Thirty years ago, in 1982, I was employed as the Natural Resources Management Specialist at Colonial National Historical Park. To be truthful, I didn't know much about natural resource management, though I was trying to learn as much as possible. Only later did I find out I had been about the seventh choice for the job. I suppose they were scraping the bottom of the baril when they hired me.
At that time, the National Park Service decided that there should be a new General Management Plan for the park, an effort undertaken once about every twenty years that specifies what the park managers should do until the next management plan is made. Often as not, none of the management recommendations are implemented, so they could save a lot of time and effort by simply copying the old plan every twenty years and calling it new. Lack of money is the reason the plans don't get accomplished.
But in 1982 we all went through the exercise, talking about all the wonderful visitor services we could provide and management actions we could take if only there was any money to do so. Near the end of the whole process, there was a team meeting, almost a wrap-up session, and one of the planning professionals asked, "Is there a long-term problem we could be addressing here?"
I hadn't been invited to prior meetings, but was at the table for this one, and naively answered, "Well, Jamestown Island is actually sinking."
"Oh," said the planner, "Well, what about traffic congestion? Could we talk about that?"
Shortly afterward, I was called into the superintendent's office. It's almost never a good thing to be called into the superintendent's office, especially if the superintendent doesn't like you, and this one clearly didn't like me. (I know, I know, I might be the most likable person on the planet, but the sad fact is that there are people who just don't take to a fellow, no matter how much of a mensch he might be.)
Anyway, the superintendent didn't waste time on amenities, but asked me how I knew the island is sinking. I pointed out some minimal data and repeated what a geology professor had told me, that Jamestown is at the southern end of a tectonic plate stretching north to Pennsylvania and the plate is gradually tipping, lifting Philadelphia and sinking Virginia.
"Well," he said, "I didn't come here to preside over Jamestown sinking into the ocean. What are you going to do about it?"
This was one of those moments when it didn't pay to answer too quickly. But I was already on shaky ground with the man and figured I hadn't too much to lose. So I decided to just tell the unvarnished truth. "I suppose we could try to think of some way to jack up the island," I ventured. "It's completely unfeasible, of course. Or, we could build a kind of coffer dam around it to hold back the water. That would be an engineering project costing what, billions of dollars? Or, we could just take lots of photographs, document everything we can think of and let the island go."
I was dismissed from his office rather bruskly.
I left Colonial National Historical Park a few years later and retired from federal service in 1997. I don't think I've been back to Jamestown in the fifteen years since then. I would be curious, though, to see whether the shoreline is obviously different now, and what, if anything, the Park Service is doing about it.
That superintendent has gone to his reward. I'll bet there's been yet another General Management Plan in the years since 1982.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Monday, November 26, 2012
Jesus in History
Recently I read Bart D. Ehrman's book, Did Jesus Exist, subtitled The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. Ehrman is professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, and describes himself as a religious agnostic.
His approach to the question of Jesus' existence is as a professional historian. What are the sources that talk about Jesus, are they verifiable, immediate, and disinterested? For that matter, how do we know anything that supposedly happened in years gone by really did occur? Is it less reasonable to think Jesus existed than to believe Julius Caesar walked the earth, or Alexander the Great, or even further back in time, Hammurabi, or Ramses, or any of the other pharaohs? Do people who doubt Jesus was a flesh and blood man also question the existence of King David, or any other figure of antiquity?
The argument that there was a Jesus, viewed from a skeptical historical viewpoint relies on the multiplicity of the sources concerning him, at least one from a (more or less) Jewish writer, Josephus. Though Ehrman thinks Josephus' short paragraph about Jesus was doctored by Christians hundreds of years after it was first written, to affirm Jesus as the messiah, he does accept the bare bones of it as a recognition that there was a man named Jesus who lived in Galilee, was a wandering apocalyptic preacher, and who was executed by the Romans at the behest of the Jewish governing council, the Sanhedrin.
