There’s only one thing I hate more than being wrong…and that’s admitting being wrong.

A couple of weeks ago, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released the latest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) findings, confirming what all the doomsayers have been saying for the past nine months. The 4th Quarter GDP findings for 2008 is that the GDP decreased (was down) 5.8 points AND the 1st Quarter GDP findings for 2009 is that the GDP was down 3.5 points. Thus, by definition, the GDP being down for two or more consecutive quarters, indicates a recession. This is the first recession in U.S.  history in 51 years (1957Q4 to 1958Q1) .

Generally, there are two trains of thought regarding under which president what economic boost/recession occurs so, here they are: Republicans believe that what they do while in office affects the future economy; thus, republicans explain away any bad economic terribleness that occurs during their term and take credit for anything good afterwards. While Democrats believe that what they do in office affects the present economy, thus taking credit for anything good during and ignoring anything bad before and after. However, I am of a third, what happened in the past influences the future, but only for the number of years a president is in office in quarters after he leaves office, e.i, President Franklin Roosevelt served 12 years, thus, he’s responsible for 12 quarters after his exodus from office .

Here’s what that breaks down to, from 1953-today, the best economic presidents in order are:

1.     President Jimmy Carter (D) >> 186.8
2.     President Ronald Reagan (R) >> 126
3.     President Gerald Ford (R) >> 116.6
4.     President Lyndon Johnson (D) >> 102
5.     President Dwight Eisenhower (R) >> 88.4
6.     President Richard Nixon (R) >> 88.3
7.      President Bill Clinton (D) >> 78.4
8.     President George H. W. Bush (R) >> 78
9.     President George W. Bush (R) >> 62.1
10.   President John Kennedy (D) >> 27.1

Now, an argument might be made that it’s not fair that Kennedy is last since he was assassinated; based upon my assumption, he only affected four quarters. Yet, that argument is valid still! So, dropping him from the list, President George W. Bush is the WORST PRESIDENT EVER, at least economically (I’m not going into the political, social, and moral crap, ’cause all that’s subjective), and still, there’s 7 quarters that we’ve yet to consider so if the economy keeps going craptastic, thank President Bush.

Historically, Republicans had the most positive influence nearly doubling that of Democrats but there’ve been 50% more of ‘em too, so normalizing for that, Republicans only performed 10% better, or 2% better per president, but then, Carter nearly 50% better than the next best…a Republican.

Anyway, all of this is to say…recessions suck…and I hate being wrong…you’d think by being married I’d be used it by now, eh?

Woot! I’ve been at The Shaw Group for three months! HOT DAWG! Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system. I guess I never really thought I’d be doing a job that I actually enjoy and getting paid to do it. It’s quite rewarding to have persevered through the crap I put up with working at Wal-Mart and the never-getting-to-see-my-wife terribleness of working at FedEx to land the job that I have. Granted, it’s not a perfect job, there’s a lot of beaureaucratic BS that goes on that stems from the relics/legacies/management of yesteryear who haven’t quite made it into the 20th century yet. Yes, I said 20th century; that’s how far behind some of the things that go on are. I guess that’s just something that I’ll deal with since every company/coorporation seems to have it. For example, while I was working at Wal-Mart, my supervisor asked me, “So you’re pulling from the bins before pulling from the pallets, right?” I replied, “Yes, of course.” To which my supervisor replied, “‘Cause that’s what we do here.” And I’m thinking, “No kidding! As I recall, it was ME who went to your supervisor since you are unable to get my coworkers to actually rotate the stock, as I do, since you claim, ‘we are working on it’ even though this should have been something instilled in my co-workers from day one, retroactive training isn’t exactly effective.” Of course, when I did bring it up with his supervisor, I was told “You’ve been working here, what, two months? Your supervisor has been doing this for two years.” WHO CARES?! Nevermind my 10, YES TEN, years of experience in retail, so just blow me off ’cause I’ve not been here as long as that guy.

The other day, my mother called me with a message that my grandmother wants to “secure the future of her great-grandchildren” with an “investment” in gold. I called my mom back and told her that was a terrible investment. Here’s why: since 1833, gold has had the incredible interest rate of 1.97% per year while the consumer price index, aka, “inflation” increased at a rate of 3.29% per year, since 1913. But that’s not such fair comparison, so how about comparing gold and CPI since 1975. That comes out to be 4.35% and 4.35% for inflation and gold, respectively. Good investment? I think not! Gold’s barely kept up with inflation. Something that I consider an investment performs better than inflation *after* taxes.

It seems that the more reading, gaming, etc. that I do, the dumber people seem. The most recent offense comes from PC Gamer Magazine’s July 2007 issue on page 16. “And if you’re performance at either degrades as a result of too much…” (sic) Since when is a person “performance”? What the crap! Another comes from a television ad that’s been running for the past few days “In less then 30 days…” (sic) First of all, then denotes time, e.g., one then two; secondly, than denotes a comparison, e.g., one is more than two. How hard is that? Apparently it’s a lot harder than I’d expect. Another common terribleness is that of the incorrect usage of the possessive apostrophe when applied to a name that ends in an S. According to Purdue’s Online Writing Laboratory “add ’s to the singular form of the word (even if it ends in -s), e.g. James’s hat”. This is a fairly common screw-up by professional companies, *cough* Blizzard’s World of Warcraft *cough*, where the ’s is left off in favor of only the apostrophe. This is just wrong, the only known exception being that of religious origin, e.g., Jesus’ apostles and Moses’ stone tablet. Anyhoo, I’m done ranting. I don’t claim perfection, I just think that professional companies should be, umm, I dunno, professional…