posted July 17, 2008 08:49 PM            

When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.

I can hear an irritated counterthrust already. The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. Well, fine. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.

And it gets worse. After almost seven years of this president, the United States is less prepared than ever to face the future. We have not been educating enough engineers and scientists, people with the skills we will need to compete with China and India. We have not been investing in the kinds of basic research that made us the technological powerhouse of the late 20th century. And although the president now understands—or so he says—that we must begin to wean ourselves from oil and coal, we have on his watch become more deeply dependent on both.

Up to now, the conventional wisdom has been that Herbert Hoover, whose policies aggravated the Great Depression, is the odds-on claimant for the mantle “worst president” when it comes to stewardship of the American economy. Once Franklin Roosevelt assumed office and reversed Hoover’s policies, the country began to recover. The economic effects of Bush’s presidency are more insidious than those of Hoover, harder to reverse, and likely to be longer-lasting. There is no threat of America’s being displaced from its position as the world’s richest economy. But our grandchildren will still be living with, and struggling with, the economic consequences of Mr. Bush.
Remember the Surplus?

The world was a very different place, economically speaking, when George W. Bush took office, in January 2001. During the Roaring 90s, many had believed that the Internet would transform everything. Productivity gains, which had averaged about 1.5 percent a year from the early 1970s through the early 90s, now approached 3 percent. During Bill Clinton’s second term, gains in manufacturing productivity sometimes even surpassed 6 percent. The Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, spoke of a New Economy marked by continued productivity gains as the Internet buried the old ways of doing business. Others went so far as to predict an end to the business cycle. Greenspan worried aloud about how he’d ever be able to manage monetary policy once the nation’s debt was fully paid off.

This tremendous confidence took the Dow Jones index higher and higher. The rich did well, but so did the not-so-rich and even the downright poor. The Clinton years were not an economic Nirvana; as chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers during part of this time, I’m all too aware of mistakes and lost opportunities. The global-trade agreements we pushed through were often unfair to developing countries. We should have invested more in infrastructure, tightened regulation of the securities markets, and taken additional steps to promote energy conservation. We fell short because of politics and lack of money—and also, frankly, because special interests sometimes shaped the agenda more than they should have. But these boom years were the first time since Jimmy Carter that the deficit was under control. And they were the first time since the 1970s that incomes at the bottom grew faster than those at the top—a benchmark worth celebrating.

By the time George W. Bush was sworn in, parts of this bright picture had begun to dim. The tech boom was over. The nasdaq fell 15 percent in the single month of April 2000, and no one knew for sure what effect the collapse of the Internet bubble would have on the real economy. It was a moment ripe for Keynesian economics, a time to prime the pump by spending more money on education, technology, and infrastructure—all of which America desperately needed, and still does, but which the Clinton administration had postponed in its relentless drive to eliminate the deficit. Bill Clinton had left President Bush in an ideal position to pursue such policies. Remember the presidential debates in 2000 between Al Gore and George Bush, and how the two men argued over how to spend America’s anticipated $2.2 trillion budget surplus? The country could well have afforded to ramp up domestic investment in key areas. In fact, doing so would have staved off recession in the short run while spurring growth in the long run.

But the Bush administration had its own ideas. The first major economic initiative pursued by the president was a massive tax cut for the rich, enacted in June of 2001. Those with incomes over a million got a tax cut of $18,000—more than 30 times larger than the cut received by the average American. The inequities were compounded by a second tax cut, in 2003, this one skewed even more heavily toward the rich. Together these tax cuts, when fully implemented and if made permanent, mean that in 2012 the average reduction for an American in the bottom 20 percent will be a scant $45, while those with incomes of more than $1 million will see their tax bills reduced by an average of $162,000.

The administration crows that the economy grew—by some 16 percent—during its first six years, but the growth helped mainly people who had no need of any help, and failed to help those who need plenty. A rising tide lifted all yachts. Inequality is now widening in America, and at a rate not seen in three-quarters of a century. A young male in his 30s today has an income, adjusted for inflation, that is 12 percent less than what his father was making 30 years ago. Some 5.3 million more Americans are living in poverty now than were living in poverty when Bush became president. America’s class structure may not have arrived there yet, but it’s heading in the direction of Brazil’s and Mexico’s.
The Bankruptcy Boom

In breathtaking disregard for the most basic rules of fiscal propriety, the administration continued to cut taxes even as it undertook expensive new spending programs and embarked on a financially ruinous “war of choice” in Iraq. A budget surplus of 2.4 percent of gross domestic product (G.D.P.), which greeted Bush as he took office, turned into a deficit of 3.6 percent in the space of four years. The United States had not experienced a turnaround of this magnitude since the global crisis of World War II.

