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Obama declares: ‘We tried our plan -- and it worked"

Is this out of touch? From Obama's speech in Oakland, California on July 24, 2012:

But here’s the problem -- we tried that and it didn’t work. (Applause.) It’s not what you believe, it’s not what I believe, it’s not what most Americans believe will actually make a difference. This country was not built from the top down; it was built from the middle class out, from the bottom up. (Applause.) That’s how we became the most prosperous nation in the history of the world. That’s the path that you can choose for America in this election. And that’s why I’m running for a second term as President of the United States. . . .

Just like we’ve tried their plan, we tried our plan -- and it worked. That’s the difference. (Applause.) That’s the choice in this election. That’s why I’m running for a second term.

When the American auto industry was on the brink of collapse, more than 1 million jobs were on the line, Governor Romney said, we should just "let Detroit go bankrupt." . . .

Evidence of a recession coming?

Economy stimulus

This is depressing. From CNBC:

. . . Estimates for the third and fourth quarters have been dropped to levels not seen since the days of the 2008 financial crisis, below even the muted 2 percent expected level of inflation.
That's an ominous recession sign for an economy that has barely managed to attain positive growth this year even with the strong level of earnings beats, according to an analysis by Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx in New York.
"Revenue estimates for the back half of 2012 have been slowly working their way lower this year," Colas said. "This trend, however, has accelerated to the downside over the past 30 days and we are fast approaching levels where these estimates are unambiguously pointing to the risk of a U.S./global recession later into 2012 and 2013." . . .

Jobs picture stalling in 10 battleground states

Economy Obama2012 stimulus unemployment

From the WSJ:

The data confirm job growth has sputtered in these states since the winter's brisk pace of job growth. . .

The basic numbers:

Unemployment rose in June in six of 10 battleground states that could play a pivotal role in the presidential election, reflecting job cuts in some cases and weak payroll growth in others. The jobless rate climbed a 10th of a percentage point last month in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire and Virginia, the Labor Department said in a report released Friday. The rate held steady in three other battleground states—Nevada, Florida, and North Carolina. Ohio was the only battleground state where unemployment fell last month. Nevada's 11.6% jobless rate remained the highest of any state in the nation. The rates in North Carolina, at 9.4%, Michigan, at 8.6%, and Florida, also at 8.6%, remained stuck above the national average of 8.2%. Joblessness was far below the national rate in three of the battleground states—Virginia, with 5.7%; Iowa with 5.2%; and New Hampshire, with 5.1%. Employers cut jobs in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan and Nevada. . . .

Merrill Lynch predicts 2Q GDP at horrid 1.1% annual rate

Economy GDP stimulus

Calculated Risk has this from Merrill Lynch:

Today’s weak retail sales report leaves Q2 GDP tracking a meager 1.1%. We expect the economy to remain weak through the rest of the year with growth of only 1.3% in Q3 and 1.0% in Q4. This translates to GDP growth of only 1.3% Q4/Q4, significantly below the Fed’s forecast of 1.9-2.4%.

Lower sales, higher inventories, falling interest rates, all point to a slowing economy. From Reuters:

U.S. retail sales fell in June for the third straight month, the longest run of consecutive drops since 2008 when the country was mired in recession. Sales slipped 0.5 percent, with declines across a wide swath of industries from electronics and cars to building supplies, the Commerce Department said on Monday. Analysts had expected a small increase. "Evidence is increasingly clear that the U.S. economy is slowing," said Jim Baird, an investment strategist at Plante Moran Financial Advisors in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The report adds to a spate of soft economic data that is raising pressure on President Barack Obama ahead of his November re-election bid. Republican challenger Mitt Romney is focusing his campaign on the weak economy, which has plagued Obama's presidency. The dollar declined against the euro and the yield on 10-year U.S. government bonds dropped to an all-time low as the data stoked worries the economy was floundering and could need more help from the Federal Reserve. U.S. stock prices san k. . . .

The JP Morgan forecast is here.

This morning we lowered our tracking of Q2 GDP growth from 1.7% to 1.4%. For some time now we have noted that our Q3 GDP call — which was already below consensus at 2.0% — had risks that were skewed to the downside. . . .

UPDATE: Economists Expect Growth in Second Quarter Was Weak 1.2%

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expect real GDP to have grown at an annual rate of just 1.2% last quarter, down from the tepid 1.9% in the first quarter. The expected rate would be the slowest growth since 0.4% posted in the first quarter of 2011. . . .

UPDATE: Computer sales keep dropping.

"For the first time since 2001, client PC shipments have declined sequentially for three consecutive quarters-and have been below historical averages for the last seven quarters," AMD CEO Rory Read said during the chip supplier's second quarter earnings conference call. . . .

