President needs to stop invoking the 'D-word'

Valley Press ^ | Tuesday, February 17, 2009.

[BenLurkin]

Yes, we're going through tough times, but President Obama has repeatedly invoked the Great Depression and it's scaring the heck out of consumers. Who's going to go buy anything if we're headed for an economic catastrophe? People will horde every penny they get and businesses will suffer and things will only get worse.

In a well-written op-ed piece in Friday's Wall Street Journal, University of Nevada-Reno economics professor Bradley R. Schiller takes Obama to task for spreading fear itself to win votes for his stimulus package.

In his article titled, "Obama's rhetoric is the real 'catastrophe,' " Schiller points out that Obama kept saying that the economy would fall into an abyss and possibly never recover without his stimulus package. Never recover?

"This fearmongering may be good politics, but it is bad history and bad economics," the professor writes. "It is bad history because our current economic woes don't come close to those of the 1930s. At worst, a comparison to the 1981-82 recession might be appropriate."

While the loss of 3.4 million jobs in 2008 is a grim statistic, it represents the same percentage - 2.2% - of the workforce that was cut in 1981-82.

Neither of those years remotely compares to the Great Depression. In 1930, the economy shed 4.8% of the workforce; followed by another 6.5% in 1931, and still another 7.1% in 1932.

The latest unemployment figures show the U.S. at 7.6%, well below the 10.8% of 1982; and again, not even in the ball park with 1932's mind-boggling 25.2%.

In terms of economic growth, believe it or not, the real gross domestic product, Schiller writes, "rose in 2008, despite a bad fourth quarter. The Congressional Budget Office projects a GDP decline of 2% in 2009. That compares to 1982, when GDP contracted by 1.9%."

[bgill]

He is a D-word.

[DTogo]

We The People need to start invoking The R Word!

[ari-freedom]

[DTogo]

Uh, not quite that "R word."

[MosesKnows]

Fear is the point

Precisely!

Democrats practice the 4 Ds; keep people Dumb, Depressed, Dependent, and Democrat.

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (F.U.D.) is the mantra of the democrats and the liberals serve as their "useful idiots" just as they did for Lenin.

Liberals are Americans who feel their fellow citizens owe them the womb to tomb care they so richly deserve. Liberals attempt to achieve their goals by preaching that only democrats can save them from the constant gloom and doom they face.