Despite much anecdotal evidence that many Americans are disappointed by the behaviour of the US economy, President Barack Obama has been returned to the White House with a convincing majority. Does this show that the campaign of former Democrat President Bill Clinton was wrong to focus on “the economy, stupid”? Not necessarily. I have a table of the behaviour of the main industrial economies since their pre-recession peak of 2007-08. Taking both that recession and the recovery from it, Canada heads the list with a net gain of real gross domestic product of 4.1 per cent. The US comes next with 2.2 per cent, followed by Germany with 1.7 per cent. France is still 0.8 per cent behind its earlier peak and Japan is 1.9 per cent short. The UK is almost bottom of the class with a net fall of 3.1 per cent, a drop exceeded only by Italy among the G7 countries.
盡管大量坊間證據表明，很多美國人對美國經濟的表現感到失望，但美國總統巴拉克?奧巴馬(Barack Obama)卻以絕對多數票重新入主白宮。這是否表明，美國前總統、民主黨人比爾?克林頓(Bill Clinton)提出的“經濟才是關鍵，笨蛋”(the economy, stupid)的競選口號是錯誤的？不一定。我手里有一張表格，列出了自衰退前的2007-08年峰值水平以來，主要工業經濟體的表現。經歷過衰退及隨后的復蘇之后，加拿大高居榜首，實際國內生產總值(GDP)凈增長4.1%，美國其次，增長2.2%，德國排在第三名，增長1.7%。法國較之前峰值水平下降0.8%，日本下降1.9%。英國幾乎排在榜單的末尾，GDP凈下滑3.1%，在七國集團(G7)中的表現僅好于意大利。