There's no radical left in America.

parados wrote:

Then you aren't paying much attention okie.

The 4th year in a row, real wages for the middle class have declined. You are probably earning less today in real dollars than you did 4 years ago.

Hubert Humphrey would be a RWer today? Based on what? Cite me a single program proposed or championed by Humphrey that would make him RW. Bush would hardly have been a liberal in the 50s. Spying on US citizens wasn't proposed by liberals then. Liberals were for the minimum wage in the 50s. Bush is against it. Liberals were for civil rights. Bush has done little to nothing for civil rights. Humphrey introduced legislation for health care for the aged in 1949. Humphrey pushed through the Test Ban treaty. (which Bush is proposing to go around.)

Hubert Humphrey was soundly against abortion, as was Edmund Muskie. Just one example.

Gay marriage proposals then would not have seen the light of day.

JFK believed in tax cuts to stimulate the economy,

so he believed in trickle down, he tried it and it worked.

If you want to talk about Civil Rights, don't try to convince anybody that Democrats led the way historically.

Welfare programs, yes. Civil Rights, no.

I would imagine Humphrey was a big welfare and big government guy,

To those who say, my friends, to those who say, that we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say to them we are 172 years late!

To those who say, to those who say that this civil-rights program is an infringement on states' rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!

People, people--human beings--this is the issue of the 20th century. People of all kinds, all sorts of people, and these people are looking to America for leadership, and they're looking to America for precept and example.

My good friends--my fellow Democrats--I ask you for calm consideration of our historic opportunity.
...
I ask this convention, I ask this convention, to say in unmistakable terms that we proudly hail, and we courageously support, our President and leader Harry Truman in his great fight for civil-rights in America!

The 4th year in a row, real wages for the middle class have declined. You are probably earning less today in real dollars than you did 4 years ago.

parados wrote:

The 4th year in a row, real wages for the middle class have declined. You are probably earning less today in real dollars than you did 4 years ago.

parados - I've seen you post that as a fact several times. Where are you hearing that, may I ask?

With today's release, we have a full four years of real wage data over the recovery that began in November 2001. The real hourly earnings of non-managers in services and blue-collar workers in manufacturing (the sample covered by this survey, which represents more than 80% of payroll employment) are down slightly over this period, as shown in the figure.

Thus, after four years of solid GDP growth and impressive productivity growth (13.5% in the same time period), the average hourly wage of workers in these occupations is down by five cents. Even the large monthly spike last month only replaces the real value lost a few months ago (see figure).

In other words, one great month cannot erase the damage done to real wage trends over the longer term. The loss of five cents in four years is clearly not a success story.

So where is the GOP leadership in civil rights from that time period? Or is that just IMAGINED too?

Rodney Dangerfield Revisited
Will the economy finally get some respect in 2006?

Friday, December 30, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

Less than a year ago, we labeled the current U.S. expansion the "Rodney Dangerfield economy"--because it "gets no respect." Ten months later our now $12.5 trillion economy has only maintained its strength even as it still gets disparaged in the media, which continues to fret about the fragility of what has undeniably been a resilient expansion. There are a few policy lessons here, assuming Washington is awake.

The 3.5% to 4% rate of growth in 2005 has been especially remarkable given eight Federal Reserve Board interest rate hikes, oil prices as high as $70 a barrel, and one of the most devastating natural disasters in American history. Yes, fourth quarter GDP may come in softer thanks to limping auto sales, but the entrepreneurial U.S. economy will still have grown at about twice the pace of Old Europe in 2005. As economist Michael Darda of MKM Partners, puts it: "This is the most derided and ridiculed growth cycle in post-World War II history, even though by many measures, including productivity and corporate profits, it's one of the most impressive."

Remember the 2004 debate over the "jobless recovery" and "outsourcing"? Here's the reality: The great American jobs machine has averaged a net increase of nearly 200,000 new jobs a month this year. Some 4.5 million more Americans are working today than in May of 2003, before the Bush investment tax cuts. The employment expansion in financial services, software design, medical technology and many other growth industries dwarfs the smaller job losses in the domestic auto industry.

Even many of the widely publicized lost jobs at Dephi and General Motors are silently offset by the tens of thousands of Americans employed at new domestic plants built by multinational companies like Honda and Toyota of North America. This job growth has been accompanied from 2001 to 2005 with the best rate of labor productivity over any four-year period since the Labor Department started tracking this statistic. This productivity revolution augurs well for higher wages in 2006.

