2004 Will Be the U.S.’s Best Year Economically in Last Twenty Years

[ringmastery]

If true, is there any way we can possibly beat Bush?

http://www.conference-board.org/economics/press.cfm?press_ID=2284

Revising its year-end economic forecast sharply upward, The Conference Board today projected that real GDP growth will hit 5.7% next year, making 2004 the best year economically in the last 20 years.

The forecast, by Conference Board Chief Economist Gail Fosler, expects worker productivity, which set a 20-year record in the third quarter, to rise at a healthy 3.6% next year. That would follow a gain of 4.3% this year.

The economic forecast is prepared for more than 2,500 corporate members of The Conference Board’s global business network, based in 60 nations.

[w13rd0]

1. Nope...

...no way at all. Might as well give up. Hell, why even bother with an election </sarcasm>.

[Devlzown]

2. Looks like

those Chinese kids are gonna be working their tails off next year!

[milkyway]

24. LOL! nt

[Zynx]

3. That won't be the case.

I don't see how that could possibly happen.

Bear in mind, economic numbers have always surprised analysts on the upside or the downside. They are never right.

In 1999, the economists predicted 1.6% growth and we got 4%. In 2001 they predicted 3.5% growth and we got .4%.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

4. numbers don't reflect american labor

worker productivity? what workers are we talking about, the Chinese and Indian ones who perform our labor or workers in the US? If this is the best year economically in 20 years, it is the best year for a chosen few who made a killing.

[no_arbusto]

29. Worker productivity

You see "worker productivity" is a coded phrase. See, a company can cut the number of employees in half and the remaining workers are then forced to pick up the slack and work harder. As a result, "productivity" doubles and the company saves money at the same time.

I wish I could say </sarcasm> but I imagine this is probably true.

I also love the continuous references to "best in 20 years" because that is also a coded phrase referring to the glorious days of Reagan. Of course the economy was strong in the 90's during Clinton's term but there were far too many workers which resulted in decreased productivity. </sarcasm>

[mmm]

5. No way - the basics are not in place

they may never be again

[JVS]

6. One good year after 3 lean years is not so great

[WhereIsMyFreedom]

21. But I'm not convinced that the average American

can remember that far back.

[coloradodem2005]

7. Even if it is true...

...we will not get the 3.5 million jobs all back. People will not get all the time they lost back. It seems like the only jobs being created are shitty sales jobs. This is not good enough. It will not matter how much the GDP grows if people are not back where they once were.

[RBHam]

8. Who needs jobs?

The more jobs you lose to foreign countries, the better the economy gets.

China must be wallowing in the mire, going straight down hill to economic ruin, what with all those jobs forced down their throats by the oh, so, clever Globaliost Agenda.

[Curious Dave]

9. Could have been even better.

If Bush and his gang of criminal conspiritors weren't in office this number would have probably been 10% or more. We have nothing to worry about; I can't believe any thinking person would credit moron Bush with anything positive.

[Cleita]

10. Don't worry.

People who don't have discretionary incomes can't buy all the things that fuel the economy in the long run. I can't put my finger on it. Well, I haven't really sat down and analyzed anything yet. But my gut is telling me that there is a bubble that will burst before long.

[gasperc]

11. I'm getting a shitty raise, after our division was profitable & one best

in the corporation, on top of that they cut our travel budget by 25% and most people around me worry about be out of work for a loooong time if any of us gets laid off. And I'm supposed to believe next year is gonna be the best in 20 years.
Whoever wrote that Fuck You

[wabeewoman]

12. If all the unemployed STILL don't have jobs

they will recognize this as just another bush lie...I do think he will do all in his power, enlist his corporate cronies and COOK the books to make the economy appear to be good. But with a massive deficit, good jobs gone and lowered tax revenues to fund government services how good can it be?

[mikehiggins]

13. WTF????

How is this possible?

The Dow passed 10,000 today???

I can't help feeling--not HOPING, freepers, feeling--that we're heading for a BIG disaster, either due to the dollar collapsing or other nations being forced to call in their loans or something.

There is just something wrong with what is happening today and it reminds me of a few years ago when everyone was convinced that the dot-com revolution was making history irrelevent.

Maybe this is the equivalent of going on a buying spree because you just got a new credit card with no limit and only 24% interest.

