Read My Lips...We Need More Taxes...Oops! I Didn't See That Recession Coming!

M2RB:  Loverboy

And read my lips
Read my lips, listen to me, I’m talkin’ to you
Read my lips
Read my lips, I’m tellin’ you, I’m through with you

You don’t hear a word I say
So turn your head and look this way

And, read my lips
Read my lips, listen to me, I’m talkin’ to you
Read my lips
Read my lips, listen to me, you’re history

Lois:  "George H. W. Bush, on taxes: "The circumstances change and you can't be wedded to some formula by Grover Norquist. It's-who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?"

Guy Benson: "Read my lips: One term president.:

Sophie:  On 26 June 1990, George HW Bush said: 

"It is clear to me that both the size of the deficit problem and the need for a package that can be enacted require all of the following: entitlement and mandatory program reform, tax revenue increases, growth incentives, discretionary spending reductions, orderly reductions in defense expenditures, and budget process reform."

July 1990: Recession begins

"The average American expressed more pessimism about the future than at any time since the Great Depression."

"There is no question but this is the worst economic time since the Great Depression."

"Sluggish economic growth this year will cap the worst three-year period centered on a recession since the Great Depression."

- Associated Press, Economy -- Worst 3 Years Since Depression -- Economists See Sluggish Growth, The Seattle Times, 24 February 1992

"Forecasts for a weak recovery...suggest the period...will be the worst for the economy since the Great Depression."

"....the worst plunge since the Great Depression."

"The average American expressed more pessimism about the future than at any time since the Great Depression."

"There is no question but this is the worst economic time since the Great Depression."

"Sluggish economic growth this year will cap the worst three-year period centered on a recession since the Great Depression."

"Forecasts for a weak recovery...suggest the period...will be the worst for the economy since the Great Depression."

"....the worst plunge since the Great Depression."

"It's not a recession, it's a depression."

"….with the US economy locked in a recession and more people out of work since the Great Depression."

"....the worst (retail) sales period on record since the Great Depression."

"This recession is hitting white-collar workers more heavily than any since the Great Depression of the 1930s."

Do you know what is amazing about the quotes above?

They were made not between 2008-2012, but between the second half of 1990 and 1992....primarily, by Democrats.

1992:  It's the economy, stupid!

3 November 1992: President-elect William Jefferson Clinton

Since I brought out my "It's the worst economic recession since the Great Depression" quotes from the early 1990s proving that Democrats would consider a rainout of the Presidents' Day - Weekend White Sale to be the "worst economic event since the Great Depression," I remembered a Matt Welch piece in Reason:

"The Worst Economic Crisis Since The Great Depression"

Matt Welch | 30 October 2008

That's how Barack Obama assessed the economy during his infomercial last night. Do the latest economic numbers back his alarmist, quasi-Bushian claim? Not quite:

 

The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.3 percent annual rate in the third quarter, its sharpest contraction in seven years [...]

The third-quarter contraction was a striking turnaround from the second quarter's relatively brisk 2.8 percent rate of growth.

Seven years, 70 years, whatever. Ah, but there are worse signs than mere GDP:

Consumer spending, which fuels two-thirds of U.S. economic growth, fell at a 3.1 percent rate in the third quarter - the first cut in quarterly spending since the closing quarter of 1991 and the biggest since the second quarter of 1980. Spending on nondurable goods - items like food and paper products - dropped at the sharpest rate since late 1950.

Getting warmer!!

The GDP report showed that disposable personal income dropped at an 8.7 percent rate in the third quarter - the steepest since quarterly records on this component were started in 1947 -- after rising 11.9 percent in the second quarter when most of economic stimulus payments still were flowing.

Finally, a number that could be the worst on record since the Great Dustbowlia, though it's a number of direction, not position, and (just like GDP) when combined with the prior quarter it shows net growth.

I don't mean to minimize the pain here. But as Nick Gillespie pointed out a couple weeks back, "Any comparison with the Depression, which featured an unemployment rate of 25 percent and a contraction in GDP of over 33 percent at its worst moments, strains credulity."

Both the outgoing administration and the incoming one (whichever wins) have been using such inaccurate, scaremongering analogies to justify massive, ill-conceived federal interventions all over the private economy that will likely have profoundly negative long-term consequences in the forms of renewed inflation, managerial inefficiency from central planners, offshoring of capital markets, and what I fear will be the biggest Bubble of them all: Having the federal government guarantee damned near every large financial risk anybody takes. In a world of ever-increasing guarantees, why shouldn't every investor pour maximum money into whatever federally backstopped financial institution is offering the highest rates? And how do you suppose said institution will be able to afford paying out those high winnings? It won't be through sound investments, boyo.

As a confirmed apocalyptic, I continue to expect the sky to fall; but as a stat dweeb I'm just not seeing the elephant tracks. Right now, during our Worst Economic Crisis Since the Great Depression, unemployment is at 6.1 percent, inflation is at 4.9 percent, and GDP shrank 0.3 percent this quarter, though it's still up for the year. I don't see how that even begins to compete with the late-Carter, early-Reagan era, when GDP shrank in both 1980 and 1982, unemployment never dipped below 8 percent from November 1981 to January 1984, and inflation never dipped below 8 percent between September 1978 and January 1982.

One big difference between that Next Great Depression and this one: Washington, in the form of Reagan and Paul Volcker, was forcing us to swallow our medicine to whip inflation and create conditions for future growth. Nowadays the only government medicine being doled out is temporary pain relief.

Read My Lips - Loverboy

Here you come again, lookin’ for another thrill
With your lipstick, high heel shoes, lookin’ like you’re
Dressed to kill
Tattoo stuck on you, branded by a chosen few
What short memory, now it’s time to pay your dues

Don’t you hear a word I say?
Just turn your head and look this way

And read my lips
Read my lips, listen to me, I’m talkin’ to you
Read my lips
Read my lips, I’m tellin’ you, I’m through with you

I know where you go when you need to get some
Bad little actress on a mattress, it’s seduction
Anything for you

You don’t hear a word I say
So turn your head and look this way

And, read my lips
Read my lips, listen to me, I’m talkin’ to you
Read my lips
Read my lips, listen to me, you’re history

I’ve been watching what you do
And it doesn’t take a fool
To see what we’ve been through
Oh, gonna turn the page on you

(guitar solo)

You don’t hear a word I say
So turn your head and look this way

And read my lips
Read my lips, listen to me, I’m talkin’ to you
Read my lips
Read my tips, oh, I’m through with you
Read my tips
Read my lips, listen to me, I’m talkin’ to you
Read my lips
Read my lips, listen to me, you’re history

Oh yeah, read my lips
I said, read my lips
Read my lips
Just read my lips