Bull-Market Cheers for Bush

[blackllotus]

ProfJohn, whether or not you happen to agree with the author's opinion does not make the article any less biased.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
More proof that we are living during very good economic times.

It is a shame that the great state of the economy does not get much news coverage and instead the media seems to focus on the pending collapse of the economy.

I especially love this part since we talk about it so much ?Comparing the first five years of the Bush economic expansion with the first five years of the Papa Bush/Clinton cycle, average hourly earnings are 44 percent higher today in nominal terms and 9 percent higher in inflation-adjusted terms.?

Wow you mean wage growth is BETTER under Bush than it was under Clinton!! Amazing with all the doom and gloom and everyone is working at McDonald?s type comments that we see on this board.

Anyone who wants to dispute what this article says about our great economic condition please do so with facts and links instead of empty rhetoric.

Simply look at how the world see the U.S.

Here is Saudi Arabia for example:

2-4-2007 Americans? savings rate drops to Depression era-low

WASHINGTON - Americans spent more than they earned last year as the economy steamed ahead, pushing the personal savings rate to negative 1.0 percent, the deepest hole since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Over the past seven decades, the personal savings rate -- the difference between post-tax, or disposable, income and spending -- has been in negative territory only four times: 1932, 1933, 2005 and 2006.

In the 1930s, the Great Depression explains why Americans had to dip into their savings at a time when a fourth of the workforce was out of a job.

But in 2006 and in 2005, when the personal savings rate slipped to negative 0.4 percent, the economic situation was far different, which bothers economists.

?It?s surprising, especially in a period with the economy growing so strongly,? said Martha Starr, an economics professor specialized in savings and consumption issues at American University in Washington.
==========================================
First of all to the OP. The wage part is an out right lie. Wages are in fact higher for the rich but for the average American sheeple wages have dropped and dropped like a rock.

It's simple really, the majority of Economists and people like the OP of this thread are blind supporters of a house of mirrors.

The numbers have been faked for a long time. They were fudged a bit by the Clinton Administration but the Bush Administration has made them 110% fraudalent.

It's all coming back to bite every American in the ass except the rich of course that set it all in motion.

This depression will make the 1930's look like a camp out.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
One of the few things I like about Bush & Co, good performance for my stock portfolio under this administration. :thumbsup:

Yes, there is no dispute the wealthy have done even more well under BushCo rule.

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
I especially love this part since we talk about it so much ?Comparing the first five years of the Bush economic expansion with the first five years of the Papa Bush/Clinton cycle, average hourly earnings are 44 percent higher today in nominal terms and 9 percent higher in inflation-adjusted terms.?[/b]

Wow you mean wage growth is BETTER under Bush than it was under Clinton!! Amazing with all the doom and gloom and everyone is working at McDonald?s type comments that we see on this board.

And what was the growth in the median hourly earnings?

 

[DealMonkey]

1.) Nothing like tremendous war expenditures and deficit spending to pump up the economy.
2.) http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ is about as biased as they come.
3.) While I don't disagree that the economy has been fairly robust, yet it feels like a house of cards propped up on war-spending, deficit spending, corporate welfare and irrational exuberance for real estate in the public sector over the last 5-6 years.
4.) Finally, I don't believe for a second that the President has any significant control over the economy. His policies can affect the economy to some degree, but there are simply too many factors involved. I don't think it's fair for Presidents and their Administration's to take credit one way or another (good or bad).

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: International Machine Consortium

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Strk
I don't think anyone is really denying that the macro economics of the economy are doing very well. The issue has been, and for quite some time I might add, that when you look at the micro numbers, for most people, the economy is a swift kick in the nuts.

Actually the polls show that people think the economy is far better for themselves than for others.

Link?

Link 1
Americans remain split on their ratings of the national economy (50% excellent, very good, or good, and 48% bad, very bad or terrible), while 70% rate their personal financial situations as excellent, very good, or good, down from 76% in December.
and
When it comes to rating their household financial situations, 70% of Americans give an excellent, very good, or good rating and 28% give a bad, very bad, or terrible rating.
Link 2
As can happen on many issues, Americans view their personal situation differently ? more positively in this case ? than they see things for the nation overall.

Even though ratings are almost 20 points more positive on the individual level than for the country, people are still slightly more negative than positive.

There?s two links for you, and in both the number of people feeling better about their personal finances verse that of the country is around 20%.
It has been this way for a long time.
It seems when asked about the economy a lot of people respond ?I am doing good, but I worry about the guy down the street?
Looking at the continual doom and gloom we see in the media is there any question as to why things are this way?

