Fed defict lowest in four years.....

[gonegolfin]

Over The First Half Of This Year, Our Economy Grew At A Strong 4.1 Percent Annual Rate Faster Than Any Other Major Industrialized Country.

This is utter fantasy. Go back and read my earlier post. You should also take a look at the following ... http://www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs/article/id=344.

You probably think real unemployment is below 6% as well?

In all of your posts, you continue to harp on only a portion of the equation. You still fail to comprehend how our monetary policy affects the economy and what ramifications such policies can have in the future.

A simple question for you ...
Why do you think the Federal Government has an income tax in this country?


Brian (A conservative wondering if there are any left)

 

[gonegolfin]

Bush ran up the debt on Iraq and with tax cuts. As far as I've been able to ascertain, he is the ONLY leader in history... not just in U.S. history... who has cut taxes in wartime.

You do not run up debt with tax cuts. You run it up with spending. And yes, there has been too much spending.

But you are fooling yourself if you think that taxes have not been raised. It takes a little while for the tax I am talking about to work its way through the system (we are already feeling it). But it is a tax that will surely be felt and is quite regressive. How do you think the government has been funding itself? And not just during the Bush administration ... over say the last several decades (for good measure).

Brian (A conservative wondering if there are any left)

 

[theHawk]

Bush ran up the debt on Iraq and with tax cuts. As far as I've been able to ascertain, he is the ONLY leader in history... not just in U.S. history... who has cut taxes in wartime. He also signed into law huge tax benefits for oil companies and companies who move offshore. China now owns our debt and our trade deficit is a shame.

Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative", but he isn't one. A compassionate conservative wouldn't be signing off on things like cutting student loans and not allowing medicaid to negotiate prescription drug prices for the elderly.

So... what about him do you see as "compassionate"?

Actually tax revenues rose with the tax cuts Jill. And the fact that he is the only President to do this in a time of war, just shows us how good he is concerning the economy.

And by the way, a trade deficit isn't exactly all doom and gloom. The fact that we have a debt with China gives China a reason to see us prosper....less of a reason to attack us. And the fact that we buy alot more of their stuff than they buy of ours tells us they need us alot more than we need them to sustain our economies. Did you even take economics 101?

 

[red states rule]

This is utter fantasy. Go back and read my earlier post. You should also take a look at the following ... http://www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs/article/id=344.

You probably think real unemployment is below 6% as well?

In all of your posts, you continue to harp on only a portion of the equation. You still fail to comprehend how our monetary policy affects the economy and what ramifications such policies can have in the future.

A simple question for you ...
Why do you think the Federal Government has an income tax in this country?


Brian (A conservative wondering if there are any left)

You probably think the moon landing was shot in a Hollywood studio

I know it drives libs nuts to see a fantastic economy due to tax CUTS!

 

[gonegolfin]

You probably think the moon landing was shot in a Hollywood studio

I know it drives libs nuts to see a fantastic economy due to tax CUTS!

That was an intelligent response.

Are you going to answer my question? Or avoid it like you always do.

BTW, I am all for tax cuts and I am a conservative, not a liberal. But I do not blindly worship Republicans either. Not all Republicans are conservative and the number that truly are is waning, especially when it comes to fiscal issues.

Brian

 

[onedomino]

Actually tax revenues rose with the tax cuts Jill. And the fact that he is the only President to do this in a time of war, just shows us how good he is concerning the economy.

And by the way, a trade deficit isn't exactly all doom and gloom. The fact that we have a debt with China gives China a reason to see us prosper....less of a reason to attack us. And the fact that we buy alot more of their stuff than they buy of ours tells us they need us alot more than we need them to sustain our economies. Did you even take economics 101?

You have lost it. What part of "we owe three trillion dollars more now, than when Bush came to office," do you not understand? I bet if you borrowed three trillion dollars that even you could do a better job with the economy than Bush. This President has financially hosed future generations. Each of the 300 million people in the US now owes more than $28,000 dollars, and that's if we paid up instantly, much less does it include the hundreds of billions in interest down the road. While Bush has been President an already staggering national debt of $5.6 trillion has increased $8.6 trillion. Further, he has another two years to dig an even deeper hole for future generations. To answer the question asked by someone else above, no there are no real conservatives. Not fiscal conservatives, anyway. But there are a bunch of religious extremists ruining the Republican Party who call themselves conservatives, thereby demeaning the name.

 

[theHawk]

You have lost it. What part of "we owe three trillion dollars more now, than when Bush came to office," do you not understand? I bet if you borrowed three trillion dollars that even you could do a better job with the economy than Bush. This President has financially hosed future generations. Each of the 300 million people in the US now owes more than $28,000 dollars, and that's if we paid up instantly, much less does it include the hundreds of billions in interest down the road. While Bush has been President an already staggering national debt of $5.6 billion has increased $8.6 billion. Further, he has another two years to dig an even deeper hole for future generations. To answer the question asked by someone else above, no there are no real conservatives. Not fiscal conservatives, anyway. But there are a bunch of religious extremists ruining the Republican Party who call themselves conservatives, thereby demeaning the name.

yea they said the exact same thing during the Reagan administration, yet we managed to prosper very well during the late 90s thanks to the Republican house takeover. I didn't say its good, I mean its not as doom and gloom as everyone makes it out to be. It can be fixed and it will.

