I always thought this question to be a little stupid. If you are not better off than you were four years ago, it's your own damn fault.
I am not going to look to ANY POTUS (GWB, Bill, Reagen) whoever, to make my life better, that is my job.
This whole mentality of pinning the economy on a President is bull. The Chairman of the Fed affects it more, and there are way too many factors to lay it at the door of the White House.
The economy is cyclical, has been for decades, enjoy the peaks and be industrious during the lows, but quit looking to blame someone else...
That's why the Civil Rights Industrial Complex can't accept that things betweeen races have simply gotten better.
In many ways, the left is the worst thing that has happened to "the poor". Did you notice the lack of substantive arguements against my postulation that minimum wage hurts the poor the most?
It was, welll,,,you're a rich fucker, or, it does'nt affect me....
But no one could answer why, after moving minimum wage from $1.25 to $6.75, we still have people who are poor....
that Affirmative Action does the same thing for minorities, but I'm not sure you can entirely blame the liberals. There have been too many years that the right has controlled the white house and both the house and senate, and they did nothing to reverse any of the above policies. Truth is, it would be political suicide for even a lot of Republicans to seriously oppose any of the social or PC programs. Until the thinking of the majority changes, don't expect any political party to change.
Do you remember the flack Clinton took form the Left when he did the welfare reform deal? What the Pubs are most guilty of these days is abondoning their beliefs, if they ever had em, for what is now politically expedient.
It's like Arnies big re-fi of the state of California.
I see a finacncial house hurtling out of control and it's being driven by "the electorate".
especially when the majority disagrees with you on important issues.
Just curious, would you prefer living in a monarchy? Or just letting the landed wealthy people vote?
"majority rule" is not really the rule in the US...not only do we have a system of checks and balances among the three branches of government, we also have state and local subdivisions of the law, and we have the electoral college, which as we all know, prevented Gore from becoming president, even though he won the popular vote by a pretty nice margin. Furthermore, we don't really have a democracy, we have a representative democracy, wherin we send people to Washington to vote on our behalf. We also have initiative, referendum, and recall to further keep things in check, and it takes a 2/3 majority of the house and senate to pass an amendment, as well as ratification by 2/3 of the states. That's a lot of checks, thank goodness.
If not, you would have a lot more really bad laws. Just because the majority is white, and thinks it is OK to discriminate against blacks, for example, does not make it a good idea, nor does it make it right.
The issue here is, that both parties are pandering to the voters, one bloc at a time, so that lots of special interests get addressed, often at the expense of the very majority of the people they are representing, and always at the expense of every taxpayer!
That's enough civics for now. I'm tired. Time to chase punanny!
it also never mentioned my situation economically. I myself am
doing fine but the country as a whole is in the shitter
economically.
If you want to talk economics...
The Fed affects monetary policy. The president with the
congress affects fiscal policy which can and does have as
least as much of an impact.
Bush has taken his eye completely off the economic ball and the
recovery that was starting in 2003 seems to have vanished. Of
course it's his fault - look at the people he has as the
treasury secertary, labor secretary, etc. Clearly a second
string team if ever there was one.
We have record deficits! I'm not going to explain to you what
that does to the economy and financial markets. But this is
a direct result of Bush's tax cuts.
We're in a jobless recovery which doesn't even look like we can
call a recovery anymore.
Of course Kerry will bring back Robert Rubin to sort out this
mess.
Now don't get me started on the non-economics...
AN
This has to be one of the dumbest posts that I have read here in the last seven days, if not longer. Several facts, you can take them as you will.
1. The unemployement level and the pace of economic growth in
this country DO cause some people to be worse off than they
were four years ago. Very good, hard working people cannot
find jobs and it is not because they are not looking.
2. The FED alone DOES NOT drive the direction of the economy.
The FED, by it's nature tends to be reactive. The discount
interest rate of the FED has been at record lows for about
two years, if it is taken any lower, there is a real risk of
disinflation. But the record low interest rates by and large
have had little impact. The reason why the low interest
rates have not had the impact that they should have is that
for the last 3+ years fiscal policy (set by the
administration) has not been coordinated with monetary policy
(set by the FED). One of the major successes of the Clinton
administration (my saying this will make you sick, you know,
I don't give a shit) is that fiscal policy under Robert
Rubin, and later Lawrence Summers, was tightly coordinated
with the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve.
