Posted on 08/19/2005 5:22:29 AM PDT by OESY
The paradox of the year is why so many Americans tell pollsters they feel bad about an economy that's been so good, with solid job growth and corporate profits, rising wages and home prices, and a huge decline in the budget deficit. Perhaps one reason is because the media keep saying the economy stinks.
That's the conclusion of... the Media Research Center, which finds that so far this year 62% of the news stories on the Big Three TV networks have portrayed the U.S. economy in negative fashion. The "negative full length TV news stories on the economy outnumbered positive stories by an overwhelming ratio of 4 to 1," the MRC reports.
...[A] CBS Evening News story on July 22 said that the economy is "very tenuous. It could fall apart at any moment. One piece of bad news, one additional terrorist attack, one negative corporate earnings, and it goes right down again." Contrast that funeral dirge with what Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress that same day: "The outlook is one of sustained economic growth."...
Media coverage of President Bush's tax cuts has been particularly slanted. During the 2003 tax-cut debate, three of every four major TV network news stories were negative. The favorite criticisms were liberal echoes that it would bust the budget and favor the rich. Earlier this year, a news story on National Public Radio announced that "as everyone knows, the primary cause of the budget deficit was the Bush tax cuts." No word yet on whom NPR is crediting with this year's revenue surge of $262 billion. Robert Rubin?
Given all of this doom-and-gloom reporting, maybe the surprise is that Americans are nonetheless behaving with their typical optimism, buying goods and services, bidding up the stock market, and creating new businesses....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Quote: The Ruskies and Chicoms are not spending on this "human resources" crap. They are spending their money on late generation startegic and tactical weaponry.
Yep..and china is not currently fighting a wot nor has bases in korea, japan, germany, kosovo, middle east etc and is not being the worlds policeman.
They can spend their whole defense budget(for the most part) on new equipment and innventions. Just think what we could have if we did not have worldwide bases everywhere.
I agree that our military preparedness is worse today than it was 15 years ago, but the decline in military bases and weapons systems is not an accurate indicator of this.
LOL!
What a shame, after all if you ask any American parent what their dream for their child is, they will automatically say: "I hope that one day little Jack or little Jane will work in a factory!"
If you ask any American grammar school student, they'll echo this sentiment, replying: "One day when I grow up, I want to work in a factory producing widgets. That is my constant dream and my highest aspiration!"
Most immigrants come to America because they want an opportunity to work in a factory.
Also, if you ask any American who actually works in a factory they will tell you: "Working in a factory is heaven on earth. My career is an absolute joy - don't tell my boss, but I would probably do this exciting, fulfilling work for free! Doing the exact same thing day in day out for thirty years without variation is the reason why the founding Fathers started this country!"
BTTT.
You're right 90% think that the government pays for retirement (SS), healthcare (Medicaid, Medicare), housing for the poor (HUD) and general welfare (AFDC). They also think that the government creates jobs.
Fine, but that is an entitrely different subject matter.
The point made was the "stock market has not gone up much" and the factual answer I gave in post #21 was that the market has indeed gone up very sharply.
I was not discussing the entire history of the stock market, including the 2000-2002 era dowturn, but I simply stuck to the point that member made (falsely), and I countered it with facts that proved that member wrong.
Re your comment that your funds are still down from the peak even after a good market since late 2002...........
I am a Certified Financial Planner and Series 7 licensed. I can tell you that either 1] you received no advice and was a "do-it-yourselfer" or 2] you did have advice but you had a poor investment advisor.
First, it should have been apparent that the huge surge in stock prices in 1997-1999 was related to the Y2K spending boom. Also, the previous recession occurred in 1990 so by 1999, it was likley a downturn would occur, especially when Y2K spending dried up.
Second, put options could have protected your money in the downturn, even if you did not sell out at the high before the downturn.
Third, when the stock market fell in 2000-2002, it was NOT every sector that went down. Small and mid-cap value classes did quite well during the downturn. Also, Real Estate related classes (such as REITs and housing related stocks) did very well. In addition, Defense Stocks did very well after 911 as did many industries in security related services. The "crash" was concentrated in Large Cap Growth stocks and in Technology stocks. Money could have been made BIGTIME during the "crash" by buying put options on the Large Cap Growth stocks and technology stocks OR by investing long in the industries and classes that did very well, such as mic-cap value during 2000-2002.
