108,000 jobs were cut in March, 60,000 more than analysts were predicting. This followed massive job cuts of 357,000, more than previously reported, the previous month. Most positive economic indicators as of early April are down .

NY Newsday: 108,000 Jobs Lost in March

Dont worry man, Im sure as soon as Chimpington has universal health care for everyone in Iraq he'll start taking caring of business here. Just like the old man did.

It's all gloom and doom!!!!The skies' falling!!!!!
Help! I've fallin' and I can't get up!!! Woe is the economy. We're at war!! The weather's all gray and cold!! Waah, waah, we've been through it before, we'll get throug it again, by God!! I'm sorry, or did I miss a "political" point here? :confused:

It take a long time to get over the Clinton Reccession.....

I am sure that the 9 million people currently out-of-work appreciate the empathy and compassion. The unemployment rate has increased by over 2% since early 2001, and the number of jobs lost in that same time is nearly 3.5 million.

I am not sure that your flipness is appropriate, and I do believe that this is a rather gloomy outlook for a large number of our fellow Americans. This data does not even account for all of the independent professionals who run their own businesses (consultants/accountants/etc) and are struggling. They typically do not make unemployment claims, and (therefore) are not counted.

I can tell you that a lot of colleagues and friends are having a very difficult time. I will pass your thoughtful insights on to each of them.

Considering the millions of people who work parcheck-to-paycheck as temporary employees (often uninsured or paying for substandard benefits) the stress on the economy is grossly UNDERESTIMATED by looking just at the officially jobless.

These people make very different calculations abut their future and spending choices. Usually putting off large expenditures and buying at the low end of the market: cheap goods last less time creating more of a throwaway society. Expensive.

[ April 06, 2003, 09:54 AM: Message edited by: sportinlife ]

I guess all those suffering under the Bush economy can at least take solace in the fact that the President isn't getting a BJ from a consenting adult in the Oval Office. wink

I guess we've dicussed this before, and it must be pretty darn "political". Back in the boom of the mid 90's, when Ohio nad Michigan were in the top of new job growth, we had a DEMOCRAT as president-Clinton. However, both Michigan and Ohio's govenors were also taking some credit for all these jobs and they were--REPUBLICANS. Here locally, Toledo was at the top of the list of cities in the state for new job growth, and guess what?--the mayor, a DEMOCRAT, said "look at what I've done!". Also, the county commisionaries, all 3 DEMOCRATS, took their fair share of credit too. I'm sure you're getting my point. Everyone takes credit for something good, but when things get shitty it's blame ONE person, this case Bush. The president is pretty much the scape goat for the economy, whether good or bad, truth is the economy is much larger then one person(that's why I included all people who were taking credit for the "good" economy of the 90's.)

Yes, the economy is about more than one person and more than one factor. That is why you need to approach troubled economies in more than one way.

So, it would be nice if the Congress (oh yeah, Republican controlled) would do something other than pass these disaster-creating tax cuts. It would be nice if someone other than the defense industry were getting new business right now. It would be nice if the Department of Labor were not tinkering with the jobs reports so that the number of unemployed were even more undercounted than normal. It would be nice if the same major corporations who spent considerable sums to get the President elected would spend some of it on their employees rather than slashing on average 250,000 jobs per month since Bush took office. It would be nice to see these same corporations stop paying their executive teams millions of dollars, country club memberships, and other fanciful perks, for driving their corporations into the ground. It would be nice to see the Justice Department punish these executives a bit more strenuously for defrauding the public out of millions of dollars in money invested in stocks. (Ken Lay is still sitting at home in his mansion wondering why all of his former employees who are penniless are upset.)

So, yes it takes a village to right the economy. But it takes someone steering the ship and demonstrating some concern for the situation that people are in to get it started. The issue you are hearing people be upset about, is that nobody at the head of the line seems very concerned. The President, his advisers, and his friends are not hurting, so they see no need for real action.