Same thing with the whole ?right track/wrong track? type questions. With Global warming, a never ending war in Iraq, record debt, a raging health care crisis, the upcoming bird flu endemic, world wide terrorism, nuclear show downs with both Iran and North Korea, out of control gas prices etc etc. It is no wonder that most people feel the country is on the ?wrong track? there are so many things going wrong it is amazing we don?t just fall apart.
Here is further proof that the whole 'right track/wrong track' type question is worthless.
All these polls are with in the last few weeks. yet another link
Newsweek: Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?" 30% satisfied 61% dis
NBC/Wall Street Journal: "nation are generally headed in the right direction, or do you feel that things are off on the wrong track" 28% right 57% wrong
AP: "in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track" 29% right 66% wrong

However when given more than just a right/wrong type answer look at what you get:
CNN: How well are things going in the country today
Very well 8% Fairly well 49% pretty badly 30% very bad 12%
Notice the HUGE difference? When given the right/wrong question 2 out of 3 Americans say we are going in the wrong direction. But when asked to rate how the country is doing 57% of people saw we are doing well or fairly well... why is that?

 

[alien42]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: blackllotus

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
BTW your link is from a labor union run organization. Try using a source with less bias.

Are you serious? Lets look at a quote from the author of the link in the OP

This is the same guy the mainstream media loves to kick around -- the same guy who suffers sinking polls while standing resolute on the subject of Iraqi freedom, and who gets virtually no credit for the Goldilocks economy and unprecedented four-year stock market boom. He's also the same guy who continues to prove he has more character than most anyone serving in public office today.

And you tell others to use a less biased sources?

For what it is worth, which is virtually nothing with this crowd, Bush does have more character than most politicians.
Just look at the manner in which nearly every Democrat running for President acts when it comes to Iraq. They were all for it four years ago when the majority of Americans supported it. But now that is has grown unpopular they are tripping over themselves to prove how anti-war they are. And as Hillary is now proving, it is no longer enough to say that you are unhappy with how the war is being waged, a very valid complaint, but now you must make statements about how you would have never led the country to war yourself. It does not take character to stand up in front of a crowd of anti-war people and say ?I would have never started this war if I was President? however it does take character to tell them that you in fact did support the war, but like her husband she lacks that trait.

Whether you disagree with Bush or not you should at least understand that it take a lot more character to continuously back an unpopular decision than it does to change your standing based on every whim of the American people.
Contrast Bush?s leadership to that of Clinton. Clinton had no moral character at all, his string of affairs proved that beyond any reasonable doubt. And when it came to leadership Clinton was like a weather vane turning in which ever way the wind (public) turned.
Dick Morris, who worked for Clinton at the time and was instrumental at getting him reelected, mentions the way Clinton ruled by polling many times. They took polls on seemingly every major decision. They came up with phrases and ran them by focus groups. About the only tough moral decision (character) Clinton took during his 8 years was in not resigning after the Monica affair broke.
Look at the list of attributes that are general considered part of moral character and see how many of them Clinton actually possessed and then look at the same list and Bush and see how many he has.

Moral character or character is an evaluation of a person's moral and mental qualities. Such an evaluation is subjective ? one person may evaluate someone's character on the basis of their virtue, another may consider their fortitude, courage, loyalty, honesty, or piety.

one man is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings and you call that good morals? you do not deserve to be called a human and are a disgrace to the rest of us. oh yeah, that same person also LIED to start this joke of a war so of course those that is also good morals. prof john, you make me sick.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: blackllotus
ProfJohn, whether or not you happen to agree with the author's opinion does not make the article any less biased.

You are right about his personal opinions. But the facts he repors are 'facts'

I could have justed posted his facts, but then a bunch of people would have asked for links and such.

Overall, the original point of the article and my OP is that the economy is doing very well, and that Bush gets very little credit for this.

And if regards to DealMonkey... its nice to say the President doesn't deserve much credit for the economy, although in this case the tax cuts are clearly the reason for the current boom (amoung other things such as the normal buisness cycle)
However, when Clinton ran for office it was "it's the economy stupid" and when he was President and the economy was good we were told over and over how he is the greatest President ever because of the economy.
The economy today is as good as any time under Clinton, but instead of hearing about how great the economy is all we hear about is how bad things are.
Here is an interesting study on media bias on economic news
Link

When GDP growth is reported, Republicans received between 16 and 24 percentage point fewer positive stories for the same economic numbers than Democrats. For durable goods for all newspapers, Republicans received between 15 and 25 percentage points fewer positive news stories than Democrats. For unemployment, the difference was between zero and 21 percentage points.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: alien42
one man is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings and you call that good morals? you do not deserve to be called a human and are a disgrace to the rest of us. oh yeah, that same person also LIED to start this joke of a war so of course those that is also good morals. prof john, you make me sick.

