Scott Brinton

Thank you, Mr. President. A thousand times, thank you.

Posted

I recall the fear that I felt in 2008, in the waning days of George W. Bush’s presidency.

The economy was in free-fall. Wall Street was enmeshed in a paralytic downturn not seen since the Great Depression of 1929. The real estate market collapsed, sending home prices plummeting. And the job losses numbered in the tens of thousands, month after month, through 2009.

I wondered whether I would be next to be laid off. I knew many journalist friends and acquaintances who had lost their jobs or were forced into early retirement –– highly successful reporters and editors who were here one day and gone the next. The newspaper industry, we were told, was dying.

I remember attending one New York Press Association conference in Saratoga Springs at which the keynote speaker, from the Associated Press, all but predicted the demise of newspapers in short order.

Yes, the internet, where news could be had for free (even if it was inaccurate), played a part in newspapers’ existential crisis. At the heart of it, though, the trouble was simpler: Businesses had no money to buy display ads, which fund newspaper operations.

I wondered how I would stay afloat if I lost my job. How would I keep a roof over my family members’ heads? Day in, day out, I watched my kids’ 529 college savings accounts and my 401(k) retirement plan evaporating, until they had lost nearly half their value. How would I send my children to college? Would I ever be able to retire?

These weren’t hypothetical questions. They were very real concerns, not only for me, but also for tens of millions of Americans at work in any number of industries. There was no time to think. You could only do –– and hope. Our collective sense of desperation was visceral.

Not until 2011 did we begin to truly digest what had happened. Writing for the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Monthly Labor Review that year, Christopher Goodman and Steven Mance noted, “Virtually no area of the economy remained unscathed from the December 2007 to June 2009 recession, particularly the labor market.

“The already-weak economy was jolted by financial market turmoil in fall 2008,” they continued. “The impact on employment was immediate and severe, with monthly job losses spiking to among the highest on record. At its lowest point, February 2010, U.S. employment had declined by 8.8 million from its prerecession peak.”

Even after the economy started to sputter back to life during President Obama’s first two years in office –– after he implemented a series of highly complex stop-gap measures to end the bleeding –– job creation was inconsistent. One month, employment was up, and the next, it was down.

Then the Obama Economy took hold. The tables turned in 2010. The monthly jobs report was no longer in negative territory. Now, month after month, there were gains in employment –– until 16 million new jobs had been created in two Obama terms.

Last month, as the presidential election and its aftermath roiled the nation, the economy kept chugging along, adding 178,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That brought the unemployment rate down to 4.6 percent –– the lowest in nine years.

Congratulations, Mr. President. You fulfilled your solemn promise to the American people to right the ship. You brought the unemployment rate to a level that was, frankly, unimaginable in 2008, 2009 and even 2010.

There are, of course, the detractors who say it’s merely a cyclical thing. No, no, no –– a thousand times, no!

Economies do indeed run in cycles. If properly managed, however, an economy as strong and vibrant as America’s should never just collapse. Surely there will be periods of stagnation, but a free-fall? No.

The economic crisis of 2008-09 was the product of overspending — on the part of both the government and the American people –– coupled with loose financial regulation. President Bush wasn’t entirely to blame. He didn’t force people to buy McMansions and Hummers that they couldn’t afford if not for “creative financing.” But Bush set the stage for overindulgence by overtly encouraging folks to spend, spend, spend, while loosening regulations intended to prevent the economy from overheating.

The result: The economy crashed and burned.

In 2009, Obama immediately appointed a number of the world’s greatest financial gurus to his cabinet, and together they quickly restored order to a chaotic economy.

Whether you believe it or not, all of us owe a debt of gratitude to Obama. In 2009, our nation’s economy teetered above a steep precipice. It could have easily fallen into a deep depression the likes of which hadn’t been seen since 1929. But it didn’t.

Instead, the economy came back to life. And, the Rust Belt aside, perhaps, that rebound has benefited almost all of us. There is no doubt that as a nation, we are far better off than we were eight years ago –– at least from an economic standpoint.

Scott Brinton is the Herald Community Newspapers’ executive editor and an adjunct professor at the Hofstra University Herbert School of Communication. Comments about this column? SBrinton@liherald.com.