They deny facts madman.
Either that or they have a very low comprehension level.

what? I think you're in a little bit over your head.

There was no oil "boom". yes, oil prices went sky high and those companies that drill domestically did receive large profits from it. It was hardly the scale of the technology boom from the 1990s.

The difference in the two booms is that the oil boom had negative consequences on the economy while the technology boom gave positive. The gains on oil increased the costs for the average consumer whereas the technology boom brought tech prices the other direction. Demand for tech rose, demand for oil products essentially dropped. The reason for the sustained hike was (1) speculators who were betting on (2) rising world demand in developing nations like China.

The oil industry saw a rise in jobs in the oil fields, but because gas rises with the costs of oil and the profit margin does not change much at those high prices. So profits were largely from the crude itself. The rest of the industry likely lost jobs from the drop in demand for final products like gas.

You also obviously do not understand the concept of an overinflated job market. That means in a normal economic cycle, you will have x people unemployed. If you do things like lend to people who don't deserve it and leave interest rates low, it increases spending (as you drop them, leaving them low puts you, well, here). This increased spending on consumer goods kept more people in jobs. The problem is, much of that "cash" from mortgages and refinances should not have been in the marketplace so many of those jobs should not have existed. So, when the economy drops, it will likely fall to the natural level of a recession - with all these extra jobs in the marketplace being shed, it appears worse than it actually was.

Essentially, we're not in that bad of a recession - as I said, the unemployment statistic is the worst of all the indicators - but we had an artificial high from all the irresponsible borrowing and lending that was far higher than the natural rise in an economy. Tech stocks did a similar thing in the 2000-2001 recession but they did not artificially inflate so much - largely because much of that tech industry was imported. When we stopped buying it, the GDP didn't fall so much because our imports are what dropped most. It's all about confidence.

Still waiting for you to point out where the "surplus" caused the debt to fall. Any time now.

I showed you a graph!
Is it my fault you cant comprehend it?

I think not. My taxes go to educate Carolinian students and Im not you teacher!



I said I was going to quit responding to these posts.
Damn-it, I am!!!

You apparently need to work on your graph-reading skills.



see that red circled part? The national debt itself does not change based on GDP. GDP went up over the tech boom. therefore, if GDP rises and spending rises slower, that graph falls.

http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt_files/image002.jpg

There's an actual debt graph. Where does it fall? Please, help me. because apparently, I'm the one with the comprehension problem.

Which part of "A as percent of B" do you not understand, Fanta?

Were not in that bad of a recession? every economic guru claims its the worst since the great depression I suppose you know better than the educated experts? I am not following your logic at all. but I may be in over my head I had thought we imported oil so your logic dictates that with less imports of oil(due to high gas prices) our GDP debt ratio would fall?

No, the recession is not all that bad. We're still better off in perspective than we were in the early 80s and only slightly worse than the early 90s. We're far better off than we were in the Carter years that led to the recession in the first half of Reagan's term. Economists are like politicians - they come from all walks of life, have all sorts of economic ideals, and will always cater their views and predictions accordingly. You show me an economist that says this is the end of the world, and I can show you one that says we will be on our way to recovery by the end of the year (well they did - then the stimulus passed and they're not sure anymore as it's too soon to tell). I'm currently pursuing a second degree in economics and have to read up on things from real-world economists. Besides what the news and blogs tell you, the indicators were not as bad as the media makes it out to be because unemployment is so terrible. That is the major figure everyone latches on to. The stimulus is going to have an impact and nobody is sure which direction. 75% of this is perception. The media and Obama have made it out to be so terrible that that is how the public views it.

Oil is not as large an influence on our job market as it is a large influence on our GDP. During the Clinton years, oil was cheap as was gas. we still imported a lot of oil but it was cheap so the imports didn't hit the GDP as badly. In the last few years, oil has skyrocketed. This increased costs of import has caused our GDP to diminish - furthering the rise in the graph Fanta posted during the bush years. Even though our domestic production still did very well in comparison to previous years - far better than with Clinton's administration, the costs of the war and importing oil has taken it's toll on the total GDP.

When taking views of an economic guru, ask yourself first, if this expert had correctly predicted what we have unfolding today.

If not, then he is not an expert, but a regular government whore, who is called an economist for his help to propagate the economics lies.

I can tell you, that in USA, in every 1000 of so-called experts on economy, 999 are complete fools.

