From
last night's ABC News, check this out. Oh, and while you're listening, keep in mind what Eric "Nobel Prize Winning Economist" Cantor keeps saying about the economic stimulus package, passed with no thanks to his fellow flat-earth Republicans. Also, you might want to keep in mind that Paul Krugman really
is a Nobel Prize winning economist, so, call me elitist but I do believe we should respect his views on the economy just a
wee bit more than Eric Cantor's.
Today's report underscores what the roaring stock market has been signaling all month, the worst recession since the Great Depression may soon be over.
Alan Valdes (Trader, Hilliard Lyons): "It's like early in the year we jumped out of a plane, we were in a free fall, now we have the parachute open and we're gliding down."
Today marks four consecutive quarters of negative growth for the U.S. economy, which hasn't happened in more than 60 years. But today's improvement from the 6.4% plunge in GDP at the beginning of the year to a mere 1% today was dramatic.
Betsy Stark: "So, after a year of shrinking, do you think the economy is now actually growing again?"
Paul Krugman: "Yeah, things probably growing but, you know, at a snail's pace. We are in recovery, [but] it's going to be recovery that feels like recession to most people."
[...]
"Without the intervention, without the bailouts, much as everybody hates them, I think we'd be in Great Depression Part II."
Or, to put it another way,
the Democratic Congress and Barack Obama prevented Great Depression Part II. But why, you ask, don't I give some credit to Republicans? Well, perhaps the fact that
not one of them voted for the economic recovery package in the House and just three (Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and then-Republican now-a-Democrat Arlen Specter)? Perhaps given the fact that many Republicans have been chortling gleefully - and hoping out loud - that the president, the Democrats, and the economic recovery act will fail? Perhaps because, once again in American history since the 1920's, Republicans create disasters and Democrats fix them?