Reinforcing this, Ehrman points to Paul, who wrote that he tried to suppress the proto-Christian followers of Jesus, until his own conversion, which Ehrman says took place about 32 or 33 in the Common Era, that is only two or three years after Jesus' death. Paul claims he went to Jerusalem very shortly after that and spent two weeks with Cephus, meaning Peter, and James, the brother of Jesus. There his belief in Jesus as the messiah was confirmed.
Paul's writings constitute a substantial part of Ehrman's evidence about Jesus. Remember, he says, the epistles of Paul pre-date the gospels. They were written by a man who knew some of the followers of Jesus personally. (One biographer of Paul claims the "apostle of the gentiles" was a Pharisee, and might have been in Jerusalem at the time Jesus was put through his agonizing death. Perhaps he even witnessed it from afar.)
Another proof comes from the almost incontrovertible evidence that Pontius Pilate was a real person, and was the Roman prelate in Judea at the time Jesus was there. This lends at least some credence to the gospel stories.
Professor Ehrman spends considerable time in the book delving into the source documents for the gospel of Mark, the "Q" document and others now lost. He also cites the recent discoveries of other fragmentary gospels or collected sayings of Jesus which were discarded, or suppressed, by the early Christian leaders.
A last indication that Jesus lived is, ironically, his death. The Jewish vision of a messiah was as both a purifying prophet and a worldly king and conqueror who would chase away the unjust - that is the Romans - and would institute a new heavenly kingdom on earth. It hardly was seen as a man executed for alleged blasphemy. Crucifixion was a disgrace. To believe the messiah had died on a cross was a radical departure from the accepted idea of what he would be like. Nobody would make up such a thing.
I'm convinced. I personally never doubted that there was a Jesus. As my skepticism has grown through the years, I have come to dismiss the miracles, exorcisms and cures of the gospels, but the charismatic apocalyptic preacher Ehrman describes sounds very believable to me.
By the way, since it's Christmas season, Ehrman rains on our parade by saying he completely rejects the gospel accounts of Jesus' birth in Matthew and Luke. No choir of angels, no shepherds keeping watch, no kings/wisemen/magi, no virgin birth, no birth in Bethlehem for that matter. Ehrman says there is no evidence that Caesar Augustus ever conducted a census, therefore no reason for Joseph and Mary to go there.
In a previous post, I mentioned The Cherry Tree Carol, the first lines of which say, "When Joseph was an old man, an old man was he, he married virgin Mary, the queen of Galilee." Joseph's supposed greater age is used to explain the biblical references to Jesus' brothers as children from an earlier marriage. The other explanation is that in those days of extended families, cousins were called brothers. Neither argument seems very persuasive to me.
His approach to the question of Jesus' existence is as a professional historian. What are the sources that talk about Jesus, are they verifiable, immediate, and disinterested? For that matter, how do we know anything that supposedly happened in years gone by really did occur? Is it less reasonable to think Jesus existed than to believe Julius Caesar walked the earth, or Alexander the Great, or even further back in time, Hammurabi, or Ramses, or any of the other pharaohs? Do people who doubt Jesus was a flesh and blood man also question the existence of King David, or any other figure of antiquity?
The argument that there was a Jesus, viewed from a skeptical historical viewpoint relies on the multiplicity of the sources concerning him, at least one from a (more or less) Jewish writer, Josephus. Though Ehrman thinks Josephus' short paragraph about Jesus was doctored by Christians hundreds of years after it was first written, to affirm Jesus as the messiah, he does accept the bare bones of it as a recognition that there was a man named Jesus who lived in Galilee, was a wandering apocalyptic preacher, and who was executed by the Romans at the behest of the Jewish governing council, the Sanhedrin.
Reinforcing this, Ehrman points to Paul, who wrote that he tried to suppress the proto-Christian followers of Jesus, until his own conversion, which Ehrman says took place about 32 or 33 in the Common Era, that is only two or three years after Jesus' death. Paul claims he went to Jerusalem very shortly after that and spent two weeks with Cephus, meaning Peter, and James, the brother of Jesus. There his belief in Jesus as the messiah was confirmed.
