Hooverville.

I know you were dying to say it, Jayson. :-)

What say you, Paul Krugman?

Hrm, doing some simple math...

That works out to about an 11% growth in the economy over 4 years, adjusted for inflation AND for population growth. It would take a mighty jaundiced eye to see that as anything other than a good thing.

Nothing to see here, just smoke and mirrors. Bush has ruined the economy...

Actually, I remember that 7.5% quarter and how much the press praised Bush for it...yeah...

Bernake testified that the US economy is 80% service-related. Isn't that bad for the long-term?

Bernake testified that the US economy is 80% service-related. Isn't that bad for the long-term?

There's your jaundiced eye. It didn't take long.

Who else but from bryanDirtbag.

Hooverville!

NATIONAL DEBT:

01/22/2001 $5,728,195,796,181.57

03/28/2007 $8,840,925,181,060.38

NATIONAL DEBT:

1/22/93 $4,174,218,594,232.91

So the Clinton years added over $1.5 Trillion to the debt even though he inherited an extremely strong and growing ecomony and had no major disters or wars to contend with and slashed defense spending (which is second only to entitlements in the budget).

Buch inherited an economy in a major recession which was made even worse by the 9/11 attacks, fought two major wars (and had to rebuild the military), dealt with major disaster of a democrat controlled city full of entitlement recipients being hit with category 1 hurrican winds and then being flooded and still only increased the debt by 3 trillion.

That's one hell of poor job by Clinton and an excellent job by Bush in my opinion.

Bryand: "Bernake testified that the US economy is 80% service-related. Isn't that bad for the long-term?"

Actually, this is almost a fair question.

Instead of writing: "Isn't that bad for the long-term?", a real seeker of truth would simply ask: "What are the implications, pro and con, for an economy where the bulk of activity is on the Service side, vs manufacturing side?"

Of course, a rational person would then ask how are services vs manufacturing defined, what are the historical numbers for both command economies vs free economies? (since you can't simply "compare" something against itself since circumstances change), etc.

Further, many economic theorist postulate that this is then natural trend of economic progress: not that manufacturing ends in the advanced economy, only that WHAT is being manufactured is the most high-tech, high-performance goods, vs, say, pig-iron.

Given that the most advanced economy is probably going to be the one generating the most cash (which we do), there will naturally be an increase in services as those dollars are used to decrease the amount of time the advanced economy citizenry save by offloading menial or undesirable tasks.

Anyway, anyone who wanted to have a "real" discussion about this would generally start off something like that, as opposed to negatively spinning it in question form.

I blame Bush.

The poor have suffered horribly, as have the homeless, etc.

I mean, the unemployment rate must be 25% or sumpin'--I heard it on kos.

Drago, I agree.

And if the alternative jobs are manufacturing jobs, they can't pay all that much to stay competitive with Asia/China. If a steel plant costs more to operate here, it will go wherever the costs are lower.

I'd be interested to see how the education, life style, and happiness of service sector workers compares to line factory workers churning out shoe soles, or steel ingots.

We're talking not just about burger flippers, but software designers and engineers, lawyers, accountants, health care professionals, financial managers and planners, etc. These, obviously, are higher value jobs than ingot-squirting.

"So the Clinton years added over $1.5 Trillion to the debt even though he inherited an extremely strong and growing ecomony and had no major disters or wars to contend with and slashed defense spending (which is second only to entitlements in the budget)."

Who wipes you in the morning?

Whhooops my bad -Hurricane Andrew was on GHW Bush's watch (the competent Bush)

Wow Gloat! You really shot me down with that scathing rebuttal!

Thanks for starting my weekend with a belly laugh. Hell I may laugh for hours...

"We're talking not just about burger flippers, but software designers and engineers, lawyers, accountants, health care professionals, financial managers and planner..."

But if you look at the numbers the majority are in fact in retail and burger flippers at well under $20K a year. What's interesting is the GDP has been 2 to 2.6% for the past 3 quarters. The Fed's funny numbers drastically underreport inflation, which then exaggerates GDP -- by about 2 or 3%. By their own numbers, manufacturing, retail, autos, real estate and business investment are all in recession. I'd suggest the general economy is too, the government just hasn't admitted it yet.

If that's true, John, when did the majority of jobs become handburger flipping--I doubt it happened because Bush happened to be Prez.

It's hard for me to believe the maj. of jobs are retail and burgers. I don't see as many of those folks as I do a whole bunch of others, driving to work everyday.

Give up the stats big boy, or quick your whining.