GDP before and since the financial crisis

[MrBogosity]

I got sick of one liberal woo after another telling me that the problem is that people just aren't consuming enough (and therefore we need to give politicians more of our money so they can spend for us). I went to the BEA (yes, our own government's statistics) website and made a graph of three components of GDP: consumer spending, investment, and exports. Notice that (despite what the liberal woos insist) consumption has been above its pre-crisis levels for two years now (and they deny it tooth and nail no matter how much you show them the data).

Also notice how high exports have gotten. Shatters a whole bunch of other myths, too, doesn't it?

That just leaves investment. And look how it's the only one not doing as well as it was before the crisis. It's investment, people! Saving isn't hoarding, it's expanding the economy and creating jobs.

The source table for the graph can be found here.

[Anpanman]

Liberals can't into graphs.

[Travis Retriever]

Before even reading the text Shane typed to accompany the graph with his first post, I looked at the graph and noticed three things:
1.  Consumption spending and exports are both actually HIGHER in the recession years than not.
2.  Investment spending is LOWER at least since the start of the recession and never recovered to previous levels.  (I do still wonder how much of that before the recession was malinvestment.)
3.  I see a very noticeable dip in everything but consumer spending (which does still decrease, but less so than the other things) around the beginning of 2009.  After racking my brain I remembered something:  That was the time the wall street bail-outs were passed and/or administered, wasn't it?  The same applies to Obama's "Stimulus" Package I would bet.

[Travis Retriever]

Dear Keynesians,

You see that graph?  We use data to support our claims too.
Stop saying people who support or use Austrian Economics "reject empiricism".

Sincerely,

vspqbd

[MrBogosity]

3.  I see a very noticeable dip in everything but consumer spending (which does still decrease, but less so than the other things) around the beginning of 2009.

Don't be fooled: the BEA site doesn't allow one to zoom the scales. Since consumption is a greater amount than the others (especially exports), an equivalent decrease will appear smaller in this graph.

I downloaded the data to my computer to work on better graphs.

[Travis Retriever]

Don't be fooled: the BEA site doesn't allow one to zoom the scales. Since consumption is a greater amount than the others (especially exports), an equivalent decrease will appear smaller in this graph.

I downloaded the data to my computer to work on better graphs.

So in other words we all had less to spend AND invest thanks to government trying to "stimulate" the economy.  The broken window fallacy demonstrated graphically!