Begin with the necessary caveats: I'm not in any way an economist, nor can I really claim to understand the first thing about the various theories about how economies work -- so everything I say here can be easily dismissed as the unfounded opinions of an ignoramus, the ravings of an untutored mind, and I'm opening myself up to criticism of what a clueless idiot I am. Nevertheless...
It's hard for me to understand how an economic recovery can be sustainable in the long run if there isn't an increase in jobs and a decrease in unemployment, resulting in increased spending power across the entire populace. Yes, I would guess that an economy can spike upwards if those that have money spend more of it, and corporate profits can go up because of that (and the kind of tricks and shenanigans that we've recently seen in the Enron and Worldcom cases), but in an economy based almost entirely on mass consumption, it seems to me that only increased spending by the masses can keep an economy growing and improving. (That also means that in the longer run, our economic health requires that the gap between the haves and the have-nots be lessened and not increased, as it has been lately.)
The implications of this are clear: the Bush administration's policies, which help the rich and well-off at the expense of everyone else might support a short-term recovery, but one that cannot last long because it will lack the depth necessary for sustaining the gains. The question, which is open at this point, is how significant the immediate gains will be, and how long they will last. The Bush people can (as economist Brad DeLong says here) point to any and all immediate improvements as being clear signs of a supposed full-fledged recovery, and they will be helped along in that claim by the business media -- not necessarily because of any great conspiracy to twist the news for the benefit of the GOP, but because the business media is, has been, and probably always will be pro-business, and wants to be able to report good news about business.
(There is not necessarily anything suspicious or unnatural in the bias of the business media. In my own industry, the theatre, you're unlikely to find reporters on the Arts beat who hate the Arts, and I assume the same is true of business reporters. On the other hand, what used to be a Chinese Wall (a "fire wall") between the corporate side of the media -- publishers and owners -- and the journalistic side of the media -- reporters and editors, (the vaunted "separation of Church and State" of journalism), has pretty much disappeared, and the editorial side of the media is now HIGHLY influenced by the opinions and needs of their corporate owners. In the business media, this only increases the probablity that any small uptick in the economy is going to be blown out of proportion and trumpeted as another sign of THE RECOVERY.
So I don't see a conspiracy -- what you have is something much more akin to the Stockholm Syndrome.)
The irony of all this is that it is probable that the policies of the "anti-business" Democrats, which (as compared to Republican policies) spread the wealth more evenly and reduce the gap between the haves and have-nots, are better, in the long run, for the health of the economy, and the health of our society as well than the policies of the Republicans, which are highly focused on servicing that small portion of the population which already has a great deal. When more people have more money, they spend it, and that spent money eventually goes ino the coffers of the businesses that provide the goods and the services, and thence into the pockets of the owners and managers of those businesses.
(That more business types don't understand this is either a testament to their blindness, or an indication that I'm talking completely out of my ass.)
So, the question for this election is: is the glass half-empty or half-full? DeLong indicates that both sides will have ammunition to make an argument in the upcoming election. The Dems will harp on jobs, jobs, jobs, and the GOP will harp on all those esoteric indicators -- so one might think it all comes out as a draw, but consider who each of the parties is addressing.
Speaking in broad generalities, the people with money, who are doing well now, buying houses and big-ticket items, swelling corporate coffers, are already, for the most part, in the pocket of the GOP. Putting another buck or two or three hundred in each of their purses doesn't really buy the GOP much of anything, not a single new vote, because they've already got those votes lined up. But the people the Democrats are addressing with their "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" argument are the people who are out of work, or in danger of becoming out of work, or who live in areas which have been hard hit by the low employment figures and find it hard to run their small businesses because there's less money to go around. Those people, many of them, might well be inclined to vote for Bush if things were in better shape. Instead, given the poor condition of the job situation, they're going to have to at least consider voting for someone who is offering the possibility of something better, i.e. a Democrat.
So while the GOP has little to gain with its claims, which are directed to those who are already benefiting from what small improvements we've had in the economy, the Democrats might very well be able to persuade some of those blue-collar workers, the so-called "Reagan Democrats" or "Bush Democrats" to go with something new.
The upshot of all this is that while the economy may well be improving in some respects, the improvement isn't sustainable without an betterment of the jobs situation, and the Democrats, in my uninformed layman's opinion, are the ones who are poised to benefit from this condition.
So, once again, we see that there's no reason for despair, and no real call for Cassandra warnings of doom and a slam-dunk for Bush, because things are not nearly as good as the media says, and it's the Democrats who gain an advantage from the state of the economy, not Bush & company.
absolutist
aggresive
anti-Constitutional
anti-intellectual
arrogant
authoritarian
blame-placers
blameworthy
blinkered
buckpassers
calculating
class warriors
clueless
compassionless
con artists
conniving
conscienceless
conspiratorial
corrupt
craven
criminal
crooked
culpable
damaging
dangerous
deadly
debased
deceitful
delusional
despotic
destructive
devious
disconnected
dishonorable
dishonest
disingenuous
disrespectful
dogmatic
doomed
fanatical
fantasists
felonious
hateful
heinous
hostile to science
hypocritical
ideologues
ignorant
immoral
incompetent
indifferent
inflexible
insensitive
insincere
irrational
isolated
kleptocratic
lacking in empathy
lacking in public spirit
liars
mendacious
misleading
mistrustful
non-rational
not candid
not "reality-based"
not trustworthy
oblivious
oligarchic
opportunistic
out of control
pernicious
perverse
philistine
plutocratic
prevaricating
propagandists
rapacious
relentless
reprehensible
rigid
scandalous
schemers
selfish
secretive
shameless
sleazy
tricky
unAmerican
uncaring
uncivil
uncompromising
unconstitutional
undemocratic
unethical
unpopular
unprincipled
unrealistic
unreliable
unrepresentative
unscientific
unscrupulous
unsympathetic
venal
vile
virtueless
warmongers
wicked
without integrity
wrong-headed
Thanks to: Breeze, Chuck, Ivan Raikov, Kaiju, Kathy, Roger, Shirley, S.M. Dixon
recently seen
i've got a little list...