Agricultural subsidies were doubled between 2002 and 2005. Tax expenditures—the vast system of subsidies and preferences hidden in the tax code—increased more than a quarter. Tax breaks for the president’s friends in the oil-and-gas industry increased by billions and billions of dollars. Yes, in the five years after 9/11, defense expenditures did increase (by some 70 percent), though much of the growth wasn’t helping to fight the War on Terror at all, but was being lost or outsourced in failed missions in Iraq. Meanwhile, other funds continued to be spent on the usual high-tech gimcrackery—weapons that don’t work, for enemies we don’t have. In a nutshell, money was being spent everyplace except where it was needed. During these past seven years the percentage of G.D.P. spent on research and development outside defense and health has fallen. Little has been done about our decaying infrastructure—be it levees in New Orleans or bridges in Minneapolis. Coping with most of the damage will fall to the next occupant of the White House.

Although it railed against entitlement programs for the needy, the administration enacted the largest increase in entitlements in four decades—the poorly designed Medicare prescription-drug benefit, intended as both an election-season bribe and a sop to the pharmaceutical industry. As internal documents later revealed, the true cost of the measure was hidden from Congress. Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical companies received special favors. To access the new benefits, elderly patients couldn’t opt to buy cheaper medications from Canada or other countries. The law also prohibited the U.S. government, the largest single buyer of prescription drugs, from negotiating with drug manufacturers to keep costs down. As a result, American consumers pay far more for medications than people elsewhere in the developed world.

You’ll still hear some—and, loudly, the president himself—argue that the administration’s tax cuts were meant to stimulate the economy, but this was never true. The bang for the buck—the amount of stimulus per dollar of deficit—was astonishingly low. Therefore, the job of economic stimulation fell to the Federal Reserve Board, which stepped on the accelerator in a historically unprecedented way, driving interest rates down to 1 percent. In real terms, taking inflation into account, interest rates actually dropped to negative 2 percent. The predictable result was a consumer spending spree. Looked at another way, Bush’s own fiscal irresponsibility fostered irresponsibility in everyone else. Credit was shoveled out the door, and subprime mortgages were made available to anyone this side of life support. Credit-card debt mounted to a whopping $900 billion by the summer of 2007. “Qualified at birth” became the drunken slogan of the Bush era. American households took advantage of the low interest rates, signed up for new mortgages with “teaser” initial rates, and went to town on the proceeds.

All of this spending made the economy look better for a while; the president could (and did) boast about the economic statistics. But the consequences for many families would become apparent within a few years, when interest rates rose and mortgages proved impossible to repay. The president undoubtedly hoped the reckoning would come sometime after 2008. It arrived 18 months early. As many as 1.7 million Americans are expected to lose their homes in the months ahead. For many, this will mean the beginning of a downward spiral into poverty.

Between March 2006 and March 2007 personal-bankruptcy rates soared more than 60 percent. As families went into bankruptcy, more and more of them came to understand who had won and who had lost as a result of the president’s 2005 bankruptcy bill, which made it harder for individuals to discharge their debts in a reasonable way. The lenders that had pressed for “reform” had been the clear winners, gaining added leverage and protections for themselves; people facing financial distress got the shaft.
And Then There’s Iraq

The war in Iraq (along with, to a lesser extent, the war in Afghanistan) has cost the country dearly in blood and treasure. The loss in lives can never be quantified. As for the treasure, it’s worth calling to mind that the administration, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, was reluctant to venture an estimate of what the war would cost (and publicly humiliated a White House aide who suggested that it might run as much as $200 billion). When pressed to give a number, the administration suggested $50 billion—what the United States is actually spending every few months. Today, government figures officially acknowledge that more than half a trillion dollars total has been spent by the U.S. “in theater.” But in fact the overall cost of the conflict could be quadruple that amount—as a study I did with Linda Bilmes of Harvard has pointed out—even as the Congressional Budget Office now concedes that total expenditures are likely to be more than double the spending on operations. The official numbers do not include, for instance, other relevant expenditures hidden in the defense budget, such as the soaring costs of recruitment, with re-enlistment bonuses of as much as $100,000. They do not include the lifetime of disability and health-care benefits that will be required by tens of thousands of wounded veterans, as many as 20 percent of whom have suffered devastating brain and spinal injuries. Astonishingly, they do not include much of the cost of the equipment that has been used in the war, and that will have to be replaced. If you also take into account the costs to the economy from higher oil prices and the knock-on effects of the war—for instance, the depressing domino effect that war-fueled uncertainty has on investment, and the difficulties U.S. firms face overseas because America is the most disliked country in the world—the total costs of the Iraq war mount, even by a conservative estimate, to at least $2 trillion. To which one needs to add these words: so far.

