Luskin: Economy’s Fine
Donald Luskin, seemingly upset that he hadn’t been bashed recently in the progressive blogosphere, decided to write a baffling and extremely long column that ran over the weekend arguing that the economy’s fine. The Washington Post opinion section, for reasons I don’t care to speculate on, decided to run it. The basic argument is threefold:
- Foreclosure rates are lower than they were in the Great Depression and therefore saying things are worse than they’ve been since the Great Depression is wrong.
- There was a lot of GDP growth last quarter.
- If you ignore the worst-performing stocks, the stock market isn’t performing that poorly.
Point one seems to evince a curious failure to understand the meaning of the word “since.” Point two is interesting, but we’re still a point where for the first time on record we went from economic peak-to-peak (2000-2007) with no growth in individual income. Then we had several quarters of poor GDP growth. And then one decent quarter and now crazy headlines about a collapse of the financial system. This is not a great situation compared to any recent periods in American history. And as for the last point — well of course stock declines have been concentrated in the worst-performing sectors. That’s just how things work.
The weird thing about Luskin is that he isn’t just a right-wing propagandist; he actually seems to run a business where real people pay him real money for financial advice. It’s a strange world.
35 Responses to “Luskin: Economy’s Fine”
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September 15th, 2008 at 9:21 am
We are also doing much, much better than Europe was during the black plague.
Also, in the Permo-Triassic Extinction Event, up to 70% of all land vertebrates and 96% of all marine species were wiped out.
You stupid whining libruls don’t take that into account when you should be appreciating the awesome result of 7.5 stellar years of Republican anti-regulation nuttery.
September 15th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Oh and don’t forget that he advises a certain guy named John McCain.
September 15th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Uh, actually, he is a right-wing propangandist. He said he’s an advisor to the McCain capmaign.
“Full disclosure: I’m an adviser to John McCain’s campaign”.
September 15th, 2008 at 9:24 am
People pay Kudlow for his advice, too. We know how that has worked out. Is Luskin another one of McCain’s economic advisors?
September 15th, 2008 at 9:32 am
But Luskin is an IVY LEAGUE dropout, he must know something!
September 15th, 2008 at 9:33 am
I assume that the people paying him for the advice are still doing fine. Well, were still doing fine. This week may have changed things.
September 15th, 2008 at 9:42 am
I guess there is still money to be made if some people are convinced, by the arguments of certain economists that everything is fine, to buy more worthless stocks. If you are holding those stocks it would be profitable for you to pay those certain economists.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:05 am
It’s always possible to get unsolicited and completely wacky financial advice. Tell Mr. Luskin to me back when the Dow hits 36,000.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:13 am
1) I had wondered why Obama wasn’t kicking the shit out of John McCain over the state of the financial system and the economy.
2)But then I read that Karl Rove had chastized Obama for negative campaigning and had urged Obama to take the high ground.
Obama, cowed by Karl Rove’s awesome MORAL AUTHORITY, has evidently decided to straighten up and fly right.
3) From http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080915/ap_on_el_pr/obama
———-
Former Bush political adviser Karl Rove said McCain and Obama had both shaded the truth in campaign advertising.
“McCain has gone, in some of his ads, similarly gone one step too far in sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent truth test,” Rove told “Fox News Sunday.”
September 15th, 2008 at 10:20 am
that 2nd quarter gdp reading, of course, is the prelminary, highly likely to be revised figure, not that luskin appears to recognize that….
September 15th, 2008 at 10:21 am
by the arguments of certain economists
For the record, Luskin, like most of the NRO econopundits, isn’t an economist, at least not in the sense of “someone with an academic degree in economics.”
September 15th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Latest up from Honest John:
“Our economy, I believe, still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong, but these are very very difficult times, so I promise you: We will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street,” McCain said.
———–
Ha ha ha ha.
Didn’t he promise us that back in 1990 ?–after he stuck us with the $200 Billion bill to clean up the Savings and Loan mess?
Said mess being the result of Honest John and the other Keating 5 trying to “get the government off the backs of the people” — by telling the federal regulators to leave those nice thieves in Texas Commerce Bank alone.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:30 am
You would think that Obama would point out that John McCain has been a US Senator for over 24 YEARS — and that if there was any reforming to be done, McCain should have done it long ago. Especially since the Republicans controlled all three branches of government for years.
