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Hard numbers: The economy is worse than you know
Harper's ^ | Friday, April 25, 2008 5:40 PM | Kevin Phillips

Posted on 05/08/2008 8:00:49 PM PDT by B-Chan

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FAIR WARNING: The source of this article (Harper's) is a once-great American magazine that has been transformed into a lefty screed-sheet over the years. Nevertheless, the author evenhandedly makes several points worthy of discussion, including his main point: that government statisticians cook the numbers to make things seem better than they really are. Despite the suspect source, I believe this article is worthy of note and further discussion.

As always, opinions expressed in articles posted by me do not necessarily reflect my own opinions.

1 posted on 05/08/2008 8:00:49 PM PDT by B-Chan
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To: B-Chan
"...that government statisticians cook the numbers to make things seem better than they really are."

Ummm...isn't that what statisticians are paid to do?

Otherwise, they'd be called Accountants.

2 posted on 05/08/2008 8:04:47 PM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (The secret of Life is letting go. The secret of Love is letting it show.)
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To: B-Chan

Just consider the following ... this is not intended to offend any liberals:
This email comes in three parts:

PART 1:

Remember the election in 2006?
Thought you might like to read the following.

A little over one year ago:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratically controlled Congress in 2006 we have seen:

1) Consumer confidence plummet;
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon;
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for ‘change’ in 2006, and we got it!

Remember, it’s Congress that makes the law, not the President. He has
to work with what’s handed him.Remember, it’s Congress that makes the
law, not the President. He has to work with what’s handed him.

Quote of the Day: ‘My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.’ — Barack Obama

PART 2:

Taxes. Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics
enlightening and amazing. Www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.HTML

Taxes under Clinton 1999 Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 30K - tax $8,400 Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $14,000 Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $23,250 Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K - tax $16,800 Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $21,000 Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $38,750 Married making 125K - tax $31,250

Both democrat candidates will return to the higher tax rates.

It is amazing how many people who fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If Obama or Hillary are elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people&nbs p;who fall into the categories above can’t wait for it to happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you SCam somebody out of some money and they don’t even know what happened.

PART 3:
You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much? Read this:

Boy am I confused. I have been hammered with propaganda that it’s the
‘Iraq War’ and the ‘War on Terror’ that is bankrupting us. I now find that to be RIDICULOUS. I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I have included the URLs for verification of all the following facts:

1. $11 billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments. Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2. $2.2 billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. Verify
at: http://www.cisorg/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3. $2.5 billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. Verify
at: http://www.cisorg/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English! Verify at:
http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.HTML

5. $17 billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

6. $3 M illion dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. Verify
at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.htm

8. $90 billion dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. Verify
at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are
caused by illegal aliens. Verify
at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that’s two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US. Verify
at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border. Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National Policy Institute, ‘estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period’ Verify at:
http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back
to their countries of origin. Verify
at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm

14. ‘The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex
Crimes are Committed By Illegal Immigrants In The United States’ Verify
at: http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

The total cost is a whopping $338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR!!

Are we voters that stupid?

If this doesn’t bother you then just delete the message. If, on the other hand, it does raise the hair on the back of your neck, I hope you forward it to every legal resident in the country including every representative in Washington, D.C. five times a week for as long as it takes to restore some semblance of intelligence in our policies and enforcement thereof????

Marque -Diane Vassar
Sacramento State University
COMS 103 Graduate Assistant


3 posted on 05/08/2008 8:05:26 PM PDT by 9422WMR (When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away.)
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To: B-Chan

nor does this article reflect alan greenspan’s views, either!


4 posted on 05/08/2008 8:05:31 PM PDT by ken21 ( people die + you never hear from them again.)
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To: B-Chan

And the next question should be.....”if the books are being cooked, by who and why?” Who is really in control and what is the ultimate goal? Is our government really a sham and are we all being duped by another organization?


5 posted on 05/08/2008 8:08:05 PM PDT by RC2
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To: B-Chan
I find it difficult to believe the economy is as bad as they make it out to be now. I live in the Tri-Cities in Washington State and across the road from where I live they just started a new housing development in Feb. They have already built 15 houses and have lots sold for 40 more. Every restaurant in the area is always booming Mon. through Sun.
6 posted on 05/08/2008 8:08:25 PM PDT by Spunky (You are free to make choices, but not free from the consequences)
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To: B-Chan

Only when a Republican occupies the White House do numbers mean something different than what they say. When a dem holds the office, the numbers mean what the numbers mean, unless they’re bad, in which case they’re not as bad as they seem, hence Bush has presided over the worst economy since Hoover and the Carter years were not so bad.


