Is the U.S. just one big Potemkin village?

[mactbone]

What about State debt? The kind that encourages the Governor to sell a toll road. Which gives him the bright idea to sell the lottery. Is that good or bad?

[The Mad Monk]

One of the best known car dealers in New York City is Potamkin Cadillac.

...


I always wanted to go there and see if the cars were just props.

[Zkribbler]

Drake, let me clarify your last quote:

Despite the ongoing costs of US military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the outlook for the federal budget has grown substantially brighter.

Tax revenues are rising much faster than spending, according to Treasury Department numbers released last week [although spending still exceeds revenues, and the debt continues to grow]. The recent trend is strong enough that, were it to continue, the budget could move into surplus in barely a year, one economist [on crack] calculates. [One economist, ooooh -- there's no arguing with that!]

Already, the federal deficit is shrinking toward about half the size that it has averaged since 1970, when analyzed as a percentage of gross domestic product. [Of course, there's no comparing it with the deficit 10 years ago -- when there wasn't any.]

The shift reflects a strong economy, with higher incomes [for the top 1%] and corporate profits [naturally] generating a bigger flow of tax revenue [than when the massive tax cuts through us into a deficit]. In turn, the Treasury's progress could help the economy by buoying investor confidence in the nation's fiscal position. [Of course, investor confident is worth diddly squat when compared to consumer confidence--of which there is little.]

Cronos -

4: And what did you do with the money you have borrowed? Did you dig a hole in the ground, or you have built infrastructure, increased productivity? Education?

We didn't build infrastructure. The majority of "increase productivity" comes from making employees work longer hours for no increase in pay. As for education, Bush instituted his No-Child-Left-Behind Act and then refused to fully fund it. The recession he threw the nation into in 2002 caused most states to drastically increase college tuitions and to cut back on education spending.

--Bottom line, "we dug a hole" by granting the weathiest 1% of America unfunded tax breaks. "Never in the history of mankind, has so much, been given to so few, who didn't need it."

[rah]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
The recession he threw the nation into in 2002 caused most states to drastically increase college tuitions and to cut back on education spending.

"Never in the history of mankind, has so much, been given to so few, who didn't need it."

Bush soley responsible for the recession in 2002. Quite a stretch there.

And that tax break was quite helpful to me personally and I'm not in the top 1% by any stretch of the imagination. A lot of my friends (also not in the top 1% were also helped) We put a lot of that money back into the economy and were able to save some extra towards our retirement.

So things look rosey to me. And I'll bet i'm not the only one.

[DanS]

There wasn't a recession in 2002. Zkribbler's imagining things.

[Patroklos]

The recession he threw the nation into in 2002

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, that is awesome.

"Never in the history of mankind, has so much, been given to so few, who didn't need it."

Ah, the lets take from others because they have enough already arguement. How tired and lame.

[Arrian]

It's the basis for the progressive income tax, tired & lame or not. I take it you're a fan of the flat tax?

Zkrib, take a deep breath. Or maybe have a drink. It's gonna be ok.

I say this as someone who generally despises the way the country is run (especially over the last 6 years). I loathe debt, and thus like you the national debt and whatnot bothers me. But this are not as gloomy as you make them out to be.

-Arrian

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by DanS
There wasn't a recession in 2002. Zkribbler's imagining things.

No, you just have a flawed memory. He's a CCN/Money article on how Bush and Chaney denied it was their fault.

Bush says he inherited recession

Bush, Cheney take advantage of revised GDP data to say economy a mess when they took office.
August 7, 2002: 6:04 PM EDT
By Mark Gongloff, CNN/Money Staff Writer

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Although last week's revision of U.S. gross domestic product data for 2001 may have been old news for the economy, it was something of a stroke of luck for President Bush, who has since used it as evidence that he inherited an economic mess when he took office.

Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, in separate speeches Wednesday, both claimed the U.S. economy was already in recession when they were inaugurated in January 2001, implying the blame for the slowdown rested on President Clinton's shoulders.

Both men also made assurances that they had a handle on the problems facing the economy.


"When I took office, our economy was beginning a recession," Bush said in a speech at a Mississippi high school. "Then our economy was hit by terrorists. Then our economy was hit by corporate scandals. But I'm certain of this: We won't let fear undermine our economy and we're not going to let fraud undermine it either."

