WSJ: Improving Economic Signals May No Longer Deliver Votes

[Merlin]

"Nagging insecurity amid prosperity is the emerging economic theme of the 2004 campaign," proclaims the Wall Street Journal's front page today in a lengthy analysis of the economy, with fresh polling data, that bodes ill for the Bushies.

(I know most people don't subscribe to the WSJ and can't read it on line, unfortunately. DUers may not understand that the bad part of the paper is the limited to the cretinous Editorial page, but there's an "iron curtain" between that and the rest of the paper, which is perhaps the best in the world. The WSJ has consistently posted more stories critical of the Bushies than any other US paper--especially during the pre-Howard Dean period of rampant media intimidation.)

Here's the link, if you are a subscriber:
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB107930266951654845-IRjfoNolaR3n5ysaXqHbaqJm4,00.html

Here are some nuggets from this story which are very hopeful for our side:

The feeling of insecurity is especially intense -- and especially politically significant -- in the 200-mile band stretching from Western Pennsylvania to Eastern Ohio, cleaved by West Virginia's northern panhandle incorporating Weirton. Mr. Bush won West Virginia narrowly in the 2000 election and carried Ohio with just 49.97% of the vote. Former Vice President Al Gore took Pennsylvania, with 50.6% of that state's vote. All three states are considered up for grabs this time around. Their combined 46 electoral votes make up one-sixth of the total needed to win the election

In Pennsylvania as a whole, the unemployment rate is now 5.3%, compared with 5.9% a year earlier and 5.6% for the country. Ohio still struggles the most of the three states, with its jobless rate stuck persistently at 6.2%, up a notch from 6% a year earlier. But, as Mr. Bush noted in his latest appearance there, the state's downturn has been eased by foreign investment, such as Honda Motor Co.'s factories employing 15,600 workers.

But during the three years of the Bush administration, the twin forces of globalization and productivity have helped kill tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs -- particularly steel jobs -- that long defined this area. However bright the economic future may be otherwise for these states, those jobs are likely gone forever.


One thing missed in the story is the growing gap between the published unemployment numbers and the actual number of unemployed--which includes millions who have given up searching for a job. The true unemployment rate is closer to 7.7% than the published 5.2%.

[Warpy]

1. People are starting to understand

..that the rosy economic outlook is only rosy for the plutocrats, that it remains grim for the working public and that Bushco are a bunch of idiots whose solution to high unemployement is that workers whould vote with their feet and relocate to India--no kidding, he really said this!

The more they blather about this wonderful economic upturn that is simply not being shared with 90% of the American people, the worse it will be for them. People are sick to death of being marginalized in their own country and being declared greedy for expecting a full day's pay for a full day's work instead of being grateful for less than subsistence with no benefits.

There's a lot of anger out here, folks, and Kerry needs to get specific how he will treat us differently than both Clinton and Bush have treated us.

[Mountainman]

2. eased by foreign investment, such as Honda Motor Co.'s

Isn't this American Honda? Isn't it a combined effort of some American companies and Japanese companies? It's been in Ohio making motorcycles as long as I can remember. How then is it easing the burden of the unemployed when it was here before the down turn?

Bush seems to say that since the down turn foreign companies have invested in Ohio and that is helping to ease the burden. There is no new investment in Ohio by foreign companies is there?

[Warren Stuart]

3. Buy American - buy a Honda

This has got to be a kick in the teeth to the America First crowd.

When Honda starts making Harley's the cognitive dissonence will measurable with seismographs.

[Merlin]

5. Sort of.

Signs of economic vibrancy are visible in the region, some attributable to the much-vilified globalization trend. New Japanese auto-parts factories are sprouting in West Virginia to supply a Toyota engine plant in the state. The Cabela's Inc. hunting, fishing and outdoor gear chain is building a mammoth 175,000-square-foot store near Wheeling, W. Va., expected to employ 400 people and draw as many as five million visitors a year.

In Weirton, Mr. Svokas can reel off a list of companies that have opened or expanded recently -- a door manufacturer, a tire-recycling plant. The state's recent relaxation of gambling rules has created a slot-machine boom in the region, with two big racetracks bustling with activity and spinning off hotels and restaurants. In Ellwood City, Pa., Mr. Basile notes the expansion of a chemical company and local car dealerships. A few miles southeast lies the Pittsburgh bedroom community of Cranberry -- a rapidly growing clutter of construction sites, shopping centers, offices and hotels.


The article then goes on to say that during Bush, "the twin forces of globalization and productivity" have "killed" tens of thousands of jobs that are gone forever.

[BabsSong]

4. It's frustrating the rich that the average man is not buying the

propaganda. Therefore, I love to see Bush talk about "his magnificent plan going in the right direction" in these states because he cannot control the barbs being shouted out in the bars and pool halls and living rooms of the working people in these areas. It doesn't give them hope and thus adoration for the boy; it makes them mock him and hate him. Today he's in PA talking about homeownership---that dredges up hatred in those who have lost their homes because of unemployment, are looking at losing their homes, cannot get in on homebuying because of fear over their jobs, etc. It's like him coming there dressed in fur and diamonds and saying "see what you can have if you lazy asses work real hard". Bush is digging his grave the more he speaks in these states.