Will people who lost jobs vote out the President?
EE Times -Wipro tops offshoring list
While on the topic of jobs to India. Here’s the top vote-getter. I wonder when we’ll see the charts for professionals who lost jobs to these trends.
And let’s not forget this chart:
And make sure to note the projected Electoral College vote today! Personally I can’t imagine Ohio voting for Bush. We’ll see.
AND FINALLY, some intellectuals are speaking up.
For example, free trade fosters the shifting of jobs to engineers who make as little as one-fifth the salary of U.S. engineers, he said. “Free trade is good in the right context,” but the movement of jobs to countries with much lower pay scales does not qualify as free trade, he said…Short-term thinking by corporations is also contributing to offshoring, according to Unger, who said government could help alter such thinking. “Short-term thinking is a real long-term problem.”
ELECTION MARKETS WATCH
ELECTIONS FUTURES
Daily Closing Prices
Iowa Electronic Markets
Presidential Election
Bush 50.6
Kerry 49.8
House Control
Republicans Gain 51.2
Republicans Hold 37.9
Republicans Lose 11.6
Senate Control
Republicans Gain 51.3
Republicans Hold 13.7
Republicans Lose 36.6
TradeSports.com
Presidential Election
Bush 52.1
Kerry 49.0
Control of Congress
Republicans Keep House 88.5
Republicans Keep Senate 77.0
Ohio ….
… Governor = Republican
…. U.S. Senators = Republican + Republican
…. Every statewide elective office in Ohio = Republican
…. Ohio House = Republican
Hard to imagine Bush winning Ohio?
Marty,
HAHAHAHAHA!!!
I have it on good authority, my friend is a DNC operative preparing “counter-programming” for the RNC convention. He told me that:
-The Iraq War is a mess and is costing American’s their lives and billions of dollars, and not making us any safer. And that the whole endeavor was completely mismanaged by the Bush Administration.
-The economy is still in the toilet and all economic indicators are pointing to another recession. See http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2004/08/fading-recovery.html
-The Administration lies about, well, just about everything.
-Dick Cheney will modify his opinion of Bush and announce that Bush smokes crack in the Oval Office.*
So, good luck with that Vet-focused stuff. We’ll see what happens.
*;)
John — just a suggestion for a column. The election in Venezuela was accomplished using touch-screen voting machines that produced a paper ballot receipt. This machine was used in 90% or more of the polling places.
The machine is built by Olivetti — in Italy as far as I know — now a subset of TelecomItalia.
My biggest chuckle? The machines were sold to Venezuela and re-branded as “SmartMatic” by a company located where? Boca Raton, Florida.
Hey now! Let’s not forget that there’s a time-delay between an administration’s policies and the economic, etc., effects of those policies. It can take years for some plants to yield their fruits (esp. bananas. And until harvest time, it feels like sowing/investing/sacrificing time.
It seems to youngish (33) lil’ ol’ me that until I see an unexpected, long-term review of trickle-down “Reaganomics” being detrimental, or, even, less than ideal to our overall economy in the long term, that I can depend upon its apparent long-term payoffs.
3 months is a long time in most parts of our world….
As the saying goes, there are lies, damn lies and statistics.
Let’s look at the Labor Dept.’s statistics and look at the average unemployment rate over the last 11 presidency’s (the only ones for which we have data). Assuming we start the statistics in the year the President takes office (so 2001 in the case of Bush, 1993 in the cast of Clinton etc.), we find that Bush’s 5.125% is far lower than Carter’s 6.667 and lower than Clinton’s 5.65. We would have to go back to Nixon’s 4.72% to find a lower unemployment rate.
As far as the election goes, I am unable to fathom why people would vote for Kerry. Purely based on his media statements, he has contradicted himself more times that I can count.
Picking one at random..how about this one:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&ncid=696&e=5&u=/ap/20040818/ap_on_el_pr/kerry_confusion
He claimed, on his election website that he served as Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence….or not. Turns out that was an “innocent” mixup with Bob Kerrey. If this were some news site or a personal site I’d buy that story. But this was Kerry’s **campaign** site. How could they possibly get that wrong? If Bush made a similar mistake on his website, it woud be front page news.
In fact, I have yet to find someone that can give me good reasons to vote *for* Kerry. The left gives me reams of reasons to vote against Bush, but no substantive arguments to vote *for* Kerry.