Leave it to Honest John to explain to the voters how he’s really not a Republican — he just somehow got their nomination to be President.
Leave it to Honest John to explain how he’s gotten hundreds of $millions from Republican donors because they want him to clean up Wall Street and to remove corruption from Washington DC. That they’re coughing up all that money just for the sake of good government and with no expectations of any favors in return.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Correction: Reference above to Texas Commerce Bank should have been to “Lincoln Savings and Loan”. Different set of crooks.
Anybody who thinks Honest John is interested in “reforming” the financial sector can look at this Arizona newspaper article re his intervention on behalf of Lincoln and Charles Keating :
http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/mccain/articles/0301mccainbio-chapter7.html
Again, let John McCain explain how he wasn’t really “leaning” on the federal regulators.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Point two is interesting, but we’re still a point where for the first time on record we went from economic peak-to-peak (2000-2007) with no growth in individual income.
I think you’re carelessly conflating individual income with household income.
And as for the last point — well of course stock declines have been concentrated in the worst-performing sectors. That’s just how things work.
That’s not true at all. Show me which parts of the stock market did well in the great depression, or even the late 90s.
Please, Matt, stick to writing about things you know about, instead of making ridiculous assertions without any support.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:20 am
We’re WINNING!
September 15th, 2008 at 11:21 am
No doubt those people are busily selling off their positions while the extremely valuable Donald Luskin provide them with covering fire intended to keep stock prices from cratering.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:27 am
The only reason we had a decent quarter of GDP growth was because the Federal Government sent out “rebate” checks. Of course because these rebate checks were funded by debt, we will end up paying the price later on.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Well, pretty much the entire stock market was doing well during the late 90s. I assume you mean the 2000 tech meltdown. But even there, most of the (non-tech) market was ok during the first few weeks/months of the collapse. It took months for the losses to become generalized.
This is the part where I might point out that the nature of this collapse is much worse, since it seems to be causing so much damage to the credit market and the companies responsible for supplying it. Or that the fundamentals are so weak right now that it’s not clear where the recovery is going to come from. But I’ll leave the details to another poster.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I had a little chuckle reading the paper on Sunday, imagining Donald Luskin making frantic phone calls to the Post on Friday as Lehman/Lynch rumors swirled. “Is there any way you can spike that piece? I’ll write something else! I’ll pose nude! C’mon, work with me here!”
But of course Luskin is paid to be a Pollyanna and has no qualms about looking ridiculous.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Stop comparing the current economic period to the Depression. Its not like the Great Depression at all.
Its like Hitler.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Luskin’s big point, though, was that everyone would believe the economy was just fine if only Obama and the media would stop with the vicious smears of our fine economy.
Of course, as I mention at the link, people don’t need anyone to tell them how their piece of the economy’s doing. The reason most people think the economy sucks, is that for most people, the economy sucks.
If that 3.3% growth rate doesn’t show up in their paycheck or benefits, or in the value of their home, it doesn’t mean jack to them. Nor should it.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
If I ignore the worst-performing players, the Nationals are a pretty good baseball team…
September 15th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Is stalker Luskin still stealing Paul Krugman’s used underwear and sniffing it?
September 15th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I had to check the following line: “According to the latest report from the National Association of Realtors, the median price of an existing home is up 8.5 percent from the low of last February.”
I didn’t think that was true. And it really isn’t. That’s only if you look at non-seasonally adjusted home prices. Prices are generally lower in the winter than in the summer. If you look at the NAR’s seasonally-adusted numbers, you find that the median price is down 12% from its peak in 2005, and still falling.
So his argument is dishonest. From a McCain advisor. Who’d have thought it?
September 15th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
According to McCain’s advisors we’re a nation of whiners.
September 17th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Yea, I wanted to like Luskin when he publicly supported Ron Paul. Now he supports McCain. He’s a strange, strange sort of person.
December 8th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) _ The National Association of Realtors says home prices fell in four out of five U.S. cities in the third quarter, the latest sign of how the U.S. housing market’s decline is spreading throughout the
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