Thread: The strongest economy in the world

^ The economy is not about political parties.

The current trends go back 35 years.

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

I wonder how the same people who complain about the low cost of foreign products in the USA would feel about a "Buy American" campaign ?

Would this be the rare instance where "Patriotism" is acceptable ?

This implies that you have things that people would actually want to buy. All clothes shoes, telphones, TVs are made in China. You'd have to start from scratch and rebuild.

Perhaps when the US$ falls far enough then America will be the country of choice for offshore industry.

LARRY KUDLOW SAYS WE'RE ENJOYING "A GOLDILOCKS ECONOMY:"

"We are enjoying a goldilocks economy, not too hot and not too cold." In other words, there's no economic bubble out there that's about to go "pop."
Recent economic reports confirm this: Factory production is strong. Core inflation has settled down. Excluding energy, consumer prices haven't moved all that much in the last three years. In the third quarter, real consumer spending is running 3.2 percent at an annual rate, ahead of the second quarter average. Non-defense capital-goods shipments (excluding aircraft) are 7.6 percent ahead of the second quarter. After-tax real disposable income is 5.4 percent higher than last year. And tax revenues are rolling in, with both states and the U.S. Treasury reporting record revenue collections.
Rising stocks, falling gas prices, low tax rates and the Goldilocks economy are powerful pluses for election-year Republicans. With so many indicators leaning positive, the Democrats aren't even talking about the economy anymore.

That last is the revealing bit. Just remember that, even in the Goldilocks story, the bears do eventually come home.

Bush Tax Cuts Cause Yet More Problems...

By Mark Noonan

"...for Democrats hoping to fool Americans in to voting for them:

The Dow Jones industrial average finally reached new heights Tuesday, extending Wall Street’s seven-year recovery with a record closing level after climbing into uncharted territory in trading earlier in the day. The index of 30 blue chip stocks ended the session at 11,727.34, according to preliminary calculations, wiping out the previous record of 11,722.98.

After Bill Clinton's recession, various corporate scandals and the 9/11 attack, the DOW cratered at 7,286 - not a bad come back, if you ask me. Additionally, this is a much more solid high than the last one - not at all fueled by late-90's "real decade of greed" speculation. While the market may very well have a correction now that its hit a new high, the plain fact of the matter is that our economy is a very sound footing and while the hard work of Americans is responsible for most of it, we can never forget that it was President Bush's tax cuts which first saved us from economic depression, and then led the way to this magnificent, booming economy."

Strongest Economy? Buy GDP, yes.

But there are some negative trends in recent decades. And again (sigh) it's not about one political party or the other, because they are so similar to one another macro-economically.

Here's an article on the cost of living + stagnant incomes in the US:

Across Nation, Housing Costs Rise as Burden

By JANNY SCOTT and RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: October 3, 2006
The burden of housing costs in nearly every part of the country grew sharply from 2000 to 2005, according to new Census Bureau data being made public today. The numbers vividly illustrate the impact, often distributed unevenly, of the crushing combination of escalating real estate prices and largely stagnant incomes.
While many of the highest home values were on the coasts, in places like Southern California and Manhattan, many of the biggest jumps in the percentage of people paying a burdensome amount of their income for housing occurred in the Midwest and in suburbs nationwide, making it clear that the housing squeeze has reached deep into the imiddle class.

Entire and Link: Across Nation, Housing Costs Rise as Burden - New York Times

Not to mention the national debt (interest payments alone which consume about 20 cents out of every tax dollar collected). Our nation is in debt to float the false economy. What kind of economy would we have were it not for foreigners loaning us the money to buy their stuff?

Who the hell in their right mind would do something which would guarantee a 20% loss? Would you buy a house knowing it would lose 20 percent of its value each year?

During Bush I the DJIA went up 1000 points. Then under Clinton it went up 8000 points. Under Bush we're treading water. Yay! We're back to where we started 5 or 6 years ago.

Now, tell me what's so special about the economy under Bush:





Sing with me: "One of these things is not like the other....."

Apologies for the long cut and paste. I'll restrict them in the future. But this article covers a lot of areas, and say it better than I can.
-----------------------------------------

Dobbs: Are you a casualty of the class war?

