bmac32 Loc: West Florida

WASHINGTON - The news media was ecstatic when the government said in January that the economy grew by 3.2 percent in the last three months of 2013. It was convincing proof, they said on the nightly news, that the economy had finally recovered from its chronic lethargy.

But according to a revised estimate released Thursday by the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis, that 3.2 percent figure was a wild exaggeration.

The U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of our country's entire economic output, grew no more than 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter -- a pitifully low growth rate for the largest economy in the world.

"Averaged across the four quarters of last year, real GDP added 1.9 percent in 2013 from 2012," said Forbes web site reported.

You didn't hear about this on the nightly network news on Thursday? I'm not surprised. More often than not, the network news tends to ignore poor economic data, while exaggerating the significance of occasional numbers that they say proves the Obama economy is turning around.

But 1.9 percent growth for all of last year is dreadful by any comparison, and economists aren't expecting anything much better than somewhere around 2 percent in the first quarter and maybe beyond.

By any relevant comparison, this is another sign that the U.S. economy continues to stumble along at a weak, sub-par pace in the sixth year of Barack Obama's economically unfulfilled presidency.

It's "hardly the 4 to 5 percent [growth rate] needed to provide enough jobs and restore housing prices to pre-recession levels," says Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland's School of Business.

That's the kind of robust economic growth rate we need to produce 350,000 jobs a month to boost employment to pre-recession levels.

Instead, the economy is producing up to, and often far less than, 200,000 jobs a month -- nowhere near what is needed to put Americans back to work.

Obama's underperforming economy created a little over 100,000 jobs in January, and a disappointing 175,000 in February, with little expectations of significantly larger job numbers in the months to come. Indeed, the jobless rate inched up last month to 6.7 percent because of the weak jobs numbers and a growing number of discouraged long term job seekers who have quit looking for work.

If all of these uncounted discouraged workers began looking for a job again, the real unemployment rate would be 9.6 percent, Morici says.

With the fourth quarter economic growth rate running in the anemic 2 percent range, economists aren't expecting GDP to improve much in the first half of this year, either.

"We've had a significant fall off," global economist Euler Hermes told Forbes.

A chief reason economic growth has slowed, he says, can be found in a separate Bureau of Economic Analysis report which shows that personal income "hasn't grown in several months, making it unlikely consumer demand will pick up in the months ahead."

While some economists are forecasting GDP growth may reach 3 percent later this year, even that would be sub-par for our economy. "The U.S. is not on the verge of a boom. GDP growth of 3 percent would be the fastest rate since 2005, [but] it is still well below the average of 4 percent in the 1990s," Hermes said.

That was in President Clinton's second term after he had cut the capital gains tax rate, triggering a wave of new venture capital investment that led to stronger economic growth and a job boom, especially in the high tech sector.

Under Obama, on the other hand, the capital gains tax has risen for high income investors, reducing risk taking and shrinking job growth. That's why investors have grown more pessimistic about the direction of our economy and why the stock market has been in decline.

"As it stands right now, the first quarter 2014 growth rate is likely to be slower than" the fourth quarter in 2013, says Steve Blitz, the chief economist at ITG Investment Research.

Why was 2013 such a lackluster year for the economy? Business economist Peter Morici, in an analysis last week, spelled out what happened during the course of the year. And in a nutshell, he says, government tax increases were largely to blame.

"Throughout 2013, higher taxes on all income classes -- President Obama's levies on the wealthy, higher local taxes on the middle class, and reinstatement of Social Security taxes on lower income workers -- depressed consumer spending."

The remaining three years in Obama's economy are unlikely to get much better, if the latest economic figures and studies are any forecast of the future.

In a Washington Post article headlined "Future bleak for long-term jobless," a study presented last week to the liberal Brookings Institution told why millions of jobless Americans can't expect to find work anytime soon.

Former White House economic adviser Alan Krueger, the author of the study, calls "people who have been out of a job for six months or more an 'unlucky subset of the unemployed' who exist on the margins of the economy -- with faint hope of returning to productivity," the Post said.

Interest rates are headed up, driven higher by the Fed's grossly mistaken belief that the economy is improving, and thus it can take its foot off its stimulus pedal. That will likely wreak havoc with the housing industry, shrinking home sales and the availability of construction jobs.

The average rate for the 30-year mortgage rose to 4.40 percent recently, according to government mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. And it's likely to go higher.

The number of Americans who signed contracts to buy existing homes fell for the eighth month in February. That's the lowest level since 2012, says the National Association of Realtors.

This economy stinks. And even though it's not getting reported on the evening news, the American know that our country has been moving in the wrong direction ever since 2009.

http://townhall.com/columnists/donaldlambro/2014/03/29/the-obama-economy-stinks-and-its-going-to-get-a-lot-worse-n1816210/page/full

Raylan Wolfe Loc: earth

Major flaw in your article, the last states that the economy in America has been going down since 2009, when actually the economy crashed in 2008 when Bush was president.

