« A Gray Day | Main | Theatre notices »
August 07, 2004
It's STILL the Economy, Stpuid
32,000 jobs were created last month. Sounds like good news, right? Not if you’re a highly paid economic analyst who just predicted 225,000 jobs would be created in the last month. So what happens? Because lots of someones guessed and guessed wrong, the Stock Market reacted badly and tanked over 150 points. The Dow Jones average is now 9815 and change, pretty low for a rebounding economy.
As August rapidly marches on, the economy will be yet again be the engine that will most likely drive the swing voters on November 2.
All John Kerry has to do is start asking people, sometime in October, is “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
And voters will pause as they pump their $2+ gasoline en route to buy $4 a gallon milk with the remnants of their last unemployment check and the answer may be clear. Sure, that’s a dire scenario, but clearly confidence in the economy is lacking, salaries aren’t keeping up with inflation and terrorism remains scary white background noise.
Should American troops still be getting killed at current rates come November 2, the American Public will hopefully want a change in regime. If not, we’ll get we deserve and pay for it for years to come.
Welcome to the weekend.
Posted by Bob Greenberger at August 7, 2004 09:54 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.malibulist.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1810
Comments
Did you happen to catch the UNITY convention speech yesterday on C-SPAN? That was almost painful to watch. The look on the faces of those poor folks said it all.
Posted by: Joe Tages ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://bgb.malibulist.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 7, 2004 02:20 PM
All John Kerry has to do is start asking people, sometime in October, is “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
You know, a lot of people have been suggesting that he do this, and I have yet to see him do this. I wonder why.
Posted by: Michael at August 8, 2004 08:36 AM
No, I missed the UNITY speech. Can someone fill me in?
Posted by: BobGreenberger at August 8, 2004 12:12 PM
Bush spoke at the annual UNITY convention on Friday before leaving for his nephew's wedding in Maine, which was yesterday. UNITY is an organization of ethnic journalists. Since minorities are not exactly Dubya's target audience, he met with a chilly reception. C-SPAN broadcast the whole thing twice. A member of the audience began to heckle as Bush started talking about matters of church and state. This guy was really furious, and he was promptly escorted off. The question and answer session that followed the speech featured four reporters of Native American, Asian, Hispanic, and African-American descent, respectively. Things became tense for Bush near the end, and he jumped on the defensive. He was questioned about quotas and legacy issues in college admissions, and replied something about "having had to knock on a lot of doors to follow in the old man's footsteps." It was just sad and depressing to watch for anyone who is against this guy.
You can find an article about the speech at the UNITY website: http://www.atunity.org/nm/publish/news_67.html
Posted by: Joe Tages at August 8, 2004 05:00 PM