Paul's writings constitute a substantial part of Ehrman's evidence about Jesus. Remember, he says, the epistles of Paul pre-date the gospels. They were written by a man who knew some of the followers of Jesus personally. (One biographer of Paul claims the "apostle of the gentiles" was a Pharisee, and might have been in Jerusalem at the time Jesus was put through his agonizing death. Perhaps he even witnessed it from afar.)
Another proof comes from the almost incontrovertible evidence that Pontius Pilate was a real person, and was the Roman prelate in Judea at the time Jesus was there. This lends at least some credence to the gospel stories.
Professor Ehrman spends considerable time in the book delving into the source documents for the gospel of Mark, the "Q" document and others now lost. He also cites the recent discoveries of other fragmentary gospels or collected sayings of Jesus which were discarded, or suppressed, by the early Christian leaders.
A last indication that Jesus lived is, ironically, his death. The Jewish vision of a messiah was as both a purifying prophet and a worldly king and conqueror who would chase away the unjust - that is the Romans - and would institute a new heavenly kingdom on earth. It hardly was seen as a man executed for alleged blasphemy. Crucifixion was a disgrace. To believe the messiah had died on a cross was a radical departure from the accepted idea of what he would be like. Nobody would make up such a thing.
I'm convinced. I personally never doubted that there was a Jesus. As my skepticism has grown through the years, I have come to dismiss the miracles, exorcisms and cures of the gospels, but the charismatic apocalyptic preacher Ehrman describes sounds very believable to me.
By the way, since it's Christmas season, Ehrman rains on our parade by saying he completely rejects the gospel accounts of Jesus' birth in Matthew and Luke. No choir of angels, no shepherds keeping watch, no kings/wisemen/magi, no virgin birth, no birth in Bethlehem for that matter. Ehrman says there is no evidence that Caesar Augustus ever conducted a census, therefore no reason for Joseph and Mary to go there.
In a previous post, I mentioned The Cherry Tree Carol, the first lines of which say, "When Joseph was an old man, an old man was he, he married virgin Mary, the queen of Galilee." Joseph's supposed greater age is used to explain the biblical references to Jesus' brothers as children from an earlier marriage. The other explanation is that in those days of extended families, cousins were called brothers. Neither argument seems very persuasive to me.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Getting Ready for Christmas
The Huffington Post has taken a timeout from discussing politics and religion to bring us someone's list of the fifteen greatest Christmas carols and hymns. Here they are, probably in no particular order, with presumed dates of composition.
Away In a Manger (1885)
The Holly and the Ivy (1710)
Ding Dong Merrily on High (1589)
Hark! the Herald Angels Sing (1739)
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear (1849)
Silent Night (1816)
The Twelve Days of Christmas (1842)
O Holy Night (1847)
Good King Wenceslas (1853)
Once in Royal David's City (1848)
The First Noel (1800)
O Come All Ye Faithful (1751)
I Saw Three Ships (1700)
We Wish You a Merry Christmas (1640)
Joy to the World (1719)
Well, that's the list. It struck me looking at it that there's a heavy emphasis on carols written in the nineteenth century, and especially the 1840's. That's also the decade that gave us Clement Moore's poem "A Visit from Saint Nicholas," and Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," which together revolutionized the modern Christmas holiday. There are six carols that were sung prior to the 1800's, and no twentieth century Christmas songs on the list.
As a boy, I was told that Martin Luther composed "Away in a Manger," and therefore it was not something a good Catholic could enjoy. I assume the church is well past such parochialism by now, or further research has proved Luther was not its author.
Some songs had to be left off the list, of course. Among the earlier Christmas carols, they might have included "The Coventry Carol," or "The Cherry Tree Carol." The "Cherry Tree" includes the interesting idea that Joseph was much older than Mary, thereby explaining the references to Jesus' brothers in the Bible as Joseph's children from a first marriage. More on that some other day.
