bush's economy?
I have been seeing some chatter about how "bush is turning the economy around" (meaning somehow making it better.) How absurd. He DID turn it around once - the day he took office it went from good to bad, and is continuing on that course.
This is not to say it is bad for
everyone. His glorious tax break - what was that about? Capital Gains? I don't guess I have any. I never saw any change. But I'm sure his Friends do! Do you? If not, better get some, 'cause there's a break in there somewhere.
But back to the economy. In January 1992, the Dow was at 3,220, approximately. By the end of 1999 it was at 11,497! Over 257% rise!
Ok, now from that 11,497 (start of 2000), until 29 June 2006, it has "reached" 11,190. This is a decline of 2.7%. And yes, it has come up a bit recently. If you examine the historical figures, the tanking was a lot worse! Granted, there was that dot.com tank, and recovery, but overall bush has no interest (nor knowledge?) in fixing things, in getting the economy back in a growth posture. Straight-line flat for his whole tenure.
I have included some graphs of somewhat recent times for both the Dow and the S&P 500 so you can kinda get a feel of the abrupt change in direction "we" have made. I don't have the figures yet for the top 1%, or even the top 10%, of our income brackets, but I bet
their situation isn't quite so dire. I will try to come up with those figures to show later. But for now...
You think that's what the chatter is about? Not you and me, but
them?
oh boy, the moment I've waited for! Finally, enough people are seeing through this mad man and his games to be able to prune this bush down to a stump.
Bush? Never heard of him
President bush's effectiveness as a domestic president is ending not with a bang but with a whimper. Almost four months before the midterm elections, congressional Republicans fear an association with him might alienate their constituencies and result in a loss of the House of Representatives. They hold the House by only 15 seats and suddenly even previously safe districts are at risk.
With him running his mouth off and flexing a bit too much phony macho - over mislaid patriotism, spying on US citizens, cronyism with the rich and infamous, and a hundred other pissy idiocies - the time has finally come for even his former lockstep panderers to step aside.
So it looks like he will join the likes of Nixon on history's wall of shame. The GOP doesn't want it to be a Republican wall, even if the two on it are!
Bush slams leak of terror finance story
President bush on Monday sharply condemned the disclosure of a secret anti-terrorism program that taps into an immense international database of confidential financial records.
ummmm... somebody told on him...
"For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America," Bush said. He said the disclosure of the program "makes it harder to win this war on terror."
Now he's just making excuses... if
his war doesn't succeed, now it's somebody
else's fault.
Maybe, just maybe, all the millions of others who are
not terrorists (but whose financial records were scanned, nonetheless) are the ones who need to be told about this, eh?
What a nitwit.
Heyyyy...
What's she smiling about?!
Oh, nm ;)
San Francisco - doing something right!
SAN FRANCISCO - The city would offer health care to any adult resident, regardless of immigration or employment status, under a plan announced Tuesday
It would provide comprehensive preventive and catastrophic health care, covering everything from checkups, prescription drugs and X-rays to ambulance rides, blood tests and surgeries.
The city estimates the plan would cost $200 million a year, an expense that would be borne by taxpayers, businesses that don't already insure all their workers, and participants themselves.
Residents would pay both monthly fees and service co-payments on a sliding scale depending on income. A person with annual earnings at the federal poverty line would pay $3 per month, while someone who makes between $19,600 and $40,000 — or up to 400 percent above the poverty line — would pay an average of $35 per month.
At Last! Something being done on the "Help our people" front! I'm not familiar with what all has been done in the past by SF, and from this article it sounds like other things have been done, but I am sure glad to see this.
Enough with paying to rebuild Iraq (although I guess it was US who tore it up...) - let's spend some effort on our own people. And these are very reasonable prices, eh??
Lighter side keeps on!
Wow, I've been following the wrong sports...
Associated Press: A fan for Germany looks on prior to the start of the Ecuador v Germany Group A World Cup soccer match at the Olympic Stadium, Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 20, 2006.
Gotta get a rule book
What is "Liberal" ?
I have been following a
couple of blogs recently, and they are written by liberals. Ok, good. I am liberal, too. But
some of the ideas that keep getting thrown in and pounded out of the woodwork I have problems with.
One is the idea of Unions. Well, not the
idea, really, I can see the benefits of the
idea, but the
reality of them is something quite different.
The talk in the one referenced above has to do with Walmart, and Big = Bad, etc. But before long, unions popped up in the thread.
"Probably the best way to deal with the Wal-marts of the world is to get some real striker protection laws passed like every other industrial democracy has and for big labor to go after them in a big way. Now if a store goes union they just close it(except in China). Think they would close all their stores in California or New York to keep the union out?I doubt it."
Now the problem with that, as I see it, is that once unions enter the mix, prices go up. It's inevitable. While protections, fair work practices, safety, etc. will be the
good results of having the watchful eyes of the unions around, the increase in prices which would inevitably result from the increase in wages would not help ME at all!
One of the "problems" pointed out in the quoted response was that, in talking to Walmart employees and seeing what they thought was a good salary, it was said "they will probably never be able to buy a new car let alone a home." Ok, I guess I agree. At minimum wage to start (or however close to that it is), there is no way those things will ever be affordable. But the
real problem is, those things
cost too much! A car costs more than a house used to, and houses have just gone through the roof. Will it ever end? Will they just go up forever? It's a Catch-22!
