Deficit spending is like heroin.

It feels very very good at first.

It feels very very bad when you stop.

And you need to keep taking more and more to feel the same.

Until you die or stop.

This administration is addicted.

Wait for it... wait for it...

The BIG SPENDING republican party has lost my vote this year. I can not cast one vote for a party that is threating the distruction of our dollar and quality of life with their out of control spending. This is NOT the party I voted for in 2004 and I an my entire family are sickened by this party and president for their out of control spending and record debt. 8.4 Trillion SHAME on you Congress and YOU President Bush.

Psh, yeah it's just now right back where it was almost FIVE YEARS ago. Some improvement, we're just breaking even! Compare this to what Clinton did!

Oh, and did you forget that nine-trillion dollar deficit? And that the gap between the rich and poor is growing ever wider, and that people have to work at Taco Bell to support their families? This is ANYTHING but good news!

*turns off imitation*

*Chuckles*

No fair Omega I was waiting for one of our friends.

I'm sorry, Gozer, I couldn't help myself.

It's just so predictable...whenever good news about the economy approaches, it's always back to the deficit, or the mythical "low end jobs" that account for the employment rates, or the tax cuts "for the rich."

I'm certain there's some sort of simple equation to come up with talking points.

Psh, yeah it's just now right back where it was almost FIVE YEARS ago. Some improvement, we're just breaking even! Compare this to what Clinton did!

Oh, and did you forget that nine-trillion dollar deficit? And that the gap between the rich and poor is growing ever wider, and that people have to work at Taco Bell to support their families? This is ANYTHING but good news!

Posted by Omega Destructor at May 1, 2006 05:44 PM

Are you trying to tell me that no one worked at Taco Bell before???

Clinton tried to balance the books by raising taxes some 250 billion dollars on the backs of people (yes, even some of those who worked at taco bell). It was when the replicans sponsored tax relief for us workers that the economy finaly took off.

So lets get this straight,
Bush had to clean up the dot com mess.
Bush had to deal with the horrific after effects of 911 (which clinton ignored all the lead up to)
America is fighting (and winning) the efforts in Afganistan and Iraq.
This was and is no small feat considering he had to drag people such as yourself foward in spite of yourself.
Home ownership is at an all time high. Unemployment is hovering around 4.8%.
The hit our economy took on 911 was devastating . It is tremedous that it ONLY took this long to not only stabilize our country, but to return it to a foundation that is stronger than before.

Woah woah Ohio. Omega is on our side. You should have waited to unload until someone else posted, but your post will still be valid when our usual friends post. :)

Ohio,

I'm saying that all of the new jobs are at fast food restaurants or other low-end jobs. This is only to be expected because Bush is too busy with his tax cuts for the rich to stop all of the good jobs from outsourcing to China.

You right-wing fascists are all hypocrites. You attribute the good economy on Republican efforts in Clinton's era, and also on the dot com bubble. But when Bush runs the poor economy, it's all because of outside sources, not at all the fault of corrupt Republican Congressmen!

If you think Afghanistan and Iraq are a success, think again! The Iraqis hate us, most of the terrorists there are home-grown! All we're doing there is fostering a new generation of terrorists!

As soon as the home-ownsership bubble bursts, this economy is dead. Don't expect the employment rate to change, however, because all of the unemployed realtors will just work at McDonalds!

Stop drinking the kool-aid. peace

*turns off imitation*

OMFG! Warn me before you do that Omega! I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything. :)

Omega,
Now you're just creepin' me out. But, you forgot to mention that Bush's popularity is 33%!

Ya know, this should be good news for us as a country that things are bouncing back. Instead the democrats have to take the time to tear it down because their guy wasn't in office.

Just a heads up, the headline is wrong. It hasn't hit the all-time high but it is nearing it.

Hopefully it will hit 11,000 before the end of Summer

It must be because the Wall Street wonks are celebrating the three years of peace commemorated today by "Mission Accomplished Day"?

Why no posts and pictures of reflection, Mark Noonan?

mw & ron

What the hell do your posts have to do with the Dow Jones Industrial Average???

It really must suck to be you. Please seek therapy before you hurt yourselves.

Ok, I have a question........ I wonder if this has anything, anything at all that has to do with immigrants not working today???

GodOBiscuits

For those that were on that ship, they know that their mission was accomplished.