POSTED: 7:22 a.m. EDT, October 4, 2006

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The Dow Jones Industrial Average has hit an all-time high and Wall Street firms are posting some of their best earnings ever. For the first time in our nation's history, the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans includes only billionaires. In fact, having only a billion dollars means you're not on the list. As a group, the Forbes 400 has a collective net worth of $1.25 trillion.

So the rich are doing well. But how about the middle class?
More Americans than ever are living in poverty, living without health care, paying more for housing and for the costs of our public education. And real wages are falling.

Real median earnings of full-time working males fell nearly 2 percent last year, according to the Census Bureau, while the real wages of working women fell by 1.3 percent. Despite that, real median household income did manage to rise slightly last year, though that small gain was the first increase in household income since 1999.

So what has been keeping our middle class afloat in the face of rapidly rising costs? American families have been living on, as well as in, their homes. More than one-third of homeowners are spending more than 30 percent of their income on the cost of housing, a level that pushes the edge of affordability. Nationwide median home values from 2000-2005 jumped 32 percent, and homeowners have been pulling equity out of their houses in order to keep up with escalating tuition bills, health care costs and energy costs.

But not everyone is so lucky. The number of Americans without health coverage rose by 1.3 million last year, up to 46.6 million, according to the Census Bureau. What's worse, more than one in 10 American children are now uninsured. Fewer employers than ever are providing health care to their employees and those who are still lucky enough to receive employer-provided coverage are paying a much larger share: The Kaiser family foundation says the cost of family health insurance, in fact, is up 87 percent since 2000.

The same holds true at the pharmacy. Prices for the most popular brand-name prescription drugs this year rose substantially higher than the annual inflation rate, as has been the case every year this decade. The AARP concluded prices for the top 193 drugs climbed 6.3 percent over the last 12 months ending in June 2006, while inflation went up 3.8 percent. Generic drugs, however, rose 0.4 percent over that period of time.
The costs of higher education are also hurting middle-class families like never before. In this increasingly credentialed society, the total cost of tuition, fees, room and board at four-year public colleges and universities has ballooned 44 percent over the past four years. And the proportion of family income it takes to pay for college is growing for families everywhere.

The biggest jump, according to the National Center for Higher Education, is in Ohio, where college costs now take 42 percent of the average family budget, up from 28 percent in the early 1990s.

Our dependency on foreign oil is also hamstringing working men and women. Gasoline prices are back on the decline (for now), but many Americans this summer were shelling out double what they used to pay to drive their cars. And gas prices now, while lower than at their peak in August, are still about 60 percent higher than in January 2001.

Perhaps one of our nation's leading business magazines would like to create something called a Forbes or Fortune 250 Million list, which would reveal the dire financial pressures that our public policies have produced for working men and women and their families. It's time for all of us to focus on that deep chasm we have allowed to open between the wealthiest Americans and the middle class and those who aspire to it.
Otherwise, there will be 250 million casualties in what has become nothing less than class warfare.

Link: CNN.com - Dobbs: Are you a casualty of the class war? - Oct 4, 2006

Our national debt really isn't that big of a deal. All we need to do is raise taxes just a bit to pay it off.

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

Our national debt really isn't that big of a deal. All we need to do is raise taxes just a bit to pay it off.

Yea, that's a very popular move , isn't it ? Especially at election times

Originally Posted by lom

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

Our national debt really isn't that big of a deal. All we need to do is raise taxes just a bit to pay it off.

Yea, that's a very popular move , isn't it ? Especially at election times

Ooops ... the liberal side of me popped out.

I see this thread is still trolling on.
Care to give me a summary of the last 100 posts, I really can't be faffed to read it all.

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

Our national debt really isn't that big of a deal. All we need to do is raise taxes just a bit to pay it off.

Asking future generations to pay for the debt they didn't create? That's horseshit.

Take the debt from the ones who created: take it out of their Social Security accounts. That'll set the balance sheet straight.

Fuck that if I'm paying more in taxes for a debt I didn't help to create.

Nah man. Why wait? Let's raise taxes right now. If it helps ease your mind at all I'm willling to forfeit my SS benefits.