You mentioned you had Janus funds and Putnam funds. Janus is a growth fund specialist organization. Most of their funds got hit very hard simply because they focused on growth (not value) and had huge percentages in technolgy. Putnam New Opportunities and Putnam Vista, Putnam Voyager and many other Putnam funds had a similar story as they focused on growth (not value) and they focused on larger cap companies. (Vista and New Opportunities at one time were small and mid cap funds, but gradually biased toward large cap as the funds got older, and large cap is where the biggest downturn occured).
More than likely you experienced painful losses because you either 1] was a "Do-it-yourselfer" and had no professional advisor or 2] you had a lousy professional advisor.
You are nothing but an elitist snob that looks down on blue collar workers. Lots of people enjoy being welders, machinsist etc. Just because you don't like to work with your hands does not mean everyone else does not either.
To a corporate exec, nothing exists outside of this quarter, and even if it does they take it so seriously they have to meet to discuss it at a titty bar.
Invariably, they think the path to prosperity lies in firing as many people as possible.
And now rumor is that the P'gon want to scrap the F-22
Ummmnnnhhh....
Were you paying attention in 1992--to PJB's convention speech? Wherein he predicted that illegal immigration, spurred by NAFTA, would be a crisis?
Were you paying attention when he stated that NAFTA would NOT "create jobs"--but rather, reduce US factory employment AND impoverish the Mexicans?
Were you paying attention when he identified the "Culture War" as the next great problem facing the US--and pointed out that this "culture war" was both internal AND related to the US' asinine immigration policies, where non-Judaeo-Christian-culture (read: Muslims) were effectively creating non-US-culture islands in the USA (not to mention Hollywood/MSM/Professorial-class bozos?
Maybe you're just a little too young to have known?
Of course, you define PJB's 'rhetoric' as Socialist.
Please demonstrate that Socialism underlies PJB's economic philosophy.
No.
All those little Kenny and Muffy chilluns want to be doctors, lawyers, and movie stars.
With the exception of the last, those professions require brainpower which is above average.
Do I have to explain "average" to you?
They keep cutting and cutting procurement #s for the F-22. It should surprise nobody (including the Ruskies and Chicoms) if the F-22 is scrapped altogether.
We need that money so we can send $30 billion to Africa. Being that Bush gave Africa $15 billion to maintain female gential mutilation and he seems stuck on having 100% increases for every spending program, look for the next goaround to Africa to be about $30 billion.
We also need to send billion$ more to Pakistan, Yemen, . . . and oh yea, don't forget the Palestinians. We also need to send billion$ to the IMF and World Bank so they can send billion$ to various corrupt creeps , warlords and terrorist dictators.
My tagline says it all.
"The reason why 1/3 of the population thinks it is a recession is because of their decline in buying power. Mainly because they have not gotten the wage increase that others have and because of the increasingly high gas prices."
Whatever!
The reason that 1/3 think we are in a recession is because they are hardcore Democrats, and they don't want to believe Bush has done anything good.
Gas is not a big deal. I burn about 20 gallons a week. The high price has added about $10 per fill - I send more then that on coffee. Get real!
Yeah--all those toolmakers---
I did err in my last post: it takes as much intelligence to get into toolmaking (successfully) as it does to practice law.
Different writing skills, though.
What do labor studies by Northeastern University, Pew Hispanic Center, CIS say about those job categories? They say that recent immigrants are getting huge numbers (most?) of them (excluding government). I think that it is fair to say that these are the government-subsidized "cheap" labor folks which are highly prized by business.
I've seen several articles showing that non-citizens have filled 80% of every job created since 2000, including government jobs.
H-1B applicants are exempt from the cap if their sponsoring company/agency is government or academia.
Ummmnnnhhh....
We also paid for the "relocation" of the Israeli settlers.
The reason 1/3 of the population thinks we are in a recession is that 1/3 of America is ignorant beyond words.
To give any other explanation is sugarcoating the truth.
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