Posted by Sam Stone:
From your lips!
Oh, “class warfare.” That’s where the middle and lower classes make some kind of response other than “thank you sir, may I have another?” for the economic reaming the Pubbies are giving them. In a fistfight it would be called “hitting back.”
It’s also a polite way of calling a person a communist. I truly hate hearing that garbage all the time. As if standing up for your interests is somehow wrong.
Anyway, newcrasher, dream on. I see by the calendar that the election in 2004 will be on Nov 2, which means the last employment report before the election will be the September report. That means there’s only 11 more reports, including one for the month just past coming out next Friday. We already know that this 7% spurt produced no new net jobs in the last quarter. In order to avoid the headline next Nov 1 of being the first Prez since Hoover to lose jobs, net, during his term, he’s going to have to push this economy into overdrive. (For comparison Carter, who was considered somewhat less than competent by most in matters economic, created 11 million jobs net during his four years. Bush should be so lucky.)
There’s a lot of things Bush will be able to run on next year, including the tax cut, because people do like to have their taxes cut, but the economy isn’t going to be one of them.
He can argue the tax cut on a lot of other grounds, but on economic grounds only his core constituency will be with him. If the core were enough to get him elected, we’d have Republican presidents all the time.
Man, you Americans are spoiled. You talk about the jobless situation as if 6% worst disaster to befall an economy. That’s nothing. Canadians aren’t whining about our job losses, and we’re sitting at 8%. Under a Liberal government. It wasn’t that long ago that 5% or so was seen as ‘full employment’.
The average unemployment for the entire Euro zone is 8%. It’s 9.8% in France. It’s over 10% in Germany. In fact, the U.S. has one of the lowest unemployment rates among developed countries. Japan’s is only slightly lower at 5.6%.
If next November the jobless rate is at 5.8%, the economy is growing at 5% per year, wages are up, taxes are down, and the deficit starts even a slow decline, the Democrats won’t have a thing to run on. Yelling about jobs works when A) jobs are being lost, because that frightens people, or B) You’re talking to union members or the Democratic working class base. As an issue in a national election, I predict it just won’t gain any traction.
For the Democrats to be able to run on the economy, you’re going to need, A) a double-dip recession (very unlikely at this point), B) a spiralling deficit (entirely possible unless Bush gets his act together real soon on the spending front), or C) a completely jobless recovery, with unemployment at or higher than the levels today.
I think those things are unlikely. The recovery so far has been relatively jobless because it’s been driven by sales of high inventories and productivity gains from variable cost cutbacks among businesses (for instance, GE is showing good cash flows, but it was almost all achieved on the cost side - cutting or freezing salaries, eliminating optional flying, etc).
But now that businesses have cut to the bone, and inventories are low, the only way to fuel growth is by increasing business investment and ramping up manufacturing. That creates jobs. It may even create them at a very rapid pace. And once the jobless numbers fall another percentage point or so, the additional demand for workers will result in rising salaries.
The Democrats need the economy to crash again, or they need a disaster in the Middle East. If they get neither of those things, Bush is going to win re-election easily.
Can you tell me just how Jimmy Carter created these jobs?
You illustrate my point above well. Libs will HAVE to look for the dark clouds, and cannot celebrate this economic rebound with the rest of the country.
“There has been a growing fraction of less-skilled men who would have been counted among the unemployed thirty years ago who have simply withdrawn from the labor force,” says Topel.
-from an online publication of the University of Chicago Grad School of Business
Unemployment rates in other countries also come closer to reflecting “joblessness rates” because elgibility is wider and benefits last longer. So it’s not really statistically valid to compare different countries’ rates head-to-head.
Again, you have ignored productivity gains due to mechanization and foreign outsourcing, which will allow increased production without (domestic) job growth.
“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.”
–Jesus Christ, practicing class warfare :rolleyes:
Guys… guys… just remember that Bush only needs a perceived better economy… not a really better economy to win.
Actually, the economy is only one of many issues. This is going to be a very complex election year.
But on this issue, to say that the advance in the GDP precurses enough of a rise in employment to offset the past three years in the voters’ minds is, well, risible. As was observed on one of the investment shows on Fox this morning, there’s three people in the whole country who care about GDP. That’s not enough to elect a president.
The headline over this President on Nov 1 is going to be that he was the first President since Hoover to preside over a job loss. The deficit in jobs as of the last report was 2,574,000. To break even, 234,000 jobs a month are going to have to be generated. Don’t hold your breath. (Even if he somehow manages to pull this off, what’s he gonna do? Stand on some carrier deck with a big banner that says “Read my lips. No new jobs!” Honestly, get a grip.)
No one I know of is changing jobs, for the simple reason that everyone knows no one is hiring. I used to get calls all the time from headhunters; now, it’s been at least a year since I got a call. I’m not alone in this experience.
Some of the things that have happened, like outsourcing, are things that are far beyond the power of the President to change. Other things, like the rapid advance in health costs, are within his power to change, but of course won’t be. As for the tax cuts, yes the stimulus has finally kicked in. Three years too late.
newcrasher, your side might very well win the election, but it won’t be on a straight up or down vote on the economy.
