How they killed America by dreamtrove

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How they killed America

POSTED BY: DREAMTROVE
UPDATED: Sunday, March 12, 2006 19:14
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Sunday, March 12, 2006 12:14 PM

Okay. I don't have an answer, this is just a question.

Bubble-burst, market-crash, but oh no, wait, it's 1929. Well, no, great depression, that's not a bubble burst, that's an economic collapse.

Clearly, Bush didn't do it, he just helped, but it was crashing when he took office, already down over 50%. So he added 50% to that. But most of it was definitely before 9/11.

It wasn't Bush, and it wasn't Osama. It was something else. So what killed America?

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 12:19 PM

KHYRON

The idiotic MTV-era pop-culture.

And I'm only half-kidding.

Other people can occasionally be useful, especially as minions. I want lots of minions.

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 12:30 PM

KHYRON

Actually, maybe I'm not kidding at all. But it started before MTV. It started with the election of American presidents that based their election campaigns on kissing babies and being seen praying in church, and condensing their policies, if they even had any, to 40-second sound bytes.

It started when politics became not about politics but about show-business for ugly people, when presidents and other elected officials had to appeal to the lowest common denominator so that they could stand a chance of getting elected. It started with the dumbing down of the nation through various means (TV and a generally bad and increasingly worse education system in particular), so that only dumb people could be elected as presidents.

And what made it especially bad is when corporate America became strong enough for special interest groups to start running the show.

Other people can occasionally be useful, especially as minions. I want lots of minions.

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 4:41 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:

And what made it especially bad is when corporate America became strong enough for special interest groups to start running the show.

Yep. The bottom line and the golden rule combined with a severe fear and hatred of mortality, I'd say.

He who dies with the most marbles, wins Chrisisall

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 5:53 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

When Bill Clinton took office, the DJIA was about 3300 (it depends if you want to count from his election or inauguration. Either way, the Dow remained in a tight range.) http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/datasets/djdc0093
It peaked at 11722.98 Jan 14 2000, largely due to the boost from NASDAQ and the IPO surge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market_downturn_of_2002, fell and rose again to 10587.59.
Overall, by the time Clinton left office the Dow had climbed 320%.

When Bush took office on Jan. 20, 2001, the Dow Jones industrial average was at 10,587.59. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/08/11/BUGNE85QFS
1.DTL

"On September 7, 2001, the Dow fell 234.99 points to 9605.85" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correction_(Stock_market) In 9 months under Bush the stock market dropped 9% before September 11.

It REALLY was Bush.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 6:18 PM

DREAMTROVE

Quote:
The idiotic MTV-era pop-culture.

And I'm only half-kidding.

Why be kidding at all? I really agree.

But specifically, some events of catastrophic economic consequences happened that initiated a downward spiral that landed the market at a lower raw value that it had begun before the invention of the internet. This is a stunning acheivement. It's like Market+internet= less than Market. Not logical.
There was NASDAQ worth gold x 2 or silver x 200 when Clinton took office, now it's back around there, and has been staying there for years. But in the interim the market went to gold x 10 or silver x 1000, with the advent of the internet.

Bad economic policy has erased all of the gains of the internet, but it's not just Bush. Now, bubble wouldn't do this. Bubble is like 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, pop, 2. not 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, pop, 1. Because bubble is overspeculation on growth, not overspeculation on no-growth, because no-growth doesn't get any speculation at all.

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 6:25 PM

DREAMTROVE

Quote:
And what made it especially bad is when corporate America became strong enough for special interest groups to start running the show.

This is simply not the case.

1. If business ran the show, business would benefit from the policies, which it clearly does not. Look at the graph.

2. We are the special interests. Hasn't anyone bothered to sus this out yet?

All politicians say "We have to defeat the powerful special interests." They don't mean lobbies. If they had meant lobbies, they would have said lobbies.

Look at the analysis of specialm interest groups, they're typically all PACs and the like, which in turn are voter groups representing interests, largely with grass roots voter bases, non-profit organizations representing the interests of the people which are organized by hard working Americans like me and you. The special interests are anyone who wants to forward a political agenda, such as legislative changes to benefit its members, which are us.