7 posted on 05/08/2008 8:09:01 PM PDT by domenad (In all things, in all ways, at all times, let honor guide me.)
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To: B-Chan
We have to have something to counteract the Marxist agitprop spewed by the Democrat America haters.

If we listened to them alone, we'd all be slitting our wrists.

8 posted on 05/08/2008 8:12:13 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass
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To: ken21
Kevin Phillips is a hack. He's a Lou Dobbs populist.
9 posted on 05/08/2008 8:12:26 PM PDT by mimaw
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To: mimaw

Oh, well, then let’s just dismiss everything he says out of hand. We wouldn’t want to contaminate ourselves with any “Lou Dobbs populist” thinking.

OR

We could carefully consider opinions from a VARIETY of sources, then use our judgment to form an opinion on a given issue.

I choose the second option. You do what you want.


10 posted on 05/08/2008 8:17:45 PM PDT by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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To: B-Chan

A good summary of important corruptions that affect us all.


11 posted on 05/08/2008 8:18:16 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
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To: mimaw

agree.


12 posted on 05/08/2008 8:18:48 PM PDT by ken21 ( people die + you never hear from them again.)
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To: B-Chan

Aside from high gas prices and a rise in food prices, I am not personally aware of any problems in the national economy. Maybe I’m just lucky — but I get the impression that the panic is totally overblown.


13 posted on 05/08/2008 8:21:13 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Et si omnes ego non)
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To: B-Chan
Moreover, since the 1990s, the CPI has been subjected to three other adjustments, all downward and all dubious: product substitution (if flank steak gets too expensive, people are assumed to shift to hamburger, but nobody is assumed to move up to filet mignon), geometric weighting (goods and services in which costs are rising most rapidly get a lower weighting for a presumed reduction in consumption), and, most bizarrely, hedonic adjustment, an unusual computation by which additional quality is attributed to a product or service.

The old methods overstated inflation. They assumed constant proportions of income for a standard basket of goods and didn't take into account substitutes. Let's say the price of beef goes up. The old method assumed beef is a constant proportion of household consumption. Real consumers shift consumption over to substitutes like chicken. A price index that fully adjust the price overcompensates, so consumers can can buy a better basket of goods after the indexing.

14 posted on 05/08/2008 8:22:07 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative
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To: Trailerpark Badass
We have to have something to counteract the Marxist agitprop spewed by the Democrat America haters.

If we listened to them alone, we'd all be slitting our wrists.

Not me. I trust in God to save us from ourselves.

But He may choose otherwise; He certainly didn't cut Job any slack. If God in His wisdom allows our country to experience the natural consequences of our own economic and social decisions, my family and I will just have to depend on Him even more for the strength to endure.

15 posted on 05/08/2008 8:22:25 PM PDT by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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To: domenad

Gee, I am an economist, oft quoted in the WSJ, the Economist and Forbes. How come I have no idea what he is ranting about?

Yes, governments will changes the CPI for reasons that may be unrelated to politics. There are independent firms and groups that measure it as well, so it can’t get too far off track.

Housing and mortgages (and credit cards). Americans binges on credit, now its time to slow down consumption and save.

Housing collapse? Who said it would go up forever? Consumers need suck it up! You gambled and lost ... Live with it!

Recession? Sure, there is a slowdown. Dens could allow drilling in ANWR and off the Florida coast and lower costs for Americans. But its the Dems that WANT a recession! They want control!


16 posted on 05/08/2008 8:24:47 PM PDT by whitedog57
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To: B-Chan

Amen! And again I say, Amen!


17 posted on 05/08/2008 8:24:48 PM PDT by doc1019 (Obama: "I Will Raise Taxes.")
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To: B-Chan

There are lies, D*mned lies, and then there are statistics.


18 posted on 05/08/2008 8:26:20 PM PDT by Nachum
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To: ken21

One can get a pretty good idea of inflation by measuring the dollar against gold, the swiss franc and oil. By all those measures we have had a lot of inflation(loss in value) of the dollar in the last few years.
US prices on internation goods will catch up just as soon as producers manage to adjust their prices without killing sales.


19 posted on 05/08/2008 8:30:13 PM PDT by Oldexpat
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To: B-Chan
Michael Medved pointed out on his show the other day that one tenth of American households paid $60 each for a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV in the last week.

I think that speaks a lot more about the economy that all the blowhards blathering about bread lines and tent cities.

20 posted on 05/08/2008 8:31:32 PM PDT by denydenydeny (Expel the priest and you don't inaugurate the age of reason, you get the witch doctor--Paul Johnson)
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