I hope not, but it makes me worry.

[Code_Name_D]

14. Clasic republican mem

I wish people would quit asuming that the repugs are telling them the truth when the economey is turning around.

Come down to the ecenomics room some time, and see for yourself what this economic upturn is truly built on.

Corpreate profits are up becase of layoffs and outsorcings that they have recently made.

The defisit is exploding, and the debt is quickly getting out of control.

The dollar is reletlusly dropping, making it harder for us to service that debt.

Unemplyment has just been reported to be going us. But even thoese numbers fail to take into acount that avrage incomes have plumited amung the middle and lower classes.

All the 50 states are deep deep into the red. Canliforna has recently been "downgraded" making it one step closer to bankrupsy.

The war on terror is consuming what little eceonomic capital we have left.

Our dependincy on oil has not been addreses, leaving us extremly vunrable to rises in oil prices.

Non-productive population has climed again as inmates swell the prizens. The rest of us has to support thoes prisners. That and other facters makes the effective unemplyment rate at 22%. Fast approshing the effective unemplyment raite of the greate depresion.

Bankrusies and forclosures are at record hights. Consumer debt is enormuse and getting larger.

Economic stability is a thing of a past. Every worker can ecpect to change his carrior (not just his or her job) at least three times in 10 years.

Manufactuirng has been deconstructed, and the comunity's skill colected has been aloued to errode. America no longer even has the capacity to produce goods, even if we wanted to bring the jobs back, we can't.

America has given away its sovreinty to the WTO, and its desisions are not in America's intrest.

Healthcare expenditures are rising so fast that they are given there own "inflation raite."

Even as labor compensation drops, avrage hours worked has in fact gone up. Most American now work 55 or 60 hour weeks. And this dosn't even take into acount thoes who are holding down more than one job.

Consumer price index is on the rise again. The gov is just predendign that it isn't. And the CPI indext is the common mesure of inflation.

There is coruption as far as the eye can see in indistry, with lax inforcment proving to be inevective in curbing the coruption.

We are currently sitting on a housing bubble, with realistate grossly over priced. There shee blows!

I tell you. These are NOT the sings of a strong economy. The dems do not have to pretend things are bad. They ARE bad, and the dems just have to tell the truth.

[blm]

15. They'll prop it up one way or another.

Democrats are utter dolts if they prepare only an offense against a failed presidency. The media and BushInc. will play their roles and do what they have to do to present a successful presidency. People can be lulled. We know that.

We need to put in the strongest Democrat against the IMAGE of a successful Bush. We need our strongest Democrat in EVERY area who has the skill to handle ANY issue.

[NewJeffCT]

22. I agree

The corporate media is doing their best to make it look like the economy is going gangbusters - a gain of 150,000 jobs in a month is seen as making Bush worthy of deification - nobody seems to mention that 150,000 jobs gained in a month would have been a bad month for Clinton, or that inflation is rising, there are a lot of long-term unemployed no longer eligible for unemployment, or the exploding deficit or the plunging dollar.

[tritsofme]

16. Rapid inflation is just around the corner,

the declining dollar, the huge influx of stimuli that is in the economy from massive government expenditures and deficits will eventually cause unacceptable levels of inflation.

Gold is way up, oil is way up, scrap steel prices are up, euo and yen are up, and the dollar is down and falling.

Very soon the fed is going to need to raise interest rates, and government spending either needs to be cut, or preferably as unpopular as it is, repeal all of the tax cuts, and even raise taxes some.

[RainDog]

17. Measurements of a healthy economy

I read something in the NYTimes this summer about the ways in which to measure economic stats. I wish I had saved it.

Does anyone here have a saved copy of that one, I wonder?

Anyway, what, exactly, does worker productivity mean in terms of real economic health? Does that mean that those at the CEO and shareholder level are getting more for their money, because fewer employees are working harder?

Does this continue to contribute to the oligarchic concentration of wealth into an "overclass?"

Are we supposed to believe that this concentration will allow jobs to "trickle down" to the unemployed? ---in time for the fall election season?

What is the level of increase in the numbers of unemployed since 2000?

If productivity is up, but overall employment numbers are down, and we are a consumer-driven economy, how much will each rich person have to spend to equal the appearance of growth, or at least stability, in comparison to the spending for large ticket items that the unemployed must now forgo?

