NYT: This Time, It’s Not the Economy

[DeepModem Mom]

This Time, It’s Not the Economy
By EDUARDO PORTER
Published: October 24, 2006
In many ways, the economy has not looked so good in a long time.

The price of gas at the pump has tumbled since midsummer. Unemployment has fallen to its lowest level in more than five years. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average has finally returned to its glory days of the late 1990’s, setting records almost daily.

President Bush, in hopes of winning credit for his party’s stewardship of the economy, is spending two days this week campaigning on the theme that the economy is purring. “No question that a strong economy is going to help our candidates,” Mr. Bush said in a CNBC interview yesterday, “primarily because they have got something to run on, they can say our economy’s good because I voted for tax relief.”

But Republican candidates do not seem to be getting any traction from the glowing economic statistics with midterm elections just two weeks away....

***

The only place that the economy has emerged as a major campaign theme has been in the aging industrial heartland around the Great Lakes, where the bleak economic prospects are being deployed against incumbents,Republicans and Democrats alike....Disenchantment over the war in Iraq has morphed into disillusionment over the direction of the country, breeding distrust in the administration’s policies, surveys suggest. Moreover, concerned by weak wage growth, costly health care and eroding benefits, many middle-class voters do not see the economy improving for them....

***

....voters favor Democrats over Republicans as stewards of the economy by 51 to 36 percent. The 15-point margin, which remained the same as in September, is the widest since the survey first included the question in 1984....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/business/24econ.html

[Lindacooks]

1. Glowing economic statistics have nothing to do with reality for

the lower and middle classes. Real wages have FALLEN in the last six years.

They contradict themselves in that article, saying 'the economy has not looked so good in a long time', then 'concerned by weak wage growth, costly health care and eroding benefits, many middle-class voters do not see the economy improving...'

Sheesh.

[valerief]

2. NYT = Not Yet Truthful. nt

[truthisfreedom]

3. people know about the oil companies' price games. they also know how

much they're taking home and how bad off they are now compared to pre-bush years. they don't give a crap about how much stocks are selling for. they don't own any!

[bklyncowgirl]

4. The economy is great if you have large investments

Since most of us just have a little cash stashed away in a retirement account that we're not touching until we reach retirement age the whole record Dow thing is rather irrelevant.

Also, I don't know anyone to whom I've said, "Enjoy these gas prices now, they'll be going up after the election." who hasn't reacted with a knowing chuckle and complete agreement.

[fencesitter]

5. and it will be the Democrats fault that they do.

uh huh.