Comparing our education to other countries says absolutely nothing as to whether or not we have been improving from our own historical standards. Not sure what you mean when you said comparing our education results to 50 years ago is somehow invalid, though. Elaborate?

"Discrimination has shifted over the last 50 years from overt to covert. But then you say we can't see into the past so how can you claim any improvement there" Lynchings don't happen anymore. Improvement. Minorities can vote. Improvement. Black men are not arrested simply for looking at white women. Improvement. I could go on. Yes, discrimination is more covert than it used to be, but it is also not as bad as it used to be.

word games + Don't split hairs

Your entire argument rested on the fact that our economy was not growing and I showed that assertion to be flatly wrong. (It is up to you to figure out what sources led you to that belief so that you might discount them in the future.) Certainly not a splitting of hairs.

the weakest recovery in decades

The reason the recovery wasn't faster was in part because of a major reason for the collapse in the first place - housing.

Houses are where most Americans except the very very wealthy have most of their net worth. When they went underwater, they lost their savings - usually how people buy large ticket items, start new small businesses, etc. And any that had to short-sell their house or file bankruptcy tanked their credit for years.

Additionally, you're still trying to have it both ways - the Republicans were right to block him and the slow recovery is a result of his policies. See also

Moreover, during the Reagan and Bush recessions, public sector jobs increased to take up the slack, under Obama public sector jobs are down (reiterating my point that Republicans no longer support their own prior policies) - ref

companies doing business off-shore

Several reasons - largely that our trade agreements don't create a level playing field. Here, you have to comply with labor, environmental standards, etc. If the cost difference is enough to cover the costs of manufacturing oversees (shipping, additional lead time, translation overhead, oversight, etc.), then it would be logical for a company to move a job oversees. We shouldn't therefore remove those protections here, we should ramp up their enforcement with our trading partners.

growing economies spring from capitalist and free commerce

Name any place in the history of the world with successful laissez-faire capitalism that we should compare to. Sustained successful economies spring from a balance of capitalism and redistribution for the common good.

It is the weakest recovery in decades, but it is still a recovery, which implies some levels of growth. Companies doing business off shore is the result of a variety of factors, but you just want to blame everything on the government, instead of recognizing the real world ramification of globalization and the lack of a necessarily highly educated workforce to help combat some aspects of it.

Additionally, him pointing out that there is growth when you claimed there wasn't is not a "word game", and it was a valid counter to what you actually said. If you want to change the meaning of what you said that is fine, but to call him out for responding to the words you actually used is ridiculous.

Growing economies can also spring from an abundance of natural resources developed within hybrid systems (see: Norway), by the way. It isn't "Pure Capitalism or Nothing!", as you make it out to be.