Fox's Hayes Contradicts Reality To Claim Severity Of Recession Was Fully Understood In '09
Fox News contributor Stephen Hayes claimed that it's "nonsense" for the Obama administration to argue that it "didn't really appreciate the depths of the problems the country faced when we came into office." In fact, measures of the recession in 2009 understated its depth, and subsequent revisions of economic data have shown that the downturn was indeed worse than it appeared at the time.
Please upgrade your flash player. The video for this item requires a newer version of Flash Player. If you are unable to install flash you can download a QuickTime version of the video.
Hayes Says Argument That The Recession Was Worse Than It Appeared Is "Nonsense," "Revisionist History"
Hayes On Administration Claims: "There's Some Revisionist History Going On." From Fox News' America Live:
JON SCOTT (co-host): So, hope and change takes eight years, or at the very minimum, four. Is that the argument?
HAYES: Yeah, I think that's their argument. Look, I don't -- it's not a totally honest argument, to be candid about it. I mean, if you look back, they're saying well, we didn't really appreciate the depths of the problems that the country faced when we came into office. That's total nonsense. They did appreciate the depths of the problems, and they were talking about it at the time as the potential for the next Great Depression. So there's some revisionist history going on. [Fox News, Happening Now, 1/26/2012]
Revised GDP Figures Showed That The '07-'09 Recession Was Far Worse Than Previously Recognized
McClatchy: Economic Data Revisions Show That "The Great Recession, Already The Worst Downturn Since The 1930s, Was Even More Damaging Than Previously Recognized." In the summer of 2011 the Bureau of Economic Analysis released revisions to its estimates of the economy from 2008-2010. McClatchy reported:
BEA also unveiled its annual revision of economic data back to 2008. The revision found that in 2008 the economy actually contracted rather than eking out a tiny gain as initially reported, and 2009 growth was almost a full percentage point slower than estimated earlier.
The quarterly percentage change in real gross domestic product was revised down for six of the 12 quarters reviewed. That means the Great Recession, already the worst downturn since the 1930s, was even more damaging that previously recognized. [McClatchy, 7/29/11]
AP: "The 2007-2009 Recession ... Was Even Worse Than Previously Thought." The Associated Press reported:
The 2007-2009 recession, already in the record books as the worst in the 66 years since the end of World War II, was even worse than previously thought.
From the start of the recession at the end of 2007 to the end in June of 2009, the U.S. economy shrank 5.1 percent. That is 1 percentage point worse than the previous estimate that the recession reduced total output during that period by 4.1 percent.
The new estimates emerged from the annual revision of economic data prepared by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis and released Friday.
Among the previous 10 postwar recessions, output in only two dropped by more 3 percent. In the 1957-58 recession, the economy contracted 3.7 percent. And during the 1973-1975 downturn, the economy fell 3.2 percent from the start of the recession to the end. [Associated Press, 7/29/11]
Wash. Post: Moody's Chief Economist Mark Zandi Said Revised Data Shows The Recession Was Much More Severe Than Thought. The Washington Post reported: "As Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi told me this morning, the revisions suggest that the recession following the financial crisis was much, much more severe than we'd thought--the economy actually shrank at a 8.9 percent annual rate the fourth quarter of 2008 and 6.7 percent in the first quarter of 2009 (earlier estimates had shown a smaller, 5.9 percent annualized drop across the two quarters)." [The Washington Post, 7/29/11]
Dean Baker: Revisions Show That "The Post-Lehman Plunge Is Even Sharper Than Had Previously Been Reported." Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said of the revisions:
The annual revisions in this report show a somewhat different picture of the recession. Most importantly, the post-Lehman plunge is even sharper than had previously been reported. The economy shrank at a 7.8 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009 compared with a previously reported 5.9 percent annual rate. The decline in the second quarter was just 0.7 percent, followed by growth in the third quarter of 1.7 percent, suggesting that the stimulus was effective in turning the quarter around. The downward revision to the first-quarter data coupled with the revision of the fourth-quarter growth to 2.3 percent from 3.1 percent suggests that the winding down of the stimulus has seriously dampened growth. [Center for Economic and Policy Research, GDP Bytes, 7/29/11]
IHS Global Insight: Revisions "Deepened The Recession Substantially." An IHS Global Insight report on the revised GDP figures noted:
The big surprises were in the historical revisions. These deepened the recession substantially. The fourth quarter of 2008, right after the Lehman failure, now shows an 8.9% annual rate of decline in GDP (previously 6.8%), and now represents the worst single-quarter decline in GDP since the 10.4% drop in the first quarter of 1958, exceeding the 7.9% decline in the second quarter of 1980. The revisions then made the initial rebound a bit faster (with growth running just below 4% in the first and second quarters of 2010), but then showed the recovery losing momentum over the second half of 2010 and tailing away to just 0.4% in the first quarter of 2011 (previously 1.9%) and 1.3% in the second. Although the second quarter was disappointing, the revisions mean that it actually shows stronger growth than the first. [IHS Global Insight, 7/29/11]
How did Barry find time to save us while playing 94 rounds of golf and vacationing around the world?