It is natural to wonder, What would this money have bought if we had spent it on other things? U.S. aid to all of Africa has been hovering around $5 billion a year, the equivalent of less than two weeks of direct Iraq-war expenditures. The president made a big deal out of the financial problems facing Social Security, but the system could have been repaired for a century with what we have bled into the sands of Iraq. Had even a fraction of that $2 trillion been spent on investments in education and technology, or improving our infrastructure, the country would be in a far better position economically to meet the challenges it faces in the future, including threats from abroad. For a sliver of that $2 trillion we could have provided guaranteed access to higher education for all qualified Americans.

The soaring price of oil is clearly related to the Iraq war. The issue is not whether to blame the war for this but simply how much to blame it. It seems unbelievable now to recall that Bush-administration officials before the invasion suggested not only that Iraq’s oil revenues would pay for the war in its entirety—hadn’t we actually turned a tidy profit from the 1991 Gulf War?—but also that war was the best way to ensure low oil prices. In retrospect, the only big winners from the war have been the oil companies, the defense contractors, and al-Qaeda. Before the war, the oil markets anticipated that the then price range of $20 to $25 a barrel would continue for the next three years or so. Market players expected to see more demand from China and India, sure, but they also anticipated that this greater demand would be met mostly by increased production in the Middle East. The war upset that calculation, not so much by curtailing oil production in Iraq, which it did, but rather by heightening the sense of insecurity everywhere in the region, suppressing future investment.

The continuing reliance on oil, regardless of price, points to one more administration legacy: the failure to diversify America’s energy resources. Leave aside the environmental reasons for weaning the world from hydrocarbons—the president has never convincingly embraced them, anyway. The economic and national-security arguments ought to have been powerful enough. Instead, the administration has pursued a policy of “drain America first”—that is, take as much oil out of America as possible, and as quickly as possible, with as little regard for the environment as one can get away with, leaving the country even more dependent on foreign oil in the future, and hope against hope that nuclear fusion or some other miracle will come to the rescue. So many gifts to the oil industry were included in the president’s 2003 energy bill that John McCain referred to it as the “No Lobbyist Left Behind” bill.
Contempt for the World

America’s budget and trade deficits have grown to record highs under President Bush. To be sure, deficits don’t have to be crippling in and of themselves. If a business borrows to buy a machine, it’s a good thing, not a bad thing. During the past six years, America—its government, its families, the country as a whole—has been borrowing to sustain its consumption. Meanwhile, investment in fixed assets—the plants and equipment that help increase our wealth—has been declining.

What’s the impact of all this down the road? The growth rate in America’s standard of living will almost certainly slow, and there could even be a decline. The American economy can take a lot of abuse, but no economy is invincible, and our vulnerabilities are plain for all to see. As confidence in the American economy has plummeted, so has the value of the dollar—by 40 percent against the euro since 2001.

The disarray in our economic policies at home has parallels in our economic policies abroad. President Bush blamed the Chinese for our huge trade deficit, but an increase in the value of the yuan, which he has pushed, would simply make us buy more textiles and apparel from Bangladesh and Cambodia instead of China; our deficit would remain unchanged. The president claimed to believe in free trade but instituted measures aimed at protecting the American steel industry. The United States pushed hard for a series of bilateral trade agreements and bullied smaller countries into accepting all sorts of bitter conditions, such as extending patent protection on drugs that were desperately needed to fight aids. We pressed for open markets around the world but prevented China from buying Unocal, a small American oil company, most of whose assets lie outside the United States.

Not surprisingly, protests over U.S. trade practices erupted in places such as Thailand and Morocco. But America has refused to compromise—refused, for instance, to take any decisive action to do away with our huge agricultural subsidies, which distort international markets and hurt poor farmers in developing countries. This intransigence led to the collapse of talks designed to open up international markets. As in so many other areas, President Bush worked to undermine multilateralism—the notion that countries around the world need to cooperate—and to replace it with an America-dominated system. In the end, he failed to impose American dominance—but did succeed in weakening cooperation.

The administration’s basic contempt for global institutions was underscored in 2005 when it named Paul Wolfowitz, the former deputy secretary of defense and a chief architect of the Iraq war, as president of the World Bank. Widely distrusted from the outset, and soon caught up in personal controversy, Wolfowitz became an international embarrassment and was forced to resign his position after less than two years on the job.

Globalization means that America’s economy and the rest of the world have become increasingly interwoven. Consider those bad American mortgages. As families default, the owners of the mortgages find themselves holding worthless pieces of paper. The originators of these problem mortgages had already sold them to others, who packaged them, in a non-transparent way, with other assets, and passed them on once again to unidentified others. When the problems became apparent, global financial markets faced real tremors: it was discovered that billions in bad mortgages were hidden in portfolios in Europe, China, and Australia, and even in star American investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns. Indonesia and other developing countries—innocent bystanders, really—suffered as global risk premiums soared, and investors pulled money out of these emerging markets, looking for safer havens. It will take years to sort out this mess.

