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This Graph Should Scare You
Washington Post WonkBlog ^ | November 18, 2012 | Staff

Posted on 11/18/2012 2:18:34 PM PST by lbryce

A new study from the Congressional Budget Office starts with the scariest graph you’ll see today.


Source: Congressional Budget Office

In other words, you’re not imagining it: This economic recovery has been a big disappointment relative to what the United States has usually experienced after a recession. Growth has been 9 percent below what was seen in past recoveries on average in its first three years. The CBO report tries to disentangle where that underperformance is coming from and its answer is deeply unsettling: The U.S. economy just isn’t as good at growing as it used to be.

The new CBO report claims that two-thirds of the underperformance of the economy over the past three years compared to a typical recovery is due to a slower rate of growth in potential GDP. Only one-third, in this analysis, is due to factors related to this recession.

Potential GDP is the measure of what the economy is capable of producing if almost all of the people who want jobs are able to get one and almost all its machines and buildings were humming at their potential. While it has grown consistently through modern U.S. history (we can thank a growing population and steadily improving technology for that), it doesn’t always grow at the same rate. In periods when baby boomers were reaching their working years and women were entering the workforce in large numbers, the rate at which potential GDP rose was very high, over 4 percent at times, by the CBO’s reckoning.

In recent years, though, those trends have reversed. Baby boomers are starting to retire and the proportion of women who work has leveled off.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: obama; obamageddon; obamalaise; obamanomics; obamasized; obamasizing; ownit
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To: 3Fingas

Milk Toast> Milquetoast


41 posted on 11/18/2012 3:34:10 PM PST by lbryce (BHO:"Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds by way Oppenheiner at Trinity NM)
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To: F15Eagle

FDR’s Treasury secretary Henry Morganthau in May 1939:

“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong ... somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... And an enormous debt to boot!”


42 posted on 11/18/2012 3:57:57 PM PST by TurboZamboni (Looting the future to bribe the present)
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To: Bryanw92
Even my 401k has not even made up the losses of the last 4 years.

That's why I call mine a 201K.

43 posted on 11/18/2012 4:00:02 PM PST by jda ("Righteousness exalts a nation . . .")
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To: jda

LOL. That just about sums it up!


44 posted on 11/18/2012 4:04:32 PM PST by Bryanw92 (Sic semper tyrannis)
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To: NoLibZone
Can we sue the DNC for 10% of our lives value?

The best that can be done is settle out of court; the DNC will agree to taking 10% of the end out of life instead.

45 posted on 11/18/2012 4:12:23 PM PST by C210N ("ask not what the candidate can do for you, ask what you can do for the candidate" (Breitbart, 2012))
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To: lbryce

I was referring to the breakfast food :-D


46 posted on 11/18/2012 4:19:00 PM PST by 3Fingas
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To: Gator113
No, I voted for Romney.

Not my first or any choice ... but he was what I had and I'll be damned (and I guess I and we will be) if I'll vote for a mulatto, bastard usurper.

47 posted on 11/18/2012 5:02:51 PM PST by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: plain talk
No, of course not.

Interesting that my reply seems to indicate I was a stay at home voter

/8^)

48 posted on 11/18/2012 5:04:59 PM PST by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: F15Eagle

I heard lots of folks like Hannity and Rove saying we won’t survive four more years. I’m afraid they were right.


49 posted on 11/18/2012 5:20:38 PM PST by Terry Mross (I haven't watched the news since the election. Someone ping me if anything big happens.)
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To: lbryce
When the financial crisis started, Peter Schiff said that bailing out the banks would give us a Japan-like economy for a whole decade.

He was right.

The government should have let the losers who got us into this mess, fail and/or go to jail.

The economic system would have cleared itself of counter-productive businesses, and we would have long since recovered by now.

50 posted on 11/18/2012 5:23:26 PM PST by Age of Reason
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To: Terry Mross

These same doomsday pundits poo poo any thought of secession....


51 posted on 11/18/2012 5:25:57 PM PST by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: knarf

Well good.... you didn’t stay home. At least we tried.


52 posted on 11/18/2012 5:30:53 PM PST by Gator113 (WHO gave the order to NOT rescue our men in Benghazi?)
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To: central_va

Texas joined the union through a treaty that was never ratified. There are people in jail who tried to prove it even though they were right. If we had a real conservative as governor we might just have a chance.

Austin is wanting to secede from Texas. I’m all for it, especially if they’ll take the retard Perry with them.


53 posted on 11/18/2012 5:38:53 PM PST by Terry Mross (I haven't watched the news since the election. Someone ping me if anything big happens.)
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To: Theoria

1981, 1990, 2001, and 2007 have been the four longest.

Eventually, probably soon, one of them will take forever.

When you don’t recover from a severe illness, you die.


54 posted on 11/18/2012 6:01:37 PM PST by Right Wing Assault (Dick Obama is more inexperienced now than he was before he was elected.)
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Comment #55 Removed by Moderator

To: GeorgeWashingtonsGhost

Yes, that and more. Those who have not saved.....read “sacrifice” ....for their futures consider themselves entitled to those 401ks because they belong to the rich. Never mind that they are probably worth 50% of what they did four years ago.


56 posted on 11/18/2012 6:38:01 PM PST by Dapper 26
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To: lbryce

Uuuh . . . what “end of recession” is this?


57 posted on 11/18/2012 6:38:57 PM PST by YHAOS (you betcha!)
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To: lbryce

Uuuh . . . what “end of recession” is this?


58 posted on 11/18/2012 6:44:01 PM PST by YHAOS (you betcha!)
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To: F15Eagle

If the Mayans are right it could be the best thing that could happen. Maybe we’ll be put out of our misery instantly and won’t need that pasta you’ve got stored.


59 posted on 11/18/2012 10:29:41 PM PST by Terry Mross (I haven't watched the news since the election. Someone ping me if anything big happens.)
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To: Theoria

I’ve often found that graph disturbing. In the past 30 years each recovery has taken longer and longer to recover from. 31 mo, 46 mo... the current one might well taken an “infinite” amount of time.


60 posted on 11/18/2012 11:03:40 PM PST by newzjunkey (Still waiting for Akin defenders to come clean and apologize... Romney 2016?)
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