Bush's economy is poverty stricken, bleeding jobs and ready to crash

By Dan Merica
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publ...cle_2028.shtml

May 31, 2007, 00:15

Bush and (GIXAHOLIC ) boasts that the US economy has never been so robust with the Dow hitting over 13,000. This figure shouldn’t be any surprise after he and his GOP cohorts pumped money into the top tier and the business sector via tax cuts, corporate grants and a war economy. Bush has been playing ‘Republican Trickle Down,’ except there is little trickle down. The 13,000 Dow could be the boom before the bust.

Many low and middle-income Americans are noticing that the Bush economy is not really doing so well. They see jobs disappearing, wages slipping and opportunities vanishing. They see folks living in cars and eating dog food. There are 37 million struggling below the poverty line soon to be joined by millions more of marginal earners after they are hit with bad luck. The American Journal of Preventative Medicine reported that with a gain of over 3 million, the number of Americans living in extreme poverty has grown more than any other group since Bush took office in 2000.

According to the US Conference of Mayors, many indigents asking for food hold jobs, but are paid so poorly they can’t feed themselves. Yet, Republicans, until recently, have consistently thwarted Democratic efforts in Congress to raise the federal minimum wage. The $5.15 wage has been stalled for nearly a decade and is now at its lowest level in real terms since 1956. Then, it was 50 percent of the average wage, but is now only 30 percent.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics official unemployment count is 7.6 million. Add another 1.5 million who are no longer counted because they’ve haven’t found work for a long time. Add another 5 to 10 million who are underemployed and can only find part-time work or are doing jobs below their potential. It totals up to 20 million out of work or making sub-standard pay.

Globalization is responsible for the lost jobs for Americans and the downward spiral for middle-class wages. With Bush’s support, disloyal businessmen, eager to exploit the massive pool of cheap labor in Third World countries, are dumping well-paid American workers and sending their jobs overseas, as well as replacing them here with imported low-wage foreign workers.

Furthermore, it isn’t just blue collar manufacturing jobs being affected. Five hundred-sixty thousand 560,000 American high-tech jobs were sent abroad, while more of the same number of low-wage high-tech foreign workers on H-1B and other temporary visas were brought in, according to The American Engineering Association in 2003. As a result, enrollment in science and high-tech college courses started to decline, which provided an excuse for employers to lobby for further increases of the low paid foreign high-tech employees allowed to work in the US under H-1B visas.

The Bush economy is ripe for a depression. Runaway spending for his tax cuts for the rich and his Iraq war has pushed the national debt up to $8.6 trillion. It is impossible for the United States to pay off this mind numbing debt so, instead, China, Japan and the oil exporting countries are financing it.

The US dollar is still afloat only because of frenzied consumer spending, which makes up 70 percent of the GNP, and the fact that 70 percent of the world’s oil is traded in US dollars, forcing central banks to amass it in huge quantities. However, both of those underpinnings are beginning to crack. Huge American personal debt and -1 percent savings rate are putting a drag on consumer spending. And American insolvency has induced some oil trading countries to reconsider their allegiance to the dollar as the main oil currency and to replace it with the Euro and other currencies. As these reverses implode, our creditors will stop financing us and the world’s central banks will jettison their hoards of collapsed dollars back to us causing the Bush depression.

Dan Merica has been drawing political cartoons now for 50 years. He is presently battling the right-wing scourge now devastating our constitutional liberties and standard of living. If it isn’t stopped, there isn’t much time left for a democratic America.

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AMERICA LAND OF THE FREE HOME OF THE BRAVE--BECAUSE OF OUR CONSTITUTION.

more fear mongering from the left

No Gix, just proof you can't be trusted to give both sides of the story. In reality, you are just an unpaid political butt-snorkeling hack for the corporate predators who run this country!!!!!

NOTHING LAST FOREVER ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN GIX.

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AMERICA LAND OF THE FREE HOME OF THE BRAVE--BECAUSE OF OUR CONSTITUTION.

I'd love to see your source disputing it, gixaholic.

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http://americanpoliticsandmore.com/forum/index.php


When you want to know the truth, search all articles available on your topic. The truth lies somewhere between it all.

What about the proposed increase of min. wages presented for a vote in the summer of 2006....that would have raised the wages from..5.25 to over 7.00 dollars and hour....killed on the floor...not by republicans but by democrats...all because it included a plan with it to allow small business to form co-op relationship to provide insurance to their employees.....and provide tax cuts to make up for the wage increase.....rejected. Why? Because this would seem to them that the party of the conservatives would still their thunder...with the election so close.....Indeed the proposal was presented into committee for study by the democrats...and they never expected it to gain the votes to leave the committee.....as the republicans indeed went along with wage increase....and even provided insurance to go along with it.......the Democrats could not let this legislation ever become law...under the leadership of the conservatives...so a campaign was launched to to kill the bill.....you guessed it...by the liberals......with many excuses...and projected pitfalls that would come with the bill as presented....no...this is just unacceptable.....now they cry....but we have not had an increase in years......ask not...why we turned one down.....with a plan for insurance included.......go figure.....for any that needs proof...its all a part of the congressional record....for those with "BAD MEMORIES"......BD

I can hear the net buzzing...as the liberals are sure to flood the thread in DNC talking points....as to why...this bill should not have became law....as stated there remains many and various reasons stated....none with any logic...other than the fact...they did not want a tax reduction to offset the wage increase...to allow the employers to make up the cost....no they want their cake and eat it to....no tax reductions.....it should come out of the pockets of the employers...not from our tax coffers.....Now did they really have the welfare of the worker in mind...or the power that would come with projected vote via the ballot box? BD

disputing what...... if you are looking for info please use your search button... all the articles are posted on this forum... thank you..

you know bribing folks to vote is illegal unless a democrat vote for it to happen..

The average income is up.
As a matter of fact When Bill Gates walked into a bar the other day the average income of everybody in the room rose 10,000 percent.

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I respect your right to have your own opinion,but I do not necessarily respect your opinion.

Economics should not be made out to be a political issue. Regardless of which side of the isle your on. Economics, is Economics. If anything, how it is managed it what makes it a political issue. The objective of any economists is to ensure it's sustainable, ongoing concern, equitable, get out what you put in and doesn't leave future generations with enormous amounts of debt. Why you GIXAHOLIC, believe that any question of the Bush administration or should I say regime, is leftist or whatever is beyond me. If you are familiar with macro-economics, kensian economics, you would see the mess we are in.