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[Incognito]

We have built a broad and solid record of accomplishment. In the past year, the United States of America has added about 1.7 million new jobs. (Applause.) More than Germany, Japan, Great Britain, Canada and France combined.

http://www.vote-smart.org/speech_detail.php?speech_id=67656&keyword=&phrase=&contain=

 

[Suranga3]

He's a fucking idiot, what else do you expect from him?

 

[duderon]

Why does he have to be so deceitful? Why can't he be straight with the population? 900k+ net job loss, i can't believe anyone would back GWB when listening to him or reading his speeches.

 

[Dilbert]

Ummm...the thread title is misleading. His speech had nothing to do with a "global test" for the economy. Yes, Bush DID completely mislead the audience into thinking the job situation was good by quoting that number, and ignoring the net job loss during his term and the extremely weak report which came out today. But there is no analogy to Kerry's statement the other night.

Bush says ENOUGH stupid stuff as it is. Don't fall into the same trap of exaggerating to make a point.

 

[Incognito]

jinx, come on man, you're ruining the fun.

 

[Ripclawe]

http://www.vote-smart.org/speech_detail.php?speech_id=67656&keyword=&phrase=&contain=

He could be correct considering the EU economy is sucking wind with Germany dragging it down. I can't find numbers yet for each country, but Canada and Japan have been positive job creation.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=aoWzfBrgKp_g&refer=home

Europe Yet to Pass U.S. in Growth

and if you are looking for massive job creation anytime soon....Not going to happen.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=reutersEdge&storyID=6454362

IRVING, Texas (Reuters) - The rules of U.S. economic recovery have changed and jobs will not be added back the way they used to, several top executives said on Friday.

Increased productivity and fewer chances for growth in some manufacturing and service industries make it unlikely that the recovering U.S. economy will add massive amounts of jobs, several chief executives of major U.S. companies told the final day of a meeting of the U.S. Business Council.

"We have gotten much more efficient because we have to. We have figured out fewer, better people can accomplish a lot. So when businesses start coming back you don't have the same desperate need to go out and hire," said Ogilvy & Mather's chief executive and chairman Shelly Lazarus.

Other executives speaking at the gathering echoed the views of Jones and Lazarus on economic recovery and job creation.

 

[Cooter]

It's amazing our economy is where it is despite all the challenges of the past 4 years.

He can brag about it all he wants but most people know the President has almost no effect on the economy.

 

[Gantz]

1.7 million jobs at Mcdonalds..

 

[Yossarian]

To answer the thread title's question: because the economy of the United States does not operate in a vacuum.

 

[Tommie Hu$tle]

To answer the thread title's question: because the economy of the United States does not operate in a vacuum.

Someone should tell the President that.

He can brag about it all he wants but most people know the President has almost no effect on the economy.

I love this fall back both Dems and GOPs kill me with this line. This is the ultimate cop out. Whenever someone can't defend there man's record on economic policy they go with this line.

 

[Cooter]

I love this fall back both Dems and GOPs kill me with this line. This is the ultimate cop out. Whenever someone can't defend there man's record on economic policy they go with this line.

No, it's the truth retard.

Go ask any economics professor how much impact the President has on the economy.

Besides, if you read my first sentence I said it is amazing where the economy is despite the conditions of the past four years. If anything Bush is sitting over a remarkable resilient economy that he no doubt will take credit for but had little to do with.

 

[Keio]

He can brag about it all he wants but most people know the President has almost no effect on the economy.

I'm sure that these had no effect on the economy: giving tax cuts that proved once again that the "trickle down" dogma is completely flawed, increasing federal spending nearly +20% - as much as LBJ&Nixon (this increase has resulted in the largest budget deficits in U.S. history, over $520 billion in fiscal year 2004 alone)...

The kind of “tight-lipped optimism” about jobs and the economy now voiced by Bush and his advisors is “distorting what is happening now and even more so in the future,” said Robert Solow, a 1987 Nobel Prize winner in economics and professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The fiscal polices of this administration are systematically sacrificing the future of this nation.”

Rather than stimulating job growth, the Bush-backed millionaire tax cuts will help stimulate a massive federal budget shortfall—a 10-year deficit of nearly $6 trillion, according to George Akerlof, a 2001 Nobel Prize winner and economist at the University of California, Berkeley. “The popular discussion is there might be some question whether Bush’s economic policies are advisable,” he said. “But that’s wrong—they’re the worst in over 200 years.”

Laura D’Andrea Tyson, dean of the London Business School, said Bush policies “have put us in a dreadful fix—created a lot of job loss that could have been avoided.”

Within 32 months of the official end in 1991 of the last recession, the nation had recovered all lost jobs and was creating new ones. “But this time, there’s no sense of net job creation, much less of getting back to the old peak,” said Lee Price, director of research for EPI and former chief economist for the Senate Budget Committee.

Are all these people wrong?

 

[Yossarian]

realisticly, the blame/praise for the tax cuts and budget deficits lie at Congress' feet. The president can do almost nothing to get spending done - he can only approve what Congress suggests.

 

[Cooter]

I'm sure that these had no effect on the economy: giving tax cuts that proved once again that the "trickle down" dogma is completely flawed, increasing federal spending nearly +20% - as much as LBJ&Nixon (this increase has resulted in the largest budget deficits in U.S. history, over $520 billion in fiscal year 2004 alone)...

