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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (50970)	7/13/2004 11:27:00 AM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

When Kerri voted against the money to protect our soldiers, did he look into the parent's eyes?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (50970)	7/13/2004 11:34:33 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Middle class feels squeeze Bush fails to patch social safety net so necessary as economy sputters By now, Karl Rove and his minions had expected that improved jobs reports would have boosted the president's election prospects immeasurably. After all, the stock market is doing just fine and corporate profits are going gangbusters. How come so many workers are still worried? Well, most workers don't get to share the bounty of those corporate profits. Even with the popularity of 401(k)s, which are replacing traditional pensions, only about half of all Americans own stock. The average American is still feeling what John Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, call the "middle-class squeeze." Already, jobs growth, which picked up in March, has begun to slow considerably. The report from the month of June showed a disappointing 112,000 new jobs, fewer than necessary to keep pace with population growth. Even more telling is this: When Bush came into office, 64.4 percent of all American adults were working. That figure has now dropped to 62.3. For those who are working, hourly wages have declined slightly over the last year after adjusting for inflation. And many of the manufacturing jobs that boosted generations of Americans into the middle class are probably gone forever -- lost to computers and Chinese workers. Add to that soaring health-care costs. Workers are having to pay more of their insurance costs, reducing their take-home pay. Or they are stuck with jobs that provide no health insurance. As if that were not enough, Alan Greenspan recently raised interest rates and is expected to keep raising them for the next several months. As he does, many average Americans will find it harder to pay off their monthly credit cards bills or get a mortgage. During the recession, they had used those credit cards to keep up their standard of living (and buy the nation out of that recession). Many families now have substantial credit card debt. Bush is not responsible for the global tidal wave that has swamped U.S. manufacturing or the credit card debt that threatens to bankrupt many families. The president didn't create an out-of-control health-care system or push down hourly wages. But his natural affinity for the wealthy and well-connected has produced policies that are much more in tune with their interests than with those of average working folk. According to the U.S. Census, yearly median family income is $51,407. In terms of income distribution, the largest group of American families -- nearly 21 percent -- earn between $50,000 and $75,000 a year. Nearly 16 percent of American families live off incomes between $35,000 and $50,000 annually. That paints a picture of a substantial midsection -- nearly 37 percent of families -- with incomes between $35,000 and $75,000 a year. Now take a look at the distribution of the Bush tax cuts. The American families earning between $43,000 and $76,000 have received only a 17 percent share of the tax cuts, according to an analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. By contrast, the top 1 percent of income-earners has received a 24.2 percent share. I know, I know. Those wealthy Americans paid more of the taxes, so they deserve more of the tax cut, right? Actually, they got more than they deserved, even by that measure. And they haven't used their tax cuts to produce substantial numbers of good-paying jobs for Americans. Wealthy investors are concerned only about increasing their profits. If replacing factory workers with robotic arms does that, they gladly install the robotic arms. Much of the economy is beyond the control of any president. But shoring up the general welfare is not. Bush had a responsibility to expand the social safety net -- extend unemployment benefits, create access to health care -- for those Americans who are falling further behind, despite their best efforts. Instead, the president has coddled the wealthy. Cynthia Tucker is editorial page editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She can be reached by e-mail: cynthia@ajc.com. workingforchange.com

To: stockman_scott who wrote (50970)	7/13/2004 1:40:08 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

What's Really Wrong With the Market By James J. Cramer RealMoney Columnist 7/13/2004 9:22 AM EDT Sometimes, when big fulcrum events occur, days like June 30 a few weeks ago, and nothing of consequence happens, you have to step back and ask, "What the heck is wrong with this market?" That's what I have thought about endlessly these last two weeks. And I have reached a sobering conclusion: This market is sick from the top down. That's right, the problem with this market is that we have lost a tremendous amount of faith in our leaders to control the situations that currently determine the risk profile of equities. Look, this market suffers from a radical shrinking in the price we are willing to pay for any earnings save the earnings of oil stocks and a handful of overpriced tech stocks that are the darlings of the mutual funds. You get multiple shrinkage from a number of economic areas, chiefly higher rates and inflation. But you also get it when you have incompetence at the top. I have to go back a decade to find a time when we had multiple shrinkage like this, to the period when President George H.W. Bush cast a pall over the market with his lack of understanding about the way the economy really worked. The first President Bush surrounded himself with people similar to John Snow, the current Treasury secretary, and Don Evans, the current Commerce secretary, uncreative, unthinking people who didn't have the ability to see or articulate what needed to be done to improve things. I have been slow to recognize the bigger issues that are just killing this market in part because I wanted to believe that the current President Bush is smarter than he sounds or looks. I wanted to believe that he could articulate correctly why we went to war in some foreign land where a thousand guys have died and billions have been spent. But he hasn't. He had terrible intelligence and bad homework, stuff I fire people for regularly and always have. The market senses this, and that casts a pall over every day's trading. What we see now in the market is a gradual realization that Bush will be forced out in November and a new man will be president, a man who may not be better for the stock market but one who arguably may not be worse if simply because a gridlocked government is better than the drunken spending and the no-vision team we have in now. Of course, that new government will have its predilections. The health care business will be reined in from excess profit if the new team has its way -- I as much as gave up on one of my drug stocks Action Alerts PLUS because of that Monday. But with the Democrats will come the hope of some intelligence when it comes to broader policies. The other day, I happened to notice that I was spending a Laurence Summers dollar bill, one signed by the former Treasury secretary, and it reminded me how far we have descended in intellect and pure smarts with this team we have now. I actually was waxing nostalgic for the Clinton team! So, we can keep talking about how great the earnings are -- and they are indeed great -- or how low rates are or how good stocks are. I think the truth is quite different: Stocks, except for the exotic few, aren't going to do anything here to speak of, not with this team in the White House. Not with the uncertainty of the election ahead. I know that President George W. Bush has been a good friend of the market when it comes to taxing those of us with lots of money. We've done great these last few years. But it is time to recognize that things aren't working. Time to recognize that the stock market is out of favor because we don't trust it, and that the trust is more a function of the leadership in Washington than it is of anything the companies have to say. It would be so much easier to blame the companies, but as you will see when earnings are reported, they aren't to blame at all. In short, as much as it is "bad for business" for me to admit this, we will do nothing of consequence in this market to speak of, save for the speculative world of Stocks Under $10. It's too bad. But I have been nothing if not honest with you readers for so many years now, I can't start lying to you: This market is sick of the leadership; not of the stocks like General Electric (GE:NYSE - commentary - research) and Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq - commentary - research), but of the president and the vice president, and nothing that comes out this week or the next or the week after in earnings will change that. That only changes in November.</b. thestreet.com