Meanwhile, we have become dependent on other nations for the financing of our own debt. Today, China alone holds more than $1 trillion in public and private American I.O.U.’s. Cumulative borrowing from abroad during the six years of the Bush administration amounts to some $5 trillion. Most likely these creditors will not call in their loans—if they ever did, there would be a global financial crisis. But there is something bizarre and troubling about the richest country in the world not being able to live even remotely within its means. Just as Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib have eroded America’s moral authority, so the Bush administration’s fiscal housekeeping has eroded our economic authority.
The Way Forward

Whoever moves into the White House in January 2009 will face an unenviable set of economic circumstances. Extricating the country from Iraq will be the bloodier task, but putting America’s economic house in order will be wrenching and take years.

The most immediate challenge will be simply to get the economy’s metabolism back into the normal range. That will mean moving from a savings rate of zero (or less) to a more typical savings rate of, say, 4 percent. While such an increase would be good for the long-term health of America’s economy, the short-term consequences would be painful. Money saved is money not spent. If people don’t spend money, the economic engine stalls. If households curtail their spending quickly—as they may be forced to do as a result of the meltdown in the mortgage market—this could mean a recession; if done in a more measured way, it would still mean a protracted slowdown. The problems of foreclosure and bankruptcy posed by excessive household debt are likely to get worse before they get better. And the federal government is in a bind: any quick restoration of fiscal sanity will only aggravate both problems.

And in any case there’s more to be done. What is required is in some ways simple to describe: it amounts to ceasing our current behavior and doing exactly the opposite. It means not spending money that we don’t have, increasing taxes on the rich, reducing corporate welfare, strengthening the safety net for the less well off, and making greater investment in education, technology, and infrastructure.

When it comes to taxes, we should be trying to shift the burden away from things we view as good, such as labor and savings, to things we view as bad, such as pollution. With respect to the safety net, we need to remember that the more the government does to help workers improve their skills and get affordable health care the more we free up American businesses to compete in the global economy. Finally, we’ll be a lot better off if we work with other countries to create fair and efficient global trade and financial systems. We’ll have a better chance of getting others to open up their markets if we ourselves act less hypocritically—that is, if we open our own markets to their goods and stop subsidizing American agriculture.

Some portion of the damage done by the Bush administration could be rectified quickly. A large portion will take decades to fix—and that’s assuming the political will to do so exists both in the White House and in Congress. Think of the interest we are paying, year after year, on the almost $4 trillion of increased debt burden—even at 5 percent, that’s an annual payment of $200 billion, two Iraq wars a year forever. Think of the taxes that future governments will have to levy to repay even a fraction of the debt we have accumulated. And think of the widening divide between rich and poor in America, a phenomenon that goes beyond economics and speaks to the very future of the American Dream.

In short, there’s a momentum here that will require a generation to reverse. Decades hence we should take stock, and revisit the conventional wisdom. Will Herbert Hoover still deserve his dubious mantle? I’m guessing that George W. Bush will have earned one more grim superlative.

posted July 17, 2008 11:38 PM            

The republicans do a damn good job of tapping into the issues that appeal to the typical uneducated, small-minded, food and beer intoxicated, back water hick. Little do these ignorant folk know that they are voting to reduce their standard of living.

posted July 18, 2008 12:19 PM            

He will be credited with starting the defeat of Islamic terrorism worldwide, freeing 50 million citizens frozen in the grip of ruthless murderous tyranny, reducing taxation on the American people and starting up an economy caught in a downward spiral and making the economy roar. He will be remembered as the President who instituted a policy of taxation in which the top 50% of wage earners in the United States pay 97% of all Federal Income Taxes. Leftist morons will be remembered as the shriekers and howlers who say 97% isn't enough.

He will also be remembered as the President who kicked the treasonous as$es of the "Party of Defeat", those treasonous demoscats who have been marching in lockstep with America's enemies and singing the terrorist anthem.

On issue after issue, these morons have had their as$es kicked royally by Bush. His losses have been small, minuscule, theirs have been gigantic. The Bush job approval ratings are twice as high as the traitorous demoscats who attack Bush on a daily basis. Bush simply ignores them and in most cases never brings up their lying attacks.

posted July 18, 2008 07:38 PM            

Republicans lost control of the House and Senate because of their overspending, earmarks and proposing amnesty for illegal aliens. They did it to themselves and have no one to blame but themselves.

I warned the RNC years ago that if they didn't go out and find some real conservatives who were really conservatives, able to articulate conservative principles of government to run against the RINOs...Republicans in name only...they were going to wind up losing the Congress of the United States. That was just after they backed Arlen Specter, RINO, in Pennsylvania again over the real Republican conservative running against him in the primary.

