#4yearsagotoday the sh!t hit the fan for real

david   |   Sat, Sep 15, 2012 12:11 AM EST

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are fond of asking whether Americans are better off now than they were four years ago.  And so, as a public service, about week ago I started tweeting links to headlines in the New York Times from exactly four years earlier, all marked with the hashtag #4yearsagotoday.  It’s been quite interesting to watch the progression of stories as the situation with the banks went from bad to worse to unbelievably horrible.

Today, September 15, is the big day: 4 years ago today, Lehman Brothers collapsed, and it very nearly took down the entire financial system with it.  That event triggered a huge selloff in the stock market, and it was the beginning of an epic economic collapse that resulted, among other things, in millions of Americans losing their jobs at an incredible pace.  To refresh your recollection, in September of 2008, the month the really bad stuff began, 432,000 jobs were lost.  The next month, 489,000; and the next, a staggering 803,000.  And the worst month for job loss was yet to come: in January of 2009, the month President Obama took office, 818,000 jobs would be lost.  It would be March of 2010 before we would begin to see monthly net gains; since then, private sector jobs have been added every month.  Sometimes not as many as we’d like, but better that than seeing them disappear.

So, are things all fixed?  No, they are not.  But is the country better off today than it was four years ago?  You bet.  I’ll keep tweeting the #4yearsagotoday stories for a while – follow along if you’re interested.

Recommended by methuenprogressive.


Recommend 1

Discuss

8 Comments . Leave a comment below.

  1. Donald Luskin's column
    (0+ / 0-) View voters

    Luskin has aspired to become the Anti-Krugman, and, via Brad De Long, I was taken to this annotated version of Mr Luskin’s, er, remarkable column in the Washington Post from exactly four years ago. Titled “Quit Doling Out That Bad-Economy Line”, it is amazingly stupid and Barry Ritholz’ take down is worth reading.

    Note: Mr Luskin is now a Romney advisor.

    kbusch   @   Sat 15 Sep 12:26 AM

    • Great find. However,
      (0+ / 0-) View voters

      can you confirm that Luskin is a Romney advisor? I can’t find any indication that’s he’s affiliated with the campaign.

      david   @   Sat 15 Sep 10:09 AM

      • I can't find it either
        (0+ / 0-) View voters

        but I remember having read it. Now it seems more likely that I did not. Luskin’s recent work includes a rather ridiculous article in the National Review suggesting that making the stock market tank will be good for country because it will get Romney elected. This is not something someone connected with a professional modern campaign would do.

        kbusch   @   Sat 15 Sep 10:50 AM

  2. As a counterpoint, look at the political headlines.
    (0+ / 0-) View voters

    While all this was happening, the focus was elsewhere.

    methuenprogressive   @   Sat 15 Sep 8:04 AM

  3. Some context....
    (0+ / 0-) View voters

    … from Krugman via Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson:

    Krugman is at once ruthless and humorous in taking on these prejudices. Early in the crisis, he started writing about a “Confidence Fairy” invoked by deficit hawks—the notion that credibly tackling the deficit would lead to increased investor confidence and thereby economic expansion. He was equally dismissive of the notion that “bond vigilantes,“ a staple of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, would go after the United States by demanding higher interest rates on loans if the US didn’t immediately slash its deficits. He reserved his greatest scorn, however, for those who predicted that expansionary policies would unleash crippling inflation. This, he insisted, was a “phantom menace.” Weak demand and rock-bottom interest rates have made banks reluctant to lend even with looser money; without such lending and the resulting expansion, Krugman argued, underlying inflation couldn’t and wouldn’t escalate.

    A few years later, Krugman has been entirely vindicated in these judgments. Though the US deficit remains large—mainly due to the downturn and policies set in place before it, not the 2009 stimulus—interest rates have not spiked; quite the opposite: they are at record lows. The bond vigilantes and runaway inflation are nowhere to be seen. Economic performance has been unimpressive in the countries that have voluntarily slashed spending, such as the UK and the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia. As Krugman patiently argues, stalled investment and the pattern of unemployment across different sectors of the economy point again and again to a shortage of demand as the central problem. By contrast, the evidence provides virtually no support for the repeatedly shifting conservative talking points about incipient inflation, business skittishness over regulatory uncertainty, or a sudden collapse in the quality of the American workforce.

    mr-lynne   @   Sat 15 Sep 10:33 AM

« Blue Mass Group Front Page

Add Your Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Sat 25 May 3:48 PM