Monday, December 1, 2008

The "Bush boom"

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), today:

The National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday that the U.S. has been in a
recession since December 2007, making official what most Americans have already
believed about the state of the economy .

The NBER is a private group of
leading economists charged with dating the start and end of economic downturns.
It typically takes a long time after the start of a recession to declare its
start because of the need to look at final readings of various economic
measures.
Larry Kudlow, in December 2007 :

There is no recession. Despite all the doom and gloom from the economic
pessimistas, the resilient U.S economy continues moving ahead—quarter after
quarter, year after year—defying dire forecasts and delivering positive growth.
In fact, we are about to enter the seventh consecutive year of the Bush boom.

The pessimistas are a persistent bunch. In 2006, they were certain a
recession was just around the corner. They were wrong. Instead, the economy
posted two consecutive quarters of near or above four-percent growth.

Earlier today, a doom and gloom economic forecast from Macro Economic
Advisors was released predicting zero percent growth in the fourth quarter. This
report is off by at least two percentage points. These guys are going to wind up
with egg on their faces.


I've picked on Larry before, but why anyone pays this idiot to spread his idiocy is beyond me. The only thing he's good at is being consistently hilariously wrong. Kind of like Bill Kristol.

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