Posted on 09/19/2012 6:42:41 AM PDT by Perdogg
Amidst the debates on what the US should do to re-establish an era of prosperity, there are a lot of references in the media and at political conventions to the "Clinton Recovery". This refers to the period from 1992 to 2000, the best in post-war history: 19% equity returns, 3.8% annualized real GDP growth, monthly payroll gains of 265,000 (adjusted for todays population) and an average budget deficit of less than 2% of GDP. As Michael Cembalest of JPMorgan notes, applying a Presidents name to a recovery or recession always seems to be a case of artistic license; you might as well call it "The Kardashian Recovery" in some cases, given how little Presidential policies had to do with it. Most of the time, domestic and global business cycles, monetary policy and other factors were the primary drivers. However, to recreate the policy conditions which prevailed would require a centrist - who most likely would have been excommunicated by his party for heresy as the political middle ground occupied by the party non-conformists is gone.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
“That period should probably be called “The Internet Recovery.” “
Bingo.... With the first mega IPO based on an idea (Netscape, and the browser wars), the dot-com kaboom was born. Less tangible than a housing boom, but substantial in its ability to generate capital (or at least the illusion of capital).
In other words, He Didn’t Build That! (he rode it.....”insert” off-color ribaldry here)
Slick willie also strengthened the CRA, continuing and expanding the home lending boom and its eventual collapse.
.02,
Your mileage may vary
It wasn’t JUST the congress or the Republicans that saved us. It was a confluence of many things coming together into a perfect storm.
The BIG local story was the Dot-Com era and the creation of the internet at the same time as Clinton was in office. That drove a huge amount of the wealth creation of the time. That was a result of history being made, not really any policy coming out of D.C.
Further - the same invention of the internet, and the economic liberalization of two countries specifically, China and India who both chose to come into the modern world around that time has causes another perfect storm in reverse. The Job Suck to those places can be audibly heard around Silicon Valley. The reverberations of the movement of high-tech to other countries is still ringing here in Silicon Valley.
It is also easy to look back with 20-20 hind-site to say that there are some government policies that are making this drought endure! Let’s see - Sarbanes-Oxley and the change in IRS codes to consider stock grants as expenses on a startup’s ledger certainly have caused the Silicon Valley Golden goose to lay bricks instead of gold. The cost of energy & tax policies in CA haven’t helped either. The business in CA is stifling now.
In any case - it wasn’t JUST the Republican Congress. Let’s be honest - a balanced budget wouldn’t fix everything either. We live in a very different world than the “Gay 90’s ;-)”
it would require twelve years of Reaganomics to prepare the way
Dot Com explosion was the main cause for the growth - nothing else.
The “Clinton recovery” can’t be repeated for multiple reasons, but one of the biggest is because during the Clinton years we had not yet maxed out the national credit card.
In fact, as CNNs Brooke Jackson has reported: Three days before Christmas 1992, the National Bureau of Economic Research finally issued its official proclamation that the recession had ended 21 months earlier. What became the longest boom in U.S. history actually began nearly two years before Clinton took office. See (See http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/31/jackson.recession.primer.otsc/).
By the same token, Clinton is generally perceived as having a stellar economic record during his own presidency, in spite of the fact that the economy was already starting to decline during the last year of his term after the stock market crashed in March 2000.
According to a report by MSNBC: The longest economic expansion in U.S. history faltered so much in the summer of 2000 that business output actually contracted for one quarter, the government said Wednesday in releasing a comprehensive revision of the gross domestic product. Based on new data, the Commerce Department said that the GDP the countrys total output of goods and services shrank by 0.5 percent at an annual rate in the July-September quarter of 2000. See: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3676690/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/t/gdp-figures-revised-downward/.
THE TIME OF THE MAXIMUM PRODUCTIVITY OF THE BOOMER GENERATION!
Why does everyone ignore the elephant that was in the room, while today’s ‘negative productivity’ of the Boomers is well recognized?
We’re not going back to paying into SS and paying taxes on our incomes instead of taking from it- unless a time machine comes along...
GREAT find! Thanks!
The “grow the economy” fools need to read this article.
The Economy is dynamic, always responding to market conditions, which are rarely repeated.
Hence, the Reagan Recovery, the Clinton Recovery and the Obama Recovery must be viewed through the lens of History.
The Obama Recovery has shown, IMHO, that the US Economy is very strong because it has managed to grow at the rate of 1-2 % in spite to Dictator Obama’s sworn policy of regulate, Control and DESTROY.
Clintons recovery is a myth. The 104th congress deserves all the credit, and Clinton deserves the blame for the economic melt down and mortgage fiasco. But the truth will never be told. Also let’s us not forget Reagans policies spurned the growth in the 90s.
The Internet Bubble was a symptom of the cause. The so-called Clinton Recovery was nothing more than future demand being brought forward via Credit Expansion. Bush II did the same thing hence the Housing Bubble. The ‘prosperity’ of the last 20+ years has been achieved at the expense of future generation’s work(capital creation) yet to be done. We have essentially spent their capital. And sadly we are not done robbing them yet, hence QE1, QE2. QE3 and so on and so forth.
Two words - “Peace Dividend”....
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