Why you make it out to be something it wasn't, it beyond me.

Why don't you read the text of Bush's speech while on the ship and how he goes into many times how this will be a struggle that will take YEARS and much hard work was left to do.

Instead, in your vile and hatred of the right and of this president and of our troops, you focus on Mission Accomplished terminology that was for the men and women on that ship that..in fact...had accomplished their mission.

Would you like a link to the speech?

send me the link. and then go find the link to how many people (yes, HUMANS, not just Americans) have died SINCE "Mission Accomplished Day", three years ago. Post both, or post neither.

I dont' hate the USA. I don't hate the office of the President. in fact, i had nothing but respect for the office. that's why I don't like bush.

How many times do people you disagree with have to keep saying this?

Did you hate america when you hated Clinton? Gore?

Oh, and by the way, the opening line of the speech:

Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.

The speech wasn't addressed only to the ship. It was addressed to America. It was a media stunt and a manufactured photo op. And you know it. And you're becoming increasingly twisted from decency and rational reality more and more every time you try to make excuses.

Get your facts correct. It was meant for the world to see. And you know it.

"Instead the democrats have to take the time to tear it down because their guy wasn't in office."

Hey I don't care whose guy is in office, my 401k went up 11 grand today while I was sitting at the computer badgering, annoying, bugging, chafing, pestering, miffing, nagging and needling dbog.

Ash,

Come back sometime in the future, when you've grown into adulthood and joined the rest of the world, outside of your delusional, self-absorbed, parallel universe. In the meantime, go away and let the big boys play. You're not up to the task, based upon what I've seen in your blithering posts...

During Clinton’s term (’93-’00) the DJA grew on average of 1,000 points per year. During Bush’s term the DJA has not grown one point. If Bush did not screw-up the economy, the DJA would be over 17,000 by now.

Biscuts

Here is the link. Read the ENTIRE SPEECH

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/01/iraq/main551946.shtml

Barney

If Clinton had not let the economy go into a recession, if his buddy who invented the internet didn't let the .com bubble burst, and if Clinton had actually taken care of Al Queda and Bin Laden when he was offered on a silver platter....well then maybe the DOW would be higher now.

But he was too busy using interns as cigar humidors, cheating on his wife, selling secrets to the Chinese, ignoring terrorism, and banging any chick other than his wife to care.

Blarney,

From the DJIA Web site: "the Dow Jones Industrial Average (rose) to an all-time closing high of 11722.98 on January 14, 2000. By mid-February of that year, the Dow had fallen by more than 10% as smokestack companies reported problems dealing with an oil-price surge to more than $30 a barrel. The Dow sank to a close below 10000 on February 25, rebounded a bit the following week and then dove to its 2000 closing low of 9796.04 on March 7......The Dow suffered all year from signs that the economy-absent the Internet-led tech boom-had begun slowing in 1999 and was slipping into stagnation as the presidential election approached."

Then: "The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a five-year closing low of 7286.27 on October 9, 2002" This was after the effects of the dot.com bubble burst and 9-11.

By the end of 2003, the tax cuts had been passed and the DJIA leapt to 10453.92, and increase of over 3,175 in just over 12 months. Since the end of 2003, it has increased another 900 points.

All this after overcoming the effects of the dot.com bubble, that had propelled the Dow to record heights, bursting, 9-11, devastating hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, and increasing oil prices.

If you go from the low point in October 2002 of 7286, which reflects the recession the Bush Administration inherited from the Clinton Administration and the effects of 9-11, caused, in part, by Clinton's failure to deal with the rising threat of global terrorism, to now, you will see an increase of about 4,000 points or about 1,140 points per year. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

How about a look at the part of the article not quoted in Matt's post. . .

"Behind the rebound is a solid economy, emphasized last Friday when the Commerce Department reported that the nation's gross domestic product grew at a swift 4.8 percent, the best growth in 2-1/2 years. Indeed, the healthy economy is pumping up CORPORATE earnings, which have been growing at DOUBLE-DIGIT rates. Some of the fastest-growing engines of economic growth are at the nation's smallest companies, whose stocks have averaged about a 20 percent gain per year for the past five years.

. . . and then there is this. . .