Unfortunately, there are two Ohios- the industrialized northern part
is heavily Democratic, and the rural Appalachian south is exclusively Republican. With the loss of manufacturing jobs over the past 30 years, the political power in the state has swung to the south.
Oh, I forgot to mention. If contradictions (aka “flip-flops”) really get under your skin. Bush isn’t your candidate either: http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=42263
And the problem with the website can be labeled any number of things from innocent mistake to a lie they got caught in, but to call it a “contradiction” is inaccurate. A “contradiction” implies maintaining two opposing ideas simultaneously (or failing to withdraw a previous one in the face of a new, contradictory one). Clearly, the Kerry campaign is not standing behind the erroneous claim they made originally and is in fact trying to correct the record.
It’s many not-flattering things, but it isn’t a contradiction.
The Economy TOTALY tanked after 9-11. The recovery has been AMAZING. People have a short memory.
Sadly, Thomas — each of the Republican flavors of those 11 administrations has employed “economists” to find reasons to remove unemployed from the ranks of officially-unemployed. Bush still doesn’t count unemployed whose compensation has run out — and they can’t reapply.
I get to watch these bean-counter games with some boring regularity in another eclectic news forum I belong to. They won’t convince anyone except other grey-minded bean-counters. Fact is, if folks who are out of work — if folks whose jobs have been outsourced overseas, use their noggins, at all, they will vote for state and federal candidates who, at a minimum, are prepared to remove tax incentives which support job loss.
There’s a whole range of codified crap that premises profits before people. A topic for some other forum or blog, I believe. Statistics used primarily as smokescreen are still as bad as “damn lies”.
Mr. Anonymous
I got those numbers from the Department of Labor which did not provide roll ups of the raw data.
Secondly, yep no doubt that Clinton era had a better economic record. Mind you, Clinton didn’t have anything to do with creating that economic boom, but he was in office when it happened, so I’ll grant you that. However, the economy entered a recession at the end of his term. So, no matter how you slice it, Bush was going to be saddled with depressed unemployment figures. Further, my point wasn’t that Bush’s unemployment record was so spectaular. My point is that the unemployment figures are not nearly as bad as the left would like us to believe.
Your flip-flop site is the biggest joke I have ever seen. Did you actually go to that site? Did you actually read the quotes AND the dates? In almost every case of the “flip-flop” it is a case of the circumstances changing. For example, #24 talks about his opposition to the Palestinian Conlict summit in April 2002. That’s basically saying, “it doesn’t look like a meeting is going to happen” and then saying “it looks like it might happen.” That is a far cry from the lunacy that Kerry has pulled. Kerry he has been boldly lying about stuff he did or said *in addition to* continually changing his mind about tops.
For example, in 1992 he called Affirmative Action “Inherently Limited and Divisive” (“Senators Seek Serious Dialogue on Race”, The Washingont Post, 4/8/1992). Earlier this year he denies ever calling Affirmative Action “Divisive” (CNN, “Inside Politics” 1/30/04).
Or how about…
“I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia.”. Except he was never in Cambodia. (Drudge 8/4/2004)
The list goes on.
Regarding Kerry’s “plan” do you notice how completely and utterly vague it is? It’s not a plan it’s a “show the people we have a plan when we don’t.”
There are three reasons I can’t fathom why people would vote for Kerry:
1. He is by far the most immoral politician since Nixon.This guy makes Clinton look moral.
2. Because of that how can anyone, especially left, have any idea what he’ll actually do when he gets into office? His words regularly contradict his Senate record (i.e. what he actually did). Iraq is a perfect example. First he was for it, then he was against, now he says he’d do exactly what Bush did.
3. I have still yet to hear someone give me a good argument for voting for the man that does not involve voting against Bush. Give me an example where he has actually shown leadership and his position hasn’t changed.
> Reasonable people can debate how much impact his policies
> had on the expansion and the unprecedented success during
> his term, but to claim he had “nothing” to do with it is,
> well, unreasonable.
And what policies would those be? What, precisely, did Clinton actually do to stimulate the economy during the 1990’s? AFAIK, 99% of the boom was caused by the Internet bubble. The radical left like yourself Mr. A, seem to attribute Clinton’s wonderful policies to that boom. What exactly would those be? (I can’t wait for the ‘Gore invented the Internet’ song and dance)
Hmm…what happened in March of 2001?…Oh yeah, the Internet bubble and thus the end of the 1990’s economic boom that Clinton supposedly created.
