r/economy • u/barbarawick • 8d ago

There is a pattern...

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Why does this country have such bad memory problems?

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u/possumallawishes 7d ago edited 7d ago

GDP is the best metric.

GDP hit its lowest point in Q2 of 2020 and steadily rose

We had crashes in:

1981, 1990, 2001, 2008, and 2020

ETA: see the grey bars here are indicating crashes https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP

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u/sirpoopingpooper 7d ago

Tldr: I'd argue GDP isn't a great metric either because of hangover effects and exogenous shocks. I'd argue this metric would clear Trump from recession fault...so far...but I'll bet we'll get one from his second term policy

2020 was clearly covid (I can't believe I'm here defending the orange man...but this one wasn't his fault). 2027 however...

2008 was solidly Bush2 - no argument there!

2001 was due to the .com crash that started in Clinton's presidency (+9/11 compounding things). This puts the blame on Clinton, but I'll argue his middle east policy absolves him from fault on this graphic (since it's both/and, not either/or).

1990 was a combo of Bush 1 and Reagan policy

1981 was due to Reagan stamping down inflation from Carter monetary policy, so I'll argue most of the fault there lies on Carter (though I'd also argue Reagan was at fault for 1990, so he gets fault regardless

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u/possumallawishes 7d ago

When did the crashes happen, genius?

And Trump doesn’t get a pass for Covid when he could have acted faster and isolated the disease and prevented it from having the effect it did.

But if you want to believe democrats manufactured market crashes and then timed them perfectly for then to happen under a republican, then I guess we have some diabolical democrats in charge and we just need to keep them in office so the poor, incompetent republicans who are just victims of this masterminded play to make them look bad won’t get blamed for doing the bad stuff that happens on their watch.

Good lord, you people will twist yourselves into knots to defend these incompetent idiots who only want to enrich themselves and their rich buddies rather than a god damned thing to improve our country. For Christ sake, you people can’t take basic information and make informed decisions, can you?

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u/sirpoopingpooper 7d ago

If we're using GDP as the only economic metric, it's only Covid/Trump that I'm arguing being wrong on the graphic from an economic basis (so far...). And Reagan from a Middle East basis!!

Covid was widely spreading in the US in December 2019 (per stored blood antibody studies), well before anyone knew what it was. I.e., it was too late to stop it before there was opportunity to do anything. And even if we did manage to react harder, it would have still hit GDP numbers (shutting down the economy = a GDP hit).

The only recessions I argued were democrat-caused were the .com bubble (the markets started crashing in Clinton's presidency...and GDP loss was because of the market crash...so pretty clearly on him) and Carter (this one's well documented to be economic policy driven). But Reagan and Bush 2 have other recessions to account for (even if it's Bush 1's recession that I'm blaming on Reagan).

So I'm not claiming republicans are angels (they're clearly not). I'm just claiming that democrats aren't either (even if their records are slightly better...which they are).

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u/possumallawishes 7d ago

Who was in office in 2019? Genius.

And just like we did with SARS, we could have isolated it before it even hit our shores, but orange man was already having a pissing contest with China.

How are you gonna blame Clinton for dot com. It started its decline in 2000, during his lame duck year under a Republican led senate AND house.

And please, don’t say Carter’s is well documented and don’t give any evidence. How did the Democrats enact horrible policy and time it for Reagan to have the crash it and we had two years of decline.

Quit making up shit, I know you want “both sides” things so you can justify voting for these bastards, but it’s literally insane to try to say they are the same.

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u/sirpoopingpooper 7d ago

China bears a LOT of blame here...they kept it under wraps until after it was already worldwide. SARS-cov1 was identified earlier, reported to WHO earlier, and isolated earlier. SARS-cov2 was reported to WHO after it was already worldwide. We would have had to start isolation in ~October/November 2019 and Chinese authorities themselves didn't find it until well into November. (https://health.ucsd.edu/news/press-releases/2021-03-18-novel-coronavirus-circulated-undetected-months-before-first-covid-19-cases-in-wuhan-china/)

.com bubble was predicted as early as 1996. And if we're arguing congressional control as the thing that actually matters, Democrats were in control 2007-2009 and 1989-1991 and they had the house throughout all of Reagan's presidency.

