What do I say?

[liberalpress]

My neo-con friends are jubilant about the upturn in the economy. "You see?" they say. "George Bush's tax cuts are working." When I mention it's a jobless recovery, thhey are evn more insistant... "Everyone knows jobs are the last thing to rebound."

You and I both know the tax cuts benefit no one but the rich. Snytone have a counter argument to this neo-creep?

[Paragon]

1. A one quarter surge in GDP does not a "recovery" make

Especially with the largest deficit in the history of this country. You will NOT see a similar surge next quarter, as Chimp's "rebates" have now been spent. Also note the stock market's non-reaction to the GDP news.

[JackRiddler]

9. Consumer spending was flat!

Although debt continues to rise: personal, corporate and state. Easy credit, "negative savings," massive trade deficit, continuing major layoffs in manufacturing, continuing departure of industrial base = country bankrupt, living off borrowed money, buying what others produce. Essentially has the others by the balls, since they have accepted fiat dollars all these years and put these back into dollar assets. But evidence is the others are preparing to adapt to the post-dollar age: net withdrawal of investments in U.S. and dollar assets, plus Russian adoption of euro for resource pricing... watch out!

The biggest increase of the quarter was in purchase of energy. Oil, that is.

No shit, this raw figure mainly reflects the rise in the oil price!

The other big increase was in government purchases = mainly military and "other" (=mainly "Homeland" & related WoT nonsense).

In a few months, the growtth figure will be revised downward, as usual.

They had every reason to fake it this quarter, because they need an excuse to raise interest rates, finally, without creating an immediate crash.

Wall Street boom is half on margin! Once again a bubble: borrowed money pumped into market, entirely dependent on easy credit & low rates.

None of these things will impress your neocon friends, however, who have imbibed all the rationalizations. Just be patient and wait another quarter. When the 7.2 percent figure is later revised, make sure you tell them right away! That's the kind of thing that they will remember, and have to admit...

If they're smart, however, they'll point out that the economic crisis pre-dates Bush - though he has taken actions that make it much worse. (I wouldn't blame Clinton as such - it's the logical workings of capitalism, but you're not supposed to mention that in polite company).

[La_Serpiente]

2. Tell him the truth

that jobs have been decreasing. Bush has lost the most jobs ever since Herbert Hoover and that is the truth. He has not had any job growth at all.

Also, manufacturing jobs have been dissapearing and consumer spending went down .3 percent.

This cannot last forever.

[roguevalley]

3. also tell them that the growth is in the military spending we have to do

thanks to dimwit's war. without that, we would be farther in the toilet than we are.

[onebigbadwulf]

4. Stock market

didn't chage.

Wait until next quarter and see what happens.

[HFishbine]

7. Be Realistic

We get nowhere by deluding ourselves. The stock market has responded quite positively in anticipation and even after the quarterly number was announced:

[dbt]

5. "Well, we'll see, won't we?"

"If it holds up for another couple of quarters, I'll admit that I was wrong."

"Meantime, I'm willing to give bu$h as much benefit of the doubt as you gave Clinton."

:evilgrin:
dbt

[0rganism]

6. Trickle-down is almost meaningless in an era of global "free" trade

Those jobs that are supposed to get created from the upper-class tax cuts? They're going to other countries with no labor or environmental standards whatsoever. Rather than re-invest in American infrastructure, the piggies are spending their manufacturing bucks overseas.

On the "bright side", eventually 95% of Americans will be in the same boat as the rest of the 3rd world, and we'll start seeing some jobs rebound then.

globalisation + supply-side idiocy = quick sprint to the bottom

[Kamika]

8. Just how much did the economy go DOWN before it went up?

I never heard this but i bet the 7% increase was just recovery

[dofus]

10. Personally, I see the "increase" in spending

as essentially a dead cat bounce. The economy had gone down so far, some kind of uptick was inevitable. But WHERE ARE THE JOBS?