"When did Americans decide that 1% or 2% economic growth is acceptable, that puny wage increases are inevitable, and that we should all merely shrug and get used to the country’s diminished expectations?
Those questions come to mind watching the desultory reactions to Thursday’s report that the U.S. economy grew by a meager 0.5% in the first quarter of 2016.
..President Obama didn’t comment on the first quarter, but the New York Times rolled out an interview with him Thursday, part of a larger apologia for his economic record, in which he offered this beauty: “I actually compare our economic performance to how, historically, countries that have wrenching financial crises perform. By that measure, we probably managed this better than any large economy on Earth in modern history.”Mr. Obama has already compared himself favorably to every President except Lyndon Johnson, FDR and Lincoln, so why fake humility in his home stretch?
The reality is that the first quarter is further evidence of what has been the weakest economic expansion in the postwar era.
...The American economy hasn’t grown by more than 3% since 2005 (3.3%), the longest such stretch of malaise that we can find in the Bureau of Economic analysis tables going back to 1930.
Even the Great Depression saw a snap back to rapid growth from 1934-1936..."
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