That is one of the major differences between the Clinton WH and the current one. Clinton may have made some dumb personal decisions, but he was always interested in how the average American was doing. Bush and his team have demonstrated a complete lack of interest in anything but their own perspective. Whether it be the economy, the war, protecting a woman's reproductive rights, etc. The only perspective that exists today is the one in the WH and MILLIONS of people are suffering for it.

well said charlie, and I couldn't agree with you more. What Republicans, tend to forget or overlook is how much time and money was spent attacking and investigating Clinton and his wife, from the very minute he took office. No letup over the course of 8 years, and the Republicans also seem to foget is that under Clintons' stewardship our economy was in the black , which means no defecits for the first time in 40 years....
Was Clinton perfect, absolutely not. No politican is, and most of them are slimy, but I too had the distinct impression that president Clinton cared about the little (average) guy, whereas Shrub cares about the big corporation. Big difference.

Ok, don't take this as a democrat/republican, clinton/bush slam or praise, but what did President Clinto do(other then NAFTA, which the effects are debatable) that had an effect on the economy? I'm not slamming Clinton here or praising Bush, just what did Pres. Clinton do that stimulated the economy when he was in office and why can't/won't Bush and the Republicans do what Clinton did to boost the economy?

Well Ive now had the same job for the longest in my post-college career, which is now at 1 year and 5 months. So my gloom and doom isnt where it used to be.
If we keep up the trade deficit I'll never lose my job since I work for a steamship line, importing and exporting big containers of fanny packs and scrap metal for example. God bless Capitalism!

It isn't that the Clinton administration did any one or two things in particular. It was more the overall environment created, and the fundamentally sound economic principles that ended up evolving out of their policies.

I think that everyone forgets that President Clinton was a very moderate Democrat. Other than the staunch conservatives who hated him sitting in the WH (and spent 8 years pursuing a series of investigations to try and oust him), most Republicans worked well with the Clinton WH. In many situations, people compared Clinton to the Republicans and talked about how his views were rather similar. Nobody recalls that anymore. However, his moderate attitudes were a big help in shaping more fundamentally sound policy.

The Clinton WH was able to get people on board with budget deficit reduction and balanced spending. This was tremendously important to the overall health of the economy. Just like in our personal lives, when we spend money on servicing debt and carrying higher spending levels, it causes problems. During the Clinton years, the budget was not only balanced, but there was a sizable surplus.

And he did it while continuing to fund important programs in education, healthcare, etc. The areas that impact the widest group of Americans. When you can get your kids taken care of, and are not worrying about your next paycheck getting to you, things work a bit better.

The Clinton WH (and I want to make a point of saying Congress as well, which was Republican controlled during portions of those eight years) was also able to reduce federal spending overall by $255B. Again, while not cutting into core programs that impact the widest array of Americans. There was the huge Federal workforce reduction that helped with the overall budget decrease.

Clinton did cut taxes during his Presidency, but it was targeted to the lowest income brackets. This was largely offset with a tax increase on the very top-tier income earners. (Something completely reversed by Bush Jr. , and about to be dramatically widened by Congress.)

Lastly, the Clinton administration made other world players much more confident in the future. The general tone of foreign policy was engagement, and the focus was on strengthening diplomatic relations. China became recognized as a trade partner, North Korea was being coaxed back into the mix, etc. NAFTA was passed, and its effects are debatable. However, GATT was also passed, and that lowered tariffs around the world by nearly $750B. That lets trade flow much more freely, which allows the world economy to operate more efficiently (or at least that is how it is supposed to work according to economic theory).

Other foreign nations are now suffering from their own economic problems, and all of the economic sluggishness feeds on itself.

I am not bashing the Bush administration here, but lets look at what has happened over the past 24 months.

A much less moderate administration is in place. Nobody can say that the Bush White House does not look much more like the Reagan WH than his own father's. The Reagan WH is noted for being one of the most conservative of this century.

The tax increase on the wealthiest earners that helped balance out tax cuts for the neediest families were reversed and then some. Several foreign agreements were vacated, and the US simply is not complying with several others. The US reestablished considerable tariffs on things like steel, even though this produces an economically less optimal situation. Funding for critical programs in education, etc are slowly but surely being cut and responsibility being passed down to the state level. State budgets are not able to handle all of the programs being passed down, as federal funding levels are not increasing to offset the new budget items.

