Elementary, my dear Watson. The economy is going up because corporate profits are going up because they are paying less for workers who, if they live in this country, are making less (either under-inflation wage hikes or only low wage jobs available) while seeing those corporations getting rich as they themselves are working more hours and driving longer to get to those crappy jobs.
You add Iraq where now 64% don’t want to “stay the course,” the ridiculously low approval rating of 23% for the Republican led Congress and all the Dems have to do is not do anything stupid between now and the election to win in a few weeks. So what’s Bush doing to reverse the crash? In the wake of Foley, corruption scandals, the Kuo revelations and on and on with his party’s people, he’s declared this is National Character Counts Week. Yeah, that should do it.
Good Economic News Doesn’t Help GOP
Gas prices are down, the stock market is at a record high and 60 percent of Americans say the economy is in good shape. So why are Republicans in so much trouble?
But what about gas prices? Republican pollster David Winston has long thought they were a big source of Republican woes and if they came down Republicans would have an easier time of it. Cook feels gas prices seem to have “hurt Republicans when they were going up and helped when they were going down,” but that the phenomenon was “distinct from a broader economic concern that the Republicans were favoring the other economy that has been doing so well.” Democratic pollster Diane Feldman took it a step further. Her research has found that many voters “think the Republicans manipulate gas prices.” Both she and Cook say the market is irrelevant to most voters.
In an important book published this fall, “Applebee’s America,” the authors, […] throw cold water on the “Economy Drives the Vote” theory. In a chapter entitled “Values Trump the Economy,” they argue that people vote with their hearts not their heads and are hungry for a “gut value connection” with political leaders. Voters are searching for community and authenticity, and leaders who are able to persuade them that they care about voters and convince them that “we are all in this together” will be successful.
This time, it’s not just the economy, stupid!
mxpwr03: You don’t need control. You just need to know when prices are likely to move and about how much. Fortunes are made daily on fractions of pennies. In any case The Gulf States have a third or more of supply under their thumb and that can swing prices big time. Those states are controlled by a handful of people, many of whom are dear friends of the Bushes, as well as being the ones who bailed out Shrub’s business failures.
The speculators have so very little control over the price it is absolutely asinine to suggest otherwise. They speculate on what the price will be. If the price is less then that, they make a profit. If the price is lower, they take a bath. A form of gambling where the speculator thinks he can predict the market.
The only time speculation truly effects the price is when the speculators actually purchase the commodity. This, however, is correctly called market manipulation. Something the oil companies and their Republican benefactors have been doing. Also something the majority of Americans recognize.