The president and his advisors may be masters of spin but they have it completely backwards this time: Americas workers and their families do not have a positive feeling about the economy. Instead, they are positive that the economy is broken.
I see the AFL-CIO are finally doing something with all that money they have.
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Bad Behavior has blocked 6884 access attempts in the last 7 days.
Ok … do you think the following had anything to do with job loss:
1) Recession inherited from Clinton
2).com bubble burst
3)Attack on WTC
Do the math. Clinton, if you recall, inherited a recession too! But he didn’t spend four whole years making it worse. These downturns are supposed last 18 months at the most. This has gone on for 4 years! What evidence, except talk, do we have that this guy won’t drive things into the ground? He’s worse than any big spending Democrat, ever. He ruining the economy.
As for the dotcom bubble…what’s it got to do with the rest of the economy? The market, as you recall crashed in 1987 too. But there was a swift recovery. What changed to make this dotcom thing be such a big deal?
And the WTC. Yeah…what about it? A bad thing for morale, but it should have created jobs. Jobs to fix it. Jobs for security. War jobs. Wars stabilize and crank up most economies. But not this one? Why? Public policies, that’s why. Probably corruption too. It’s laughable.
My question is, will anything convince Zen and like-minded individuals from repeating the same silly talking points in defense of Bush’s economic record? I see the same ones repeated, over and over and over again. Well-meaning individuals attempt to correct them, and they still get repeated ad nauseum.
And the recession started under Bush. http://www.nber.org/cycles/november2001/
Will anything convince left-wing loonies that this is 2004 and not 1994? The economy *is* getting strong. Mr. Greenspan apparently agrees with me. We have been out of a recession for some time.
Lets not forget that a significant part of Clintons economic boom, looking past the emergence of the Internet, was due to defense spending decreases. Thus, I wonder how great his policies look in light of the billions lost due to the WTC attack since his policies were a significant contributor (IMO the primary contributor) to that attack?
As Mr. Lefty-Anonymous has pointed out in the past, the other source of Clintons economic boom (besides defense spending decreases and the Internet) was due to deficit reduction. Here is where the hypocritical liberals really show how little they know about economics. Kerry has absolutely no intention of reducing the deficit. So what great solution is the left claiming that Kerry will come up with that will return us to the 90s boom? Clearly it wont be defense spending decreases (although I wouldnt put it past Kerry) and it wont be deficit reduction and the Internet boom is done. So, if you believe that Clinton had anything to do with the economic boom, then you are also saying that Kerry hasnt the foggiest clue how to get us back to those levels. If you think that Kerry does have a good plan for getting us back there, then you are admitting that Clintons policies really had no effect and he was just lucky.
And Mr. Left-Anonymous, lets stop with the recession started under Bush. bullshit. Weve been over this. Bush was in office less than 30 days when the 2001 recession officially started. Since recessions dont start overnight, it can be safely said that we were heading into a recession at the end of Clintons administration.
This entire argument is tired.
The economy is so big now that FISCAL POLICY has NO EFFECT on the ECONOMY. The President and Congress have zero power over the economy.
Clinton didn’t spend 8 years making it worse, cuz nothing he did had any effect. He RAISED taxed in his first year, and things took off. Do you think raising taxes caused the economy to grow? No. And the Rubinomics justification about why it did – keeping the deficit low leading to less crowding out in the bond market – is a triviality.
2/3 of the economy is consumer spending, 15% is goverment, and 10-15% is business spending. Except for gov’t spending, which doesn’t go up or down much in absolute terms, the President and Congress have no control over consumer and (most important) business spending decisions. Even if they lower taxes, or give away more unemployment benefits, people make spending decisions based on how they feel.
The President and Congress are reduced to cheerleading.
The economy is still in a recession because businesses over expanded in the 90s across the board, not just in dot.com land.
That’s the reason for huge GDP grow during that time.
Currently, managers are still skittish about adding jobs and spending money to re-capitalize their businesses because of
the previous over-expansion. If they don’t want to create jobs, they don’t. No government policy is going to make them when there’s still over-capacity and they can squeeze more productivity from current workers.