Two nineteenth century carols that didn't make this reviewer's cut are "We Three Kings," and "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." Just as an aside, Simon and Garfunkel did a very nice a capella version of "Gentlemen" on one of their albums. You can probably find it on the Internet.
Most of these carols celebrate the birth of Jesus. "The Holly," and "The Twelve Days" do not, and "I Saw Three Ships" somehow puts Jesus and "his lady," meaning his mother, on a boat. This isn't the case with more recent Christmas songs, however. There were some lovely Christmas songs in the first half of the century, most especially "White Christmas," and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." The latter has a very wistful quality associated with soldiers missing from the Christmas holidays and the people they love, lonely at home.
Even more recently - in my own lifetime - are the children's songs, "Frosty the Snowman," and "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," that completely ignore the religious celebration of Christmas. Descending into what must be called God-awful songs, the last decade or two have given us "Grandma Got Run Over. . .," and "I Want a Hippopotamus. . . ."
Last year's Paul Simon song, "Getting Ready for Christmas," is several cuts above those, and provided the title for my little post, but it probably won't endure.
Every generation re-invents the Christmas holiday. New customs are adopted and older ones often fade away. We don't eat figgy pudding or dance reels on Christmas eve as young Ebenezer Scrooge did, and our 2012 way of keeping Christmas will undoubtedly seem quaint to our children and grandchildren, and so be it.
At my house, when I was a boy, Christmas was a time of some tension and an annual contest between my parents. Though my father thought the expression "Keep Christ in Christmas" was trite, he was determined not to let the whole Santa Claus aspect of the season overshadow Christmas mass. My mother, on the other hand, liked the whole secular part of Christmas, and wanted us to have the toys and games that dad disapproved of. The two concepts are intertwined to a point where one always seems to diminish the other, and the culture as a whole always seems to win. Dad retreated with what good grace he could muster, even trying to smile as we tore into Christmas packages very early on Christmas morning and had to be dragged away from the tree for breakfast and church.
Years later I suggested that gifts be exchanged on Christmas eve or Christmas afternoon and Christmas dinner might be eaten at the same times so Christmas morning could be devoted to church. He seemed to like the idea, so I'll pass it along to those of you who have children in the house.
And now, happy Thanksgiving, avoid all stores on Friday, and begin getting ready for Christmas.
Oh, by the way, Meav, one of the Celtic women, does a very pretty "Silent Night" with the lyrics in Gaelic. It's really worth finding.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Socialism
My daughter posted recently on Facebook concerning the recent election and its aftermath, and was roundly condemned as a SOCIALIST (the reader's capitalization) by one of her readers. Briefly I was quite angry about the characterization, but then decided to just consider the source.
It got me thinking about how I treated socialism and communism when I was teaching western civilization. What follows is a short summary of what I said.
At about the beginning of the nineteenth century, a movement began in Europe and spread to the United States that came to be called Utopian Socialism. These Utopians believed that communal living was the most likely way to produce happiness and prosperity. Here in America, the best remembered of the communes was New Harmony Indiana. Work there was to be done willingly according to the skills of the residents, and proceeds were to be shared according to individual needs as determined by the community. In most communes, people lived in family apartments or separate houses but usually ate communally and spent leisure time together. There probably was daycare for small children.
Outsiders often despised them. Part of the reason may have been the way in which the communes approached self-sufficiency, at least in staples, but I think what really got the goat of neighbors was suspicion about the sexual activities that might have been taking place in the communes. (That's also a large part of what caused the animosity between the early Mormons and their neighbors, but that's another story.)
These communes didn't last very long, by and large. Arguments about workloads and distribution of resources, coupled perhaps to the propensity of people living and working together to form romantic liaisons, brought them down.
By the 1840's they were mostly gone. That didn't mean, however, that people weren't still in favor of a more just distribution of the rewards of life. The hereditary aristocracies of Europe, along with the newly rich capitalists there and in America, were clearly taking the lion's share of the wealth created by laboring people.
