Out of Touch Fred.

Murray, your "facts" are grossly distorted, taken out of context, and your conclusions are not predicated upon a commonality for proper comparison.  As a paid political hack, hang up your whored credentials as a responsible journalist.

Can't wait to see the Republican nominee try to peddle this crap in a general election and get toasted.  

Dead on arrival(:

Who on EARTH is this man's economic advisor?

Methinks Mr. Thompson is still under the impression that if you write a script, it makes it so in fantasyland.  

Meanwhile we are paying more for healthcare, gas, food, electricity and natural gas.  I have a daughter starting college at the same university her brother graduated from four years ago.  In that time, tuition and housing have doubled - for a State University!  Yeah, the economic picture is just rosy for the average American.

At the expense of the deficit and hundreds...oops, thousands dead.  At the expense of crumbling infrastructure, bad imported foodstuffs, ecological disaster.  Hell yeah, praise the lord  and pass the bottle (of pills).... I can't take much more of this painful progress

Leave it alone, Fred, you're not going anywhere.

Coverage re: Clinton vs. Obama. While yes, Hillary Clinton is receiving tons and tons of free press, I'd also like to point out that Chuck Todd was on Meet the Press recently and I don't think it's fair to depict him as a Clinton s^ck up. It appeared to me that he is in fact quite the opposite. He was on with about 5 other guests and he held his own regarding Obama while everyone else talked about Hillary.

More: "People have pointed out that journalists were trumpeting economic statistics during the Clinton administration that were not as good as those we have now."

Your response of quoting polls was exactly what Mr. Thompson was talking about!  With Bush, when the stock market goes up journalists complain about jobs, when unemployment goes down journalists complain about the market.  When everything is fine, just quote the polls!  Just the opposite of their coverage of the Clinton years.

Yep Bush economics: Go shopping!

I love how "Economics Historian" doesn't take the time to enlighten us, but simply tosses out some broad and lame assertions.

What is worse, using facts or complaining about one who uses facts?

I watched that meet the depressed and agree with Maureen about Mr Todd. don't let it go to your head Maureen. :-)

Who is this "old fart" anyway ?

The guy acts like he is in a TV show instead of reality. As for that "traditional American optimism" the polls show that Bush destroyed that but good. Bush's legacy is that 20 years from now people will talk about the traditional American pessimism and cynicism.

I'd sure like to know what would be considered the greatest economy in American History!  Did Bill Clinton ever have a unemployment rate that was 4.4% like it was in May 2007?  You have to be seriously lazy or seriously inept NOT to make money today.  My god, this economy is making Bill Clinton look awfully foolish.  Judging from all the people that are begging for workers, it makes me wonder if the liberal fanatics of this world really care about hard work.  They seem to only care about getting from first base to home without touching second or third base.

Mark Murray touts some job numbers then makes no conclusion on whether the economy is better or not. All he can do is quote another poll that people percieve the economy to be less. Fred's point exactly!! The economy is pretty damn good and the negative press has made people feel piss poor about it. Point proven you dolt.

Not to mention that a good percentage of the jobs that have been "created" are low wage dead end jobs (ie: McDonalds Crew member, or Wal-mart Door greeter), the numbers are just misleading.  I don't know about the rest of you,  but in the mid to late 90's, I as well as most people that I know actually felt the effects of the good economy... being able to afford some luxuries, investing for the first time in ther lives, and generally not having to live check  to check.  Six years later, this the trend has reversed(again, based only on my observation of clients, friends and family).., people are taking second and third jobs just to make ends meet.  Guess we're not being trickled on.    

"Lying...I'm going to have to do a lot of lying!" -- Fred Thompson

Of course no mention of the recession that Slick Willy left us with.


WhiteWater, TravelGate, CigarGate... They won't go away.

I'd love to see a graph of those 'average 240,000 jobs per month". I wonder how many were created during his first 4 years as he rode the tide of Reaganomics that enriched the coffers and balanced the budget. Then see the nose dive of jobs and tax revenue as Clinton politics took hold during the last 4 years.

Well I'm gald that Jerry would consider George Soros a hard working and competent. =)

Seriously though, facts and reality have a well known left wing bias.  Everyone drink your kool aide and ignore the reasonable man behind the curtain.

