Are you embarrassed to have been fooled by the hype about the economy?

Question

• Salaries are still below where they were at the start of the recovery in November 2001. That, while productivity -- the growth of the economic pie -- is up by almost 15 percent. Meaning we're working harder, producing more, for the same money as five years ago.
• Since the recession ended in 2001, 50 percent more of the growth in corporate income was sucked up as profits than after past recessions. That's left less for those of us who work for a living.
• As a result, median household income has now fallen for five years in a row. It was 4 percent, or $2,000, lower in 2004 than it was in 1999


http://www.alternet.org/story/30447/

“The administration muzzles routine economic information that's unfavorable. Last year, for example, the administration stopped issuing a monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics report, known as the Mass Layoff Statistics program, that tracked factory closings throughout the country. The cancellation was made known on Christmas Eve in a footnote to the department's final report—a document that revealed 2,150 mass layoffs in November, cashiering nearly a quarter-million workers. The administration claimed the report was a victim of budget cuts. After the Washington Post happened to catch this bit of data suppression, the BLS report was reinstated. (Interestingly, President George H.W. Bush buried these same statistics in '92, also during a period of job losses. They were revived by President Clinton.) “


http://www.slate.com/id/2085481/

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/opinion/07tues1.html?ex=1180152000&en=284afa6fadb43b58&ei=5070

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03102005.html

EDIT:

Thanks for playing, guys.

I received exactly and precisely the calibre of comments which I knew that I would. Facts are facts, it does not matter where they come from.

And personal attacks against me will not change those facts.

It is a fact that bankruptcies are at an all-time high.

It is a fact that the Housing market has experienced the sharpest drop in 50 years.

It is a fact that a record number of jobs have been outsourced.

It is a fact that more families are being thrust into poverty at a faster rate since bush.

All of that is fact.

And your impotent attack of me does not change that.

Again, thanks for proving my point.

Which is, your breed has perfected the art of denying reality.

Answer 1

The inability of the Republicans to connect with and recognize the actual economic situation of average Americans will continue to hurt them. People have bought the hype about the good economy in the past. When they began to realize that the benefits of this good economy were not being realized by them, things began to change. That partially accounts for the gains by the Democrats in 2006. If the Republicans continue on this track the difference between what they are saying and what the majority of Americans are experiencing will seem callous and even insulting. The Democrats have an opportunity here to address the overall dissatisfaction with the economy.

If the Republicans keep chanting the mantra about how good the economy is, it will work to their detriment.

Answer 2

No, because the media has proved over and over again that they don't "report" the news; they create it.

I've been reading "the sky is falling" headlines about the economy so long and then got a letter at work from the state comptroller's office (see my questions list) REFUNDING money because the economy is good and they have more than the budget calls for. Who would you believe, the media or the state that issued you a check? Do you really think they would refund all that money just to hide the truth?

EDIT: Statistics don't really say anything on their own. To truly understand what a statistic means, you must ascertain why a trend goes the way it does. You can't just state "Bush made it that way." For example, you mention bankruptcies at an all time high. Instead of simply stating that, ask yourself why. If you dig a little deeper, you will realize that since they changed the law making it harder to declare bankruptcies (to prevent abuse) a lot of people declared bankruptcy just before the law changed so that they could 'get in under the wire.' You also mention the housing drop being the sharpest drop in 50 years...well, it was also the sharpest increase before that, so in other words, it wouldn't have far to fall if it hadn't increased so much. That can be attributed to shady lending anyway (not the president). Anyway, if you look into your other examples a little more, you might come to understand what they mean.

