![]() Almost immediately after Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors glowingly predicted they would create 2.6 million net new jobs this year, the Republican spin doctors and backtrackers have been working overtime to deny that’s what they meant. Of course, as CBS Moneywatch has reported, that’s precisely what they meant — they were just insane to believe it was achievable, and to believe that the press and public would be too stupid to pick up on it. The semi-literate and uneducated Presnit, of course, hummed and hawed and refused to say anything when asked about it after he had trotted it out as ‘evidence’ the economy was doing just fine. Which of course it is not. The red line in the chart above shows Bush’s pathetic job creation record, and shows once and for all that his criminal tax cuts for the ultra-rich were simply a give-away for friends, and did not help the economy for the other 99% of Americans one bit. I am endlessly amazed that anyone with an annual income less than seven figures could even contemplate voting to re-elect this fraud. Again, as CBS reports, there are two ways to interpret Bush’s ‘forecast’. The more conservative one is that the economy will generate 2.6 million net new jobs in 2004, about 220 thousand per month, moving total employment up almost to where it was before he seized office (the lower blue line above). This compares to growth of 112 thousand in January, so despite the ebullience that surrounded that number announcement, even that number is only half the monthly rate needed to achieve this target. But when asked for clarification, the Council Chairman said that the forecast is for average 2004 employment to be 2.6 million higher than average 2003 employment of 130 million. To achieve that feat, employment will have to jump by 460 thousand per month and reach about 135 million by December (the higher blue line on the chart above). In the interest of public service, I’m going to hold Bush and the Council to their word. Each month I’ll repost the above chart showing progress towards the 2.6 million net new job target. And to be more than fair, I’ll settle for achievement of the lower forecast on the chart above. After all, I appreciate that Mr. Bush has a lot of trouble with numbers. This is not an unreasonable expectation of a president who used this ludicrous announcement for blatant political purposes. This is the number one issue in the campaign and he needs to be measured on his performance. After all, if he had run an administration that merely kept job growth up with new entrants in the labour force (growing at 150 thousand a month), employment would currently be above 139 million, and the jobless recovery would not be an issue. The number that Bush uses to talk about jobs, of course, is the fraudulent unemployment rate, which excludes the millions who have simply given up looking for work in the horrendous Bush economy, and also fails to include the millions who are struggling with part-time jobs because Bush is encouraging his big business buddies to outsource and offshore all the full-time jobs. I’ve already written about the fact that the actual unemployment rate is over 8%. Data is taken from the US Department of Labor statistics. |
Navigation
Other Writers About Collapse
Albert Bates (US)
Andrew Nikiforuk (CA)
Brutus (US)
Carolyn Baker (US)*
Catherine Ingram (US)
Chris Hedges (US)
Dahr Jamail (US)
David Petraitis (US)
David Wallace-Wells (US)
Dean Spillane-Walker (US)*
Derrick Jensen (US)
Doing It Ourselves (AU)
Dougald & Paul (UK)*
Gail Tverberg (US)
Guy McPherson (US)
Jan Wyllie (UK)
Janaia & Robin (US)*
Jem Bendell (US)
Jonathan Franzen (US)
Kari McGregor (AU)
Keith Farnish (UK)
Mari Werner
Michael Dowd
NTHE Love (UK)
Paul Chefurka (CA)
Paul Heft (US)*
Post Carbon Inst. (US)
Resilience (US)
Richard Heinberg (US)
Robert Jensen (US)
Roy Scranton (US)
Sam Mitchell (US)
Sam Rose (US)*
TD0S (US)
Tim Bennett (US)
Tim Garrett (US)
Umair Haque (US)
William Rees (CA)
XrayMike (AU)
Radical Non-Duality
Eating Well
Archive by Category
My Bio, Contact Info, Signature Posts
About the Author (2016)
My Circles
E-mail me
--- My Best 100 Posts --
Preparing for Civilization's End:
What Would Net-Zero Emissions Look Like?
Why Economic Collapse Will Precede Climate Collapse
Being Adaptable: A Reminder List
A Culture of Fear
What Will It Take?
