Since I'm feeling political...

["Sixhits"]

In a perfect world that would work Spetz, but if we would have done that 70 years ago we would all be speaking German right now.

Actually, we did do that 70 years ago.

The military industrial complex - the concept and the reality - were created by the end of WWII, not before. I presume you ment that if we hadn't let individuals and corps forge the "military industrial complex" during WWII we'd be speaking German.

I disagree with your presumption that Spetz is touting Isolationism. He's simply saying that there are organizations and individuals within our own country that have a vested interest in causing or creating war. Not only that, but those same orgs and indis as very powerful domestically, do to vast wealthy and political access. Indeed, the military industrial complex is important to the well being the US, but it's only important in the way that a diseased yet important organ is. I'd be better for our well being if we could get rid of them, but if we get rid of them them our economy would likely suffer and our ablity to build vast amounts of arms would be diminished.

But really, in the long run it much go, or we'll continue to be at the whim of a few mighty Beasts. Our Freedom, Liberty, Justice - they have no meaning when our Democracy is false.

["Sixhits"]

And I think most American's know the state of the economy.  It is improving and thats probably why Bush will get re-elected.  The Democrats lost their biggest argument unless something drastic changes.  

Ah yes, the wonderful Bush recovery.

I guess recovery only counts when our largest companies earn a few million more bucks. The fact that, for example, during the month of December 2003 we only net gained 1000 new jobs... Well, lets forget about that. Jobs don't have anything to do with economic recovery. And jobs definantly have nothing to do with elections.

Recovery is both a matter of mind and fact. The regime in power has worked hard at making it seem like we're in a recovery. They've worked hard at making it look like they they're acting boldly to attack the recession. They've also worked hard at making it seem like it wasn't they're fault and that they're bold action wasn't a disaster.

But the facts remain and they make those appearances transparent.

[c| Hathcock]

Hell Six I've made quite a lot of money in the last year, which is somewhat how I view the economy.  The last report I saw showed unemployment at 5.7% which was only a couple of days ago.  You'll have to educate me on how bad that really is.

Got a little quote for Gallagher the comic if any of you remember him.

"1 in 4 Armercans is critically stupid.  So why are we complaining about a 5% unemployment?  I'm complaining about the 20% of stupid people that have jobs."

[BTs_GhostSniper]

I, too, have made more money per year since September 11, 2001, than I ever did before.  And I didn't start my current job until September 27, 2001.  So, at least for me, that blows two myths right there....(1). That nobody could find a job after Sept 11, and (2).  That nobody could make money in retail sales because the economy is so bad.

[Cutter]

the travel and hospitality industries were greatly affected by sept 11th. mb more than any other industries. i work in a hotel on south beach and i can show you the numbers if you'd like six. within one month we and all the hotels and restaraunts in miami were back to regular occupancy. in the last year alone a new ritz hotel has gone up, a mandorin oriental, the palms, a hilton, a huge trump building, and about 20 new high end restaraunts including an emril's, nobu, and a new wolfgang puck place. last year i bought a house, this year a new car for my wife, and i too am making more money than ever before.
 
so yes six things suck everywhere, the country is goin to shit, and bush should be lynched. LOL.

["Sixhits"]

I, too, have made more money per year since September 11, 2001, than I ever did before.  And I didn't start my current job until September 27, 2001.  So, at least for me, that blows two myths right there....(1). That nobody could find a job after Sept 11, and (2).  That nobody could make money in retail sales because the economy is so bad.

The problem isn't that no one can find a job after 9/11. I found a job after 9/11. And it's not that some people are making more than they have ever before.

(As for retail sales I don't know enough about retail to make any points back.)

The issue at hand is that in the past few years we've lost more jobs than we've gotten back. So you and me finding work and making a good living is overshadowed by the gaggles of others who've lost a job and can't find work.

Point of Fact: Bush will be the first president since the Depression to preside over a net job lose. As an example, last month economists we're hoping for a net job gain of 150,000 jobs. The net job gain was 1,000.

Look at those numbers again. It's a catestropic difference.

Here are some numbers on the economy under Clinton, the report therein issues July '99. Take note of the unemployment rate in '99.
 4.3 % -- the lowest level in 29 years. Bush's masterful 5.7% pales in comparison.

http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/New/New_Markets/economic.html

So yah Ghost, sure, some people are doing well. But more people are doing worse.

