so accurate.

January 27, 2012
        tags: economy. GDP. barack obama.

Oof! You're taking the country in the wrong direction, Mr. President.

Here’s Business Insider on the news that the nation’s growth in GDP for all of 2011 was 1.7 percent. That’s down from the 3.0 percent growth in GDP in 2010. If you haven’t already figured it out, that is a drop of almost 50 percent. Not good. Not good at all:

That’s the final, pathetic growth number for 2011.

From the just-released GDP report:

Real GDP increased 1.7 percent in 2011 (that is, from the 2010 annual level to the 2011 annual level), compared with an increase of 3.0 percent in 2010.       

The increase in real GDP in 2011 primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, and nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by negative contributions from state and local government spending, private inventory investment, and federal government spending.  Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.

Not exactly a barnburner.

That’s the understatement of the year. 

More at the link above. 

Update: My friend Steve Schippert addressed this report at Wizbang. 

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