>but, sorry, you can’t just make this stuff up to suit your favored party
Excuse me?! Bush took office less than two months prior! How can you say that the economy wasn’t going to head into a recession regardless of who won office?
RE: Kerry flip-flop
Well, when I hear a candidate say “I against the war in Iraq” and then turn around and say “I’d do it the same way” I’d call that a pretty severe change.
> Worse, statements are focused on and actions are ignored.
> Take your affirmative action example. Kerry has always
> supported affirmative action, but at the same time, he has
> not adopted an unflexible, uncritical view of it. The fact
> that he can actually see that it has weaknesses, but at the
> same time support it as the best of current options is
> attacked as a “flip-flop” as opposed to a reasonable
> approach. As the New York Time writes,
That’s sophist nonsense. You’re trying justify his denial of his statement he made on public record. Saying you agree with a program but not how it’s implemented is self-delusional. How it is implemented *is* the program, not just the name.
> “Actually, Tom, that’s not what I said,” Mr. Kerry said.
> “What I described was what the critics were saying about it
> and about the growing questions about it.”
Bullshit Kerry boy. Read Kerry’s quote.
Perhaps we are not clear on the word “contradiction” Here is Kerry’s actual statement in 1992:
“[W]hile praising affirmative action as ‘one kind of
progress’ that grew out of civil rights court battles,
Kerry said the focus on a rights-based agenda has
‘inadvertently driven most of our focus in this country not
to the issue of what is happening to the kids who do not
get touched by affirmative action, but … toward an
inherently limited and divisive program which is called
affirmative action.’
I don’t know about you, but someone that labels a program “inherently limited and divisive” doesn’t sound like “I have always supported it.” It is sophist bullshit rhetoric to claim you support a program but disagree completely with how it is run. As I said before, how it is run *is* the program.
> As for your statement about Cambodia, again, we go back to
> the fact you don’t really seem to know what a contradiction
> or a flip-flop is. Saying he was in Cambodia, if it were to
> turn out that he was never in Cambodia would constitute
> either an error or a lie.
ROFL. Very convenient. He, Kerry, was *never* in Cambodia. I suppose you’re going to say that his claiming he was vice chairman on the Senate Intelligence committee was a mistake not a lie. So, Mr. Clinton, how are we going to define the word “lie” today?
I never doubted that *U.S.* troops were in Cambodia. That has nothing to do with this. I’m doubt that *Kerry* was ever in Cambodia. This idiotic approach would be like me saying that Bush wasn’t wrong about WMD’s. Afterall, we did find WMD’s and WMD programs in Iraq. Of course, other than the Sarin gas, most of those were from the first Gulf War.
> Your post doesn’t exactly say what he was “for” so it’s
> hard to refute. Yes, he authorized Bush to have the
> authority, but if by “for” you’re implying he was “for” the
> war, then you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Kerry: “George, I said at the time I would have preferred if we
had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it
was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when
the President made the decision, I supported him, and I
support the fact that we did disarm him.”
That sounds like an endorsement to me. That was in May of 2003. “I think it was the right decision to disarm him.” That sounds pretty clear.
Then in 2004 he said:
Chris Matthews: “Are you one of the anti-war candidates?”
Kerry: “Yes, in the sense that I don’t believe the president took us to war as he should have, yes, absolutely.”
So, you wanted to disarm him without disarming him? Oh I’m sorry, that’s right, he wanted to “threaten” him first (Unlike what we did for a year before the invasion). He wanted us to build a coalition (Unlike the one we did build. I guess it doesn’t count as a coalition if France and Germany aren’t involved). He wanted to give sanctions a try (Unlike the 12 years of sanctions since the first Gulf War). He wanted us to go the UN (Unlike what we did). Then of course, just recently, coming full circle, he said he would have gone in just as Bush did. I also notice that Kerry has said nothing of the seven straight times he voted against increased budgets for defense and intelligence during the Clinton administration.
> There are plenty more, but you don’t actually care, do you?
> Your agenda is not to try and evaluate Kerry honestly. You
> merely want to recycle the rightwing smears made against
> him.
