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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (45637)	10/8/2004 11:48:12 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 59480

Framing the Economic Debate by Tim Kane, Ph.D., Rea S. Hederman, and Kirk Johnson, Ph.D. WebMemo #582 October 7, 2004 \| printer-friendly format \| The U.S. economy has displayed a remarkable resilience following the bursting of the Internet bubble and the 9/11 terrorist attacks that struck at the heart of American business. The economy’s strength was such that the 2001 recession is among the weakest on record. Today, business investment continues on an unprecedented expansion and more Americans are working than ever before. Still, myths are rampant. This paper presents a basic statistical overview of the American economy and prosperity that Americans today enjoy. I. Jobs, Employment, and Income There are three main indicators that inform the issue of employment in America. First is the overall growth of jobs. Naturally, a net increase in employment is seen as progress, but this statistic really only matters if the population is growing. Economists have long believed that the key measure of employment is the percentage of people who are employed out of the entire population of potential workers. Many citizens simply don’t want to work in the formal labor force, either because they are studying for advanced degrees, retired, or caring for other matters in the home. Thus, the unemployment rate is the best way to assess economic health. And another indicator to watch is labor compensation, which represents the quality of jobs for many observers. Jobs: Payroll or Household? The government provides many measures of job creation, but the two best known come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll survey and the Census Bureau household survey. As widely reported, the two surveys are telling opposite stories. Since January 2001, when President George W. Bush was sworn in, payroll jobs have declined by millions and recovered by millions, but still remain 900,000 jobs below their peak. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics) On the other hand, the household survey reports a record high level of working Americans, with 1.8 million more jobs since January 2001. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics) Ironically, both surveys may be correct because they count jobs differently. The household survey counts all jobs, including a growing but hard to define class of new economy workers such as part-time consultants, eBay entrepreneurs, and even real estate agents—people who are not on payrolls. The payroll survey’s name says it all. What it doesn’t say is that payrolls provide a vast sample size, which some see as a sign of its unmatched accuracy. But the real question is whether its sample quality is clean, and in August, the BLS acknowledged that the survey has sample problems: it counts workers twice when they change jobs, which may account for between 400,000 and one million of the job difference between the two surveys. (See BLS, “Effects of Job Changing on Payroll Survey Employment Trends.”) URL:http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm582.cfm

To: calgal who wrote (45637)	10/8/2004 11:48:49 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 59480

Why we fight -- and why we need to be clear about it Jonah Goldberg (archive) URL:http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/jg20041008.shtml October 8, 2004

To: calgal who wrote (45637)	10/8/2004 11:49:37 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

I was able to watch the debate and in my opinion, Bush won!!!!!