Please, try very hard to engage your brain before you post more shit. I know that doing so will be hard for you.
-- Modified on 8/8/2004 6:36:35 PM
but speaking truth to ignorance works fine also.
AN
once again you place the blame/credit at the foot of government instead of people taking independent responsibility.
Regarding your points
1) Yes, good people do lose jobs. However, if they take the time to stay educated and ensure they have valuable skill sets, they can get other employment. It is each person's responsibility to make sure they are marketable.
2)If you haven't been reading the papers, the FED is raising the rates, therefore it looks like you are WRONG here. 9/11 extended this normal downtur which STARTED during the clinton years (don't care if the truth makes you sick or not). The FED does not generally have as large effect on the economy as you think, and everything they do has a delayed effect. BTW, the reason the 90's were so hot was the .COM phenomenon.
-- Modified on 8/11/2004 11:01:38 PM
This is true, even when the recession happens 3 and a half years into the term of a Republican.
We are now in a double-dip recession following a FAILED recovery. You could blame the first part of the recession on Clinton, with some merit, however, the failure of the recovery, and the new slide, is unambiguously on Bush's watch.
To your first point. Working people who do update their skills and make themselves marketable cannot get and/or hold jobs that pay a decent wage. I see the resumes of people like that everytime there are openings in the company that I work for.
To your second group of point. Interest rates have only recently been raised, they had been at 1% for close to two years, disinflation territory - they simply could not stay at that level without causing major damage. The 90's high economic cycle started roaring in earnest in ~96 (the initial pickup in the economy first started in mid-94 after effective coordination between President Clinton's Council of Econonic Advisers, The Treasury under Robert Rubin and the Federal Reserve finally neutralized most of the systemic problems that had developed during the admistration of President George H. Bush). The dot.com craze started in mid to late 98, the economy had been moving forward strongly for 2 plus years before the dot.com craze that you claim lifted the economy. BTW, the dot.com craze that you so confidently say lifted the economy was limited to fairly small segments of the economy, nothing more than window dressing. The real growth came from small and medium sized companies that found that they could get loans at reasonable rates and did not have to compete for loan money against and over-extended government. Lastly, the actions of the Federal Reserve do impact the economy. If not, why does every financial market and most finance people in companies follow it's every move?
Finally, the thing that makes me sick is reading the misinformed crap that you write.
-- Modified on 8/14/2004 2:12:09 AM
wrong again!!!
Who cares if you've seen resumes. Just because somebody sends you a resume doesn't mean they are out of work. Maybe they just want to move on. So that argument is trash.
To your second point, the good economy in the 90's started slightly after what you are saying, and was largely based on the confidence of the market when the Republicans took the House and effectively the purse strings (all moentary bills are initiated in the House). Business believed this would be beneficial for them since Republicans tend to encourage business where democrats are punative towards it. This put a shot in the arm of confidence in the business sector. This confidence + the .com boom made for a very strong market in the late 90s.
You should consider night school to brush up on your economics, becuse the stuff you posted was crap!!
Do you have Abbey and me confused?
If you are referring to my post below then you are having problems keeping up with that smooth talkin' Bush!
He is currently (and for the past 12 months at least) touting small business growth through the help of the SBA. What he is not touting is the increasing tax burden on small business, or the astronomical cost of insurance, or the hidden fees, surcharges and whatever names they are calling these extra little taxes that keep getting placed on small business while the large corps. get tax INCENTIVES to send jobs overseas.
Granted, it is not entirely Bush' fault, but he IS (sadly) at the head of the USA.
As far as it being my own damn fault, sorry but I must disagree. It is not my fault that so many of my clients went bankrupt the past 2 years, it is not my fault that the service my company provides which has been a good and steady industry since the 1920's, suddenly was crippled by the record number of bankruptcies since this admin took office. And it is not my fault this admin is in office, I did not vote for them.