Enter Karl Marx, a German who spent most of his life in England, working away on his analysis of economic history, living in poverty, supported in part by Friedrich Engels. Marx insisted that his interpretation was scientific, and he regarded the Utopian Socialists as foolish dreamers. According to Marx, history was moving inexorably towards real democracy. In the dim past, humanity was ruled by tyrants, but gradually a noble class had arisen which forced the absolute monarchs to share power and economic rewards with them. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, economic power had been seized to a large extent by a new class of entrepreneurs - capitalists - who further democratized things. It remained only for the proletariat - workers - to finally widen the economic democracy by seizing the resources of the earth and the man-made means of exploiting them. Then a great new day would begin in which everyone would share the fruits of labor, from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.
But of course the current possessors of wealth would not surrender peacefully, so a violent revolution would be needed. This, Marx seemed to believe, would not have to be protracted or very bloody. Until then, the resources would inevitably be concentrated into fewer and fewer hands as businesspeople were squeezed out of the middle class (read bourgeoisie) into the ranks of the workers.
Marx defended his theory tirelessly. Anyone who offered any adjustments to it was attacked vociferously. Still, as years passed, many people who accepted parts of Marx's analysis started to reject parts as well. Most particularly, socialist parties rose in Europe that believed in Marx but not in violent revolution. Socialist success would come through political organization leading to victory at the ballot box. Some of these people were ready to take whatever little triumphs they could, winning improved conditions for working people gradually. By the early years of the twentieth century they were a force to be reckoned with in European politics.
I won't go into the Russian socialists and communists here, except to say that Lenin turned Marx on his head with his theory of a "vanguard of the proletariat," and that revolution could come first in a comparatively backward country like Russia. (In fact by Lenin's day there was a large class of urban working people in Russia.)
Well, I would ask my students, what do you think? Do you see our own country as a place where wealth is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands which care only about monopolizing resources, or do you see opportunities for clever people to prosper in ways that the financial oligarchs never anticipated?
And that's about it. I'm just left wondering if my daughter's critic knows any of this or is just throwing out an epithet for someone he disagrees with.
It got me thinking about how I treated socialism and communism when I was teaching western civilization. What follows is a short summary of what I said.
At about the beginning of the nineteenth century, a movement began in Europe and spread to the United States that came to be called Utopian Socialism. These Utopians believed that communal living was the most likely way to produce happiness and prosperity. Here in America, the best remembered of the communes was New Harmony Indiana. Work there was to be done willingly according to the skills of the residents, and proceeds were to be shared according to individual needs as determined by the community. In most communes, people lived in family apartments or separate houses but usually ate communally and spent leisure time together. There probably was daycare for small children.
Outsiders often despised them. Part of the reason may have been the way in which the communes approached self-sufficiency, at least in staples, but I think what really got the goat of neighbors was suspicion about the sexual activities that might have been taking place in the communes. (That's also a large part of what caused the animosity between the early Mormons and their neighbors, but that's another story.)
These communes didn't last very long, by and large. Arguments about workloads and distribution of resources, coupled perhaps to the propensity of people living and working together to form romantic liaisons, brought them down.
By the 1840's they were mostly gone. That didn't mean, however, that people weren't still in favor of a more just distribution of the rewards of life. The hereditary aristocracies of Europe, along with the newly rich capitalists there and in America, were clearly taking the lion's share of the wealth created by laboring people.
Enter Karl Marx, a German who spent most of his life in England, working away on his analysis of economic history, living in poverty, supported in part by Friedrich Engels. Marx insisted that his interpretation was scientific, and he regarded the Utopian Socialists as foolish dreamers. According to Marx, history was moving inexorably towards real democracy. In the dim past, humanity was ruled by tyrants, but gradually a noble class had arisen which forced the absolute monarchs to share power and economic rewards with them. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, economic power had been seized to a large extent by a new class of entrepreneurs - capitalists - who further democratized things. It remained only for the proletariat - workers - to finally widen the economic democracy by seizing the resources of the earth and the man-made means of exploiting them. Then a great new day would begin in which everyone would share the fruits of labor, from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.