Answer 3

I have not been fooled for an instant; but perhaps a vast majority of the 85% of US citizens one or two paychecks fro disaster have been lied to so expertly by Bushite sources that they have no idea how bad the economy is. Of course it could be much worse, and slowly will be made to be so. But the bottom lie is deliberate Kantian false headlining, disinformation and false claims.
The sources you quoted, if put together, tell a far different picture than pseudo-religious right-wing extremists' lies have been telling for the past 7 years alone and long before that. Over 80% of the money in the US has been stolen by government, media, academic and corporate CEOs under the guise of "compensation: for their work. What work? The four most desperately hopeless, totalitarian postmodernist areas of real world incompetence in the US are public government, public media, public academia and publicly-licensed corporations.
As a result o their reality-warping, reality-denying and unscientific dictator infallibility "leadership" gangsterism over enslaved citizens with no legal recourse against them, a process that has gone unchecked since Dwight Eisenhower named the "military-industrial" complex as a national crisis in the 1950s, the entire nation has been warped into a dictatorial freak show.
We have a nation where because of the lack of category-level definitions to protect individual rights the following things no longer exist for all intents and purposes:
1. Real businesses that deal in goods and services.
2. Real businesses that deal in artistic products, fiction and performing arts.
3. Hiring and promoting to idea level leadership based on prioritized job requirements being scientifically assessed, evaluated and rewarded.
4.Honest election and selection of appointed governmentally-employed citizens
5. A Constitution, based in individual adults being educated to think in categories, not childish appearances, and then accessing rights under minimal claimant "regulations".
6. A court-based and definition-based legal system to prevent honest individuals from being enslaved by power collectives--boss/dictator over the rightless/enforced obedients wage slavery schemes.
There is no legal recourse to discrimination, false reports, denial of promotion, incompetent leadership or anything else in the electronic sweatshops of imperial USerism. 100,00 people die each year of stupid medical errors, and 40 million lack health insurance; so the Republicans want to stop class-action lawsuits against medical and pharmaceutical corporations who are the perpetrators of this insanity, and lock in prices 10--1000times what a drug costs for those who monopolize its manufacture--while we pay the bill, and millionaires are exempt from taxes that are needed to fund Social security, our last protection.
In 1941, my father on a salary of less than 4,000 dollars lived so well as a single worker family's head it would take nearly 100,000 for someone to live as well today. Inflation has murdered the ability of individuals to run book stores, clothing stores, theaters, motion picture places, retail stores restaurants, and consulting businesses. Older and more experienced capables are fired and spiritually murdered to turn the world over to 20 and 30-something
disconcepted incompetents with low-grade computer skills and a lack of philosophical adulthood that makes Monica Goodling and Alerberto Gonzales seem paradigms of virtue by comparison.
The economy is in terriblecondition; oil dependence is threatening our world position; the real number of unemployed is I assert 15--20% and underpaid is 60 %. If we are ever to get real, we will have to stop accepting enslavement and fight for our rights.
Watch the movies and tv, and the Washington report; these people are the visible models of sickness in a betrayed world. If publis press pundits are lionizing incompertents, petty tsars and merchants of shlock, nonesense and lied-about stupidity, you can be sure the nation's leaders are doing the same--under the hypothesis that "pragmatism"--impractical lying about reality--can work just fine, for them, so long as real statistics are hidden from the victims of this millionaire's club of unscentific tsars, thieves and national suicide.

Answer 4

I personally think your economy is wonderful. You should try living in my country- Poland.

We have loads of extremely nice social programmes, like compulsory health insurance (which - in reality- pays for nothing except maybe emergency first aid) and compulsory retirement insurance (which will give you a retirement "pension" of maybe 100$ per MONTH)

We also have lots of very friendly government bureaucrats.
They are there to help us. Does that not bring a fond smile to your face?

Of course they take a little from my taxes to pay for this. Only about 70% of what I earn becomes taxes.
Oh, sorry. 22% is taxes. The rest is "voluntary contribution". In fact it is so voluntary it is compulsory and if I don't volunteer to pay it I go to jail.

I am so happy that my taxes are used to achieve such lovely, useful, socially considerate end.

Can I please come to your capitalist hellhole?

PLEASE!!!!!

Answer 5

Too funny. You quote "facts" from a leftwing media outlet. The more digging I did about your source, the deeper in garbage I got. Talk about an agenda driven website. The scariest part of it all is that you actually believe it.

Answer 6

You are 100% correct & their are millions of Americans faced with financial crisis living in a sea of red ink debt. Pay NO attention to these TROLLS who are the same cons selling phony business plans to the millions of desparate job seekers over the internet & some with business loans seeking illegals or any source of cheap labor to expliot! Take for example myself in over the past 10 years living in central Florida 6 of those years no job no income wiping my life saving out! There is so much cheap labor supply here Employers laugh in your face when a white person shows up expecting fair pay! Whats next wealthy immigrants show up offering to pay employer's for the privilege to be their slave/servants! Many employers have succeeded illegally while shafting their fellow citizen into poverty! These people need to pay maybe with their life! The biggest security threat to legal American families is the lack of Financial Security!!!

Answer 7

I was enjoying your ideas, but when you mentioned Clinton, you showed your ignorance.

1. The administration has nothing to do with the economy, or how the economy is presented my the media.

2. If it WAS, then what about the internet bubble that occured during Clinton's years? Shouldn't we blame him for that?

3. Why not mention how low the unemployment rate is right now?

Answer 8

I live in the Detroit area. We are economically half dead. The car companies did it to themselves. (long story) The automobile suppliers are greedy. (long story) The car buying public wants a well built, affordable priced car. (end of story) Yeah, I'm embarrassed.

Answer 9

Other then the NY times you showed us no reliable sources where are is the data about unemployment, the housing market, and bankruptcies? Another note about bankruptcies are you talking about personal or about companies?

Answer 10

No. This is a load of Leftist crap. If a democrat was in office the media would be touting the strength of an economy half as weak as this.

No one buys your BS propaganda.