Now that I've had some time away from this brain dead topic I can respond. God knows I don't want to listen to a friggin' movie music medly and watch Senor Lurch wave to the proletariat. Funny how a topic likes this needs someone like me to liven it up. What, just 170 something views without the facts huh? Looks like you need me to educate the masses, yet again, because the original poster has the economic IQ of a self serve checkout lane. Oh, I guess I should explain that.... GIGO! Garbage in garbage out. I'm not going to fault anyone for not knowing the reality of economics if they haven't been taught. Or in this case.... taught by a liberal social studies teacher.
Number one fact. Presidents have very little to no sway over the economy. This was true of Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon etc. Why is this true? The President can't raise taxes or lower taxes. He can't change interest rates. He can't raise the national debt ceiling. He can't establish varying rates in the initial or aftermarket bond market. Without controls on these major economic issues any President is a figurehead and a cheerleader for national econmic activity.
Extend this further to energy concerns and other commodities. Now everyone saw "Trading Places". Commodities are things like gold, pork bellies, orage juice, wheat, corn or soybeans, wood, home heating oil, crude oil, gasoline etc.. Again, the basic elements that make the world economy move can't be controlled from up high in any bureacracy let alone the Presidency. When this was tried, the USSR being a historical example, people starved and government eventually collapsed.
These things being illustrated; that there are no Presidential controls over government economic influences and no Presidential controls over the absolute base levels of the American economy, the commodities markets. You can begin to illustrate that if you can't micromanage the base aspects of a national economy from the Presidential level.
But what about the growth during Clinton? Bill Clinton oversaw a tremendous tech bubble that was fueled, in large part, by there being no taxation on the internet and internet businesses. That was the growth of the 90's and it came about because of a lack of government interference in a growth sector. When you're not going to tax profits from a tech type job like an old school B&M business you're going to see a huge infulx of capital.
Now what happens in a boom is very simple. It fills, and fills and then it goes bust. There were thousands of failed .com's and things from the 90's business lexicon like "burn rate" are pretty much left on the ash heap of business history. So the inflow of billions of dollars in investments led to great demands in real estate, capital equipment (PC's, routhers, cables, T1/T3's etc.) led to a tremendous growth for some manufacturers like HP, Dell, 3Com, Cisco, Microsoft etc. These were the "real" jobs of the tech bubble.
If you want to compare it to something it's like watching Deadwood on HBO. Think of the guys going into the hills panning for gold as the dot com'ers. The guys selling the hardware are the only ones that are going to end up with real money. Most will come back from their claims empty handed because there isn't gold in every stream. Make sense so far?
Now. The bubble burst in April of 2000. That was the NASDAQ high. President? Clinton. Could he have done anything? Nope. Could congress? Nope. The market needed a huge shakeout. Too much money was tied up in companies that were not generating revenues let alone a profit. They needed to fail. Jobs needed to be lost. The business model could not go on as it had been. The cycle of capitalism needed to begin anew.
So this is the economy that Bush inherited in January of 2001. Nothing wrong with that, it is what it is. America goes on erasing and recreating itself in the great unwashed stream of capitalism.
Then we're faced with the terror strikes of 9/11. First you have a great shaking of the national confidence and that's the econmoic lifeblood of the country. Confidence. Example? Let's say you're an insurance company investor. If you have millions invested in Prudential and you know they insure the WTC, Sears Tower, Hancock Building, Trans America tower and other high profile buildings would you continue to invest your money in an insurance company?
Many investors feared that insurance companies could become giant sucking pools of capital in the wake of these attacks. Instead of profits, almost guaranteed profits, people feared these companies could go bankrupt if there were a series of strikes. Prudential doesn't have enough money to rebuild cities and that was the new fear.
So what happens? Nothing. Money sits on the sideline. Money is pulled out of the market. Investments are no longer viewed as "safe" and thats what investors want. Large pools of capital are moved out of the equity markets (Stocks.) and put in debt instriments like T-bills, savings accounts, etc. The money hasn't disappeared but it's no longer in the makret.
If people aren't investing in old line companies or new companies they are no longer able to freely raise capital to expand facilities, buy equipment or hire workers. All of this is completely out of the controls of the President. Would you agree on that?
That's why after 9/11 when Bush was asked what the best thing the American people could do he said "Continue on about your lives.". It was necessary for people to not put off purchases of TV's, homes, computers, cars and other larger ticket items so the economy didn't collapse from fear. The equity markets were in a sheer state of panic, if the consumer sector reacted in the same way the contry was doomed. No joke, no exageration.
It's been estimated that the shockwaves of 9/11 caused a $1 trillion ripple in the U.S.. That's about 9% of our $11 trillion economy. If there are 100 million full time jobs in America, probably low, that means an accompanying drop in the labor market would have resulted in 9 million lost jobs. Not the 2.8 million that people attribute to the time under the Bush administration.
The miracle of 9/11 is that many companies sucked up some noxious fumes, many lost money, many broke even yet they cut workers as a last resort. Why? Because workers are the hardest thing to come by. Companies were used to bidding wars in the 90's and lavishing some pretty great perks. The last thing they want to do is get rid of these invaluable resources because when, not if, the company and economy becomes hot again they may never get the same quality person or people again.
It's very hard to get a Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet or their much younger versions.
Now, given all I've tried to infuse into this conversation I hope I have convinced you of one thing. The American economy cannot be, never should be and never will be at the fingertips of any American President. Second point, confidence, not dollars or products are the true measure and gague of strength of the economy.
shock: *shudders to think of the government portion*)