Same Point in the Business Cycle is an Expression Only a Fool Would Utter

My view on this stupid line of “reasoning” can be found here. But certain Bush cheerleading and foul mouthed trolls keep spewing this shit so Cactus let them know by their own yardstick, the Bush recovery looks weak. And guess what? The Minnie-me for the World’s Stupidest Man Alive thinks Cactus was agreeing with him?

OK, we do need a couple of graphs here as too much focus in being placed on the recovery during the 1990’s versus the latest recovery. I wanted to show the 23 quarters of all recoveries since the 1950’s but six of those recoveries did not last 23 quarters. Not only did the three recoveries in the 1970’s fall short of a six year “miracle” but the three recoveries during Eisenhower’s term in office were also short lived. And before the economic know nothings who worship Donald Luskin as their economic guru scream the 1970’s inflation issue, let me remind these nitwits that inflation was low during the 1950’s. So our graphs show both the most recent recoveries but also the recoveries during the 1960’s and 1980’s.

Note that much of the recovery during the tenure of JFK and LBJ actually preceded the 1964 tax cut. As far as the 1981 tax cut – that was followed by the Reagan recession. The Reagan recovery? I credit a reversal of Volcker’s tight money.

But then notice that the first part for the past couple of recoveries were really anemic with real GDP growth being less than the celebrated 3.5 percent long-term average growth folks talk about. While Bush cheerleaders love to say Clinton benefited from a Bush41 recovery, the Bush41 recovery was as anemic as the early stages of the Bush43 recovery. We did see short sparks of strong growth after these anemic early stages. But neither one of these recent recoveries comes close the recovery of the 1960’s. While the Reagan recovery wasn’t quite as strong either, it was stronger than the current recovery. Of course – as Cactus noted, the recovery during the 1990’s trumps the current recovery as well.

Then again – why would any fool think all business cycles are the same? Oh yea – some idiots read Donald Luskin thinking he’s a brilliant economist.

Update: Luskin’s Minnie-me left a comment over at Cactus’s post saying the two most recent recoveries were remarkably the same, which shows he wasn’t even following the point Cactus was making. But let me give the data on the average growth rates in my charts. For the Bush43 recovery, the average was 2.8% as compared to 3.3% for the Clinton recovery. A difference of 0.5% per year does add up over time. For the 1960’s, this average exceeded 5.7%. But hey – the kids likely don’t even remember JFK or LBJ.