If you are better off under Bush then vote for him. It's appropriate to vote your own interests. But if the only question we ask each voter is, "Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?" then Bush is in trouble.

[BTs_GhostSniper]

Well, all I can say is that me, my family, and just about everybody I know is better off now than they were 4 years ago.

["Sixhits"]

Well, all I can say is that me, my family, and just about everybody I know is better off now than they were 4 years ago.

I'm glad you're better off.

But what concerns me isn't just your well being or just my well being or the new Hotels and High End resturants going up in South Beach (am I mistaken or is South Beach a rather wealthy area? sort of a Bev Hills of Florida?)

What concerns me is the overall state of the economy. A very clear indicator of our economic well being is job growth. Essentially, job growth is stagnet right now.

As for Hotels and expensive resturants in Florida: That's good too. But it's good for Who? and it's good for them How?

They're high end. So they cost a lot to use. So someone like Bush can afford them, as can wealthy vacationers. Tourism is an important industry, so that'll be helpful.

But what is the quality of the increase of revenue? Where does that expanded income go? As I mentioned earlier, I believe, corporate profits are rising. Great news. Now, they need to spend that extra money to higher back all the people they let go over the last few years. If they don't, or if they higher back fewer people than they fired (which is what they are currently doing) then what we have, remains, a net lose for America. Perhaps it is a net gain for Florida, or perhaps just your small part of it. But for the country it's a drop of water in a very large bucket .

More to the point, jobs that once included pensions, such as manufacturing jobs, have gone away. What has replaced them are service oriented jobs, like the one Cutter holds. Service oriented jobs are not as high paying or as stable as "skilled" labor jobs. Any immigrant off the boat who speaks English can serve a table answer phones or mix drinks. They will tend to be willing to take lower wages than local workers who once held higher skilled jobs. Even more interesting, as far as recent news goes, is the illegal immigrant-worker proposal Bush has touted.

Think like this: all those jobs created in South Beach. All those business owners have positions to fill. Bush opens the gates to unskilled labors to work in the US. They'll be willing to take VERY low wages and will work VERY hard for them (because they figure they'll be nationalized after a few years). Note how corporations are cheering Bush's proposal while Labor is booing it. Even groups that would like to see a laxing of the immigration laws are upset - cause immigrats go for lower level jobs and undercut the overall price of service. So those new jobs created in South Beach, if Bush has his way, will very soon have their wages depressed and will likely be consumed by unskilled workers here on work visas.

Yay!

[Cutter]

yes you are mistaken six, very mistaken.
hotels DO pay pensions, health, and vacation pay. south beach is NOT the beverly hills of florida and "service industry" jobs DO pay well, better than "skilled labor". see when you think hotels you think dishwashers and housekeeping, i think managers, chefs, accountants.
the tourism industry is one of the nations largest industries and is a very good way to gauge how the economy is going. when there's no money and everything is so horrible as you seem to think it is, people simply do not take vacations. everytime a hotel opens up it employs anywhere from 50 to 4000 people. that means jobs and money for all. for the employees, the companies that supply the hotels, the city, the taxi drivers, the airlines. it's all connected six. when a new place opens (especially the big expensive ones) it's a sign that people still have money to blow and that alot more people are going to get jobs. hotels reqiure legitimate documents for employment and most require drug testing. small restaraunts are more lax and do hire illegal immigrants (not just in miami). but hey would you wash dishes or clean peoples toilets? no and either would i. this is just one city six, but it's a good example of what happens everyday all over america. if dean were to actually be elected (and it's looking worse everyday for him) both me and you will have to pay around $1700 more in taxes. that certainly won't help me out in any way, how bout you.

[BTs_GhostSniper]

By the way, unemployment is a lagging indicator of an economy on the rebound, as it is the last thing to get put right after an economic downturn.  So just because the unemployment numbers don't look that good right now, don't worry.....they will improve significantly very soon.

-GhostSniper the Financial Wizard Out.

["Sixhits"]

You're absolutely right when you say it's all connected. That's why I'm right when I say the economy is stagnent.

Net new jobs = 1000 = not in recovery.

New jobs in South Beach = many new jobs, but < sum of national job loss.

Good for the Beach. But not an example of what happens all over America.

Remember, that for the NATION we saw a net of 1000 jobs. That's piddlely. That's thousands of jobs lost and a thousand more new jobs gained than lost.

The point I'm making isn't that we're in a tail spin and we're all doomed. What I'm stating is that any notion of recovery has to include overt job growth - national job growth. So I'm not mistaken when I say we're not in a recovery.

