Bush 2004 !!!

[acludem]

This is exactly what I'm going through right now. You can find a job, but it's at McDonalds. Corporatations are moving all the good jobs overseas. I would slap a huge tax hike on any organization that moves jobs overseas. This would offset their profit gain and make it more likely that they will keep those jobs here in the U.S.

I live in a college town, so most of the jobs here are related the University. I'm probably going to work for one of friend's in his convenience store for awhile. I have applied for probably 25 different jobs at the University, but have had only one interview and am still waiting to hear back.

 

[Psychoblues]

Jobs are in the pits, my friends. The "improving" economy isn't affecting any swingvoters that I know of yet. The "mission accomplished" thing ain't exactly accomplished yet. The vet's are plenty pissed. The BBV (Black Box Voting, ie Computer no paper trail) thing is hitting the fan. The new entitlements in Medicare will come back to haunt the deficits. The "faith-based" initiatives are making a lot of preachers happy but they aren't helping anyone else as far as I can see. The pork is becoming beef for a lot of our more wealthy at the expense of our less wealthy.

I don't see it. Even with OBL, unless GWB demonstrates some fairly extreme leadership which I still believe he is incapable of I think the '04 elections will go liberal. Personally, I'd prefer a more moderate choice but for this time, OBL or no, I think the liberals have the upper hand. Maybe the abundance of conservative/corporate dollars will overcome their moral deficit but I just don't see it for now.

 

[Annie]

Hate to bring any rays of sunshine to your raining parade, yet how do you account for all the housing starts, shopping at retail level, increase in university enrollments? All this is being accomplished with McD or 7/11 salaries?

Interesting Psycho, how you manage to wish for someone at 'center', but fearing the elections will go 'liberal.' I think you're hoping too much and thinking too little.

 

[DKSuddeth]

actually, the way the reports would indicate, I think that its being done mostly on credit.

There doesn't seem to be a ready explanation for housing starts and the real estate market, at least by my reckoning, and I have doubts about the salary growth thats being talked about.

I've seen the jobs listed in the IT field and have yet to hear from any of my numerous IT relations that its getting better, the number of jobs is picking up slightly but salaries are dropping.

retail shopping is not going to get the expected boost its talking about. once the holiday bargain shopping is done I think we'll see its less than most said it would be.

This, of course, is based on my own personal trials and experience and since I'm no economic major you can take it for what its worth.

 

[Annie]

As for the credit, I know that many were using like crazy during the past 3 years, as salaries were really 'falling' and savings/retirement funds were crashing. In the past 3 years, I've known 4 people that lost their positions, 2 were hired within a month, other two took longer than 3 months. 3 were hired at salaries below what their previous paid. 2 of those are now making more than their previous salaries. (kind of confusing, but 3 out of 4 are doing better; and the other feels it's a matter of time, gaining lots of new experience, which he feels will pay off down the line.)

Nearly everyone I know have started to clear up credit, including keeping cars longer. Several friends have 'moved up' to very high priced homes, 2 building-thanks to very low interest rates. That has a lot to do with the building. I do not know one person who hasn't refinanced.

As you stated, I'm also not close to understanding economics. I will say that my circle of friends tend to be well educated and professionals, (ie. computer related positions-very hard hit during the down-turn or in the financial markets). While they may not be 'representative' of those that are taking McD jobs, I do know they used their unemployment time to strengthen their resumes, are now furthering their education, and were willing to take postions that would add to their being hired more profitably in the future, not to mention more likely to keeping their new positions.

 

[DKSuddeth]

In the past year I've known a dozen associates who have lost their job. One person managed to find a higher paying one. The rest are either still unemployed or working a job for less pay and some are not even in the IT field anymore.

Maybe its just my area, North Texas is still hemorhaging jobs.

 

[Annie]

You may be right about areas, I'm about 35 miles outside of Chicago, western suburbs, relatively wealthy Dupage County.

However, I do think nonetheless, that your hopefulness for a liberal president are just short of hopeless, though things can and do change:





It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This
From the December 29, 2003 / January 5, 2004 issue: In the past few weeks, President Bush has been lucky and good.
by Fred Barnes
12/29/2003, Volume 009, Issue 16





PRESIDENT BUSH has gotten a bigger reelection boost in a shorter period of time than any other president ever. And that may be putting it mildly. Yes, Sherman's taking of Atlanta in early September 1864 was critical to Lincoln's reelection, and Bill Clinton's signing of welfare reform in 1996 assured him a second term. But those don't quite match the gust of good news for Bush between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Here's the list: capture of Saddam Hussein, Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi's about-face, enactment of a prescription drug entitlement, signing of the first rollback of Roe v. Wade, fastest economic growth in 19 years, quickest pace in worker productivity gains in 20 years, two-decade high in increased manufacturing activity, significant drop in jobless claims, lowest underlying rate of inflation in 38 years, and rock-bottom interest rates. Oh, yes, the stock market: A week before Christmas, the Dow's up 23 percent for the year, 4 percent since Thanksgiving.

