The Bush Economy In A Nutshell
by sarabeth at 6:32 am on February 1st, 2008 in Bush Man Date, EconomyThe “Yahoo! News: Top Stories” summary just had these two AP headlines back to back: “Payrolls drop for 1st time since 2003” and “Exxon Mobil posts record profits“.
That strikes me as the perfect 5 second summary of Bush’s economy. Or, more sadly, of what happened to the country under Bush’s economy.
The payroll story tells us:
Nervous employers cut 17,000 jobs in January — the first such reduction in more than four years and a fresh trouble sign that the economy is in danger of stalling.
[…]
Job losses were widespread. Manufacturers, construction firms and a variety of professional and business services eliminated jobs in January — reflecting the toll of the housing and credit debacles. The government cut jobs, too. All those cuts swamped job gains in education, health care, retailing and elsewhere.Wage growth also slowed, another indication that employers are tightening their belts amid the economic slowdown.
[…]
Taken together, the figures suggested that employers have grown cautious as they try to cope with fallout from housing and credit problems and rising worry about the ailing economy.Economists were predicting employers would boost payrolls by around 70,000…
Fears of a recession have grown.
The Exxon Mobil story provides this counter-point:
Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company — $40.6 billion — as the world’s largest publicly traded oil company benefited from historic crude prices at year’s end.
Exxon also set a U.S. record for the biggest quarterly profit, posting net income of $11.7 billion for the final three months of 2007, besting its own mark of $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005.
The previous record for annual profit was $39.5 billion, which Exxon Mobil reported for 2006.
If you’re so inclined, you can call that short and sweet. That was the entire AP story (at least, as of 6:20 am PST).
There’ll be dancing in the streets, won’t there? Chants of “USA! USA!”? A fine upstanding American company, beating its own previous world record! What could be sweeter? Just what America needs to hear to revive our flagging morale as we prepare to be personally pummeled by Bush’s economy.
And let’s also give credit where credit is due. Both the current and former record were achieved partly due to tax break handouts from the Bush-Cheney regime (both of those fine gentlemen, of course, having no personal reason whatsoever to be interested in the oil business or its profits).
sarabeth wrote:
This post could equally well have been titled: “The Bush Economy, In The Nuts”
Posted 01 Feb 2008 at 8:39 am ¶
Adrian wrote:
I really enjoy reading your blog, it always has great insight. But I am very frustrated with the media’s lack of questions to the presidential candidates about global warming. Now that it is down to just a few candidates I would think that this would be a bigger issue.
Live Earth just picked up this topic and put out an article ( http://www.liveearth.org/news.php ) asking why the presidential candidates are not being solicited for their stance on the issue of the climate change. I just saw an article describing each candidate’s stance on global warming and climate change on earthlab.com http://www.earthlab.com/articles/PresidentialCandidates.aspx . So obviously they care about it. Is it the Medias fault for not asking the right questions or is it the candidates’ fault for not highlighting the right platforms? Does anyone know of other websites or articles that touch on this subject and candidates’ views? This is the biggest problem of the century and for generations to come…you would think the next president of the United States would be more vocal about it.
Posted 01 Feb 2008 at 11:40 am ¶
sarabeth wrote:
Media’s fault? No way!
And I’m sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the coal industry, through the blandly named group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), has been a key sponsor of the CNN-hosted debates.
Posted 01 Feb 2008 at 5:56 pm ¶
alex wrote:
Great Blog I always enjoy the commentary, it is very informative and entertaining.
I was wondering if you or your readers knew a good place to find an easy, simply read place to find out where the candidates stand on global warming.
I saw the earthlab poll and it is obvious that people care but the candidates websites have so much other information it is hard to find what I need with out being preached at. Earthlab.com also has candidate information that’s pretty good: http://www.earthlab.com/articles/PresidentialCandidates.aspx . Does anyone know of another website to find this information? Any other good resources where we I can find out how my candidate votes?
Posted 08 Feb 2008 at 4:24 pm ¶
matt wrote:
>Any other good resources where we I can find out how my candidate votes?
who’s your candidate?
CFR has a comparison here. CNN’s is here.
Posted 08 Feb 2008 at 4:37 pm ¶
Adrian wrote:
Now I have another issue I would like to discuss: I am trying to find more about the government and if they are going to ratify the Kyoto Protocol any time soon. Has anyone seen this poll on EarthLab.com http://www.earthlab.com/life.aspx . It said 75% of people think the government should ratify the Kyoto Protocol on Earth Day (when I took it). I also saw something on Wikipedia but it wasn’t up to date. Any other thoughts on where the government is going with this?
I am looking for more info on what candidates’ opinions are how are we are going to get closer to solutions. Drop a link of you see anything worth my time.
Posted 07 Apr 2008 at 2:40 pm ¶
Adrian wrote:
I’m back with another issue I wanted to find more info about. I don’t usually do much for Earth Day but with everyone going green these days, I thought I’d try to do my part.
I am trying to find easy, simple things I can do to help stop global warming (I don’t plan on buying a hybrid). Has anyone seen that EarthLab.com is promoting their Earth Day (month) challenge, with the goal to get 1 million people to take their carbon footprint test in April?… I took the test, it was easy and only took me about 2 minutes and I am planning on lowering my score with some of their tips.
I am looking for more easy fun stuff to do. If you know of any other sites worth my time let me know.
Posted 22 Apr 2008 at 1:58 pm ¶