Everyone can rest easy now, apparently the Great Recession is over because Larry Summers, a White House adviser, assures us that Google searches for “economic Depression” have gone down. Happy days are here again because fewer people are searching Google for economic depression news. This reminds me of when Gore was campaigning 1996 and claimed that the recession was over because he saw a “Help Wanted” sign in the window of a Burger King, very myopic lives these liberals live. In fact, if this Google spin is the best statistic the administration has in their favor we should all be very scared.
Summers and the White house are just trying to push back against Republican efforts who are rightly pointing out that, thus far, things have gotten worse, not better from the stimulus package Congress passed. Summers claims:
“We pledged at the time the Recovery Act became law that some of the spending and tax effects would begin almost immediately.,” Summers said in prepared remarks. “We also noted that the impact of the Recovery Act would build up over time, peaking during 2010 with about 70 percent of the total stimulus provided in the first 18 months. Now, five months after the passage, we are on track to meet that timeline. “
This is a bold faced lie. The White House pressured Congress into passing the stimulus package (remember the Friday deadline or the world would end) arguing that if it did not get passed we could expect to see 9% employment and that the only way to create these millions of jobs was to pour nearly $1 trillion dollars into the government coffers. Yet, despite this, unemployment is up to nearly 9.5%. It doesn’t matter what people are searching for on Google, that is not a lagging indicator of anything. It only indicates that we’re in such a deep recession now and that we have all accepted it, why search for “economic depression” when its already here?
July 18th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Goody good good good. The ecnomony is not getting better. Obama is going to fail. Goody good good good.
Maybe there’ll be a terrorist attack next. That ought to really make you happy.
July 18th, 2009 at 10:40 am
The great recession is not over, the depression part of it is simply bottoming and companies are producing better second Quarter profits mostly thru one time charge-offs for extraordinary events, cost cutting layoffs, not for business’s top-line improving. There is no hiring going on, layoffs still abound. The recession will be over when people start hiring on mainstreet again, not when the big boys on wallstreet and the investment banks are making the same old “big” bonuses. The media is just fooling you and itself. There is no hiring, and general wages are still falling. The government is overspending and printing extra money which makes things “feel” a little less dire “for now”. Plus its summertime, the slow season for business. There is still a lot of debt write down’s and repayments to come, and even places like universities and colleges will see less revenue the coming year. Consumers are still tapped out, our auto industry is hibernating, our drug and energy industries are being pressured to contain prices and costs. What one could guess best at is going to happen is we are about to go thru some market correction back down, how far is anybodies guess, and into a wait and see mode as this thing continues to play itself out. Its not doomsday, but there is no incentive for business or people to take on new spending risks right now. If you see a pickup in advertising and box and paper products, that would be a good sign. But that is so tied to the consumer.
July 18th, 2009 at 10:59 am
[...] Brian at 10:40 am (2) Read [...]
July 18th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Sorry KLO.
Past tense, Obama “IS” a failure.
Its not about wanting to be able to say “we told you so” at the expense of the whole countrys misery. Its about listening to what the right has to say. All polls indicate that the majority would trust conservatives to fix this economy more than libs but you guys still insist on this backwards failed measure that was tried in the 30s.
We werent the ones who were donating 900 milion to Hamas and wanting to deal with terrorists because we actually didnt want another attack. It seems you guys invite this crap economy and all just so you can blame anyone but yourselves and your failed policies, economic and foreign.
Its about wanting to put and end the continuous misleading propoganda that you guys constantly spew only to cover your failed a4es.
No one is rejoicing in your failure. Were just voicing the truth in hopes that people will soak it up and wise up and put an end to this clusterf*ck administration sooner than later for all our sakes.
Everytime you guys start telling us not to worry you contradict yourselves by the actions you still propell that instigate and monger more fear so the admin can continue forward with the b*stardization of our country and our rights.
Everythings cool but we might need another stimulus.
