The Perpetuated Lie on Economics

If you have listened to the speakers at this week's Democratic Convention, you would think that most of America was living a "gulag-like" existence because of the economic policies of George Bush. They would have you believe that it was "Standing Room - only" at the unemployment offices. That soup lines were wrapped around our city streets. That families, thrown out of their homes due to foreclosure, are huddled around abandoned and overturned oil barrels and burning scraps of wood and newspapers to keep warm. Cars are rusting in the streets because the average American can't afford to drive them to work as a result of the Bush friendliness to the big oil companies and the resulting high gasoline prices. Then, amid all this poor and middle class torment, you have the wealthy friends of "W" laying around on their roman-style lounge chairs and watching their flat screen TV's while laughing riotously as they watch the nightly news and see the poor of this country struggling to survive. What a horrible scene they seem to paint.

Of course, this portrayal of the downtrodden is the same populist message that the Democrats and many socialist dictators have used over the years to gain control of a country. From Mao to Lenin to Castro and to, most recently, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, this message plays well to the "working classes" and the "poor" of our society. To some extent, this talk-down of the American economy has worked. In the last 7-1/2 years of polling during the Bush Administration, the majority of respondents have said that they thought that economic conditions in America were bad. However, when they are asked about their own situation, the majority thought that their own personal situation was alright. The national media has done much to promote the false belief about the economy. They bury the good news about the economy in the bowels of their media pages. At the same time, they try to make George Bush look ineffective by putting any economic bad news on the front page. They've done this with the economy and they have done this with the war in Iraq.

Putting the perceptions, as painted by the Democrats, aside, it is the economic facts that tell the real truth. The facts are simple. While Barack Obama and the rest of the Democrats keep claiming a woeful economy that is in recession, this week's economic figures continue to say something entirely different.

First, this morning's revised numbers on the Gross Domestic Product ("GDP") showed that the economy just didn't grow at a weak 1.9 percent, as previously thought, but, instead, came in at a healthy 3.3 percent for the 2nd Quarter (See Full Story). Barack Obama has been saying we are in a recession for the last 10 months or more. However, the GDP numbers for the last 3 quarters, alone, prove what he keeps saying to be seriously flawed. In fact, Obama is now running a TV ad that mocks John McCain for saying that he doesn't think we are headed into a recession (Click to see that Obama Ad from August 12, 2008). Apparently, the Obama people are relying on the fact that, with the help of the national media, America will just believe his lie about this economy. But, two strong quarters of GDP make John McCain to be the better prognosticator of what is happening in our economy and not Obama.

This morning, once again, the Jobless Claims number fell 10,000 claims since the rise we saw in and around the increase of the minimum wage (See Full Story). As I had said previously (Click to see my previous blog entry) the "claims numbers" should be rising if we were truly in a recession.

Yesterday, the Durable Goods orders (a measure of expensive capital items being purchased by consumers and corporations) was up at a higher rate higher than expected (See Full Story) . The economists had projected a meager one-tenth of one percent gain. But, the number came in 1300 percent higher at 1.3 percent. This number is significant because it shows that corporations are comfortable enough with their business environments to spend their reserve cash for expensive, big ticket items like heavy machinery, trucks, etc. Items that mean employment for high-paying manufacturing jobs. If a company saw bad days ahead, they wouldn't be committing that kind of money to items that may or may not contribute to the bottom line in the months to come. Simply speaking, they would prefer to keep the powder dry.

Lastly, home sales were a surprise as reported on Tuesday (See Full Story). This is important because it might signal a bottom to the housing crisis. Certainly, we will need next month's numbers in order to confirm a true bottom.

Throughout the Democratic Convention, not once has anyone ever a mentioned 9/11. The reason for that is that they might have to explain why Bush had to implement his tax cuts. It would also lead to an explanation of the Clinton recession that was handed to Bush. Throughout this campaign, Barack Obama has claimed that he, not McCain, is the economic lighthouse that this country needs. Unfortunately, his economic lighthouse is a mirage. A mirage that is sending false economic signals to Americans in hopes that he can win the Presidency and hoist a whole host of expensive socialistic programs on America. Plain and simple, Obama has and is lying about the conditions of our economy for his personal gain. His claims about the economy are similar to his false claims about the surge in Iraq. The Democrats have never (and will never) admit to the fact that tax cuts turned this economy around after the fateful events of 9/11 and Clinton recession of 2000.

They have cherry-picked facts to make the economy look worse than it is. If you listen to Barack Obama, the Clinton Presidency saw a $6,000 increase in the average salary and 22 million new jobs. However, they never admit to the economic situation of the Dot-com boom that really accounted for this fact (Click to see my previous blog entry). They choose to ignore the recession at the end of the Clinton Administration and the disastrous effect 9/11 had on our economy just months after Bush took office.

I have been committed to writing this blog because there is just to much "fog" associated with the politics from both the right and the left. However, my focus has been on the Democrats because of lies that started with Bill Clinton and that have been perpetuated by the left-friendly national media and our Democrats in Congress. I saw Bill Clinton snooker this country with lies about the economy and mistake after mistake in foreign policy. All you have to do is look at his less than bold mistake in Somalia and in the now-famous "Black Hawk down" incident to know this. Also, look at his timidity towards capturing/killing Bin Laden and how that may have ultimately cost thousand of American lives on 9/11. Now, we are possibly at the precipice of another weak President, called Barack Obama, who is using the Clinton lies to bolster his non-existent experience and left-wing garbage about economics. I just think the true story has to be told. I do this with facts and links to the facts rather than make some hollow statements, or by name calling like so many people on the left. There is a reason that there has only been one Democratic President since FDR to get re-elected and, believe me, that should not have happened. But, Bill Clinton was a smooth liar who got elected on an economy-stupid-lie in the first place and, then, got re-elected on the false belief that it was his economic polices and not the dot.com boom that was responsible for the good economics of that time. I see the same smooth lies coming from Obama and I will do everything to expose those lies in this blog.