Public's faith in economy plummets

MSNBC ^ | March 10, 2004 | Alex Johnson

[Willie Green]

NBC Poll: Bush, Kerry in dead heat eight months before election

Americans have sharply lost confidence in the economy in recent weeks, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday, which showed that the presumed Democratic nominee for president, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, had pulled into a statistical tie with President Bush.

The poll, conducted by Hart/Teeter Associates of Washington, showed a nation almost perfectly divided on its assessment of the economy, an issue that has taken a larger role in the presidential campaign as the war in Iraq recedes into the past. More than a third of respondents, 35 percent, said they thought the economy had worsened in the previous 12 months, compared with 33 percent who said it had improved and 31 percent who said it had remained the same.

[Ches]

Get a grip bud, the only way to curb the spending in Congress is to run a deficit

?????????

[reformedliberal]

This is impressive! Thanx!

Now: do you have any idea how they get a 6+% unemployment figure?

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

I would Imagine they calculate it the same way they do it nationaly by ONLY CHECKING with bigger companys and not looking into the smaller ones.

I work for a company that employs about 100 people ive talked to my boss/owner as far as he knows no one has ever contacted him about hiring or firing.

Other than to ask for a job and we use alot of temporary services to hire through !

I wonder if they count temp services in those surveys do you know ? ive never heard one way or another on the subject !

[reformedliberal]

I am hazy on it, but I think they count temp-to-hire positions, but they would have to get those from the household survey.

My husband and I are self-employed, have been for 40 years and so, have not been counted. Private practice professionals would not be counted, I would guess.

I see no out-of-the-ordinary long term unemployment. I see lots of people leaving small business to become self-employed. Consultants, according to the Heritage study, do not consider themselves self-employed and so skew the household survey away from self-employed. So the stats really confuse me.

Basically, I think it is tunnel vision as to what *employment* entails.

[Texasforever]

When I can hold you personally accountable both civilly and criminally for the software you "engineer" and certify you could possibly lay claim to calling yourself an engineer.

[sixmil]

engineer

n 1: a person who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems [syn: applied scientist, technologist]

[jwalsh07]

My grandkids are safer than they were 4 years ago Willie, I don't know anybody who is unemployed and I don't depend on government for my guns or butter.

[Texasforever]

Look friend you aren’t an engineer. Your use of the title makes as much sense as a Physician’s Assistant calling himself a doctor.

[neutrino]

Um-hmm. And people vote based on their perceptions of economic well being.

Maybe, just maybe, it would be a really good idea to stop offshoring - before we lose the White House?

[Mo1]

Ummmm .. when did manufacturing jobs become the only jobs to have in this country??

[Texasforever]

Maybe, just maybe, it would be a really good idea to stop offshoring - before we lose the White House?

Hell yes destroy the economy to save the Whitehouse. That's the ticket.

[Texasforever]

It is amazing that all of the FR "principled conservatives" are crying for the bedrock conservative principle of free market/free trade to be abandoned by government fiat.

[Mo1]

Yes it is .. I wonder if they realize that if we shut out the free market/free trade .. many businesses/corporations will close and cause even more unemployment??

[Texasforever]

Yes but in their misery they long for company.

[radiohead]

if this is true, why are the fricken restaurants, Home Depot's, and Best Buy's sooooo busy!!!!

Yep. I'm a grad student. I have free time during the day and sometimes run around w/my grad student friends. The mall parking lots are packed - as are the Home Depots, the $4 a cup Starbucks and Tullys, restaurants, etc. My son works in a mall, which is also busy. All of this in the middle of the week, in the middle of the day; not just on weekends.

I live in Washington state, which has been vying w/Oregon for first place in unemployment figures and where people are constantly whining about the budget,etc. I want to know what the heck was it like before the dot com crash and 9/11 cause it sure as heck is busy and bustling out here!

[Mo1]

I want to know what the heck was it like before the dot com crash and 9/11 cause it sure as heck is busy and bustling out here!

It's the same around my way (PA) also

[goodnesswins]

I'm in Washington, the State, also. Where you going to school?

[radiohead]

Where you going to school?

UW - Seattle. I just passed my doctoral comps. They call me Doctoral Candidate Radiohead around these parts, pard'ner.

[goodnesswins]

YES, DOCTOR!!! Congratulations!!!

[sixmil]

Look friend you aren’t an engineer. Your use of the title makes as much sense as a Physician’s Assistant calling himself a doctor.

It's not my word, it's what everyone but you uses. I don't know if you are a technophobe, envy the kinds of salaries programmers were making, want to cling to the past, or what, but you are completely void of a decent argument backing your point, so I will have to live with everyone but you calling me an engineer. This will really get your goat - next promotion they will call me an Architect.