The economic news, both good and bad

[unhappycamper]

The economic news, both good and bad
by Matthew Hubbard | Jul 21 2007 - 9:10am


On the White House website, there are many references to the current robust economic data, and no shortage of self-congratulation. This is not a new phenomenon or a Republican phenomenon either. In normal times when a government doesn’t start a war it can’t win under false pretenses, the usual measure of success or failure of a presidential administration is the strength of the economy. The Bush administration can honestly point to successes in that area under their watch, though how much credit they or any administration deserve for those successes is a matter for debate.

Here are the highlights of their talking points. The Dow Jones is going great guns, good news for rich folks. The unemployment rate is low, good for working folks. The job creation numbers are better now than they were in Bush’s first term. What could be wrong with numbers like that?

Unlike the war in Iraq, there are actual positive signs in the economic data, well defined benchmarks the public can find for themselves. Like the war in Iraq, the Bush administration does everything it can to ignore or discount any bad news, and the bad news can also be found in publicly available information.

~snip~

In the recent rosy reports from the White House, the GDP is not mentioned. Their record in the first five years of their administration has been pretty good, comparable to the numbers in the Clinton administration. The problem is that the 2007 numbers are way down. Unless the last half of 2007 shows huge growth, the yearly numbers will show a very sluggish economy or possibly even signs of a recession.

~snip~

And that brings us to inflation. Nearly every time I write about economic data, I say the same thing about the inflation numbers, but it bears repeating because it is the biggest lie of the last twenty years, and the lie continues. The “core” inflation rate, which removes food and energy prices from the mix because they are too “volatile”, creates a completely bogus number. This was an accounting trick from the Reagan era to reduce the Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) on federal programs like Social Security. Comparing inflation numbers from the 1970s to numbers from today is an exercise in lying, as is pretending the “core“ rate shows what inflation is like for people or businesses now. Right now, even the core numbers are up some, but the real inflation rate has been severe this decade, as the entire economy has had to endure the oil companies grabbing a larger share of the world’s money supply every year.

If any conservative stumbles into reading this, I’m sure it will be viewed as class warfare. My response is that class warfare is better than class genocide, because the rich are definitely still fighting for every penny in the pocket of everybody else, and to control every commodity people will buy, with an eye towards making more profit on those sales.


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[VP505]

1. No matter

what they ( White House Liars) want to tell us about our economic state, what really matters is how much you have coming in and how much has to go out for basic living. I worked with an older man back in the late 60's who liked to tell us stories about his days trying to make a few bucks during the depression. He liked to say that it didn't cost any more to live in 1969 than it did in 1929, he said it took every dime he made to live back then and it took every dime he made to live in 1969, so basically there was no difference.