As to the question of how Carter created those jobs, he didn’t of course. He just didn’t do anything remarkably stupid. The American economy will generate jobs all by itself if the President just sits on his ass and doesn’t do anything dumb. Right smack in the middle of the time the economy should have been rebounding, Bush invaded Iraq on what to most objective observers (this would be those who agree with me, natch) would say were trumped up charges, thereby placing an entirely unnecessary burden on the economy at exactly the wrong time.
Just to add to pantom… the kind of military costs the US has in Iraq aren’t the types that help too much the US economy either. Its a lot about maintenance of the troops and other “simple” stuff. No tomahawks or new jets. At least I imagine that the gain to the US economy thru the military machine isn’t much. So those billions aren’t fueling growth back “home”.
MRE’s, at least some of them, are packaged here in Michigan. Tank treads are made in Lima, Ohio. Uniforms are made somewhere in the USA. Etc. The parts for mere maintenace and other ‘simple’ stuff have to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is overwhelmingly America. The Appropriations Committee sees to that.
Still its not much of a economy booster… at least from what a good chunck of the $87 billion seemed to be.
So let me get this straight - what the voters are going to care about is not the direction of the economy, but whether or not more jobs have been created than lost over the course of the entire four years? That sounds ridiculous to me. You’re just spewing DNC talking points - there’s no evidence that I know of that the average person thinks that unemployment is the defining issue of the election, or even an important one, save for that it is indicative of the general state of the economy. People understand that there was a recession, and that there is a war on. The Democrats like to go on about how this is the first president to have a net job loss since Hoover and all that, but this is also the 20th century, and the world is a very different place than it was. No one blames Bush for 9/11 (outside of the nutbar left), and people understand that the U.S. took a huge economic blow on that day, stalling out a modest recovery. These have been tough years, and very little if any of the blame lands with the President for the economy’s state.
if unemployment is going down on election day, no one but Democratic core voters is going to care how many jobs were lost two or three years ago. They’re going to care about how many are created in the next four years. And even then it’s not clear to me how big an issue 6% unemployment ever was - I think the constant harping on it by Democrats trying to be elected keeps the issue in the forefont, but do the voters care?
So I ask again, where are the jobs?
Anyone who is looking for working and not finding it is left out of the loop. It makes no difference where the economy is really expanding at a 7.2% annual rate or note. At the end of the day, without a job, without income to support oneself, all the statements made mean nothing.
Yes, I am being simplistic. Yes, a growing economy should mean opportunities for finding a job are better. However, when will this happen? For those out of work, with unemployment gone, if not savings as well, any talk that jobs will happen three months, six months or nine months down the road, means diddly squat to paying bills now. How many are literally on the street because they have no money? How many are shunned by potential employers because they are not merely out of work, but out of a home as well?
It’s great to talk macro-economics, with flipcharts and grandiose plans for the economy. Ordinary people do not act nor think that way. They talk about looking for work now, interviewing for a job now, getting a job now, paying bills now, etc., and not some potential down the road.
I have no freakin’ idea what the DNC talking points are. The bit about Hoover’s been all over the place, and probably is a DNC talking point by now; if it isn’t they’re not doing their job. As to the importance of jobs, I read about this years ago in that flaming left wing rag, Barron’s. They contended that there was a relationship between how employment was doing about a year before the election and whether or not the incumbent party did well in the Presidential election the next year, on the entirely reasonable assumption that the job market is the thing that counts the most to most voters. Simple common sense, really. (see Duckster’s post.) I tried this myself, and figured out the following: prior to the 1976 election, this rule was meaningless. Starting with that election, and continuing down to the present day, it worked in every election since then until the 2000 election, which Bush won by a nose despite an unemployment rate that was gently trending lower going into the election (although it was a disputed election, so some people might contend that the rule did actually work in 2000.)
My own theory is that it worked between 1976 and 1996 because that period was a period of unusually high unemployment in comparison to the 50s and 60s, and of course no major wars. The rate in 2000 was comparable to the rates that held during the 50s and 60s, so the economy receded as an issue because things were so good, so enough people felt it was safe to change horses to put Bush in the White House.
They’re not so good now, so I think the state of the job market is going to be a strong issue next year. Not the defining issue, but an important one, and given that you could contend the rule worked even in 2000, you can be sure Rove is not relaxing when he thinks about this.
Actually, it is the 21st century…Although this Freudian slip may explain some of the confusion you conservatives are having! 
While 9/11 certainly had a short term negative impact, it is not clear how one can blame it for the economy 2 years later. Particularly since, as noted, it has caused a spending binge that at least partially offsets the negative impact. (I would tend to side with Brutus more in the argument about whether defense spending stimulates the economy. It may not be the most effective stimulus but certainly it is a pretty significant one.)
