... If you look back at recent monthly data ... you’ll see that this particular green shoot should have poked through the ground months ago, but was stymied by the GOP’s debt ceiling hostage drama. ...
That’s a year’s worth of data. Taken in the context of the collapse of the credit bubble, it’s a pretty small blip ... But it’s a pretty big hit to a fragile recovery. It was only by November that total consumer credit returned to where it had been before the standoff on Capitol Hill. Look at the graph and you’ll see that the growth we just experienced could have come in July and August in the absence of that fight.
I realize post hoc doesn't necessarily mean propter hoc, and, as I've said many times, I'm no economist. So I leave it to others to confirm or dispose. Still, it's compelling. And, in my mind anyway, there's not the tiniest doubt that the aim of Rs during the debt ceiling posturing was to hurt the country, and therefore Obama, with not the slightest care about anything else but their own power.
