Saturday, September 20, 2003

LA Times, Your Morning Economic Buzzkill Just in case the rumors of an economic revival have cheered you up, this should kill your pleasant Saturday. Too Soon to Declare Economic Woes Over Profits are back, production is up, houses and cars keep selling like crazy. The clear consensus of American economists is: We're back! But here are three reasons to curb your enthusiasm for now. Reason No. 1: Being above zero is not the proper measure of economic success, and we may be nowhere near what is. The latest rash of economic forecasts seem so dazzling precisely because the numbers that economists have been tossing out [~] a 4.5% annual growth rate this quarter and a 4% rate the next [~] are larger than anything we've seen in years, and far above zero. But zero is not where the growth game really begins. For the economy to lift into a self-sustaining recovery, it needs to be zipping along at a pretty fast clip to start with, and much faster than in the past. It needs to expand 1% a year just to take care of "new entrants" [~] all those young people looking for first jobs and spouses who've decided they want to supplement their families' incomes. It needs to grow an additional 4% to get ahead of recent productivity gains, which means the same number of workers using pretty much the same plants and equipment can make more goods and services, making new workers unnecessary. Of course, it all comes down to jobs. Although most economic indicators now point up, America's jobs total is still headed down and is unlikely to turn around quickly. The trend is by now depressingly familiar: Nonfarm payrolls shrank by 93,000 last month and are down 1.1 million since the nation began to grow again almost two years ago. But the potential threat to the economy is not as widely appreciated. Having a job, or the confidence that you can land one, is the single biggest determinant of whether consumers, who account for the lion's share of economic activity, keep buying or buy even more. "For most of us," said Los Angeles-based economist Donald H. Straszheim, "if we have a job, we're OK. If we don't, we're not, and people don't shop. "If jobs fail," he said, "so does the economy." It's about the jobs, stupid. 1:19:05 PM    comment []trackback []

A History Lesson from Victor Davis Hanson In recent weeks, supporters of the Bush administration have had stretch farther and farther to prop up stupid ideas and blatant lies that go us into this current mess (dubbed "Mess-o-potamia" by The Daily Show) in Iraq. In what is possibly a sign of true desperation of the "things are great" crowd, Victor Davis Hanson has had to reach back 138 years to prove that the Bush administration hasn't tripped over its shoelaces into a vat of acid: Few in the heat of summer 1864 saw that the war had, in fact, been fought rather brilliantly--and the tide had already almost imperceptibly shifted for good. Grant had worn Lee down in Virginia. Sheridan was loose in the Shenandoah Valley. Uncle Billy Sherman was grinding his way to Atlanta--and aiming at larger things still. Then suddenly Sherman took Atlanta on September 2. Frémont withdrew from the race. Public opinion turned against McClellan. And in little more than two months Lincoln was reelected with 55 percent of the vote. Sherman cut through Georgia. Grant tightened the vise around Richmond. The primate of the editorial cartoonists was now Uncle Abe. The rest was history. We are near the end of such a pivotal summer ourselves, the type that defines not just a presidency, but an entire nation for generations to come. After the spectacular victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, public ardor for the conflict is temporarily cooling. Because of the past recession, the effects of 9/11, the tax cuts, and the cost of the war, we are running up billions in projected annual budget deficits. Our own McClellans and contemporary Copperheads deride the president as a miserable failure cheek by jowl with major newspapers. Its possible that a smarter man has never written a stupider column. Not only is the above passage a near-textbook example of the fallacy of a false analogy, ("two objects (or events), A and B are shown to be similar. Then it is argued that since A has property P, so also B must have property P. An analogy fails when the two objects, A and B, are different in a way which affects whether they both have property P"-- the traditional proof for a false analogy is to deomonstrate that the two events or objects do not share the properties that it is claimed that they share. Your homework to demonstrate the George Bush is no Abraham Lincoln) but he also misprepresents the points raised by by President Bush's critics. We are angry not that the situation in the occupied countries is stabilizing--so far at a cost of less than 300--not 300,000--American dead, but that they are not yet normal societies. Few Americans ask why and how Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran are suddenly whining privately rather than shouting defiance. Wrong. What I am angry about--though what I am feeling is better described as "pissed as Hell"-- is that President Bush relied on advice from a circle of advisors who had absolutly no understanding of complex ramifications of the course of action that they were advocating. I'm pissed as Hell that our President is too stupid to see this, even though the evidence of the neo-cons gross incompetance airs 24 hours a day on every cable news station (even FOX) on the planet. I'm pissed as hell that when the President's own trused economic advisor warned of the massive costs of this war, he was fired so that no one in the White House would have to hear anything that made them uncomfortable. But I'm mostly pissed that our President--our "bold leader"-- is a coward. He is terrified of telling the American people the truth: that his misguided policies have placed this country in an economic quagmire. His misguided policies will make nearly impossble for the federal government to help the middle and lower classes pay for college educations for our children, to improve the retirement years of seniors, or to solve the massive and steadily increasing problem of paying for healthcare. I'm pissed that George Bush is terrified of the truth. 12:26:56 PM    comment []trackback []

Memo to Instapundit I'm sure it will be just a matter of hours before Instapundit links to this ariticle, since he loves to point out the thoughts of returning soldiers: We are facing death in Iraq for no reason So what is our purpose here? Was this invasion because of weapons of mass destruction, as we have so often heard? If so, where are they? Did we invade to dispose of a leader and his regime because they were closely associated with Osama bin Laden? If so, where is the proof? Or is it that our incursion is about our own economic advantage? Iraq's oil can be refined at the lowest cost of any in the world. This looks like a modern-day crusade not to free an oppressed people or to rid the world of a demonic dictator relentless in his pursuit of conquest and domination, but a crusade to control another nation's natural resource. Oil - at least to me - seems to be the reason for our presence. There is only one truth, and it is that Americans are dying. There are an estimated 10 to 14 attacks every day on our servicemen and women in Iraq. As the body count continues to grow, it would appear that there is no immediate end in sight. I once believed that I was serving for a cause - "to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States". Now I no longer believe that; I have lost my conviction, as well as my determination. I can no longer justify my service on the basis of what I believe to be half-truths and bold lies. With age comes wisdom, and at 36 years old I am no longer so blindly led as to believe without question. From my arrival last November at Fort Campbell, in Kentucky, talk of deployment was heard, and as that talk turned to actual preparation, my heart sank and my doubts grew. My doubts have never faded; instead, it has been my resolve and my commitment that have. 11:11:56 AM    comment []trackback []