But of course the current possessors of wealth would not surrender peacefully, so a violent revolution would be needed. This, Marx seemed to believe, would not have to be protracted or very bloody. Until then, the resources would inevitably be concentrated into fewer and fewer hands as businesspeople were squeezed out of the middle class (read bourgeoisie) into the ranks of the workers.
Marx defended his theory tirelessly. Anyone who offered any adjustments to it was attacked vociferously. Still, as years passed, many people who accepted parts of Marx's analysis started to reject parts as well. Most particularly, socialist parties rose in Europe that believed in Marx but not in violent revolution. Socialist success would come through political organization leading to victory at the ballot box. Some of these people were ready to take whatever little triumphs they could, winning improved conditions for working people gradually. By the early years of the twentieth century they were a force to be reckoned with in European politics.
I won't go into the Russian socialists and communists here, except to say that Lenin turned Marx on his head with his theory of a "vanguard of the proletariat," and that revolution could come first in a comparatively backward country like Russia. (In fact by Lenin's day there was a large class of urban working people in Russia.)
Well, I would ask my students, what do you think? Do you see our own country as a place where wealth is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands which care only about monopolizing resources, or do you see opportunities for clever people to prosper in ways that the financial oligarchs never anticipated?
And that's about it. I'm just left wondering if my daughter's critic knows any of this or is just throwing out an epithet for someone he disagrees with.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Wildlife
Kris and I went for a short hike this afternoon at the state park near our home. We made it an easy walk, as the weather is cold and the sky is overcast today. We had a little bit of snow this morning, though it melted off quickly, as November snows will. There were a few prairie dogs out and we saw two deer as we were leaving, but it was largely uneventful.
As we were driving into the park, however, Kris told me that a mountain lion was spotted in the park last week. This big cat was near two of the hiking trails - not the ones we were on - and that it's the first time a lion was seen at such a low elevation since the park was established in 2006. We speculated a bit, thinking it might be a young animal who has just left its mother and is trying to establish a home range.
Neither of us has ever seen a mountain lion in the wild. It would be the event of the year for us to do so. Kris has seen at least one bobcat in the park, but I've never seen one of those either. In fact, she's ahead of me in spotting bears, eagles and several other species here in Colorado.
I try not to be jealous.
Earlier this week, though, on another much longer hike I took by myself, I did see a yearling mule deer buck. It was a two-pointer the way we count the antler points here in the west, and it didn't seem at all concerned about me. In fact, it let me get within about five feet of it. In all the tromping around Jamestown Island I did when I worked for the National Park Service, I never was able to get so close to a living wild deer. I almost could reach out and touch it.
So now we're home for the rest of the afternoon, flopping, and looking forward to a quiet evening together as old married people do. Here's hoping your evening will be as tranquil and as happy.
As we were driving into the park, however, Kris told me that a mountain lion was spotted in the park last week. This big cat was near two of the hiking trails - not the ones we were on - and that it's the first time a lion was seen at such a low elevation since the park was established in 2006. We speculated a bit, thinking it might be a young animal who has just left its mother and is trying to establish a home range.
Neither of us has ever seen a mountain lion in the wild. It would be the event of the year for us to do so. Kris has seen at least one bobcat in the park, but I've never seen one of those either. In fact, she's ahead of me in spotting bears, eagles and several other species here in Colorado.
I try not to be jealous.
Earlier this week, though, on another much longer hike I took by myself, I did see a yearling mule deer buck. It was a two-pointer the way we count the antler points here in the west, and it didn't seem at all concerned about me. In fact, it let me get within about five feet of it. In all the tromping around Jamestown Island I did when I worked for the National Park Service, I never was able to get so close to a living wild deer. I almost could reach out and touch it.