The rest is history. They didn't and what I said would happen did happen. This country is center-right, not center-left but when Republicans act like democrats, the public prefers the real thing...for a little while

Bush did everything I said he did and he's suffered little losses while this moronic demoscat congress has gotten it's ass kicked by Bush on virtually every issue and suffered huge losses on proposed legislation, on the war and in public trust and confidence.

posted July 18, 2008 10:26 PM            

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I warned the RNC years ago that if they didn't go out and find some real conservatives who were really conservatives, able to articulate conservative principles of government to run against the RINOs...Republicans in name only...they were going to wind up losing the Congress of the United States.

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Hilarious. It's always about you, and your opinion.

Independents win elections. Independents voted in a way that would show they wanted Bush kept in check. They voted for Democrats. If they wanted real Republicans [not RINOs] they would have elected more Conservatives.

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Proof of the pudding is in the fact that after all the vile, lying attacks on Bush, his job approval rating at 28% is twice as high as this pantswetting moronic demoscat Congress at only 14%. A different poll has Congressional job approval ratings at only 9%.

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And another poll has Bush at 26%. Both are damning, but Bush still has people like you pulling for him. Democrats are likely still pulling for Congress, but voicing their disappoint seems an obvious choice since the Democrats still have their hands tied. The next election will show what the real story is.

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posted July 18, 2008 10:56 PM            

I was right when I forecast declining subscriptions and revenues for the lying leftist news media.

I was right when I forecast falling oil prices..based on perceptions the US was going to get serious about developing our own energy resources.

I was right in what I told the RNC in an email that unless they recruited some bright, articulate conservatives to run in primary races against the RINO Republicans which infest the Republican Party...that they were going to lose the Congress.

So, here you are, biatching and moaning, howling and shrieking because I was right.

I know you have this gripping need to be seen as being right acoustic. To that end, you make fraudulent off point arguments, change the definition of words and refuse to say you were wrong, even when it's apparent you are wrong.

posted July 19, 2008 02:03 AM            

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So, here you are, biatching and moaning, howling and shrieking because I was right.

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I've never once complained of you being right.

And when you're wrong I try to guide you to a more rational frame of reference, which can hardly be called any of those emotional things that you yourself do while trying to project your emotionality on others.

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When I forecast something, I'm generally right.

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In all these cases your rationale was completely off-base.

I can predict that newspapers will continue to decline, but it's not for credibility. It's for the logical reason of a more efficient medium. Only an idiot would think otherwise.

I could have predicted the fall of the Republican Congress on the basis that Independents finally came to realize the President isn't actually doing a good job, and this is their only means of mitigating his influence.

Oil fell because partly because people in the U.S. moved to conserve thereby weakening demand. No analyst in the world is with you on your bogus assumption that Bush had anything to do with it.

So you predictions may have come true, but not at all for the reasons you think they did. It's a cool knack for sure, but one which gives a false sense of intelligence.

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I know you have this gripping need to be seen as being right acoustic. To that end, you make fraudulent off point arguments, change the definition of words and refuse to say you were wrong, even when it's apparent you are wrong.

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These are all things that you yourself do. You project them on me, but I don't see you quoting the dictionary even half as much as I do. Trust me, the guy who quotes the dictionary is using the word correctly. The guy who's disagreeing with him is the one in error. Similarly, the guy who can back up what he says with a reference has a far superior argument than the guy making stuff up as he goes along.

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If I were you, I'd spend more time developing what little analytical skills you do have and a lot less shrieking and howling about mine. But then, that would be the grown up approach so I don't really expect that from you.

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posted July 19, 2008 11:52 AM            

Trust me acoustic, you don't even know the definition for "most", even when I've shown you the dictionary definition repeatedly. You prefer your own definition...which seems to be...whatever you say it is.

I've made very few predictions here acoustic. Generally, I don't. But when I have made actual predictions, I've been right...and you acoustic have almost always taken the opposite view and been wrong.

When Kerry supporters here were gloating over the fall of Sinclair Broadcasting stock which had fallen to about $6 per share in mid October 2004, I predicted the stock would go to $10 within a year. I missed it by about 6 weeks but in December 2005, Sinclair Broadcasting hit $10 per share and went on to top $17 per share. Those whom I suggested they put their money where their mouths were and sell Sinclair short or buy a put option would have lost their a$ses if they had had the strength of their own convictions. Hopefully, they didn't.

I predicted Bush would win a second term as President. Bush won a second term.

I predicted the New York Times and other lying leftist press outlets would suffer a decline in their subscriptions and a decline in their ad revenues. That came true big time.

I predicted oil prices would fall when it was perceived by energy producers and oil futures traders that America was serious about becoming more energy independent. Bush says...Drill, Drill, Drill and oil has taken the biggest one week tumble in history.

posted July 19, 2008 02:48 PM            

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But you are moaning about me being right...and attempt to attribute that to arrogance.

