Now that the stock market is at a historical high and unemployment is about the lowest it can get, what do Democrats have to say about an economy that equals or betters the numbers of the Clinton economy they continue to praise? “The Bush Economy continues to benefit only the wealthiest Americans“, of course.

Oops.

Wages and benefits paid to American workers rose in the July-September period at the fastest pace in more than two years.

Nevermind, nevermind… it’s, uh, not the economy, stupid…

1. Most likely explanation for discrepancy between sluggish GDP growth (1.6 annually), lower consumer confidence and apparent higher total income is the new rules in accounting for income from exercising stock options.

   Additionally, it’s not as good as it seems. Over the last year, benefits and wages were up 3.3%. That should be great news, since it beats the inflation rate of 2.4% over the past period. Well, unfortunately that’s the inflation rate without energy and food. For those of us who like to eat and need to drive to get around, and are attached to heat and airconditioning, the inflation rate for the past year was 3.4%. So wages are still barely keeping up with inflation, even as they are propped up by the new accounting rules.

   Comment by endorendil — 4:11 pm
   

2. endorendil, what is it about you libs that REQUIRES every silver lining to have a cloud?

   In order for Dems to regain control of Congress, why does EVERYTHING have to be seen as bad news?

   Prior to 1994, Congress was controlled by Democrats for over 40 years:

   * - Poverty wasn’t reduced or eliminated
   * - Racism still exists (but it was finally reduced to one political party)
   * - There are still 44 million without healthcare
   * - There are still hundreds of thousands of homeless
   * - There are still rich people (see Kennedy, Soros, Kerry, etc.)
   * - The minimum wage is still too low, so we need to allow illegal immigrants to come in and work for lower wages
   * - Government workers now work for unions and not the government.

   The Patriot Act has been assailed as the great thief of civil liberties, but that Act doesn’t say anything about:

   * - All the reasons you can be sued or fired for saying (and thinking) something that someone might perceive to be discriminatory, offensive, sexually harassing, or who knows what else (except Christian bashing)?
   * - Helmet laws
   * - Seat Belt laws
   * - Smoking laws
   * - Gun possession laws
   * - Judicially mandated laws resticting public exercise of Religion
   * - Judicially accepted definitions that now allow government to seize private property and give to other citizens (not the government) in order to generate more tax revenues

   1976 - 1981 Democrat President, Democrat Congress. What was the state of the economy then? What was the interest rate? What was the inflation rate? What was the jobless rate?

   The current government is doing far better than that one did.

   Comment by SouthernRoots — 9:54 pm
   

3. SouthernRoots, not everything is bad, but many of the things TR trots out are not unqualified progress.

   The economy isn’t great, by all measures. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that inflation and population growth matter when you look at market valuation, income growth and such.

   The war is going bad, by all measures. It takes some serious blinders to disagree with that.

   As to your specific complaints about 40 years of Democratic rule in congress:

   “* - Poverty wasn’t reduced or eliminated”

   It certainly was reduced in those 40 years. It cannot be eliminated by any known economic system, but the US’s poverty rate is high among industrialized countries. And poverty certainly has risen over the last 6 years.

   “* - Racism still exists (but it was finally reduced to one political party)”

   I agree, but you can’t expect the Democrats to fix the Republican party’s own problems.

   “* - There are still 44 million without healthcare”

   Proving that Democrats aren’t socialists. Arguably it also shows that you can only provide universal healthcare with a single-payer system.

   “* - There are still hundreds of thousands of homeless”

   Proving that you need a better social safety net, if you really care about fixing this.

   “* - There are still rich people (see Kennedy, Soros, Kerry, etc.)”

   Proving that Democrats aren’t against the rich.

   “* - The minimum wage is still too low, so we need to allow illegal immigrants to come in and work for lower wages”

   I assume you mean that the minimum wage is “too high”. If you’re able to feed and house your family on two or three minimum wage jobs, you’re doing pretty well. Expecting people to be able to afford healthcare and a good education on minimum wage jobs is crazy.

   “* - Government workers now work for unions and not the government.”

   Unions are much less powerful than they used to be. Do you think that government should revoke the right to unionize?

   Carter inherited a godawful mess from everyone’s favorite Republican administrations: Nixon and Ford. In addition OPEC was flexing its muscle, and the US self-confidence was at a nadir. Stagflation is extremely difficult to get out of, but Carter did appoint the right guy to do it, and let him do what he needed to do, even though the painful consequences hurt his chances of reelection and caused the high interest rates, slow economy and high unemployment that you complain about. It’s a great example of how a courageous administration can bite the bullet and fix a thoroughly broken system, even though it was going to be unpopular.

   I don’t see any sign of such political courage in the Republican party, not in its approach to war nor its approach to the economy. It refuses to see that difficult problems call for difficult measures. The Republican party has bloated the government without providing oversight, it has agreed to give up the system of checks and balances between legislative and executive branches, it has run up stunning deficits and started two wars without assigning sufficient resources to win them (and one of them was unnecessary at the time). If this is the way Republicans want to run the country, I’ld rather have a barrel of monkeys do it.

   Comment by endorendil — 5:49 am
   

4. endorendil,
   I’ve got to hand it to you. Most liberals will defend Clinton to the death but aren’t as passionate at defending the joke of a President that was Jimmy Carter. You still have yet to cite a single source for anything, but then again, who can blame you? You’re defending Jimmy Carter as a great President for goodness sake!

   “The war is going bad, by all measures. It takes some serious blinders to disagree with that.”

   By “all accounts”? Sure about that?

   Iraqi security forces continue to develop into a capable force and continue to take the lead. On Tuesday in Ramadi, the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Brigade of the 7th Iraqi Army Division assumed responsibility in its area of operations.

