BUSH’S ECONOMIC PLAN WORKED

[FOTD]

http://www.jimhightower.com/node/6320

Cheap Labor Conservatives and Republican Family Values
of Greed and Hypocrisy.


Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Posted by Jim Hightower
Listen to this Commentary
At last, economists have discovered that America is tumbling into a recession.

Of course, most Americans have known for months – if not years – that the economy is already in recession... or even depression. The disconnect is that economists live on a different planet than we do. Ours is Earth. Theirs seems to be Pluto, which might not even be a planet.

For economists, a "recession" is a clinical term defined as two or more consecutive quarters of decline in the GDP. For several years, America's economy has been expanding, while the incomes of the majority of people have been falling, but economists haven't cared. For them, the measure of a healthy economy is simple growth – not whether we all benefit from it.

Meanwhile, back here on Earth, most people's definition of recession is personal, based on whether their in-come can keep up with their out-go. Income has not been keeping up, because real wages have been declining for more than five years. Thus, there's been a spreading and deepening "people's recession."

This mass economic decline has not been an accident. Washington has worked with corporate chieftains to rig the rules on everything from labor law to trade deals to hold down the incomes of the workaday majority – so the rich have literally gotten richer at the expense of the rest of us.

When George W first ran for president, he was asked what his economic plan might be. "We ought to make the pie higher," he answered. People laughed, thinking it was another of his verbal stumbles. Seven years later, we can see that he was serious. His plan was to put our national economic pie on the highest shelf, so only the elites can reach it. Now that the economy is falling into an "official" recession to go along with the unofficial recession that ordinary folks have long been experiencing, even the economists and politicians can see that Bush's plan worked just as he wanted.

"Experts Warn of Recession – Duh, We're Living in One Already," www.alternet.org, January 10, 2008

[Conan71]

Reply edited.

[FOTD]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71
Reply edited

That is not our label!

"As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
cause I'm in need of some restraint
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or Ill lay your soul to waste, um yeah
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, um yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, um mean it, get down
Woo, who
Oh yeah, get on down
Oh yeah
Oh yeah!
Tell me baby, what's my name
Tell me honey, can ya guess my name
Tell me baby, what's my name
I tell you one time, you're to blame
Ooo, who
Ooo, who
Ooo, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Oh, yeah
What's me name
Tell me, baby, what's my name
Tell me, sweetie, what's my name
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Oh, yeah"
Glimmer Twins

[cannon_fodder]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Reply edited.

ooooh, I bet it was a good one too.  [}:)]

/didn't really read the cut-paste.  Sorry.

[FOTD]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Reply edited.

ooooh, I bet it was a good one too.  [}:)]

/didn't really read the cut-paste.  Sorry.

"I'm pretty secure in my midtown bubble and rarely deviate. Sad, sad little world I live in really." Cannon Fodder

[cannon_fodder]

I feel so famous when I'm quoted.

[Conan71]

I said:

Aox, how many BACKS did your family step on to gain their wealth?

Someone thought I made a racial comment.

[FOTD]

Freaky weird.
I'm still trying to understand the real reason you were moderated.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

Freaky weird.
I'm still trying to understand the real reason you were moderated.

Had to do with an "L" which was not in the word backs.  Either that or someone hacked my account and is following me around the board.

[FOTD]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

Freaky weird.
I'm still trying to understand the real reason you were moderated.

Had to do with an "L" which was not in the word backs.  Either that or someone hacked my account and is following me around the board.

HUH? More nonsense....sorry. No Lo Comprehendo.
L as in lame?

Back on topic, if you don't know those living pay check to pay check then you are out of touch......Bush has succeeded in causing a great divide.

[cannon_fodder]

Aox, put the "L" in the bold word he used above. How many backs did you step on...  Reading an "L" into the word makes it a racially charged question, as stepping on bLacks or any other race to get ahead would generally be viewed as bad in today's society.

Either Canon had a typo or a mod misread.  Or he's a jerk.  Either way, I think that's what he's getting at.

[FOTD]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Aox, put the "L" in the bold word he used above. How many backs did you step on...  Reading an "L" into the word makes it a racially charged question, as stepping on bLacks or any other race to get ahead would generally be viewed as bad in today's society.

Either Canon had a typo or a mod misread.  Or he's a jerk.  Either way, I think that's what he's getting at.

Nope.....which rhymes with the instigator....

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Aox, put the "L" in the bold word he used above. How many backs did you step on...  Reading an "L" into the word makes it a racially charged question, as stepping on bLacks or any other race to get ahead would generally be viewed as bad in today's society.

Either Canon had a typo or a mod misread.  Or he's a jerk.  Either way, I think that's what he's getting at.

Nope.....which rhymes with the instigator....

Talk about no comprende, now I'm even confused!