Bush is not responsible for the deaths of 'hundreds of thousands' what a bunch of BS even the highest real estimates for deaths in Iraq is lower than that.
And the whole "Bush lied" line is BS as well. The only people who accuse him of lying to start the war are a few of the anti-war types. I don't know of one mainstream politician to accuse him of lying to start the war. (BTW Clinton said the same thing as Bush when he launched attacks on Suddan, Iraq and Afghanistan. Did you call him a liar too?)

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: alien42
one man is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings and you call that good morals? you do not deserve to be called a human and are a disgrace to the rest of us. oh yeah, that same person also LIED to start this joke of a war so of course those that is also good morals. prof john, you make me sick.

Bush is not responsible for the deaths of 'hundreds of thousands' what a bunch of BS even the highest real estimates for deaths in Iraq is lower than that.
And the whole "Bush lied" line is BS as well. The only people who accuse him of lying to start the war are a few of the anti-war types. I don't know of one mainstream politician to accuse him of lying to start the war. (BTW Clinton said the same thing as Bush when he launched attacks on Suddan, Iraq and Afghanistan. Did you call him a liar too?)

Where did Clinton lie about fasle WMD?

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: alien42
one man is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings and you call that good morals? you do not deserve to be called a human and are a disgrace to the rest of us. oh yeah, that same person also LIED to start this joke of a war so of course those that is also good morals. prof john, you make me sick.

Bush is not responsible for the deaths of 'hundreds of thousands' what a bunch of BS even the highest real estimates for deaths in Iraq is lower than that.
And the whole "Bush lied" line is BS as well. The only people who accuse him of lying to start the war are a few of the anti-war types. I don't know of one mainstream politician to accuse him of lying to start the war. (BTW Clinton said the same thing as Bush when he launched attacks on Suddan, Iraq and Afghanistan. Did you call him a liar too?)

You should either be arrested or appointed by Bush as the U.S. Minister of Information.

 

[2Xtreme21]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: alien42
one man is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings and you call that good morals? you do not deserve to be called a human and are a disgrace to the rest of us. oh yeah, that same person also LIED to start this joke of a war so of course those that is also good morals. prof john, you make me sick.

Bush is not responsible for the deaths of 'hundreds of thousands' what a bunch of BS even the highest real estimates for deaths in Iraq is lower than that.
And the whole "Bush lied" line is BS as well. The only people who accuse him of lying to start the war are a few of the anti-war types. I don't know of one mainstream politician to accuse him of lying to start the war. (BTW Clinton said the same thing as Bush when he launched attacks on Suddan, Iraq and Afghanistan. Did you call him a liar too?)

LMAO!

 

[DealMonkey]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
And if regards to DealMonkey... its nice to say the President doesn't deserve much credit for the economy, although in this case the tax cuts are clearly the reason for the current boom (amoung other things such as the normal buisness cycle)
However, when Clinton ran for office it was "it's the economy stupid" and when he was President and the economy was good we were told over and over how he is the greatest President ever because of the economy.
The economy today is as good as any time under Clinton, but instead of hearing about how great the economy is all we hear about is how bad things are.
Here is an interesting study on media bias on economic news
Link

Tax cuts being responsible for the current economy is a matter of economic opinion. For every article you post up claiming that it is, I'm quite sure I could find an equal number that claim the opposite. I'd agree that war spending, tax cuts, corporate welfare and other Administration actions and policies most likely do have a positive effect on the economy in the short term. But what about the long term?

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: alien42

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: blackllotus

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
BTW your link is from a labor union run organization. Try using a source with less bias.

Are you serious? Lets look at a quote from the author of the link in the OP

This is the same guy the mainstream media loves to kick around -- the same guy who suffers sinking polls while standing resolute on the subject of Iraqi freedom, and who gets virtually no credit for the Goldilocks economy and unprecedented four-year stock market boom. He's also the same guy who continues to prove he has more character than most anyone serving in public office today.

And you tell others to use a less biased sources?

For what it is worth, which is virtually nothing with this crowd, Bush does have more character than most politicians.
Just look at the manner in which nearly every Democrat running for President acts when it comes to Iraq. They were all for it four years ago when the majority of Americans supported it. But now that is has grown unpopular they are tripping over themselves to prove how anti-war they are. And as Hillary is now proving, it is no longer enough to say that you are unhappy with how the war is being waged, a very valid complaint, but now you must make statements about how you would have never led the country to war yourself. It does not take character to stand up in front of a crowd of anti-war people and say ?I would have never started this war if I was President? however it does take character to tell them that you in fact did support the war, but like her husband she lacks that trait.

