We seem to forget just how bad the situation in this country was prior to the election of Barack Obama. While the economy is far from where we’d like it to be, the notion that the various measures taken by Bush, Obama and the Federal Reserve have not helped is self-evident nonsense. Bush’s TARP, Obama’s stimulus package, the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented actions, and myriad other steps taken by the government halted what had been an economic collapse of historic proportions. Make no mistake, another Great Depression was looming.
I’ll offer some charts over the next few days as a reminder of just how close to the precipice this nation came and just how far we have come since. Today, I note the fact that GDP was collapsing at an 8.9% annual rate by the fourth quarter of 2008 before government action did the yeoman’s work of lifting the economy back above water.