He is truly a god among mortals.
You just can't trust those lying eyes.
What about yours?
BTW. The economy right now is BETTER than immediately after the economic crisis. I'd like you to actually provide evidence to disprove this rather than just say otherwise.
You are a LIAR. You dont understand anything. Mudpuddles are a mystery to you. You are among the stupidest human beings on the planet. You spew what you are told to think and have just enough functional braincells to drop by and say BAAAAAA BAAAAAA. You embarass lemmings
You've got 3 people digging a hole, and one person filling it back in while the others are digging.
How is the person who's throwing dirt back into the hole as fast as he can possibly responsible for the depth of the hole increasing? That's right, he's not.
That person who's filling the hole back in finally gets the 3 people digging that hole fired, one by one, and so the digging stops. But remember, there were 3 people digging - the hole's pretty deep.
He keeps shoveling dirt back into the hole. There's still a hole there, but it's getting shallower.
Again, how it is his fault that the hole's still there? That's right, it's not.
And he's tried to recruit those near him to help fill it in. Those people, in this analogy, are the Republicans in Congress for the past 3 years. They aren't helping at all. In fact, they're throwing roadblocks in his way on a regular basis instead of helping.
The people who deserve blame here? Those responsible for the hole, and those who haven't helped more to fill it back in.
You are a LIAR. It is not worse. Then again you are just a pathetic brainwashed MORON who doesnt know what you think till Rush tells you. You are hilarious in your abject stupidity.
The stupidity you post is classic. You are so oblvious you dont even understand how pitiful you are and what a laughfest your posts are. Your attempt at hateful vitriol just comes off as weak regurgitation of rightwing stupid. Any six year old besides being a mental giant compared to you would just laugh at your ignorance. Keep coming back. I love to laugh at morons as stupid as you
All my business-owner friends tell roughly the same story.
But on Fox, nothing but doom & gloom, because they LIE like fish swim. They want you to think things are horrible so you will vote for the same people who nearly destroyed the economy last time they were in charge.
P. T. Barnum would have loved Fox News: a sucker born every minute.
We were on the edge of the abyss, literally. Credit markets were frozen, business was at a standstill, the economy was hemorrhaging jobs, business and banks were failing, the stock market was in the toilet, it goes on and on. If you want to complain that (in your opinion) unemployment is too high, or the debt is too large, or that the deficit is too big, or that too many people are on food stamps, or about anything else that has some reasonable factual basis, have at it.
But the economy in January 2012 is worse than the economy in January, 2009? I mean, come on.
Coming from a Fox News correspondent? Really?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hee hee. *wipes away tear of laughter** heh heh. woo.
Stephen Hayes is serially dishonest. He's Fox News' and The Weekly Standard's "jamesB/tommy/right ON".
It's a good thing Obama & his staff still made all the right decisions, even though they had "no idea" how things really were.
I'm beginning to think Newsweek was right when the called The One "god-like".
I'm waiting for his next miracle. Vanishing into thin air.
Obama's staff had no idea how bad the last quarter of 2008 was going to be while they were still in December and into early January of 2009. That's a factual statement since human's with the exception of prophets and crystal ball gazers, can't determine with certainty what would happen in the future.
That being said you conceded that they made the right decisions (sarcastically of course) even though they couldn't possibly know the future.
But not knowing how bad things would be down the road doesn't stop someone who knows that it WILL be bad down the road (and the Obama staff, in fact everyone did. They had more than enough to go on to) from making a right decision.
It's like getting sick and then making the decision to take medication. You don't know how severe the sickness would be, but you know that taking the medicine would help, just not how much should be taken since you can't see into the future and cannot say for sure whether the sickness would be mild or severe. That decision to take the medicine can still be considered the right decision as opposed to other alternatives (not doing anything for example).
So yes the Obama staff DID make the right decisions even though they did not know how bad things would be down the road. It doesn't take a god to make such a decision without knowing what exactly the future holds. Those that think that uncertainty merits inaction and indecision however would probably think otherwise.
And from your sarcastic response to your own concession I'd say you are one of those.
You are so stupid you are liable to believe anything. The left however not only doesnt see Obama as godlike they give him so much grief his own chief of staff threw a hissy fit about it. Of course a mindless moron like you will just ignore that and keep regurgitating what Rush told you to think about it since you are too stupid to know how pathetic you look when repeating nonsense that patently ignorant
As for the financial services industry - they resembled the band of the Titanic after the contretemps with the ice-berg.
Analysis of economic performance involves a lot of looking backwards. A bit like analysing the performance of a sporting team - you don't know until the final scores are in. Suspicions ain't data.
Additionally, of course, there is the matter of the dyed in the wool Mellonheads who have prevented appropriate policies from being implemented, thus exacerbating the situation and forestalling recovery.