a lot of bills are coming due.
you can feel it in the air as people wait for the other shoe to drop.
I wish I could drink me some Bush kool-aid and see the world through rose covered glasses, but I choose to live in reality.
I know-silly me.
Posted by SnarkyShark at June 1, 2005 10:25 AMI really liked Kerry's term "middle-class squeeze" b/c I think it is what is happening. As you say, more people are in fact out of work than were when bush became president. Those who have gotten jobs, might be getting less pay as wages are falling. On the other end, health care costs, gas prices and tuition costs have soared(college loans rates are up I believe).
Posted by Tim at June 1, 2005 11:19 AMI think they call it class warfare.
Posted by Duckman GR at June 1, 2005 11:55 AM"What's that blaring siren noise coming out of your head, Bob?"
"Well, Sheila, just reading another blog entry at LeftCoaster. Set off the Moron Alert alarm bells again."
There are so many misstatements in the blog entry. The only point that Steve said that bears repeating, "Where to begin?"
Everyone knows the 90's was a bubble economy fueled by phony accounting and stock market speculation. Venture capital was growing on trees the last few years of the decade. You had folks employed working on web sites that sold pet food or t-shirts as a business model. And these folks were making $200/hr or more, because of the Y2K programming crunch! Folks were quitting their previous jobs to take up jobs designing web pages. Salaries in tech areas like San Jose were going through the roof, and artificially driving up wages.
Inflation started to creep. And that got the Fed's attention. They slammed on the brakes and hiked interest rates from 1999-2000, creating the 2001 recession.
Remember the Ameritrade commercials, Stuart? Remember folks quitting their jobs to become daytraders? Remember that Clinton TV thing with the Stuart guy from Ameritrade? That might've been the starting point of the 2000-2002 bear market.
Of course, the Fed lowered rates to 1% and Bush cut taxes, creating a new bull market and economic surge, as we're now in the "sweet spot" mid-3% of GDP growth.
The late 90's were an anomoly. If we went back to such an environment, the Fed would raise rates again. Aggressivly.
And that's not a good thing, Stuart.
Posted by muckdog at June 1, 2005 02:58 PMMuckdog,
stop posting. you belong fighting in Iraq! stop being a coward and serve your bush!
Wow, muck, that lucky Clinton, a bubble that started right when he got into office and popped once he left. 22 million jobs is a bubble? report today on the slowing manufacturing sector.
Posted by TIm at June 1, 2005 05:58 PMNo, Clinton's tax hike initially hit the economy and helped to a slowdown. (Greenspan was also raising rates early in Clinton's first term, and got a slowdown instead of a recession.)
I think his signing of NAFTA, GATT, and huge tax cuts later in the 90's were a positive.
Heck, Clinton got rid of the source tax. If you work in CA at the 9.3% tax rate and fund your pensions and retirement accounts, you can now retire in Nevada and avoid the state tax on your withdrawls.
Clinton also signed legislation allowing the first $500K of profit from the sale of your primary residence to be kept by you. TAX FREE.
Mostly it was easy monetary policy by the Fed to deal with the Asian crisis, LTCM et. al. in the late 90's that helped lead to the bubble, though.
Clinton also inherited an economy coming out of the 1991 recession. Bush inherited an economy heading into the 2001 recession and already in the middle of the 2000-2002 bear market. The economy was already in recession when Bush was being sworn in. Check out the timeline.
Posted by muckdog at June 1, 2005 07:25 PMDang! I knew it was all Clinton's fault! Of course, we aren't talking about the white hot economy during Clinton's tenure, we're talking about the idiot son of George Bush.
More people have marginal employment, the jobs created have shitty or no benefits, and Americans are 22 Trillion dollars in debt supporting lifestyles their jobs no longer pay for. The stock market is a dog with the majority of stocks having ridiculous P/E ratios, while the corporate CEOs and Boards have never made more money. Business is profiting, the citizens are not.
Posted by phidipides at June 1, 2005 08:44 PMSteve
I agree with everything except your characterization of Scarlett O'Hara. Scarlett's phrase "Tomorrow is another day" was not a sttement of denial of reality, but an optimistic approach to the future. Tomorrow gives you another day to find a solution. Remember Scarlett's phrase at the end of the first half of the film. "I will never be hungry again" It is also the same kind of statement. Tomorrow is another oppurtunity to change one's fate.
Posted by debcoop at June 1, 2005 09:17 PMWell, I don't know about consumer confidence, but my confidence (I'm somewhat of a consumer, I suppose) is shot to hell. I got laid off, scrambled around working odd jobs for 10 months, and started a steady gig with a 23% cut in pay. The job sucks. The economy sucks. My situation is not atypical. I know others have been through the same rinse cycle. Let me tell ya, regular wage earners are not movin' on up in the Bush economy. The only ones doing swell are--well, you know who they are...it ain't us.
Posted by obelus at June 1, 2005 09:34 PMToday another co-worker who voted for Bush proudly last year told me 'America's downward spiral has to stop before it's too late.'
And we have pretty good jobs! People are slowly waking up.
>Lastly, Bush said more people are pocketing a greater percentage of what they earn. Well, what do you expect after $1.85 trillion in tax cuts?
The long-term impact of that, however, is budget deficits as far as the eye can see.