Nah, it doesnt change their pessimism. THere is nothing you can do to convince them that everyones pretty well off.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Wow!! Are we at zero unemployment yet? We MUST be!! I didn't know it was possible.

How's the GDP? How's the trade deficit? How's the dollar value? hmmmm... lets see...
Reuters 10/12/07

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...the government...is caving in...with their specious arguments couched in the...language of civil rights law, and that the churches ... likewise crumbling to...rhetoric which is nothing but heretical sophistry -- ~F Phelps
Platitudes like the one you offer are no different - and no less incorrect - than the jackass part-time Christian who says, "I'm going to heaven because I'm nice to people." It so misses the point.~Impugn

When was the last time there was a zero unemployment rate?

Yours is such a stupid comment, primarily because nobody suggested that was the case.

But, no, since 49 straight months of job growth doesn't fit you view of what you'd like to see under a Republican administration, you criticize it for not being at an unemployment rate of zero.

How fucking stupid, petty, and partisan...

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

the stagnation theorem dictates that approx 5% is the optimum we can hope for...clinton and bush have pushed the envelope. I think the internet has a lot to do with getting under 5%, perhaps...

where’s Americano...hes usually on top of economic issues and appears knowledgeable etc. in these areas.

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

You both miss the point.
Job growth cannot be seen as good unless it correlates to either GDP increase or unemployment rate decrease, or both.

Since it is theoretically impossible to have zero unemployment yet you claim a large, sustained and steady increase in job creation, then there is no correlating benefit to be had in the rate of unemployment.

So I ask where the benefit is to be seen but perhaps thats just fucking stupid, petty, and partisan.

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...the government...is caving in...with their specious arguments couched in the...language of civil rights law, and that the churches ... likewise crumbling to...rhetoric which is nothing but heretical sophistry -- ~F Phelps
Platitudes like the one you offer are no different - and no less incorrect - than the jackass part-time Christian who says, "I'm going to heaven because I'm nice to people." It so misses the point.~Impugn

I missed nothing, but thanks for babbling.

I was merely commenting on the assinine comment someone else made about a zero unemployment rate. Nothing more, nothing less...

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

As I said, you can cherry pick any data to find the result you want. However, the two most common indicators that democrats use are employment and GDP, both of which are good. As we have 4 million job openings and we are virtually at zero unemployment. Everyone who wants a job, has one.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Let me just point out that which has gone unremarked--before I get into specific responses to the torrent of idiocy posted in this discussion—there was in fact NO JOB LOSS IN AUGUST 2008, what was initially reported as a loss in August was revised to a substantial gain when the final readings came out in October.

Now for the other utterly nonsense:

Really? “Balloon”? The publicly held national debt as a percentage of GDP (the ONLY economically meaningful measure of the debt) since reaching a 20 year low of 33% in fiscal 2001 reached a 37.4% in fiscal 2005 before beginning to decline again (to 37.0 in fiscal 2006 and below 36.8% for fiscal 2007).

So first of all, you’re basic premise is absolutely false on two counts (one somewhat subjective, the other completely objective:

The national debt has not “ballooned” at all, having risen less than 3.8% over a six year period (if you considered that “ballooning” than you had better be prepared to similarly cite the “ballooning” growth in our economy in the last quarter despite all your doom and gloom”)

Second, even if the net increase since 2001 could be reasonably described as having “ballooned” it is flat out false to say “continues” since it has actually been DECLINING for the last two years, and is projected to continue its decline. All of this during a period of admittedly grotesque increases in spending (I am no defender of the Bush administration or the previous Republican Congress on their abysmal record on domestic discretionary spending).

