Matt Yglesias

16 Responses to “GDP FAIL”

1. Douglas Watts Says:
   October 30th, 2008 at 10:23 am

   Iceland still has its native runs of Atlantic salmon. We destroyed all of ours and are still doing so to the few hundred salmon we have left.

   So Iceland still has many points up on us on the non-stupid side of the ledger.

2. El Cid Says:
   October 30th, 2008 at 10:25 am

   Clearly this is the fault of the Democratic Congress who were sworn in in January of 2007, so everything bad happened since then, before then we were just fine. At least, that’s what I keep hearing from right wing A.M. radio.

3. Ron E. Says:
   October 30th, 2008 at 10:46 am

   But hey it hasn’t been 2 consecutive quarters yet so technically the fundamentals of the economy are strong, right?

4. Haukur Says:
   October 30th, 2008 at 10:56 am

   Let’s see what Prime Minister Geir Haarde was saying a few months ago:

   “Speaking at a conference of international investors, Haarde emphasised that the fundamentals of the Icelandic economy remain strong and stressed his belief that the country will emerge unscathed from the global economic downturn.” (http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2008/06/27/iceland-krona-weakness-exaggerated/)

5. Don the libertarian Democrat Says:
   October 30th, 2008 at 11:19 am

   From Zubin Jelveh:

   http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/odd-numbers/2008/10/30/good-thing-were-fighting-a-war

   “Good Thing We’re Fighting a War

   Otherwise GDP contraction would have been even greater in the third quarter. Spending on national defense was the biggest positive contributor to the third quarter’s economic numbers, which overall showed a decline of 0.3 percent.

   Defense spending rose 18.1 percent from the previous quarter, the largest jump since the start of the second Iraq war in 2003, and the second largest since 1984…

   With the financial crisis and the presidential election, our wars have seemingly taken a back seat, but they’re contribution to growth is the economy’s lone bright spot.”

   Here’s my comment:

   I wonder if we’re going to start hearing how WW II got us out of the depression?

   I sure hope not. Yikes

6. duBois Says:
   October 30th, 2008 at 11:45 am

   There’s a chapter on Iceland in John McPhee’s “Control of Nature”. Lava from a volcano threatened to seal off one of Iceland’s fishing harbors. Icelanders went out to pour water on the lava flow to try to get it to stop. In a book that also included chapters about Los Angeles (building homes in landslide areas) and Louisiana (building a city on a river that didn’t want to be there), the Icelanders seemed to top both for goofy. Intrepid, sure, and committed, but 100% goofy.

   I’m just thinking out loud here, but it looks like Iceland needs to sell something besides fish and steam.

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