I'm not quite sure what set me off this time, but something I read prompted me to make a couple of charts illustrating US economic performance compared to our large peer countries in Europe. Here is GDP since the start of the pandemic:
Thanks to the $3 trillion in relief spending that was passed almost immediately after the economy started to plummet in response to COVID-19, our GDP fell only about 10% during the first stage of the pandemic. This compares to nearly 20% in Italy, France, and the UK (Germany's economy responded more like ours). Because of this we had an easier time rebounding.
We passed another $1 trillion in relief in Q4 of 2020, which helped boost performance as we were climbing out of the COVID hole, and then another $1.9 trillion in Q1 of 2021, which helped boost performance further.
The end result of all this is that we suffered less during the early stages of the pandemic and recovered more strongly in the later stages. That's good!
But wait. The final $1.9 trillion that Democrats passed in 2021 also produced surging inflation. This is probably true, but take a look at how we compare:
This is month-over-month inflation converted into annual rates. As I've said many times before, this produces noisy raw data (shown by the pale thin lines) and is of little use. What you need to look at are the trendlines, which are the heavy dashed lines.
As you can see, our inflation rate was indeed higher than other countries in 2021. But by the end of the year it was starting to decline as the Biden stimulus spending finished working its way through the system. Conversely, inflation in large European countries is still increasing. (UK inflation is trending down at the moment, but every forecast suggests it's going to skyrocket going into next year.)
A couple of notes about all this. First, I've used core inflation so that Europe doesn't look unfairly bad thanks to high energy prices caused by the Ukraine war. Second, for the US I've used an approximation of HICP, which is the EU method of measuring inflation. This ensures that the comparison is apples to apples. US performance looks better if you use core PCE instead.
Bottom line: our huge spending produced strong economic growth that kept the economy from shrinking too much and forestalled a tremendous amount of human suffering. At the same time, the inflation it produced was higher than Europe's in 2021 but is now falling. A year from now, no matter how you measure it, the American economy is going to look like a major success story compared to our peer countries.
OFF TOPIC
Yes Kevin the American economy is doing well.
We have blackouts in CA due to a very dangerous heat wave
But Californians won't be able to charge their EV's after the power goes out now will they?
Funny how this is. Newsom looks like an environmental king by banning the use of gasoline powered landscaping equipment and now, in certain parts of the state they will have to shut down due to discharged batteries with no juice for re-charging !!!!!
Perhaps 'ol Gavin will declare a state holiday because of this and allow for extra leisure time to they all can go out and use their gasoline powered water craft, and ATVs !!!!
"The look" is very bad. global temps are going up but you HAVE to plan for this. Build the power plants FIRST as they take a long time to site, permit, and build.
THEN if your power grid gets stressed you at least can handle it.
Wait......
At least KD will have less back ground light to deal with as he photographs our celestial wonders at night !!!!!!!!
PGE deciding to take no corporate responsibility in line maintenance against possible incendiary outcomes is the government's fault?
Is Big Government an illusionist controlling the Invisible Hand?
It's more simple than that I believe
Don't FORCE employers to use battery powered equipment to prevent pollution until you have a plan in place that would not only allow for expanded capacity for electric generation - which could ALSO be used to power the air conditioners CA (and the rest of us) will need to address global warming.
But to allow for recreational use of fossil fuels (boats, ATVs etc) while forcing businesses to convert seems short sighted. And I like GN on the whole and wish he would run for President.
Here in Gamma Quadrant, a back up generator is necessary. Power goes out and we start the gen. Then we connect the Tesla to the gen. Simple.
Yesterday the power went out at 8pm and came back on at 10am next day. Outage from an. unknown source. The joys of country living.
Maybe we should add a Tesla battery system to the solar?
Reimagined grid...
Solar, wind, storage micro grids networked together.
Don't know if many more plants needed, but certainly would keep nuclear ones running instead of mothballing early.
Heat crises are acute, water crisis always lurking...
A pity that none of that data and analysis will make one iota of difference to the right-wing crowd still obsessed with Hillary's emails, etc. The Republican Party complains about "Biden-caused" inflation but what's their plan? Probably some form of tax-cuts for the upper 1% which is their go-to solution for every problem.
What are democrats' plans for the border crises?