Higher wages to afford the higher prices, higher production costs because of the higher wages, higher prices - over and over.
I think the Unions are too narrow minded in their approach to
member protection. They, in all their gargantuan hugeness with the resulting demadability, should find a way to work with
someone to make lower priced cars, lower priced houses, lower priced everything!
Get some Real R&D going in those Union organizations rather than just the lockstep "higher wages" demands. Do some REAL good.
On the Lighter Side -
I'm not a big sports fan, but I might be a sports fans' fan.
Reuters: Sweden fans kiss before the Group B World Cup 2006 soccer match between Sweden and Paraguay in Berlin June 15, 2006.
I never see anything like this at football/baseball games here in the states. Might make for a better day at the ballpark!
Liberal, but...
I guess I should add to my previous post - I am (or try to be) tolerant of others, for the most part, but I am NOT tolerant of big egos and small minds when they try to boss me around! THAT is my deal with bush. I've lived in Texas through his governorships and seen the disasters he can cause. It has me blown away that so many people DIDN'T see what he was doing and have elected him to two terms of failed leadership. But I guess that's what good pr, bowing to the corporate offices, and otherwise lots of money will do.
Gag me. At least it can't get any worse!
Liberal or Conservative?
I have always thought of myself as liberal. Why? Because I read as a youngster (I am turning 52 this year) the definition of liberal in the dictionary. It says:
# Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
# Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
# Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism.
I have always thought those characteristics should be the way a person should behave. So, WHY has the word
liberal developed such a negative connotation, especially in the world of politics, today? What is wrong with being free from bigotry, open to new ideas, tolerant of others, broad-minded? And more than those, WHAT is WRONG with NOT being limited to established, traditional, authoritarian attitudes?
On the other hand, conservative is defined as
# Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.
# Traditional or restrained in style
Well, that may all be fine if what we have is just fine and dandy, but we all know...
A Call to Arms
To everyone/anyone who has an interest in helping
the People of this country, instead of just the corporations, please take action! The repub's who are running this place are so out of touch with what a government
should do it is criminal. I'm not saying the Dem's are any better - they sure don't have a game plan, as far as I can tell, but I feel any change is a chance worth taking. Fire the old, in with some new!
Word of the Day: Insurance!
One of the big topics everywhere is the high cost of medical insurance and medical care. What to do, what to do. There have been all sorts of psuedo-solutions raised, but none seem to get to the heart of the problem. Most try to deal with how to afford it, what cut-backs are reasonable in coverage, etc. But I haven't seen any dealing with the real heart of the problem - the fact that insurance companies charge too much! And if you DO get sick, lord help you... your premiums jump to $1500 a month or something. (Not that they weren't high enough already - the cheapest I can find for me and my wife - two healthy people - is $400/mo. with a $5000 deductible. I can't afford that. I am uninsured.)
My solution? I propose this country start a new insurance regime which requires insurance companies to be non-profit organizations. Caps of, say, $200k for directors salaries, etc. could attract some good management. And every insured would become like a stockholder in the organization - the organization would actually be run BY the people who are insured with it (as opposed to stockholders whose main concern is return on investment and paying out as little as possible, while bringing in as much as possible... that is no way to serve people!) The finer details of this need to be worked out, but I believe this is a starting point.
Other avenues to reduce costs would be to stop pharmaceutical and medical companies from charging all their "R&D" costs to the consumer. That is ridiculous! There is no way ANYTHING should cost $70,000 for a one-time treatment. (That was the cost of something my Dad had done - not sure exactly what it was, but that doesn't matter.) There is no way any of those machines could be more expensive than, say, a car to make, and we're not buying the things anyway! One time use of a car is $100 a day. That should be about the line on those things, too.
Just some thoughts.
Wow, now if this doesn't show the intelligence of a right-winger, nothing does:
"The Democrat Party... may be viewed as nothing more than a pack of liars who are enemies of America."
Enemies of America? Is this paranoia talking? Is s/he somehow afraid we as a nation are actually ready to try something
new (e.g., liberal) rather than keep plodding along with the worn-out and pointedly discriminatory policies now in use? To be conservative is to resist change, but we certainly need some change around here!
Only going to make a note of this, as I'm so sick of the whole thing... so no charges pressed. Innocent? no, doesn't say that, so who knows. And who cares. The main thing here is the show. The knowledge that anything involved with a crooked white house is itself bound for a crooked end. What's next?
Another bush legacy... in two ways - his Pa had the same results of his tired game, so this bush is like a creeper off the same old bramble; and, of course, another in that all his legacies are those of failure and deceit, and what it is doing to this once nice place.
And what about the Federal Reserve people this bush has poked into his circle of friends?
"[T]he Federal Reserve said in early May that record oil prices could require higher interest rates to keep prices from climbing elsewhere."
Huh?
Are those higher interest rates going to help ease the cost of energy? I think not.
Why, then, are they putting the extra burden of higher interest on everyone else? Aren't higher energy costs enough to have to deal with? What do they mean, "to keep prices from climbing elsewhere"? Energy prices are going to make everything else climb regardless of what the interest rate is, and raising that only makes it harder for us, the non-behemoths (non-energy, non-insurance, non-pharmacuetical, non-sense followers of bush)to battle our way through this failed leadership.
Our country is going to ruin and no one is at the helm!
bush is murdering our hopes and future.
Send him to prison, where he belongs.