Clinton inherited a robust economy from Bush 41, while leaving an economy falling into recession to Bush 43 (go check the growth rates in the 12 months preceding both Clinton and Bush 43’s taking office)

Furthermore, The most stellar job growth of the Clinton years actually coincided with relatively restrained spending growth by the GOP led Congress before they went native, and following substantial capital gains tax reductions (which resulted in capital gains tax revenue collections that far exceeded pre-rate cut projections). So yes, it was in fact spending restraint and tax cuts pushed down Clinton’s throat by the GOP that led to the strong growth of the late 1990s

Not true, the economic strength of the economy overall in the late 1990s was real, and heardly ended in a “hard-core recession”. While it is true that there was a speculative bubble in the “Tech” stocks, this was only a small part of the overall economic story. And the recession you call “hard-core” was the shortest and mildest of the last century; so short and shallow that many economists speculate that it may not have been officially a recession (it is so close that it is within the historic margin of error for the data sets involved)

In what fantasy land are you living where consumer spending is “WAAAAY down”:



As this chart clearly shows, while the rate of INCREASE in consumer spending, net consumer spending has not actually decreased in over 17 years:

Another baseless liberal urban myth. I count it as irrefutable “job growth” when the following occur simultaneously:

- Increase in the total number of people in the workforce
- Decrease in the unemployment rate

An employeed person who gets a second job does not result in reductions in the unemployment rate…DUH!


First of all, the Fed lowered rates because rates were too high based on the fact that core inflation has plummeted and the overriding concern became the growth rate (although based on the data of the last week this concern is somewhat overblown as well)

Second, the lower rates sure have seemed to bail out the mortgage holders very well, with huge write down in their current financial reporting.

There is no “looting” of the “ss trust”, there never has been a “trust”, it was “looted” from day one, and was designed to be by the great FDR.

As for the cost of the war, that is less than 10% of the entire Federal Budget (even less of government spending at all levels). It is also less than 1.5% of our 13.2 TRILLION dollar economy.

You are making a rather pedantic error. While it is correct that GDP is calculated on “transactions”, you are utterly wrong in equating the definition of that term in economics with that in accounting. The economic meaning of that word is much broader and inclusive than the rather limited “bean counting” definition in the accounting profession.

You also confuse the issue of economic growth with government finances. While the overall economic and monetary policy of the government has a substantial impact on economic growth, they are separate and distinct issues.

Well, the economy has actually INCREASED its growth rate as the real estate bubble has been deflating. And as noted above, even the reported single month decline in jobs reported in August which has caused the usual left-wing dance of joy on the supposed-grave of the U.S. economy turned out to be completely and utterly WRONG!


Not only am I willing to ignore that chart, my most basic knowledge of economics requires that I ignore it, and look instead at the fact that the only meaningful measure of the national debt (publicly held debt as a % of GDP) has actually declined substantially since 1946 (when the publicly held debt was 108% of GDP), falling to about 33.8% in fiscal 2007 (a number below the 40.5% 20-year average—a 20 year period of historic combined growth and prosperity


First of all, unemployment is at a rate which used to be believed to be close to “full employment”, and is also currently below the average rate of the last 20 years.

GDP? Well, that is at 3.9% in Q3, up slightly from 3.8% in Q2, up dramatically from .6% in Q1. So, GDP growth in the last 9 months (when everything has supposedly been getting progressively worse) has improved dramatically.

Well, we have had steady increases in both employment and GDP (GDP up 3.8 and 3.9% respectively in the last 2 quarters).


You are being to kind. The lefties are going orders of magnitude beyond “cherry picking” and are picking lusch delicious cherry’s only to ignore what they have picked, picking out the pit and declaring that as their find!. This economy is strong, incredibly resilient, and this is not, as I have said before just a Bush story, this is a story going back a quarter of a century now, to the Reagan tax cuts which put us on a path of historic growth and prosperity. A period with only two of the shortest and shallowest recessions in history. The last one so short and shallow the lefties had to make up entirely new and absurd ideas to try to make it look bad by comparison. Remember the “jobless recovery” of the early ‘00s? It was one of the biggest snowjobs ever. While it was true that the rate of job growth coming out of the last recession was substantially lower than in previous recessions, it was not because of the sub-par rebound, it was due entirely to the fact that the recession Bush inherited was virtually devoid of job loss compared to prior recessions. In prior recessions unemployment shot up to double digits, in the last recession it barely got above 6%. Or look at it this way, one year after the end of the last recession, unemployment was less than 6% while one year after most of the other recessions of the last 60 years unemployment was above 8-9% and sometimes in double digits.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

I'm Australian. Hopefully I'm going to engineering school next year at the moment I work in a hardware store. I get paid $18 per hour.. I used to get paid upto $32 dollars an hour for night time work with the same company. Its basically warehouse work more so than retail.

