rpsoft 2000

PROFIT, 1990-2010

Graphs, Charts

From USA Data

Sources:  US Department of Commerce, group:  BEA (US Bureau of Analysis) for Income, Expense and Profit, DocStoc.com for Unemployment.  For references, see HERE.

FORWARD, and ANALYSIS

This raw information comes from the US records, US Department of Commerce, BEA as shown above.  Note that the US Department of Commerce gives figures that include all of federal, state and local, and not just federal.  This is my third update on this page.  What this shows me is that while it is quite hard to find the raw US official data, it is far harder to analyze it.  I have determined that it is harder to analyze since there are many factors.  Some periods have "peace in our time" and have an edge.  Other periods may have wars, or perhaps even worse, recessions.  Some of these issues are external to governments.  But even if not, is who controls Congress more important?  Or who controls the Presidency?  And if there are issues like recessions, then what did that group do to solve those issues and were they effective?  So it can get complex.  And yes one must work to be fair.  But here are a few things I believe I see in the below graphs:

• 1994-2000 With a Split Washington DC with Democrat Bill Clinton in office and a Republican Congress, they apparently worked well together and we had 6 of our best US years with low unemployment and profit rising to get the US to at least not add more debt.  Some people have given me their opinion that a split government is best, since checks and balances are then in place as our founders intended.
• The Republican versus Democratic thing?  The last ten years have been bad financial years for Americans.  Bush lost us about $5 trillion in added debt and Obama just over $3 trillion his first two years.  Of course Bush had four times as much time to lose money so that means Obama is losing it more than twice as fast.  And one could say that at least Bush was honest since during a book signing he said he knew nothing about finance.  Okay, got it.  But that was supposed to be what a cabinet is for - to advise.  But regardless of whose reasons we like the most, both lost money and drove the US into financial problems.
• 1994-2006 These years are mostly okay and do coincide with the Republican Congress being in office.  This makes me wonder if it is more important who is in charge of Congress rather than the President.
• Recessions - the most obvious ones are two in 2001:  the dot.com recession and 911, and the housing/mortgage recession in 2008.  These did influence the period above this comment and also the Bush years below it
• 2000-2008 - The Bush Years.  I am not going to claim that Bush was a financial genius, but what I see is that he received more criticism than he should.  He had two recessions at the start of his office in 2001, the dot.com recession and the 911 recession which affected travel.  I do not see how one could blame him for either of those fairly.  I do believe George Bush was often slow to take action, as during these recessions and also Katrina, but some of his techniques to me at least seem reasonable.  The Bush Tax cuts for the middle class and also "the rich" as some like to complain about, did work well between 2003 and 2007 even though some of his critics today claim the opposite. While some say giving tax breaks to the rich costs the US money, that is not in evidence as you can see from the Income/Expense graph that IRS income actually rose in that period well, and of course also the profit graph rose well which is really income-expense, as you might judge any business.
• WAR COSTS - Some people do claim that the Bush era was mainly huge losses due to war.  If you look at the graph, that is not in evidence.  Certainly there was a war cost but the Bush years in my opinion were mostly dominated by three recessions and then recession recovery.  Certainly the war costs added to push this graph downwards, but how much is hard to see. One would need more information.  However, I will make the statement that if someone claims the Bush years are due solely to war costs, that that is just wrong.  The graphs shows mostly recessions and recovery.
• BAILOUTS - This is for each taxpayer to decide.  But what I have learned recently is that while both TARP and STIMULUS are both bailouts, they have huge differences.  While many US taxpayers are against bailouts of any kind, some economists do try to tell us that if you have a run on the banks, some temporary money to stop a landslide and then banks going out of business is a good idea.  That is TARP.  TARP done by Bush was for the emergency of the run on banks and also was a loan.  As of this time, I understand that all of TARP has been repaid but about $150 billion, so that is not causing the major amount of our increasing US debt.  However, STIMULUS as done by Obama was not done for an emergency on a run on banks and was not a loan but money given away forever.  Its purpose was for those who believe in the Keynesian philosophy that during a recession throw money at the problem to stimulate the economy.  But the money left the US taxpayers and the unemployment remains at 10% or so.  I am certain that whoever wanted stimulus had good intentions.  But as a taxpayer I think it looks to me that unlike TARP, it did not work and was not a good idea.

View the below data, or skip ahead to another page for: profit -1969-1990 or profit 1947-1969 or profit 1929-2010