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You're not right. It's impossible for me to express any emotion beyond being dumbfounded as a result of your false premises.

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Trust me acoustic, you don't even know the definition for "most",

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Trying to quote an argument that you lost? Really? You've lost this argument repeatedly over a course of years, and recently you finally started showing that you are finally understanding what that chart said. Now you want to backtrack into an embarrassing position? Really?

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you acoustic have almost always taken the opposite view and been wrong.

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No, I've taken the correct view. Your views are often alternate, and ultimately unfounded as I've shown above. That you can think the wrong way, and arrive at having a small justification that you're right is astounding, but the truth remains that in all of these cases your analysis has been faulty.

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Now acoustic, why don't you list all your predictions here so we can see how your analytical ability plays out in the real world? Why not start with the 2004 Presidential election?

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I predicted that you would continue to inspire ire here on this board, which would lead to the same conversations we've had here time and time again. I predicted that the usual suspects would come to your aid, and provide you shelter. Both came true at least twice.

If I decline from predicting things it's because I know that there are too many factors that could affect the outcome. (You, however, are constant so it was easy to make those predictions.)

As fellow Capricorn Ben Franklin said:

"A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over."

posted July 19, 2008 03:48 PM            

As a Republican I am not afraid to voice my displeasure with those in office that are displaying actions like those of the far left. Once Republican's start acting like Dems, with their pork barrel spending, ignoring their constituents and pandering to interest groups, we vote them out of office. Most Liberals and Dems won't dare go against their knee jerk reactions. Instead, they find excuses for their representatives or find someone else to blame.

It seems to be, based on my observations, that Left wingers are almost "appalled" that WE, the Republican's, would actually vote out our own, while the left would keep in a child predator as long as it meant a Dem was occupying a seat in the house or senate.

posted July 19, 2008 04:29 PM            

"Most" means exactly what I said it means and the Pew Poll meant exactly what I said it meant and was backed up by a Pew organization writer. Get it through your head acoustic; you lost that argument from the opening bell..by knockout.

My analysis predicted the correct results. The result which happened in the real world leftists never visit.

Here you are acoustic whining about me again. You never learn your lessons. While you attempt to gather your little support group around you and ask them to agree with you...as though that would actually make you right, I never ask anyone for support. I realize people here...and every where have free will and are entitled to their own opinions. If they agree with me, that's fine. If they don't, I don't hold that against them like the petulant little children leftists are.

You don't make predictions because you're terrified of being wrong or being seen to be wrong.

posted July 19, 2008 04:40 PM            

I also told them they were making a lot of Independents out of former Republicans...just as the leftist democrat party had done when the democrat party took a leftward stagger and most self respecting democrats left them.

posted July 19, 2008 05:38 PM            

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I warned you before that with a Capricorn North Node you couldn't get away with lying and dishonesty and it would destroy your credibility. That's not the path to success with Capricorn North Node.

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You did no such thing, AND you know far less about any nodes than I do.

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I do not now nor have I ever accepted your nonsense about the chart Pew published and you damned well know that.
"Most" means exactly what I said it means and the Pew Poll meant exactly what I said it meant and was backed up by a Pew organization writer. Get it through your head acoustic; you lost that argument from the opening bell..by knockout.

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First, no Pew organization writer has ever agreed with your interpretation of the data. That is a lie.

"I'll make only one concession to you acoustic. That scale combined with the wording Pew used was very poor." -Jwhop http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum16/HTML/004288-2.html

I'm afraid that won't fly. Pew uses scales that fit the commonly accepted standard. Everyone knows that the ends of scales represent extremes. In this case, the respondents could either fully endorse the credibility of the newspapers, or they could fully condemn the credibility of the newspapers, or they could pick something in between.

60% of respondents would not line up as far away as they could from the disbelief side of the scale if they really took issue with the credibility of these papers. It just doesn't make sense for you to think that while these people in Column 3 believe less than "most" they still want to stay as far away as possible from saying they believe almost nothing. You're too hung up on the word "most", and not at all considering what a respondent thinks when asked to rate something on a scale. - AG

You made it known that you thought it presumptuous that I believe people treat scales in a rather standard way, but everyone know's how poll questions on a scale work.

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Here you are acoustic whining about me again. You never learn your lessons. While you attempt to gather your little support group around you and ask them to agree with you...as though that would actually make you right, I never ask anyone for support. I realize people here...and every where have free will and are entitled to their own opinions. If they agree with me, that's fine. If they don't, I don't hold that against them like the petulant little children leftists are.

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This is an unusual consolidation of lies. There's no whining. There's no gathering of people. And you absolutely hold people's opinions against them when they are in opposition to your own.

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don't make predictions because you're terrified of being wrong or being seen to be wrong.

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I don't see you calling the election.

