The Incredible Shrinking Recovery

[Geee]

American Spectator:


There was President Obama at a recent fundraiser telling his star-struck enablers, look at me, after just two and a half years, I got the economy growing again. He didn't tell them that the pitiful 1.7% annualized real growth rate in the first quarter compares to 7.1% annualized real growth at the same point in President Reagan's recovery.

Over the first 7 quarters of the Reagan recovery, the economy boomed at a real growth rate of 7.1%. Over the first 7 quarters of the Obama recovery, the economy stumbled along at a real growth rate of 2.8%, less than half as much, less than 40% as much actually.

Dude, Where's My Recovery?

President Obama and his party-controlled press at the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times would like you to believe that without his Keynesian magic beans, the economy would have just kept spiraling down. But that does not accord with the historical record in America.

As I have previously explained, since World War II (that covers two-thirds of a century now) recessions in America have previously averaged 10 months. The longest previously in the postwar era was 16 months. Those recoveries weren't due to brilliant bureaucrats in Washington riding to the rescue each time. The economy naturally returns to growth and recovery, driven by incentive, reward, and competition. That is why they call it the business cycle. Like your finger healing from a cut, the economy naturally wants to recover.

Every morning, business men and women all across the country go to work and throw themselves for the day into making their businesses more effective, efficient, competitive, innovative, profitable. Every morning, unemployed workers get up and go look for jobs. Every day, employed workers are alert to better job opportunities elsewhere. This is what has always led to recovery, not Keynesian central planning.