Reply #26: This same thing was happening in 91-2, and Clinton fixed it.

[jobycom]

The problem isn't business, it's the government side of the economy. Government policy affects the value of the dollar, the tax structure of the national economy, trade issues, our international marketability, the competitiveness and fairness of business within the nation, training of the workforce, and a lot of factors. A good government can steer the economy in the right direction. A bad government can fail in two ways--it can steer us in the wrong direction, or it can just fail to make adjustments necessary.

Clinton was brilliant with the economy. By shifting the tax burden back to those with money, he liberated the middle class, allowing them to start businesses that could compete in a more fair market. By his jobs training programs, he helped people get better jobs, but he also helped modernize the work force, so that labor was tooled for the modern economy, allowing businesses and individuals to flourish. Wages went up because there were more employers, which increased competition for labor. Business flourished because people had more money to spend from higher wages, and because increased competition really does stimulate business, as long as it is genuine competition, and not unbridled monopolistic control by a handful of corporations.

W and Reagan made the same mistake--they thought the economy was driven from the top. If you build a business, people will shop there, they thought. They didn't worry about where the people would get the money to shop there. Without an increase in wages, even if people shop at your new business, they are just shifting their money away from other business. The economy shifts, but doesn't grow. That's part of what we are seeing now.

This economy can be fixed. There are a lot red herrings that people focus on--outsourcing, NAFTA, all that--that are symptoms rather than causes of a bad economy. Not saying those issues don't need work, just that they are not the cause of the problem. The cause of the problem is a government that believes the economy functions without government guidance, and that believes all downturns in the economy are just the normal cycles of the economy, or worse, are the fault of consumers who just panic.

Republicans can't fix the economy because they don't understand it. A lot of Democrats have the same problem, but they are a lot closer than the Republicans. Some Democrats--Clinton, Gore, for instance--get it. Yeah, both of those were DLC, but they had the economy right, anyway. I can't tell about Obama--he plays his cards close to his vest. But he can't be worse than the Bush/Reagan gang.

It's not all broken, in other words. The economic base goes way deeper than what W could screw up in eight years. It's hurting, and it needs fixing, and it needs it now, but it's still alive. The American Dream is still alive. It just needs the right person to fix it.