"Only 6 Percent of Americans Say Health Care is the Top U.S. Problem"

Economy obamacare poll

Remember this is before Obamacare actually goes into effect. A new Gallup poll finds that only 6% of Americans think that health care is the most important policy problem in the country.

The other important finding is that satisfaction about the way that things are going in the US down to 20%. Click here to see the details of the survey.

62% of Americans feel that we are in a recession

Economy poll stimulus

A new Rasmussen poll is depressing.

Sixty-two percent of Americans feel the country has slid into a recession, a Rasmussen Reports poll finds.
Meanwhile broader confidence in the economy continues to fall.
The Rasmussen Consumer Index, which measures consumer confidence on a daily basis, dropped three points on Sunday to 84.9. The index is down a point from a week ago, down two points from one month ago and down four points from three months ago. . . .

Median net worth of families plunges by 39 percent from 2007 to 2010

Economy

So how will people answer the question about how well off they are during the election? From the Washington Post:

The recent recession wiped out nearly two decades of Americans’ wealth, according to government data released Monday, with middle-class families bearing the brunt of the decline.
The Federal Reserve said the median net worth of families plunged by 39 percent in just three years, from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010. That puts Americans roughly on par with where they were in 1992.
The data represent one of the most detailed looks at how the economic downturn altered the landscape of family finance. Over a span of three years, Americans watched progress that took almost a generation to accumulate evaporate. The promise of retirement built on the inevitable rise of the stock market proved illusory for most. Homeownership, once heralded as a pathway to wealth, became an albatross. . . .
Their median net worth — the value of assets such as homes, automobiles and stocks minus any debt — suffered the biggest drops. . . .

Dem Pollsters warn Obama on economy

2012election Economy Obama2012 unemployment

James Carville and Stan Greenberg have a strongly worded memo for the Obama campaign:

We will face an impossible headwind in November if we do not move to a new narrative, one that contextualizes the recovery but, more importantly, focuses on what we will do to make a better future for the middle class. . . .

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.): Fundamentals of economy ‘quite good’

Economy ObamaDishonest

Talk an economy into a recession? Does that sound like Obama in 2008 when he kept on repeating that this was the worse economy ever or since the Great Depression? Here is a figure from my book Debacle.

I seem to also remember Democrats unloading on any Republican who would claim that the fundamentally sound. Now we have Democrats saying things such as this:

"I think there are four things we ought to do — one is not talk ourselves into recession," he said on CNN. "Hair is not on fire, let's keep that in mind. The underlying fundamentals for the economy are actually quite good and we need to keep that in mind." . . .
"I call it like hitting singles," Carper said about the steps Congress is taking to restore the economy. "We need to hit a bunch of singles, create a more nurturing environment for job creation, set the stage for a home run. A home run is what we need to hit after the election." . . .

Voters react very quickly to bad economic news

Economy poll

This is available here.

New poll shows that 59% say US is still in a recession

Economy poll

From Rasmussen Reports available here.

Germany's economy grew at a 2 percent rate in the

austerity Economy GDP Germany paulkrugman

So much for Krugman's predictions about Germany and their austerity policy. From the Financial Times:

The German economy grew five times faster than expected in the first quarter of the year, jumping 0.5 per cent. . . . The year on year increase was 1.7 per cent, beating expectations of a 0.8 per cent jump, and the German statistics office said growth was supported by an increase in net trade as exports to outside the eurozone gained. But this is still more a tale of divergence than cheer as French GDP came in flat and the Netherlands GDP fell 0.2 per cent as the country remained in technical recession. And while German’s performance could be the basis for a beat (with Austria providing some more support after it found 0.2 per cent growth in the first quarter), eurozone GDP is predicted to fall 0.2 per cent with the data due later this morning. . . .

So how slow is the recovery?: Ask Jerry Brown in California

Economy stimulus

Just in January, California was predicting that the deficit would be $9 billion. Now at the beginning of May, just four months later, the estimated deficit has increased by about 74 percent. The reason according to Bloomberg?

“Tax receipts are coming lower than expected and the federal government and the courts have blocked us from making billions of necessary budget reductions. The result is that we are now facing a $16 billion deficit.” . . .

It would be nice to have a breakdown by reason. Finally, it is amazing that Democrats think that they can impose taxes and not have it impact people's behavior.

More on how sensitive public opinion is to new news on the economy

Economy Obama2012 poll unemployment

The Bloomberg article is entitled: "Cooling Job Market Takes Toll on U.S. Confidence: Economy"

More Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last week andconsumer confidence declined by the most in a year, signaling that a cooling labor market may restrain household spending.
Jobless claims fell to 388,000 from a revised 389,000 the prior week that was the highest since early January, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index declined to minus 35.8 from minus 31.4 the previous week. . . .

First time since the 1930s that flow of illegal Mexicans into US might have been reversed?