Critics of the U.S economic model charge that income gains for workers still have not caught up with the losses from the 2000-2001 high-tech collapse. Now they have. The Treasury Department reported last week that "real hourly wages are up 1.1% versus the previous business cycle peak in early 2001." Workers are now earning more per hour in real terms than they did at the height of the 1990s expansion.

The real gains for families have been in the value of their assets. In 2005 Americans owned an all-time high level of wealth (mostly housing and stocks), valued at $50 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve (see chart). Median household net worth is now estimated at more than $100,000. Rather than being overloaded with credit card bills, the truth is that Americans' assets are rising in value faster than they are taking on debt.

It's not just the idle rich who are getting richer. It's the tens of millions in the middle class who could afford to visit malls this brisk Christmas shopping season and purchase cell phones, DVD players, $2,500 flat-panel HDTVs, $400 Xboxes, digital cameras, pink iPods and laptop computers. Hello? This isn't the buying behavior of people who are feeling poorer.

Looking ahead to 2006, the main risks to another good year are likely to come from policy mistakes in Washington. Higher taxes, energy price controls, anti-Chinese protectionism and incipient inflation are always possible when politicians are in session.
Here's what's on our New Year's wish list. First, soon-to-be Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will have to establish his hard money credentials by snuffing out the signs of inflation caused by the Fed's accommodating monetary policy of the last few years. The markets are already testing Mr. Bernanke's credibility by bidding the price of gold well above $500 an ounce since his nomination. The most important question in the next year is whether the economy's current momentum will be enough to offset Mr. Bernanke's necessary attempt to rein in the inflationary expectations that the Fed's easy-money policy since 2001 has created.

Next, since the investment tax cuts of 2003 were one of the triggers for the surge in asset values, business investment, and job growth, extending the 15% capital gains and dividend tax rates should be Congress's first order of business. Opponents of those lower rates will moan about "the deficit," but the truth is that those tax rates corresponded with a record $284 billion increase in tax revenues in Fiscal Year 2005 and a $100 billion decline in the budget deficit. We'd also like to see Republicans begin a campaign for a simplified and pro-growth tax reform, with New Europe's popular flat tax as a potential model.

Finally, it would be nice to see Republicans in Congress start to act as if they truly believe in limited government by putting Uncle Sam on a low-pork budget diet. The most conspicuous blemish on the 2005 economic scorecard was frenetic federal spending, estimated to be up another $180 billion, or 8%. If Congress were to cut that spending growth rate in half, and if the economy continues to spin off tax revenue dividends as in 2005, the budget deficit would fall in half by this time next year. And, then, who knows, the pessimists may run out of things to complain about and this expansion might finally get the respect it deserves.


http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007749

This doesn't have much to do with this thread. It's just for fun, but it's true:

Things you have to believe to be a Republican today

parados wrote:

So where is the GOP leadership in civil rights from that time period? Or is that just IMAGINED too?

Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was a champion of individual rights and responsibilities, irrespective of race. Didn't he sign into law the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which I think kind of kick started the movement of integration?

civil rights=harry truman

I've heard it said that there hasn't been a radical leftist senator in this country since the 1920's and he was driven out of office and marked as a communist, and that the right is as far extreme today as the left was in the 1920's.

And still nothing to back up your claim about Humphrey being a RWer by today's standard? No suprise there.

parados wrote:

And still nothing to back up your claim about Humphrey being a RWer by today's standard? No suprise there.

Parados, I assumed when starting this debate that ones politics included both governmental philosophy and social philisophy. I realize the two are inseparable to a great extent also, so that would have presented a problem for Humphrey in today's world. I was mainly thinking of Humphrey in terms of his social views, which would be labeled a right wing view in the liberal world of today. I gave you one of many examples with the abortion example that Humphrey would be a right winger today according to your standards. How do you separate social views from government policy?

I also pointed out that Bush is a big spender, a liberal in that respect. He is more right on social issues. I will concede that Humphrey was likely a big spending social program government guy, a liberal in that respect. However, there are even many aspects of his views on that, such as illegal immigration, voting by prisoners, which Hillary supports, and many other various and sundry government programs, I think Humphrey would have been against them.

As far as Truman, great, but he was one of the old type Democrats, not a racist type, but one that had a little bit of common sense. How come Truman is your example, the same guy that obliterated 100's of thousands of Japanese with 2 bombs. If that was done now, you guys would string him up tomorrow morning.

No left wingers now, ha! That is laughable. There are avowed socialists in Congress right now. I think if Humphrey were alive today, you guys would throw him in the same pot as Lieberman and even Zell Miller. He would be a dinosaur in your world.