Is This The 1970s All Over?

[JWBooth]

If the rate is -3, -5, -8,-13, it is all still negative. In some cases the fall is not as rapid as in others, but it is still negative. How can an improvement be found among any of those numbers?

 

[rightwinger]

Another liberal who cannot read a graph.
Growth under Obama has not exceeded 3%.

I never realized just how bad conservatives are at math

Negative numbers are such an extreme concept. Negative 8 percent growth to positive 5 percent growth is an increase of 13 percent

W@ow. Aren't you at all embarrassed? The chart shows the change in GDP quarter to quarter. There is no change in GDP that exceeds about 3% under Obama.
You can now go kill yourself out of shame.

Negative 8 is still negative eight. It brings your GDP to a point lower than it was the quarter before. That was Obamas starting point. Obama had to INCREASE GDP 8% just to get to the point where Bush was before he fucked up the country

 

[The Rabbi]

I never realized just how bad conservatives are at math

Negative numbers are such an extreme concept. Negative 8 percent growth to positive 5 percent growth is an increase of 13 percent

W@ow. Aren't you at all embarrassed? The chart shows the change in GDP quarter to quarter. There is no change in GDP that exceeds about 3% under Obama.
You can now go kill yourself out of shame.

Negative 8 is still negative eight. It brings your GDP to a point lower than it was the quarter before. That was Obamas starting point. Obama had to INCREASE GDP 8% just to get to the point where Bush was before he fucked up the country

Can you please state what you think the chart is measuring?

 

[Toro]

I never realized just how bad conservatives are at math

Negative numbers are such an extreme concept. Negative 8 percent growth to positive 5 percent growth is an increase of 13 percent

Growth was never 13%. 8% is 8% and -5% is -5%. You don't add or subtract those numbers.

Also, we never grew by 6% per year under Bush. Those are quarter to quarter numbers annualized.

Year over year growth has risen by over 3% under Obama, particularly in the first and third quarters of 2012.

So lets get this straight

-8% growth is the same performance as 0% growth
If you move from negative 8% growth to five percent growth you have not increased 13%

No wonder economists have fucked up this country. How does an economist characterize the act of moving from a period of negative growth to positive growth?

First, the numbers are quarter to quarter annualized, ie -2% compared to the last quarter is a -8% annualized rate. If the next quarter is 5% annualized, that's a 1.25% quarter over quarter growth. If GDP is 100, then declines by 2% to 98, then grows by 1.25%, after two quarters, GDP will be 99.23, lower than it was two quarters ago.