Nancy Pelosi was bad

The end of Barack Obama's 5th year as President coincided with another economic milestone:  For the first time in history, U.S. economic output has exceeded $17 trillion per year.  Even adjusted for inflation, the economy is solidly at an all-time record high.

Before we judge this a success, let us get some perspective.  The economy has hit all-time record highs under every President since Franklin Roosevelt.  Only Truman saw "negative growth" after his 5th year - he had to wait until his 7th year to see a new record high.

So this milestone under the Obama Presidency is not noteworthy on its own, and we will need to look closer at the numbers if we wish to put it into context.

I use table 1.1.6 from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (available here) for this data.  Growth is cumulative over the time-period mentioned, rather than annual.  Also, Presidential terms do not perfectly correspond with fiscal years, so there is some slight approximation in these measures.

Economic growth after the 1st term, for recent Presidents:
    Clinton    13.97%   
    Carter    13.65%   
    Reagan    12.94%   
    Nixon    12.36%   
    Bush II    9.62%   
    Bush I    9.35%   
    Obama    4.29%   
   
Obama has just concluded his 5th year in office, so let us compare his total against other recent two-term Presidents after their 5th year:
    Clinton    19.08%   
    Nixon    18.70%   
    Reagan    17.73%   
    Bush II    13.29%   
    Obama    6.29%   

For comparison purposes, here are the totals for recent two-term Presidents after their 8th year:
    Clinton    35.74%   
    Reagan    31.38%   
    Nixon/Ford    24.20%   
    Bush II    18.05%   

Going further back, Truman's total was 9.6% at the end of his 8th year (that is, 1952 versus 1944).  So Obama will need 3.3% growth cumulative over the next 3 years to stay out of last place in the post-war era, and around 12% growth to pull out of last place among recent Presidents.

As you should know, the President has only an indirect influence on the economy.  The role of Congress is much more direct.  We may have a better understanding of these growth numbers if we consider them by Speaker of the House rather than by President.  The Speaker has no term of office, but we may generally consider a Speakership as being divided into one or more 2 year terms.

Here is economic growth for recent Speakers, after their first 2 years:
    O'Neil    10.43%   
    Hastert    9.14%   
    Wright    7.81%   
    Gingrich    6.62%   
    Foley    5.67%   
    Boehner    4.68%   
    Pelosi    1.49%   

John Boehner has just concluded his 3rd year as Speaker, so for comparison purposes let's look at the totals after 3 years.  Jim Wright did not complete a 3rd year, so he drops off the list:
    O'Neil    13.93%   
    Gingrich    11.40%   
    Hastert    10.17%   
    Boehner    6.68%   
    Foley    5.59%   
    Pelosi    -1.35%   

What is noticeable here is that the economy under Nancy Pelosi was not just bad, but outlier bad.  Pelosi served 4 years as Speaker, so let's compare her final total with the others:
    Gingrich    16.36%   
    O'Neil    13.65%   
    Hastert    12.13%   
    Foley    9.35%   
    Pelosi    1.20%   

Economic performance under Pelosi was prominently poor, and it is worth taking a closer look.  Pelosi was Speaker for two years of the Bush Administration, and for two years of the Obama Administration.  We can compare economic growth under these Presidents with and without Speaker Pelosi.  For comparison purposes we divide Presidential terms into blocks of two years:
    Bush – Hastert    (2001-2002)    2.74%
    Bush – Hastert    (2003-2004)    6.69%
    Bush – Hastert    (2005-2006)    6.11%
    Bush – Pelosi    (2007-2008)    1.49%
    Obama – Pelosi    (2009-2010)    -0.37%
    Obama – Boehner    (2011-2012)    4.68%

Both Presidents did at least moderately well without Pelosi, but did awful with Pelosi; while Pelosi did awful regardless of who was President.

The take away point would seem to be:  With regards to economic growth, it doesn't matter much which party the President belongs to, or which party the Speaker belongs to.  And it doesn't matter much if the President and Speaker are from the same party or different parties.  What matters most is whether or not the Speaker is Nancy Pelosi.

nonsense

I've noticed that, though 'complete nonsense that makes you feel good about yourself' is only a small subset of the broader category 'complete nonsense', almost all the nonsense people believe falls into that subset.

