There is no recovery! All the leading economic indicators are bad! The economy is not growing, no jobs have been created, and inflation is wiping out all your savings.
Posted on 06/21/2004 7:27:00 AM PDT by presidio9
Edited on 06/21/2004 7:30:44 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
As President George W. Bush tries to persuade the nation that he has a plan for Iraq, he might try another tough sell: that he has a plan for the economy. While the U.S. economy continues to limp along with the unemployment rate at 5.6 percent, its vital signs are not encouraging.
The unemployment rate itself is up from 4 percent in 2000. But the official rate only includes those who are actively looking for work, and therefore excludes the nearly half million discouraged workers who have stopped looking. It also leaves out another 4.4 million who are working part time involuntarily. Nor does it tell us that the rate among Latinos is 7 percent or among blacks it is 9.9 percent.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has done all he could with monetary policy to keep the U.S. economy from falling into a second recession since 2001. The target federal funds rate has been below 1.25 percent for the last 18 months and below 2 percent since the end of 2001 (down from 6 percent at the beginning of 2001). The federal funds rate has not been this low for this long since before World War II.
Look for rates to begin to climb when the Federal Open Market Committee next meets on June 29-30. The real question is not whether interest rates will rise, but rather how rapidly and how far they will go. Rising rates will slow the already sluggish economy.
Together with war spending and oil problems, Greenspan's expansionary monetary policy now has the economy poised for a new bout of inflation. During the first five months of 2004, the consumer price index rose at an annual rate of 5.1 percent - that's after being up 1.9 percent for all of 2003 and 1.3 percent for all of 2002. Also worrisome, falling unit labor costs were helping to retard inflationary pressures, but they have begun to increase in recent quarters.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Yeah, if your name is John Kerry.
Andrew Zimbalist sounds like Kim Jong Il. Deny reality, deny reality, deny reality (repeat as often as politically necessary).
~ Bizarro
I wouldn't want to swap unemployment statistics with Germany or France.
I cannot believe that people are still honestly writing this stuff. Is there no such thing as journalistic integrity? This sounds like Baghdad Bob saying that there are no US troops in the country as the army was entering Baghdad.
This completely ignores every positive sign the economy has been showing. It points out that the unemployment rate does not include discouraged workers, while ignoring the fact that it never has. It over-exaggerates the inflation risk. It implies that rising taxes will help lower the unemployment rate without any support. It ignores the effect of higher productivity on inflation and the ability to leave interest rates low due to productivity.
This is a joke.
Andy, here, is writing for a paper that just got caught inflating its circulation figures to screw advertisers out of higher rates. It is very good to see that the same level of journalistic integrity extends to all aspects of this organization.
Was this marxist, lie-filled opinion piece on the op-ed page or did they characterize it as an economic report?
They put up their wall of lies every step of the way, eh?
That was a rhetorical question, right? :)
I believe the economist John Maynard Keynes, the darling of the Left, defined full employment as an unemployment rate of 8%.
Nice to see they are altering reality when it so suits them.
Regards, Ivan
Wasn't he the star of The F.B.I.? He was great in that show.
It was brought to you "In Color" too. Wow.
I love it when liberals bring up this point as if it had any significance. Unemployment has always been measured this way. In 2000, there were many millions of people out of work who were not actively looking. There always are, and they always will be. Most of them are called "housewives."
It's on the opinion page.
"journalistic integrity" = oxy-moronic statement
The only thing that would make professor Zimbalist happier than a major market crash this summer is a horrific terrorist attack on our forces in Iraq.
This guy studies at the feet of Paul Krugman.
"Andrew Zimbalist is a professor of economics at Smith College. "
If so, every parent should demand a refund from Smith College.
Short of socialism, or communism, you won't see a unemployment rate much below 5.6 in this nation.
I'm constantly amazed at the lunacy concerning the economy and business in general that comes from the Ivory Tower of Academia.
Tenure is the most damaging concept ever created in higher education. It guarantees mediocrity.
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