The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 7 of 15)

/p> p> ONWARDS AND UPWARDS br> Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.'s The Economy Is Sound : /p> p>To buttress Mr. Tyrrell's point, check the employment numbers at the website of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of August 2008, the U.S. Civilian Labor Force is 154.9 million and total employment is 145.5 million. In June of 2000, the U.S. Civilian Labor Force was 140.8 million and total employment was 135.2 million. So during the Bush years, about 14 million new people (net) were included as employable and 10 million (net) new jobs were created. Instead of ignoring the Bush years, McCain would be wise to trumpet the 10 million new jobs, while making appropriate condolences for the current and temporary unemployment rate. He could also point out that the current financial setbacks are not economy-wide, but are primarily the popping of the real estate bubble, which cannot be blamed on politicians, and the run-up in oil prices, which can be blamed on timid politicians of both parties, but which John and Sarah will immediately (Jan. 21, 2009) start to remedy. br> -- Michael G. Novak br> Ellicott City, Maryland /p>

If looked at from a academic definition and prospective the assessment that the economy is growing is correct. Pencil neck geeks from Ivy League schools are neither trusted nor influential right now. Three big points that should lead in current discussion of the economy:

p>First, the census department last week announced the observation that only lawyers, doctors, and engineers have increased wages since 2000. The census bureau found that the average wages of Americans are down three percent since 2000. Of course the census bureau counts only wages and does not recognize other kinds of compensation but they also use the ridiculous CPI as their inflation index so they are pretty close to right after discounting their insensitivity to shifting professional populations. This leads to the second point that the total number of high tech employees has declined in the United States every year sin 1998 except 2006. Good wage jobs have not been growing. Stock options and other non-wage has effectively gone up since the better engineers have been the only ones retained. Third the tax structures of most states have caused corporations in the United States to under capitalize American Jobs for decades. When companies will not spend as much capital on the employees' job as the employees spend on their cars you can not expect those employees to be confident in the economy. br> --

topics:
Taxes, Trade, John McCain, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, Mainstream Media, Television, Business, Islam, Abortion, Hollywood, Law, Military, Iraq, Russia, NATO, Africa, Alaska, Oil