How's the plan sound now, taking into account Halliburton, 900+ American soldiers dead, American troops hunkered down in Ramadi, etc.?

Still sounds reasonable. But Bush will have to deal with a political liability in Iraq, instead of a political bonus...

The economy IS recovering.

The war WAS successful (the occupation, less so).

Bush still looks pretty good in November, though it won't be a "landslide" by any means.

What's your point? That things didn't go perfectly? Do they ever?

The economy IS recovering. The war WAS successful (the occupation, less so).

The economy is doing poorly unless you're one of the rich or a corporation.

Employment gains this year just about match the number of new workers entering the labor market, about a million more workers have lost their employment insurance so arern't counted in the unemployment rate, jobs that have come back on average pay less than the jobs that were lost, the number of workers "not looking for work" has increased by about 3 million during this adminstration, and the country is still about 4 million jobs short during this administration. Corporate profits have risen 42% in the past year while real income has fallen for workers. Not to mention costs of food, housing and energy. 13,000 families are doing much, much better, 40 million are doing much worse.

The invasion of Iraq was a failure.

Supposedly part of the "War On Terrorism," the invasion's only successes have been to increase terrorism world-wide, increase our budget deficit, kill tens of thousands, disrupt millions of American lives, etc. "Getting rid of Saddam"is pretty meaningless in counter-point.

Looks like Bush is a goner (unless, of course, there's a domestic attack and voting is suspended).

Don't forget:

1) most new jobs "added" are low pay, no benefits

2) 40,000,000 Americans without health insurance, (one of which is me, gaddammit!)

Can't wait till the inevitable:

"Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" --question appears in public.

I've got health coverage. But, then again, I actually work for a living...

"Working for a living" is something another 5-7 million cannot say since Bush came into power.

In addition to the 4+ million jobs lost (many off-shored), those not looking for work have increased by 3 million, and another 750,000 have lost their unemployment benefits to are not counted in the unemployment figures.

"Innovation and creativity" isn't doing a good job of getting many of those jobs back:

BLS reported a decline of 131,000 employed computer software engineers in the second quarter vs. the first quarter (725,000 vs. 856,000). Employed computer scientists and systems analysts have fallen 51,000 (621,000 vs. 672,000) during the same period, while computer hardware engineers dropped 3,000 (83,000 vs. 86,000). Computer programmers experienced a fall of 16,000 (575,000 vs. 591,000).

"Working for a living" is something another 5-7 million cannot say since Bush came into power.

BLS total employment figures for the year Bush came into office: 128 million jobs.

June 2004 total employment figures from the BLS: 139 million jobs.

Hmm.

Must be "fuzzy math"... ;)

I don't have the latest data (running out now, will look later) but the last time I looked a few months ago available jobs were in the range of 132 million.

I do have the BLS data for "when Bush came into office":

2000 136,891,000 employed
2001 136,933,000 employed

Where did your 128 million figure come from?

RJ, check this link http://tinyurl.com/2xcta to see where a shortfall of 7 million jobs comes from.

Since last March, there have been more jobs created but 137,000 per month enter the work force, so there's still a huge gap.

Ntoe also that companies who have seen their profits increase over last year, are reinvesting most of that off-shore, so job growth is not going to speed up here but the workforce is going to keep growing and growing and ...

RJ, let me de-fuzz your math.

Below is a table of the real employment numbers taken from the BLS site. The seasonally adjusted numbers are probably the best to use, since in any given year, actual employment changes by two or three million between January and June, masking what's going on.

When Bush took over his job, the non-farm employment number was 132 million. From there things went downhill, bottoming out at just under 130 million mid-2003. Last month's preliminary figure shows 131 million employed, so things aren't as bad as they were.

However, they're not as good as they first appear.

What this data overlooks is the growth of the labor force over this time. We see the effect of that in the unemployment numbers.

In 2000, there were 5,692,000 unemployed. Last year, the figure was 8,774,000. Things have improved a bit since then, and last month there were 8,200,000.

In addition to that, 1,500,000 workers were counted as "marginally attached" - they had no jobs but had not looked in the previous four weeks. And on top of that, the number of those who have dropped out of the labor market increased somewhere between 3 and 5 million (depending on your sources).

In the last three months alone, the labor force has grown over 600,000 so we need over a million jobs a year just to stay even.

Tell me more about your fuzzy math, RJ.


Non-farm, seasonally adjusted

(p) = Preliminary

Year 2001 2002 2003 2004

Jan 132388 130494 130190 130194

Feb 132492 130404 130031 130277

Mar 132507 130447 129921 130630

Apr 132236 130379 129901 130954

May 132237 130381 129873 131189(p)

Jun 132087 130406 129859 131301(p)

Jul 131972 130295 129814

Aug 131831 130306 129789

Sep 131564 130259 129856

Oct 131203 130342 129944

Nov 130871 130305 130027

Dec 130659 130096 130035

Way ta go, RJ, another new low.

RJ: "I've got health coverage. But, then again, I actually work for a living..."

Cute, yet compassionate.

It sorta sums up the entire GOP platform, ie

"Fuck you; we've got ours."

isn't there some bible thingy to back that up? like "blessed are the meek, for, though they increase my tax burden, they shall inherit the earth. lucky ducky bastards."

I've got health coverage. But, then again, I actually work for a living...

Some of us who are still working no longer get health coverage. Or vacation.

I predict that the next big terrorist attack on American soil will be by one of the 40 or so million Americans who don't have access to health care.

Then RJ can ask, "Why do they hate us?"

---and get a fucking answer.

Shark:

Would you support these hypothetical "insurgents" who killed thousands of innocents in order to protest the lack of completely socialized-medicine in the US?

Your pal Mike Moore lamented publicly that the 9-11 monsters killed good Democrats. After all, it was just the Kyoto Treaty they were pissed about...

Would you support these hypothetical "insurgents" who killed thousands of innocents in order to protest the lack of completely socialized-medicine in the US?

Are you now, or have you ever been a card carrying member of the Communist
Party?

Mark, you've also noticed that:

1) These rhetorical questions don't warrant answering;

2) Manning and RJ would have simply loved the early 1950s.

3) And they only missed the Spanish Inquisition by a few hundred years...

Darn.

"Looks like Bush is a goner (unless, of course, there's a domestic attack and voting is suspended)."

Oops! ;-)