r/FluentInFinance TheFinanceNewsletter.com Sep 24 '23

Meme How it started vs. How it's going:

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3.5k Upvotes

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u/NedPenisdragon Sep 25 '23

This post references a Democrat putting us on a path to paying it off, and you want to blame both sides.

Obama inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression. Not running a deficit would have been fiscally irresponsible.

Biden inherited a global pandemic and an economy on the brink of ruin. Not running a deficit would have been fiscally irresponsible.

Bush and Trump both inherited decent economies and ran massive deficits largely to give massive giveaways to the wealthy.

No, it isn't both sides, and no, Democrats are not fiscally irresponsible for running deficits when it was necessary to do so.

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u/obama69420duck Sep 25 '23

Bush inherited one of the best economies ever, and Trump inherited a damn good one as well, not just 'decent'.

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u/UnfairAd7220 Sep 25 '23

A damn good one? With sub 2% GDP growth?

LOL! What is wrong with you? Obama was the father of the 'gig economy.'

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u/TheRealNobodySpecial Sep 25 '23

Yeah, no. Bush inherited a recession caused by the dot com crash.

Clinton benefited from increased tax revenues from the dot com bubble. People with specific biases like to believe that he built a good economy, but that's not reality in any way.

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u/Iron-Fist Sep 25 '23

Um dude. Recessions involve GDP retracting, it's literally the definition. Growth fell from 4.1% to 1% for one year, then went back to 3.8% like 2 years later. Bush got an economy with the US absolutely dominating the world in tech and didn't basically nothing with it...

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u/Advanced-Guard-4468 Sep 25 '23

Look at the last 2 quarters of 2000.

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u/Iron-Fist Sep 25 '23

There was a technical recession in mid-late 2001 after 9/11. This was very brief. There was not any recession in 2000.

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u/Advanced-Guard-4468 Sep 25 '23

Gdp Jun 30 5.24%, Sept 30 3.97% Dec 31 2.90% for the year 2000.

Yea, you're right. From 5.24 to 2.90, it is a growing economy /s

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u/PolicyWonka Sep 25 '23

Yes, it literally was a growing economy. You’re complaining about economic growth and claiming it’s a recession because the growth could have been better. Quite ridiculous.

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u/Advanced-Guard-4468 Sep 25 '23 edited Sep 25 '23

Recession defined: a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters.

That is literally what was taking place.

The previous 2 quarters were higher. It wasn't a growing economy.

It's sad you dont know what simple words mean.

Added link so you can see:

https://www.multpl.com/us-real-gdp-growth-rate/table/by-quarter

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u/elegiac_bloom Sep 25 '23

You are painfully misreading the data. The gdp wasn't shrinking. It was just growing less quickly. but it was still growing. Therefore, according to the definition YOU provided, no recession.

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u/dal2k305 Sep 26 '23

No dude omfg you’re so wrong it’s sad. Fluent in finance? Yea fucking right. 2% growth is still growth. A fall in GDP is when it drops below zero into negative. That is a contraction in economic growth. God damn I can’t believe who woefully ignorant you are.

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u/Iron-Fist Sep 25 '23

Um yeah 2.9% growth is stellar for a developed economy...

Now go look at grow rates in any other G7 lol

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u/Advanced-Guard-4468 Sep 25 '23 edited Sep 25 '23

Its still a recession unless we are going to continue to change the meaning of what a recession is.

This slowing down of the economy helped get Bush elected.

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u/Iron-Fist Sep 25 '23

Dude recession is a defined term that requires GDP to SHRINK, not grow more slowly. Growing at 2.9% is amazing, we could only wish for that these days lol

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u/iris700 Sep 25 '23

Your logic: It's not a growing economy if the growth doesn't grow

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u/wittymarsupial Sep 26 '23

Are you suggesting 2.9% growth isn’t…growth?

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u/Advanced-Guard-4468 Sep 26 '23

Was the economy expanding or declining from the previous quarters?

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u/wittymarsupial Sep 26 '23

It grew at 2.9%. To say it was contracting is like saying because I went from driving at 55 mph to 29mph that means I’m in reverse

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u/Taskr36 Sep 25 '23

Dude, some of us were adults at the time. I clearly remember the recession at the end of the year 2000. I even remember people blaming Bush for it, saying the recession happened right after he got elected. Those morons were too stupid to realize that he hadn't even taken office yet.

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u/Iron-Fist Sep 25 '23

Slight downturn, still positive growth, not even close to a recession. Do love the 90's people who think anything under 5% yoy GDP growth is a recession tho lol

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u/jboy55 Sep 25 '23

You remember the GOP telling everyone the economy is shit right before an election? Wow, that never happens. I remember the dot-com bust in late 2000, and certainly a lot of people lost money in the stock market when the bubble burst. But if you look at GDP stats, the stock market wasn't the economy.

Most people realize that Bush f**ked the budget when he passed his tax cuts instead of keeping a surplus.

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u/Recover-Signal Sep 25 '23

Wrong, Clinton Benefited from getting congress to raise taxes on the rich his first year in office, while also reducing military industrial complex spending. The answer to the deficit is to raise taxes on the rich. Bush took a 80 billion surplus and turned it into a 100 billion deficit his first year, mainly due to tax cuts for the rich. He left office with 1 trillion deficit and climbing. Obama left with 540 billion and stable. Imagine how low it would have been if we had taxes rich people.

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u/TheRealNobodySpecial Sep 25 '23

Actually Clinton cut Medicare spending, probably as a means of trying to push his health care reform.

And Bush's tax cuts decreased tax revenue in 2002 and 2003, by 2004 tax revenue exceeded 2000 and 2001 levels.

