True or false: the debt of the U.S. government is 33% higher than it was when Bush took office.
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True or false: the debt of the U.S. government is 33% higher than it was when Bush took office.
^^ I didn't google the deficit because I used to read about it a lot and I haven't read about it in a long time.
There are lots of excuses made by mane for it.
The latest I frequently here is: "no big deal, as long as there is GDP growth."
As well I'm not even sure what the hell the question has to do with the thread (hence the reason why I ignored it). Plus the way that the government defines 'surplus' or 'deficit' has changed so many times it's impossible to compare some years to others. The only thing which is consistent is the debt (which has increased 33% in the short time Bush has been in office). When we're talking trillions of dollars 33% is a record increase.
Unemployment Rate Plunges to 4.4%, Lowest in 5 Years
"Maybe if the Republican party had done a better job of touting President Bush's excellent stewardship of the economy (with the notable exception of egregious federal profligacy), the Democrats would not be days away from taking control of the House and, possibly, the Senate. The latest good news is on the employment front."
More people are still unemployed than when Bush took office. Percentages don't mean a thing.
This is why 'unemployment' figures are generally unreliable measures of anything:
They don't count 1.5 million people simply because they didn't look for work in the past month?Quote:
About 1.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in October, about unchanged from a year earlier. These individuals wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.
Wonder what the real unemployment rate would be if you really did count those looking for work?
Consistency counts.Quote:
Originally Posted by surasak
It's still people who are unemployed.
Perhaps you'd like to take a look at the government's own numbers:
Exhibit A, jobs held by those 16 and older, 1996-2006 (October). Now, I know you are taught math in the Navy, so, tell us where is the proof that cutting taxes generates plentiful jobs when during the 1990s taxes went up? Bear in mind that the population of the U.S. grows by about 250,000-300,000 per month.
https://teakdoor.com/Gallery/albums/u...employment.jpg
Exhibit B: number of unemployed (those looking for work) from 1996 - 2006 (October):
https://teakdoor.com/Gallery/albums/u...employment.jpg
Bush took office in 2001. Is October 2006 higher or lower than January 2001?
The same formula is used no matter who the President is. It's consistent over time.
The numbers are currently higher. The numbers peaked in December 2002 and have been in decline ever since. I'd like to verify they are in fact the government's own or you're taking them from somebody else using government references.
By the way, just so I can verify where you retrieved those charts from ... post the links.
So, are you saying the population of the US has increased by around 15,000,000 since GWB took office ?
I guess the need to mention that I'm in the Navy is what stroller considers an indirect insult ? Or maybe a polite insult ?
I can't post the links because it's a Javascript chart generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You are free, however, to peruse the site and look at whatever you wish.
Bureau of Labor Statistics Home Page
I suggest you do that next time instead of regurgitating someone's talking points.
The Census of April 2000 stated that we had a population of about 280,000,000. A few weeks ago they announced it went up to 300,000,000. Do the math. Figure a population increase of 3,000,000 per year and that's roughly 250,000-300,000 per month. We've added about 8 million jobs since the Census and yet there are 20,000,000 more people. That's not good.
Thanks for the advice ... but I have very little respect for your opinion so I doubt I'll take you up on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by surasak
Blatthering about percentages and tax cuts based on a link to someone else's opinion isn't exactly winning you any converts. What I posted about unemployment figures is not even my opinion. It's a cold hard fact that you yourself could examine without any bias whatsoever. It is a fact that more people are out of work now than 5 years ago. I even gave you the link to try it out yourself so you could learn something and start thinking for yourself instead of being a cheerleader for once.
Unemployment percentages don't mean anything without taking into consideration population, employment, and the real number of those unemployed.
This is exactly what I'm complaining about. You refuse to discuss facts because real hard facts undermine all the blogs and links you post. This is the second or third time you've pulled this maneuver.
You do have the right to ignore anything I post.
Unemployment statistics have been being used for decades. You just don't like the manner they're used. I said the manner is consistent.
I'm pretty consistent. You only want to acknowledge government sources when they suit your opinion.
You don't have the intellectual background for me to take you seriously. So stop being so easily offended.
Thanks for proving exactly what my link claimed ... that "Unemployment is at 4.4% and the lowest in 5 years."
I'm not looking for converts ... what an egotistical thing to say.Quote:
Originally Posted by surasak
And I told you that the percentage is meaningless because the quantities are changing. I told you that the number of people unemployed is higher than it was when Bush took office.
Those aren't opinions. Those are facts.
An opinion would be: "Unemployment is too high!"
A fact is: More people are unemployed in October 2006 than in January 2001.
I didn't say unemployment was too high. I said it was higher now than it was in 2001.
It's a shame that you can't tell the difference.
Unlike you I post links directly to goverment sources when I can. If not I provide a link so you can.
However, you don't. You post to opinions. Someone else's, no less. Whether it's a newspaper editorial, a blog, whatever. You cannot effectively argue something by merely relying on some other person's opinion. That's not even arguing, it's cheerleading.