A Future Without Us
Dean Walker Interview (video)
The Mushroom at the End of the World
What Would It Take To Live Sustainably?
The New Political Map (Poster)
Beyond Belief
Complexity and Collapse
Save the World Reading List
Civilization Disease
What a Desolated Earth Looks Like
Giving Up on Environmentalism
Going Vegan
The Dark & Gathering Sameness of the World
The End of Philosophy
The Boiling Frog
Our Culture:
What to Believe Now?
Rogue Primate
Conversation & Silence
The Language of Our Eyes
True Story
Cultural Acedia: When We Can No Longer Care
Useless Advice
Several Short Sentences About Learning
Why I Don't Want to Hear Your Story
A Harvest of Myths
The Qualities of a Great Story
The Trouble With Stories
A Model of Identity & Community
Not Ready to Do What's Needed
A Culture of Dependence
So What's Next
Ten Things to Do When You're Feeling Hopeless
No Use to the World Broken
Living in Another World
Does Language Restrict What We Can Think?
The Value of Conversation Manifesto Nobody Knows Anything
If I Only Had 37 Days
The Only Life We Know
A Long Way Down
No Noble Savages
Figments of Reality
Too Far Ahead
The Rogue Animal
How the World Really Works:
If You Wanted to Sabotage the Elections
Collective Intelligence & Complexity
Ten Things I Wish I'd Learned Earlier
The Problem With Systems
Against Hope (Video)
The Admission of Necessary Ignorance
Several Short Sentences About Jellyfish
A Synopsis of 'Finding the Sweet Spot'
Learning from Indigenous Cultures
The Gift Economy
The Job of the Media
The Wal-Mart Dilemma
The Illusion of the Separate Self:
Happy Now?
This Creature
Did Early Humans Have Selves?
Nothing On Offer Here
Even Simpler and More Hopeless Than That
Glimpses
Fragments
What Happens in Vagus
We Have No Choice
Never Comfortable in the Skin of Self
Letting Go of the Story of Me
All There Is, Is This
A Theory of No Mind
Creative Works:
The Ever-Stranger (Poem)
The Fortune Teller (Short Story)
Non-Duality Dude (Play)
Your Self: An Owner's Manual (Satire)
All the Things I Thought I Knew (Short Story)
On the Shoulders of Giants (Short Story)
Calling the Cage Freedom (Short Story)
Rune (Poem)
Only This (Poem)
The Other Extinction (Short Story)
Invisible (Poem)
Disruption (Short Story)
A Thought-Less Experiment (Poem)
Speaking Grosbeak (Short Story)
The Only Way There (Short Story)
The Wild Man (Short Story)
Flywheel (Short Story)
The Opposite of Presence (Satire)
How to Make Love Last (Poem)
The Horses' Bodies (Poem)
Distracted (Short Story)
Worse, Still (Poem)
Conjurer (Satire)
A Conversation (Short Story)
Farewell to Albion (Poem)
My Other Sites
One might think that someone running for preznit actually has a desire to improve the country and govern effectively. But what if this is false? If one accepts that Bush ran for the office without any intent except to enrich his friends and put a hit on Saddam, then he’s done a great job.
Yes, I’ll be interested to follow your updates to this post. In regards to your amazement how an average person can support the Dubya, I’m all with you there. Scientists like Richard Dawkins (I think that’s his name) – of meme fame – have covered this one. If you stay on message, supply subterfuge, bait ‘n switch, and with tons of campaign funds, repeat as necessary – you can actually do what Carl Rove has done. The medium is is the message as much as message is the medium. Burroughs’ was right: laguage is a virus, and sometimes not a very nice one either.
Over at the Whiskey Bar (www.billmon.org) it appears that there may very well be real progress in exposing the Ponzi scheme the US government has been running for the last 20 years – paying forward in to SS, using the excess to fund governments, and now proposing to limit/claw back benefits while making wealthy-benefiting tax cuts permanent.The two pertinent posts are about Alan Greenspan’s two-facedness (or lack of character, whichever way you choose to view it), titled If the Face Fits … and … If the Face Fits II
Cool site for anyone looking for employment in the motor trade industry!