Well hell, I just saw the link. Not quite how I expected. Actually fairly steady until a big drop in 1991, big upswing through the end of Bush1 and into Bill's first 2 years, then again fairly steady until Bill's recession started in 2000. Still not sure how Mark Murray can only use these stats to say Bill's economy is any match for Bush2's economy.

The president is a f*#% up, plain and simple, or just a plain and simple f*#% up!  Take your pick, those are the only choices.

His is the presidency of lies and manipulation.  If you can't admit you have been manipulated, then you must support this monkey.

The Bubba's and the Thumper's were duped and have spoken..... the greedy continue to have an orgy at taxpayer expense.

Keep one thing in mind - during the Bush presidency there have not been 23 million unemployeed people to employee - we are now in a period of labor shortage - we are at lower unemployment than we have ever been - we are at lower unemployment than economists thought was possible without rampant inflation.  You know it is much harder to improve your performance in anything when you are at or near the top of the possible - e.g. it is easier to learn to run a 6-minute mile if you currently can run an eight minute mile than it is to learn to run a 4-minute mile if you currently can run a 5-minute mile -- the Clinton years, for whatever reasons, improved our employment situation - the Bush years have gone on to improve employment even more

RH, hmm could you possibly be as wrong and as out of touch as Fred? Thats a resounding YES!! Jerry doesnt even count these days.

nuanced (Sent Tuesday, August 07, 2007 5:27 PM)

I fear you are correct. Hope we can get the history to say that Mr. Bush almost made us that way but a determined populace rose up and prevented it!

BTW - there have been so many threads going that I can't find my post where I asked you to post back to me with 2 words from your email. I said we'd see how creative you can be! (smile)

Did you see that post and did you respond? If so I haven't found it and I apologize. Could you repeat it on this thread perhaps?

Wait another second Mark. Your Clintons Good Times were based upon a rapid increase in employment in the technology sector that didn't produce anything. What rose,then began to fall as one Dot.Com after another shut its doors leading up to the Bush presidency and the corporate scandals which produced even more layoffs.[ENRON alone,laid off tens of thousands of its workers along with GLOBAL CROSSING,MERRILL-LYNCH,WORLDCOM,and other giants].
                 Fred is incorrect on the actual numbers,but he is admittedly correct that the economy is on a sounder foundation than it was under Clinton in his last term. [and without the record taxes Clinton imposed on the middle class to boot].Say what one will,can any Democrat actually expect to do better than 4.5% unemployment while leaving the middle class alone in imposing  higher taxes? I doubt it. Americans by a wide margin will pay higher taxes for healthcare as it stands alone. But what of hooking on trade protection,higher gas and energy taxes,higher foreign aid taxes [as the cost of No More Iraqs],higher taxes for education,see nothing for their improvements,and watch their paychecks get smaller and smaller while consumer prices go higher and higher? What of inflation? If this comes swinging around again it will lead to more unemployment,and who will the nation blame when we see even 7 or 8 %,if not higher?
                  Herein lay the crux. Hating Bush as they do,liberals and others have set the economic bar dangerously low. No recession OR inflation. Unemployment at a steady four percentile. A fractious, but still healthy market. Gold in good territory. Purchasing solid. Oil prices volatile,but still dropping. GDP at a healthy average[3.4%].Beef and other consumable commodities earning good prices. Consumer confidence the highest in six years.
          Meddle with this,if even for a time,and the GOP will have the opening for its resurgence should even half of these indicators go south.

Aaron...no trickle now, just a steady heavy stream of pi*s for the middle class.  Any of those who scream that the economy is better than the 90's is either already rich, or were born stupid.

Nominal and real GDP have increased every year since 1950, including during the Reagan recession.  There have been recessions but none that caused a decline in GDP year to year.

The lowest monthly unemployment rate ever was 2.5% during the Eisenhower administration.  

The lowest rate under Clinton was 3.9%, the highest was 7.1%.  The lowest unemployment rate under Bush has been 4.2% and the highest 6.3%.  In fact, if you look at the statistics through time you will see that all of the two term presidents since 1948 presided over highs and lows.   So, basically they must all be responsible for both high and low rates.

The unemployment rate was going down when Eisenhower took office.  The unemployment rate was going down and a brief recession had ended before Clinton took office.  The Clinton expansion was slowing when George Bush took office and unemployment had creeped up from the 3.9% level to 4.0% or 4.1%.