The funniest thing of all is that I never stated that you were wrong :lmao:
But you assumed that I said that.
Oh, where in the link provided does it say this:
"Maybe if the Republican party had done a better job of touting President Bush's excellent stewardship of the economy (with the notable exception of egregious federal profligacy), the Democrats would not be days away from taking control of the House and, possibly, the Senate. The latest good news is on the employment front."
Damn you're thicker than I am ... you confirmed my fact. Why are you so angry ? You get defensive and more emotional than most posters I've come across.
If you want to stay angry ... if you want to use your anger ... keep talking.
I'm not angry. I merely pointed out a fact in response to your fact and you jumped all over me as if it were a misguided opinion.
Don't you ever question what you read on some right-wing website and wonder how the conclusion was reached? Every time I see a fact or figure I research it to see exactly what it means. Unemployment figures are imprecise and never represent the true nature of the number unemployed. Thus, at any given time, the true numbers of those unemployed cannot be know (whereas payroll records indicate how many people actually are working). In the same fashion crime rates are not representative of the real nature of crime since not all crimes are reported. Thus, it's a guess just like the unemployment rates.
Given all the massive layoffs recently I fail to see how a 4.4% 'unemployment' rate is cause for cheer.
You'll notice that in many of my posts I refer to the government when it comes to labor and crime statistics because I studied those in college (the FBI's UCR was a major portion of one of my classes I took). This was back in 1996; since then whenever I see anything about employment, unemployment, crime rates, etc. I naturally gravitate towards the raw numbers to see exactly what is being told since there are no other official sources. Numbers don't lie, but, they can be manipulated to look good or worse than they really are. My point about the 'detached' workers is that by limiting 'unemployed' to those looking for work in the past month it makes it look like the number of unemployed is smaller (and, yes, it's consistent, but, it's still dishonest to do it). The reason why most if not all news stories only refer to the unemployment percentage is because most people simply are too ignorant to think about how the percentage was obtained. Remember, most news stories are aimed at people with low education. Just like a few weeks ago when BM posted about the DJIA reaching 12,000 I asked him what it meant. Did he understand how the number was obtained? Is it relevant to anything today? Absolutely no response because, as far as he was concerned, it was a really really really big big big number so it must be important because the media said it was important.
If GWB was really doing a fine job the economy would be moving full steam ahead and we would be above where we were in January 2001. But for the most part we aren't, and, in some cases we're sliding backward. That's not stewardship; that's negligence.
I support lower taxes. Stop with the bullshit that lower taxes = more jobs. It doesn't work that way. If it did would zero taxes result in everyone working? Of course not.
Surasak,
I support "higher taxes' ... if that helps you any in trying to figure me out.
I don't need a lesson from you on research methods or how statistics work. You'll bore me just as much as my professor did. :p
Most of what I read ... and what comes up on most google searches is left wing garbage. It's a task finding conservative news sources or blogs.
I wholeheartedly disagree with you on the state of the economy and performance of GWB. I'd vote for him again in a heart beat. I know it's hard to research all the good things he has done but the facts are out there you just have to try harder to find them. I'll find them and quote them for you from government websites if you want ... tomorrow.
Be wary of something that happens to be right-wing or conservative. It's not always going to tell you the truth any more than a left-wing or liberal site will.
It just bothers me when people go out of their way to find something 'conservative' or something 'liberal.' Those are biases and not necessarily represented by people interested in the truth.
Question everything and rely on your own intelligence to figure out what's being said (and sometimes what's not being said).
For 12 years I ate into that crap during the 1980-1992 campaigns and by the time 1992 rolled around I started thinking for myself. If some talking head starts spouting off numbers about how good something is you need to think about what they're not telling you.
Think for yourself. Don't think about what someone in the paper or on TV posts. Go to the source.
Reagan deficits. Now there's a good one. Do you realize that during the Reagan years the overall budget was 24% higher than what Reagan requested? Because the Democrats controlled the house. There was no Reagan deficit, it was the Democrats who made it and now it's the Republicans making it. But was it a bad thing? The country tends to be better off when there's a balance in the force, so to speak. Of all the good economic times in the past 50 years the best economic times were when the legislature and executive were split between the parties. The problem now is you have a President weakened by Iraq who can't control what Congress spends.
Recommend you take your own advice. Especially with the unemployment figures or any other statistical concept. Unless you have a quantitative way of measuring something, you are operating in a vacuum.Quote:
Originally Posted by surasak
And what industry are these unemployment figures drawn from?Quote:
Originally Posted by Storekeeper
Just check out surasak's link above.Quote:
Originally Posted by MilkmanAnd what industry are these unemployment figures drawn from?Quote:
Originally Posted by Storekeeper
In addition to the variables mentioned by surasak ... unemployment is often played by these people who apply for jobs they aren't even qualified for so they won't get hired and can draw benefits for the maximum allowable time.