http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn...t-steyn05.html


"She's (my daughter) already dating a sex offender.
Better that than a republican fundie neocon fascist."
FF, (alt.machines.cnc)

On Sun, 05 Sep 2004 03:34:28 GMT, Gunner
calmly ranted:


http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn...t-steyn05.html

And the question of the day remains: Why would anyone in their
right minds vote for -either- Kerrikaze or the Shrub?

Gunner, you're voting for Shrub. Please enlighten us on the
good he has done for the country in the past 4 years. Also,
please point out his weaknesses or bad things he has done
to the country.

Voters for Kerry are encouraged to post their lists, too.


================================================== ========
CAUTION: Do NOT look directly into laser with remaining eyeball!
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http://www.diversify.com Comprehensive Website Design

I agree, they're both unacceptable. I wish there was a viable option.


"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
And the question of the day remains: Why would anyone in their
right minds vote for -either- Kerrikaze or the Shrub?

Eide wrote:

I agree, they're both unacceptable. I wish there was a viable option.

There is: Vote Libertarian!

-jc-

Seriously, I wish there was a viable option.

"John Chase" wrote in message
om...
Eide wrote:

I agree, they're both unacceptable. I wish there was a viable option.

There is: Vote Libertarian!

-jc-

On Tue, 07 Sep 2004 04:58:04 GMT, John Chase
calmly ranted:

Eide wrote:

I agree, they're both unacceptable. I wish there was a viable option.

There is: Vote Libertarian!

Amen. But they have to extricate their heads first.


..-.
Life is short. Eat dessert first!
---
http://diversify.com Comprehensive Website Development

OK - you want to be enlightened, how about these few bullet points that
relate directly to the economy:

a.. The economy has grown 4.8% in the past year, as fast as any year in
nearly two decades.
a.. Productivity grew at the fastest 3-year rate in more than 50 years.
a.. The unemployment rate has fallen from 6.3 to 5.6 percent, below the
average of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
a.. This job growth is widespread - employment over the last year was up in
41 of the 50 states, and the unemployment rate was down in 47 of the 50
states.
a.. Real after-tax incomes are up by 11 percent since December 2000.
a.. Homeownership rates are at record levels - nearly seven out of ten
American families own their own home today.
a.. Household wealth is near a record high.

Similar lists could be compiled for education, social programs, energy and
most certainly national security, but I suspect you really don't want to be
educated on this stuff anyway.

Robert

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 05 Sep 2004 03:34:28 GMT, Gunner
calmly ranted:


http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn...t-steyn05.html

And the question of the day remains: Why would anyone in their
right minds vote for -either- Kerrikaze or the Shrub?

Gunner, you're voting for Shrub. Please enlighten us on the
good he has done for the country in the past 4 years. Also,
please point out his weaknesses or bad things he has done
to the country.

Voters for Kerry are encouraged to post their lists, too.


================================================== ========
CAUTION: Do NOT look directly into laser with remaining eyeball!
================================================== ========
http://www.diversify.com Comprehensive Website Design

On Sun, 05 Sep 2004 19:30:41 GMT, "Siggy"
calmly ranted:

OK - you want to be enlightened, how about these few bullet points that
relate directly to the economy:

a.. The economy has grown 4.8% in the past year, as fast as any year in
nearly two decades.
-snip-

Please include non-war- and Shrub-related info only.


================================================== ========
CAUTION: Do NOT look directly into laser with remaining eyeball!
================================================== ========
http://www.diversify.com Comprehensive Website Design

"Siggy" wrote in message
m...
OK - you want to be enlightened, how about these few bullet points that
relate directly to the economy:

Man, 'you must have gotten caught in the spin cycle of your washing machine.
g

Most of what you wrote MUST have come from the RNC or their henchmen, eh?
Without digging out the numbers, here are a few observations:


a.. The economy has grown 4.8% in the past year, as fast as any year in
nearly two decades.

