Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 19:15:23 EDT
From:         Jamie <PL436000@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: More Comments on the 1992 Election ...

>From:         Kerry Stephenson <KSTE@PURCCVM.BITNET>

>What's going on here?  Has the economy *always* been terrible?  Is
>it really no more terrible now than it has been before?

This is a difficult question. For one thing, as you note below,
the measures have changed from time to time. But generally speaking,
the economy has been improving over time, except for periods of
serious depression. The per capita GDP of the United States has
gone up fairly consistently. Certainly the Great Depression was
an exception, and the early '80's were too. Recently growth
has been very slow, but positive. So the pie has been growing
for the most part. The question is, How much?

When growth slows to a yearly rate of 1% or so, that's bad. When
it's up at 3% or higher, that's good. It currently seems to be
below 1% (though I think all economists admit that it's hard to
tell).

It would be interesting to look at growth rates during election
years. Here are some guesses.
This year growth is quite slow, and that's what has Bush in such
trouble, I think.
In '88, growth was slow in the first quarter, but picked up
substantially after that. The trend saved Bush.
In '84, growth was pretty high, esp. in contrast to the early
Reagan years when it was dreadful. The trend provided for some
optimism, despite a bad economic record (the populace has a very
short memory for economics).
In '80, the economy was changing for the worse. And inflation
was very high, which affected people's perceptions (more than
it should have, I think).
I don't recall much about the economy in '76. I'm going to guess
that it was bad, simply on the grounds that the incumbent party
lost the White House. But that's a wild guess.

I'd better skip back to the sixties--the economy was going great
guns throughout. But expectations were very high, so if growth
wasn't astronomical, folks were disappointed and blamed whoever
seemed to be in charge. Really, though, the Kennedy/Johnson
years composed a period of huge economic growth, making the
more recent past look like a depression in comparison.

>of fact, "the economy" didn't become news until *immediately* following
>the Hill/Thomas hearings, when the media suddenly started talking about
>how terrible the economy was (I thought it was odd then, now I suspect
>it might have been deliberate.)

I don't remember this at all. I'm not denying it, I just don't
remember it.
The economy did take a turn for the worse right around then. More
accurately, it began to look like the little dip might turn
into a serious recession. And in fact, that's what happened.

>How do we *know* the economy is any worse now than it was in 1952?
>(I was *very* surprised to see that commercial, since everyone has
>always told me that the 1950s were the time of prosperity and joy--
>or whatever.  Anyway, things were supposedly better then, especially
>the economy.)

The economy was better in the sense that it was growing faster. But
the whole pie was much smaller. MUCH smaller. Wages are MUCH higher
than they were in the 50's.

>We can't use unemployment, since its definition changed
>3 times during the Reagan administration.

If you think that's bad, you should see what Thatcher did in the U.K.

>The economic indicators
>have changed, too--something about mortgages and rents, which I never
>quite understood.  Are there more homeless people--or have we just
>started counting them instead of calling them bums?  Whose numbers
>can we trust?

As to the homeless--both, I think. There are certainly far more
homeless people now than there were 30 years ago. I take it you
haven't been to New York, L.A., or Chicago recently!

The standard way to measure the economy (whoa, no, there is no
STANDARD way--but a pretty good rough way) is to look at the
GDP, and its growth. Of course, that only tells you about the
size of the pie. You might also be interested in its distribution,
and for that you need other measures.

I agree that unemployment figures can be very misleading, though.
For example, in the '50's, lots of women didn't work. Now, lots
more women work. But then, the non-working women were not
officially unemployed, and now many more of them do count as
unemployed.
Unemployment figures also miss the so-called "underemployed,"
those folks who have part-time work but want or need full-time
work. They are not officially unemployed.

And lots of other problems.

Jamie
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