Free Republic

The central mantra of President Obama’s campaign is false. That mantra is: “The Republicans tried their plan for the economy and it failed. I tried a new plan and it worked.” As I pointed out on National Review Online yesterday, the facts are otherwise. Closing out his fourth year in office, President Obama has an 8.3 percent unemployment rate. He also boasts the lowest rate of participation in the labor force in 30 years (63.7 percent). More Americans are out of work than at any time in the preceding 30 years. There are 7 million more persons in poverty than...

WASHINGTON — All year long, in speeches and briefings and visits to factories and shops, President Bush and his aides have tried to convince Americans that the economy is in good shape -- and that the president deserves some credit for that. That effort is not making much headway, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found. Americans are closely divided on whether the economy is in good shape, with 50% saying it is doing well and 47% saying it is doing badly, the poll found. In January, when Bush launched his campaign to spread good news, the national mood was...

"... to win over Senate Democrats, Mr. Bush both phased in the tax rate reductions and settled for politically popular but economically feckless tax rebate checks." "...Mr. Bush's spending record is less admirable, especially during his first term. He indulged the majority Republicans on Capitol Hill, refusing to veto overspending ..."

If you had any questions about how differently the economy will be covered with Barack Obama in the White House they were answered by George Stephanopoulos on Sunday when he credited the president-elect with causing the recent stock market rally as well as better than expected sales the day after Thanksgiving.

In his book "The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse," Gregg Easterbrook, senior editor at the New Republic and contributing editor to The Atlantic, castigates the media for dwelling on minor problems without celebrating the broader, more upbeat context in which they exist. One of the broader, more upbeat events of recent years is the significant and dramatic increase in real GDP per-capita worldwide. Using world GDP data from the IMF and world population data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the chart above shows real world GDP per-capita from 1985 to 2013 (data from 2008 -...

Last week, assembled at Miami’s InterContinental Hotel for a meeting of the Republican Governors Association, the governors seemed cheerful. The G.O.P. had lost only one statehouse on Election Day. The prospects for a Republican pickup in Virginia in 2009 were decent, and good candidates were plotting runs in states like California, Pennsylvania and Ohio in 2010. There was even a sense of liberation in the air. For the last 14 years, there has been either a Republican Congress or a Republican White House, or sometimes both. Now the Republican governors are free of those heavy taps on the shoulder from...

DALLAS (January 21, 2008) – As Congress debates whether to renew tax cuts enacted early in the George W. Bush presidency, as well as various economic stimulus plans, critics often label the measures as "tax cuts for the rich." Yet a new report from the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) says the Bush tax cuts made the tax code more progressive, no matter how progressivity is measured. In fact, the report concludes that every major tax change (Republican or Democrat) over the past two decades has increased the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest Americans. The top 1...

DOW currently down 561 points.

Stocks rallied Monday afternoon, with the Dow up over 800 points during the session, as investors bet that the worst of the credit crisis is over, following a series of global initiatives announced over the last few days. The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) gained as much as 814 points and over 9% before pulling back a bit. The advance was the largest ever during a session on a point basis.

<p>Bloomberg television states Bush to address the public later this morning.</p> <p>Bloomberg states: “Bush to assure the American Public he’s going to do all he can.” Now there a confidence building snippet.</p>

US administrations typically suffer temporary loss of international influence as their time in office draws to a close. But rarely has Washington’s global prestige and leverage fallen so low as in the dog days of US President George W. Bush’s eight-year reign. This debilitation is a source of concern for the US’ friends — and a dangerous opportunity for its enemies, who hope such weakness can be both exploited and made permanent. The US-triggered economic crisis has reinforced hostile perceptions of US vulnerability. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gleefully invited Iranians to listen to the sound of global power crashing to...

"I'm ill about the position that America is in and that we have to look at a $700 billion bailout. At the same time we know that inaction is not an option and as Senator McCain has said unless this nearly trillion-dollar bailout is what it may end up to be, unless there are amendments in Paulson's proposal, really I don't believe that Americans are going to support this and we will not support this," Palin said in the interview. Couric pressed Palin on examples of how McCain, a 26-year congressional veteran, had led the charge for more oversight. The...

Eager to show that he feels people's pain, President Bush told the country Thursday his administration is working feverishly to calm turmoil in the financial markets. With reports swirling of possibly imminent new government action, the president met with his treasury secretary and the head of the Federal Reserve. Nothing was announced immediately after the 40-minute meeting at the White House, which included Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, along with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. White House spokesman Tony Fratto would not comment on whether any decisions were made at the session, or whether...

Bad day for Wall Street

Unemployment Rate Hits 5-Year High As Economy Continues to Shed Jobs By BRIAN BLACKSTONE September 5, 2008 9:27 a.m. WASHINGTON -- The U.S. jobless rate unexpectedly jumped in August to a nearly five-year high as employment fell for an eighth-straight month, raising the risk of recession as households face a struggling labor market and high inflation. The data, which included a modest rise in wages, suggest Federal Reserve officials will hold interest rates steady when they meet later this month and at subsequent meetings through the end of the year. Nonfarm payrolls, which are calculated by a survey of establishments,...

<p>Second-quarter GDP revised up to a surprising 3.3% annual growth; initial jobless claims declined last week. More soon.</p>

Inflationary pressures were subdued, the data showed, with real hourly compensation falling -- a hopeful sign for the fight against inflation, but troubling for economic growth. Productivity in the nonfarm business sector rose a 2.2% annualized rate in the second quarter, a bit slower than the 2.7% rate that economists surveyed by MarketWatch had been looking for. See Economic Calendar. Unit labor costs -- a key gauge of inflationary pressures from labor markets -- rose 1.3% compared with the 1.6% rate expected by economists. Output rose an annualized 1.7% in the quarter, while hours worked dipped 0.5% and real hourly...

US retail sales in surprise climb Consumers spending is the biggest driver of the US economy. US retail sales climbed by the largest amount in six months during May after spending was helped by tax rebates. Sales rose by a better-than-expected 1% in May, the Commerce Department said, the largest rise since November. It also said April's figure had been revised up to a rise of 0.4% against the previous estimate of a 0.2% fall. Economists said the rise indicated that the economy had been given a boost by the stimulus package under which millions of Americans got tax...

The $48 billion in tax rebates sent out to American consumers this spring has helped keep the US economy out of a recession, but analysts believe the impact may only be temporary. The rebates, approved by Congress earlier this year, helped push May retail sales up at twice the expected rate. But consumers are still facing rising gas costs, falling home prices and the struggling job market, so the rise is probably short-term, says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com. "Come October, there are probably going to be weaker numbers," Zandi said. "People are spending the rebate checks very...

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Thursday that the worst of the credit crisis is over, according to attendees at a New York speech. Greenspan also said house prices still had a long way to fall and it was unlikely they would stabilize by year-end, according to meeting attendees who provided Reuters details of the speech delivered at the Alternative Public Strategies Conference. The attendees, who declined to be identified by name, said Greenspan mentioned that U.S. growth was likely to be sluggish for an extended period of time. The U.S economy is reeling from a housing-led slowdown,...