Bush Wasn’t Advertising This Before Election Day
23 American soldiers dead in the last three days. November–post-election day–becoming one of the bloodiest months of the war. How would you like to be ordered to fight and die on a political schedule? At least the anguish families of the fallen soldiers can be assuaged by the knowledge that their sons’ deaths did not inconvenience George W. Bush. But they certainly didn’t advertise this during the election; I don’t recall hearing Bush on the stump saying, “when I am elected, I will stop holding back the troops from experiencing politically embarrassing deaths and send them into a bloodbath in Fallujah.” Well, you could have gotten that by reading between the lines. But he didn’t exactly make it clear.
In addition, there will likely be drilling in ANWR, despite concerns for the impact on the fragile environment and the fact that it will do little or nothing to help our energy crisis–and may actually hurt because some people will see it as an excuse to push back the initiative for finding alternate energy sources. So much for Bush being a “good steward” of the environment.
In other news, the economy continues to falter; at least this has a good side for me–a weaker dollar driven by fear of a Bush economy gives me a better exchange rate when I go back home for the holidays. And had Kerry been elected, Arafat’s passing would have seemed a momentous opportunity for a new peace in the Middle East. But with Bush in office? If a peace happens from this, Bush will have nothing to do with it–though he would, of course, take full credit for it, naturally.
I’d like to know how you concluded that the economy is “faltering”. The latest U.S. non-farm payrolls data, which are closely watched by financial markets, showed that 337,000 jobs were added in October, much higher than private economists’ estimate of 192,000 added jobs. The U.S. trade deficit shrank in September. And the Fed raised rates by a quarter-point, something they wouldn’t have done if they felt the economy was doing badly.
It’s true that the U.S.’s trade and budget deficits are huge, and this is one reason for the dollar’s recent weakening (as well as speculation that the Bush administration tolerates a weaker dollar to help U.S. exporters), but that’s a long-term factor and nothing new. Is there any recent data that prompted you to write that the economy is slumping?
I think that the economy is not doing well. Job growth was ultimately negative for Bush’s years, and only the past month has had positive job growth reported (once you figure for the 150K new jobs needed to merely keep up with an increasing population).
Additionally, real income is off, because so many people have lost better paying jobs and are now taking lesser paying ones.
On top of THAT (isn’t that enough?) we have higher costs for gas/oil, health care, and local/state taxes to keep up with.
So yes, the economy is keeping even at best, and Luis’ description of “faltering” is certainly fair from many points of view.
Bush’s vision of an “ownership” society is fine… as long as you’re an owner. Since the majority of Americans are not (but Bush’s rich cronies certainly are!), it’s safe tos say that this “ownership” society is merely code for “the rich get richer, the poor get poorer”.
I know, I’m a radical class warfare monger. So be it. The economy isn’t doing as well and it’s at least partially because of Bush’s policies.
Paul
Enumclaw, WA
I would argue the economy is doing very badly on the following grounds:
The nation has been running deficits at a record pace; aggregate demand has been stimulated to a greater degree than at any time since WW2. And yet, job creation (for longer time frames) is terrible. The USA requires at least 2.5 million jobs per year net in order to keep the pace with population growth; we’re barely at zero net for Bush’s first term.
Unemployment is not really a useful measure because different social welfare regimes can create different substitution effects. For example, the unemployment rate in Mexico is usually surprisingly low. I would suggest that what is happening is median wages are declining down the slope of the labor demand curve, while the demand curve is itself moving towards the left.
For this to occur during such explosively powerful stimulus is like being unable to start a campfire with a flamethrower.