Statistics and context when tracking the economy

It's amusing to see how statistics can be used to deceive. For example:



The creator of the chart somehow wants us to believe that the wasteful and unconstitutional "Obama Stimulus" saved to global economy while the similarly wasteful and unconstitutional "Bush Stimulus" of a few months earlier had nothing to do with a recovery.

The creator also wants us to believe that George W. Bush (Bush II) caused the global financial meltdown. As we near the sunset of Barry Soetoro's first term as US President, Democrats and Soetero himself are fond of blaming everything on Bush II and the Republicans. This chart is a part of that pattern.

Sure, the current financial crisis came to a head at the close of Bush II's (Republican) administration. I agree that many Republican politicians are as stupid as many Democrat politicians are evil. Some of Bush's decisions (eg signing TARP) didn't really help the situation -- at great expense. If government would simply stay our of the way, the economy would take pretty good care of itself.

What the chart creator fails to disclose is that the current financial problem has deep roots. Start by taking a look at the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) generously given to us in 1977 during the Jimmy Carter (Democrat) presidency when Congress was also controlled by, uh, Democrats. That bill required banks issue millions of non-qualifying bad loans to individuals who had no chance of paying their bills. This fundamentally stupid law eventually led to a housing boom based on shoddy loan practices and totally unqualified buyers and to what we have today -- financial disaster.

Before this idiotic bill, there was no such thing as a "sub-prime" loan. The non-qualifying, zero down, 100% financed Adjustable-Rate Mortgages (ARM) were unheard of. These absurd instruments had to be invented by lenders as mechanisms to give deadbeat borrowers trillions in what has turned out to be the taxpayers' money.

To enforce the CRA, banks became shakedown targets of the likes of ACORN (haven of Democrats and corruption) and Jesse Jackson (Democrat), channeling billions of dollars in blackmail payoffs to those groups.

Then in the Clinton era, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got involved, buying up these bad loans from banks, and securitizing them for sale on world markets. The seeds of the global subprime meltdown were planted.

During the Clinton era the Democrat-controlled Congress made changes to the CRA under the leadership of Barney Frank (Democrat) and Chris Dodd (Democrat). With the full approval and encouragement of Frank and Dodd, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac developed more products that allowed "sub-prime" borrowers to qualify for a mortgage with a much lower down payment and interest rate. Lenders felt comfortable giving mortgage loans to these borrowers with poor credit history because the ratings agencies, Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch's gave these mortgages the same ratings as US Treasury notes, backed by the full faith and credit of the US government.

Republican attempts to reform Fannie and Freddie as early as 1999 failed due to Democrat opposition.

In 2003, Alan Greenspan (political affiliation unknown), Chairman of the Federal Reserve, testified that Fannie and Freddie's loose practices could endanger the financial system. About the same time, Bush II (Republican) warned that the housing and lending markets were about to crash. In fact, starting in 2001, Bush II asked Congress 17 times to stop Fannie and Freddie because these practices were financially risky for the US economy. Barney Frank (Democrat) said these institutions were fundamentally sound and should be even more aggressive in loaning money to low-income people.

In 2005, John McCain (Republican) supported Senate Bill 109 that would have stopped Fannie Mae and Congressional Democrats from forcing banks into making even more risky loans and investing what the Conservatives knew would eventually be the taxpayer’s money into toxic loans. Chris Dodd (Democrat), the Chairman of the Senate Banking committee, acted in lock step with the other Democrats to kill the bill in committee and continued to encourage Franklin Raines (Democrat) at Fannie Mae to buy up as many of the diseased loans as possible. Barney Frank (Democrat) continued assure that everything was okay.

Pin the tail on the donkey!

The next financial crisis? Student loan defaults. Who's behind it? Yup, Democrats!

In 2008, many voters went into the voting booth armed with knowledge and sound judgement. Others, with slogans such as "hope" and "change" and even thoughts of skin color. Knowledge and sound judgement lost that election, only to get the blame for 30 years of sinister Democrat attempts at forcing the economy to work on "hope," "change," and skin color. Most of those voters will be like Barney Frank -- they will forever deny that they might have made a mistake.

This nation cannot afford voters like that. We need smarter voters!