Silence is Consent

If you don't speak up you accept what is happening. This site was born out of the mainstream media's inability to cover the news. I am just an American cititzen trying to spread the word in the era of FCC consolidation, post 9/11 Patriot Act hysteria, hackable voting machines and war without end. I rant and post news items I perceive to be relevant to our current situation.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
- Thomas Jefferson

Social Security is not broken and therefore does not need to be fixed

So Called Social Security Crisis (SCSSC)

Comments, questions, corrections, rebuttals are always welcome.

Friday, February 20, 2004
 
Economics is not my specialty. But over the last few days the White House Press Corps has been grilling poor Scottie McClellan about an overly optimistic jobs forecast. At the heart of the problem is the reports estimate that 2.6 million jobs will be created in 2004. This article does a good job of laying it out the problem, Oh, did we say 2.6 million?
Last week, President Bush sent a report to Congress promising 2.6 million jobs by the end of the year. Private economists expressed near-universal skepticism about this rosy forecast, saying nothing in current economic trends suggested it was likely or even possible.

The White House backpedaled this week. During questioning in the Oval Office on Wednesday, President Bush declined to endorse the jobs forecast he had just signed and sent. Treasury Secretary John Snow and Commerce Secretary Don Evans also distanced themselves from the forecast while they toured Oregon and Washington with two other officials to sell Bush's job retraining program.
An in depth look into this can bee seen here, Missing the moving target, released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The report and subsequent follow up states that to create 2.6 million jobs this year 450,000 jobs per month have to be created. Here is what Scott McClellan said yesterday at the press briefing:
There are some 366,000 new jobs that were created in the last five months. Unemployment is declining. GDP is strong. We're seeing sustained economic growth.
Now I'm no math major but by my math that's about 376,800 jobs a month short. So I think it is obvious why the administration is distancing itself from this report.

Bush economic team under fire over jobs
President touts his economic stewardship as a top re-election asset, yet offhand remarks and mixed signals by leading members of his economic team are proving politically embarrassing and handing fresh ammunition to Democrats.

White House Struggles to Halt Flap Over Jobs Report
The White House on Thursday struggled anew to contain the fallout over an overly optimistic forecast that 2.6 million jobs will be created this year and some Republicans expressed concern about the damage being done to President Bush.

One more economic issue. Now the administration is trying to change the date of when the recession started. In other words they are trying to blame it on Clinton. Here is another segment from yesterdays press briefing on this issue. As I read this I just marveled at the mendacity:
Q Just one point on a related question, if I could. You talked this morning at your gaggle about when the recession started. You know, the Council of Economic Advisors now takes it to the fourth quarter of 2000. The National Bureau of Economic Research says it's seen no compelling reason to move the date from March, 2001, where it is now, and even your own Bureau of Economic Analysis in this chart shows that there was actually growth in the fourth quarter of 2000. So how do you peg the start of the recession to that fourth quarter?

MR. McCLELLAN: John, I think any way you look at it, the economy was declining and weakening well before the President took office, and that that decline led us into a recession. That balloon was deflating well before this President took office. The facts are pretty clear.

Q But you have said that you inherited a recession. What it would appear is that you inherited slower growth, but not a recession.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, as I said, that any way you want to look at it, the economy was weakening, the economy was declining well before the President took office, and that is the reason we were headed into a recession. This President acted to get us out of a recession. But the facts are pretty clear. There is no question that the economy was weakening well before the President took office. GDP peaked in the fourth quarter of 2000; the stock market declined sharply, starting in September 2000; business investment started declining in the fourth quarter of 2000; initial jobless claims started increasing the week of April 15, 2000.

The fact that the recession ended just two months after the attacks of September 11th demonstrates the resilience of the U.S. economy and the effects of the tax cuts that we worked to pass in 2001. And so thanks to the President's actions and policies, it was one of the shallowest recessions in history.
As you notice he never answers the first question. But says the economy was weakening. A weakening economy is not one in recession. So the reporter asks a follow up. Not a recession, slow growth, right. And Scottie says, "no" but then says "yes" with his answer of headed into a recession. Man he makes my head hurt.

For more on this story
Recession's Timing Becomes An Issue
Just as questions appeared to be dying down about his service in the National Guard, President Bush faced a third controversy yesterday over claims in an annual economic report that usually receives little attention.

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