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Obama’s economy summed up

Courtesy of Getty Images.

When Barack Obama came into office, he was facing the worst economy since the Great Depression.

He had the incredible tasks of rebooting the American economy. The peak of the great recession saw many classic signs of a depressed economy with near zero percent inflation, an S&P 500 price to earnings ratio over 100, skyrocketing unemployment, etc.

This peak recession also saw the election of a new president, Barack Obama.

Though controversial, when in office, President Obama, in collaboration with Congress, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury, introduced and passed measures to stimulate the economy. These changes included sweeping regulation reform, collapsing interest rates to zero percent, and increasing government spending by billions over years.

As President Obama’s time in office comes to a close, the eight years of data collection allow for a reasoned judgment, currently about his economic legacy. The data supports the idea that Obama, at the very least, led the economy to recover within his own philosophy.

President Clinton, in regards to the economic crisis, said, “there’s a more liberal way to do this, a more conservative way, but the best [way] to do it, is to do it quickly,” so of course, more conservative policies could have led to a recovery greater than or equal to the current recovery.

However, certain things like lowered interest rates and banking regulation are requisites to success, considering the housing collapse and the involvement of the banks.

The conclusion of 2016 leaves the United States with a 4.7 percent unemployment rate, near two percent (healthy) inflation and a PE ratio of around 25. The labor force participation lags behind, but the steady decline of the labor force participation rate began in 2000, which includes factors such as automation, increased retirement rates and lack of labor market confidence.

However, the post-WWII economic boom, which President-Elect Donald Trump often spouts as the previous American golden age, was characterized by a Labor Force Participation rate of around 58 percent, so considering the LFP today is 62 percent, this means it is headed in a logical direction.

Of course, no economic recovery is completely smooth or obvious in nature, but at the macro level, the economy remains in a better position than in 2008. Those denying an economic recovery are either ignorant or purposely dense.

Some say the economy is operating in a bubble, but the bubble for the past 75 months of job growth shows no signs of bursting.

Opinion columnist Cameron Barrett is an economics senior and can be reached at [email protected]

3 Comments

  • Cammy … you are gonna make a great Democrat economists. I hear that CNN is looking for Fake News Economic Reporters.

    The U3 number 4.7% does not even begin to represent the 94+ million able-bodied men and women Not Working, the U6 numbers.

    Black Teen unemployment is over 50%. Black Employment is outrageous.

    The Labor Force Participation Rate is the lowest its been since they began keeping numbers.

    Camy, you gave Obama credit for barely keeping the economy above water. It was a purposeful effort to keep America down and a postmortem of the Obama Regime will uncover things that will surprise many liberals, and how little he cared for America to begin with.

    A leaders attitude sets the stage for the mood of the Country. Barack Obama apologized for us, calling us the World’s Problem. And the most successful part of Obama’s economy in all of his eight years, was after the election of Donald Trump.

    Donald Trump’s attitude towards Our Country … simply put … We Are a Great Country … and rightfully so. The World looks up to us. The US is not the problem … We Are the Solution.

    Even before Trump was inaugurated, the feeling of a new era of job growth made itself apparent, which is something that never happened prior to the November Elections. Trump stressed American jobs coming home, and they are. Donald is serious about it, and it was never on Former-President (I love that term) Barack Obama’s radar. And much less Hillary Clinton who told miners she was gonna kill their jobs and get them all into job retraining programs, which is an illusion.

    Trump has a big set of nads … he not afraid of how his rhetoric will be received, he just drives on with Making America Great Again. As far as Obama’s nads … I doubt if they’ve even descended.

    #JumpAgainstTrump

    • Doesn’t seem like you read the article friend. I specifically wrote about the LFP rate and how the post-WWII boom saw an LFP of ~58%. I also conceded that there are policies which could have led to a more or less substantive recovery, but that the policies of Barack Obama have led to a modest economic recovery.

      • Cammy … the whole piece was dripping with your pheromone infused sweat as if you were on bending knee after servicing now Private Citizen Barack Obama.

        One can tell with the picture coupled with the piece, how the tone of the piece will take. With Trump, TDC always posts unflattering pictures of Trump. While with Obama, we get the posed photo as was used with this piece.

        Not one of Obama’s cabinet had any Real-World private sector experience. They were all Socialist theoreticians who gathered together to discuss theory without practice, and they barely managed any growth at all.

        It’s amazing we had any growth with the policy web that Obama Regime deployed. ObamaCare killed millions of careers. His U3 numbers reflected the available universe of jobs, which were constantly shrinking, and his 99 weeks of unemployment didn’t help in motivating people to look for employment.

        And lets not forget that his stimulus went to Unions to help keep them solvent during the GR, and on top of that a nice chunk of that money went back to the DNC.

        Obama gave his crony Capitalist friends at Solyndra, the solar panel manufacturer $500 million, and they went bankrupt a few years later.

        And that’s just the start of it. Obama hated many businesses. His rhetoric towards anti-coal was continued by Clinton, and it cost her.

        Obama’s economy had purposeful chaos imposed on it.

        The artificial $15 minimum wage has been part of that, and young people, thinking they are worth $15 per hour are being replaced by kiosks who never complain.

        The mass of regulations thrust upon businesses, the 30 work weeks, huge losses of income to millions and millions of households across the country, that’s the legacy of Barack Obama.

        Obama and his crony’s thought that everyone would bow down and yield to his rhetoric and policies. Well, ObamaCare’s a failure, 94 million are out of work.

        I’ve said before a President’s attitude sets the tone of a nation. Obama is a pessimist … Trump a optimist, and already the nation is responding with a sense that the economy will rebound in the coming years.

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