Economy IllegalAliens

Personally, I can't see how this small change is statistically significant, but nonetheless here is what Pew finds:

The largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States has come to a standstill. After four decades that brought 12 million current immigrants—more than half of whom came illegally—the net migration flow from Mexico to the U.S. has stopped and may have reversed. . . .

Real Median Household income falling under Obama

2012election Economy stimulus

From Fox News.

Washington Post recognizes that new hires is lower in the recovery than it was during the recession

Economy unemployment washingtonpost

The Washington Post Fact Checker had this discussion last week:

We spoke with John Lott, an economist and Fox News contributor who helped Norquist come up with his numbers. The gist of Norquist’s figures appears to be correct, according to our own calculations of seasonally adjusted BLS data on job openings and labor turnover.
Overall, the number of new hires has decreased slightly from an average of about 4.3 million per month during the recession to an average of 4.1 million per month during the 32 months on record since the end of the downturn. . . .
Norquist made a valid point that the number of new hires has dropped on average since the recession ended, and that’s certainly something the president needs to address. . . .

Democrats explain it like this:

Democrats argue that these numbers miss the larger point: that the economy is adding jobs overall. Indeed, our calculations show that net job turnover — new hires minus layoffs, retirements, and so forth — is positive. In fact, it’s right where it left off before the recession, with the United States averaging roughly 200,000 more jobs per month.
“There’s no question that the job market is improving,” said Jared Bernstein, former adviser to Vice President Biden and senior fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. “It’s definitely improving too slowly, but at least let’s get the sign right. It’s not a negative right now, it’s a positive.” . . . .

The problem is that quits have fallen and quits fall because people are afraid that it would be difficult to find a new job.

Washington Post-ABC poll: 76 percent of Americans say that we are still in a recession

Economy poll stimulus

76 percent of the American people believe the economy is still in recession. That not only includes 85 percent of Republicans but also 68 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of independents. From the Washington Post:

Seventy nine percent of people with a household income under $50,000 say the economy is still in a recession, the same number of people who make between $50,000 and $100,000 who believe it is. Seventy six percent of men say the economy is in recession while 75 percent of women say the same. What the consistency of those numbers suggest is that the belief that the economy remains caught in recession are neither unique to people of a certain partisan bent or those of a particular demographic group. And that’s a problem for President Obama. . . . Seventy six percent of respondents said that the economy is “still in recession” while just 21 percent said the recession is over, according to the Post-ABC poll. While 85 percent of Republicans feel the economy is still in recession so do 68 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of independents. . . .

New piece at Fox News: "Krugman's bad predictions"

Economy op-ed paulkrugman stimulus

My newest piece at Fox News starts this way:

Few prominent economists have a worse record predicting the impact of Obama’s economic policies than Paul Krugman. Writing for the New York Times and touting his close “genuine contact” with the “smart” economists and others in the Obama administration and the Democratic congressional leadership, Krugman has been, and remains, Obama’s most important champion. Not only has he been defending Obama’s Keynesian-type deficit-spending, but he has been advocating still more of these same failed policies. The economy just can’t gain ground. Thirty-four months since the "recovery" started in June 2009 and the actual number of jobs have increased by just 0.4%. Hardly making up for the 5.5 percent drop in jobs from the peak. Given Krugman’s continued prominence in supporting Obama during the coming election, the best way of evaluating the advice is going to give voters is to see how accurate his claims have been up to this point. It is important to realize just how terrible Krugman’s record has been. He predicted on CNBC: “I am still guessing that we will peak out at around 9 percent [unemployment] and that would be late this year.” . . .

Ann Coulter gives brief summary about what is in my new book Debacle

AnnCoulter book debacle Economy stimulus unemployment

Ann was debating MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell, and while she wasn't explicitly mentioning my book, she did write a blurb for the book and she pretty much summarized part of it here:

“That was a very good defense of a very bad economy. You can never run the same experiment twice and see what happened,” she said. “But there are comparisons to other recessions and this is the worst recovery — the unemployment rate has been higher and longer during the recovery than it was during the recession, which ended in mid-2009.”

“Also, the Obama administration economists, who have taken economics courses, they made their predictions for what the stimulus would do. And they certainly weren’t raising expectations. In fact, instead of getting the unemployment rate down, it had gone through the roof. It also something that can be looked at without having to run the experiment twice, that the stimulus money went to Democrats, friends of Democrats. It went to very high income states, not states that are suffering, not the states with the highest unemployment — but the states that voted for Obama.”

“And you have half-a-trillion dollars going to Solyndra and six members of the Obama administration going to work for Solyndra under a special loan taxpayers can never get back. I mean, we really do have crony capitalism that has hurt Americans while helping Democratic friends”

Coulter said to compare the U.S. economy and its Keynesian policies to Canada and its austerity policies to determine what course would have been the best. . . .

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