Inaugural post of the new BI30 blog is online!

March 6, 2007 by mugsy.

If you haven’t already, please visit the new and improved BI30 Blog and Register to post comments, and continue to receive updates!

See you there! - Mugsy

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Bush’s Disasterous Economy: Adjusted for inflation, market has now officially gone BACKWARDS!

March 5, 2007 by mugsy.

ANNOUNCEMENT! The new BI30 blog is online and ready to go! Please REGISTER for the new blog to post comments and receive notification whenever the blog is updated! This post will be the final entry to the old blog! Visit the NEW “Mugsy’s Rap Sheet” here: www.bi30.org/wordpress/.

 
Last Tuesday, the DJIA (Dow Jones Industrial Average) fell a whopping 546 points before rebounding to close down 416.02 points (12,234.34 on Tuesday). The reason for the sudden decline: a nasty 9% drop in the China Market the night before. It used to be said of the U.S. Stock Market, “When the United States sneezes, the world catches cold”. Now the roles seem to have been reversed, and thanks to Bush’s economic policies, it is the U.S. stuck in bed with a nasty head cold when China sneezes. Good work, Dubya!

For the week, the Dow lost 530 points, closing at 12,114.10.

Now, plenty of people would like to tell you that… statistically… last weeks’ market plunge was not particularly significant. In terms of percentages, last week’s “4.4% drop doesn’t even rank in the Top 20 [worst weeks for the Dow]”. Yes, but few (if any) of those other market plunges took place in such a weak economy struggling for years just to keep its head above water. Those other declines they refer to were typically one-time events, taking place during an otherwise healthy economy that quickly absorbed them. Not so this time around.

I wrote about this in some detail last October when the Dow, after six years of Bush’s economic policies, *finally* surpassed the 11700+ record high of the Clinton Administration before a year of Republican Presidential campaigning talked he economy into a recession. But with last weeks’ decline, the true record of President Bush’s economic policies becomes clear…

On January 14, 2000, the Dow closed at a record high of 11,722.98. It took the Bush economy SIX YEARS to creep back up to that number, and adjusted for inflation (17% since 2000), the Dow had another 2,000 points to go. By comparison, the DJIA under Bush peaked at 12,514.98 on January 11th of this year, which, adjusted for inflation, was still 1,210 points shy of the 2000 record. On Bill Clinton’s last day in office, the DJIA closed at 10,587.59. Adjusted for inflation, that would be 12,396 today. Last Friday’s close of 12,114 is not just a pathetic gain of just 392 points IN SIX YEARS, when adjusted for inflation, has actually lost ground (equivalent to 10,346 in year 2000 dollars, a NEGATIVE NET LOSS of 241 points). That’s not just anemic, that’s “Last Rites” sickly.

During the entire Clinton Administration, (except during the election years of ‘96 & 2000 when Republicans had to talk down the economy just to compete), the Dow was setting new records every month. 100 point… sometimes even 200 point… gains were not unusual. And you can’t credit the Republican Congress for Clinton’s success because it is that same Congress that has been serving under Bush, and look how they’ve done.

For years, the Republicans insisted they could do better if only they had control over both the White House AND Congress, THEN we’d REALLY see the economy take off! So, Americans did. They handed the Presidency over to “the bosses son, the spoiled rich kid that had never run a successful business in his life” because… well… as far as I can figure… because he LOOKS LIKE his Dad. Dubya bears a stronger resemblance to his father than any of his three brothers (Neil, Jeb and Marvin). His brother Jeb had been governor of Florida longer than Dubya had been governor of Texas, whose marginal successes are easily attributable to the Clinton economy. Those things he actually had influence over were all disasters (Houston, with just under 2-million people, surpassing LA with just under 6-million, as becoming the most polluted city in the country, comes to mind). So the GOP controlled the reins of power and the first thing they did was ignore the most recent terrorist attack, ignored warnings of one yet to come, and launched an illegal, unprovoked and unnecessary war against Iraq without regard for the consequences.