Regarding being wrong or being seen as wrong, I sort of see your point. I don't wish to become you. That's true.

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Once Republican's start acting like Dems, with their pork barrel spending, ignoring their constituents and pandering to interest groups, we vote them out of office.

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posted July 20, 2008 08:09 AM            

Things are going well here. Bear is just in the "train up" phase before the big Brigade month long pre-deployment training. He's been working super long hours- 16-18 hours a day 7 days a week, but that is to be expected. As far as deployment goes... he will most likely have sand on his turkey this year, fortunately, they are telling us this will only be a 12 months deployment (crossing my fingers)

Thank you for the compliment and I will definitely give Bear a hug for you

posted July 21, 2008 05:11 PM            

I most assuredly did warn you about lying and dishonesty destroying the credibility of Capricorn North Node people...and I warned you right here about that on this forum. As for what you actually know about the Moon's Nodes, it's not much. I recall your attempt to misstate Jan Spiller's writings as you were insisting the Nodes throw off "personality traits". You were corrected over and over on this subject while you were in the midst of an arrogant recital of how some members here "actually are"...based on their Nodes. That was one of the many arguments you lost here.

"First, no Pew organization writer has ever agreed with your interpretation of the data. That is a lie."

A lie eh acoustic?

I have maintained...from the beginning that only 21% of Pew Poll respondents believe "all or most" of what the NY Times prints. Here's the chart showing only 21% of respondents believe "all or most" regarding the NY Times.

I have maintained..from the beginning that only 21% of Pew Poll respondents find the NY Times to be "highly believable".

"Most of the other print sources tested in the poll receive similar ratings for believability. Time Magazine is viewed as highly believable by 22% of people familiar enough to rate it, and the New York Times gets a 21% rating. Newsweek and USA Today get a high rating from 19%; that is also the rating respondents give to their own daily paper. The Associated Press is viewed as highly credible by 18% of Americans who can rate it."
http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=838

79% of Pew Poll respondents DID NOT FIND THE NY TIMES HIGHLY BELIEVABLE

So now, everyone can see it's you who is lying here. That commentary from the Pew Poll says exactly what I've been saying their own chart shows.

Including the word "most" in that poll destroys any belief you could possibly have that the scale Pew used was intended to be an equally divided scale. The word "most" means the largest part of anything, the greater part, any part more than 1/2. By definition, those who believed all or "most" believed slightly more than half to everything. Those who believed less than all or "most" believed 50% or less. Only those in category 4 believed the various print news services were "highly believeable"...averaging about 20% of respondents. About 80% did not find any of the print news media to be "highly believeable". Remember, that poll was about "believability", "credibility".

The NY Times should know they're in big trouble credibility wise when only 31% of demoscats find the Times highly believable...believe "all or most".

Scales are set up any old way the survey takers want to set them up acoustic and you don't get a vote. However, the results are in and the results are most damning for the print news media, "Most" people simply don't believe them any more.

Now, you can stop assuming everyone accepts your theories about how people actually think. We've had a good long look at how you think and I for one wonder if what you do could actually be considered "thinking".

Actually, I don't hold most people's opinions against them. It's when people make unreasonable, illogical, irrational arguments that I hold it against them...like you for example acoustic. Additionally, I sure do hold it against those who make lying arguments because they are not engaged in a discussion in good faith. Those who...for instance would say the United States oppressed/repressed the Iraqi people. Those who would say the terrorists who deliberately target and kill Iraqi women and children are not terrorists...but rather freedom fighters. Those who would say the United States deserved to be attacked on 9/11.

You've been whining and sucking your thumb here for years acoustic. Whining about me. You've attempted to get people to agree with you repeatedly here. You've attempted to say that others here agreed with you...when you were whining about me...and not only me, but Pid, Lioneye, Isis and others. You even started your own little support group to whine about LindaLand members on another site.

Pure and simple, you don't make predictions because you're terrified of being shown to be wrong. That's also the reason you never admit you are wrong...and you are to a degree that couldn't be consigned to chance.

Pid is right. When Republicans screw up big time, we expect them to resign or we don't vote for them. Mostly, they resign or don't run for a new term.

posted July 22, 2008 03:37 AM            

There isn't an issue of credibility attached to the Nodes descriptions for Capricorn North Node either, so your comment to that effect is nonsense. More importantly, I don't suffer from your duplicitous nature. I'm not the one posting outrageous falsehoods here on a daily basis.

