August 25, 2008
Are you better off now than 8 years ago?

FROM CNN’s Jack Cafferty:

Ronald Reagan had some success with this question a few years ago and things weren’t nearly as crummy then as they are now: Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago? But this time it’s been 8 years.

Think about it: unemployment is rising. The rate stands at 5.7% and we have lost 463,000 jobs since the first of the year. And so is inflation. It’s accelerating at a faster rate than it has in 17 years. Gas prices are up 34% in the last year. Oil was around $26 a barrel when President Bush was inaugurated… it touched $147 a few weeks ago. More than 1 million homes are now in foreclosure.

Here are some national comparisons between today and where things were 8 years ago: Americans’ wages have actually gone down since the last recession ended. And we are spending 14.1% of our disposable income on debt; that’s higher than it was in 2001.

Americans are pretty glum about the future, too. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index stood at almost 85% in 2001; now it’s just below 52%.

Also, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll finds 75% of those surveyed think the economy is in bad shape; that’s compared to just 43% who felt that way a year ago.

So as the conventions get under way and the campaign for the White House heats up — voters have a lot to think about.

Here’s my question to you: With the election 71 days away, are you better off now than you were eight years ago?

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases:
If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
-Ronald Reagan (1986)

In my humble opinion, McCain has done nothing but offer more of the same as his party's current President. He may have been considered a 'maverick' at one time, but in the last two years, he has voted with the President and his party 95-100% of the time.

So basically, he is a guarantee of 4 more years of Bush & Republican policies that have devastated our country. That's the real issue.

Think about it: unemployment is rising. The rate stands at 5.7% and we have lost 463,000 jobs since the first of the year.

And so is inflation. It’s accelerating at a faster rate than it has in 17 years. Gas prices are up 34% in the last year. Oil was around $26 a barrel when President Bush was inaugurated… it touched $147 a few weeks ago.

More than 1 million homes are now in foreclosure.

Here are some national comparisons between today and where things were 8 years ago: Americans’ wages have actually gone down since the last recession ended. And we are spending 14.1% of our disposable income on debt; that’s higher than it was in 2001.

Also, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll finds 75% of those surveyed think the economy is in bad shape; that’s compared to just 43% who felt that way a year ago.

Here’s my question to you: With the election 71 days away, are you better off now than you were eight years ago?

I'm definitely not better off than I was four years ago. My purchasing power and the value of my house have gone down. Everything's become more expensive and the cost of gasoline has gone through the roof.

I am better off, but my case is the exception to the rule, I overcame two foreclosures and saved my house by the skin of my teeth. . . Despite the divorce.

I know many of my fellow Americans didn't fare as well as I did, but I didn't even date for over a year to save enough to save my home.

McSame doesn't know how many houses he has, how appropriate, since many Americans can't answer that question either, because they don't know if they are going to save their only home. . .

I'm more or less the same as I was 4 years ago, but I live a very non-traditional lifestyle.

I'm against debt. I don't do it. I didn't even do it when I had no money. Bought a rehab house for a dollar, drove junkers, got good jobs, started businesses. Bought better houses, and cars, all paid for. It's amazing how much more money you have when you just REFUSE to go into debt.

Don't say it's not possible, because it is.

If you don't pay all that interest, you'd be surprised how much more money you will have. It also "recession proofs" you.

4 years ago I was employed at a good job surrounded by greedy republicans. They were pretty much like McCain, in high positions but couldn't use computers.

I discovered technology that would have cut the company's telecom expenses by 80%. It would have eliminated the need for paying for jobs that were obsolete and it would have cut insurance rates over 60%.

However, these people that surrounded me were receiving huge kickbacks from vendors and so they decided to launch a smear campaign against me and moved to have me fired. They found that it would take 4 engineers and 2 analysis's to replace me and they expected me to train my replacements. Every replacement I was training quit when they saw the environment they would have to work in and realized they did not have to qualifications to do the jobs I was doing.

When they finally canned me, they expected me to sign an agreement stating I would not disclose any of the corruption I uncovered with a 3 months severance package.

My lawyer, negotiated a very large sum for me not to make the knowledge public and I still got to make a report to the regulatory authorities.

So even though I don't make as much money now, I don't have to work among a bunch of crooks, I was able to cash in my 401K without penaty and so I didn't loose that investment and have started a business to help rout out corruption.

When the democrats are in control, I'll be glad to help them rout out as much corruption as possible.

