Posted on 02/13/2006 9:39:45 AM PST by Reagan Man
The resilient U.S. economy remains the envy of the industrialized world, but it gets no respect from a majority of the American people.
The economy is healthy and growing, unemployment is falling, factory orders are surging, exports are rising, inflation is relatively tame, average hourly earnings have risen, interest rates are low by historical standards, and home sales, despite a cooling off, are still at record levels.
Yet polls show that most Americans think the economy is worse than it was, and a majority of people continue to give President Bush low marks for the job he is doing to correct it.
The Gallup Poll reported last week that the public by better than two-to-one (64 percent to 28 percent) thinks things have gotten "worse" in the last five years, and about half of those who think so say "it's because of an economic-related factor."
Notably, among those who said things have gotten better, 42 percent pointed to an improved economy and jobs.
Still, Bush's overall marks on economic issues are poor (in the high 30s or low 40s) and the question is -- why? White House advisers think his numbers are driven down by Iraq, and as long as that remains a divisive issue among Americans, it will continue to pull Bush's other scores down with it.
But I think more is going on here that just the war in Iraq. Americans clearly have a disproportionately sour view of the economy that is sharply at odds with reality, at least on a national basis. One can understand why voters in Michigan, for example, think the economy stinks -- because of the state's nearly 7 percent jobless rate, or in Mississippi where unemployment is over 9 percent.
When seen from a higher elevation, however, a sharper picture of the nation's economy comes into focus. It can't be seen through one state's statistics, or even in short-term data, but instead must be viewed over the entire five years of Bush's presidency. And on this basis, the best numbers we have show a healthy entrepreneurial economy -- though, unfortunately, that's not the way it is reported on the nightly news or by the rest of the news media.
Let's look at the stats:
The unemployment rate in January fell to 4.7 percent as employers stepped up their hiring across the board -- in construction, manufacturing, professional and business services, education and health care -- adding nearly 200,000 jobs to the labor force. Since 2003, when the tax cuts were fully implemented, 4.7 million jobs have been created. Factory orders, a pivotal measurement of our economic health, rose by 1.1 percent in December, following an even higher 3.3 percent gain in November. Orders shot up by 8.1 percent for all of 2005 and 9.7 percent in 2004. Who says we aren't making anything anymore? The economy has been growing by better than 3.5 percent a year, a level that is higher than any of the major industrial nations of Europe or the Pacific rim democracies. It's likely to grow by as much this year, possibly by 4 percent or more as a result of an improving export picture abroad. The housing market has cooled somewhat, but it couldn't maintain the overheated pace of the past few years. The dire predictions of a housing bubble bursting and home values collapsing have not happened. Home sales remain in record territory. More Americans own their home today -- more than two-thirds -- than ever before in U.S. history. The price of oil was falling nicely last year until the fears of a sudden interruption in oil supplies from Iran rattled the futures markets. Last week, the price began to tumble again. The administration is signaling its desire to sell oil and gas leases in the Eastern Gulf waters where huge reserves remain to be tapped to boost supply. The critical news, which gets lost in the market hysteria over impending fuel shortages, is that U.S. oil and gasoline inventories have been climbing, which will eventually apply downward pressure on pump prices.
Government deficits and debt are the bogeymen that the doom-and-gloom conmen who like to wreak political havoc, especially in the stock and bond markets. But the feds are expecting higher tax receipts of $2.4 trillion next year, though I think that estimate will be well below the final figure because of higher-than-expected economic growth from a booming global economy.
Look for another $100 billion cut in the budget deficit that will continue to shrink as a share of a nearly $14 trillion-a-year economy.
The bottom line is that the economy is strong and getting stronger. The tax cut pills that Bush prescribed in 2001 were just the right medicine for an ailing economy that has taken some very hard body blows in the past five years but has bounced back faster than the pessimists said it would.
It's time for those doubting Americans to take a fresh look at a vibrant, innovative, bullish economy that deserves much more respect than it has gotten so far.
Economists are like weathermen in New England.
And they won't learn anything substantive from Donald Lambro.
Its because the left has nothing to run on and it kills them that the US economy is able to take so much volatility and still grow around 3.5-4% a year. That is excellet growth for a developed economy that is the largest in the world $13 trillion gdp in 2005 with Japan a distant second at $5 trillion GDP. The whole eurozone grows less than 1.2% and has very high unemployment.
It's time for those
asleep-at-the-switch GOPers
to take a fresh look at a vibrant, innovative, bullish
economy that deserves much more respect than it has gotten so far
...and do the job of promoting it.
The economy is healthy and growing, unemployment is falling, factory orders are surging, exports are rising, inflation is relatively tame, average hourly earnings have risen, interest rates are low by historical standards, and home sales, despite a cooling off, are still at record levels.
Yet polls show that most Americans think the economy is worse than it was, and a majority of people continue to give President Bush low marks for the job he is doing to correct it.
Blame the MSM - they beat the "sky is falling" drum -- endlessly.
LOL
Goodnewseconomicalert.org Ping
Michigan residents, by a 2-to-1 margin, blame President Bush rather than the governor (Granholm,D) for Michigan's economic woes,"
I think Michigan has had no increase in the number jobs in 2004 and 2005.
Blame it on President Bush, not the State's poor business environment (Granholm recently vetoed a tax reduction bill) and reliance on the auto industry
Gee Willie......just wondering if those employment #'s are so low because they don't count those folks who've stopped looking or have exhausted benefits? Also, is inflation low because certain insignificant items such as food and gasoline aren't included?.....(not totally sure on that but I think that's the case).
Additionally, I'm wondering if the debt bogeyman he talks about here also includes his "crazy uncle living in the basement" know as MR. UNFUNDED LIABILITIES (totaling over 50 Trillion?) that no-one in gov't. will ever talk about in depth........I guess just like the crazy uncle deal, if you never talk about it, it doesn't really exist. Add to all this the fact that the economy is so vibrant that we only have to borrow only a couple billion $ a day from foreigners to keep the fedgov running......whew, and here I thought we had some real problems.
Mase's ping was incredibly timed. I'd just gotten this ping from Paul Ross where he posted an entire three page WSJ article about how nice things were back in 1980 when we had a trade surplus.
Then again, if it was in the WSJ it must be true...
Why don't you look at the figures that include the above, if you find it to be such a problem?
Well, a couple years ago I called the Dept. of Labor myself and talked to one of their public info reps and he confirmed what I posted. Of course, if you know specifically that info is incorrect just prove it and I'll stand corrected.
I don't need to hear some fedgov spindoctor's BS when I know for a fact what my wallet and my old ladies' bitchin' about the price of food is telling me on a daily basis.
The Earth is flat. Got it.
No need to wonder. The conservaties at NR debunked that nonsense some time ago.
"Here's what the BLS found: Only about a third of a percent of American workers are classified in the "discouraged" category. That's right: Ninety-nine and two-thirds percent are not discouraged. This is hardly the teeming mass of employment despondency that we have been led to believe is out there."
The Myth of the Discouraged Worker
Also, is inflation low because certain insignificant items such as food and gasoline aren't included?.....(not totally sure on that but I think that's the case).
I guess you're not totally sure because you're wrong. The CPI counts all those things you don't think are included. You can learn more here, or not.
Debt and unfunded liabilities are two very different things. If you think no one ever talks about them then you must have missed the whole debate on social security reform. Of course, you realize that any discussion about liabilities makes no sense unless assets are included. In the last year our external debt went up by $600 billion. Do you know how much our assests increased?
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