Dan,
I would like you to consider this, It's worth a moment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/op...26krugman.html
For the last few months there has been a running debate about the U.S.
economy, more or less like this:

American families: "We're not doing very well."

Washington officials: "You're wrong - you're doing great. Here, look at
these statistics!"

The administration and some political commentators seem genuinely puzzled
by
polls showing that Americans are unhappy about the economy. After all,
they
point out, numbers like the growth rate of G.D.P. look pretty good. So why
aren't people cheering?

Some blame the negative halo effect of the Iraq debacle. Others complain
that the news media aren't properly reporting good economic news. But when
your numbers tell you that people should be feeling good, but they aren't,
that means you're looking at the wrong numbers.

American families don't care about G.D.P. They care about whether jobs are
available, how much those jobs pay and how that pay compares with the cost
of living. And recent G.D.P. growth has failed to produce exceptional
gains
in employment, while wages for most workers haven't kept up with
inflation.

About employment: it's true that the economy finally started adding jobs
two
years ago. But although many people say "four million jobs in the last two
years" reverently, as if it were an amazing achievement, it's actually a
rise of about 3 percent, not much faster than the growth of the
working-age
population over the same period. And recent job growth would have been
considered subpar in the past: employment grew more slowly during the best
two years of the Bush administration than in any two years during the
Clinton administration.

It's also true that the unemployment rate looks fairly low by historical
standards. But other measures of the job situation, like the average of
weekly hours worked (which remains low), and the average duration of
unemployment (which remains high), suggest that the demand for labor is
still weak compared with the supply.

Employers certainly aren't having trouble finding workers. When Wal-Mart
announced that it was hiring at a new store in Northern California, where
the unemployment rate is close to the national average, about 11,000
people
showed up to apply for 400 jobs.

Because employers don't have to raise wages to get workers, wages are
lagging behind the cost of living. According to Labor Department
statistics,
the purchasing power of an average nonsupervisory worker's wage has fallen
about 1.5 percent since the summer of 2003. And this may understate the
pressure on many families: the cost of living has risen sharply for those
whose work or family situation requires buying a lot of gasoline.

Some commentators dismiss concerns about gasoline prices, because those
prices are still below previous peaks when you adjust for inflation. But
that misses the point: Americans bought cars and made decisions about
where
to live when gas was $1.50 or less per gallon, and now suddenly find
themselves paying $2.60 or more. That's a rude shock, which I estimate
raises the typical family's expenses by more than $900 a year.

You may ask where economic growth is going, if it isn't showing up in
wages.
That's easy to answer: it's going to corporate profits, to rising health
care costs and to a surge in the salaries and other compensation of
executives. (Forbes reports that the combined compensation of the chief
executives of America's 500 largest companies rose 54 percent last year.)

The bottom line, then, is that most Americans have good reason to feel
unhappy about the economy, whatever Washington's favorite statistics may
say. This is an economic expansion that hasn't trickled down; many people
are worse off than they were a year ago. And it will take more than a
revamped administration sales pitch to make people feel better.


After reading the things said above, which basically say that even though
the statistics on the economy are good, it's really saying that the average
American is not doing very well economically. Most Americans are either
barely holding on or are losing ground. The fact that the average credit
card debt is over $13,000.00 tells you that people are making up the
difference between what they make and what they spend by borrowing.
Normally, after posting information that is negative about the financial
status of most Americans some knucklehead conservative chimes in and says
that he's doing well and has seen his income increase very nicely over the
last few years. Which is like what the people in George McGovern's home
state said after he lost the presidential election against Nixon 49 states
to one, everyone I know voted for McGovern. The point being it's meaningless
for individuals to say how they are doing when the statistics say the
opposite. The facts are that since Bush has been president the lot of most
Americans has declined. Conversely, the top 10% of wealth holders have
dramatically increased their positions. That's not a surprise because that
is exactly what the Bush policies were intended to do. Help the top and let
the rest of the folks fend for themselves. It's the same discredited trickle
down theory we've heard before, and we all know that none of the wealth ever
trickles down. It goes to the top and it stops there.

On the subject of jobs, it takes about 150,000 new jobs to be created every
month just to keep up with population growth, so the economy has to produce
about 1.8 million jobs a year or it's losing ground. Even though there has
been some job growth in the last couple of years it's barely keeping pace
with population growth, the jobs are not high paying, and nearly half of
them have gone to illegal aliens. To compare it to a period of very good job
growth you only need to look at Clinton's record of producing 22 million
jobs in 8 years. Compared to that Bush's first five years stinks.
Unfortunately, the only area where Bush has produced greater economic
numbers than Clinton is in the area of deficits, and we all know that Bush
took a surplus of billions and has turned that into a deficit of many
billions. I know that those are only facts and that Republicans don't like
facts unless they make them look good but those are the facts anyway.

As far as people waiting in lines and paying $5.00 a gallon for gas, that's
not going to happen. If gas ever gets to $5.00 a gallon there won't be any
lines because so few people will be able to afford gas that nobody will be
waiting in line. Most people will be walking or riding bikes. And anyone
that doesn't think that the policies of different administrations doesn't
make any difference is just plain ignorant. If Gore or Kerry had become
president does anyone think things wouldn't be different, very different
from what they are now? Obviously, the differences would have been dramatic.
Would gas be almost $3.00 a gallon? Maybe, but at least we would not have
spent almost half a trillion on a war and the oil companies wouldn't be
getting 9 billion in subsidies when they are making record profits. It only
costs four dollars to produce a barrel of oil. Without the turmoil that Bush
has created in the Mid East is it a far fetched idea to think oil would not
be selling for $67.00 a barrel? So, the answer to the question is yes, it is
Bush's fault that gas prices are so high. His policies are to blame for a
large measure of the price increases. Not all of it but a large chunk of it
is Bush's fault.

Hawke