Thanks, George W for ruining our economy and our future and leaving our country vulnurable to be bought by another country to relieve our debt. Great job. Atta boy, Georgie

So under the Bush administration, for the 1st time in eons, the US currency is no longer the preferred currency in the world.

Go ahead conservatives, keep spinning how the economy is great under Bush.

It's going to take Obama to save the US from the wreck Bush is going to leave behind.

According to latest reports our esteemed and exalted Bush claims that the economy is strong. In the ideal World for economists the fall of the dollar is supposed to be a big boost for U.S. exports to Europe, which has happened, but Europe imports from other countries, too, like Japan, China, India, etc. So what is happening, U.S. exports in consumer goods especially are cheap for Europeans, but becoming more expensive for Americans. Our dollar is loosing it's purchasing power here. 50 cents for 1 small orange? 79 cents for 1 lemon?

George's accomplishments only underline the importance of intelligence in leaders.

There was a bit of a flap some years back when several senior government people in other countries - Japan, Germany, Canada - remarked that Bush was a moron after having dealings with him.

The simple truth is that he IS a moron.

Yeah, blame Bush, but don't take basic Economics classes. Perhaps he should have let the recession deepen, so we didn't have any money to spend at made-in-China-Walmart. Either he's a drooling moron, or an evil manipulating genius. Just pick the one that fits your narrative today.

Roy, Bush did NOT stop the recession. Businesses working off the excess capacity they had created did that - the tax cuts were pretty much irrelevant to the recovery.

Try making a list of economists who think Bush has done a terrific job, then a list of economists who think Bush has done a terrible job. Compare lengths. Case closed.

Verdict? Vote Barack Obama, whose chief financial advisor is economist Austan Goolsbee from the University of Chicago. Put the responsible adults back in charge.

Since I don't plan to buy lunch in London or Paris anytime soon, let's enjoy the benefits of the lower dollar in making American goods so much more desirable on the foreign markets. See, as Mr. Neikirk reports, there IS a silver lining to
every dismal cloud...or commentary. Buy American.

Bush can't stop a recession, but can cause the dollar to tank and ruin our economy! Tax cuts didn't affect the recovery? You guys slay me.

No wonder the feds raided the Liberty Dollar last week. Can't have a private barter currency backed by real silver and gold competing when the world is waking up to the fact that the US dollar is backed by nothing but thin air. They laughed at the early debates when Ron Paul talked about returning to sound money policy, but no one is laughing now. Ron Paul 2008!

The nation is flooded with dept; Everyone knows that Americans are hooked on credit cards and home equity lines.

But this dept is pale in comparison to what Americans owe their civil servants. The amount of unfunded pension and other retirement agreements that is owed to the public employees at all levels throughout the country is staggering.

Decades of a “flawed” reporting standards for government accounting compared to private sector accounting standards has enabled the union leaders and our politicians to hide the impact of the public employees contracts, and it is a massive obligation that is just now coming to light. It is the largest component of the dept Americans have and is the principle reason that the dollars value is plummeting.

Wake up America! You may be on the precipice of the worst economic environment is this nations history; you owe your civil servants trillions of dollars. Trillions and it will lead to chaos and perhaps violence in some states, watch what is happening to New Jersey and California as they struggle with massive deficits.

The questions we should be asking our government at all levels - is this all the dept?

Are there costs that are not included in these numbers?

Beyond the unfunded pension liabilities we have are their other retirement related costs that are not being accounted for?

That last one is the killer question. The unfunded “retirement” obligations beyond the pension obligations, that’s where you will find the secrets.

The answers are going to shake this nation’s future to its core….

I think the lowering of the American dollar was done by BushCo by design. Brings the dollar closer to the peso. Also, a lower dollar destabilizes American government, and increases the privatization of the departments and agencies that are (or were) understood to be public or governmental.

There's more to the dollar decline than making trips overseas more expensive.

The value of the dollar affects everything from the price of consumer electronics and clothing, to mortgage rates and the job market, and to whether a vacation overseas is more affordable for Americans or Europeans. If foreign investment in U.S. bonds and equities in the United States suffers as the result of a declining dollar, that could force up yields on government bonds, because higher rates would be needed to attract these overseas investors (who, by the way, make our massive twin deficits possible!). And bond yields have a direct impact on a wide variety of interest rates paid by consumers and businesses. Many goods produced overseas with no domestic competition could cost more here. And if Americans keep on buying imported goods, this could lead to an even larger trade deficit and dollar decline. In addition, American companies that buy raw materials and parts overseas would see their costs rise in dollar terms. This has the potential of cutting into profits (if they can’t raise prices) and eventually hiring. Finally, Americans traveling abroad would find prices for just about everything higher.

