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Ronnie Raygun Ronnie Raygun is offline
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Old Jul 6th, 2004, 07:04 PM        *Now that the economy isn't a winning issue for liberals...*
....what will Kerry blather about....???

Even if the situation in Iraq doesn't improve..will it be enough after this....

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040706/D83LFTV00.html

Economy Set for Best Growth in 20 Years

Jul 6, 3:35 PM (ET)

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER

WASHINGTON (AP) - The economy appears headed for a banner year despite a springtime spike in energy prices and a recent increase in interest rates.

In fact, many analysts are forecasting that the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, will grow by 4.6 percent or better this year, the fastest in two decades.

There were strong 4.5 percent growth rates in 1997 and 1999, when Bill Clinton was president and the country was in the midst of a record 10-year expansion.

But if this year's growth ends up a bit faster than that, it will be the best since the economy roared ahead at a 7.2 percent rate in 1984, a year when another Republican president - Ronald Reagan - was running for re-election.

"We are moving into a sweet spot for the economy with interest rates not too high, jobs coming back and business investment providing strength," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Bank One in Chicago, who is predicting GDP growth of 4.8 percent this year.

President Bush is highlighting the improving economy at every opportunity while Democratic challenger John Kerry has focused on what he calls a middle class squeeze of rising health and tuition costs and laid-off workers forced to take lower-paying jobs.

Who will win on the all-important pocketbook issues? Economists aren't sure.

"It is unclear whether voters will remember the past year and the better jobs created during that period or the past four years," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com. "It will be a close call and that is one of the reasons the election could be so close."

Assessing the economy at midyear, most private economists are sticking with the optimistic forecasts they had six months ago, even though inflation, driven by surging energy prices, rose higher than expected and the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates last month.

"We are looking for a darn good year despite the fact that we had a big jump in oil prices and interest rates are going up faster than people thought would occur," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York.

Offsetting those drags on the economy has been stronger growth in Japan and China, which helps U.S. exports, better-than-expected consumer spending and much better job growth than analysts were expecting as the year began.

The economy has now created 1.5 million new jobs since last August, compared with a loss of 2.7 million jobs in the previous 29 months, when the country was struggling with a string of blows from a collapsing stock market to a recession and terrorist attacks.

Even with the 10 months of consecutive job gains, Bush is still facing a 1.2 million jobs deficit, from the last peak for employment in March 2001.

However, many analysts anticipate the economy will generate around 200,000 jobs per month over the next six months, a pace that would be enough to erase his deficit figure by the end of the year. That would enable him to escape being the only president since Herbert Hoover in the Great Depression to have lost jobs while in office.

Although the economy created only 112,000 jobs in June, after averaging 304,000 jobs for the previous three months, analysts expect strong job growth the rest of this year.

They predict the unemployment rate - stuck at 5.6 percent for most of this year - will improve gradually, to 5.3 percent by December, as a strengthening job market draws people back into the labor force.

Analysts also are optimistic about inflation in the months ahead, noting that oil prices recently retreated from peaks above $42 per barrel in June, and regular gasoline have declined from highs over $2 a gallon in late May. If the trend continues, inflation pressures will be eased.

The Bond Market Association's economic advisory committee, made up of economists from large financial institutions, is predicting that consumer prices will rise 3.1 percent for all of this year, a significant moderation from the 5.1 percent rate of increase through May.

The group projects overall GDP growth will be at a 20-year high of 4.7 percent, based in part on a belief that the Fed will keep to its pledge of moderation in future rate hikes because of the absence of inflation pressures.
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ScruU2wice ScruU2wice is offline
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Old Jul 6th, 2004, 09:45 PM       
hey ronnie we were just talking about you :D
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mburbank mburbank is offline
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Old Jul 7th, 2004, 08:54 AM       
I don't know about 'liberals' since I still have no damn idea what you mean about that, but it's still a swell issue for Populists.

Why? Because that article doesn't ask the right question, which is, 'best economy in 20 years for whom?'. The top 5% who already own most of America's assets? Cause it's been pretty okay for them this whole time, it's just sucked for the pother 95% of us. It's been my experience over the last twenty years of working for a living that a rising tide lifting all boats is a shitty metaphor for the economy which has a tendency to lift folks at the top pretty damn quick and sink a whole friggin' fleet at the same time.

Middle class? Shrinking since the mid 70's. Lower class. Growing since then with a brief respite for a a few years during the last boom. Percentage living below the poverty line for family of four? Growing. When those stats start to change I'll be happy, no matter who the president is. The first year my raise goes up more than my health care costs, I'll know we're on the right track.
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Ronnie Raygun Ronnie Raygun is offline
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Old Jul 12th, 2004, 06:26 PM       
"populist" is just a code word for liberal and the economy is improving for most Americans.....
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KevinTheOmnivore KevinTheOmnivore is offline
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Old Jul 12th, 2004, 10:17 PM       
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronnie Raygun
"populist" is just a code word for liberal
This is incorrect. Conservatism has been, and to some extent still is, just as "populistic" as libralism. Much more so in the past 10 years, in fact.
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mburbank mburbank is offline
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Old Jul 13th, 2004, 10:10 AM       
I don't know 'most people'. The people I know mostly have had their health care and energy costs rise faster than their salaries. I don't see that changing any time soon.

Do you have health insurance? Unless you had promotion, I'm guessing yours went up almost twice your raise.

I'm not sure I can define Liberalism anymore, people like you have muddied it's meaning so much it's more devalued than 'awesome'.

If Bill gates walks into my local bar, the average income is well over a Million Dollars, and the average income grows the entire hour he hangs out there (like anyone rich would ever set foot in my local bar). A conservtive will tell you about what a great sign it is that the average american in my bar is getting wealthier all the time. As a populist, I'm looking at the Mean income. And it's damn mean in my bar.

A populist thinks congress spending it's time barking about a constitutional amendment banning Gay Marriage is a huge steaming waste of time and worse yet, they know it. A populist thinks the whole 'culture war' thing is a lot of bullshit. I'm more concerned that a neighboring school district just had to cut all extra cariculars, including atheletics to get through the next year. I'm concerned that last year perscriptions cost me $5 and now they cost me $25.00. I'm concerened the science program at my daughters school has one part time teacher. I'm concerned it cost me almost twice as much this winter to keep my home at 65 degrees than it did the winter before, why my natural gas bill went up exactly as much as people who heat with oil. A populist is concerned that huge numbers of hard working people's lives are difficult as hell. During the Clinton administration, during the 'bubble', most of the folks I know had to work harder just to stay in the same place financially, and as a populist I was mad as hell. 'Family leave' may have looked like great 'liberal' benefit, but since it was only there for people who could afford to have one parent not working it didn't mean much to me or my wife.

Could you be more narrow? The NAACP is a branch of the democratic party, Populism is liberalism. Pat Friggin' Buchanan doesn't think that! Oh, wait, let me guess, you think he's a Democrat. And Chuck Hagel is a Democrat, and John McCain s a democrat and everyone who doesn't agree with you is a democrat, especially anyone who might suggest that you were paranoid because those people are just spreading lies about you.
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Old Jul 13th, 2004, 10:14 AM       
Dennis Kucinich is toast.
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