On the contrary, I feel that I have evaluated Kerry honestly. Has there ever been a Presidential candidate, left or right, where the men that served with the guy said he was an utter loser in such high volumes? Secondly, if this were men Bush served with saying the exact same things, would your opinion be any different? His Senate record and his past statements do not mesh with what he’s saying now. Like a jellyfish, he molds himself to the audience at hand. Kerry, like much of the left, likes to play games with words like “lie”, “contradiction”, “is”.
I’ll admit there are topics on which I vehemently disagree with Bush (immigration, faith-based initiatives, stem-cell research etc). But looking on the other side, Kerry is the best the Democrats could do? There are some issues with which I agree with Kerry. Same-sex marriage happens to be one. There’s no reason, IMO, that it shouldn’t be legal. My problem with Kerry is that he’s inherently dishonest and doesn’t seem capable of leading. He simply follows the latest polls.
Bush took office at the end of January 2001. So, in two months, you are claiming that Bush created a recession? The election of 2000, that no liberal can forget, was in November of 2000. So, the recession you are talking about was still brought about at the end of Clinton’s Presidency.
> In any case, I should mention that you’ve provided us all
> with a spectacular presentation of right-wing talking
> points from the past few weeks. So, hats off.
And you have provided plenty of weasel left-wing excuses as to why those points can’t possibly be true. The left has trouble taking a stand on issues.
> “And what policies would those be? What, precisely, did
> Clinton actually do to stimulate the economy during the
> 1990’s? AFAIK, 99% of the boom was caused by the Internet
> bubble. The radical left like yourself Mr. A, seem to
> attribute Clinton’s wonderful policies to that boom. What
> exactly would those be?”
>
> Well, since you are paying me ‘nothing’ to educate you on
> economic policies of the 1990’s, I’ll just allow you to try
> to absorb some recent history on your own in the following
> broad, but brief overview:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1110165.stm
Again, you may want to actually read your material.
“But the rapidly slowing economy will leave questions for his successor about how to manage the downturn.”
That sounds like the economy moving into a recession at the end of Clinton’s term to me.
“Many observers credit Alan Greenspan, the Fed chief, rather than President Clinton, with the careful management of the economy.”
That doesn’t sound like any of Clinton’s policies had much of anything to do with the economic boom, at least not in this first article.
> And watch as an economist from the Clinton administration
> takes on Robert Samuelson here:
> http://j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/000736.html
This next one is a gem.
“tell your readers that the defense spending share of GDP fell by 2.2% points between fiscal 1990 and fiscal 2000 – But there is an extra 4.2% points from “good policy” that are bigger than the impact of defense spending share reduction”
So, if we were to account for the financial losses after 9/11, I wonder what the overall picture of Clinton’s economy would look like. His defense spending decreases and his policies with respect to the intelligence community are a root cause of 9/11. Liberals hate looking at cause and effect that lasts beyond their boy’s term.
> “Hmm… what happened in March of 2001? Oh yeah, the Internet
> bubble and thus the end of the 1990’s economic boom that
> Clinton supposedly created.”
>
> Worng again. It burst in March of 2000.
Yep, got that wrong. My bad. However, even according to your report, the economy was shrinking after that bust was headed for recession.
> You originally said: “However, the economy entered a
> recession at the end of his [Clinton’s] term.”
>
> I responded by pointing out that, no, actually the
> recession started in March of 2001 during Bush’s term
> according to the official body that comes up with this
> stuff. I never discussed the inevitability of the
> recession. But hey, nice try on the strawman argument.
According to your own articles, the economy was heading for recession at the end of 2000. Bush was only in office for 30 days or so when your vaunted recession began. So, if we are going to be anal, which liberals love to do, then yes, Bush was officially in office, for about 30 days, when the recession began. I would attribute that to the end of the previous President’s term.
>Chris Matthews et al..
The point is still the same. You are using weasel tactics to claim that Kerry hasn’t been against the war, then for the war, then against the war. You are trying to play with Kerry’s words by putting emphasis on some and not others to hopefully change the meaning to mesh with later statements. I
> KERRY: I am. Yes. In the sense that I don’t believe the
> president took to us war as he should have, yes.
> Absolutely. Do I think this president violated his promises
> to America? Yes, I do, Chris. Was there a way to hold
> Saddam Hussein accountable? You bet there was and we should
> have done it right.