And good luck trying to "Buy American"...

"Boycotting China? Good Luck"
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-bongiorni25sep25,0,187598.story?coll=la-opinion-center

Join the poeple in New Orlean who are still waiting for the governement to save them. Keep blaming Bush when you aren't intelligent enough to understand No Government action is best for us!!

Jim

Tom J

How could the tax cuts be irrelevant?

Over and over again we have seen proof that cutting taxes energizes the economy and directly impacts growth then you always get the idiotic lefties saying it aint so. Get a brain would ya...

Then you produce some liberal professor from one of our “bastions of the truth” a university. Gag me.

The facts are the facts, Bush faced the most challenging economic events in our history, and he did a great job. If Greenspan hadn’t screwed up the interest rates the housing bubble we face today would not reach the magnitude it is going to reach. Greenspan knows it, he so much as stated so himself.

Bush's tax cuts.

Please go back to Regan and his trickle down economics and his supply side economics.

Yeah, the tax cuts helped some, especially if you were in the top 1% of wage earners. Everyone else got next to nothing. So how many of those billionaires spent an extra couple million helping the economy? The tax revenue was a sign of increased revenue from CORPORATE taxes not individual taxes. Take out the corporate tax increase and there was next to NO increase. Of course this all looks rosy to those folks who don't look at the BILLIONS that Bush has added to the national debt.

Silver cloud in the lower dollar? Yeah. Think about this every time you go to the gas pump. You think the weaker dollar has nothing to do with the increased price of crude oil. (About $20.00/barrel when George W. Bush came into office. $100.00/barrel now. His Iraq war helped a lot. In addition to his strong family ties to the Saudis.)

Bush and his evil cabal have ruined our reputation as a nation. Decimated our economy with his war, and enriched his "base" with tax relief(sic). How can we as a country rely on mercenaries to carry on our foreign relations? Our military has outsourced everything from feeding our troops to protecting our "own" Generals and Civilian leaders! You don't need an economics class or degree to figure out that the Iraq Invasion will continue to leave us with tremendous debt long after we decide to leave. The recent "surge" has worked because of all the resources we have dedicated there! How much longer will we as a nation decide to put our troops and our economy at peril? I'm not sure if it's a "liberal" or "right wing" idea to leave Iraq? But I'm sure it's the right choice!

The de-valued dollar may be great for the US export business and make some companies and individuals more prosperous, BUT it also increases costs for everything bought by Americans in this country.

Import prices have not fallen and the weakened value of the dollar demands more dollars to be of equal value. We will see a weak recessionary period followed by run-a-muck inflation because the Fed, Treasury and Bush are more concerned about the world economy than the American economy and it's citizens!!!

the big decider in this whole thing is our national debt caused by the unneeded war. so far we have borrowed about 2,000,000,000 dollars for it and what have we got? The result is two trillion more dollars in circulation and thus a weak dollar.

Mostly of the people posting on this board have no understanding of economics and international trade. The truth is the Clinton administration's idiotic currency management policies is responsible for the state of the US manufacturing. When China devalued their currency in 1994 they did nothing. When the dollar started going up to unwarranted heights when money fled Asia during the Asian financial crisis that resulted from the loss of our historical Asian allies and trading partners competitiveness with the Chinese, the Clinton administration said everything was hunky dory. In reality when all that foreign money was being dumped into US markets fueling the growth of a bunch of worthless dot-coms, US companies making real products saw their competitiveness versus foreign producers go down. So while the stock market went up, profits went down for a lot of companies. Yeah, that sounds like a healthy economic environment.

You guys need to STFU. If you don't like with what's going on in the US then move to China or India then.

The untold story about our economy under Bush.

I've always respect Republicans for being exact when they make their political points. I haven't heard many, though, recently speak of WAGES in terms of yesterday's dollar.

2002 oil cost about 22 euros a barrell. it is now about 67 euros a barrell.

versus

2002 oil cost about $22 a barrel and now about $100.

certanly the deprication of the dollar has insulated some other countries but to what extent the weaking dollar has on the price of oil is questionable.

its not like there is a huge increase in demand and not much production increase.