   This now makes 90 Iraq army battalions in the lead. In total today, there are six of 10 Iraqi army divisions in the lead, 30 of 36 Iraqi brigades, and 90 of 112 Iraqi battalions in the lead. And we operate in support of them. All across Iraq, we continue to see an increasingly capable Iraqi security force continuing to take the lead.

   I’m sure you’re confident in your assertion based on illegally leaked information to the New York Times, but did you ever think to cut out the biased middle-man and go right to the source for info?

   “The economy isn’t great, by all measures. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that inflation and population growth matter when you look at market valuation, income growth and such.”

   Such was also the case in the late 1990s, but you didn’t hear the Left citing all the negative information like they do now. Inflation averaged about 2.60% during the Clinton years and is averaging about 2.74% during Bush’s term. (For what it’s worth the inflation rate during Carter’s term averaged 9.73%.)

   “Proving that Democrats aren’t against the rich.”
   No, they’re not against getting rich themselves, but they don’t want others to be able to join their country clubs.

   Comment by Texas Rainmaker — 7:31 am
   

5. Yes, I am sure that the war is going badly, unless you put on very heavy blinders (such as the military spokesmen are required to wear).

   I take my info from the document that the President declassified, which was unequivocal on the essence of the matter. I agree that this document shouldn’t have been declassified, as it contained a lot of information helpful to our enemies that actually hadn’t been leaked to the press. But what do you expect from a president that puts political gain over national security? At least he made his point. Well, actually he didn’t, since he ended up corroborating the NYT story. But he did make someones point.

   From the link you provided:
   Uncovered terrorist documents clearly showed a well-organized and structured operational hub. Among these documents was a map that led security forces to caches that included anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, hand-held and surface-to-surface rockets, large quantities of bulk explosives and ordnance for fabricated improvised explosive devices and homemade bombs, dynamite, sniper rifles, machine guns, partially completed improvised explosive devices, mortar and artillery rounds and a sizable amount of rifle and machine gun ammunition. The weapons and ordnance that the terrorists kept in this operational hub were well-maintained. In addition, security forces also seized uniforms and terrorist documents along with U.S. military equipment that clearly indicated an association with attacks on U.S. forces and with two of our downed U.S. helicopters. The amount of ordnance that we found, we estimate, could have been used to fabricate in excess of 1,000 improvised explosive devices.

   It’s great that they found this hub, but it proves that in three years of resistance the US has gone from facing a fairly ragtag assembly of poorly equipped fighters to facing a real underground army. The fact that the army continues to unearth more and more weapon caches shows that the problem isn’t abating yet.

   
   “In The Past Year, Iraqi Security Forces Have Made Real Progress. This time last year, there were only a handful of combat-ready Iraqi battalions. Now, there are over 120 Iraqi Army and Police combat battalions in the fight - typically comprised of between 350 to 800 Iraqi forces. Of these, about 80 battalions are fighting alongside Coalition forces. About 40 other battalions are taking the lead, and most are controlling their own battle space and conducting their own operations with some Coalition support.”
   
   That was from last year’s White House fact sheet (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051130.html). If this is correct, the number of combat batallions available to the ISF have decreased somewhat over the last year (from 120 to 112). I’m not sure what “taking the lead” really means, considering how many stories there are from front line soldiers contradicting the official US army line (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR2006093000492_pf.html), but it seems that the only progress has been that more of these units are no longer operating with US forces present. That explains the increase of death squad activity, doesn’t it?

   And it remains a dumb strategy to train and arm Iraqis before the country is fully pacified and unified. As the WaPo concludes:
   “A Marine officer who has fought in Anbar province and an Army captain who just returned from Baghdad agreed, both saying they fear that all the U.S. military is doing is training and arming Iraqis to fight a looming civil war.”.

   TR, indeed, inflation is on average the same (courtesy of an aggresive fed), about 2.7%. But when Clinton started (data from http://www.bea.gov), US GDP was 6,338 billion. When he left, it was 9,817 billion, an average yearly increase of 5.6%. Under Bush it has gone up to 12,456, an average yearly increase of 4.8%. That means that inflation-adjusted growth went from about 2.9% to 2.1%. Add in that population grows a tad faster than 1% per year (not counting illegal immigrants), and you find that actual annual progress in GDP per head was about 1.9% during the Clinton years, and about 1.1% now. That’s a serious reduction in wealth creation. And we all know that wealth isn’t created uniformly…

   And especially Republicans shouldn’t forget that some of the recent GDP growth is simply due to increased government deficits (which is running at several %of GDP again). Printing money is a great way to increase GDP (as long as it gets sent oversees, where it doesn’t increase inflationary pressures).

   Carter’s administration took the tough measures that got out of the stagflation. I’ld like to see the Bush administration making ANY tough decisions. They invariably go for cheap, politically easy decisions.

   Comment by endorendil — 11:07 am
   

6. “It’s great that they found this hub, but it proves that in three years of resistance the US has gone from facing a fairly ragtag assembly of poorly equipped fighters to facing a real underground army. The fact that the army continues to unearth more and more weapon caches shows that the problem isn’t abating yet.”

   Or that they were there all along as the documentary evidence seems to support.

   “I’ld like to see the Bush administration making ANY tough decisions. They invariably go for cheap, politically easy decisions.”

   Like going into Iraq? That’s been a hell of a “politically easy” decision, huh.

   ““* - Racism still exists (but it was finally reduced to one political party)”

   I agree, but you can’t expect the Democrats to fix the Republican party’s own problems.”

   Hardly a Republican problem.

   Comment by Texas Rainmaker — 4:57 pm
   

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