If business spending is 10% of economy, and business cracked down on their costs by 20%, that’s 2% of GDP gone. Hence, the low growth over the last couple years.
Perhaps Bush’s tax cuts could have been targetted to lower income brackets. But consumers are already spending at 90s era paces. If none of that actual spending (or potential spending) changes the sentiment of businesses, then it doesn’t matter at all.
Business will lead the recovery.
Bush has done everything he can. I truly believe we would be in the same position with any other president.
If we can get off of debates about things government can’t control, like Vietnam and the direction of the economy, then we can talk about things it can control, like regulation, trade, and foreign policy (aka Iraq).
TC, I generally agree with you. However, your comment on taxes is silly. It is impossible to target a tax cut to the lower income brackets that has an effect. 80% of the tax revenue is paid by the wealthiest 20% of the people. It’s impossible to have a tax cut that doesn’t benefit the “rich” and has an effect.
As for the dotcom bubblewhats it got to do with the rest of the economy? The market, as you recall crashed in 1987 too. But there was a swift recovery. What changed to make this dotcom thing be such a big deal?
I see a few things, which have a cumulative effect.
One is the shift from pension plans to 401(k)s. Everyone was being encouraged to invest in the market, with its’ promise of long-term growth.
With E-trade’s rise (they have their own ATMs!) – and all the bluster about letting people put some of their Social Security payments into market accounts – how much of the general public’s “confidence” was shaken when they watched their nest egg’s value drop through the floor. It wasn’t just the well-to-do investor who took a loss, it was Mom & Pop.
That is on top of all the people who got screwed by Enron, WorldCom, etc.
Another issue is job security. I work in semiconductor manufacturing, and we saw first-hand how disposable workers are – and how slow management is to re-hire people. Being a public comany, our cost-per-die was lower after layoffs – which looks good to investors. So, as we ramped-up production, with new orders – reducing cost-per-die even further – management was hesitant to reduce our profit-margin by adding head-count, because they were afraid investors would “react negatively” to that. 🙁
I live in Oregon, where the high-tech layoffs caused major unemployment problems – triggering extentions to unemployment benefits. I was surprised by how many people got retrained into medical/dental jobs – as those type of service jobs pay well, and cannot be out-sourced overseas.
Overall, just as people learned they would have to work longer/harder for their retirement, they discovered that the idea of a long-term career – let alone a good-paying one – was losing credence. 🙁
Lets not forget that a significant part of Clintons economic boom, looking past the emergence of the Internet, was due to defense spending decreases. Thus, I wonder how great his policies look in light of the billions lost due to the WTC attack since his policies were a significant contributor (IMO the primary contributor) to that attack?
Defense spending decreases (“his policies”) were a contributor to that attack?
Funny, I don’t remember that being mentioned in the 9/11 Commision’s report.
Would more planes, tanks, and ships have prevented the attack? Would more troops?
Perhaps you don’t realize that Department of Defense funds the CIA, NSA and the rest of the intelligence community.
Clinton and his staff are the ones that assembled the budgets that were proposed to Congress. Clinton and his staff were the ones that proposed decreases in defense spending to help reduce the deficit. It was also Clinton that pushed the CIA away from human intelligence gathering to artificial intelligence gathering (satellites, drones etc.)
Cuts in national security at the end of the Cold War led to budget cuts in the national intelligence program from fiscal years 1990 to 1996 and essentially flag budgets from fiscal years 1996 to 2000 (except for the so-called Gingrich supplemental to the FY1999 budget and two later, smaller supplementals.) Theses cuts compounded the difficulties of the intelligence agencies.
From 9/11 Commission Report, Page 93
On 9/11 we were veritably blind in large part because we had no human intelligence coming from the middle-east. In Clintons defense, he did try to direct the intelligence communities towards terrorism (albeit slowly) and clearly another significant cause of 9/11 was due to risk aversion and bureaucracy in the intelligence community. However, it cannot be denied that Defense spending decreases directly affected the intelligence communitys ability to get equipment and hire operatives.
FYI, there’s a typo in the quote. It should be “and essentially flat budgets” not “flag budgets.”