[]

[FOTD]

OK.....maybe it's that "sad little world I live in really." CF

Ignore it all and move on....(and not moveon.org)

[FOTD]

Exactly what lies end up doing: no confidence!

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12387

From one of the Kings of newz disectors!

Study Claims Lies Shaped Rush To War. Is The Same Type of Misinformation Influencing Economic Coverage?

by Danny Schechter | January 25, 2008 - 9:38am

It took almost five years for major studies to come out to confirm what most of us knew a long time ago about Iraq. The conclusion: the lies "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

So now it's "official" with two top journalist organizations documenting that the war in Iraq was facilitated and sold with a whopping 935 misleading assertions. May we ask: Why is it that truth takes so long come out in a land which proudly claims to have the freest media in the world?

If this happened in the recent past, could the deception be continuing? If there were 935 lies abut the lead-up to war, how many are there today about our economy and the crisis we are now just beginning to experience?

Keep in mind that old adage: truth passes through three stages. First it is denied. Then the people who raise it are demonized. And finally, when it is irrefutable, it is widely accepted usually with the proviso that everyone always knew it all along.

That is what seems to be happening today with a remarkable recent shift in political and media pronouncements about the economy. They have gone from boom to gloom, from inattention to "deep concern," from boosterism to worries not just about a recession--and many experts say we are in one--but something worse. A crash? A financial meltdown? A global downturn? A Japan-like "stagflation?"

Or horrors, may my mouth be still, will anyone express fear of that dreaded "D word," a depression?

As one who has been called an "alarmist" for forecasts warning of a "sudden collapse" in my film In Debt We Trust (InDebtWeTrust.com), I know that the media prefers good news to bad. But what are we to make of a New York Times front page story with the headline: "Worries that the Good Times Were Mostly A Mirage," suggesting that we may have been misled, or misled ourselves, for years.

This is a point that Mike Adams makes with stunning clarity: "As the markets are finally demonstrating today, the 'economic good times' spurred by a runaway housing price boom (and powered by astonishingly fraudulent lending practices by dishonest banks) are over. A day of reckoning has arrived, and the unwinding of this false wealth that has been propping up the U.S. economy for so many years is about to be unleashed upon the American people."

Will we soon be reading new studies cataloging all the errors and omissions in government statements, industry hype and business reporting that did not anticipate or glossed over the slow-motion build up of the economic downturn.

For weeks now, the markets have been falling or experiencing volatile shifts, dramatic ups and downs, suggesting deeper worries and anxiety. Now we are told that the mood up on the mountaintop in Davos, where the super-elite of the World Economic Forum hold its annual tribal ritual, is one of unconcealed dread.

In short, as we learned from all the misleading hype for the war in Iraq, that experts are not so expert. In fact, they were mostly completely wrong. We know now that most of our politicians, regardless of party, bought into the mythology and may be incapable of telling the truth even now.

The pattern continues with critical voices on the economy not being heard with any regularity. The business press still relies on the analysts and CEOs who downplayed past problems or were complicit in present ones. Even billionaires like George Soros are covered more in Europe than in the US. He had his latest commentary in London's Financial Times sent to me. It suggests that this crisis, unlike earlier ones, is much more severe and signals the end of an era.

And that is serious:

He writes, "the current crisis marks the end of an era of credit expansion based on the dollar as the international reserve currency. The periodic crises were part of a larger boom-bust process. The current crisis is the culmination of a super-boom that has lasted for more than 60 years."

He concludes: "The danger is that the resulting political tensions, including US protectionism, may disrupt the global economy and plunge the world into recession or worse."

Note the phrase, "or worse."

Michael Dicks, head of research at Barclays Wealth, told the Independent: "The risk for policymakers is that they become seen as ineffectual, and the Fed had itself already inferred that its past program of interest-rate cuts has not been up to the task. We remain worried that the overly negative reaction of markets will become more and more self-fulfilling, polluting economic fundamentals."

Translation: The stimulus solutions are not a panacea and this crisis is beyond anyone's control because it is driven by unpayable debt, a deficit driven by war spending, structural imbalances and business cycles.

And, unfortunately, as Bill Bowles notes, our media often obscures the reasons for the panic and instead spins the upbeat drumbeat of officialdom by:

"Never call(ing) a recession a recession, just keep on saying that it's 'around the corner, maybe', a ridiculous response given that we are already in a recession as any fool can see.

'The big question is whether we are just seeing a bad month for shares - or whether this is the start of a bear market that could see share prices sliding for years.'

So questions get answered with, you guessed it, more questions."

But maybe "THEY" don't have answers--as we would expect them to– and perhaps we do, in the sense that the public and advocacy groups do not have to accept the flawed media framing of these issues that proved so wrong about the war then, and deceptive about the economy now.

We don't need more after the fact studies but, instead, robust action that will be a stimulus for more economic equity, not subsidies for the institutions that caused the crisis in the first place.