Time to un-plug our oil wells. The oil companies used to say that our sour crude was too expensive to refine. At l00 bucks a barrel, I think its time to use our and Mexico's oil

And what does G.W do about it??? Ask more money for Iraq. Worst President this country has ever had.

The United States of America is slowly becoming like other United States down south...Mexico.

But it isn't immigration or all those illegals. No. We are becoming more like Mexico because we have a shrinking middle class and all the health is ending on the hands of just a few. I was shocked to find out some of the wealthiest men in the world live in Mexico DF (check Forbes). But those few own most of Mexico.

If you keep listening to the jock heads in Wall Street and the conservative spinaholes, we will eventually see our nation sold down the river. And considering how much the rest of the world dislikes us, I doubt any will cry over a few spilled yanks.

And all this, under the GOP's watch. Basically, they suck at this BIG TIME.
The con is up. The exit door is THAT way.

The consevatives and George Bush have sent this country sliding down the proverbial tube. China is holding onto a trillion or two of our dollars in reserves. Don't worry about buying american, worry about them buying America.

simply put...greed of wealth with no morals has caused the problems we have today...It wasn't the President but the consumers and investors looking for the best buys at others' expense. Yep, WalMart used to be Made in America but then they too got greedy.

Hey ATM (not the machine, but to the poster above) - great call blaming Clinton! Typical, cowardly Republican thing to do.

Yes, some of Clinton's trade policy initiatives bear scrutiny, but did he or did he not balance the budget? The reason the dollar is so weak is due to Bush's reckless spending.

Based on your economic principles, I'm surprised you're not a Clinton fan. Fiscally, he's a much better Republican than Bush could ever dream of being.

This is the reason that all my best-educated professional friends have been taking German classes lately-- people want to get off a sinking ship (i.e., a US job paid in US$), and the solution is to emigrate and work in a Eurozone country like Germany. With a salary paid in Euros for reasonable hours, top-notch schools for the kids w/o going bankrupt getting them educated, Continental Europe is the world's new economic center. (Not Britain-- aye, they seem to have a new bank failing every other week.)

We more or less have to know German anyway for techie work even if we stay here, and since Germany is leading the Euro-using countries, it's basically now the world's economic bellwether. Or Italian or French for someone in maybe the culinary or photographic arts, or just looking for something more Mediterranean.

Whatever you do, the key thing is to learn a Eurozone language appropriate for whatever you're doing, and consider emigrating and raising your kids there. Europe may be a terrible place to be a tourist, but Europe (especially Germany) is a terrific place to work, in fact it's *the* place if you're a highly-educated professional particularly in some kind of technical field.

What can you say about an article that bases its economic analysis on a video by that noted economics expert, rapper Jay-Z?

The overall economy is doing quite well. Consider this "inconvenient truth" from the AP, Aug. 30th:

"The economy grew at its strongest pace in more than a year during the spring as solid improvements in international trade and business investment helped offset weakness in housing. The gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic health, expanded at an annual rate of 4 percent in the April-June quarter, significantly higher than the 3.4 percent rate the government had initially estimated a month ago, the Commerce Department reported Thursday."

And as columnist George Will observes:

"In the 102 quarters since Ronald Reagan's tax cuts went into effect more than 25 years ago, there have been 96 quarters of growth. Since the Bush tax cuts and the current expansion began, the economy's growth has averaged 3 percent per quarter and more than 8 million jobs have been created. The deficit as a percentage of GDP is below the post-World War II average."

The war costs money?
Wow! That's news and
victory is only a few
years away.

Hey, Roy! Let's use your logic. If you believe Bush was responsible for improving the economy, then he has to take his lumps for what is happening now. To the person who said move elsewhere, I guess you think we should brainlessly follow our leaders down a hole without comment.

Thank goodness our idiotic president who is destroying this great country of ours is leaving office in a year from now. It won't be soon enough. I blame our congress for not impeaching George Bush and Dick Chaney.

It was under Shrub's watch that we stopped publishing M3. Any guesses what our printing presses are doing about now? Meanwhile, our gov't tells us that inflation is contained. If this wasn't so tragic, it would be laughable. Those of us who lived through the Viet Nam years can readily tell you, you cannot have guns AND butter.

Any of our Republic party posters here care to explain what will happen if oil becomes priced in Euros instead of dollars? Here's a hint: why wouldn't exporters want to price their product in a non depreciating currency instead of one that keeps losing value?