So now we're home for the rest of the afternoon, flopping, and looking forward to a quiet evening together as old married people do. Here's hoping your evening will be as tranquil and as happy.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
The Motley Economy
Morgan Housel, the "Motley Fool," has published an article in which he rates the most recent nineteen presidents - that is from Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama - on five economic criteria.Here are his ratings, with some commentary of my own. Statistics for October 2012 are not included.
1. Best president for stock market performance. Stocks went up more rapidly when Calvin Coolidge was president than for any other president on the list. Stocks averaged a 29.1 % growth rate during his tenure, easily outdistancing the runner-up, Gerald Ford, whose time in office saw stock market gains of 16.7%. Barack Obama is fourth at 15.2%.
Presidents, the Fool reminds us, are often given too much credit when the economy improves and take too much blame when things go badly. In that light, it's interesting to note that the worst stock market performance occurred when Coolidge's successor, Herbert Hoover, was in office, pursuing the same economic policies as Coolidge had.
President Obama's statistics are clearly improved by the steep market decline near the end of the Bush era of comparative laissez-faire.
2. Corporate profits. Readers might be surprised to find that corporate profits have been higher during the Obama presidency than at any time since 1901.
The Motley Fool notes, "A word here: Corporate profits were incredibly depressed from the financial crisis in January 2009, when President Obama entered office. That low starting point makes growth through today look massive. If, instead of January 2009, you use January 2008 profit levels as a starting base, average annual corporate profit growth under President Obama is 6.8%." Even allowing that, however, places Obama fifth among the nineteen presidents.
The two presidents Bush ranked seventeenth and eighteenth.
3. Real GDP per capita. Here President Obama did not do so well, ranking eleventh with a growth rate of 1.4%. The leader by a rather large margin was another Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt. Like Obama, Roosevelt inherited a financial crisis, but unlike Obama, Roosevelt also was president during a major war that undoubtedly spurred income growth and productivity. Interestingly, second place on this list went to the now largely forgotten Warren Harding, also the beneficiary of a wartime boom.
The top ten split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, including Jimmy Carter in ninth position. The Bushes, father and son, are near the bottom of the list again. Only two presidents had negative growth, Theodore Roosevelt at -0.4% and Herbert Hoover at -8.2%
4. Inflation. Here a high number is not a good number. The president whose term experienced the highest inflation rate was Jimmy Carter, at 10.1% annually. To be sure, presidents must cope with all kinds of problems that affect the inflation rate. Wars, severe weather, depletion of resources or discovery of new resources are all largely outside the control of any president.
Having said that, the inflation rate during the Obama term is 2.2%. Economists mostly agree that some inflation is a desirable thing, if only to make things a little easier for debtors and as a way off making deflation less likely. Deflation, they say, is much worse than inflation, in that it shuts down bank lending and crushes debtors under the double burden of paying off loans that carry interest with money that becomes more and more valuable. The Obama rate comes just between Bush the Younger at 2.3% and Theodore Roosevelt at 2.0. There actually was deflation during the 1920's with Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover. President Nixon, who was almost obsessive in his stated desire to fight inflation, saw an average annual rate of 6.2%.
5. The unemployment rate. Mitt Romney has based much of his candidacy this year on the unemployment problem, but statistics indicate the unemployment rate at the end of September 2012 is exactly the same as it was in January 2009 when Barack Obama took office. Eight presidents saw a falling unemployment rate during their terms and nine presided during years when the unemployment rate went up. Once again, Franklin Roosevelt had the best record, but his performance must be mentioned in the context of the terrible situation he inherited and World War II, when there was virtually full employment.
Holding the line at 7.8% as President Obama has done, might not seem like much of an achievement, but as the campaign ads claim, the economy was contracting drastically in January 2009. It rocketed up to 10% within a few months. That being the case, it's clear that the unemployment rate has been falling slowly during the last three years of the Obama term.
Unemployment is a lagging economic indicator. Employers don't hire until existing inventories are nearly all gone and cash on hand is growing. Both the stock markets and the corporate profit rates indicate that has about happened now. Whoever wins the presidential election can expect a lower unemployment rate next year. A simple look around at the increasing construction pace confirms it.