Most people in this country will earn a wage of atleast $17 per hour. We have startling inequality, don't think we don't, there is definently insentive to create value. Everyone in this country can afford to live with dignity. We have high wages and none of this inflationary sky falling has happened. Infact we a going along nicely and have a very happy, healthy crime free society. People are looked after and theres not much harassment of any sort at work.

The difference is everyone can afford to live, our poor are nowhere near as poor as your poor in the states.

I have to ask, what the hell is wrong with Americans ? Five dollars an hour is a joke.. its slavery you can't even make a decent living on that. In a developed nation.. what the hell... I don't understand americans.

To me it almost looks like a lot of you worship the ideal of the free market. I don't understand how you can detach yourself from the plight of the working person. Even 10 dollars an hour is not really enough to life off.

I've got nothing against progress inequality is indicative of growth.. but declining standards of living and a continually growing working poor are not. Neither are an abundance of sector service jobs.

Not a damn thing; thanks for askin'...

I haven't made five bucks an hour since 1978...

We don't care...

You think "free market" is a bad thing?

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

The problem is, that the labor market is not an entirely free market. It is not like for example the oil market or the stock market, where everyone is offering the same product, and everybody openly advertises their price.

We are talking about human beings here. If you work, you should be rewarded enough to have a decent standard of living, regardless of the situation of the labor market.

Interestingly you made five bucks an hour in 1978. Doing what ?

29 years ago I assume you were young.

People still make 5 dollars an hour. Adults.

Consider increases in the cost of products overtime.

Doesn't that wage seem wrong to you ?

Its not a free market if companies have undue power over employees (which they do) and can keep wages low (which they do) its inefficient and unfairly benefits them. Its a spiral it took society centuries to get out of. Wealth of the ruling class does not indicate wealth of the nation.

Therefore it will harm society, as the brilliant shape of the US economy has indicated. You're missing out on a great deal of consumption that would lead to job creation.

I should probably find some papers but no one would read them anyway.

Free market is a term many Americans like to use in rationalizing government subsidized agribusiness, energy production, aircraft development and military sales while condemning other nations for not accepting 'free market' trade agreements. The declining standard of living is merely another issue of many to ignore when climbing on the government 'robust economy' bandwagon based on public and personal debt. The switch from industrial status jobs and benefits to low paid service sector jobs provides 'new jobs created' fodder for the robust economy facade. We have an aging population that will create a lot of minimum wage bed pan changers designated as health industry expansion and the trend to acquiring excess body fat requires continual expansion of the fast food industry, offering even more dead-end careers. If one's income exceeds $150k annually without disturbing capital, there are no complaints. The abundant US population living below the poverty line and as homeless persons without education are, in the words of many posters, merely whiners who could improve their circumstances if they actually tried. (sarcasm)

Marcus...
read this: Ben Bernanke on the use of interest rate manipulation to stimulate economy...

Granted, you may disagree with why Bernanke did what he did (he was in charge at the time), but you'd have to be his shrink because he thinks he really did it for precisely the reason he (and I) stated.

But go ahaed and argue. I think it's interesting.

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...the government...is caving in...with their specious arguments couched in the...language of civil rights law, and that the churches ... likewise crumbling to...rhetoric which is nothing but heretical sophistry -- ~F Phelps
Platitudes like the one you offer are no different - and no less incorrect - than the jackass part-time Christian who says, "I'm going to heaven because I'm nice to people." It so misses the point.~Impugn

I love this utterly vacuous notion that people's earnings in the long-run are decided by other people, and factors out of their control. That they are just utterly powerless. This is simply not the case. In this country poverty is virtually non-existent amongst people who make the following choices which are 100% under their own control:

1. Do not have children outside of marriage
2. Do not get married unless you have graduated highschool
3. Graduate highschool

of the statistically insignificant portion of the population who follow those three life-choices who actually do end up in poverty, most of those are substance abusers (another factor totally within the control of the individual)

Most poverty in this country is also concentrated in our inner-cities, where liberal policies have been particularl