Always bear in mind:

*It's possible for the federal government to slow the economy down, just by giving tax cuts to rich people, who invest the money into companies who use it to buy up smaller companies, which eliminates jobs and competition, thus concentrating the ownership of companies into the hands of less and less owners.

*When big companies buy up small companies, they can raise prices as high as they want, because nobody else is in the market to compete with them. They can afford to wait until you HAVE to buy a car, a shirt, a tv, an appliance; because they're the only ones you can buy it from, and eventually you'll have to pay their prices for it. Of course, we don't have monopolies, but if there are only 3 or 4 suppliers in the market, do they really have to call each other to figure how to fix their prices?

In the current environment, can America endure 8 more years of the status quo? or even 4 more years?

So basically, he is a guarantee of 4 more years of Bush & Republican policies

And what Presidential policies, exactly, have "devastated our country"?

And the outcome of your report to the regulatory authorities was?

Last I heard, getting kickbacks from vendors, is a felonious act, in the US; it's also actionable in a civil proceeding. You didn't sue the company under the protection of the Whistler Blower laws, and win a tremendously huge Judgment? Why not?

My lawyer, negotiated a very large sum for me not to make the knowledge public and I still got to make a report to the regulatory authorities.

Many, many, people who have 401k's await to hear how you were able to cash out your 401k and bypass the stringent provisions of the Internal Revenue Code.

But you are so naieve that you blame the Democrats. . . If you really paid attention to what causes economic trends, you would know that it isn't the Democrats that cause economic stagnation, it is the concentration of wealth that has occured in the past 30 years.

Reaganomics is hurting you, but your blind loyalty to the party doing you in is sealing your own fate.

My profession is immune to the economic downturn. I am fine, but I hope that there are sweeping changes in the political arena, so people like you, despite our differences, are able to rise again.

IMHO, based upon what I've been able to learn, this foreclosure crisis was brought on by a LOT of loudmouth cry babies spewing about how they were being discriminated against, because banks would not give them a mortgage. The reasons varied, but, there were as many classes being discriminated against, as there are people.

So, banks loosened up their lending standards, so more people could buy homes.

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/mar/13/news/mn-36966

JFK Family Asks GOP to Drop Tax Cut Ad
March 13, 2001 in print edition A-5

The family of former President John F. Kennedy asked a group of Republican consultants on Monday to spike a radio ad for the Bush administration’s tax cut that includes a clip of the late president pitching his own across-the-board tax cuts in 1962.

The letter from Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late former president, and his brother Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said the GOP ad is “intellectually dishonest and politically irresponsible.”

“President Kennedy’s tax cut was responsible. Only 6% of President Kennedy’s tax cut went to those earning over $300,000 in today’s dollars. The Bush tax cut gives them seven times that,” said the letter to GOP consultant Greg Mueller.

The Kennedys said a better comparison is with the Reagan tax cut “that favored the wealthiest Americans.”

The Republicans said they would continue to use the ad. Bill Dal Col, a consultant involved in the ad, said: “It’s a policy ad and a policy debate. I’m sure President Kennedy would have wanted a vigorous policy debate.”

IMHO, based upon what I've been able to learn, this foreclosure crisis was brought on by a LOT of loudmouth cry babies spewing about how they were being discriminated against, because banks would not give them a mortgage. The reasons varied, but, there were as many classes being discriminated against, as there are people.

So, banks loosened up their lending standards, so more people could buy homes.

thats pretty funny. even the banks don't have the balls to say that with a straight face.

But Mr. Greenspan wasn’t the only top official who put ideology above public protection. Consider the press conference held on June 3, 2003 — just about the time subprime lending was starting to go wild — to announce a new initiative aimed at reducing the regulatory burden on banks. Representatives of four of the five government agencies responsible for financial supervision used tree shears to attack a stack of paper representing bank regulations. The fifth representative, James Gilleran of the Office of Thrift Supervision, wielded a chainsaw.

Also in attendance were representatives of financial industry trade associations, which had been lobbying for deregulation. As far as I can tell from press reports, there were no representatives of consumer interests on the scene.

Two months after that event the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, one of the tree-shears-wielding agencies, moved to exempt national banks from state regulations that protect consumers against predatory lending. If, say, New York State wanted to protect its own residents — well, sorry, that wasn’t allowed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/opinion/21krugman.html

It may sound strange, but, ask any economist, and they will tell you that cutting taxes increases revenue to governments.

It's a simple equation, the more money people have to spend, the more money they will spend.