No one, apparently, loves a good magic trick more than George Bush. And his best magic tricks involve no sleight of hand either, just words. Here’s our rhetoric President on the economy, as recently as last week:

Bush talked up the nation’s wealth last week during a speech in Milwaukee. ”We’re doing fine,” he said and described the economy as ”strong and gaining steam.”

Ah, but then the Fed had to come along and rain on his parade:

Within days, however, the Federal Reserve reported that average incomes after adjusting for inflation actually had fallen between 2001 and 2004.

And those guys don’t pull their punches either:

Inflation helped to eat away at the average American family’s income, reducing the total to $70,700 in 2004–a loss of 2.3 percent from 2001. That followed a 17.3 percent gain in average incomes between 1998 and 2001 and 12.3 percent in 1995-98, the Fed said.

And once the fuel has been nicely poured all over the firewood, here’s a special guest to light the fire:

Last year proved to be the worst one on record for inflation-adjusted income, said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

Try to reconcile those two facts. “We’re doing fine”. And the worst year ever for inflation adjusted income. People who have been to college assure us it can’t be done. (In the interests of fairness, we are constrained to point out that group includes anyone who has ever walked across a college campus for any reason whatsoever.)

And this Bernstein guy doesn’t believe in not kicking a guy when he’s down, either. He went on to add helpfully:

”Averaging over all of 2005, real wages fell 0.9 percent–the lowest annual result on record”.

At this point, one thing has to be clear to anyone following along at home (whether you ever took a shortcut across a college campus or not). If the average family’s income fell by more than 2.3% last year (2.3% is the three-year average, and 2005 was the worst year ever), and the real wage fell by 0.9%, then clearly the average American family is not earning a real wage.

And now who do we have here? Tamara Draut, director of the economic opportunity program at research and advocacy group Demos. Ms. Draut has to be Mr. Bernstein’s identical twin, cruelly separated at birth. She helpfully adds that:

more than 76 percent of households carry debt, up since 2001. Of households in debt, the median amount of debt, $55,300, amounts to 128 percent of the median household income.

Question for anyone who thinks they’re equal to the task: if the amount of your loan is 1.3 times your annual household income, and you insist on diverting some household income for frivolities like food, shelter, clothing and health-care, maybe even education, how many lifetimes does it take to pay back your loan? (Yes, that’s why Hindus believe in reincarnation – it’s the only way to get out of debt.)

(All facts and quotes taken from Abid Aslam’s story at OneWorld.net.)