As for hotel's paying pensions, health, and vactation. Good. I'm glad to hear that and somewhat surprised. But, out of 4000 jobs per grand hotel, how many of those jobs are managerial, chefs, accountants, etc? I'd expect a minority. Most, I expect, are blue collar, perhaps outsourced to a third party so that they can bring in ppl who get paid very, very little. There's nothing necessarily wrong with any of this. Further, the new proposal on work visas is designed to target just such jobs. Few illegals move to the US and pick up managerial jobs. But many move and take the lower end service jobs. I don't want to clean toilets, but that's not the point. The point is that most new jobs created are created at the lower levels of job quality. Worse, under new proposals from Bush, there will be higher competition for those lower level jobs. If those jobs do go to Americans they're still low paiding, unskilled, non-advancing, poorly social serviced jobs. And I am convinced that each new hotel spawns FAR more dishwashers and maids than it does Accountants and Managers.

Further, as you pointed out, service sector jobs are HIGHLY vulnerable to economic instablity. A worker working for a hotel is more likely to feel the squeeze or get fired when times are tough. So, yah, seeing service sector jobs return is a sign that service sector providers expect them to be working. That's good. But if things don't pick up, or they stumble, they're first to loose jobs. And that's not good for the economy since, as we noted before, jobs are important to the economy.

Stable jobs, like managers and accountant, are better, cause their skilled jobs. Companies often have a tough time firing managers cause they are hard to replace. We want more jobs like accountants and managers but we're making more jobs like dishwashers and maids.

Part of the reason our economy was so fragile in the late 90's was because it had so many service sector jobs. Those jobs go fast. The worse part of the recession was that we lost hundreds of thousands of what were once thought to be stable jobs - jobs in manufacturing, and like with Enron, white collar jobs like mangers and accountants. That's why I'll stand on my point that we're not in a recovery. Recovery means getting back to where you were. We are not. Bush's "recovery" is dogding the issues of quanity AND quality.

Just an additional question. What proportion of tourism in South Beach is international in origin?

[BTs_GhostSniper]

By the way, the area I live in (the Gulf Coast of Mississippi) is much the same as that part of Florida.....a huge part of our economy is from Tourism as well.  Ours is mainly tourists from within the U.S.  We have not seen any problem with the economy since Bush became President.  No job lay-offs and probably some of the biggest growth that this area has ever seen has happened in the last 3 years.  Doesn't hurt that we have 3 military bases on the coast (2 Navy and 1 Air Force), and we have the casino industry here.  But the casinos, and the beaches, bring in the tourists, and that just hasn't dropped off.  If the rest of the country is as bad off as everyone makes it out to be, this is where they need to move to, cause we are doing just fine.

[Cutter]

so 250 animators have just lost their jobs (to computers) at disney in orlando. bush's fault six?

["Sixhits"]

Here's a great economic article that speaks of both the potential for recovery and the stumbling spots up ahead. Some key gaffs are:

"But those deficits on the US budget and in its trading with the rest of the world may loom even larger as the year progresses. US companies may have slashed back on debt after the dotcom bubble burst, but households have continued to accumulate, leaving private sector debt at 1.3 per cent of GDP in the second quarter of 2003, 'nowhere near as healthy as in the first year of virtually all other post-war recoveries', says Lehman. Add in a government deficit of 3.7 per cent, which - following military spending and tax cuts - is higher than in seven of the eight previous recessions, and the current account deficit tops a whopping 5 per cent. By comparison, the US was running a 1 per cent surplus just after the 1991 recession."

and

"Wall Street's veteran bear, Stephen Roach, puts it even more starkly. 'The national saving rate, current account, federal budget deficit and private sector debt ratios are all at historical extremes in the US. The result is a unique confluence of tensions that have left the global economy in a state of heightened instability. The venting of those tensions could well be the main event in world financial markets in 2004,' he says."

and

"An unruly unwinding of these huge imbalances hangs over the upcoming year. So what would it take for a soft landing? 'US consumers would have to start saving more or the US government reverse its tax cut programme,' says Llewellyn."

and, to finish

"By the end of 2004, the US economy's rampant surge will have slowed to a mild version of stagflation - 2 per cent growth and 4 per cent inflation, he says.

