The second presidential debate: 10/16/2012

Household income: historical

Household income: Bush versus Obama (to address your claims)

Census data: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/

Change in mean household income (in 2011 constant dollars) by income groups

… lowest…second…third…fourth…fifth…top 5 percent
2009-2011 … -874 … -1474 … -2098… -2436 … -1122 … 1709

2001-2008 …-701 … -1521 …-1788 …-1595 … -6753 … -23039
Average across all five income groups (excluding top 5%) under Obama: -1,601
Average across all five income groups (excluding top 5%) under Bush: -2,471

Only Republicans favor poorer economic performance by their leaders.

Other sources:

General review of all indicators:

Specific to stock market:

Specific to jobs:

Typical cherry picking.

It looks like Bush put us in the shitter. Bush lost more in average household income than Obama has, while Obama has also had to work at digging us out of the shitfest.

Do you really want to return to Bush economic policies? Why?

I’m aware of that and was shortly after I first looked at the site/cite. I never claimed it was “all about” anything.

Does this mean you’re as thorough about using the English language as you are about your sourcing of information? “Whatever, you folks check out my shit for me–I’m far too lazy and unmotivated to see if I’m anywhere near where I’m claiming”?

Here’s a more direct link to the figure that is relevant from my first link above: Inequality and American Democracy — Crooked Timber

Does thismake the claim more believable?

That paper is summarized here. A few key excerpts:

The University of Nevada-Reno economics professor also uncovered the following while conducting the economic comparison between Republican and Democratic presidential administrations from 1949 to 2005:

• Unemployment Rate- Republicans 6.0%, Democrats 5.2%
• Change In Unemployment Rate- Republicans +0.3%, Democrats -0.4%
• Growth of Multifactor Productivity- Republicans 0.9%, Democrats 1.7%
• Corporate Profits (share of GDP)- Republicans 8.8%, Democrats 10.2%
• Real Value of Dow Jones Index- Republicans 4.3%, Democrats 5.4% (in logarithmic growth rates)- Republicans 2.8%, Democrats 4.4%
• Real Weekly Earnings- Republicans 0.3%, Democrats 1.0%
• CPI Inflation Rate- Republicans 3.8%, Democrats 3.8%

These results prompted Dr. Parker to conclude that “the economy has grown significantly faster under Democratic administrations, and more than twice as fast in per-capita terms.”

Your source strikes me as the extreme example of cherry picking. Look at the starting years for the various metrics. They’re all over the map: 1953, '62, '47, '48, '30, '27, 1900, and 1995. The ending dates are similarly varied: 2001, 2004, 2000, 1998. Looks to me like he’s cherry-picking the data he wants to reach a pre-determined result.

But that misses a larger point which is that you claimed “The fact is average household income is higher for all classes under Democrats than under Republicans, except for the very rich (who do equally well under either party’s leadership).” I’ll grant you that it might be true for certain cherry-picked date ranges, but it’s not true in all cases. I cited one that disproves this broad-brush statements: our most recent two presidents.

I wrote about my opinion of the various debate questions in an earlier post here, and didn’t see any overall bias to either candidate in the choice of the questions, so I don’t have anything more to say about this. But I love this from your link:

Well, of course he “took over the floor.” If Romney didn’t want him to do that, he shouldn’t have asked Obama a question in the first place. :rolleyes:

I wasn’t intending to minimize the economic hardships we’ve been through over the last few years, but I don’t think it’s accurate to label it “the Bush economic catastrophe”, and I’ve already given two metrics by which Obama has certainly NOT improved it: unemployment and median household income.

No, I want to move forward from Obama economic policies to Romney economic policies.

Look, if you aren’t even going to try to understand what you’re reading, this isn’t going to work very well.

There’s a pretty basic reason why the years vary: THAT’S WHEN THE PARTICULAR DATA WAS AVAILABLE. It’s the opposite of cherry picking when you include all available data. Furthermore, if the data extended further back into the Truman, FDR and Hoover years in all cases, or forward into the Bush years, do you think that would hurt the argument? Uh, that data would come from the two worst economic collapses in a century, both of which occurred under Republicans. Do you not get this?

You didn’t read the first link or the more direct one in my follow up post. Taking all available data, the average household income is higher for all classes under Democrats. Look at the figure. It’s not even close. Please think this over and then respond. I would appreciate your thoughtful consideration and feedback.

Even Romney can’t say where he differs from Bush. He was asked this directly in the debate. (By the way, the things he did name? They were also stated Bush policies as well. Just so you know.) His plan is to do Bush to the next power.

God help us all.

Ah, and aren’t Romney’s economic policies merely a new spin on trickle down? I believe that the new trope is that it’s about “job creators”, yes?

I’m well aware of the distinct meanings of the word cite and site. It was just a bit of a pun, given that the cite in this case was a webSITE. I did check out the provided link. I never claimed that it was “all about” any one thing though, which is apparently what I’m being accused of.

You poor, poor conservatives- always being picked on by liberals, the liberal media, and reality. It must be nice, though; when you succeed, it’s because you earned it… but when you fail, it’s always someone else’s fault (and bill to pick up).

Seriously, do you guys *ever *stop whining?

Even Mittens refused to answer how his administration would be different on economic policies from GWB, so I guess you are looking to move forward by moving backwards.

Interesting approach.

One of many links I can cite to back this up.

The Romney policies are indistinguishable from every other Republican: Cut taxes on the [heavenly choir/] Job Creators [/heavenly choir], gut regulation, drill baby drill, and slash the societal safety net. It’s “I got mine, fuck you, and get the fuck out of the way”

I’m sorry, I just wanted to come back to this because I overlooked it before.

a) The data I showed was cumulative across all available data points.

b) The data you showed compared only the very last Bush years to Obama. In fact, it went back to 2007 as the comparison point for some reason.

I don’t think you know what the term “cherry picking” means. What you’ve done is the very definition of the term.

No, thanks.

I see what you did there.

I understand that they say quite a few similar things (after all, they are both Republicans), but there are real differences: Romney is proposing a tax reform plan quiet distinct from anything passed in the Bush years, and (while Bush and Obama have both said that they’d reduce the deficit) he didn’t really reduce deficit spending. Romney promises he will (Whether it’s more Bush & Obama style campaign promises that won’t come to fruition will have to be seen). There are clearly some stated policy goals that are different as well: repeal ObamaCare, reform Medicare, etc.