Those (few) who (still) defend the Bush Administration’s policies/record, continue to blame “9/11” for all the Administrations’ ills. But that argument grows weaker by the day if, after nearly six years, the economy isn’t strong enough to shake off the impact of that fateful day. In fact, if the Dow is any indicator, the economy has long since rebounded from the impact of the 2001 attacks, but the rate of growth (or lack thereof) in our economy has been flat as a pancake.

When the stock market was growing by leaps & bounds under Bill Clinton, Republicans started floating the idea of privatizing Social Security. The argument being that investors saw their money grow FAR faster than the rate of growth in the Social Security Trust Fund during the same period. Just imagine where those seniors would be today had Republicans of gotten their way and let all those retirees pour their retirement into the stock market? This has always been an atrociously bad idea because the ONLY way for it to work is to deny those who choose to “roll the dice” any safety net. If you loose your money, no one is going to bail you out. If you go broke and end up living on the street, too bad. You gambled and lost. WHY must it work that way? Because if we allowed people to risk their Social Security funds in the Market AND still promise to take care of them should they lose all their money, then everyone would just invest their money in the riskiest, high-dollar venture with the biggest payoff. And if it fails, no problem, because the government is still promising you enough money to live on. And just where is the government supposed to get that money from if everyone is pulling it out to make private investments? Your guess is as good as mine.

(UPDATE: Sunday evening, CBS’s “60 Minutes” aired an interview with Comptroller General of the United States, David Walker, who spoke on this very subject (story and video). If you don’t believe what I’m telling you here, maybe you’ll believe him.)

When FDR created Social Security in the wake of the 1929 Stock Market Crash, it was to ensure that no one was ever again left destitute due to old age or illness, promising to take care of the impoverished, elderly and disabled so that they didn’t end up living on the street. Privatizing Social Security would mean an end to that safety net.

If you’ve been anywhere near a television set this past week, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the deplorable conditions at the “Walter Reed” out-patient hospital quarters for inured vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. And now it appears that privatization played a role in that too. The Bush Administration apparently farmed out management, maintenance and upkeep of the facility to private contractors.

The war in Iraq has been privatized to countless contractors, and look how that is going. The upkeep of “Walter Reed” was privatized, and it too has been a disaster. And STILL President Bush talks about wanting to privatize Social Security. And “No Child Left Behind” has been a MASSIVE unfunded mandate in an attempt to bleed our public school system dry in an attempt to privatize it. As I wrote last November, Iraq is a living/breathing example of “Conservativism run amok”. The great Neocon experiment to build an entire country on Conservative economic and social principles. And just look where they are today.

If you can look at Iraq and still call yourself a Republican, you’re no longer in touch with reality. Am I getting through to you, Mr. Conservative Voter?

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BTW: I saw this poster on “Antiques Roadshow” over the weekend. It’s a 1942 government poster in support of the war effort:


Which instantly reminded me of scenes like THIS:


…and this:


This is your nation on Bush.

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The BI30 Blog is getting a facelift!

March 1, 2007 by mugsy.

As you may of noticed, BI30 has been restricted to using a “built-in” blog template with minimal customization options… a choice of colors, text sizes and a few preset graphics, but that’s all, resulting in a generic looking blog that never seemed to go with our official website. We couldn’t even add a link back to our official website!

So BI30 is installing/configuring new blogging software on our own servers that makes more customization options available to us. The downside is that the old blog’s database can not be exported so that we can reuse it on the new one. As such, everyone that had an account on the old blog needs to Register for a new one on the new blog (Look on the bright side, if you didn’t like your old username, or settings, now is your chance to pick something more to your liking!)

After a few weeks, this generic blog will be mothballed and our standard blog link (blog.bi30.org) will point to the blog at our new location.

Please take a moment to Register for the new blog to ensure you continue to be alerted whenever it is updated. See you there!

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