Elliott Abrams
Steven Abrams (Kansas BofE)
David Addington
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson
Roger Ailes (FNC)
John Ashcroft
Bob Bennett
William Bennett
Joe Biden
John Bolton
Alan Bonsell (Dover BofE)
Pat Buchanan
Bill Buckingham (Dover BofE)
George W. Bush
Saxby Chambliss
Bruce Chapman (DI)
Dick Cheney
Lynne Cheney
Richard Cohen
The Coors Family
Ann Coulter
Michael Crichton
Lanny Davis
Tom DeLay
William A. Dembski
James Dobson
Leonard Downie (WaPo)
Dinesh D’Souza
Gregg Easterbrook
Jerry Falwell
Douglas Feith
Arthur Finkelstein
Bill Frist
George Gilder
Newt Gingrich
John Gibson (FNC)
Alberto Gonzalez
Rudolph Giuliani
Sean Hannity
Katherine Harris
Fred Hiatt (WaPo)
Christopher Hitchens
David Horowitz
Don Imus
James F. Inhofe
Jesse Jackson
Philip E. Johnson
Daryn Kagan
Joe Klein
Phil Kline
Ron Klink
William Kristol
Ken Lay
Joe Lieberman
Rush Limbaugh
Trent Lott
Frank Luntz
"American Fundamentalists"
by Joel Pelletier
(click on image for more info)
Chris Matthews
Mitch McConnell
Stephen C. Meyer (DI)
Judith Miller (ex-NYT)
Zell Miller
Tom Monaghan
Sun Myung Moon
Roy Moore
Dick Morris
Rupert Murdoch
Ralph Nader
John Negroponte
Grover Norquist
Robert Novak
Ted Olson
Elspeth Reeve (TNR)
Bill O'Reilly
Martin Peretz (TNR)
Richard Perle
Ramesh Ponnuru
Ralph Reed
Pat Robertson
Karl Rove
Tim Russert
Rick Santorum
Richard Mellon Scaife
Antonin Scalia
Joe Scarborough
Susan Schmidt (WaPo)
Bill Schneider
Al Sharpton
Ron Silver
John Solomon (WaPo)
Margaret Spellings
Kenneth Starr
Randall Terry
Clarence Thomas
Richard Thompson (TMLC)
Donald Trump
Richard Viguere
Donald Wildmon
Paul Wolfowitz
Bob Woodward (WaPo)
John Yoo
guest-blogging
All the fine sites I've
guest-blogged for:
Be sure to visit them all!!
recent listening
influences
John Adams
Laurie Anderson
Aphex Twin
Isaac Asimov
Fred Astaire
J.G. Ballard
The Beatles
Busby Berkeley
John Cage
"Catch-22"
Raymond Chandler
Arthur C. Clarke
Elvis Costello
Richard Dawkins
Daniel C. Dennett
Philip K. Dick
Kevin Drum
Brian Eno
Fela
Firesign Theatre
Eliot Gelwan
William Gibson
Philip Glass
David Gordon
Stephen Jay Gould
Dashiell Hammett
"The Harder They Come"
Robert Heinlein
Joseph Heller
Frank Herbert
Douglas Hofstadter
Bill James
Gene Kelly
Stanley Kubrick
Jefferson Airplane
Ursula K. LeGuin
The Marx Brothers
John McPhee
Harry Partch
Michael C. Penta
Monty Python
Orbital
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
"The Prisoner"
"The Red Shoes"
Steve Reich
Terry Riley
Oliver Sacks
Erik Satie
"Singin' in the Rain"
Stephen Sondheim
The Specials
Morton Subotnick
Talking Heads/David Byrne
Tangerine Dream
Hunter S. Thompson
J.R.R. Tolkien
"2001: A Space Odyssey"
Kurt Vonnegut
Yes
Bullshit, trolling, unthinking knee-jerk dogmatism and the drivel of idiots will be ruthlessly deleted and the posters banned.
Entertaining, interesting, intelligent, informed and informative comments will always be welcome, even when I disagree with them.
I am the sole judge of which of these qualities pertains.
E-mail
All e-mail received is subject to being published on unfutz without identifying names or addresses.
Corrections
I correct typos and other simple errors of grammar, syntax, style and presentation in my posts after the fact without necessarily posting notification of the change.
Substantive textual changes, especially reversals or major corrections, will be noted in an "Update" or a footnote.
Also, illustrations may be added to entries after their initial publication.
the story so far
unfutz: toiling in almost complete obscurity for almost 1500 days
If you read unfutz at least once a week, without fail, your teeth will be whiter and your love life more satisfying.
If you read it daily, I will come to your house, kiss you on the forehead, bathe your feet, and cook pancakes for you, with yummy syrup and everything.
(You might want to keep a watch on me, though, just to avoid the syrup ending up on your feet and the pancakes on your forehead.)
Finally, on a more mundane level, since I don't believe that anyone actually reads this stuff, I make this offer: I'll give five bucks to the first person who contacts me and asks for it -- and, believe me, right now five bucks might as well be five hundred, so this is no trivial offer.
