Yeah he is totally causing this. If only Bush could have stayed in. With a conservative non intervention approach there is no way that these numbers could be steeper.

Obama is doing little to cure or help the problem, JackOCat. His rhetoric, and his policies, are hardly inspiring business to hire more jobs. "Wealthy" people - which includes small business owners, one of the biggest sources of private-sector jobs in the US - are in Obama's crosshairs. They're not going to risk having outrageous tax increases hit their bottom line or otherwise be penalized for making "too much" money.

Really, all of the current government's policies and programs have one goal in mind: to make people more and more dependent on government. Taxing income, taxing savings, increasing taxes on everything from energy to food will eventually make it hard for low and lower-middle class folks to make ends meet, no matter how much non-essential stuff they cut out.

Barack Obama is intentionally exacerbating the economic problems in order to then step forward and proclaim himself the benevolent leader who will take care of all of us. He is the one, after all, who wrote that there's no reason why a 100% tax rate isn't feasible, so long as the basic needs of the people are met.

Let's see... Yes, the slope goes down at the start of 2007, and what happens to it when Obastard does his victory dance into DC? Hmm... at the twelve month mark it plummets much more steeply than before The Era of Hope 'n' Change. People notice things like elections and actions.

I blame Obastard. Right now you ought to be praying for that Bush 42 curve.

I should note that the election of Zerobama saw the start of the steepest decline in the slope, actually... Count back to November last year, seven and a half months. Which makes me wonder how the advent of the Unicorn of Hope and Change can keep such a steady pace, relentlessly downards. Not even a blip of "hope" on his watch.

Count backwards, fella. 2007 to Present. In other words, end of 2007. If you took the time to read the linked articles, including the one that produced the graph, it explicitly states the 2007 line begins in December 2007, not earlier. So the slope gets worse right at the time Obastard wins.

Read something and you might learn. The graph comes from the New York Times and states the recession began in Dec. 2007, thus the purpose of the graph in the first place.

As Kate noted previously, her series on "Recession Watch Remains on High Alert" was not a critique of whether or not a recession had begun at any particular point in time, but rather a critique of the MSM's unending parroting that it must be coming "any day now!," if indeed it had not already begun.

Given the kind of reporting the MSM was already doing, you would've believed that the economy was tanking many years before it actually started, all based on the premise that you can't possibly have a successful economy when a Republican's in office.

But you're right, Louie: This place is full of the most stupid, dishonest people.  Damn liberal twits keep pouring in and spewing their dreck.

Garth

There's no doubt that Bush was not a conservative when it came to fiscal policy or government growth.

Here's a related video.

Louie, what else occurred starting in 2007? Oh yeah, we got a Democratic Congress. Here's a question for you, who controls the purse strings in the U.S. government? Yes, that's right, Congress. The Democrats are at least complicit in the entire mess, and the outrageous projected deficits and new debt are completely owned by the Democrats.

The economy didn't "crap out" because of Obama, but his policies have scared the crap out of people who start and expand businesses, who are now sitting on their hands to see what the rules are gonna be. If you can't understand that, I can't help you.

Splainin' things to the leftwitted is pretty much a waste of time.... eh?

The markets/economy often react to events that are a harbinger of things to come. What happened just as the downturn started ? Obama's lead over Clinton was becoming more definite. Just saying.

Louie, a little honesty, please.

The democrats have been in control of the house and senate from 2006 - they own the pre-Obama component to the recession, as much as the post Obama component.

Investors know when they are being fed BS. They know when the rule of law is irrelevant. They know the politics were going on with the mortgages and things weren't good at Fanny and Freddie. They see the goings on with the bondholders. They see the guys in charge not paying their taxes. They know socialism when the see it. They do not believe they are not going to be hit with tax increases and they are reluctant to take on more staff at this point. GE promised they wouldn't reduce the dividend and then reduced it for the first time since 1938 while the stock plays at 7 and change. They don't care about the shareholders only the credit rating. Yep things are fine. Business does not like the unforeseen and that is all they are seeing.

The GM dealerships closures are IMO a political maneuver to eliminate a valid MARKER (measure) of the pre & post GM factory delivery/sales/ performance. This may be to mask reductions of Cars that the carbon freaks don't want sold, a rationing of sort that is not obvious.

BTW There are now 2 lawsuits on the way to US Supreme Court... The Black Robes (bankruptcy) tried to pull a fast one by not accounting for all the missing UAW pension money ..make then whole and everyone walks

what is the X axis on the graph? # of weeks into the given recession?

nice to see a conservative finally accepted reality and used the 'R' word . . .

jist askin' !

Louie: "As for the MSM and the recession, they were right."

I used to work with a guy who spent 8 years worrying about the lay-offs that were coming - "Mark my words, they're going to lay us all off." Well, one day, there were lay-offs and he lost his job. Ignoring the more than 2900 days he was wrong, it could be said he was right all along.

There have always been recessions and there always will be. Because they're a fact of economics, predicting one at some unspecified date in the future means nothing. Predicting which quarter in which year it will start is the useful part and the MSM spent seven years not doing that.

The Americans are coming to Alberta.
They know where the work is.

Amy --

"Barack Obama is intentionally exacerbating the economic problems in order to then step forward and proclaim himself the benevolent leader who will take care of all of us. He is the one, after all, who wrote that there's no reason why a 100% tax rate isn't feasible, so long as the basic needs of the people are met."

IIRC, that's written by his father. It may well be his plan, though. He doesn't understand basic economics, or much of anything else, for that matter.