How would you debunk this claim, DU?

[goodboy]

"If I recall the economy was doing great until 2006 when the democrats took over the Senate and House. After that is when things took a dive."

This was a response given to a facebook post about how the Reagan GOP destroyed the economy.

What would you say?

[eleny]

1. I'd ask them what specific Dem policies that W signed into law caused the debacle

[Mz Pip]

5. This is the way to go with this

Bush was Pres. He could have vetoed anything he didn't like. But Bush never vetoed one spending bill.

[HereSince1628]

2. Spurious correlation, but morans wouldn't understand.

So I think I'd laugh and squeeze in a 'Sooooo NOT!'

[rucky]

4. I don't think it is.

But my tinfoil would take quite a bit of explaining, so let's go with spurious.

[blm]

3. Dems took over in 2007 and by then this nation was FULLY IMMERSED in 6yrs of GOP financial policies

Can the dude count? Dem influenced budgets wouldn't BEGIN to be felt till early 2010.

[Warpy]

6. I would say it was a false prosperity, floated on an ocean of debt

and sustained by unsustainably rising house prices and the availability of cheap mortgage money so that high interest debt could be converted to low interest debt but not paid off.

I'd say that wages have been suppressed for 35 years, making debt absolutely necessary to achieve any prosperity during that period, and when the limit of the house price bubble was reached and no more cheap debt could be assumed, the collapse of a system predicated on infinitely expanding debt and bets on that debt nearly took the whole world's financial system with it.

While people were able to surround themselves with shiny new toys, that came at an appalling cost, their financial security, their children's financial security, and their ability ever to retire.

The collapse of the whole unsustainable system is taking just about everything with it as people start to deal with the hangover after the party, their often negative net worth making it impossible do any discretionary spending, the lack of discretionary spending leading to a reduction in demand for goods and services, and the reduction in demand leading to high unemployment, which then becomes a vicious circle that can be broken only with the type of government intervention Republicans find anathema.

It's always tempting to return to a time just before a disaster, but the storm was approaching, the stresses within the earth were building up, the magma was rising inside the mountain and the enemy troops were just across the border. While little can be done about those disasters, a timely abandonment of Reagan's nutty theories (which everyone at the top knew weren't working within 5 years) would have eliminated the disaster we're now finding ourselves in the middle of.

Returning to the impending disaster is a silly idea. All the seeds for the disaster were being sown during that period. The idea of returning to that period without thinking about abolishing the unworkable system that produced the disaster that followed is just as futile as living through that period the first time was without bothering to prepare oneself for the inevitable collapse.

[pitohui]

8. who enjoyed prosperity in 2006? seriously? WHO?

your argument as a whole may be sound but the man who thinks there was prosperity in 2006 is a pig you can't teach to whistle

nobody had anything in 2006 they didn't have more and better in 1976

[Warpy]

10. Look at it from his point of view

People who played the game of charging up credit cards and then using the house as an ATM to convert all that debt into low interest mortgage debt and start the process all over again "had" all kinds of things: they had the house with the granite countertops, the riding mower for the quarter acre of land, the two brand new SUVs in the driveway, and whatever they thought they wanted, they could just produce a plastic card and get. It was pure magic and he wants to go back to that.

Who the hell wouldn't?

The problem was that he wasn't paying for any of it, that he couldn't pay for any of it, and that he'd never be able to pay for any of it and that's why the whole business fell apart, he's living in a two room apartment, and he's looking at want page ads for anything that will pay eight bucks an hour so he can continue to eat.

(Of course, the shenanigans of the banks, hedge funds, and brokerages during this period also contributed to the collapse, but that's probably way over his head)

[pitohui]

7. i would suggest supportive therapy for memory loss

geez louise the economy hasn't been doing great since feb 2000 when it became apparent that the powers that be weren't gonna allow a gore presidency (the market is a leading indicator)

seriously, ask the fucktard where the dow was in august 1999, ask him where it is now, we've effectively gone nowhere for over a decade of investment

but in real life i assume stupid people can't learn and i can't teach a pig to whistle so i don't bother

you know the truth, why hang out on facebook, that isn't for thinking minds

[EC]

9. Easiest way is with pictures

Notice all of Bush years are in the negative unless you were in the top brackets...


Link: http://openleft.com/diary/14743/forget-the-recessionbush-economy-sucked-before-then

[doc03]

12. You really think a Teabagger could understand that chart? n/t

[pinboy3niner]

14. Perhaps we could transcribe it in sharpie? With misspellings?

:evilgrin:

[doc03]

11. Well they have been taught by Faux News

that it was caused by the Clinton policies, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.

[applegrove]

13. bubbles and crashes are part of pure capitalism. The more capitalist an economy the more

volatile the economy will be. The housing bubble/derivative fiasco was well under way by 2006.

[Liberalynn]

15. The Democrats did not have a large enough majority

to enact any real policy changes in 2006. The Pukes blocked all their attempts at change and the Dems didn't have the numbers at that point to overcome the resistance. So it was bascially still Bush's and the previous Congress economy.

Plus my late economics professor used to say the economy is like a big lumbering bus. It doesn't turn on a dime. He said a President cannot claim credit or be faulted for the economy until he is into the start of his second term. That is if he gets one. So as has been said, the Dems policies had they been able to enact any over the Pukes blockage wouldn't have kicked in that quick. It was the PUKES economy all the way.

A little bit OT here: My professor by the way was actually a Republican, but he despised the notion of trickle down economics and would always tell us, it would never work, and was bad economic policy. He even tried to convince some elected PUKES about it. Unfortuantely he died young and unexpectedly. He may have been on the other side but he was one of the few Repulicans I could actually respect. But then he was old school, not the new Thug brand.