You're right. I shouldn't have said the President has no effect on the economy but rather little effect. Infusing capital into the marketplace is one positive policy that a President can enact but even at that he is only the one signing the bill. Congress, as you know is responsible for drafting budgets and writing legislation.

Let me guess, you think Clinton created the boom in the 90's also?

 

[Keio]

realisticly, the blame/praise for the tax cuts and budget deficits lie at Congress' feet. The president can do almost nothing to get spending done - he can only approve what Congress suggests.

He could also disapprove of their spending bills - he hasn't exactly opposed the spend-happy (and millionaire-pandering) policies, which have had an effect on the economy:

In a matter of months, George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States, could go down in history as the first full-term president in 175 years not to have exercised his constitutional veto power.

EDIT, added this:

Infusing capital into the marketplace is one positive policy that a President can enact but even at that he is only the one signing the bill.

Infusing capital into the pockets of rich people isn't a way to stimulate the economy, as they are more likely to just save the money. Aiding cash-strapped units is a way to get capital circulated very fast through the system, where it both can be taxed and promote consumption.

 

[Yossarian]

He could also disapprove of their spending bills - he hasn't exactly opposed the spend-happy (and millionaire-pandering) policies, which have had an effect on the economy:

Right. He can disapprove. That's quite different from being responsible for their creation.

edit: if you want to dwell in the technicalities, the president can use his influence and political capital to get spending legistlation passed. However, he is far from the neccessary and sufficient cause that we find in Congress. Congress, regardless of the president's actions for or against the legistlation, is directly responsible for the bills we are discussing.

 

[Hitokage]

Um, the president can submit budgets to congress. Reagan did.

 

[Yossarian]

Um, the president can submit budgets to congress. Reagan did.

right, but the president's actions are neither necessary nor sufficient to initiate spending and tax cuts. Logically, he cannot be labeled the true cause.

 

[Yossarian]

To be honest, my argument is just a technicality and only marginally reflects how the world works. I know the tax cuts were the president's "idea", but I really believe in accuracy above all else. Its not fair to you or to me to for me to argue these "technicalities".

I just believe that the real culprits should be held responsible. While people intellectually know that Congress is the acting agent here, no one gives them the blame.

 

[Hitokage]

Yossarian: You speak as if the Bush administration and the republicans in congress have no relation to each other.

 

[Yossarian]

Yossarian: You speak as if the Bush administration and the republicans in congress have no relation to each other.

As I said, my argument only marginally reflects the real world. But still, the blame rests more on the republican congress than the republican president. The real world is complex, but please tell me how the president is more responsible than congress?

edit: shit, I said I wasn't going to argue anymore. Hito, can we consider this a dialogue rather than an argument?

 

[DCharlie]

Erm... during the 2001-2002 hell period Japan had job losses, but they were tiny compared to those in America....

so less jobs were shed, so in recovery there is less need to hire...

or am i missing something?

 

[Bizarro Sun Yat-sen]

You're right. I shouldn't have said the President has no effect on the economy but rather little effect. Infusing capital into the marketplace is one positive policy that a President can enact but even at that he is only the one signing the bill. Congress, as you know is responsible for drafting budgets and writing legislation.

Wow, Cooter manages to sustain a paragraph through four sentences! I think this is a new record. Did you get a software upgrade, Cooter?

While it's true that economic growth in terms of GNP has been fairly good lately - even if the benefits still seem to elude much of society - we have to ask what's fueling this, whether it's sustainable and what the long term costs are. The US is running a federal fiscal deficit of over $400 billion a year and a current account deficit of over $600 billion a year (an all-time record not only in nominal or inflation-adjusted dollars but even as a percentage of GDP). Reliance on debt and foreign investment will boost the economy in the short term, but eventually there has to be a reckoning. China and Japan can't keep propping us up forever and when they stop, stagflation will ensue. (We're already starting to see the first signs of this - did you know the dollar fell by 1.6% against the yen today?)

It's like thinking you're doing great materially because you just borrowed a lot of money and went on a spending spree. That giant-screen TV and sound system you bought with your credit cards might make you happy for a while, but regardless of appearances they don't mean you're in good shape. (By the way, the index of US industrial productive capacity only increased by about 1.3% a year over the past two years; compare this to the 3% average rate over 1980-2000 for example)

 

[TKM]

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/oct2004/nf2004108_4276_db016.htm

George Bush, America's first President with an MBA, has been slapped on the knuckles by 169 concerned business-school professors. In an open letter sent on Oct. 4, the senior business and economics professors say Bush's economic policies are taking the country in the wrong direction. The academics, including two Nobel laureates, are especially critical of the budget deficit, which this year is projected to come in at more than $400 billion.

Excerpt from the letter : http://openlettertothepresident.org/

As professors of economics and business, we are concerned that U.S. economic policy has taken a dangerous turn under your stewardship. Nearly every major economic indicator has deteriorated since you took office in January 2001. Real GDP growth during your term is the lowest of any presidential term in recent memory. Total non-farm employment has contracted and the unemployment rate has increased. Bankruptcies are up sharply, as is our dependence on foreign capital to finance an exploding current account deficit. All three major stock indexes are lower now than at the time of your inauguration. The percentage of Americans in poverty has increased, real median income has declined, and income inequality has grown.