You are very mistaken.

The GOP led Congress helped Clinton get his surplus............

Now if you're talking about his lying to the public about Monica, then you would be correct. He got his surplus and all of the good legislation that Democrats brag about while the Republicans controlled Congress.

A Congress that thinks about itself first and the people second is hell on the economy and on foreign policy........something we are experiencing today.

The Republicans didn't care if it would make Clinton look good if they sent him some decent bills to sign.....many of which he held up for 3 yrs so he could sign a bill a week the last month before he was re-elected.

Much of the good Clinton did was with the help of the Republicans. It was only after he was caught lying in front of a jury about Monica and about other issues that they decided that he wasn't fit to be President.

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It's hard to stay mad at someone who makes you laugh - Jay Leno

Oh how quickly we forget ...

House approves minimum wage increase - 07/29/06

I believe that was a Republican Congress ...

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"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

-Thomas Jefferson

So what happened when baby Bush was handed the keys? That same Congress was in power until 2006? Shouldn't the surpluses continued, being that the same Congress was in control?

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"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

-Thomas Jefferson

The House vote was a political maneuver.

They passed it and got the usual reaction from the Dems in the Senate. Angry obstruction tactics.
It would be helpful if before you posted something that you read it and understand what it says first.

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It's hard to stay mad at someone who makes you laugh - Jay Leno

You don't know what you're talking about.

The Dems stole back control on June 6, 2001 by using a RHINO named Jim Jeffers bribing him to switch to Independent then they lost control in 2002.

The Senate was evenly divided so nothing much got done.

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It's hard to stay mad at someone who makes you laugh - Jay Leno

DOH!

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"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

-Thomas Jefferson

Or rather, when it says what you want it to say, its a good indicator. When it doesnt say what you want it to say, invent some new indiciator, like the poverty index.

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"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson

If you ever took a close look at how US GDP and other statistical data is calculated for political feel-good purposes you'd never again trust government numbers. 50k household samplings to determine unemployment for a work force of 135M wouldn't even qualify as a primary test market in the private sector.

This statement is either incredibly misleading or incredibly ignorant.

You cannot treat the sampling method for the household survey as though it is for a one-off test market. This survey is done on a MONTHLY basis and were it's sampling size too small to produce relatively accurate and reliable results we would see tremendous shifts on a month-to-month basis regularly. As it is, we have relatively stable data results, indicating sufficient sample size.

For example, if you have a poll with a sample size of X and you take that same poll every week, and each week the results are dramatically different, that indicates an insufficient sample size. If however the results show stability over time, that is an indication of sufficient sample size.

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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 notice your arrogance is firmly in place.

Any sampling will stabilize over a period of time if the determining factors have allowances for exclusion of specific sources subject to instability. How the sampling is interpreted, the methodology, is the issue. I'm particularly amused by the inclusion of military members and government workers paid by public funds and especially the exclusionary definitions of discouraged workers. Involuntary part-timers are also an interesting aspect of the calculation.

Did you read any of the information I posted on how the Unemployment rate is calculated?

Here is some more reading for anyone interested.........

FLAWED MINIMUM WAGE DATA

Is it possible that these numbers are wrong? In fact, not just possible but absolutely true. The BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) uses a flawed methodology. Not a problem if it is always flawed the same way, but it isn’t. The BLS massages the data by extrapolating using trend-based estimates. So if the financial sector is doing well this year, the statistics will be massaged to show growth this year. And vice versa: a bad year last year becomes a bad year this year.

So when the economy is changing – up or down – the jobs data gets it wrong. It happened when the economy began raging in 2003/4 – the BLS missed 800,000 jobs.

Other problems with methodology include ignoring self-employed workers. Real estate agents (500K+ according to the BLS, 1.2M according to NAR) are self-employed. It’s a tax thing (so the companies can avoid paying payroll taxes). And with sales down 40%, a lot of them aren’t working.

Need additional evidence that the BLS methodology is lowballing unemployment? Consider California.

MOre........

GDP
GDP for Q4 2007 was 0.6%. It was the same for Q1 2008: 0.6%. BEA: News Release: Gross Domestic Product and Corporate Profits
Great news, right? No recession. Not exactly
* Federal government spending rose 4.6% mainly due to raises. Yep, of that 0.6%, 0.3% came from raises
* Consumer spending was flat at 1%. In fact, durable good spending was down sharply: -6%. That’s consistent with GE and with the unemployment figures that showed a slowdown in hiring in manufacturing of durable goods (we are short consumer goods, consumer services, MGM, ZLC, NKE and HOG)
* Nonresidential construction fell 6% (we are short VMC)
* Residential investment dropped 27%
* Inventories rose $1.8B. This point got a lot of play partly because inventories dropped $18B in Q4 2007 and mostly because companies build inventories in response to sales expectations. Except that this is misleading – again. It’s just holiday seasonality. In Q3 2007, inventory shot up $30B as stores stocked up for the holidays. Then it dropped $18B as stores unloaded their crap and didn’t restock because demand was so light. Now they have added a little bit of inventory.