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

The economy never did crash, if it had with this economy you'd still be looking for a place to live. It was close but it never happened.

OldSchool Loc: Moving to the Red State of Utah soon!

Of course you're wrong, as usual. You socialist lefties just can't get the t***h right can you? This economy has been going down the tubes ever since Obozo and the Democrats took control. One little factor you lefties don't bring up, or conveniently forget, is the House being taken over by Pelosi and the Democrats in Bushes last two years. Ironically, the spending started going up and the housing bubble (caused by the Democrats) occurred, which caused the 2009 recession. Historically, every President who has inherited a recession, has been able to turn the economy around within 1 to 2 years. Exception being FDR, who like Obozo, raised taxes on everything and caused a depression to last about four times longer than it should. Obungler has had 5 years, with close to two years of record tax receipts, and still has around $700 billion in annual deficit spending. And, during those 5 years the economy has essentially been stagnant. In actuality, the economy has had negative GDP growth during those 5 years because the Administration does a little accounting skewing by including borrowed money in their GDP calculation - actual GDP does not include borrowed money. Oh, and you can expect the economy to continue this negative growth under Obungler's and the socialist Democrats control. So, America either wake up and throw the socialists out come this November, or get used to a smaller economy and a continued shrinking middle class...yes, it's that simple.

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

It's hard for liberals to understand with two types of democrats, Bill Clinton type and Obama type. Compare the two, very different!

Nancy has been minimized Harry will be next and it will be a long time before we have another unknown like Obama.

bobgssc

Searching for any shred, wow.

votenoobama Loc: Texas

Hi Bmac32,

Here is some information that will help you out somewhat.

The stock market was the cause of the recession that started at the end of 2008 and by early 2009 the lid had blown off, the Dow Jones lost 50% of its value and could not recover. But, Dow Jones was having problems as early as 2007. In November 2008 and into the first part of 2009 the housing market started to bust and then subprime mortgage crisis happen, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, AIG, was basically bankrupt, money market fund lost 144 billion dollars, then the labor market had a loss of 159,000 jobs in one month, the next month was 250,000 jobs loss, which in return through the USA into recession.

On January 2, 2009 in a burst of optimism that the new Obama Administration could tackle the recession with his team of top notch economic advisers. However, continued bad economic news sent the Dow down to 6,594.44 on March 5, 2009 -- its true market bottom. Obama and team had no answers to America's problems and if anything Obama made it a lot worse than it had to be, because all segments of the economy took a tumble from Obama's failures and he lost America's trust and faith. Now, with all of Obama's change of policies and Obamacare, America will not recover for years or until Obama is out of office. Obama and team don't seem to understand how the American Economy works and even more, Obama and team tried to improve, they take steps backwards. The Economy will get worse before it will get better, with the Dollar near collapse and China economy on the down swing itself. 2014 and 2015 don't look so good for American and now you have Russia and America with a standoff, if it goes on long, that in itself will cause another problem for the American Economy.

emarine

This site has a good interactive chart http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth

Retired669

For a economy that isn't recovering the stores around here are full all the time and new houses are being built with many other new construction projects. How do you wingnuts explain that? How do you explain the record profits many companies have made since Obama became president? If people were not spending money they sure in the hell wouldn't be making money. That is a simple fact most overlook or don't talk about in these hit pieces.

Townhall is a far rightwing fringe site and I would expect nothing less from them but hit piece after hit piece on this administration. This is the same website that praised the last administration even as they were running this country into the ground. If you people didn't buy when the stock market was at it's lowest and ride it back up that's your fault.

Being involved in a business we noticed in the summer of 2007 the economic indicators we followed for work were ever so slowly changing or as some would say slowing down. We all know what happened after that. The bigger the hole left the more it takes to fill in just to get back where you were. When you receive no help it takes even longer. If tax breaks really created jobs the bush administration should have created tens of millions of jobs but they didn't.

There will always be the gloom and doom types who make their living trying to peddle fear any and every place they can. It works on the stupid time after time and this website is a prime example of that. Just look at the post topics everyday for all the proof you need. :mrgreen:

TrueBlue

I was actually naive in thinking that this website was about fairness.....all i see are posts trying to bury the American populace......I'm disappointed, but thanks for showing your true colors!

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

Oh I'm sorry I see I (read) I've upset you, please go back to your little world.

TrueBlue

Trust me, seeing your posts tells me that your world is much smaller than mine. Because if you had done your homework then your post wouldn't be so filled with incorrect information (sorry, maybe it's just the little world you're stuck in).

emarine

True Blue... to make your point you have to use the quote reply tab at the bottom of the post you wish to reply to... Your new to OPP...Good luck :thumbup:

TrueBlue

Thanks :-)

TrueBlue

This is the quote I referred to.....