Posted on 06/11/2004 2:30:20 PM PDT by Dr.Syn
Nutty Fudge by Daniel Sargis 11 June 2004 In its quest to derail the Bush economic recovery, the Times isnt worried about little things like credibility. Just fudge the truth and repeat it ad nauseam. |
Okay...well try this once more. I was once told by a magazines managing editor that whenever I write about the economy, With the exception of three maladjusted accountants, most readers will beg off ...for fear of drowning in a sea of figures. But, as I just said, well try this once more. No matter how much our economy improves, the liberals want a bad economy (just like they want almost everything). On Friday June 4, the Labor Department announced that the economy added 248,000 new jobs in May. Or, as the New York Times sees it, John Kerry is in danger of losing the edge on one of his prime criticisms of the president: that the economy has failed to generate jobs in significant numbers.... Faced with the prospect of a wilting Kerry, the Times dragged out its stable of erratic experts en masse. In the face of a declining deficit and strong economic growth, the Times cautions its readers that, Despite the strong hiring pace, the unemployment rate remained at 5.6 percent.... This is like saying that despite the fact its a warm sunny day outside, it remains warm and sunny outside. The Times doesnt tell you that a 5.6% unemployment rate is NORMAL. God forbid that anything should get between the Times and its desire that President Bush becomes, ...the first chief executive since Herbert Hoover to preside over a decline in jobs during a four-year term. Just to keep you confused, William C. Dudley, director of domestic economic research for Goldman Sachs, confusingly notes, That makes May the strongest jobs report of the last three months, even though it had the lowest number of jobs created. Dudley is the same expert who, in July 2003, wrongly advised that, If the tax cuts were designed to stimulate the economy, theyve come up with an awful bad set of tax cuts. For the last three quarters, the economy has expanded at a 20-year record rate of a 5.6% because of those tax cuts. To keep you in fear, James Glassman, senior economist at JP Morgan Securities, cautions that, If full employment is reached when the unemployment rate is 4 percent, which I consider the appropriate measure, then we are 6 million jobs below that. Glassman, who is listed by the FEC as a donor to the Democratic National Committee, is the nuttiest fudger of them all. Full employment is a preposterously inappropriate measure and Glassman knows it (assuming he passed Economics 101). Milton Friedman won the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics by shooting the full employment scenario full of holes. Friedman stated that, The best a nation can do is settle for the lowest level of unemployment that will not begin accelerating inflation. He called this rate the normal or non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment. Almost universally, economists estimate this rate to be slightly less than 6%. Isnt 5.6% slightly less than 6%? In a March 2003 Times article Glassman admitted that, the Bush administration was not at all responsible for the state of the economy. He noted that ...the slowdown/moderate recession was the result of a perfect storm back in 2000 (i.e. during the Clinton administration). Glassman went on to suggest that, ...the administration deserves some credit, not blame, for the state of the economy. Without its actions, things might have been much worse than they are today. More to the point, the unemployment rates in the 4.5% range achieved during the Clinton years were all smoke and mirrors. They were artificially created with the trillions of dollars lost by investors in the stock market crash...and unsustainable. On March 10, 2000 the NASDAQ rose to a record 5048.62. By the end of the Clinton administration, the NASDAQ had settled to 2470.52. Clintons going away present to Wall Street and the investing public was an almost 50% decline in the NASDAQ. The dollars you lost in the market were the same dollars that created un-needed jobs at companies that never produced anything. As assistant New York University professor, Vincenzo Quadrini, explained it in 2003, The current economic difficulties are the unavoidable consequences of the asset price bubble that started to burst in the first half of 2000. If, by chance, you might believe that there is record job creation underway, the Times happily throws a wet blanket on this... Jared Bernstein, a senior labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute, argued yesterday...that we still have a problem of (job) quality to be worried about." Mr. Bernstein thinks that lower-wage jobs had been expanding ...at the expense of higher-paying jobs." Previously, in 2003, the Times described Bernstein as a senior economist at a liberal research group (you know...those partisan non-profits that violate the tax code). Back then, Bernstein was certain that, ...cutting taxes on the wealthy when the deficit is already soaring is a mistake (read wealthy as anybody making over $30,000 a year). Bernstein was ...pretty nervous about the long-term implication of the deficits were building right now...Theyre not smart deficits, theyre ideological deficits. Can you imagine a liberal speaking about an ideological deficit! Fred Barnes recently pointed out that ...the deficit is shrinking so quickly that the president...should be able to claim he's near to cutting the deficit in half -- and not in five years, as he had promised, but in two. Barnes additionally states that, ...the shrinking deficit is further evidence that the Bush tax cuts are working. Looks like Bernstein was pretty nervous over nothing...and more ideological than smart. The Times should read its own archives. Last year it printed economic nonsense and this year it prints further nonsense from the same doom-patrol experts. In its quest to derail President Bush, the Times isnt worried about little things like credibility. Just fudge the truth and repeat it ad nauseam. Now come on everybody, repeat after me...Bad economy...Bad economy...Bad economy. Or should that read...Jayson Blair...Jayson Blair...Jayson Blair! Daniel Sargis, a freelance writer, is a principal in a private investment development company. His website is dansargis.org. |
I only read this thread for the title.
I read your post only because I thought with a great screen name such as yours, you'd have a clever tag line. |
Get with the program, bub.
I love taglines.
I mean, my tagline says it all.
Some people think I'm actually Amish.
But I'm just a plain, simple guy.
Actually, I love it when the NYT gets skewered, but it's just too easy.
Been there, done that. Sold the farm for an industrial park and married a Mennonite woman....
(She has a sister that lives in Lancaster Co., PA, does that count?) I guess I'm more Amish than you are....
Hey, hey, hey, let's not start fighting over who's holier-than-thou. After all, in any fight over who's most closely adhering to Amish theology, loser wins.
I thought he "exposed the NYT's BS" in terms anyone but a liberal can understand.
hehehehe, just a little good natured ribbing.....
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