The Most Equal Comrade: the master of planned decline

You don't do this to the post-American economy without knowing what you're doing:

The government's latest GDP numbers, through Q2 2015, are now out, and they include some revisions to Q1, as well as other revisions for the period 2012 - 2014.  Lenore Hawkins analyzes the numbers at Elle's Economy, in an article titled "GDP Numbers Keep Getting Worse."   One consequence of the revisions is that Q1 2015 went from a slight decline to a slight increase.  But the other revisions to earlier years, particularly 2012 - 2014, had the effect of lowering previously-reported GDP substantially:

In the 138 years from 1870 to 2008, the US economy expanded by about an average of 3% a year.  After the revisions to GDP data from 2012-2014, we see that the U.S. economy since the financial crisis has been growing an average of 2.0% a year versus the earlier 2.3%. . . .   Most importantly, 2010-2014 was weaker in every quarter except the second and 2015 so far has been the worst yet! 

So why doesn't the U.S. economy just get going like it always did in the past -- even as recently as the decade of the 1990s and from 2001 - 2008?  Could there be something different about the Obama regime?

Well, there is the fact that the Obama administration continues to conduct what I have called its War Against the Economy.  As described in that article and elsewhere on this blog, that war has many fronts, including: massive wasteful spending and debt accumulation; artificially suppressing cheap and reliable energy in favor of subsidizing expensive and unreliable energy; overregulation and endless phony prosecutions directed against anyone who dares to make too much money in a financial business; forcing people to overpay for wasteful health insurance (Obamacare); big tax increases; and more.

And now comes the Clean Power Plan to finish the economy off once and for all:

Richard Wellings of the Institute of Economic Affairs comments on Obama's energy plans yesterday in The Telegraph, in an article aptly titled "Barack Obama's green plans could cripple America's economy."  
In much of the US, the power industry continues to rely on coal. Consumers in Kentucky, where over 90% of electricity is generated from coal, enjoy electricity prices roughly 50% lower than in the UK, an indication of the huge potential cost of Obama's plans.  Indeed much higher bills are almost inevitable now that the US is adopting EU-style policies. Carbon emissions from the power sector will be cut by an ambitious 32% by 2030 (compared to 2005 levels). Worse still, the Clean Power Plan will favour expensive renewable energy over the relatively low-cost option of cutting emissions by switching from coal to natural gas.

Actually Richard, the crippling of the American economy by the Clean Power Plan has been going on for quite a while already, because of the time it takes to change over power production, and because the utilities can't take the chance of being caught out on the day the new regulations take effect.  But then, that's only a fraction of the intentional crippling that these people are inflicting.  It's what we call Obama's "legacy." 

It's going to be a long sixteen months.