Obama's Inauguration Present: The Economic Recovery Is Finally Here

US News ^ | 01/19/2013 | By RICK NEWMAN

[SeekAndFind]

Call it the passive-aggressive economy.

When Congress pumped billions of dollars of stimulus spending into the economy, it sputtered and wheezed like a patient having a heart attack. Now that Congress is raising taxes and cutting back on stimulus measures, the economy seems more resilient than expected. For President Barack Obama, it could mean a much more durable economy over the next four years than he enjoyed in his first term.

Toward the end of 2012, economists warned repeatedly that the fiscal-cliff standoff would harm economic growth and perhaps even cause a recession. The last-second solution avoided the worse possible outcome, but it still included tax hikes that will take money out of consumers' pockets, without addressing the looming crisis over the national debt.

Yet instead of tanking, the economy held up much better than expected given the dangerous game of chickenCongress and the president engaged in. Employers created 155,000 new jobs in December, maintaining the same pace of job creation established throughout 2012. Instead of plunging, the stock market drifted upward toward a five-year high, preventing many investors from taking advantage of a panicky selloff to buy stocks cheap, while hoping for a snapback once Congress got the message and did its job.

Economic growth is still weak, perhaps just 1.5 percent or so. But that's not bad considering that measures to address the federal deficit are now cutting into growth. Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimates that the fiscal-cliff deal negotiated at the start of the year will cut GDP growth by about 1.5 percentage points this year, with further spending cuts likely to cut it by another half-point. "This implies that absent the fiscal drag, we would be forecasting 3.5% growth," BofA said in a recent report. "This is actually quite positive."

CLICK ABOVE LIN FOR THE REST...

[cripplecreek]

Actually it would be curious to see which states are doing best (Or show most improvement) compared to which party holds the majority within. There are 24 states with firm GOP majorities.

For instance, things are getting better in Michigan but its in spite of Obama and most definitely not because of him.

[shelterguy]

“”” Obama’s Inauguration Present: The Economic Recovery Is Finally Here””

That is some pretty funny stuff.

[headstamp 2]

What horsesh**. The pressholes are lining up on cue for the 1st Idiot.

[Da Coyote]

This is your captain speaking. Although the peak is at 15,000 feet, and we are only at 14,000 feet, we have resumed a positive climb rate of 100 feet per hour and should exceed the altitude of the peak roughly 1 hour after hitting it.

Flight attendants, please prepare the cabin for an Obamadork meeting with the rocks.

[fella]

Class 8 (Heavy-Duty) truck sales are way off, always a precursor of reduced economic activity. Many production plants are having shut down weeks, reduced work weeks, layoffs and one closing that I know of. The people who deliver goods do not buy trucks when they know that there will not be goods to deliver.

[BookmanTheJanitor]

What a pathetic excuse of a journalist...

[Gene Eric]

The beneficiaries of Obama’s taxpayer handouts foretelling a promising season for the Marxist.

[Common Sense 101]

Call it the passive-aggressive economy.

I'd rather call it what it is... socialist-enabling propaganda. I'm not sure what this a$$ clown talking about, but it isn't based on reality.

[oldplayer]

“The Onion,” right?

Oldplayer

[Starboard]

What a pathetic excuse of a journalist...
*******
I honestly can’t think of any case in recent history of the MSM supporting any conservative person or issue. At the risk of stating the obvious, the corrupt media is totally in the tank for Obama and all things liberal.

[exDemMom]

Is this like the green shoots the media kept telling us about every time Obama dumped more (borrowed) money into his supporters’ pockets (aka “stimulus spending”)?

Raising taxes is never good for the economy. Neither is bloating spending.

I think the first step towards improving the economy is to freeze spending, and mandate that every line item on the budget be reviewed before it can receive any funding increase. Forcing Congress to review, line-by-line, every expenditure would go a long way towards reducing unneeded spending, eliminating redundant programs, and preventing new unneeded programs from being initiated. Of course, that will never happen; new programs and increased spending buy votes, and that’s what politicians (especially liberals) care about.

[trebb]

And I still don’t understand why the DOW seems to be heading towards 14,000. One thing for sure, if I fold and decide to drop my retirement funds back into it, we’ll have supermeltdown#3 in short order...(moved my stuff into Money Market no-grow/no-crash about 10 months ago).

[Chode]

yeah, right...