From the bottom of a deep, dark hole. Percentages of growth are easy when
you start out in a dumpster.

a.. Productivity grew at the fastest 3-year rate in more than 50 years.

Attributed mostly to automation in combination with squeezing more out of a
drastically reduced workforce, through a recession. We've never seen
anything like it. That's one reason we lost 2.7 million jobs in
manufacturing, and then, on the way up, didn't regain more than a handful of
them.

a.. The unemployment rate has fallen from 6.3 to 5.6 percent, below the
average of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

You might want to reconcile this with the fact that the percentage of adults
in the workforce is the lowest it's been since the mid-'60s. The obvious
fact is that a lot of people have simply stopped looking.

a.. This job growth is widespread - employment over the last year was up
in
41 of the 50 states, and the unemployment rate was down in 47 of the 50
states.

It requires around 150,000 - 170,000 new jobs per month just to keep up with
population growth. Job growth is not keeping up with population growth.
That's why the percentage of adults in the workforce keeps dropping. When
enough bail out, the unemployment rate starts looking pretty good.

a.. Real after-tax incomes are up by 11 percent since December 2000.

Only at the top. In the middle, they're flat.

a.. Homeownership rates are at record levels - nearly seven out of ten
American families own their own home today.

True. It's 68%. You can argue the factors involved, but the trend is up, for
whatever reason.

a.. Household wealth is near a record high.

Haha! The fact is, most of it is in home equity, either as home value or as
lines of credit and other refinancing based on the equity. That's the result
of the refinancing boom combined with increases in home values. It has
NOTHING to do with earnings or savings.

To take two recent years as examples, between 2002 and 2003, total home
equity increased by 6.1% ($500 billion). Over that same year, mortgage debt
increased by 9.9% ($600 billion). Meantime, refinancing increased in that
year by (gulp!) 71.4% ($1 trillion).

We're awash in cash and L.O.C.'s that are borrowed against all of that home
equity. It's enough to make a Federal Reserve banker sweat bullets.

It sure looks like "household wealth," doesn't it? But it would all be wiped
out by just a few percentage points of drop in home values. Half the home
owners in America would be financed upside-down in a hurry. The "wealth" is
based on a small margin of the market value, not on savings. It's all the
result of leveraging the increases in market value of our homes. That's a
lot like "wealth" in the stock market, on September 30, 1929. . .


Similar lists could be compiled for education, social programs, energy and
most certainly national security. . .

There's a scary thought. g

..., but I suspect you really don't want to be
educated on this stuff anyway.

Education is fine. Spin-cycling the facts is something we could do without,
however, and we would all benefit thereby.

Ed Huntress

On Mon, 06 Sep 2004 04:23:48 GMT, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Siggy" wrote in message
om...
OK - you want to be enlightened, how about these few bullet points that
relate directly to the economy:

Man, 'you must have gotten caught in the spin cycle of your washing machine.
g

Most of what you wrote MUST have come from the RNC or their henchmen, eh?
Without digging out the numbers, here are a few observations:


a.. The economy has grown 4.8% in the past year, as fast as any year in
nearly two decades.

From the bottom of a deep, dark hole. Percentages of growth are easy when
you start out in a dumpster.

Well, the Clinton recession did put us in a hole, but not really all the way
down to the dumpster. GDP was $9.8 trillion the last year of Clinton's
reign. It is now $11.82 trillion.

See http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GDP/18


a.. The unemployment rate has fallen from 6.3 to 5.6 percent, below the
average of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

You might want to reconcile this with the fact that the percentage of adults
in the workforce is the lowest it's been since the mid-'60s. The obvious
fact is that a lot of people have simply stopped looking.

Unemployment is now down to 5.4% (July numbers just out). Note that
the Baby Boomers are now reaching retirement age, and that's starting
to pull workers out of the workforce permanently at a greater rate than
we've ever seen before, except during wartime.

And we're at war too, which has pulled hundreds of thousands of
reservists out of the civilian workforce (they're still employed, of
course, by the military).

