The final pre-election Jobs report - and a new spin?
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  The final pre-election Jobs report - and a new spin?
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Author Topic: The final pre-election Jobs report - and a new spin?  (Read 5111 times)
The Duke
JohnD.Ford
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« Reply #50 on: October 05, 2004, 10:55:35 AM »

As for this chart.  You can't really coutn FDR, Truman, or LBJ since they had wartime economies.

You can't count Carter, because the result of his policies was to creaqte high inflation, which more than offsets the disparity in job creation.

This leaves us with tax cutter Kennedy and free trader Clinton.

I'll take that.  The chart shows that free trade and low taxes creates jobs.
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Nym90
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« Reply #51 on: October 05, 2004, 11:17:37 AM »

As for this chart.  You can't really coutn FDR, Truman, or LBJ since they had wartime economies.

You can't count Carter, because the result of his policies was to creaqte high inflation, which more than offsets the disparity in job creation.

This leaves us with tax cutter Kennedy and free trader Clinton.

I'll take that.  The chart shows that free trade and low taxes creates jobs.

You forgot to mention that Clinton raised taxes. And FDR, Truman, and LBJ can't be completely discounted on the basis of the wars alone. Yes, the wars helped, but certainly did not count for all or even most of the job creation.

As you note, Clinton and Kennedy were the most economically conservative of the Democratic Presidents, and also had the lowest percentage jobs growth of any Democrat (though of course still more than any Republican).

Kennedy cut taxes down to 70% for the top income bracket. I would have agreed with those tax cuts too, 91% was too high, but a 70% rate seemed to work pretty well.

Spending on wars does create jobs, but not nearly as many as could be created if the money was spent somewhere else. It's an inefficient way to create jobs since it produces nothing of direct value to this country in terms of products and services; they have little to no long term value to the country. The defense industry benefits, but the government could spend the money more productively elsewhere if job creation truly is the goal.
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A18
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« Reply #52 on: October 05, 2004, 11:41:57 AM »

Republicans inherit recessions. Every time.
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Acastus
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« Reply #53 on: October 05, 2004, 01:23:52 PM »
« Edited: October 05, 2004, 01:34:44 PM by Acastus of Thessaly »

I have followed jfern's link to the Bureau of Labor Statistics site and tried to duplicate the chart's numbers.  I can't get it to agree.  For example, using Reagan (1981-1988), I get about 2.6%.  Maybe I am doing something wrong.  Has someone duplicated the results?

The chart itself comes from a pro Democrat shill site (www.americanassembler.com).  The chart also has -9% for Hoover, when the Bureau of Labor site that is linked only goes back to 1939.  I am not rejecting the number, only indicating that the source of the American Assembler chart may be different from the stat link provided.

If someone has duplicated the numbers, let me know how.  It is a cool site.
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The Duke
JohnD.Ford
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« Reply #54 on: October 05, 2004, 02:09:02 PM »

Nym,

After 7 years of the New Deal, the unemployment rate had fallen from 25% to 17%.  In the next two years, war industry got it down to 9%.  Two years of war industry had the same impact on unemployment as 7 years of public works.  Yeah, I'm pretty sure war industry creates most of these jobs.

Johnson also cut taxes, and Clinton did the same (cap gains tax in 1996).  A high tax Republican (Ike) and a tax hiking Republican (Bush I) had among the lowest job creation rates, so there goes any link between high taxes and job growth.

The simple explaination for this chart, assuming it legit, is that Democrats create more jobs but also create more inflation.  If you are willing to trade a marginal change in job creation for a major change in inflation, then vote Democrat.  Liberal policies have a consistent impact, and so do conservative policies.  If you think its a good trade, vote Democrat, if you don' think its worth it, vote GOP.
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jfern
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« Reply #55 on: October 05, 2004, 03:01:05 PM »
« Edited: October 05, 2004, 03:12:15 PM by jfern »

I have followed jfern's link to the Bureau of Labor Statistics site and tried to duplicate the chart's numbers.  I can't get it to agree.  For example, using Reagan (1981-1988), I get about 2.6%.  Maybe I am doing something wrong.  Has someone duplicated the results?

The chart itself comes from a pro Democrat shill site (www.americanassembler.com).  The chart also has -9% for Hoover, when the Bureau of Labor site that is linked only goes back to 1939.  I am not rejecting the number, only indicating that the source of the American Assembler chart may be different from the stat link provided.

If someone has duplicated the numbers, let me know how.  It is a cool site.

Here's how you get it. Go to formatting options. Change it to 12 month percent change. Add up all of the December values for 1981-1988, and divide by 8. I got 2.05%. That link has all of the data 1939 and later. This has all of the President's data from either BLS or the Economic Policy Institute.

Oh, and to be fair to Bush, he's now only 900,000 jobs in the hole and has a annual increase of -0.26%


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Acastus
csmith476
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« Reply #56 on: October 05, 2004, 03:43:02 PM »

Thanks Jfern.  I recalculated using your method and doublechecked by computing CAGR's for each presidency.  The numbers are on target.
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J. J.
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« Reply #57 on: October 05, 2004, 04:07:38 PM »

There is something else to consider.  Unemployment rates.  Bush's first two years were better than Clinton's first two years.   His third year was worse.

Is creating positions necessarily good if there are no workers there willing to take them?
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A18
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« Reply #58 on: October 05, 2004, 04:15:31 PM »

I expect it to return to the mid-50s immediately following the election.
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jfern
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« Reply #59 on: October 06, 2004, 01:56:45 AM »

There is something else to consider.  Unemployment rates.  Bush's first two years were better than Clinton's first two years.   His third year was worse.

Is creating positions necessarily good if there are no workers there willing to take them?

I mean sure at some point, if employment is too high, you might run out of qualified workers. Often there are qualified workers, but for whatever reason, the companies don't find them - good example: Silicon valley in the middle of the Dot COM boom. I'll give you that a lot of unqualified people were hired, but there were qualified people out there.

But anyways, in Jan. 2001, the unemployment rate was 4.2%. That doesn't count a lot of people - people who are long term unemployed, people who just graduated, and so on, even if they're trying to find a job. Since Jan. 2001, the potential labor pool has increased by 44 months * 150,000 jobs per month = 6.6 million people. We lost 900,000 jobs. So 7.5 million more people are unemployed. Somewhere around 140 million people exist in the potention labor pool, so there was about a 5% increase in the effective unemployment rate, so true unemployment is at least 9% , probably higher.
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