If It Got Any Better I Couldn’t Stand It

Or so goes the old saying, the President’s state of the Union speech repeats the line of how strong the economy is. They always try to buffer that remark by saying we are coming out of a recession but only blue skies are ahead. They say these things not because they actually believe them but because they know there is a sizable percentage of the population suffering economic hard times and these comments are intended to marginalize them. The leadership of both parties tout worker productivity but that like most economic indicators it is merely the shell used to hide the pea.

If Wal-Mart buys a toy from China for two dollars and then sells it for ten dollars and the Wal-mart cashier rings up five purchases an hour that is forty five dollars in worker productivity if they sell six an hour that’s almost a 20% increase in worker productivity.
It is a manufacturing statistic and it is meaningful only if your turning out tractors or automobiles but to use it in a retail economy is akin to saying a grocery store produces more food per acre than most farms, grocery stores don’t produce food they sell it ditto Wal-mart.

But durable goods orders jumped in December climbed 3.1% I love statistics like this, for buried in the text is the truth (following two monthly declines) but if we read on the actual increase was only 2.3% excluding volatile transportation orders, which are heavily skewed by aircraft. Think happy thoughts, orders were down two out of three months but because it’s up this month everything is fine. I didn’t sell anything Monday and I didn’t sell anything Tuesday but Wednesday I sold something business is great it’s up a 100%!
But the figures exceeded analyst’s expectations of .5% you know we expected Junior to get an F in his math class but he got a D and we are so proud of him!

The President’s 800 million dollar tax cuts designed to stimulate the economy and now he wants to make them permanent, How’s that working out for you? We’ll if your in the top 1% of wage earners your tax savings are only 1% just a measly 1% only $117,000 now if your in the median category your income tax burden is up 2% now that’s if you made around 56 K but if you made 96K and up your tax burden is only up 1% but you made twice as much so the moral of the story is don’t hate the rich hate the super rich. But it would be wrong to hate the rich they work for their money just like the poor do right?

Lets say the Supreme Court had ruled against George in 2000 and he found himself out of a job, his total income for that year was $824,000 and he made $70,554 as Governor of Texas so without that job he would have to rely on income from his investments alone or $753,000 now that might sound like a lot but Dick Cheney wouldn’t get out of bed and piss for that paltry amount. In 2004 22% of tax payers listed capital gains but only 11% listed enough to pay taxes on them. Meaning capital gains tax cuts have no direct effect on 89% of tax payers

But lets look at just plain folks say $50,000 a year and under households with earnings of less than $50,000 represent about 26 percent of all households with discretionary income, but less than 3 percent of total discretionary income or $2075 per year or $172 a month in 2005 so looking at these figures 74% of those with discretionary income earn more than 50K a year and discretionary income rises with income average per capita discretionary income is around 9,000 How you doing so far? Now George is making more than a million a year with his court appointed job and living in government housing and supplied government transportation and if there is still a world left when he finishes a government pension.

This is called Transfer income, income from pensions social security welfare disability etc. So almost 100% of his income is discretionary there will always be money to bail the twins out of jail. And Mr. Cheney well he’s not ready to play high stakes poker with Bill Gates but now that his money is safely invested overseas it’s no more of a worry than did any of those pellets miss Harry and hit the pheasant? Like George 98% of his income is discretionary two gentlemen in their golden years living a golden life.

Those over 65 and over or 22 million households have at their command nearly 13 percent of all discretionary income but of those 22 million households only 10 million of households have discretionary income. This segment of ten million households represents 18 percent of all households with discretionary income. Yet 45% of their fellow sexagenarians have no discretionary income, this group includes the downsized the outsourced the Enron employed the Americans who played the game bet on the wrong horse.

This is probably the fastest growing group in America today, nationally home foreclosures are up 27% in January and are up 45% from January 2005 over 103 thousand homes are in some form of fore closer. Home foreclosures have risen in every quarter of 2005 and have shown 20% or better rates the last two months. Neighborhoods in Detroit and Colorado begin to look apocalyptic with abandoned homes. I wonder why George didn’t mention this in the state of the Union address? After all what are we always told our homes are Americans largest investment? Reaching a saturation point people trying to sell their homes not in fore closer have to compete with foreclosed properties which sell at and average of 27% less.

Americans have the lowest savings rate since the great depression or should I say the first great depression. American default rates on credit cards are also soaring so what are the banks going to do? Why pass out high rate credit cards to illegal immigrants that are what!
Why not? Jack up the rates to 21% and let her rip. But George did talk about debt relief in the state of the Union address with the US running its highest debt levels in it’s history Americans losing their homes at a record rates insurance companies stiffing Gulf Coast residents on Hurricane damage we need to help those suffering in the third world.

As the American economy continues to hemorrhage money the available pool of money left in the economic pool will continue to shrink and the little fish near the waters edge will be left high and dry. The bottom feeders and the big fish who live in the deep waters will claim the little fish have only themselves to blame and look for new fish. But with less and less little fish to eat the big fish begin to feel the pain and like Mr. Cheney will invest overseas far away from the impact of his own policies speeding up the declining water levels.

With thousands of Americans losing their jobs and their homes being raped by credit card companies and insurance companies what does George say to those folks? Not one word nada zip. What does he say to the single mother in Detroit where child poverty is 39% where children from low-income families is 72% we need to cut the growth in social programs so we can increase defense spending to fight terrorism. It makes one wonder are our leaders that stupid and calloused to not see what is going on in middle America?
Our are they that cynical and hard hearted, I started to say bordering on evil but bordering hell this is evil.

But before I get the Republican blowback for picking on George what has the millionaires club we call Congress done? Not as much as George has done, and its hard to do less that nothing but they’ve tried what with posturing and non binding resolutions they’ve been busy. I imagine it’s as hard for me to understand what it is like down there in the deep water as it is for them to understand what it’s like up here in the shallow water but the difference is they’re being paid to pay attention. I’ll always remember when the communists fell in Rumania after a life time of power and privilege Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu were walked out to a court yard and Elena’s last words were “Nicolae I think they are going to shoot us!” Proving there are none so blind as the powerful.


MSN, The Foreclosure Capital

NCCP, Struggling Despite Hard Work: Low-Income Families in Michigan and Detroit The Mailman School Of Public Health, Columbia University

More Americans Have Discretionary Income But It Is Concentrated In The Most Affluent Families, The Conference Board Jan.10, 2005
Bank Of America: Reaching Out To The Unbanked, Seeking Alpha
National Foreclosures Increase 27 Percent in January According to REALTYTRAC™ U.S. Foreclosures Market Report

We can't stand it, and we won't. If ever solidarity was needed, now is the time.

the forcast is not good. :(

PS - check for typos ;)

has set the economic stage for the second great depression which at this point will be unavoidable. The 'conservatives' which THEY are certainly NOT, destroyed both themselves and the rest of us in the last depression and this time it will be no different. Good old fashion American greed has always been 'OUR' collective downfall.