What I mean to say is:

The special interests are WE THE PEOPLE.

So yay the special interests, and yay corporate America.

And down with weird pseudo-soviet agenda and down with stange saudi al qaeda bed fellows and down with the cash cow corporatist corporate-govt merger mismatch marriage made in hell.

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 6:41 PM

DREAMTROVE

Quote:
And what made it especially bad is when corporate America became strong enough for special interest groups to start running the show.

1. If business were in charge of the agenda, the agenda would be good for business. It's not. Check out the chart.

2. Every politician says "We must defeat the powerful special interests."

They don't mean lobbies. If they had meant lobbies, they would have said lobbies. On closer examination, these special interests are PACs organized by people in non-profit groups representing the interests of typically grass roots support of a voter base. In short, the special interests are "We The People"

So yay the special interests, and yay the corporations. And down with weird psuedo-soviet agendas, and down with strange al qaeda alliances, and down with the nightmare merger of corporation-govt.

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 6:45 PM

KHYRON

Oops, I think I may have initially missed the point of this thread. I thought it was about America's slow decline in general, not specifically the decline of the American economy.

That's fine too, though, because I have an opinion on American economics as well. If the economy really is going backwards as much as people say it is, I can't say if it started pre-Bush or post-Clinton, although I guess one could argue it's been in a decline since the boom-era in the 50's, but I think the main reason why so few politicians actually care about trying to reverse some things that are going wrong economically, such as the enormous national debt, is because they're not accountable for it. Sure, they can get accused of neglecting some aspect of the American economy, and they'll vehemently deny they're neglecting it, and then maybe at some later stage will say something like "Fine, my bad, but every president before me was much worse at fixing it than I was". The fact is it doesn't have a real influence on their term in office and the careers of the people around them.

On the other hand, the powers that be do do enough to keep America competitive. Achieving more would have the side-effect of making America too competitive, thereby adversely influencing trade and making it more difficult to maintain that level of competitiveness. Perhaps the economic slow-down is part of a global economic slow-down (in fact I'm pretty sure it is), and so perhaps America is just as competitive as it was before, it's just that the numbers are down because the numbers are down everywhere.

Other people can occasionally be useful, especially as minions. I want lots of minions.

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 7:11 PM

DREAMTROVE

Rue,

1. The Dow ceased to be the stock market decades ago. It's now a carefully manipulated figure run by politicians which no one in the financial sector pays any attention to at all.

2. The market is the Nasdaq. The nasdaq is still a represntative sample of the top performing 1% of the market, like the dow used to be, and yet it is still doing terribly.

3. All figures need to be adjusted for inflation, the falling value of the dollar.

4. Bush policies spend months in committee and in congress, where finally they will affect the budget of the following year. Bush's affect on the Budget of 2001, or any other part of the economy of 2001 is actually zero, so fiscally speaking, we aren't event dealing with Bushonomics until 2002. Even then, the impact is going to be slow. (I'm with you if you say that that impact is not going to be good.)

5. Giving the same recognition of no effect to Clinton's first year, in 1994, the Nasdaq, now under Clintonomics began its ascent, or would, first it did nothing for a year at 800. Clinton years would encompass a 40% inflation, so that would be 11-1200 in end of term dollars. By 2002, the beginning of Bushonomics, the market had already peaked at c. 5000, and was down under 1500, to bottom in the 11-1200 range again. A Pretty close to a complete reverse.

5. When the dollar value change is compares to international currencies, it fairs even worse than it does against American labor costs and consumer prices. With this caculated in, the Clintonomics move is actually negative.

6. The stunning part of this is where did the internet boom go? Where did the peace dividend go? Was it offset by some other decay? Did someone have a million hands in the till?

I think there's some serious economic issues which need to be addressed here.

I don't think anyone on this forum would credit the idea that I am attempting to defend Bush here. I honestly don't think it's *entirely* his fault. Something is dreadfully wrong with this picture.

There's a strange family resemblence here. The dow is historical 1929 data, the nasdaq is the latest slide.

ps. all of that purple is taking place before Bushonics was in effect. ie. it's REALLY *not* Bush.

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 7:11 PM

DREAMTROVE

error

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 7:14 PM

DREAMTROVE

more error

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