 

[red states rule]

CNN's War on the Economy
Leading up to election, network repeatedly tells viewers middle class slipping away, American dream 'impossible.'


By Amy Menefee and Julia A. Seymour
Business & Media Institute
10/25/2006 4:42:23 PM



CNN is no “CSI,” but its reporters and anchors keep declaring things dead. They’ve called the American dream “impossible” and “a lost cause” and said the middle class is “in crisis” or going “out of business” – all in the month of October.



“We hear every day on CNN that the middle class is getting beaten up and that it’s eroding,” said author Barbara Ehrenreich on the October 21 “In the Money.”

She was right about CNN. The 24-hour network is unabashedly attacking the economy in the home stretch of an election race, despite exceptionally good economic news including a low unemployment rate of 4.6 percent and 6.6 million new jobs since August 2003.

“And glowing reports about our economy,” said anchor Lou Dobbs on the October 19 “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” before adding: “Those reports aren’t impressing middle-class Americans struggling to keep their jobs.”

Economist Brian Wesbury observed that “it is getting harder for cynics and pessimists to argue that the U.S. economy is doing poorly. But this does not stop them from trying,” he wrote in an October 17 Wall Street Journal commentary. “Lately, the old class-warrior standby, that ‘Wall Street may be doing fine, but Main Street suffers,’ is echoing down the alleyways.”



CNN has touted that contrast, and it makes a difference to viewers on “Main Street” – a recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll found 88 percent of likely voters listing the economy as an election concern equal to terrorism and the Iraq war.





No Jobs, No Paychecks

“Millions of good-paying jobs have disappeared,” declared Dobbs, who hosts a regular segment titled “War on the Middle Class,” on the October 18 “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” “Many middle-class Americans who still have jobs worry that those jobs are about to end.” The report that followed was about Ford employees – suffering from a company that has failed to innovate and has massive financial obligations tied to its union contracts. Despite those problems of old Detroit, other automakers employing Americans – such as Honda and Toyota – are doing well.

On the same show, reporter Kitty Pilgrim asked the audience: “Now for tonight’s poll. How would you rate the government’s handling of the middle class crisis in this country? Excellent, fair or poor?” Assuming a “middle class crisis” was the template familiar to CNN despite its claim as “the most trusted name in news.”

“Corporations are handing out profits to their shareholders and pink slips to their American employees,” said Lisa Sylvester on the October 19 “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” She didn’t point out that those shareholders are millions of Americans as well, including more than half of American workers who are investing in 401(k)s and similar programs.

“The Dow Jones Index jumped above the 12,000 threshold for the first time,” Sylvester said. “But for middle-class workers, job growth is sluggish, the housing market cooling and paychecks shrinking.”

Sylvester declared job growth “sluggish” after more than three straight years of positive job growth and a recent revision to Labor Department figures that added 810,000 new jobs – something CNN’s “In the Money” also ignored in its October 7 report on job creation. The total job gain for the U.S. economy since August 2003 has averaged out to nearly 180,000 jobs per month.

She also claimed “paychecks shrinking,” though even The New York Times reported a “surge in wage-and-salary income in the first half of this year” on August 31. The broadcast media haven’t noticed the huge rise in overall compensation, BMI has noted, which includes wages and benefits. In fact, hourly compensation in non-farm businesses increased 7.7 percent from last year, according to a September 6 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Economist Wesbury also said recent revisions to income figures had found “$160 billion of personal income that was previously uncounted.” He explained that the commonly used payroll survey, the “major source for both average hourly earnings and wage and salary estimates,” had underestimated the amount.

And median income is much higher than in the past, as Tom Van Riper reported in an October 17 story for Forbes.com.

“Mr. and Mrs. Median’s $46,326 in annual income is 32% more than their mid-‘60s counterparts, even when adjusted for inflation, and 13% more than those at the median in the economic boom year of 1985,” Van Riper wrote.

He also cited the many luxuries the American middle class now enjoys: “Throw in the low inflation of the past 20 years, a deregulated airline industry that's made travel much cheaper, plus technological progress that's provided the middle class with not only better cars and televisions, but every gadget from DVD players to iPods, all at lower and lower prices, and it's obvious that Mr. and Mrs. Median are living the life of Riley compared to their parents and grandparents.”

Still, anchor Lou Dobbs bemoaned on his October 19 show: “Corporate America is riding high, but for many working Americans the war on the middle class is intensifying.”