One reason is that even though times are good, US companies still act as if they might have to close their doors tomorrow, squeezing productivity gains out of their machines and WORKERS. This was evident again last Friday, when the government reported that WAGE AND SALARY GROWTH WAS FLAT in the first quarter despite a relatively low 4.8 percent unemployment rate. "After the big recession, companies really pulled in their horns, trimmed their capital expenditures, became leaner and meaner," says Mr. Nunes.
. . .

So, lets review. Corporate profits up. "...trimmed their capital expenditures", fancy language for layoffs. Wage and salary growth flat. Agreed, the economy is great if you are a corporation. Wage and salary earners, well, not so great. we are supposed to handle higher energy prices, higher health care costs,higher education costs, etc, etc on "flat" growth.

I call it a strong economy when both corporation and workers are thriving. Remember the 90's?

See,that is the part that doesn't make the left happy, and you left it out of your original post!

a10, can you tell me how many dotcom companies were part of DJA from 1999 to 2002?

If, as you claim, the collapse of the economy was caused by the energy crisis than we can still blame it on Bush and his friends in the energy business such as Cheney and Ken Lay. You know, the guys how wrote the current energy legislation.

You mean the energy legislation that wasn't passed until last year....gee Blarney, does a fact ever cross your keyboard or your mind?

By the way, the DJA is still effected whether or not a .com is part of the stocks in the DJA or not. If people are losing jobs because the .com bubble burst, that means people are reluctant to invest.

Did you graduate from school?

dav wrote,
"... capital expenditures", fancy language for layoffs"

Payroll is not a capital expenditure; it's an operating expense.

" ...WAGE AND SALARY GROWTH WAS FLAT in the first quarter ..."

But wage and salary has grown significantly since 2000, in all sectors. (see: BLS)

Let's review; dav never finished an accounting class, marketing or economics course.

Warriornation, i already went and read the speech. Did you? Do you think it was specifically addressed to the men and women on that single ship?

Do you or don't you think it was an extremely staged media event? If so, then just admit it was. If not, then please explain why he had to put on a flight suit and arrive by landing a jet on the carrier deck, standing in front of a sign that said, "Mission Accomplished", for all the world to see?

And again, i'm still waiting for one of you to pony up the stats on how many americans and how many iraqi civilians and military have died since "Mission Accomplished Day".

And then tell me how it's not already "another Vietnam", like Bush PROMISED it wouldn't be?

And THEN, Warriornation, tell me why, for how much you all hate the media and their "bias", do you trust a link from cbsnews.com?

Biscuits

Then if you read the speech you couldn't miss the following now could you....unless you were filled with hate and vitriol and didn't want to see anything that went against your pre-conceived ideas (sure sounds to me he isn't saying Mission Accomplished...oh, in fact HE IS NOT):

"Our mission continues. Al-Qaida is wounded, not destroyed."

"The war on terror is not over, yet it is not endless."

"We have difficult work to do in Iraq."

"The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. And then we will leave — and we will leave behind a free Iraq."

"The Battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001, and still goes on."

"Yet we also have dangerous work to complete."

"The scattered cells of the terrorist network still operate in many nations, and we know from daily intelligence that they continue to plot against free people. The proliferation of deadly weapons remains a serious danger. The enemies of freedom are not idle, and neither are we."

GoB,

I think your hatred for President Bush is indivative of a serious physiological disorder. I think you have a chronic case of BDS. As you know, liberalism is a mental illness. But it is treatable with large doses of conservative blogs and talk radio.

How many have died since 1 May 2003? I don't have the exact numbers, but I know for certain that it is far less than the number of Iraqis that would have died under the tyranical regime of Saddam. DUring his regime, Iraqis were being murdered at the rate of over 100 per day.

Based on the most accurate extimates, it is believed that about 30,000 Iraqis have died in the past three year. This number includes terrorists, those killed by terrorists, and those non-combatants killed during coalition military operations. The fatality rate is then about 30 per day, including the enemy, compared to the 100 innocents killed each day under Saddam. So about 80,000 Iraqis are alive today that would have died under Saddam. Sounds like a significant reduction to me.

Of course, you realize that "Mission Accomplishment Day", as you call it, was in recognition of the mission that had been accomplished by the USS Abraham Lincoln, not the overall mission in Iraq, or worldwide in the War on Terror.

Oh, wait. Your a liberal. You need to spin everything so it is a negative, rather than celebrate the libertion of 25,000,000 Iraqis, the spread of democracy throughout the Middle East, and the reduction of the threat of terrorism. But you don't care about the Iraqis, do you? You only care about bashing President Bush.

