McGentrix wrote:
[Article quoted by McGentrix]
GDP Revisions Ominous
* The annual GDP growth rate from 1998-2001 revised down to 2.7 % vs 3.1%
* 2001 overall growth revised down to 0.3 % vs 1.2 %
Suffice to say this report is one more nail in the coffin of the new paradigm economy of the 1990's. Like so many of the corporate revisions we have witnessed -- with more to come in the future -- the 1990's "New Era Economy" has turned out to be more fiction than reality.
You can find more here Nimh.
This editorial is a hack job by an apologist for Bush. Please note that the author strains to include 2001 in the "paradigm economy of the 90's"-when 2001 was clearly not part of the 90's. The purpose of this is to create the impression that the lousy numbers of the Bush years are confused with the good performance of the Clinton years.
A) "*
2001 overall growth revised down to 0.3 % vs 1.2 %"
So what-that happened during Bush's term, not Clinton's. How is this constitute a critique of "the paradigm economy of the 90's"?
B) "*
The annual GDP growth rate from 1998-2001 revised down to 2.7 % vs 3.1%".
Here is the GDP increase for the years in question.
1998: 4.2% (Clinton)
1999: 4.5% (Clinton)
2000: 3.7% (Clinton)
2001: 0.8% (Bush)
See what this author is doing here? For Clinton's last three years GDP growth averaged 4.1 percent, which is excellent. The average since 1950 is 3.3 percent. However, in Bush's first year, 2001, there was almost no growth at all. So McGentrix's author is trying to include Bush's first year, and using terminology to give the impression that it was Clinton's last year, so the growth rate is reduced-just as any number is reduced when it is divided by 4 insted of 3.
As it stands, growth even including Bush first dud year is still 3.3 percent, not 2.7 percent. So either the numbers were revised again by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, (which operates under a Bush appointee), or McGentrix's author can't do simple arithmetic.
Either way, the fact remains that growth in Clinton's last year was 3.7 percent, which is above average. And even if you fall for McGentrix's author's scheme and include Bush's first year in Clinton's economy, growth was still at the average since 1950-3.3 percent.
It should be pointed out that growth in Bush's term is 2.7 percent per year-well below the average.
There is little doubt that Bill Clinton's performance has the conservatives in a permanent tizzy. According to their economic beliefs, his actions should have resulted in disaster, yet in fact they yielded success after success. This gives them two choices: adjust their beliefs or pretend that Clinton's successes never really happened. As McGentrix and this author prove, they have opted for the latter.