Gary

"Gary Coffman" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 06 Sep 2004 04:23:48 GMT, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Siggy" wrote in message
om...
OK - you want to be enlightened, how about these few bullet points that
relate directly to the economy:

Man, 'you must have gotten caught in the spin cycle of your washing
machine.
g

Most of what you wrote MUST have come from the RNC or their henchmen, eh?
Without digging out the numbers, here are a few observations:


a.. The economy has grown 4.8% in the past year, as fast as any year in
nearly two decades.

From the bottom of a deep, dark hole. Percentages of growth are easy when
you start out in a dumpster.

Well, the Clinton recession did put us in a hole, but not really all the
way
down to the dumpster. GDP was $9.8 trillion the last year of Clinton's
reign. It is now $11.82 trillion.

See http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GDP/18

First, there was no "Clinton recession." Technically, there was no recession
at all, even under Bush. What actually happened is that the economy just
staggered around from the third quarter of 2000 through the second quarter
of 2003. There were no two sequential quarters of declining GDP, in either
current or chained (real) terms. It requires three sequential declining
quarters to be a recession. It was more like a great waffling. d8-)

Second, your GDP figures are in current dollars, and don't agree with BEA
(Bureau of Economic Analysis) figures, in any case. The real,
inflation-adjusted figures are (based on 2000 to keep it simple) $9.8
trillion and $10.8 trillion for the second quarter of 2004.

(The relevant Excel tables from the BEA are available from this site:
http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/A-Z/A-ZIndex_h.htm)

Per-capita GDP growth sucked throughout that period. That's the dark hole.
Even forgetting about per-capita, the total real growth figures for 2001 and
2002 were 0.8% and 1.9%, respectively. That also sucks. Thus, there should
be substantial pent-up growth potential in the economy, and we should have
seen it by 2003 according to virtually all economists.

It's interesting to see what actually happened to real growth:

2002 Q4: 0.7%
2003 Q1: 1.9
2003 Q2: 4.1
2003 Q3: 7.4
2003 Q4: 4.2
2004 Q1: 4.5
2004 Q2: 2.8

It looked for a while like we were going to catch up to the annual,
historical per-capita growth under Clinton, but then it went south (no doubt
a delayed effect that was Clinton's fault g).

Two things are interesting about it. First, the supposed 4.8% growth over
the past year was about normal for coming out of a growth-hole like the one
we had just been in. That was a lengthy slump.

Second, despite all of the conditions that Bush's economists tell us were
ripe for real growth in 2003 (if you read the Economic Report of the
President over the past few years, you may remember they said it was ripe in
2002, also, but I guess that neocon fruit can be slow to ripen), the
catch-up, which is normal and expected after a recession or near-recession,
fizzled out. There is no typical business-cycle trend -- unless the cycle is
over and we're on the way back down, which still seems unlikely. There was
just one anomally in 2003 Q3, which economists pin largely on big consumer
purchases that followed the housing refinance boom. Lots of people felt
loaded and went out and bought cars and appliances -- for about half a year.

So the economy is staggering around again. And there's another big factor
that you don't see much about in the general press: the effect of the
deficit. GDP includes both government spending and consumer spending, and
the government is spending like a drunken sailor. The deficit alone amounts
to around 4% of the economy. Economists say that half of that should be
showing up as growth -- why it's only half, I don't know. Anyway, that means
that around 2% of the "growth" isn't really growth at all. It's just the
effect of deficit spending.

Take 2% off of 4.8% or whatever, and that's what the economy is really doing
now on an annual basis. Last quarter, the total GDP growth was 2.8%. Take 2%
off of that, and it's easier to see why employment isn't keeping up with
population growth, and why the percentage of working-age adults in the
workforce is dropping.

This is not data that's easy to dig out of the muck just one week after the
GOP convention, but it's there if you look. g


a.. The unemployment rate has fallen from 6.3 to 5.6 percent, below the
average of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

You might want to reconcile this with the fact that the percentage of
adults
in the workforce is the lowest it's been since the mid-'60s. The obvious
fact is that a lot of people have simply stopped looking.