Roach does not disappoint the Cassandras. 'My deepest fear is that the longer the venting of these tensions is deferred, the larger the ultimate adjustments and the greater the chances of a hard landing,' he says. And even Lehman Brothers, not normally considered pessimists, end their 2004 outlook on this note: 'This year may prove to be one of the more difficult in post-war history - starting well, but with both economic and geopolitical risks building as the year unfolds,' writes Llewellyn.

So don't expect a return to the boom years just yet."

of course, these are the points I think make my argument. :-)

You could also cite this:

"After three years of hibernation the economic optimists are breaking cover this year. Bullishness has become a respectable pursuit. US growth is exceeding 8 per cent. Stock markets are perky. Saddam Hussein has been locked up. Roll on the boom, just in time for the US presidential elections in the autumn."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1115469,00.html

["Sixhits"]

so 250 animators have just lost their jobs (to computers) at disney in orlando. bush's fault six?

No. ;-)

He can't fuck everything up.

[tasty]

As a college student, I'm much worse off. One of the biggest cuts Bush has made was to the federal Pell program, which means that although my federal loans are at 2.75% this year, they are expected to skyrocket to over 8% beacuse of the cuts Bush has made. Many other students will go father in debt as well. Although I go to a private school, my friends at public school have dealt with consecutive 15% increases in tuition because of the state budget shortfalls that directly stem from a lack of federal money. I was also planning on doing Americorps/Teach for America after college, but Bush cut 50% from that program too, so I guess I'll just go directly to law school instead. Because of Bush's policies, my debt after college will be thousands more. And don't even mention the humongous deficits he has left  the federal government with in the past two years. And the disastrous new Medicaid plan. My generation is going to be left with a financial disaster. If you are young, Bush is awful from an economic standpoint.

[BTs_GhostSniper]

As a college student, I'm much worse off. One of the biggest cuts Bush has made was to the federal Pell program, which means that although my federal loans are at 2.75% this year, they are expected to skyrocket to over 8% beacuse of the cuts Bush has made. Many other students will go father in debt as well. Although I go to a private school, my friends at public school have dealt with consecutive 15% increases in tuition because of the state budget shortfalls that directly stem from a lack of federal money. I was also planning on doing Americorps/Teach for America after college, but Bush cut 50% from that program too, so I guess I'll just go directly to law school instead. Because of Bush's policies, my debt after college will be thousands more. And don't even mention the humongous deficits he has left  the federal government with in the past two years. And the disastrous new Medicaid plan. My generation is going to be left with a financial disaster. If you are young, Bush is awful from an economic standpoint.

Catch a clue Tasty.....NOBODY PAYS BACK STUDENT LOANS!

I have over $20,000 in student loans (that was the part of my college that the military did NOT pay for), and I havn't even begun to pay them back in any real significance yet.  Also, most of the people I know and went to college with have left their student loans in deferment for years.

Also, I am sick and tired of everybody thinking this should be some kind of Socialist Society where the government pays for everything!!!  Why don't you go get a fucking job and pay for college yourself!  Or do what I did and join the military and let them pay for most of it.

Peace.

-GhostSniper Out.

["Sixhits"]

I like to look at education as a national security issue.

If we don't educate - and, yes, pay for the education of others - then the US can't compete. That means fewer smart soldiers, officers, and policy makers. That means our economy stumbles. That means other countries can take us on better, in all things, both economic, social, and military. Education money is one of the smartest way for the Feds to spend tax revenue.

(man, I am a post whore today)

[Cutter]

heh student loans have been outta hand since...well forever. ask anybody thats graduated in the last 25 years, either they're still paying the loans off or it they have a foot wide smile cause they finally got them paid off. i worked a full time job through school to pay for it and it sucked ass. my work hurt my studies and my studies hurt my work. and i never any extra money. but i didn't wanna get stuck with a debt that i knew i'd never pay. again, not bush's fault.

[c| Hathcock]

     Hell I thought most of my High School time was pointless.  Probably why I did not go to college.  Besides History, and Economy, and in some ways woodshop, I thought High School was a tremendous waste of time.  I just can't justify 12 years of my own language and 11 years of math when the only math I consistently use was learned in the third grade.  

     And it's pretty much a requirement to have your High School diploma before entering the military but having it doesn't mean you'll be a good soldier.  Wisdom (street smarts) is much more important than knowing the square root of 129 or knowing the diference between a noun and a verb.  Kind of funny how I would be required to go to 4 years of college for a job that I learned in 6 months in the military.