Now, I am not an economist but wouldn't it be almost impossible to untangle causation here? Because the economy would run in cycles irregardless of which party is in power, and voters would react accordingly; so a party could get voted out on the basis of a normal cyclical downturn, and voted in (or back in) on the strength of a economy they had nothing to do with. And let's not forget about long-term effects like research: how should we credit the boom of the 90's? To Clinton? But the web was invented when Bush I was in office. Or to Al Gore? Or to Reagan? After all, a lot of enabling research was during Reagan's tenancy. But then again, the Internet and networking was started around the 60's. Which president should we thank there? And so on... The bottom line Rob is, you'd probably be better off seeking a metric with a higher correlation and less complex feedback.\
~Maru On 5/2/05, Robert J. Chassell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Here is a question that Dan Minette may be able to answer quickly. > > My goal is to get some grasp of the consequences of long term policies > by the two major US political parties. > > A while back, Dan figured out the rate of measured economic growth in > each US political administration, excluding the first two years. By > excluding the first two years he avoided effects from the policies of > a previous administration. Thus, the rate of growth for the > Republican Eisenhower adminstration was determined for 1954 - 1960 and > for the Democratic Kennedy/Johnson administration was for 1962 - 1968, > counting those years inclusively. > > Please start with the measured income of the US in 1948, or from > another base year for which information is readily available, perhaps > 1928, but no more recent than 1952. The idea here is to generalize > beyond short term actions and look at long term trends and policies. > > (Also, please use year 2000 dollars, or something like that in order > to enable people to exclude non-relevant price changes. In addition > please use median per capta US income rather than the average per > capta US income. As various people, especially Republicans, point > out, above a minimum, people appear to be more concerned with relative > income than absolute income.) > > * What would be the current GDP and median per capta US at the > growth rate that Republican administrations achieved historically? > Presume they were the only administration in power since 1948 (or > whatever is the base year) and that they succeeded economically as > well as they did. > > * What would be the current GDP and median per capta US at the > growth rate that Democratic administrations achieved historically? > Presume they were the only administration in power since 1948 (or > whatever is the base year) and that they succeeded economically as > well as they did. > > * And for comparison, what is the actual current GDP and median per > capta US income? > > -- > Robert J. Chassell _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