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

Originally Posted by lom

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

Our national debt really isn't that big of a deal. All we need to do is raise taxes just a bit to pay it off.

Yea, that's a very popular move , isn't it ? Especially at election times

Ooops ... the liberal side of me popped out.

The flaw in your 'raise taxes to pay off the debt' misses a very fundamental thing, SK.

Question: will the federal government stop over-spending?




Taxes may very well be raised to service some of the payments, and it won't be done by Liberals.

Cut spending.

Let's cut spending too.

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

Let's cut spending too.

But you said you're a NeoCon and support big government.

Originally Posted by Milkman

But you said you're a NeoCon and support big government.

I NEVER said I was a NEOCON ... even Butterfly will vouch for that.

^ Maybe I made a mistake in my recollection.

Off to do a search....

You sure as hell did pal ... how many times do I have to tell you I'm a moderate. How could you even confuse me for being a NEOCON ? How many times have I played those little political party quizzes and they show me to be closer to the liberal left than then far right ? Like I've always said ... people confuse me for a NEOCON purely based on my support of GWB chiefly the war.

Bernanke: Baby Boomers Will Strain U.S.
Oct 04 12:54 PM US/Eastern
By JEANNINE AVERSA
AP Economics Writer

Unless Social Security and Medicare are revamped, the massive burden from retiring baby boomers will place major strains on the nation's budget and the economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday.


"Reform of our unsustainable entitlement programs" should be a priority, he said in prepared remarks to the Economics Club of Washington. "The imperative to undertake reform earlier rather than later is great," Bernanke added.

It marked the Fed chief's most extensive comments to date on the challenges facing the United States with the looming retirement of 78 million baby boomers.

In his remarks, Bernanke did not offer Congress and the Bush administration recommendations on how the massive entitlement programs should be changed. Efforts by the administration to overhaul the Social Security program _ once a centerpiece of President Bush's second-term agenda _ sputtered last year, meeting resistance from Republicans and Democrats alike.

As the population ages, the nation will have to choose among higher taxes, less non-entitlement spending by the government, a reduction in spending on entitlement programs, a sharply higher budget deficit or some combination thereof, Bernanke said.

Government spending on Social Security and Medicare alone will increase from about 7 percent of the total size of the U.S. economy to almost 13 percent by 2030 and to more than 15 percent by 2050, he said.
Bernanke declared: "The fiscal consequences of these trends are large and unavoidable."
The government recorded a budget deficit of $319 billion last year. This year's red ink is projected by the White House to total around $296 billion.

Link: BREITBART.COM - Bernanke: Baby Boomers Will Strain U.S.

About 150 major corporations are now [Oct 2005] in some stage of bankruptcy reorganization, including four of the nation's leading airlines. As the prospect of other large enterprises taking a spin down Chapter 11 becomes more widely discussed in business circles ("maybes" on the list include such iconic names as General Motors and Ford), the tactics used in bankruptcy courts are shaking the very foundations of the American workplace.

Whether an assembly-line worker or middle manager, an employee can no longer assume that promises made earlier -- health benefits or fully funded pensions -- will be there when he or she retires. The loss of security arising from Chapter 11 reorganizations has introduced a new element of anxiety into the lives of baby boomers who are approaching 60, not to mention younger workers just starting out in their careers.


Yep, strongest economy in the world, with baby boomers headed to a card board box on the street.

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

You sure as hell did pal ... how many times do I have to tell you I'm a moderate. How could you even confuse me for being a NEOCON ? How many times have I played those little political party quizzes and they show me to be closer to the liberal left than then far right ? Like I've always said ... people confuse me for a NEOCON purely based on my support of GWB chiefly the war.

01-09-2006, 10:42 AM #15 (permalink) Storekeeper


Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Japan
Posts: 3,972



Basically I'm a CENTRIST ... these tests always show that. I've told these posting clowns over and over the only reason they think I'm a NEOCON is because I support GWB and the war in Iraq.

You are right, SK.

I stand to be corrected.

(But you do like the PNAC agenda in Iraq and support a strong military and big government, and GWB.

It does smell of Necon.)