So let me see... the official poverty rate is currently 12.3 percent and the official unemployment rate is currently something like 4.3 percent. I dunno... is that discrepancy worth a discussion? If so, why? If not, why not? Either way, it seems to me kind of important -- especially for the GOP.

mark
agreed
tax cuts are good
how much the govt borrows and spends off of it
that's where your buddy busholio is a bad dog

thanks
seeya

thats great. Now if only poverty rates hadn't been increasing ever since Bush took over in 2000 we might actually be in a good situation... Sigh...

NEW YORK (AP) - Volatility returned to Wall Street Tuesday, sending stocks plunging as investors grew more uneasy about the economy and whether the Federal Reserve will take the steps needed to prevent credit market problems from spreading further. The Dow Jones industrials fell more than 250 points.
Oh yeah, it's all good.

markie mark
on second thought
you weren't thinking to post up the braggin rights on poverty
you're gloating that there's 36.5 mm at the poverty level
and here's an interesting fun fact.....
"The number of people over the age of 65 who lived in poverty fell last year to 3.4 million from 3.6 million in 2005, while the 18-64 age group showed no change at 20.2 million in poverty"

I gotta give the dems credit on this one, apparently the Democrats have come up with so many successful economic programs that people living in trailer parks can afford to donate thier entire years salary to her re-elction campaign.

I mean, you just cant argue with an economic success story like that.

lol, LiberalNightmare--good one!

If you troll kooks want to see real poverty, you need to venture overseas. The "poor" in the U.S. own cars, houses, have A/C, cable, and cell phones. Sure, there's a few really poor people in America, but you can rest assured that most of the identified poor aren't destitute. Or you can jump on Silky's "two Americas" bus. Either way, I couldn't care less.

Now excuse me while I go wash my Beemer...

Yep Trout (Salvelinus),
It's all good; market is still way ahead and fortunes are being made. But I'm confused; are you saying that a drop in the market is good for poverty? or is it bad for poverty? 'cuz I just know you wouldn't go rambling off topic just to make snide sophomoric comments.

Personally, I'm joining LBJ's "War on Poverty" because democrats are so successful at combating the ravages of poverty; think I'll nuke a homeless family. Jus' doin’ my part.

Or maybe I can jump on that Clinton "Welfare Reform" bandwagon; except, after signing the Republican Bill and promising the party faithful he'd rescind it right after the election he never actually did; rescind it that is; funny thing … without Clinton’s tinkering it worked.

Then again, I could join the Edwards Two Americans campaign. This is liberalism at its best; you don’t have to actually do anything, just feel their pain.

Keefer, If you truly want to help; pay a poor democrat to wash your Beemer.

Once again class repeat after me:

The poverty threshold for a family of 4 is $20,444 which does not include, what they revieve in government subsidies like food stamps, housing subsidies, child support, welfare or unemployment payments. Nor does it include interest on investments or savings, or what is earned but not reported (the underground economy].

Ín 1998, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rossotti estimated that the federal government is losing $195 billion per year in revenue due to the failure of people to report income and pay taxes on it.

How many of those folks are reported as poor, reporting no income or income under $20,000????

How much of that is paid to illegal aliens????

Recoup that and the debt disappears!!!!!!!

Yeah, an 8 trillion debt and a war that could cost up to 3 trillion (including vets benefits, etc.) mean tax cuts are great.

Also--related, may be of interest

The median household income was $48,200, a slight increase from the previous year. But the number of people without health insurance also increased, to 47 million.

Evelyn Brodkin, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said she expects the rising number of people without insurance to get more attention in the campaign. The share of Americans without health insurance hit 15.8 percent last year, up from 15.3 percent the previous year.

Johnson said the increase in the percentage of uninsured was mostly fueled by a decline in employer-provided health coverage. “It affects people in the middle, and it affects corporations,” Brodkin said. “Especially those who compete globally, they are really hurting because they have to compete with companies that don’t have huge health insurance bills for their labor force.”

OK, so no national health coverage of course?

Word.

ThELefTYFoOL

Dasein: But I'm confused; are you saying that a drop in the market is good for poverty? or is it bad for poverty? 'cuz I just know you wouldn't go rambling off topic just to make snide sophomoric comments.

The fact that the market is dropping is per se inconsequential to poverty. However, considering why the market is dropping in this particular case, there seems to me all sorts of reasons why it doesn't portend well for poor folks. Wouldn't you agree?

"The median household income was $48,200, a slight increase from the previous year. But the number of people without health insurance also increased, to 47 million."

Perhaps you should read this then:

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2007/20070718153509.aspx

It should make you feel better. But it doesn't fit your world view, so I'm aure you will just ignore it.

jbiccum,

Don’t confuse them with facts! What were you thinking?

• If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
P.J. O'Rourke

Ricorun,
Well, thanks for answering my obviously sarcastic rhetorical question in place of the trout-sniffer.

I’ve mentioned this before; the market losses aren’t related to equities, per se; equities are merely caught I the crosshairs as investors are worried about access to capital in the market where capital is in jeopardy. We don’t know how far and how deep the sub-prime losses will cut, and if financial institutions don’t have fungible assets they stand to lose significantly if they’re forced to borrow at higher rates just to stay ahead of the money curve. That’s why the Fed stepped in and suspended the overnight borrowing penalty (0.5%).

How will that affect the working poor? Historically it has zero effect; poverty rose in the 1990’s at a predictable rate until the Welfare Reform bill (1996) passed and then began shrinking until the recession hit in 2000-2001. From 2001 to 2006 the number and % increased slightly but never reached the level of the mid-1990’s. Two things played into the rise in the 1990’s; the market rose precipitously from 1995 to 2000 while poverty also rose from 1995 to 1997. After 1997 the market continued rising while poverty fell. Market/poverty = no correlation.

