October 05, 2007
"A Strong and Vibrant Economy"
President Bush used the mediocre job report to beat up Congress about raising taxes on the 'hard-workin' people of 'Merica'. By 'hard-workin' people' he means those making more than $200m per year which is the only income class that has seen any growth in their income. It's also a relatively few people in this country.
I referred to the mediocre job report. August was revised up from -4,000 to +89,000. That means that in August, using BLS' numbers, the economy added 89m jobs. That's only 61m short of STATIC employment. The economy needs to produce 150m jobs per month to keep employment at a static percentage. Why? Because of growth in the population of the work force, balanced by deaths and retirements. In August, as in most of the months of this terrific expansion, the miraculous republican economy hasn't even produced enough jobs to keep up with the new people coming into the economy. So, there's no wage growth and jobs, not even the bad ones that are the real 'strength' of this economy, are still fewer than they should be.
The September report which came out today will probably be revised downward. However, for today it was 110m jobs. The unemployment rate 'ticked up' to 4.7% but in reality it's far higher since BLS no longer counts people who've 'dropped out of the workforce' which is their nice way of saying people who've been unemployed longer than 12 weeks in most cases. The real number is probably 2.5-3% higher and there's a really easy way to prove it. Just look at the earnings of the nations largest retailer, Wal-Mart. The lower end of the economy(which includes everyone making less than 200m per year), the one that actually spends money and generates consumer spending, is hurting and they aren't buying at Wal-Mart or other discount retailers.
They are going without. And that's what Connecticut native George W. Bush calls a 'Strong and Vibrant Economy'.
Posted by mcblogger at October 5, 2007 09:33 AM
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