If you don't see the difference between defending South Vietnam against an invading North Vietnam, who wanted to unite the country under communist rule, and Iraq, where we have accomplished regime change, as was our official policy since 1998, you are blind, in additional to being deaf and dumb.

Finally, most of us conservatives don't hate the MSM. We would just like them to do one of two things: (1) Report the news, good and bad, without their personal biases, or (2) Admit that they are biased. As it is, they are frequently trying to pass off their personal opinion as news.

You see (if you would take off your blinders), the reason that Rush, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the new media is so successful and has such a large following, is because they admit that they lean to the right. You know where they are coming from. With the MSM, they claim to be neutral, when surveys have shown that over 70% of them are liberal.

You are so far left that you think Fox News is a right wing mouthpiece, while those of us right of center think it has a decent balance of liberal personalities and conservative personalities. The news on Fox is pretty much down the middle, but can swing left or right.

Further, we don't hate them. We just don't trust them (Remember RatherGate? Newsweek's fake flushed Koran that caused 15 deaths? NBC's exploding trucks?).

"As you know, liberalism is a mental illness"

Nothing you say after something as idiotic and partisan as that can possibly be worth the time, A-10.

care to try again?

How many American civilians have died? how many Iraqi?

Are American lives worth more than Iraqi lives?

Are you pro-life?

GoB,

Nice try to highjack the thread. Take your strawman arguments to another thread.

I see that the Dow closed at 11416 yesterday, just 334 from a new alltime record.

Its amazing how well its doing considering the horrible economic times we are going through. What with a 4.7% unemployment rate, Consumer Confidence rising, average hourly earning at a record level, low interest rates, record home ownership rates, low inflation rates, and a record number of people employed, you'd think the Market would be down around 2,000 and we'd see food lines everywhere.

/sarcasm off

I noticed Dog Biscuits still hasn't commented on the rest of the Bush Speech on "Mission Accomplished"

What's wrong Biscuits, cat got your tongue?

Ahh, A-10, if you can't support the stupidity, you just throw a strawman by claiming the opposition is using a strawman? You zipped past hypocrisy a long long time ago.

If the speech was all about how much more work there was to be done, then why "Mission Accomplished"? Why did he GET IN THE COCKPIT OF A JET AND LAND IT on that carrier?

If the job wasn't nearly over, why a grandiose speech that gave the sound-bite implication that it WAS over?

Easy. Deceit.

and, warriornation, have i taken to calling you names? why do you resort to that?

So the Dow is up. I'm a liberal and I own some stock. yay for me. The stock market is good for the corporations, and it mostly doens't follow that that's good for real live people.

GoB,

Are you stuck on stupid? The "Mission Accomplished" sign was put up by the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln, not by the President. They had accomplished their mission, as had the rest of the US military by enforcing the UN Resolutions and instituting regime change in Iraq. That you cannot deny.

As for landing in a jet, the President had three options for traveling out the the USS Abraham Lincoln, which was several hundred miles off the coast of California, to congradulate the crew: (1) Fly out by the S-3B Viking, which he did (Flight time less than an hour); (2) Fly out by C-2A Greyhound, a propeller-driven aircraft (Flight time about double that of the S-3B; (3) Fly out by helicopter (Flight time about 3-4 times that of the S-3B). Seems to me the most effective means to fly out to the USS Abraham Lincoln was by jet.

Why do you HATE PRESIDENT BUSH SO MUCH. Only someone with severe BDS would get so wrapped up in him flying out by jet. Did we throw a hissy fit when President Clinton ordered a US warship to cruise through the English Channel so he could pose on the Normandy Beach with the warship in the background?

"Of course, you realize that "Mission Accomplishment Day", as you call it, was in recognition of the mission that had been accomplished by the USS Abraham Lincoln, not the overall mission in Iraq, or worldwide in the War on Terror."

"Are you stuck on stupid? The "Mission Accomplished" sign was put up by the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln, not by the President. They had accomplished their mission, as had the rest of the US military by enforcing the UN Resolutions and instituting regime change in Iraq. That you cannot deny.

Stop it! Please, I'm begging you. I can't breath I'm laughing so hard. Please, my sides ache from laughing. What a bunch of funny guys. What a bunch of rubes...

maroons.