It's almost as if there was some non-random influence at work, determining what people believe.

sophistication

Sophistication is the ability to enjoy the full spectrum of life.

the process of politics

1. First, start with a delusional and utterly simplistic belief about how the world works.

2. Then, obtain political power so you can force the world to behave according to your theories.

3. Fulfill step 2 by using controls and regulations that force people to behave as if they were living in the world of your delusions, and not the world that actually exists.

4. When the world stubbornly refuses to behave the way your theories say it should, do not take this as proof that your theories are wrong; instead, assume it proves that you just need more power.

5. Eventually, the failure of your model becomes so severe that it is no longer sustainable. At this point, there is nothing left to do but to run around killing people.

unconceited II

Any world simple enough to be understood would be incapable of creating an intelligence capable of understanding it.

all properties are emergent properties

Argon does not have the property of having 18 protons in its atomic nucleus; 18 protons in the atomic nucleus have the property of being argon.

freedom from ideology

If you can generate meaning and value from within, it doesn't matter what sort of world you're living in.

safety: nuclear power versus poverty

• Number of deaths casued by Fukushima nuclear accident: 0

• Number of deaths caused by poverty since Fukushima accident, 2 days ago: 100,000

• Number of children killed by poverty since Fukushima accident, 2 days ago: 60,000

• Number of deaths immediately caused by nuclear power accidents ever: approximately 100

• Number of deaths attributed to exposure to radiation after Chernobyl accident: approximately 4000

• Including Chernobyl total, nuclear power has killed an average of 1 person every 4.5 days over the last 50 years.

• Poverty kills 225,000 people every 4.5 days.

• Poverty has proven itself to be 225,000 times more dangerous than nuclear power.

• If you are concerned about safety, you should be 225,000 times more concerned about poverty than about nuclear power.

dynamic

To be perfect is to be on the cusp of obsolescence.

educated

The difference between those who are schooled and those who are educated, is that those who are educated know the difference between those who are schooled and those who are educated.

aversion

The human mind is actively averse to things it is not prepared to understand.

practical problems of the Wikileaks model

An organization dedicated to exposing other people's secrets must itself be secretive, for at least three reasons:

1) To protect secrecy of the people who provide the organization with secrets. Otherwise people will be reluctant to provide them with leaks.

2) To protect themselves from retribution from aggrieved parties.

3) To protect the methods by which secret information is collected. Otherwise adversary organizations can anticipate and prepare against those methods.

Not only must such an organization be secretive, but it must also be more secretive than the organizations it goes after.

4) The tools it uses to gather secrets could be used to expose its own secrets.

5) To prevent this, it must have even more powerful tools to protect its secrets than it uses to expose the secrets of others.

6) The organization dedicated to exposing secrets must also become dedicated to developing powerful tools to protect secrets, so that it can preserve its own secrets, and continue operating.

It is unlikely they will preserve a monopoly on these powerful tools for protecting secrets. They would soon become generally available, so:

7) To operate, the organization must develop the tools that will make it impossible for it to operate.

Things I have learned

It's hard to predict the future. On the other hand, what else are you going to predict?

those who are ignorant of the future are condemned to precede it

Sometimes history repeats itself, sometimes the future precedes itself, and sometimes stuff just happens.

We focus our awareness on the few things we know explicitly. This solid, explicit knowledge is surrounded by a miasma of semi-awareness, things we vaguely know we don't know well. Beyond the miasma of semi-awareness is an infinite plasma of obliviousness, and it is there that most of the world happens.

unconceited

Any world simple enough to be understood would be too simple to do anything interesting.

how to be stupid

A good bullshit detector is like getting free IQ points.

A defective bullshit detector is like an intelligence offset. A lot of smart people are made functionally stupid by their willingness to believe bullshit.

Others are stupid to begin with, and don't need ideology to help get them there.

self-actualization in action

Having internalized the complete oeuvre of Dale Carnegie, and completed my set of Abraham Maslow action figures, I can now confidently say that my hierarchy of needs has been satisfied top to bottom, leaving me with no higher goal than the creation of my own prescriptive dictionary.

I know it is a bit of a cliche, but I am comfortable with that.

Let your blogging be better than silence

Having a forum does not imply that you have anything to say.