Maybe Bush actually does think after all. Ewwwwwwww! Hide the democracies.

[TacticalPeek]

March 1, 2004
President George Bush and the Gilded Age

Yoshi Tsurumi (Professor of International Business, Baruch College, the City University of New York )

Something really strange has happened to the U.S. under the Bush Administration. With her ever bulging budget deficits and foreign debts, America's skewed income distribution is rapidly making the U.S. resemble Argentina or Mexico. The "Jobless Recovery" is not a political mirage, but a serious problem. America's GDP is increasing at an annual rate of about 4.0% this year. But, only those Wall Street "money gamers" and self-dealing "management aristocrats" of Corporate America are dizzy with their huge bonuses, padded salaries, and self-dealt stock options. The remaining hard working Americans cannot eat "GDP." The U.S. has widening income gap between a few "haves" and many "have-nots."

During the last economic recovery period of March 1991 to April 1993, a 10% increase in GDP increased manufacturing jobs and service jobs 3% and 5.9% respectively. However, for the present economic recovery since November 2001, a 10% increase in GDP is increasing manufacturing and service jobs only 0.7% and 0.9% respectively. Just to keep up with her population growth, the U.S. needs to create about 230,000 jobs a month. If the U.S. wants to employ the 3 million unemployed workers thrown out of work under the Bush Administration, the U.S. would have to create a lot more jobs monthly. Last month, however, the U.S. only created 115,000 jobs. President Bush has now abandoned his earlier declared promise of "creating 2.6 million jobs by the fall of 2004."

The unemployed rate of January this year was 5.6%, dipping only 0.1 percentage point. President Bush hailed it as the "unemployment declines for four months in a row." In reality, however, the U.S. has had four months of consecutive decline in the unemployment rate because so many formerly "unemployed" became too discouraged to keep seeking jobs and were eliminated from the unemployment statistics. The U.S. has over 5 million part-time job holders who want full time jobs but cannot find them. In addition, the U.S. has 8 million persons who have had to settle for full time jobs paying far less than their previous jobs. The "jobless recovery" and the widening income gaps are aggravated by massive migrations of good paying manufacturing and service jobs abroad. Such migrations have been accelerated by President Bush's misguided tax cuts.

At Harvard Business School, thirty years ago, George Bush was a student of mine. I still vividly remember him. In my class, he declared that "people are poor because they are lazy." He was opposed to labor unions, social security, environmental protection, Medicare, and public schools. To him, the antitrust watch dog, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities Exchange Commission were unnecessary hindrances to "free market competition." To him, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was "socialism." Recently, President Bush's Federal Appeals Court Nominee, California's Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown, repeated the same broadside at her Senate hearing. She knew that her pronouncement would please President Bush and Karl Rove and their Senators. President Bush and his brain, Karl Rove, are leading a radical revolution of destroying all the democratic political, social, judiciary, and economic institutions that both Democrats and moderate Republicans had built together since Roosevelt's New Deal.

more
http://www.glocom.org/opinions/essays/20040301_tsurumi_president

My bold.

Thanks to Atrios

[ewagner]

1. Kerry should include this in his stump speech

The remaining hard working Americans cannot eat "GDP." The U.S. has widening income gap between a few "haves" and many "have-nots."


edit for emphasis

[w4rma]

2. This author understands and is explaining the situation *very* well. (n/t)

[izzie]

3. I love it. a man who never did a thing on his own calling poor lazy.

No wonder he believes in the ruling class, they got there by birth and name and never had to work.The bloodsuckers of society.

[SaintLouisBlues]

4. Maybe Bush actually does think after all

"Every time he thinks, he weakens the nation"- noted philosopher Moses Horowitz (aka Moe)

[indepat]

5. So GWB was then opposed to and is now out to destroy: labor unions,

social security, the environment, Medicare, and public schools (under NCLB, more that one-half of all schools are automatically designated as poor). For lagniappe, he has fostered reckless fiscal and tax policies, unilaterally abrogated international laws (the supreme law of the land), and started pre-emptive wars of his choosing in the absence of imminent threat or UN sanction, yet the Congress marches in near lock step, the Supreme Court refuses to strike down almost certain unconstitutional law, the media shill his praises and deeds, and the largely apathetic or ideologically-driven general public still support him in unbelievable numbers notwithstanding all this. The good news: there is a small, albeit a very small, chance he might be defeated in November.

[TacticalPeek]

6. Kick Shrub back to the Gilded Age. n/t