Source:  Bureau of Labor statistics.

So, what do the numbers say?  Doesn't matter because everyone here is going to use them to support their particular biases in an unwinnable argument.

Presidents are obligated by politics to take credit or get slammed for economic performance.  Politics demands largely irrelevant arguments to claim credit or assign blame to a person or administration.

The fact of the matter is that Eisenhower, Clinton and Bush had little to do with any of it.  The economy is a political football and if you believe, for political or philosophical reasons, that everything sucks, well that's what you are going to believe.  If you think things are pretty good, well, that's what you are going to believe. Your view of the economy is determined as much by accident of birth as the actions of any president.

I don't care much what any single individual thinks and except for favoring tax cuts, I also don't care much who is supposedly "running the economy", except maybe corporations and business people.

All in all, I think it's been pretty good for the past 26 years or so regardless of who is president.  Political discussion of the economy has gone steadily downhill, however.

Greg R: I respectfully disagree and think you need a hug from a sock monkey.  My kids loved those things.

Jerry, Corpus Christi,
Maybe you could take one minute like I did to research your own question: Did Bill Clinton ever have a unemployment rate that was 4.4% like it was in May 2007?"
The answer is yes, it was 4.1% in December, 1999.  The average rate for 1999 was 4.2% which was the seventh year in a row of lower unemployment rates.  Here, I did your work for you.  All you have to do is click on this link:http://www.sltrib.com//ci_6504475 and it will tell you everything you need to know.
Unless you yourself are "seriously lazy or seriously inept."  Boy, am I getting tired of correcting your right-wing lies.

I personally believe it's extremely difficult to link a President's policies to the economy...at least in the short-term. I think there are too many forces at work, with a long incubation period, to justify blaming or crediting any President.

Look above. We have those saying Clinton's good economy was due to Reagan and Bush before him, and that he left a recession to W. that W. has since fixed. Can you have it both ways? You're doing the same thing as those you criticize: cherry picking the data to make your point.

For me, I'm more interested in the long-term effects of their fiscal policies. Take a look at historical spending at http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/launchpad/5577/philo/fedbgt4.htm. Under Clinton, per capita spending had decreased. Bush reversed that trend.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that this economy is doing well. Let's also reflect on comments that Clinton's economy was built on the dot.com bubble...nothing "real." My fear is that THIS economy is built on debt to be paid by future generations, as equally dangerous as an economy fueled by venture capital. We may be humming along now, but how hard will this economy crash? Especially with tax cuts on top of a war time posture?

By the way, I hope none of you bought a house with a sub-prime loan.

Hey Bob/Denver,

What are you trying to prove with a link to some random article that has no bearing on your assertions?

Hi Independent,

No I didn't see your previous post ;)

WOULDNT FREDDY HAVE TO ENTER THE RACE TO ACTUALY TAKE ON HILLIARY,THEN HE COULD EXPLAIN TO HILLIARY WHAT HE DID WITH HIS FIRST WIFE AND WHY THEY COULDNT WORK THIER MARRIAGE OUT LIKE BILL AND HILLIARY DID YA KNOW IN DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT,THAT MEANS YOU ONLY GET ONE MARRIAGE.

nuanced (Sent Wednesday, August 08, 2007 12:41 AM)

Very well done!

Thompson's blog-"Diary Of A Mad Housewife"-movie

Bill,
Sorry, my mistake.
Here's the proper link re: Clinton's economic history:
http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/html/20000112_1.html

Here is the NYT's opinion of Bush's economic policy. Wonder if Thompson's advisors will read it?

"How did the Fed lose room to maneuver? The answer is rooted in the Bush administration’s misguided economic policies.

Over the last several years, America’s imbalances in trade and other global transactions have worsened dramatically, requiring the United States to borrow billions of dollars a day from abroad just to balance its books.

The only lasting way to fix the imbalances — and reduce that borrowing — is to increase America’s savings. But the administration has steadfastly rejected that responsible approach since it would require rolling back excessive tax cuts and engaging in government-led health care reform to rein in looming crushing costs — both, anathema to President Bush. It would also require revamping the nation’s tax incentives so that they create new savings by typical families, instead of new shelters for the existing wealth of affluent families — another nonstarter for this White House."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/opinion/08wed1.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Bob/Denver,

Thanks for the correction.