Whether you disagree with Bush or not you should at least understand that it take a lot more character to continuously back an unpopular decision than it does to change your standing based on every whim of the American people.
Contrast Bush?s leadership to that of Clinton. Clinton had no moral character at all, his string of affairs proved that beyond any reasonable doubt. And when it came to leadership Clinton was like a weather vane turning in which ever way the wind (public) turned.
Dick Morris, who worked for Clinton at the time and was instrumental at getting him reelected, mentions the way Clinton ruled by polling many times. They took polls on seemingly every major decision. They came up with phrases and ran them by focus groups. About the only tough moral decision (character) Clinton took during his 8 years was in not resigning after the Monica affair broke.
Look at the list of attributes that are general considered part of moral character and see how many of them Clinton actually possessed and then look at the same list and Bush and see how many he has.

Moral character or character is an evaluation of a person's moral and mental qualities. Such an evaluation is subjective ? one person may evaluate someone's character on the basis of their virtue, another may consider their fortitude, courage, loyalty, honesty, or piety.

one man is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings and you call that good morals? you do not deserve to be called a human and are a disgrace to the rest of us. oh yeah, that same person also LIED to start this joke of a war so of course those that is also good morals. prof john, you make me sick.

um...if its anyone's fault for the war it's congress. They gave the go ahead.

Back to the topic at hand...the fact is, war is good for the economy. The spending deficit is a paper loss only. If it were impacting the economy we would see interest rates up, consumer spending down, and we certainly wouldnt see the all-time highs in the stock market we see today.

Spin it however you like, our economy is far from terrible.

 

[alien42]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
um...if its anyone's fault for the war it's congress. They gave the go ahead.

congress is responsible for being lied to by the administration?

 

[senseamp]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey

2.) http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ is about as biased as they come.

It's not so much that realclearpolitics is biased. They just post links to editorials from left and right, along side various polling data. It just so happens that the author of this particular editorial is an ideologue called Larry Kudlow. He spews the same tripe on CNBC at 2pm every day. It's always the economy is great, the greatest story never told, goldilocks economy, and every other cliche in the book.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: alien42

Originally posted by: blackangst1
um...if its anyone's fault for the war it's congress. They gave the go ahead.

congress is responsible for being lied to by the administration?

The administration is responsible for being lied to by informants?

 

[UberNeuman]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: alien42

Originally posted by: blackangst1
um...if its anyone's fault for the war it's congress. They gave the go ahead.

congress is responsible for being lied to by the administration?

The administration is responsible for being lied to by informants?

The Congress wasn't given the same information as the Pres and his gang of chumps - the information they cherry picked to sell their little war - but you already knew that, but don't let it get in the way of your feeble talkingpoint.... And if the inspectors had managed to go back into Iraq as that was the way it was heading, the great Neocon dream would have been burst before it began....

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: conjur
Here's what the CBO has projected already
http://www.cbo.gov/budget/budproj.pdf


Note that doesn't include Bush's add'l $245 billion

For the record the CBO projections are nearly worthless.

:roll: Yeah, the CBO is worthless. You really are a cartoon, aren't you? Appears so:

"In January 2001, the Congressional Budget Office projected a surplus for the ten-year period 2002 through 2011 of $5.6 trillion."

That was back when the gov't was producing a fiscal surplus which disappeared with the recession and worsened with the ill-advised Bush tax cuts.

"The Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday estimated a U.S. budget deficit of $172 billion in the current fiscal year, down sharply from the $286 billion it forecast last summer, a U.S. official said." A $110 billion swing

You forgot this portion:

The estimates also understate the ongoing cost of the war in Iraq, but provide a basis for majority Democrats on Capitol Hill to work to match Bush's vow to balance the federal budget in five years.

From 2005 "The federal budget deficit will shrink this year to $331 billion from the record $412 billion last year, largely because of surging tax payments in a strong economy, the Congressional Budget Office forecast yesterday....The federal budget outlook "has improved noticeably for this year" compared with the CBO's March forecast of a $365 billion deficit," A $35 billion in change 5 months

You fail to mention this from just a few years ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/08/politics/08deficit.html

Tax revenues, by contrast, have plunged as a share of the total economy. Total tax revenues amounted to 16.3 percent of the total economy in 2004, the smallest share at any time in the last 40 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Not much else to do but go up from there, eh?