Just roll back your dvr and take a look at what exactly were all these idiots predicting?

Arthur Laffer, for instance, has even bet Eric Schiff (talking about a Chihuahua barking on a Great Dane) that Schiff is wrong. Laffer, happen to be predicting the greatest economic times ever, when the whole house went down. Promptly, Laffer has published a book on how to survive in crisis, and still posing himself to be some expert. (Laffer is the guy who used to be an economic adviser to Reagan, IIRC).

(type laffer vs. schiff on youtube)

We are talking about complete idiots. People who could not see the obvious, yet pretend to be experts and wear impressive titles.

so this isn't really about kool aid huh???

End Culture of Corporate Entitlement
by Jim Hightower

I don't mind losing when we lose, but I hate losing when we win.

One big reason that Barack Obama now occupies the big chair in the Oval Office is that he embraced the public's rising indignation at the blatant greed of Wall Street bankers, striking the proper populist tone in last year's presidential election.

After all, these slick financial elites crashed our economy, yet they kept enriching and pampering themselves, even as taxpayers were being forced to throw hundreds of billions of dollars at their failing institutions.

Having won and taken office, Obama proceeded to rip right into the bankers' shameless avarice, denouncing their "culture of narrow self-interest and short-term gain at the expense of everything else."

Great stuff! Go get 'em, Barack!

A week later, however, the president's treasury chief, Timothy Geithner, rolled out the administration's plan to add more than a trillion dollars to the ongoing Wall Street bailout, and -- Holy William Jennings Bryan -- Obama's populist bark had been reduced to a puppy whimper!

It seems that Geithner and Obama's top economic adviser, Lawrence Summers -- both of whom have long been cozy with the very same greed-headed bankers who caused the financial mess we're in -- had been cooing into the president's ears about the "danger" of "harshly" punishing executives and "spooking" private investors.

Thanks to them, even though populist politics won, populist policy lost.

Gone from Obama's proposal is the idea that top managers of the failed banks -- the executives who made the foolhardy investments that brought the system down -- should be ousted (if not tarred and feathered).

Instead, our trillion-plus bucks are to be put right into those same hands! If ignorance is bliss, Geithner and Summers must be ecstatic.

The soft-on-Wall Street boys also prevailed over those who pushed to impose strict limits on the pay of top executives whose banks are getting our bailout money.

While Obama's team did put a $500,000 annual cap on cash paid to the CEO, the restriction does not apply to Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and about 350 other banks that've already grabbed bailout funds. It only applies to those taking money in the next phase of the giveaway.

Also, the executives who do fall under the cash cap can receive unlimited bonuses in the form of stock payments.

The worst part of this political cave-in is not in the details, but in the principle that was abandoned. Obama hit it on the head when he denounced "the culture" of executive entitlement that has infested America's corporate world.

In the past couple of decades, the ethical notion that business leaders should be trustees for the enterprise -- with responsibilities to future shareholders, employees and the larger society -- has been displaced by a singular focus on amassing short-term wealth for the few by driving up the stock price, no matter what shortcuts must be taken to achieve that soulless goal.

CEOs who can jack up those prices, by hook or crook, are hailed as geniuses and treated as royalty, no matter how much damage they're doing to their company or our country.

This celebration of manipulated wealth has even fostered an absurd bit of conventional wisdom that we can't get competent executive talent for a mere $500,000 a year.

This stems from the prevailing (and pernicious) corporate fiction that the best are, by definition, the ones who're paid the most. Yet 500K is 25 percent more than our country's president makes, more than our top-rated non-profit leaders receive, more than most community bankers take and way more than America's finest teachers are paid.

Wall Street conveniently equates compensation with value -- and since CEOs compensate themselves extravagantly, they've come to assume that they are America's most valuable people. Indispensable, even.

It is this self-aggrandizing corporate culture that must be changed. Sadly, Geithner, Summers -- and Obama -- have instead advanced that culture by failing to hold some of its worst practitioners accountable for their enormously destructive actions.

Cpyright 2009 Creators Syndicate Inc.
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/23-9

IN FACT, NONE OF THIS WOULD BE HAPPENING IF WE DIDN'T ALLOW PEOPLE THAT HAVE DUAL ISRAELI/AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP INTO OUR EXECUTIVE AND LEGISLATIVE BRANCHES.