So, how do we sum up? I'll do it in one sentence. There really is no economic case for replacing President Obama.
1. Best president for stock market performance. Stocks went up more rapidly when Calvin Coolidge was president than for any other president on the list. Stocks averaged a 29.1 % growth rate during his tenure, easily outdistancing the runner-up, Gerald Ford, whose time in office saw stock market gains of 16.7%. Barack Obama is fourth at 15.2%.
Presidents, the Fool reminds us, are often given too much credit when the economy improves and take too much blame when things go badly. In that light, it's interesting to note that the worst stock market performance occurred when Coolidge's successor, Herbert Hoover, was in office, pursuing the same economic policies as Coolidge had.
President Obama's statistics are clearly improved by the steep market decline near the end of the Bush era of comparative laissez-faire.
2. Corporate profits. Readers might be surprised to find that corporate profits have been higher during the Obama presidency than at any time since 1901.
The Motley Fool notes, "A word here: Corporate profits were incredibly depressed from the financial crisis in January 2009, when President Obama entered office. That low starting point makes growth through today look massive. If, instead of January 2009, you use January 2008 profit levels as a starting base, average annual corporate profit growth under President Obama is 6.8%." Even allowing that, however, places Obama fifth among the nineteen presidents.
The two presidents Bush ranked seventeenth and eighteenth.
3. Real GDP per capita. Here President Obama did not do so well, ranking eleventh with a growth rate of 1.4%. The leader by a rather large margin was another Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt. Like Obama, Roosevelt inherited a financial crisis, but unlike Obama, Roosevelt also was president during a major war that undoubtedly spurred income growth and productivity. Interestingly, second place on this list went to the now largely forgotten Warren Harding, also the beneficiary of a wartime boom.
The top ten split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, including Jimmy Carter in ninth position. The Bushes, father and son, are near the bottom of the list again. Only two presidents had negative growth, Theodore Roosevelt at -0.4% and Herbert Hoover at -8.2%
4. Inflation. Here a high number is not a good number. The president whose term experienced the highest inflation rate was Jimmy Carter, at 10.1% annually. To be sure, presidents must cope with all kinds of problems that affect the inflation rate. Wars, severe weather, depletion of resources or discovery of new resources are all largely outside the control of any president.
Having said that, the inflation rate during the Obama term is 2.2%. Economists mostly agree that some inflation is a desirable thing, if only to make things a little easier for debtors and as a way off making deflation less likely. Deflation, they say, is much worse than inflation, in that it shuts down bank lending and crushes debtors under the double burden of paying off loans that carry interest with money that becomes more and more valuable. The Obama rate comes just between Bush the Younger at 2.3% and Theodore Roosevelt at 2.0. There actually was deflation during the 1920's with Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover. President Nixon, who was almost obsessive in his stated desire to fight inflation, saw an average annual rate of 6.2%.
5. The unemployment rate. Mitt Romney has based much of his candidacy this year on the unemployment problem, but statistics indicate the unemployment rate at the end of September 2012 is exactly the same as it was in January 2009 when Barack Obama took office. Eight presidents saw a falling unemployment rate during their terms and nine presided during years when the unemployment rate went up. Once again, Franklin Roosevelt had the best record, but his performance must be mentioned in the context of the terrible situation he inherited and World War II, when there was virtually full employment.
Holding the line at 7.8% as President Obama has done, might not seem like much of an achievement, but as the campaign ads claim, the economy was contracting drastically in January 2009. It rocketed up to 10% within a few months. That being the case, it's clear that the unemployment rate has been falling slowly during the last three years of the Obama term.
Unemployment is a lagging economic indicator. Employers don't hire until existing inventories are nearly all gone and cash on hand is growing. Both the stock markets and the corporate profit rates indicate that has about happened now. Whoever wins the presidential election can expect a lower unemployment rate next year. A simple look around at the increasing construction pace confirms it.
So, how do we sum up? I'll do it in one sentence. There really is no economic case for replacing President Obama.
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