Posted on 05/03/2008 10:47:12 AM PDT by The_Republican
President George W. Bush may turn out to be the top economic forecaster in the country.
About a month ago he told reporters, "We're not in a recession, we're in a slowdown." At a White House news conference a few weeks later, despite the fact that reporters pressed him to use the "R" word, Mr. Bush refused. And on Friday, after the most recent jobs report -- which produced a much-smaller-than-expected decline in corporate payrolls, a huge 362,000 increase in the more entrepreneurial household survey (the best gain in five months), and a historically low 5 percent unemployment rate (4.95 percent, to be precise) -- the president told reporters: "This economy is going to come on. I'm confident it will."
We're in the midst of the most widely predicted and heralded recession in history. Problem is, so far it's a non-recession recession. Score one for President Bush. In an election year, it could be a big one.
First-quarter GDP growth came in at 0.6 percent. It wasn't the widely predicted decline, and economists expect that number to be revised up. GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2007 was also up slightly, while the prior two quarters averaged over 4 percent growth.
My pal Jimmy Pethokoukis quotes Stanford professor Robert Hall, who heads the recession-dating committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research: "It seems unlikely that we would ever declare a peak-date when real GDP continued to rise."
Interesting -- isn't it? -- just how durable and resilient our low-tax, free-market, capitalist economy truly is. Hit by soaring food and energy prices, a bad housing downturn, and a Wall Street credit crunch, the economy continues to expand, albeit slowly.
The bad news bears always focus on areas of economic weakness. But parts of the economy are doing splendidly.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Until this gas thing gets under control, we are not going to get ‘better’. A percentage of a percentage point in growth is not growth. Glad to see it, but the gas price is effecting people. And at next budget meetings for county and state governments, we will see the increases.
The MSM has been cheerleading a recession, hoping to help bring one on. It’s an election year afterall and a Republican is in the white house.
I don’t mean ‘glad to see gas price affecting people’, but glad to see the slight growth.
Sorry.
why have we allowed ourselves to be prisoners of corrupted oil companies? It is coming to an end with companies like Aptera and other alternative and electric energy cars.
The oil bubble is about to burst, and Mr. President knows that.
Corrupt oil companies !?
You have direct evidence of legal malfeasance ?
The truth is companies CANNOT build new refineries and have not since the `70`s because of the radical left tree huggers and Congress. Oil companies cannot drill in the USA and mining companies cannot dig up the vast coal reserves that are there for the taking which can be refined into oil.
Heck, companies cannot even build nuclear power plants. Congress and the radical left are driving the US into the ground with their no-growth, no-where, no-how, policies.
You won’t hear this much from the MSM, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average has now gone over the 13,000 mark, which means it has come a bit more than halfway back from its early March low (11,500) toward its end of October 2007 peak (14,280). In other words, there is a significant amount of optimism on Wall Street the past six weeks or so. Bad news for the Democrats, of course.
Not a reliable source of information. Kudlow would sell his dead grandmother to the first person who’d offer him a nickel for her.
RECESSION DEEPENS. ECONOMY SLOWS BY 33% !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yes, corrupted. It’s not the government’s fault that the oil cartels artifically boost the oil barrel prices and give us all kinds of retarded excuses...the fact of the matter is that they are making recording breaking profits and have had a monopoly on the energy needs of many countries and take full and greedy advantage of it. They don’t care if it hurts our whole economy. They make a plentifull profit at $2.00 a gallon let alone $4.00. This will be coming to an end soon with the new lithium ion nano batteries making 120 mile range and more and 10 minute recharges possible for electric cars. Aptera is one of those cars that is going to really take off as well as on demand hydrogen gas engines able to run on distilled water with no storage or compression of the hydrogen neccessary. Check out protiumfuelsystems.com.
EXCELLENT article.
No, not corrupted. Oil companies DO NOT control prices, OPEC does although Canada and Mexico supply the most to the USA. Both are not OPEC members.
ExxonMobil’s profit was about 10 percent of revenues. Chevron and ConocoPhillips had profits below 10 percent of revenue. Those percentages aren’t high when compared to other industries. Bank of America operates with an 18-percent profit margin, according to Forbes.com. Berkshire Hathaway has profit margin of 11 percent. AT&t: 11.8 percent. Proctor & Gamble: 13.1 percent.
Exxon paid $105 billion in taxes in 2007 but reported $40.6 billion in profits.
Now I ask, who is reaping the most profits ripping off companies, shareholders and individuals !?
The oil companies don`t control price and have a duty to shareholders. If you don`t like capatilism move to an OPEC nation such as Venezuela.
the difference with the companies that you used as comparison is that the freemarket works well in those ones with competition and therefore a choice for people. Not so with gasoline, the price is fixed and all of the oil companies go right along without a care for the American public and our whole economy. If you want ot justify their record profits by comparison to some other corporations, that is fine but still doesn’t make your case because, again, we have choices with most all other needs, but not energy. That is all changing pretty quickly though...thanks to American ingenuity and companies like Aptera and the new hydrgrogen technology. The oil companies are going to have to jump on board or eventually they will die off completely. And by the way, is it more imporatant for the oil companies to totally gouge the American public and provide a great return for their stockholders, or is it better to provide a very good return but keep the prices more reasonable? Business with little morality just turns into another type of tyranny. You have some mixed up ideas about this topic.
I`m afraid you don`t get it.
Batteries, solar, wind et al are inefficient. Nothing gives a bigger bang for the BTU buck than oil. If something did we`d be using it.
You`ve bought the Clinton/Obama/Schumer BS line about evil corporate profits. Before you do read a little more:
http://www.thepriceoffuel.com/images/Gas_Pump_Chart.gif
http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05525sp.pdf
no, actually you are the one who hasn’t done the proper research as your btu claims shows. Protiumfuelsystems.com will be coming out with a 100% hydrogen add on to efi cars for about $5000...hydrogen is more effiecient and powerful than gasoline, and will be extremely cheap when it is taken from gas form into the engine with no compressing or storage needed. Also, check out the new aptera car coming out in a few months...about 135 mpg eqivalency and 120 miles per charge which will suit about 90% of drivers...and 3-5 hour recharge. I have zero against big corporations in general, but I can see beyond the politics and know that the oil companies are screwing us big time. They can fix and charge whatever they want and not care that it hurts the whole economy. You make the mistake of judging my insight on this as liberal...that is way off base. You need to look into the alternative energy field more before you make statements that show your lack of knowledge. Being a conservative doesn’t mean that one cannot see when a part of our economy is screwed up.
Get real. No one is gonna drive a hindenburg, get T-boned and get blown to kingdom come.
You can, I`ll drive my full size chevy truck as assurance that if I ever smash into hindenberg car at least I`ll survive.
The Hindenburg did not explode. It burned.
Hydrogen burns. Gasoline explodes.
Hydrogen is AS dangerous as gasoline by the simple fact that it ignites and burns at lower temps.
No doubt, but it doesn’t explode. And neither did the Hindenburg.
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