Let's not give Bush a big head and declare his reelection a done deal. He still faces daunting problems (job losses, post-Saddam insurgency in Iraq, al Qaeda, nukes in Iran and North Korea, energized opponents at home). But, to Bush's credit, the string of accomplishments on the eve of 2004 are mostly his own doing. It turns out more troops were not needed in Iraq, at least not to seize Saddam. The answer, as the administration insisted, was better intelligence. Bush's tax cuts, nearly everyone agrees, were the catalyst in rejuvenating the economy. A full-blown recovery is now a given. Bush had helpers like Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and a good bit of luck. As the baseball saying goes, it's better to be lucky than good. It's better still to be in Bush's situation, lucky and good.

Grabbing Saddam produced a reversal in the Iraq debate. Saddam at large was the symbol of Bush's losing the battle of postwar Iraq. His captivity is the symbol of Bush's winning that battle. For months now, Saddam will be the story--his imprisonment, his interrogation, his atrocities, his prosecution, his punishment. When the spotlight is on Saddam in chains, Bush gains. If the terrorism directed by Saddam's cronies continues to abate, as it did in the days after his capture, Bush will gain further. In any case, he's no longer on defense in the debate over Iraq.

His foes are no longer on offense. Democrats were flummoxed by Saddam's capture. Columnist Robert Novak reported that Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, a top deputy to Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, had taped a radio statement, sneering at the prospects of seizing Saddam. It was to be broadcast the day after Saddam was captured. The Democratic presidential candidates, along with Sen. Hillary Clinton, responded to the capture with the cliché that Bush must "internationalize" the war in Iraq. This was a non sequitur: Because Bush's policy in Iraq was working, it was time to change the policy. That is not a serious argument.

Democrats exuded an air of unreality. They called for the United Nations to assume a bigger role in Iraq just days after Secretary General Kofi Annan announced the United Nations had no intention of doing that. They said Bush should recruit more foreign troops to replace American soldiers in Iraq. But there was no evidence any country was prepared to dispatch troops. And the Saddam capture led to more conspiracy-theorizing by Democrats. Congressman Jim McDermott of Washington suggested Saddam was ripe for seizure any time and Bush had planned the event for political gain. Of course this clashed with the standard Democratic criticism that Bush had lost control of postwar Iraq.

Democratic presidential frontrunner Howard Dean reacted with remarkable pigheadedness. He inserted in a speech the claim that Saddam's jailing did not make America safer. Earlier he had said Saddam was a "threat" to the United States. So Dean would have it that a threat was removed with no gain in safety for America. That defies logic. Besides, documents from Saddam's briefcase showed he was in regular touch, by courier, with terrorist cells perpetrating attacks on American soldiers and Iraqis. Once that was known, Dean could have revised his view. He didn't. He tossed out three charges against the president. One, Bush had claimed a direct link between al Qaeda and Saddam and later retracted the claim. Two, Bush had said the United States knew where Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were. Three, Bush had declared Saddam an "imminent danger." Dean was wrong on all three counts.

When was Bush lucky? That occurred as he dispatched former secretary of state James Baker on a mission to win debt relief for Iraq. Months ago, the administration made it known that countries not helping in Iraq would be ineligible for contracts to rebuild the country. The press missed this. Shortly before Baker departed for France and Germany, a routine Defense Department memo formally limiting the contracts was reported in the press. The belated scoop was the lucky part for the president. It created a media firestorm that Bush exploited to reiterate his policy and show the United States wouldn't be "played for patsies," as a White House official said. And the French and others finally "understood the ground rule is you've got to help" in Iraq. The result: They began to help, welcoming Baker and promising to forgive some or all of the Iraqi debt amassed by Saddam.

The White House has refrained from gloating. "We're happy with success, but we're looking forward" to 2004, Bush adviser Karl Rove said. Bush has a theme, the "ownership society," and a fat agenda that includes "lifetime savings accounts"--essentially tax-free IRAs with no penalties for withdrawal--and Social Security investment accounts. Bush's idea is to give Americans ownership of their money for retirement, health care, and everything now in the hands of government or other providers. Achieving all this would be a major feat, almost as amazing as what Bush wrought in late 2003.


Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.




© Copyright 2003, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

 

[DKSuddeth]

I'm about 35 miles outside of Chicago, western suburbs, relatively wealthy Dupage County.

Thats too funny. I was born and raised in the Dekalb area. I have family that live in Lake in the Hills.

 

[Psychoblues]

I understand the defense and energy industries in Texas are hiring like there's no tomorrow. Maybe you and your friends can get some of those gigs. Otherwise, jobs are pretty much hemmoraging everywhere if one can believe the classifieds, or lack thereof.

 

[Annie]

So you were a born GOPlett? LOL

 

[Annie]

Even funnier, my daughter is at NIU, her and boyfriend love the area! 'So much less congested than Wheaton.'