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Back in 2005 I won the argument regarding the Pew poll. Here's the link:
http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum16/HTML/001559-2.html

Back then, even you cited that the poll question asked people to rate things on a scale. You still continued to misconstrue the information, but you yourself quoted the question used in the poll:

"Q.23 Now, I'm going to read a list. Please rate how much you think you can BELIEVE each organization I name on a scale of 4 to 1. On this four point scale, "4" means you can believe all or most of what the organization says. "1" means you believe almost nothing of what they say. How would you rate the believability of (READ ITEM. RANDOMIZE LIST) on this scale of 4 to 1? (INTERVIEWERS: PROBE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN "NEVER HEARD OF" AND "CAN'T RATE")" http://people-press.org/reports/print.php3?PageID=842

I pointed out to you that 86% of respondents didn't choose, "believe almost nothing of what they say." That's a pretty high percentage of people who shied away from wanting to make the statement that they had no faith in the publication's credibility.

The argument is the same now as it was three years ago, and I'm still on the correct side of it.

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"Most of the other print sources tested in the poll receive similar ratings for believability. Time Magazine is viewed as highly believable by 22% of people familiar enough to rate it, and the New York Times gets a 21% rating. Newsweek and USA Today get a high rating from 19%; that is also the rating respondents give to their own daily paper. The Associated Press is viewed as highly credible by 18% of Americans who can rate it."
http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=838

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Notice, number one, that Pew characterizes their first column in their description as "highly believable" and "highly credible." This speaks to your notion about their choice of using "Most." Column 4 does, as I've said many times before, represent the choice for extreme credibility, while Column 1 represents the opposite. Therefore, on a scale, Column 3 is a step down from that, which would logically represent at the very least, "credible." Rating something on a scale means the same thing to both the poll creator as it does to the poll respondent: there are two extremes, where does your opinion fit between those two extremes? 86% of people don't stay away from Column One if they're trying to convey that they have no faith in these publications.

Secondly, Pew also stated:

The falloff in credibility for these news sources is linked to a growing partisan tilt in the ratings. Republicans have traditionally viewed the overall media more skeptically than Democrats and this has long translated into lower credibility ratings from Republicans for most news sources.

But Republicans have become even more negative about the media's believability, widening the partisan gaps and driving down the overall ratings of several major news organizations.
http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=838

So Pew has in fact backed my view that this is merely a partisan issue. This is why I can challenge you to go find me articles you've fact-checked for innaccuracies, and you come up empty-handed: your thesis is largely imaginary.

Further evidence of Pew's work backing my logical assessment includes their subsequent work. This is from 2007:

Americans continue to have more positive than negative impressions of these news organizations, and rate them far higher than most political institutions, including Congress, the Supreme Court and the political parties.

...
Two-thirds (66%) view news organizations as highly professional
...
Just six-in-ten Americans who offer a view of major national newspapers give a favorable assessment.
...
As a result, news organizations continue to be seen more favorably by the American public than most governmental institutions, despite their declining ratings.
...
Fully 79% of Democrats rate these newspapers favorably compared with just 41% of Republicans, based on those able to rate them.
http://people-press.org/report/348/internet-news-audience-highly-critical-of-ne ws-organizations

Now, really let's analyze who's lying here. It's certainly not the guy who's been right since day one: me. It certainly is the person who's tried to distort this data over a period of years stating over and over again that 79% of people don't believe all or "even" most of what the NYT prints.

___________________________

I can deal with your taking most of my comments out of context, but I've never said anything remotely akin to, "the United States deserved to be attacked on 9/11." Most of what you say is offensive, but that's just way over the line.

posted July 22, 2008 08:54 AM            

Too bad you're not an English speaker.

"MOST"
a quantifier meaning the greatest in amount or extent or degree; greatest number or quantity of; the greatest part; the majority; Consisting of the greatest number or quantity; greater in number or quantity than all the rest; in the greatest quantity, amount, measure, degree, or number.

No matter which way you slice it acoustic, "MOST" when used as a quantifier always means the "greater part" of anything...the "majority" of anything.

"MAJORITY"
a number or percentage equaling more than half of a total

You're so illogical, irrational and definitions challenged it's hardly worth discussing anything with you. You are not permitted your own language or definitions here. Perhaps you get away with that in your little leftist circles but not with me.

All these definitions show the Pew Poll chart could not possibly be an evenly divided segmented poll as you insist...since those who believe "all or most" believe an indefinite amount ranging from just over half to all.

Now, if you object to the way Pew set up their own chart, take that up with Pew.

As for Pew, Pew agrees with me. Only 21% of their respondents find the NY Times to be highly believable, believing "ALL OR MOST". Believability, is exactly what this section of the Pew Poll was discussing and they went so far as to add commentary as to what it meant for the print news media they polled respondents about.

You were lost from the opening bell and here you are years after the fact still arguing, illogically and irrationally...unless, you're simply lying to save face.

You were specifically warned...by me as well as by what Jan Spiller said about moving away from your Cancer South Node tendencies. You are to develop straightforwardness and integrity, moving away from Cancer South Node tendencies of lying, manipulation and dishonesty to puff yourself up for purposes of acceptance. You have a long way to go judging by your performance here at LindaLand.