Image Source: bush2004.com
Economically speaking the world was a different place during the roaring 90’s and many had believed that the Internet would transform everything. The averaged 1.5 percent a year from the early 1970s through the early 90s, now approached 3 percent in productivity gains. Manufacturing productivity during Bill Clinton’s second term sometimes even surpassed 6 percent in gains. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve spoke of a New Economy marked by continued productivity gains as the Internet buried the old ways of doing business. He even worried aloud about how he’d ever be able to manage monetary policy once the nation’s debt is fully paid of. When we look back and see how far George W. Bush administration’s crippling legacy left us, the next president will have to deal with the long economic struggle to recoup. We will think of many things which damaged the American economy like the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame, of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and the erosion of civil liberties. The repercussions of all these will be felt beyond the lifetime of the next administration to come.