by From David Ruccio source Niall Ferguson, Harvard’s incorrectly political ignorant gay-bashing bloviating right-wing infotainment war-crimes-apologist historian, finally gets something right. In explaining the “fight isn’t going as planned” for Hillary Clinton, Ferguson writes: Last week, Clinton’s supporters seized on new economic data from the Census Bureau showing that median household income rose by more than 5 percent in real terms last year. Poverty is down. So is the number of Americans without health insurance. So is unemployment. All this seems like grist to the mill of a campaign that essentially promises continuity. Yet there is a problem. Take another look at those figures for inflation-adjusted median household income. Yes, it was ,500 last year, up from ,700 the year before. But back in 1999 it was ,909. In other words, it’s been a round trip — and a very bumpy one indeed — since Clinton’s husband was in the White House. Telling Americans that they are nearly back to where they were 17 years ago and then expecting them to be grateful looks like a losing strategy. When two thirds of Americans — and even higher percentage of older white voters — say the country is on the wrong track, they are not (as Democrats claim) in denial about the Obama administration’s achievements.
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from David Ruccio
Niall Ferguson, Harvard’s incorrectly political ignorant gay-bashing bloviating right-wing infotainment war-crimes-apologist historian, finally gets something right.
In explaining the “fight isn’t going as planned” for Hillary Clinton, Ferguson writes:
Last week, Clinton’s supporters seized on new economic data from the Census Bureau showing that median household income rose by more than 5 percent in real terms last year. Poverty is down. So is the number of Americans without health insurance. So is unemployment.
All this seems like grist to the mill of a campaign that essentially promises continuity. Yet there is a problem. Take another look at those figures for inflation-adjusted median household income. Yes, it was $56,500 last year, up from $53,700 the year before. But back in 1999 it was $57,909. In other words, it’s been a round trip — and a very bumpy one indeed — since Clinton’s husband was in the White House.
Telling Americans that they are nearly back to where they were 17 years ago and then expecting them to be grateful looks like a losing strategy. When two thirds of Americans — and even higher percentage of older white voters — say the country is on the wrong track, they are not (as Democrats claim) in denial about the Obama administration’s achievements. They are saying that the country is on a circular track, and has been since this century began.
Not surprising given his track record, Ferguson gets the rest wrong—arguing, for example, that one kind of stimulus (Trump’s proposed tax cuts for the wealthy) will work while the other kind of stimulus (Clinton’s government expenditures on infrastructure) won’t.
But his major observation about the failure of the Clinton strategy—that “Telling Americans that they are nearly back to where they were 17 years ago and then expecting them to be grateful”—is substantially correct.