"In the 102 quarters since Ronald Reagan's tax cuts went into effect more than 25 years ago, there have been 96 quarters of growth. Since the Bush tax cuts and the current expansion began, the economy's growth has averaged 3 percent per quarter and more than 8 million jobs have been created. The deficit as a percentage of GDP is below the post-World War II average."

Posted by: Bruce | November 26, 2007 12:02 AM

Care to elaborate on the 25 year period before that? Let's compare apples to apples.

Interesting, of those 4 missing quarter of non-growth that Brucie posts about, all were under Republican Administrations.

And doesn't it give you at least SOME pause that progressive tax increases under Clinton did not put a blip in the growth, and in fact preceded enormous growth that dwarfs the results of supply-side policies? Its patently silly to consider the last 25 years one endless stretch of supply-side economics- it wasn't, even under Reagan.

If the Clinton/Gingrich tandem hadn't balanced the budget, the situation now would be considerably worse. Clinton RAISED taxes primarily on the richest Americans, the antithesis of supply-side economics, and the economy exploded with growth. So cute that Bruce/Will's analysis just brushes that whole notion aside to credit Reagan with all that is good.

Remember all the "sky is falling" warnings in 1993 and beyond about "the largest tax increase in American history?" Yeah, that really destroyed the economy.

"You guys need to STFU. If you don't like with what's going on in the US then move to China or India then.

Posted by: stfu | November 25, 2007 2:59 PM"

No, we don't like what's happening in this country, especially under Bush. & no, we will never, ever, STFU.

Even if Bush decides to act like Pakistans agianst his critics.

Just one small part of Bush's wonderful legacy.

Elect an idiot, and this is the kind of results you get.

""Here's a hint: why wouldn't exporters want to price their product in a non depreciating currency instead of one that keeps losing value?"""

Crap!!! I was never good at this!
AIRBUS sells all of its planes for dollars and pays all its expenses in Euros. and I don't know why.

Saudia Arabia sells its Oil in dollars and buys most of its imports from the US. same for Venezuela,Kuwait and so on.

Hey Democrats let Hillary know that you can actually REDUCE TAXES BY TWO THIRDS (2/3) and not raise them for decades and pay for all programs, however porky they maybe, by nationalizing all of the ill-gotten assets, stolen from you and me the citizen, by Big Oil, Insurance Companies (they cherry pick their clients from illegally obtained Data-Mined family medical histories and willingly give insurance coverage for Chemotherapy to people who have harmless or normal trace amounts of cancer cells in their biopsies), Pharmaceutical Corporations (they steal R&D from our tax funded Universities anyway), G.E. (they control the mainstream media), and other monopolies like Monsanto (they feed us nutrition depleted crap that has started to alter human genes), etc.
Close all those privatized prisons aided and abetted by extremist conservative bigoted appointee Judges (who prey on our taxes by increasingly wrongfully jailing minorities and pot smokers).
How times has it to be proven deregulation and privatization makes every Conservative is nothing less than a Corrupt White Collar Criminal stealing billions perhaps trillions of dollars from the nation, whereas, ordinary criminals are responsible for stealing a few millions.
Tax the assets of churches who preach politically (and who feed ludicrous End Times fantasy stories to the unemployed and depressed victims of outsourcing) and don’t forget their phony so-called schools, colleges and universities (remember Monica Goodling who ran the Attorney Generals Office, and other so-called supposed graduates like Dijon Lomborgh all of whom actually failed in the regular education system and now suppress the legitimate work of scientists like those in N.A.S.A., F.D.A., E.P.A., etc. (by nepotism and by federal bureaucratic implanting).
Stop paying unregulated and unaccountable criminal corporations, like the Halliburton’s, Blackwater’s, and D.O.D., twenty times what we pay our Volunteer Heroes and Heroines.
We know that kids volunteer for army service for the promise of access to the ever increasingly elusive right to a decent education, that is, if they make it out of there alive and are not brain damaged. Their parents lost their house by deregulated sub prime mortgages therefore unable to pay for their kid’s education.
Corporations and Conservatives are the real extremist terrorists who want to kill Americans. Bin Ladin doesn’t come close to these criminals who get to prey on us everyday.
And we the sheep keep feeding their implanted Saudi Royalty who now wants to buy US assets like DOW JONES, or, the Ports with our money, and on and on.
End the Cycle, tune Hillary in, and radically change everything, vote or DO SOMETHING ...ANYTHING.