I refuse to believe there is any truth in that statement. Do you have a (credible) reference?

Occupied Jerusalem: 3 October, 2001 (IAP News)
this is one of them......

An acrimonious argument erupted during the Israeli cabinet weekly
session last week between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and
his foreign Minister Shimon Peres during which Sharon reportedly
yelled at Peres, saying "don't worry about American pressure, we
control America."

According to Israel radio (in hebrew) Kol Yisrael, Peres warned
Sharon Wednesday that refusing to heed incessant American
requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians would endanger
Israeli interests and "turn the US against us."

At this point, a furious Sharon reportedly turned toward Peres,
saying "every time we do something you tell me Americans will do
this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear,
don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish
people control America, and the Americans know it."

The radio said Peres and other cabinet ministers warned Sharon
against saying what he said in public because "it would cause us
a public relations disaster."

this was just before bush left the office. read it and tell me who is more powerful, the president or the prime minister of israel?......


JERUSALEM (AFP) — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was left shame-faced after President George W. Bush ordered her to abstain in a key UN vote on the Gaza war, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday.

"She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour," Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution last Thursday calling for an immediate ceasefire in the three-week-old conflict in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza where hundreds have been killed.

Fourteen of the council's 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, which was later rejected by both Israel and Hamas.

The United States, Israel's main ally, had initially been expected to voted in line with the other 14 but Rice later became the sole abstention.

"In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour," Olmert said.

"I said 'get me President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me.

"I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour."

Bush has consistently placed the blame for the conflict on Hamas, telling reporters on Monday that while he wanted to see a "sustainable ceasefire" in Gaza, it was up to Hamas to choose to end its rocket fire on Israel.

But a US State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, denied Olmert's claim.

"Mr. Olmert is wrong," the official said.

Even if everything had gone according to plan, "she would have abstained. That was the plan," said the official. "The government of Israel does not make US policy."


This is what john f kennedy said about the the whole mess when he was alive, give him a listen.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhZk8ronces

American / Isreali Dual Citizens in the American Government

Attorney General - Michael Mukasey
Head of Homeland Security - Michael Chertoff
Chairman Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board - Richard Perle
Deputy Defense Secretary (Former) - Paul Wolfowitz
Under Secretary of Defense - Douglas Feith
National Security Council Advisor - Elliott Abrams
Vice President **** Cheney’s Chief of Staff (Former) - “Scooter” Libby
White House Deputy Chief of Staff - Joshua Bolten
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs - Marc Grossman
Director of Policy Planning at the State Department - Richard Haass
U.S. Trade Representative (Cabinet-level Position) - Robert Zoellick
Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board - James Schlesinger
UN Representative (Former) - John Bolton
Under Secretary for Arms Control - David Wurmser
Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board - Eliot Cohen
Senior Advisor to the President - Steve Goldsmith
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary - Christopher Gersten
Assistant Secretary of State - Lincoln Bloomfield
Deputy Assistant to the President - Jay Lefkowitz
White House Political Director - Ken Melman
National Security Study Group - Edward Luttwak
Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board - Kenneth Adelman
Defense Intelligence Agency Analyst (Former) - Lawrence (Larry) Franklin
National Security Council Advisor - Robert Satloff
President Export-Import Bank U.S. - Mel Sembler
Deputy Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children and Families - Christopher Gersten
Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Public Affairs
- Mark Weinberger
White House Speechwriter - David Frum
White House Spokesman (Former) - Ari Fleischer
Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board - Henry Kissinger
Deputy Secretary of Commerce - Samuel Bodman
Under Secretary of State for Management - Bonnie Cohen
Director of Foreign Service Institute - Ruth Davis

I don't see you rebutting this andrewav!!!

Hey Madison, many were sucked into Obama's message of "change". People naturally want things to get better. I know you don't want to hear this but much the same can be said about people who voted for Bush the first time. He ran on the idea of ending Clinton's wars, and becoming fiscally responsible...

Truth is, Obama is still new. He feels pressure from congress to stay "on track". There is a chance if people, put enough pressure on him, maybe it will drown out some of congress's influence. WHo knows.

Best thing is, find out where our problems started (ignore political parties, and presidents in charge), and find out how we treat the disease. All too often we get distracted by the sympoms, so we ignore the disease. When change comes, it will come from the people, not political powers...

well said