The larger question is how the access of capital will affect the poverty numbers; historically the answer is the same in the short run; because (as phnx has pointed out) income and benefits are not conditional on monetary availability; persons with incomes of less than $30,000 are not trying to capitalize market losses or invest in durable goods beyond the freezer in the garage. So if the market tightens the so-called working poor won’t be affected unless the dip in availability lasts for 2 or more years, at which time businesses will close and unemployment will rise. There isn’t a qualified economist out there that believes that will be the case.

As to the fool; quoting a political scientist isn’t the most effective way to make an argument. “Politics isn’t science, it’s an art.” Richard Nixon

Dasien,
assets are traded for magicaly created money
there's now more money = inflation
wages are stickier that prices
the poor will recieve lower wages

Politicians don't care because the downward pressure on wages is very small, almost invisible, but they effect almost everyone, the advantages are huge and visible, but effect only a few. Politicians will take credit for the advantages while ignoring the disadvantages. This is the same reason politicians support trade protectionism even though it collectively hurts us.

I should also say that reserve and overnight rates have been reduced as well. This creates even more inflation, although this could have happened in a free market, but in this case fed policy is backed by the threat of violence, so it's moral defensability is far lower.

robert,
The economy isn’t zero-sum-gain; the reason we have a Federal Reserve is to make money available or to restrict its availability. Increased money isn’t necessarily an increase in M1; the basic money supply, it is usually the Fed resending the reserves back into the market via loans, buybacks or guarantees. I’d be curious to see how that could be inflationary. Remember that the banks must pay back the short term loans, and if the Fed has done its job the payback is less than it would have been otherwise,, thus making the $$’s worth more stable than inflationary.

The single biggest thing the Fed has done recently is the Buyback; taking back the speculative money futures at current rates for a short term with the condition that the banks buyback the futures at a penalty. This infuses money into the market while holding the asset in trust; if the institutions don’t buyback (as in they’ve gone belly-up) there are other speculators that will jump on the opportunity to buy these at drastically reduced rates (the original investor has already taken all the risk).

We discussed a while back the reasons for the Great Depression and the Keynesian idea that the Government becomes a consumer or the Freidman (Chicago) theory of money availability. Friedman was right; Keynesians tragically wrong.

The economy will slow as a result of the turmoil in the market but not because the economic indicators are down (which they are not) but because the fear of money availability is causing business to remove the asset from the market in anticipation of having money removed from the market; a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don’t see any downward pressure on wages at this time, and so long as business can get their fungible assets there won’t be any pressure to lower wages. As I said, if the situation lasts 2 or more years then we will have an effect on wages, employment and growth, for now look only to a slowing of growth for the time being. A recession is possible; but I don’t see enough indicators pointing in that direction.

Protectionism appeals to the nativists and the anti-Capitalists. It is difficult to explain why it hurts us, so politicians pander to our worst fears. Witness the way they demagogue the trade imbalance as if it’s a bad thing. It reminds me of the time in the 1980’s when Japanese financial institutions were buying up property all around the Los Angeles area. I listened to frantic calls for regulation of “Foreign Owned” businesses because the Japanese could bankrupt us if they wanted.

I haven’t checked recently, but I believe those plots of land are still in LA, and not one of them has moved to the Sea of Japan … yet!

Dasein,
The post was meant to illustrate that all is not well with the national economy -- the opposite of what the original post intended to suggest.
P.s.
Salvelinus refers to the genus of salmonid fishes known as char (or charr). Thanks for displaying your expertise, however.

Okay ... Charr,
I first heard the term when fishing for lake trout in Northern California with my dad, are there trout in the genus salvelinus, or am I ill-informed?

Perhaps you can illustrate how the current volitility in the equities market indicates that "all is not well" with the economy. I think I've accurately demonstrated historically that the equities market fluctuations don't impact poverty. I'll give you the list of Economic Indicators as a starting point.

I just checked Wikipedia; I guess I must have been fishing for brook trout (speckled) in a Lake and mistakenly referred to them as lake trout. My dad wouldn't have made that mistake. I guess I can learn something new everyday.

"Dasein,
The post was meant to illustrate that all is not well with the national economy -- the opposite of what the original post intended to suggest." - Salvelinus

There's nothing fundamentaly wrong with the economy, the fed increases liquidity so there's a small inflationary effect. I wasn't nessicaraly criticizing the fed's action, just saying a small effect.

But there's been constant inflation in the US since like the 30's.

Inflation hurts the poor(or at least laborers) because a 5% change in revenue for an entrepreneur will usually make or break him, and a 5% difference in wages down the street usually won't make you quit your job. So prices will rise faster than wages generaly(usualy many times before wages rise) and this effect lowers real wages slightly.

Of course this isn't a democrat or republican problem, it's just an economic phenomenon. Now politicians can make it a problem, like the inflation from Vietnamn, people would work hard and get raises and promotions and never get to buy any more stuff. It's like running on a financial treadmill when inflation gets that high.

robert,
Absolutely! Inflation is regressive. Currently, wages are outpacing inflation, real earnings are staying abreast if not beating inflation. Remember that CPI isn't inflation; and some effects, like oil prices have an immediate effect on CPI but a rolling effect on inflation.

Under normal circumstances a lowering of money rates can be inflationary; in this case I don't believe it'll have that effect; rates aren’t lowered across the board (yet) so there shouldn’t be pressure to restrict the money supply for a while. The Fed did make it clear that they are more concerned with a market melt-down than nominal inflation. If you want to watch this play out, watch the trading on 10-year Treasury Notes; if they start to rise than Wall Street shares your fears.

(just a suggestion, buddy ... you might want to run your posts through spell-check.)