What about our exports? I asked this question yesterday. What are we manufacturing which results in actual goods which can then be exported?

What is the foreign position on the dollar? Do we need other nations to buy our debt to stay solvent?

I'm asking because I'm really hoping to learn something, rather than hear a pronouncement from the rah-rahs.

[MoonRiver]

18. So * is hoping his "bubble economics" holds for another 11 months.

Gee, maybe he shouldn't be alienating other major economic powers in the world while he keeps his widdle fingers crossed.

[Beaker]

19. when unemployment is 6%, 94% of voters have jobs-

If they can keep a cap on interest rates(they can), the economy isn't going to be an issue in this sElection.

[KFC]

20. I sure as hell hope so

Those that don't are clowns.

[rumguy]

23. Can we beat Bush? Hell yes!

These numbers look good from a distance, but upon closer inspection are pure garbage. Increase in fed. govt. + massive tax cuts have created huge debts. Most of the money went to the rich. It's the rich who are getting richer.

Meanwhile, unemployment has not fallen nearly as much as was expected, due to the fact that the economy is actually sick as hell, and those jobs that were created were mostly junk jobs. Notice that the number of uninsured continues to rise alarmingly, because fewer and fewer jobs offer benefits.

This junk job problem is gonna come back and bite the repubs, if not in 2004, then in 2006.

Plus, the dollar is at an all time low against the Euro.

This is an economy on a sugar high! Still unhealthy, but it's been pumped with money that was meant for federal programs...the money flowed to the rich, and now we have a massive debt again.

The people remember that under Clinton we had FISCAL SANITY!

[Old and In the Way]

25. Seems to me consumer confidence is a very important barometer

in our consumer-based economy. And I don't think people are spending (except for Christmas, of course). That's afunction of our they perceive the future as looking. When jobs are being shed and tax burdens are being transfered to state and local governments, I think people are holding back, betting that the future is not going to get better, until we have a new government with a vision to reinvent our economy. Republicans will continue to push oil and pre-emptive war to steal this resource, hopefully a Democratic President and Legislature will correct the mess and define a new vision that will bring back confidence in the future.

We ain't making, now we ain't spending.

[frustrated_lefty]

26. JOBLESS economic recovery. 'nuff said.

Show me jobs, not Halliburton's income. Show me jobs in the US.

[cliss]

27. I don't believe a word of it.

Trust nothing that the government tells you. Especially not the ones who put together numbers.

It's truly amazing how, ever since Bush took office, the numbers seem to be getting better and better all the time. They're so good, they don't even match!! One department's numbers which should match another department's, are not in sync. Something tells me there's a dead skunk somewhere.

I'm halfway to a Master's degree in Economics, and I smell lies. If I had more time, I'd dissect the numbers and see where the "creative counting" has happened.

It just so happens almost all my friends are really hurting financially right now. Many of them are still unemployed, some even after 1 or 2 years.

Where is all this good news going?

[TankLV]

28. But all of that still wouldn't bring us back to "zero"

which is the fantastic results the economy Bill Clinton handed this doofus to fuck-up so bad.

Still haven't reached "zero" with the stock market.

Still have a few more million to reach "zero" on employment.

And how many died under Clinton's watch?

Kiss Peace goodbye forever.

Same with Hope.

Bill Clinton's legacy: Peace - Hope - Prosperity, all trashed in a couple short months by repukes and one bunkerboy and his dick.

[rustydog]

30. Read between the freekin'lines!

It will be the best in twenty years for CORPORATIONS, not everyday Americans.
There is no way the economy, from the perspective of the ten plus million who are out of work,is better. The hundreds of thousands who will lose unemployment benefits in December and the supposed huge increase of new service industry jobs. (minimum wage)
AND I bet those jobs disappear after the holidays will not think the economy is better.

The economy is better only for the wealthy. For the rest of us, we still worry that Corporate America may decide to improve the bottom-line before the end of the next quarter by "down-sizing OUR jobs next.

The message that has to get out every single day is that George Effing Bush does not care one whit whether we eat or starve tomorrow.
it is as simple as that. Bush does not care and his actions scream that fact every single day.

The economy is Better for Bush-lovers, not us.
It is class warfare and Bush is using nukes against us!