Step one: Figure out some way around the GOP policy of total obstruction.
The first step would be to find a "crisis" as opposed to "business as usual". The southern border has been dealing with illegal immigrants, who used to be referred to pejoratively as "wetbacks" for as long as I can remember, and I'm getting old.
+1 Operation: Wetback
To think, Eisenhower is considered an antiracist GQPer for not acceding to Orval Faubus's demands to keep Arkansas schools segregated when Ol' Man Ike also deported American birthright citizens of multiple generations back to where they didn't come from (Mexico).
Data here: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/09/whats-happening-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-in-7-charts/
Must read: the note to the first chart re: reporting difference from 2020 on.
"Migrant encounters" strikes me more as a measure of the level of Border Patrol effort than of the number of migrants.
Even if we ignore that little problem, the current peak is only barely higher than the peak in the early 1980s or the one in the late 1990s and those two, due to the 2020 measurement change, almost certainly represent higher real numbers; all three peaks are just over 1.6 million. If it wasn't a "border crisis" the first twice that numbers hit their present level, why should it be considered a crisis now?
Obama really put in policies that curbed illegal immigration.
Trump undid those and created a disaster for everyone. At will take many years to sort out Trump's mess...
Is it Caravan Season already?
I havn't even bought any decorations yet.
But, happy holidays, to those who celebrate.
Democrats have a number of policies to mitigate the effects of global warming for one thing.
Here’s the official policy specific to the current problem that is not actually a “crisis”:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/27/fact-sheet-the-biden-administration-blueprint-for-a-fair-orderly-and-humane-immigration-system/
Note the attempts to mitigate the reasons for people wanting to abandon their homes to come here. What is the Republican policy other than building a useless hate wall?
Europe has a huge moat separating it from Africa. Even that does not solve their problem. The African economic, population and climate problem needs solutions.
On the land sides they are erecting fences. Hell, the Baltics are building fences to keep the Russians out. Of course, some HIMARs would help.
Ahhh, and the first whataboutism rears its predictable head. The classic right-wing head fake.
Yes we are in a crisis because needed workers are not being allowed into the US to get stuff done like solve the housing shortage.
I was going to suggest Ken Starr successor as Whitewater Inquisitor Robert Ray as Special Master for Cokedup Werewolf Aileen Cannon's Outback Courthouse, but I checked Wikipedia (to make sure R. Ray was alive) & saw he served on El Jefe's defense in the first impeachment witchhunt. So, surely, the the Colombian Insurrection wouldn't be so cynical as to name him as Special Master?
Anyway, Ray's own successor, Julie Thomas, is now a private practice lawyer in Tampa, FL, so she's right there, & presumably GQP as well.
Respectfully, Kevin why do you avoid discussing the Asian OECD countries and inflation. Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand have lower inflation than the US: these countries are impacted by global supply lines, the international price of oil etc.
In contrast, in part because of the conflict in Ukraine (and related actions), Western Europe has VERY high gas prices etc.
America's doing pretty good! No wonder Trump has to break so many laws to get attention these days.
I'm still waiting for the "left" to start arguing that during the pandemic we showed what we can do by giving money to more people to relieve their woes. We can afford it! And it's hardly surprising after so many decades of building an economy for Bentley buyers (and owners) that when we switch to a Ross Dress for Less Economy (i.e., give more money to Ross customers and less to Bentley customers) that there are some inflation hiccups as the economy gets used to regular people having money. But we'll get through it.
I'd say the Reagan era is finally over, and the pandemic was kind of the cherry on top. Hooray!
And all we had to do is sacrifice one million Americans!
That still leaves us with 999,000,000!
-- Matt Yglesias
It would be nice if the minima were included on the charts. Can you embiggen the vertical axis?
American exceptionalism!
...and...
No major wars near our border and can produce enough fossil fuels domestically to meet our needs.
******way Off Topic*******
WAPO is now reporting that nuclear capabilities of one of our allies was included in the docs seized at Barge of Lardo. This was high level stuff only certain cabinet members would be in on and the President
And they found it AFTER the lawyers said they had turned over everything.
Ouch..............
Will someone please get Kevin some splines or rolling averages or something? This quadratic fitting is making me queasy. 🙂
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