Why Obama is so much worse than Carter
Peter Ferrara has a devastating piece in American Spectator that shows how recovery from this recession has been so much worse and more anemic than recovery from any other post World War II recession to date.
Not even Jimmy Cater was able to screw up the economy as badly as Obama:
I have been reporting regularly in this column for a year and a half that the average recession since World War II has been 10 months, with the longest previously being 16 months. The recession began in December, 2007, 34 months ago by now. The sentiment expressed by Hannity's caller, reflecting the views of Obama's remaining base of political support, shows why these basic facts are so important.Based on the long standing history and rhythms of the American economy, we should have had a booming recovery by now. Even more so, since the deeper the recession the stronger the recovery. Real economic growth in the first 4 quarters of Reagan's recovery from the deep 1981-82 recession was a whopping 7.7%. Even the recovery under President Ford from the deep 1973-74 recession sported real economic growth of 6.2%.
But under President Obama we are already in another downward spiral, with real growth falling from 5% in the fourth quarter of 2009, to 3.7% in the first quarter of this year, to 1.7% in the second quarter.
Moreover, as the brilliant economist John Lott explained for FoxNews.com yesterday, the base unemployment rate has been stuck at least at 9.5% for 14 months now, over three full percentage points higher than the average unemployment rate during the recession. Since Obama became President, the U.S. unemployment rate has increased faster than 25 of 30 other major industrialized countries, as reported by the Economist.