Unemployment is now down to 5.4% (July numbers just out). Note that
the Baby Boomers are now reaching retirement age, and that's starting
to pull workers out of the workforce permanently at a greater rate than
we've ever seen before, except during wartime.

Nope, that has nothing to do with the figures I was talking about. The
percentage of adults in the workforce is based on adults from age 18 through
65. When they reach age 65, they're no longer counted.


And we're at war too, which has pulled hundreds of thousands of
reservists out of the civilian workforce (they're still employed, of
course, by the military).

I'd have to check on this, but I believe the percentage of working-age
adults is reduced by the number on active military duty. So they're already
subtracted from the gross number.

Ed Huntress

In article , Ed Huntress says...

It sure looks like "household wealth," doesn't it? But it would all be wiped
out by just a few percentage points of drop in home values. Half the home
owners in America would be financed upside-down in a hurry.

Apparently this year has seen the largest number of personal
bankrupcies ever.

The hype looks good but hype doesn't vote. Voters vote, and that
means the election is going to be decided by the swing states.
Take Ohio for example, where the voters (many of whom used to
hold jobs in manufacturing) have been going through some pretty
rough times recently.

Well you might say that those folks are pretty tough, they might
vote for dubya anyhow. That they're used to digging in, in tough
times, working overtime and making ends meet - making the mortgage
payments no matter what.

Except uh-oh. Seems like dubya, in a fit of overconfidence,
pushed legislation though to effectively take away their overtime
pay. It's going to be real interesting seeing what those swing
state voters do since it's become real clear where dubya's
sympathy really sits.

So the question is, are the out of work voters, who are losing
their houses because they've been re-classified as 'managers'
and are no longer eligible for time-and-a-half, going to believe
the canned pablum video hype from the convention floor, and
vote for him anyway? In spite of the fact that he took
away their overtime?

Oddly enough Dubya doesn't have any brothers, sisters, or fathers
who are Ohio governors. So that avenue of approach is right out.

It's gonna be an interesting November.

Jim


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JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

On 5 Sep 2004 21:58:47 -0700, jim rozen
wrote:

Except uh-oh. Seems like dubya, in a fit of overconfidence,
pushed legislation though to effectively take away their overtime
pay. It's going to be real interesting seeing what those swing
state voters do since it's become real clear where dubya's
sympathy really sits.

The labor laws were way overdue for an overhaul. Its not clear yet
that anyone will loose overtime, and it may well be that more
employees may be eligible for overtime. This was an issue Ive had
more than once by management making me on paper..a "manager"

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child -
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

Siggy wrote:

OK - you want to be enlightened, how about these few bullet points that
relate directly to the economy:

a.. The economy has grown 4.8% in the past year, as fast as any year in
nearly two decades.

The government has little effect on this except when they start a war
and un up debt.

a.. Productivity grew at the fastest 3-year rate in more than 50 years.

the government has little effect on this. If productivity doesn't
improve, the company is going broke.

a.. The unemployment rate has fallen from 6.3 to 5.6 percent, below the
average of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

Yep, it has fallen here too. Mainly because they have changed the
definition to "if you have one hours work in a week, then you are not
unemployed". I now know lots of employed people struggling to survive on
1,2,3 ... hours work per week.

a.. This job growth is widespread - employment over the last year was up in
41 of the 50 states, and the unemployment rate was down in 47 of the 50
states.

Yep, the definition was changed nationa wide.

a.. Real after-tax incomes are up by 11 percent since December 2000.

All?
Usually a follow on from inflation.

a.. Homeownership rates are at record levels - nearly seven out of ten
American families own their own home today.

It goes with rising population.
What is the proportion of household income that is paid to service the
home loan?


a.. Household wealth is near a record high.
All?
Average?


Similar lists could be compiled for education, social programs, energy and
most certainly national security, but I suspect you really don't want to be
educated on this stuff anyway.

Educated, not ranted.