Well, when my company hires people they use a process predicated on the idea that the best way to predict how someone will act in the future is how they have acted in the past in similar situations. What the Dems have to point out is that instead of grappling with the real economic issues, what this President did is just re-packaged his tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy as a stimulus package. I mean, it was so freakin’ blatant! Remember how the tax cuts were originally predicated on the idea that the surplus should be given back to the taxpayers. It had practically nothing to do with stimulus back then. One should always get suspicious when the proposed solution is the same no matrer what the problem is!
Sam’s right – wealthy shareholders will care about the economy overall, but won’t care about unemployment at all. But that’s as far as his “rightness” goes.
Most people who hold jobs will care about joblessness because that relates directly not only to their chances of finding a job, but to how nasty their job gets. Employers know that in a tight economy they can get away with about anything, and they do.
My suspicion is that if joblessness doesn’t go away by 2004, we can look for election-related hi-jinks ranging from shady stuff to the downright illegal from the Repubs that will make 2000 look like the most honest and forthright election ever held.
“Most” people? Got any evidence to back that up, or is it just speculation?
“Joblessness” won’t "go away’? What does that mean? If you mean that the unemploywment rate won’t go down, then there’s really no need to speculate. We’ll have numbers at the appropriate time to clarify the situation. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open for “shady stuff”, especially from the Pubs. Those guys are just so “shady”!
Sure, unemployment is important because of the secondary effects it has - primarily wage stagnation. The other reason is because rising unemployment makes people worried about their own jobs even if they are employed. That’s why unemployment becomes an issue for the wider population, even if it only represents about 6% of the population.
But the important thing to note is that it’s not the absolute number that’s important - it’s the trend. When unemployment is falling and jobs are being created, people feel better about the direction of the economy. They feel more secure in their own jobs. It’s only when people are losing their jobs around you that you feel like the economy is in trouble.
So I repeat: If unemployment is at 5.8% and falling, then unemployment will have no traction in the election. No one outside of partisan Democrats is going to care whether the number of new jobs reaches some magic 4-year cumulative figure and erases the job losses from the first half of the term.
And here’s the other important number: The Dow. The Baby Boom generation is heavily invested in the stock market. They’re getting up there in years, and have significant retirement investments outside of their 401(k)'s. If the Dow is over 10,000 at election time, the Democrats are in trouble (and it could be over 11,000 and reaching new highs).
Right now, all the trends are moving the President’s way, except possibly in Iraq (and it’s too chaotic there to really know how it’s going to shake out in a year). If Iraq stabilizes, the Dow is over 10,000, there are no new major terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, unemployment is lower and falling… Bush gets re-elected in a landslide.
Common sense, John Mace. It’s been my experience and that of all my co-workers that things at my place of employment get worse every year since the bubble ended, in terms of both raises and benefits, for the simple reason that management knows they can get away with it. My department has had absolutely stellar years these past couple of years, but it’s effect on our compensation relative to other departments, or other companies within the corporation (it’s a big conglomerate) has been mediocre at best. My take-home has been decreasing these past couple of years, as the cost of my health insurance rises faster than the raises I get, which is one of the reasons I think this is so important. Everyone is feeling the pinch from rising health costs.
Sam, you’re thinking Bush will pull a few Hail Mary passes here in the fourth quarter to tie the game, unemployment wise, and that on that basis the country will decide that Bush is a better quarterback - not just as good but better.
Also, note that the stock market is substantially lower than when he took office as well. If it’s trending lower again by election time, which is a 50-50 tossup, more or less, well, it ain’t gonna give him an advantage over and above what he would naturally have with the investing class anyway.
So, to sum up:
1 - He can’t run on jobs because the absolute best he can do is hope to go into Election Day even on this one. This figure, contrary to your “magic number” hypothesis, is used repeatedly and constantly in Presidential elections. Be sure that if this “magic number” isn’t reached, the Democrats are going to pummel him on this, regardless of which way the job market is trending at that time. (Just for the record, it’s still trending higher by any reasonable measure as I write this. So the trend has to reverse for what you write to even begin to be true.) It will be effective too. Count on it.
2 - Ditto for the stock market, unless it has a truly stellar year next year. (I’ve never heard anyone use this in an election, though. No one figures the Prez has anything to do with the level of the stock market.)
3 - He certainly can’t run on fiscal responsibility. Once again, he’ll be pummeled on this one. I’m not sure it’ll be effective, but it’ll be there.
4 - Health costs continue to rise apace, and Bush has no plan I know of to address this. There is the proposal for a prescription drug plan for seniors, but that does nothing to help either workers or employers. Once again, look for Bush to be beaten bloody on this issue.
He can run on:
1 - The tax cuts themselves.
2 - The strong housing market, which has helped his natural base a lot. But like the stock market, I can’t recall ever hearing this brought up in an election contest. But if there’s a way to convert this into votes, Rove will find it.
3 - Strong rises in wages. For some reason, wages are moving up nicely overall, according to a recent story in The Times. If that proves to be a trend, this will be a definite wind to Bush’s back, and certainly something he can use against the Democrats.