President Bush: Is He a Liar?

Is Hughes still serving as an Undersecretary of State for Middle East Affairs? She probably is, which accounts for all the turmoil in the ME.

Does anyone find those Matrushchka doll like posts -- the ones with four or five layers of boxes within boxes -- as annoying as I do?

Also, I was out all day yesterday but when I came home, my son told me that bush "dropped the f-bomb at the G8." I asked whether he had used the four letter word for fornication and my son said yes. What a classy guy!

Date Posted: 07/14/2006 9:12 AM


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Many of us are quite aware that the economy generally is not all that great. Especially true in the region where I live. Malls with lots of empty spaces, no new businesses, and lots of folks shopping aimlessly.




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July 14, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Left Behind Economics
By PAUL KRUGMAN
I'd like to say that there's a real dialogue taking place about the state of the U.S. economy, but the discussion leaves a lot to be desired. In general, the conversation sounds like this:

Bush supporter: "Why doesn't President Bush get credit for a great economy? I blame liberal media bias."

Informed economist: "But it's not a great economy for most Americans. Many families are actually losing ground, and only a very few affluent people are doing really well."

Bush supporter: "Why doesn't President Bush get credit for a great economy? I blame liberal media bias."

To a large extent, this dialogue of the deaf reflects Upton Sinclair's principle: it's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. But there's also an element of genuine incredulity. Many observers, even if they acknowledge the growing concentration of income in the hands of the few, find it hard to believe that this concentration could be proceeding so rapidly as to deny most Americans any gains from economic growth.

Yet newly available data show that that's exactly what happened in 2004.

Why talk about 2004, rather than more recent experience? Unfortunately, data on the distribution of income arrive with a substantial lag; the full story of what happened in 2004 has only just become available, and we won't be able to tell the full story of what's happening right now until the last year of the Bush administration. But it's reasonably clear that what's happening now is the same as what happened then: growth in the economy as a whole is mainly benefiting a small elite, while bypassing most families.

Here's what happened in 2004. The U.S. economy grew 4.2 percent, a very good number. Yet last August the Census Bureau reported that real median family income ? the purchasing power of the typical family ? actually fell. Meanwhile, poverty increased, as did the number of Americans without health insurance. So where did the growth go?

The answer comes from the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, whose long-term estimates of income equality have become the gold standard for research on this topic, and who have recently updated their estimates to include 2004. They show that even if you exclude capital gains from a rising stock market, in 2004 the real income of the richest 1 percent of Americans surged by almost 12.5 percent. Meanwhile, the average real income of the bottom 99 percent of the population rose only 1.5 percent. In other words, a relative handful of people received most of the benefits of growth.

There are a couple of additional revelations in the 2004 data. One is that growth didn't just bypass the poor and the lower middle class, it bypassed the upper middle class too. Even people at the 95th percentile of the income distribution ? that is, people richer than 19 out of 20 Americans ? gained only modestly. The big increases went only to people who were already in the economic stratosphere.

The other revelation is that being highly educated was no guarantee of sharing in the benefits of economic growth. There's a persistent myth, perpetuated by economists who should know better ? like Edward Lazear, the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers ? that rising inequality in the United States is mainly a matter of a rising gap between those with a lot of education and those without. But census data show that the real earnings of the typical college graduate actually fell in 2004.

In short, it's a great economy if you're a high-level corporate executive or someone who owns a lot of stock. For most other Americans, economic growth is a spectator sport.

Can anything be done to spread the benefits of a growing economy more widely? Of course. A good start would be to increase the minimum wage, which in real terms is at its lowest level in half a century.

But don't expect this administration or this Congress to do anything to limit the growing concentration of income. Sometimes I even feel sorry for these people and their apologists, who are prevented from acknowledging that inequality is a problem by both their political philosophy and their dependence on financial support from the wealthy. That leaves them no choice but to keep insisting that ordinary Americans ? who have, in fact, been bypassed by economic growth ? just don't understand how well they're doing.

plainoldme, I've known for many years how our economy has negatively impacted the middle class and the poor while Bush continues to tell Americans our economy is growing and doing well.

What is the greatest mystery for me is simply that even middle class and poor conservatives have been impacted negatively for several years now, but they continue the same rhetoric as Bush.

I'm missing something important, and I'm not sure what it is.

Yes, that must be it ... all of the turmoil in the Middle East is because of Karen Hughes. Brilliant.

I find more annoying those posts that reply to some unidentified post, but don't identify which post or poster they're replying to, and which force you to track back to try and put the conversation into context with meaning. Much more annoying.



Your son must have been reading dailykos or truthout, or some other outfit with a loose grasp of the facts.

Tico, don't be such a literalist. I was, sort of, joking about Hughes.

Is it somehow against the creed of a conservative to have a sense of humor? You sound so grumpy and angry.

Advocate, To be fair, I think ticomaya "caught it" from me! LOL

Had nearly any other poster typed that, I would have perceived it as a weak attempt at humor. You may not have noticed, but it's consistent with the hyperbolic level of most of your other posts.



Not at all. Matter of fact, I have a good sense of humor.



c.i.'s correct ... I caught it from him. :wink:

Well, as you understand, the relevant issue is Hughes dishonesty here.

I thought the issue was whether Hughes accounted for all the turmoil in the ME. That was the issue I was addressing.

You're always trying to drag me into your conversations, bernie.

tico

Nah, the original post on Hughes here was mine, quoting Tucker Carlson on the subject of her dishonesty. Advocate wasn't being serious in his post re the mid east. But I understand why you'd put that strawman up instead.

Much less likely that you would acknowledge the high level of hyperbole employed by Advocate on a continual basis.

I have no comment regarding Hughes. Carry on with your Bush bashing.

Now, isn't that the interesting sentence in your post.

I have no idea whether President Bush is a liar, but he speaks with his mouth full, which I find particularly uncouth.

That's probably the least interesting thing I've said all day. How interesting that you would find it interesting.

Avoiding all jokes about the tight competition on today's tico posts...

Let's try it this way. Clinton lied, which makes him, according you numerous posts from you, a liar.

Is Karen Hughes a liar too?

If she lied, she's a liar.

If she lied under oath, she's a perjurer.

If she purjered herself while the President of the United States, this conversation might hold my attention longer.

"If"!? That is just cowardly, tico.

Truly, what is it with this consistent inability to fess up to (or perhaps face up to) such deceits coming out of this administration's key players?

Tico, I am certain that you feel that anyone who disputes your fringe, right-wing views must be employing hyperbole