In a congressional election year, the administration seems determined to avoid the apparent mistakes of the first President Bush, who lost a bid for a second term after the Clinton campaign took advantage of the perception that Bush was not paying close enough attention to the economy.

The current Bush administration's claim that it inherited a recession from Clinton became somewhat more credible last week, when the Commerce Department revised its estimates of GDP, the broadest measure of economic growth, in the first, second and third quarters of 2001, showing that it shrank in all three quarters.

Earlier estimates found economic activity contracted in only the third quarter of 2001, due mostly to a dramatic, temporary slowdown in activity after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Since one popular rule-of-thumb definition of a recession is two or more consecutive quarters of shrinking GDP, it became possible, based on the revised data, to say a recession began in January 2001.

It was also easier for Bush and Cheney to point to the two quarters of growth so far in 2002 and claim that the tax cuts and economic stimulus packages they pushed in 2001 had helped the economy recover.

"Rebate checks, a rate reduction on tax day and a stimulus package helped turn three quarters of decline into two quarters of growth," Cheney said in a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California.

Bush, meanwhile, also called on Congress to make the tax cuts -- which expire 10 years from now -- permanent. "For the sake of our economic vitality, allowing people to plan, for the sake of small businesses across the country, we need to make tax reduction permanent," Bush said.

But it's not entirely clear when the recession actually began or which presidential administration, if any, is to blame for it.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, a research group that marks the dates of economic recessions and expansions, ignores GDP data when defining business cycles. It has maintained for several months that the recession did not begin until March 2001.

Related links
Handicapping the Fed

The case against Alan Greenspan

Recession still not formally over

More layoffs on the way?



Though Cheney claimed that the economy had returned to growth, the NBER has not yet declared the recession has ended, and the robust 2002 GDP data on which Bush and Cheney have been relying are subject to the same dramatic revisions that the 2001 data underwent.

"The Bush administration has run out of options when it comes to the economy," said Doug Usher, a senior analyst with the Mellman Group, a Democratic political consulting firm in Washington. "Clearly they don't have a plan, so they're trying to claim things are not that bad. But people see right through that, so they're going to plan C, which is blame somebody else."

Certainly, the Bush administration is making every effort to assure voters it's got a handle on the situation.

First, Bush is hosting an economic summit in Waco, Texas, on Tuesday -- the same day the Federal Reserve meets to discuss its target for short-term interest rates.


And Bush, Cheney and Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, all dismissed growing fears that the economy would "double-dip" back into recession.

"I think the chance of a double-dip recession is remote," Hubbard told CNNfn's Money Gang program. "We have a lot of stimulus in the pipeline from past [Fed rate] decisions, and it takes a year for policy to work through the economy."

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Arrian
Or maybe have a drink.

Can you think of any reason why I should stop at one drink??

[Arrian]

Dude, unless you think Bush was responsible for 9/11, at least *some* of the blame for any economic problems in 2002 has to be put elsewhere.

Furthermore, unless I'm mistaken, gummint action takes a while to show up in the economy. Thus, it's rather unlikely that Bush did stuff in 2000/2001 and this resulted in bad things in 2002. Add to that the fact that the economy is cyclical. There are booms and busts that have nothing whatsoever to do with the government.

-Arrian

[Patroklos]

It's the basis for the progressive income tax, tired & lame or not. I take it you're a fan of the flat tax?

I am. Though in not in a vacuum. There are alot of things you can tax that make more sense than a completely unjustified someone pays more than someone else for no reason system.

[Arrian]

Oh, there are reasons, you just don't like them. But let's not get into that.

Let's drive Zkribbler to drink

-Arrian

[DanS]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
No, you just have a flawed memory. He's a CCN/Money article on how Bush and Chaney denied it was their fault.

No offense, but you have Oerdin's Syndrome -- you don't have a clue as to what you're talking about.

The economy grew every quarter in 2002. The quarters with negative growth were Q3 2000, Q1 2001, and Q3 2001.

[RGBVideo]

Ah, I see the "OMG LOL LOONEY STFU" -meme for anyone who dares to disagree with DanS has now progressed from Oerdin into it's next target. I presume all the character assassinations and personal attacks will be ignored from mods, again.

[rah]

Probably

"you're imagining things" and "you have no clue"

are pretty tame for the ot.