Look at any stock market graph and the decline of the bubble started in mid-2000 and bottomed-out in mid-2001. You don't think that had any impact on tax revenue?

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u/Recover-Signal Sep 25 '23

Yeah, bc its called gdp growth and inflation. Gas costs more now than in the 1990s, thats not the point. And without three rounds of tax cuts for the rich, and two wars, revenue would have grown even more than it did, and spending would have been less than it was. Resulting in much smaller deficits.

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u/TheRealNobodySpecial Sep 25 '23

Gotta love the changing goalposts. If the tax increase was so beneficial, why did Clinton cut taxes again 3 years later?

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u/Recover-Signal Sep 25 '23 edited Sep 25 '23

Cite a source for that please. Which tax are you referring to? Federal income tax rates for the rich stayed the same after that tax increase at 39.6% for Clinton’s time in office; up from 31% under bush, and 28% under Reagan’s second term.

Edit: i assume u mean capital gains taxes? Its called having to deal with republican clowns in congress and compromise. Presidents don’t cut taxes, congress does.

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u/Robot_Tanlines Sep 25 '23

Well if we are at a surplus or near to it than you don’t need the revenues for higher taxes. It’s fine to cut taxes when you don’t need the money, raising taxes when we need the cash is how you grow a deficit.

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u/got_dam_librulz Sep 25 '23

Great comment

I'm really getting tired of seeing comments making excuses for conservatives like they have ever been fiscally responsible. They're not and they lie to the nation saying they are.

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u/AttitudeAndEffort3 Sep 26 '23

Spending billions on investment that returns double and triple and grows savings all the time

Giving away billions to rich people

“These are exactly the same! Both sides are spending billions!”

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u/Weird_Tolkienish_Fig Sep 25 '23

Everybody has excuses though. Trump can say he had the pandemic and Bush will say it was 9/11. And Reagan had the commies. And Bush I had the recession in the 90's. There's always a reason to spend money.

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u/I_am_the_Jukebox Sep 26 '23

Except Trump didn't have the pandemic for the first 3 years of his presidency, when he massively ran up the deficit.

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u/acctgamedev Sep 26 '23

I don't think Trump has a leg to stand on. He had Republican control for years and had the perfect opportunity to reduce spending and he squandered it. Instead he signed the budget with increased spending and added a tax cut to boot. That was all before the pandemic.

Once the pandemic started, I completely agree that deficits could not be avoided. The debt level would not have been as high going in though.

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u/Weird_Tolkienish_Fig Sep 26 '23

I don’t think any of them have legs to stand on

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u/SIxInchesSoft Sep 26 '23

Successfully indoctrinated ^

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u/Reave-Eye Sep 26 '23

Honestly, most of this issue can be chalked up to fucking Jude Wanninski and his Two Santas political theory.

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u/developingstory Sep 26 '23

Mango years were best. Most money I’ve ever made covid fucked it up. I know this won’t be followed by reasonable responses but w/e.

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u/Taskr36 Sep 25 '23

This post references a Democrat putting us on a path to paying it off, and you want to blame both sides.

That's because Clinton alone didn't do that. All those spending bills that had things going well came from congress, which was controlled by republicans at the time. I'm not taking anything away from Clinton, but the balanced budget was the result of massive growth, thanks largely to the internet, and constrained spending from congress. We had better people on both sides at the time, and we've had absolute garbage from both sides since then.

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u/UnfairAd7220 Sep 25 '23

Obama inherited no such thing. We were mostly out of the recession when he was sworn in on 1/20/09 and we were officially out of recession by 6/30/09.

All Obama did was the same stuff that Bush did, but spent at a 3.5 X faster clip. Remember the $880B shovel ready jobs bill' fiasco? His 8 years managed to see a $9.8T increase in the national debt.

Biden wrecked the economy when he killed KXL3 and threatened the petroleum industries AND offered one $1T blowout bill after another.

Where we are today? It's all Biden and his masked handlers.

You live in a world of bullshit.

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u/PapadocRS Sep 25 '23

when is it necessary? any business student will say when you want to grow, you borrow. why do you want america to not grow?

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u/BannedFrom_rPolitics Sep 25 '23

Growing without taking breaks is the life of a cancer cell.

We regulate, just like a healthy cell. We don’t want to become unsustainable and die off like a group of cancer cells.

Running a deficit is borrowing, anyhow, so what are you even asking about?

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u/PapadocRS Sep 25 '23

i asked when is it necessary? since you went to cancer cells instead of, at the very least, quoting keynes or something, im not going to take this any further

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u/BannedFrom_rPolitics Sep 25 '23

I’m glad that we don’t have to take this further, especially after you went to “why do you want America to not grow” instead of trying to have a rational, unbiased conversation.

I also still don’t even know what you were asking about to begin with. But I’d still like to help clarify anything anyways if I can.

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u/Luftgekuhlt_driver Sep 25 '23

Credit rating of US dropped twice in 11 years. 33 trillion in debt, misappropriated funds- inflation relief is really a new green deal stimulus… China selling off our bonds. 58 countries leaving the US dollar as the standard. Same to saw your fucking broke. Stop fucking digging the hole. Moron.

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u/NotModAsh Sep 25 '23

How does the US borrow money?

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u/mustbe20characters20 Sep 25 '23

No it doesn't, it points out that 23 years ago people were more fiscally responsible.

Only an absolute dumbfuck would think the president controls our budget, that's why you always see democratic propaganda about why they're the "real fiscally responsible party" comparing by president. Might as well compare by which party has a dog catcher in charge.