Thursday, October 29, 2009

It's Obama's Economy Now


Today the government statisticians released the 3rd Quarter GDP estimate. The gross domestic product was up 3.5% higher than expected and the first up quarter since 2008 2nd qtr. There is as always a good bit of debate about accuracy and most of the talk this time is that the number was inflated 1.1% by the artificial stimulus of cash for clunkers and the first time home buyer taxcredit programs both of which have expired. The argument centered on the chances for the next few quarters to have lesser or falling numbers without those inputs from stimulus. I believe the chance of those next numbers being worse has some very interesting implications.
If the 4th quarter number turns out to be down from the third qtr then the recession becomes Obama"s recession. The administration is claiming the credit for the rebound from Bush's recession that Obama inherited. But once he claims credit for this good number he also owns any future numbers and things could get very hot for him in the new congressional election year.
Obama and the democrats know this so we can expect extensive giveaways and gimmickry in multiple pieces of legislation from here forward. Starting with health care. The new driving force for health care reform is not the reform but the ability to say they passed a reform bill in Obama's first year as promised. The quality or viability of the reforms is a much lower priority than just passage of any old bill named Obamacare..
Be prepared to be buried in lies and bullshit.


related: Mark Steyn : Obama makes Bush his Blame Czar
Steyn being entertaining and right on at the same time as usual.

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