[FoRK] How Barack...

[Kevin Elliott]

On Apr 18, 2008, at 8:14 AM, Jeff Bone wrote:
> I believe I've made that point here before;  through the beginning  
> of Bush's first term, over the preceding 30+ years, any randomly- 
> chosen day under a Republican president was 6x as likely to be  
> recessionary as any randomly-chosen day under a Democrat president  
> (all other factors being equal.)  Furthermore, anybody who is paying  
> attention KNOWS and is INFURIATED BY the fact that the GOP's  
> rhetoric about "fiscal responsibility" and so forth is a complete  
> LIE, diametrically opposed to their ACTUAL behavior (over the last 8  
> years at least.)

I'm sorry, but the whole idea that any meaningful conclusion can be  
drawn about presidents "sheperding" the economy is total bollocks.   
Short of obscene stupidity (i.e. price controls), the time scales are  
to long and individual events too unpredictable for the president to  
receive either blame or credit for the state of the economy.