Interesting that the census bureau reports that the population of the US in 2000 was ~280 milion.  20.4 million "new" jobs should have been enough to make the unemployment rate go to zero (20.4/280=7% of the total population) - but it didn't.

It seems to me that a either a rather large number of "old" jobs disappeared, or a rather large fraction of those "new" jobs were never filled (or some combination of the two).

Considering that a significant portion of the population is not considered part of the "workforce", it seems to me that there's a big gaping hole in the information provided by your source material.

Regards

Independant:The New York Times does not fit your handle. They are in error. It is societal mores that create the lack of savings[still at a record 6.6 trillion according to the FDIC]rather than the Bush tax policies. Then again,the Times advocates more spending on healthcare and education the payment for which will fall to ''typical families''that will foot the bill for monies typically,shall we say,subject to rampant mis-spending,loss and outright fraud and corruption.
             The real tragedy here is that while we can expect the ''rich''to get soaked by an increase in taxes under a Democrat presidency and Congress,we will not see real savings passed to ordinary familes,any more than when we saw them last, under a crushing tax burden during the 1990s, with no improvements whatever in either education or healthcare.[here,the debtload,along with SS has now passed 100 Trillion]. 2009 will bring more of the same. There are no doubts. To pay for the new schemes envisioned by the Dems, taxes will be raised upon the working-middle class and quite possibly,at the start of a major economic downturn revisiting the Carter presidency.

Will someone please explain how under this fantastic economy we are going into debt over a trillion dollars a year when the federal deficit and trade ceficit are combined.

Independent/Texas,

What is your point?

Am I to believe that America would be better off if only it were authorized "save" more of my money??

Ya know chief - there's an historical precedent that claims that there's a limit to the amount of taxation that a constituency is willing to permit; and between fed/state/local/property/sales taxes, we (in the US) have about reached that plateau (~40% IIRC).

Perhaps you are not at a point where you can appreciate how much of what you earn is not yours.

Anyhoo - tax all you want if you get the chance.  I'll just sit back and watch history repeat itself.

Regards

Lee Holmes (Sent Wednesday, August 08, 2007 7:03 PM)

and

Bill (Sent Wednesday, August 08, 2007 11:28 PM)


OK guys, I will gladly and honestly admit that I have no idea what your responses to me are supposed to mean.


re "my handle" - sayin' again: not affiliated with nor do I support any political party.

My NYTs post was intended for the very purpose I said in introducing it - the NYT does not support the claim evidently made by Thompson that Bush is successful in this area.

Sincerely, I do not understand if you are "arguing" with me or with the NYTs. I agree with some points from each of yes and disagree with others. The main purpose of the post was to show that I don't see any substantiation in anything I have found that backs up Mr. Thompson's claim as indicated in the item text.

RH doesn't realize that the recession started in March 2001?  I'm not surprised.  Probably gets his information from the Heritage Foundation (pssssst...no such thing as a conservative think tank.  Spinmiesters, all).  

Since WWII the economy has done better under Democratic administrations than under Republican administrations, and that's even if you wait a year or even two for the new President's policies to come into effect.  

No matter how you slice it, Dems are better for the economy.  Period

Clinton came into office when the economy was on the upswing and left with it in recession.  Bush came into office as the Clinton recession deepened and then suffered a Clinton born catastrophy, 9/11.  Clinton did nothing in terms of policy to improve the economic situation, he raised taxes which brought caused a recesssion and ignored terrorism which took us to the bottom.  President Bush's policies get credit for draggin us out of the Clinton recession and are responsibile for job growth - Clinton's policies get credit no credit for job growth and his tax increase gets credit for a recession that killed the golden goose.

Let me see...We all complain about the economy and who's the best and worst President for his time.

It appears to me that too many people just don't appreciate what they have. We could always go into a depression, then blame the President for it. Instead of blaming ourselves for the progressive greedy people that we have become. Maybe if we went back to instilling moral and ethicl values, back into family life, we wouldn't have to worry about those ideals in our Presidents.

This is the first time I have been involved in a blog, but I guess...I have my God given rights like the rest of you!

http://issuepedia.org/Bill_Clinton_vs._George_W._Bush

This lays it out pretty well.  No "fuzzy math"...W's favorite kind.

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