Cindy Sheehan arrested before SOTU

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by SuzeQuze

While this is true it is only part of the picture. The little guy was doing better then for other reasons besides the tech bubble and creative Enron-style accounting.

Intertesting point, but I think it is untrue. The inflation of wealth created by the blind expectation of profiting off of IPO (I mean $150 a share in a day on the IPO when the company has never made a dime ) created the vast majority of those jobs either directly or indirectly. For example, GM was able to produce more middle level cars because the guy selling the copier paper to these companies was doing better and could afford one, etc. So, it had a huge effect on the economy. Same with Enron and MCI and the other fraud companies.

I will say this though, the lowering of the interest rates spawned a housing boom that allowed the economy in a relative manner to escape the carnage that could have resulted from the essentially overnight disintegration of the fraud wealth and the tech IPO boom wealth. In fact, though it has slowed, the housing market is still keeping the economy afloat and that is despite several rate hikes. The caveat there is creative financing (interest only loans, 125% loans, etc. ) could cause that market to burst, but they have not so far.

In the end, Clinton/Greenspan did some great things with the economy - but much of the often touted good times were due to the IPO and the fraud issues, which occured during that time period.

Will the Bush economy see a recovery in jobs? I tend to doubt it becuase one logical explanation for the realtive lack of hiring is that yes, the companies are making more money, but the fuel costs are double and that precludes taking on more employees. I think this is a true statement, though I am sure greed factors in there somewhere.