You want this statement to be intentionally vague so that it doesn’t look like a contradiction later. Very Mr. Clinton. What I hear from that is, “Was there [another] way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable [other than war]?” The words in brackets are what would go there for clarity. With those insertions, that would imply that he was against the war. In retrospect, you want to rephrase it like “Was there [a better] way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable [other than the way we went to war]?” I find that second rephrasing to be complete bullshit. Kerry is doing a great job of duping the left. He is/was placating to the anti-war liberals to help him get nominated and now he’s riding the line to get the pro-war liberals (if there is such a thing) to come to his side. It was only when Bush grilled him that, contrary to Clinton tactics, he finally came out and admitted he would have gone in just as Bush did.
> MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, Matt, are you going to have the
> president stop saying that John Kerry, on our show, on
> HARDBALL, because that’s what he was referring to, clearly,
> 220 days ago when he said this, are you going to get him to
> stop saying that John Kerry declared himself the anti-war
> candidate, which is clearly not what he said because I used
> the word anti-war candidate and I referred to a number of
> them? You say what he said on my show and he didn’t say
> that. That’s all I’m asking.”
Bullshit. Look at the statements he made in the primaries to beat Dean. Mr. Matthews we *are* looking at what he said and it is you that want to change it all around to fit Kerry’s recent statements.
> And before I go, you still haven’t said what was ‘vague’
> about Kerry’s plan. You still haven’t read it, have you?
Yep, read it. Of the 263 pages, only half of it is the actual plan. Of that, about 80% of it is a rehash of current policy. Another 10% of it is a rehash of standard liberal themes to get the left vote and the rest is actual Kerry/mini-me policy. Does that qualify it as vague? Yes, because rehashing current policy tells me nothing about *his* plan. He should have made that document about 10 pages of what he would do *different*. That’s all that voters should care about. Bullet points for stuff he’d do the same and detail on the stuff he’d do different.
The biggest problem by far with this plan is that there is no plan at all to pay for any of it. Using the links you sent me, you claim that Clinton helped foster the economic boom through debt reduction. Your boy Kerry has no plan to do anything of the kind. If anything, he’s planning on spending far more than Bush.
*His* (as in the stuff that’s not rehash) views on security are laughable at times. Especially when he laments our troops not having the latest equipment after he voted against defense budget increases and additional funding for Iraq. His views on Intelligence are laughable in that he and his left cronies are the ones that put most of the Intelligence barriers in place that he now wants to remove. His views on Ethanol are a perfect Kerry contradiction. He voted twice against tax breaks for Ethanol as well as voted against Ethanol mandates. Now he says he’s for Ethanol development. His views on repealing the taxes on the rich are again laughable in that liberals are unable to grasp that the richest 20% of the people pay more than 80% of the tax. He has no concept of how much a person making $200K pays in taxes to local, state and federal government along with social security and other automatic withholding. And don’t even get me started on the Alternative Minimum Tax. The concept of a percentage is lost on liberals. That two people are paying 30% of their income isn’t enough. They want everyone to have the same left over when the government is done.
His plan is utterly vague in the sense that he provides no information on how he plans on paying for any of these programs. They sound nice because they are written to sound nice not sound practical.
> Lastly, if Kerry is or isn’t the best the Democrats can do,
> is Bush the best the Republicans can do? Discuss.
Well, Bush did have far more experience as a chief executive than Kerry or Gore. Even Ann Richards, his predecessor admitted that being governor of a highly populated state is the best experience for being the President. However, that said, I would agree that choosing between two candidates has got to be fixed. I still consider having five bad choices better than two bad choices.
I notice that you completely skipped the lie about Cambodia. Perhaps that was in the copy you lost.
Thomas
The brackets on this comment got stripped on posting. Changed to asterisks:
You want this statement to be intentionally vague so that it doesn’t look like a contradiction later. Very Mr. Clinton. What I hear from that is, “Was there *another* way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable *instead of going to war*?” The words in asterisks are what would go there for clarity. With those insertions, that would imply that he was against the war. In retrospect, you want to rephrase it like “Was there *better* way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable *instead of the way we went to war*?” I find that second rephrasing to be complete bullshit. Kerry is doing a great job of duping the left. He is/was placating to the anti-war liberals to help him get nominated and now he’s riding the line to get the pro-war liberals (if there is such a thing) to come to his side. It was only when Bush grilled him that, contrary to Clinton tactics, he finally came out and admitted he would have gone in just as Bush did.