Dobbs harped on a familiar class-warfare talking point: “That would work out to mean that a CEO would make in one day what it would take that so-called average worker two years to earn. That seems just a little, a little disproportionate.” Sylvester’s response: “A little unfair indeed, Lou.”

Neither Dobbs nor Sylvester mentioned being bothered by their own salaries in comparison to “so-called average workers.” According to Salary.com, a Web site which “prides itself in being the resource for compensation data,” “CNN stars like Lou Dobbs and Wolf Blitzer make millions each year.” The article, titled “Dream Jobs: News Anchor,” interviewed CNN International anchor Jonathan Mann, who said anchoring “is probably one of the lucrative jobs in the television industry.” In addition to anchoring, Dobbs also has had sideline operations including his latest book, “The War on the Middle Class,” and a financial newsletter.

In his Forbes story, Van Riper also commented on the trend of salary envy: “But what does the pay of celebrities and CEOs have to do with the average American, other than provide fodder for jealousy? It would be one thing if growing incomes at the top stretched prices of goods and services so much as to dramatically push inflation ahead for everyone else. But inflation has been tame for over two decades.”

Middle Class Going Under

“Many Americans feel like the man who is about to drown crossing a stream that on the average is three feet deep.”

This report from CNN’s Bill Schneider aired at least four times on October 18 – on “American Morning,” “CNN Newsroom,” “The Situation Room” and “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

“On the average, the economy’s doing well,” Schneider said, “…but not for people who feel themselves slipping under water.” He added: “In a new CNN poll conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation, a majority of Americans say the American dream has become the impossible dream for most people.”

When Miles O’Brien introduced Schneider’s piece on the October 18 “American Morning,” he reported: “The middle class still says, generally, it feels like the American dream is a lost cause.”

But it was CNN anchors and reporters who kept the dead dream mantra alive. On the October 21 “In the Money,” host Jack Cafferty asked, “What about the fact that the forces that are driving the middle class out of business are all emanating for the most part from Washington, D.C.?”



Cafferty pushed the liberal talking points of Barbara Ehrenreich, author of “Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream”, suggesting “that the government in collusion with the big corporations are seeing to it that there is no increase in the minimum wage, that illegal immigrants are allowed to drive down wages overall in this country, that corporations are allowed to do away with their health insurance plans?”



Ehrenreich said her new advocacy group, United Professionals, will represent people who “could be a marketing executive one day, and you could be working in Wal-Mart the next day.”



Cafferty and Ehrenreich could have gained a more accurate perspective on the economy by listening to CNN’s Susan Lisovicz on the October 18 “Paula Zahn Now.” Lisovicz explained that the surge in the Dow Jones was good news: “The stock market has helped achieve the American dream for millions of Americans, not just the top wage earners, not just CEOs, but millions of Americans who are saving for their kids’ education, for their first home, for their retirement. And this is a reflection of the economy.”




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http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2006/20061025152931.aspx

 

[theHawk]

CNN has turned into a complete propaganda machine. I don't think I'll ever watch them again.

 

[Hamiltonian]

Actually tax revenues rose with the tax cuts Jill. And the fact that he is the only President to do this in a time of war, just shows us how good he is concerning the economy.

And by the way, a trade deficit isn't exactly all doom and gloom. The fact that we have a debt with China gives China a reason to see us prosper....less of a reason to attack us. And the fact that we buy alot more of their stuff than they buy of ours tells us they need us alot more than we need them to sustain our economies. Did you even take economics 101?

Have you taken Econ 101? I did not take that course, but only recently did our tax revenues hit their pre-tax cut levels, which means that between about now and the tax cuts, our revenues fell. Normally revenue increases, because GDP is increasing. Up to this point, the tax revenues did not increase more than they normally do, and they actually decreased.

 

[gonegolfin]

Over The First Half Of This Year, Our Economy Grew At A Strong 4.1 Percent Annual Rate Faster Than Any Other Major Industrialized Country.

This is utter fantasy. Go back and read my earlier post. You should also take a look at the following ... http://www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs/article/id=344.

You probably think real unemployment is below 6% as well?

In all of your posts, you continue to harp on only a portion of the equation. You still fail to comprehend how our monetary policy affects the economy and what ramifications such policies can have in the future.

A simple question for you ...
Why do you think the Federal Government has an income tax in this country?


Brian (A conservative wondering if there are any left)

You probably think the moon landing was shot in a Hollywood studio

I know it drives libs nuts to see a fantastic economy due to tax CUTS!

That was an intelligent response.

Are you going to answer my question? Or avoid it like you always do.

BTW, I am all for tax cuts and I am a conservative, not a liberal. But I do not blindly worship Republicans either. Not all Republicans are conservative and the number that truly are is waning, especially when it comes to fiscal issues.

Brian (A conservative wondering if there are any left)

I knew you would not answer my question, rsr ...

Brian (A conservative wondering if there are any left)

 

[JeffWartman]

I knew you would not answer my question, rsr ...

And he won't, either...