The budget surpluses are now large budget deficits which have some immediate stresses for the economy, but many more long-term issues to come. The budget spending increases are not in sectors that directly aid most Americans. We are spending money on bombs and such, while we need to spend money on jobs and education and such.

And one of the most difficult changes is that our foreign trade partners no longer know what to count on from us. The approach of engagement and inclusion has been replaced with "you are with us or against us". That is a very fundamental shift, and produces a great deal of volatility.

One of the fundamental issues with the peaceful power changes we experience with our four year Presidential terms is the need for continuity between administrations. The abrupt changes and 180 turns have caused a lot of disruption around the world. While the economy would not have continued to be as strong (even if Clinton were elected for a third term, which he would have been if it was allowed -- nobody wanted Bush or Gore), we would not be experiencing the massive economic shifts that have dominated the past two years.

September 11th and all of the subsequent issues it produced were not the President's fault, and did impact the world economic stage. However, those types of things need to be managed and controlled, and that has not happened successfully here.

The President is (as the Bush WH likes to think) the CEO of our country. He is responsible for making sure that we set the right direction and have people to get us where we are going. If a company were having the type of results over the past two years that our country has, the Board of Directors would be looking at major changes to get things back on track. We have been offered one thing and one thing only -- tax cuts to stimulate an economy that needs other fixes. Like focusing spending dollars where they will do more good, and getting the budget back into balance.

One thing that is rarely stated by the (conservative) media, including the supposedly liberal New York Times and Washington Post, is this: even though Clinton raised taxes several times on the wealthiest Americans, they STILL accumulated more wealth in total dollar amounts during the period 1994-2000 than they had in almost any other period in U.S. history! Why? Because the overall economic performance, particularly from 1996-2000, was so great that they still gained tremendously, given the amount of equity, options and capital investments that they held during this period. The number of billionaires increased sharply in the 1990s, and the number of millionaires tripled.

It's astonishing to think how much money the wealthy made during the Clinton years, which is one reason that they were willing to seat Bush in an effort to try and get EVEN MORE money at the expense of the rest of the country. The whole plan of course depended upon the economy staying as robust as under Clinton, which has not happened. Instead, for millions of Americans, and many U.S. corporations, there has been a steady erosion of economic health and stability, and now the CBO head, Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin, a conservative REPUBLICAN who pushed for "dynamic scoring" in an effort to present the president's second massive tax plan in the most favorable light, actually admitted that the plan was NOT a good idea! Or rather, as the NY Times stated, Holtz-Eakin said that the larger economic growth claims made for the package were "not obvious," to quote him directly.

I think the other interesting thing that people are not picking up on much has to do with the stock market.

The indexes on Wall Street are kind of their own score cards. They do not reflect the state of the economy on their own accord, but they do directly represent economic votes -- mainly from corporations, institutional investors, and the most wealthy individuals.

The fact that the stock indexes have been depressed for going on two years now indicates a lack of faith by most investors in the current direction of the economy. It is impacted by the war thing and other world events, but if investors had more faith in the economic plans of the government, we would see those indexes rising back upward.

No matter how you look at it (in terms of whether you like Clinton as a person or not), the Clinton years were very good for the economy, AND he made everyone feel like they were a part of a nation that had promise for its future. In addition, he did more than many Presidents ever dreamed of in terms of bringing tenuous relations at least to neutral.

He was a SUPERIOR U.S. President (Mr Rhodes should be very, very proud!), even if (most) Republicans can't stand what he did with Lewinsky.

You really need to get over your Clinton obsession. Under Clinton this country had the best economy EVER. Im sure most people would trade the Clinton economy for Chimps economy any day. I know I would, Id have a hell of alot more money in my 401k. (nice rhyme)

I didnt know Razor could write more than one line in a post... dang, it's gonna snow in AZ today.

...and we just jumped the shark!

Watch it Diane!

Ooo..'das a TIGHT rap, RazorbackTX!

Look out, Eminem!