In essence, without the government giving itself a raise, the GDP was 0.3%. Not quite negative but not flat either. And a slight revision down puts us in recession territory.


Just like unemployment, it all depends on the methodology.
First, they exclude oil and food. Food and energy represent ~25% of disposable income and it is inflation at 4%~7% per month!

Second, the remaining inflation is calculated as a bundle of products. Sure some things are increasing in price, but others are dropping, like cars and washing machines. Except the problem with that methodology is that folks are cutting back severely on these durable goods and they can’t cut back on the food and oil they use. What about rising medical and mortgages?

Again, ignore the actual inflation figure. It is used primarily to slow down government payments that are forced to keep up with inflation. Pay attention, rather, to the basic trend: folks are not buying as many things. They can't until/unless they see significant drops in housing, medical, food and energy.

The fact is that inflation is quite high and it is forcing the US consumer to cut back on spending. Less eating out, more home cooking. Reductions in cell phone and cable. Less vacation travel. In short, consumers are cutting back on spending.

My Three Cents: Unemployment, GDp & Inflation reality Check

The Sham of our Current Unemployment Rate Numbers: Lessons from the Great Depression: Part X. Data Mining. | money blog

The Data Lies - Housing Basics - California Housing Forecast by The Berkland Group

WOW, just found a good piece from FOX news from YESTERDAY.........

One of those experts who thinks the US let its economic reality check bounce a long time ago is Kevin Phillips, a political and economic commentator for more than three decades and onetime Nixon strategist.

A generation ago Phillips wrote “The Emerging Republican Majority” which Newsweek magazine described as the “political bible of the Nixon administration,” and previously has dissected the fakery in the government deficit numbers-federal, budget, current account and trade deficits-where he says that essentially the country is living on “borrowed prosperity.”

Phillips, author of “Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism,” (Viking, April 2008), says that the government has manipulated economic numbers to create a “make-believe economy” over the last four decades. Phillips says that since the ‘60s, Washington bureaucrats from both sides of the political aisle have pulled the levers behind the scenes to overplay the vitality of the US economy.

Now do I personally expect all data to be perfect? No, it’s silly and simplistic to think that way. I also don’t think there is any grand conspiracy here. I personally get an allergic skin reaction to the hysterical, hand wringing Emily Litella business journalists whose self-righteous stubbornness and aversion to nuance often drains them of all common sense.

Phillips too is careful to say there is “no vast conspiracy here,” just what he calls “Pollyanna creep,” a phrase coined by John Williams, a California-based economic analyst and statistician.

“Pollyanna creep” arose from the subtle changes to calculations of economic data that you should be aware of. The methodologies use to arrive at economic data we take for granted as fact are less than exacting. They can produce jarringly wide differences in results-often what Mark Twain once called the difference between a firefly and lightening.

Take inflation. Phillips says the government’s manipulation has engendered a fake, low inflation world which fueled low interest rates which unwittingly ignited a debt boom, from colossal government borrowing that’s created what I call a Supersize-me government to the junk bond fiasco to the S&L crisis to today’s housing and credit bubble. He also says the true economic growth rate, GDP, has been overstated.

Does the Government Manipulate Economic Data? at Emac’s Stock Watch | Fox Business

I HAVE KNOWN THIS SINCE I WAS 16 YEARS OLD, JUST FROM OBSERVING MY WORLD.

It should be common sense, but few people anymore seem to have common sense.

I was 16 in 1978 and would laugh when unemployment figures came out.

I was only 16, but I had more common sense than most of the people at this forum have.

The unemployment data is manipulated. It is OBVIOUS to any thinking person who is a part of the work force, or who is seeking employment.

Inflation data is manipulated, which is also OBVIOUS to any thinking person who is part of the work force.

GDP is also flawed, which is OBVIOUS to any thinking person who follows the news and watches for stories on job losses, bankruptcies and other economic indicators.

Norrin Rad,

If you think things are so horrible, please point to the objective and accurate data you are looking at to support your conclusions.

You can't beat something with nothing!

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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

Why at this time of year did unemployment jump?

Could it be because a ton of grads were out looking for work?

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It's hard to stay mad at someone who makes you laugh - Jay Leno

I do not have the resources to do my own surveys.

Sorry.

If you look at the methodology of information gathering and analysis for all of these statistics, it is pretty obvious they are manipulated.

Do you really believe nationwide unemployment is at 5.5%?

You are free to believe what you want. I gave numerous links for people to learn more if they are interested. If you wish to trust government statistics, then that is your choice.

For me, I have no doubts most economic statistics are manipulated. How they are manipulated is all explained in the links I posted. If you are truly interested, then just click on the links.

Norris I agree with you most people who observe the economy from the ground up have a fairer perspective on what is going on.

Unemployment figures are pretty meaningless its best to look at the change or the number of jobs created.

As an objective measure even if it were 100% accurate still says, fuck all about anything.