BTW no one has addressed the following undisputable things from the article.
1. For the whole of 2006, GDP advanced 3.4 percent. This followed increases of 3.2 percent in 2005, 3.4 percent in 2004 and 3.7 percent in 2003. (average growth for the 1990's was 3.1% and that was hailed as the best economy since World War 2, growth under just Clinton was 3.5%)

GDP growth average 3.7% under Clinton, just 2.6% under Bush:
http://www.bea.gov/bea/dn/gdpchg.xls

2. The most accurate employment gauge, called "adjusted households" (which the Bureau of Labor Statistics created in order to combine the non-farm payroll survey with the civilian-employment household survey), shows nearly 3 million new jobs annually over the past three years

Uh, 3 million new jobs per year for each of the last 3 years? I'd like to see your proof for that one.

If you want to see what the recently "found" 1 million jobs does to the over all recovery, look at this:
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2006/10/perspective_on.html

3. Hourly earnings for non-supervisory wage earners averaged $16.76 in 2006, a near 20 percent gain from the last business-cycle peak in 2000 and a 64 percent increase from the $10.20 cycle peak in 1990.
4. Comparing the first five years of the Bush economic expansion with the first five years of the Papa Bush/Clinton cycle, average hourly earnings are 44 percent higher today in nominal terms and 9 percent higher in inflation-adjusted terms.

Seems great on paper but the truth is that for over a year, the savings rate has been negative and it is now at 75-year lows!

Ignore all his talk about tax cuts and just look at the results I list above, our economy is doing very well. And Bush gets very little credit for it.

I love it that when the economy is supposedly going great, you all fall over yourselves trying to assign credit to the President but find every excuse in the book to distance him from blame during a downturn. Hypocrites.

Figures...absolutely ignored this one. Don't like getting pwn3d?

he he

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: alien42

Originally posted by: blackangst1
um...if its anyone's fault for the war it's congress. They gave the go ahead.

congress is responsible for being lied to by the administration?

The administration is responsible for being lied to by informants?

:roll:

In the first place, yes, they are responsible. Before they rushed out to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people and burn hundreds of billions of dollars, they had an absolute responsibilty to verify their facts.

More to the point, however, your entire attempt at blame-shifting is empty misdirection, a lie just like those that put us in Iraq. The Bush propaganda machine didn't merely trust a couple of bad sources. They intentionally, knowingly, systematically cherry-picked intel, discarded caveats and qualifications, took worst-case speculation and exaggerated it, then presented the whole ball of lies and innuendo as fact to sell their unilateral attack on Iraq. "These are facts, not assertions." "We KNOW where they are." "There is no doubt." Lies, all lies, accepted as fact by a gullible Congress and American public who couldn't fathom that anyone in such a position of power could lie so brazenly.

It's time for the Bush apologists to accept the fact they were played for suckers. Most of the rest of America has, including the many members of Congress who've shown the character to admit handing a loaded gun to baby Bush was a tragic mistake.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: alien42

Originally posted by: blackangst1
um...if its anyone's fault for the war it's congress. They gave the go ahead.

congress is responsible for being lied to by the administration?

Are they or are they not representatives for the people of the U.S.?

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
um...if its anyone's fault for the war it's congress. They gave the go ahead.

Thanks for yet another a piss poor neocon attempt to shift blame from the scum sucking Bushwhacko liars to those who acted in good faith on the lies they were told. :thumbsdown: :| :thumbsdown:

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Harvey

Originally posted by: blackangst1
um...if its anyone's fault for the war it's congress. They gave the go ahead.

Thanks for yet another a piss poor neocon attempt to shift blame from the scum sucking Bushwhacko liars to those who acted in good faith on the lies they were told. :thumbsdown: :| :thumbsdown:

Republicans (mainly neocons) were in control of Congress.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: alien42

Originally posted by: blackangst1
um...if its anyone's fault for the war it's congress. They gave the go ahead.

congress is responsible for being lied to by the administration?

Are they or are they not representatives for the people of the U.S.?

Well, in theory yes. But the one thing you and both agree on is that they act in the best interest of themselves. But the people get what they deserve. They are afterall still elected.

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Comparing the first five years of the Bush economic expansion with the first five years of the Papa Bush/Clinton cycle, average hourly earnings are 44 percent higher today in nominal terms and 9 percent higher in inflation-adjusted terms. Washington economist Alan Reynolds has written voluminously on the absence of wage inequality since the tax-reform bill of 1986. This is a faux issue.

This is misleading since almost all the growth occurred during the clinton era and not the bush2 era.

hourly_earnings.png