The stimulus was supposed to fix things but now weve decided that its really the health care syatem thats screwing up the economy. Everythings cool but we need to go forward with absurd green initiatives, cap and trade because the energy situation is whats really screwing up the economy.
When the f*ck are you guys going to knock off all this bullsh*t and realize that giving us our own money and spreading it among the markets ourselves has always been the best way to fix our economic pitflls ? HUH ? But no, ytou’re gonna try everything under the sun and disguise it as some kind of inspirational motive to help everyone when really its all a trap to get us so freaking dependent on government that we’ll have no choice but to vote dem the next election if we want to keep our jobs, cars, homes, health insurance and money.
6 months of bullsh*t, almost 10% unemployment, quadrupled the debt with more to come, a projected deficit that will take decades to tame, no way to pay it back, lied and broke almost every single campaign pledge and promise, all our enemies are now voicing threats at us like nothing weve ever heard while aiming missles at us and testing them in our direction, private enterprise is being dictated to by over thirty guys who answer to no one who they can pay how much where and when.
Government is supposed to be smaller and yet the only section in the country that has a rise in employment is the government
Man, I swear, you guys couldnt of f*cked things up any better if you were a bunch of r*tards holding your heads in your hands
July 18th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I have to say I no longer trust what the repubs are saying to the point, I don’t think they have our best interest in mind. They only care about winning. I think the bush administration believed in failed ideology, ergo our present financial mess from unregulation of our nations financial affairs. But the current crop of repubs are just plain cynical spinsters. I don’t think they believe in much of anything, other than winning. The dems still have ideologies and while some are powersters, most really do want to do the right thing. So do people like Snow and Collins of Maine, or Schwarzneggar of Californa. You can tell they aren’t just some shills for vested interests that don’t have the people’s well being in mind. The fact that nobody can predict where this economic cataclysm is going to take us is no surprise to me, the dems were eager to snap into action to make it go away but it was all flying by the seat of their pants and unfortunately paying back some of their vested constituencys, but that is going to happen in our kind of elective democracy. It diluted the overall effect, but the repubs also killed more funds to the states which now are hurting the states. In the end, I still conclude, the dems mean well and are learning bit by bit, and the republican right are pure obstructionists, yet we still have some good centrists out there. I think John McCain would have had an even more problematic time at it, especially with the kind of handlers he surrounded himself with. Has Obama’s A minus gone down to a B, yeah, and has his travel away from home hurt his health care bill, yeah. Health care needs absolute total focus or it is doomed to a confusing parlay of ineffectiveness.
July 18th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I think the when the bush administration decided to bail out the too big to fail banks and wallstreet firms it cemented us into the current type of ??recovery, where credit is still all snowballed up. If the money had gone to mainstreet USA instead we would be seeing a very different story. A decision was made to support the big boys and the holders of capital at the expense of the worker. The big boys bonus’s and reigns on financial power are still roughly intact and the workers jobs are laid off right and left and they are left a financial wreak. Its just so classic. Frankly it was an extremely reactionary move to reallocate so much of the nations wealth to the purveyors of its “financial industry”. Note that as a nation we cannot find it in our hearts to even make health care affordable for all, yet we can keep funding the big boy’s bonus’s with that money and its a nonissue. Any republican who cannot see that is a dishonest man to me.
July 18th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
You just beat me to the punch on this one, Bryan.
This is hands down the funniest thing I’ve ever seen come out of the office of the Obama Administration.
“Economic Depression” is now VERY high in google trends, thanks to Larry Summers pointing out that “Economic Depression” is trending low in google trends.
Let’s see Summers think his way out of this conundrum.
July 18th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
[...] Google search results! The number of people searching for the term “economic depression” on Google is down to normal levels, Summers said. [...]
July 20th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Larry Summers is as big an idiot as the rest of the people in the current administration. They should come out and live in the real world, wher we have to pay for real products and try to sell our houses, and recoup all the money we lost in our retirement plans. No, Larry there is NO recovery. You can not have a recovery when you are spending us into oblivion.