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To: shoe who wrote (62070)	9/28/2004 5:49:04 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

you've got to be kidding If Bush isn't directly responsible for this mess with oil I don't know what is Economically speaking Bush is a DISASTER

To: shoe who wrote (62070)	9/29/2004 6:42:27 AM
From: JDN	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 64865

Shoe, you must be about my age (just turned 61 on the 23rd and charles didnt even wish me happy birthday!!) and been investing as long as I. I too started about 1969 or so, through a stroke of luck I actually made enough that I COULD have retired about 1972, but along about then the CRASH came and I lost it all. Slowly built back up but was eventually hampered as being a Partner of a National CPA firm I was really LIMITED in what I could own, however eventually I made it and retired at age 47. So, I have been through many of these CYCLES and I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. The secret to this is to BELIEVE IN AMERICA and start YOUNG. Time is your ALLY. IMHO when you consider Bush inherited a Recession, got socked with widespread Corporate excesses (I am being kind), got hit with violent Terrorism resulting not only in IMMEDIATE HUGE LOSS but continual beyond the budget COSTS to fight this war HOME as well as abroad, that Bush has pulled off an economic MIRACLE to have avoided even possibly a DEPRESSION. As to Oil, the IMMEDIATE problem was the shutdown of the Gulf drilling platforms etc due to the hurricanes, but the intermediate and possibly long range problem is our SEVERE lack of REFINING CAPACITY (thank you environmentalists) and the ASSININE state rules on gasoline formulations (which ought to be standardized to a few regions and run FEDERALLY). jdn

To: shoe who wrote (62070)	9/30/2004 12:42:21 PM
From: Original Mad Dog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

I agree with most of what you say, but this: for many years during the 'Seventies and 'Eighties the unemployment rate hovered around 5 to 5.5 per cent, just as it is today. Only in the late 'Nineties did it drop below 5 per cent. Actually, the unemployment rate was *above* 5.5 percent, usually well above 5.5 percent, for the vast majority of that time. Unemployment was above 5.5 percent for the following periods: Nov. 1970-August 1972 (22 consecutive months) October 1972 (1 month) September 1974-March 1988 (163 consecutive months) May 1988 (1 month) August 1988 (1 month) That is a total of 188 months (out of a possible 240 months) in which the unemployment rate in the 70's and 80's was above its current level. In 108 of those months, the unemployment rate was 7.0 or above. bls.gov has tools where charts covering these periods can be generated. And it's not a matter of large numbers of people having "given up" and "left" the work force, either. The civilian labor force participation rate (the percentage of people 16 or older who are employed) is currently 66.0 percent. That number was slightly higher in many of the Clinton years, peaking at 67.3 percent, which is the highest it has ever been in U.S. history. In the 1970's and 1980's, the labor force participation rate was lower than it is now for 18 out of the 20 years. In other words, back then the unemployment rate was usually much higher than it is now, even though fewer people (as a percentage of the over-16 population) were in the work force (more people, through discouragement or other reasons, had left or not entered the work force).