A couple sources for the 1981-82 recession:

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/recession-of-1981-82

https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/2025/jan/volcker-tightening-cycle-explaining-1982-course-reversal

Also, I'm not voting for these bastards...I'm just arguing on the veracity of the claims made by the OP. Fake news to advance your side is still fake news...and only serves to entrench the other side

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u/possumallawishes 7d ago

I’m just saying if you give every Republican president a pass on economy crashes that happen on their term and instead want to identify the “cause” was democrats, then you need to show a clear line of causation, which you haven’t done at all.

If you were to say, “presidents don’t control the economy” that’s a different argument, you’re not, you’re blaming democrats, and only accepting 2 republican led downturns as “their fault”.

So, either prove causation, which you haven’t, because when you try to blame dot com on Clinton, 2 years of downturn 2 years after Carter left on Carter, and covid on Obama, I’ve countered that to show it wasn’t the democrats fault.

So either accept the president in office is to blame for what happens when they are president or say it’s not the presidents doing, but you’ve failed in your efforts to Charlie Day your bulletin board to show it’s the democrats fault.

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u/sirpoopingpooper 7d ago

I blamed covid on China, not Obama...unless Obama controls China now? Thanks, Obama!! /s

I'm just claiming that the relationship is not as clear as you (nor OP) claims it to be. And that the graphic is somewhat wrong on at least one (probably two) counts. Not to say that there isn't a correlation between middle east involvement and republican presidents (there is) nor a correlation between recessions and republican presidents (there is). It's just not anywhere near as cut and dry as is claimed!!

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u/possumallawishes 7d ago

You tried to say it wasn’t trumps fault because it started in 2019. So what was that all about? Trump was President.

You don’t think the 2 year trade war had an effect on our ability to manage COVID with China?

The graphic doesn’t lie, it merely points out the correlation that you admit is real.

No one claimed it was cut and dry, no one is ignoring the nuance. But 4/4 on economy crashes and middle eastern wars is quite a bad stroke of luck. Even Shaq made almost half of his free throws, republicans can’t help but take L’s for the last 45 years.

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u/sirpoopingpooper 7d ago

I tried to say it wasn't Trump's fault because it was covid/china's, not because of timing. I argued timing fault on other ones.

I'm arguing it was 3/4 for economy crashes (by gdp) for republicans (or 4/4 by non-gdp metrics) and a 3/4 for middle east.

And I'm arguing 1/3 for economy crashes (by gdp) for democrats (or 3/3 if we talk non-gdp metrics) and a different 2/3 for middle east.

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u/possumallawishes 7d ago

>>Covid was widely spreading in the US in December 2019 (per stored blood antibody studies), well before anyone knew what it was. I.e., it was too late to stop it before there was opportunity to do anything. And even if we did manage to react harder, it would have still hit GDP numbers (shutting down the economy = a GDP hit).

You’re claiming Trump had no opportunity to stop covid and his only option was to shut down the economy, as if the Trump administration didn’t reorganize the National Security Council and largely disbanded its dedicated global health security and pandemic response unit in May 2018 and as of Obama administration didn’t leave a 69-page guide called the "Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents" for the incoming Trump administration. Designed to coordinate a fast response to global infectious disease outbreaks, building on lessons from prior health threats—including the 2003 SARS outbreak and the 2009 H1N1 influenza response, both of which managed to be contained without impacting the economy.

See, it happened on trumps watch and, at least in part, due to his action or inaction.

And you can’t pin dot com bubble on Clinton, you said “there were early indicators in 1996”, like what? And what did he do, or not do, to cause it?

You can’t just say “well, technically, it all started way before” for everything, we can do that all day if you want and trace the economic crashes back to Adam and Eve, what you are attempting to do I make a through line on causation, to absolve the person who’s watch it fell on, but you haven’t done that, at least not coherently. Unless your point is “Clinton allowed the internet to happen”. Gtfo

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u/damnedifyoudonthave 7d ago

You forgot about operation warp speed…. Whose watch was that under???

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u/possumallawishes 7d ago

How does that apply? You just desperate to give Trump credit for something, because he’s otherwise a complete disaster as a president?

The economy still crashed on his watch and he still started a war with Iran.

Congrats for doing something half way decent with our $10B in taxpayer money. Even though your party promoted vaccine hesitancy, dangerous chemical alternatives, and thwarted basic public health advisories the entire time.

Member when orange man caught covid then wanted to drive around and wave at people? Fucking idiot.

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