Now I give you pure bs' best series by a blogger 2003.

This wasn't difficult after reading and rereading, downloading and printing..There is one opus that stands head and shoulders above all others. Dave Neiwert's Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An Exegesis.

I'm not a fan of 'best of' type of awards, and this is not an attempt to distill all of the wonderful work by bloggers well known and not. It is only my opinion of what I have read over the last year, and that is admittedly a small sample.

Mr. Neiwert's regular blog is the popular Orcinus. Always well thought out, researched, and articulated prose.

Moron, errr, that's 'More on' the Ashcroft Recusal.

From the UPI:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A special counsel from inside the Justice Department will conduct an independent investigation of the White House leak allegations, a top department official said Tuesday.

Deputy Attorney General James Comey also told reporters that Attorney General John Ashcroft had recused himself, or withdrawn from supervising the investigation.

Ashcroft had come under criticism that his supervision of the process would be a conflict of interest.

Comey named Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, a Bush appointee, as special counsel to conduct the independent investigation.

A former U.S. ambassador has said administration sources improperly revealed the name of his wife, an undercover CIA officer, to Washington reporters in political retaliation for his criticism of Iraq policy.

Revealing such information could be a felony when it is disclosed by federal employees with access to national security matters.

Congress allowed the independent counsel provisions of the Ethics in Government Act to expire in 1999 after the unpopular impeachment of President Bill Clinton. However, Attorney General Janet Reno adopted the expired provisions almost word for word as Justice Department regulations.

The main difference is that a special counsel is appointed by Justice Department officials and is ultimately responsible to the attorney general or deputy attorney general, while an independent counsel is appointed by a special three-judge panel and reports to the panel.

At the Justice Department Tuesday, Comey said, "Effective today, the attorney general has recused himself and his staff from this matter ... I agree with that judgment." More judicial slight of hand.

So, Ashcroft recused himself..a move hailed by other Bush appointees that are now going to conducting said investigation. Ain't democracy wonderful?

The Bush Economy (Hint: It ain't Pretty)

I was over at The Smirking Chimp and noticed this article that paints an all too familiar picture. I've been trying to get a real sense of the overall employment picture in the US for some time. If you take the article below and juxtapose it with the op-ed from The Weekly Standard, you would get the feeling that the two authors were talking about two different economies. I think that they are. The Standard is elucidating the economy as seen by the trust-funders, the fortunate sons of society, whilst the L.A. Times is telling us how it is for pretty much everyone else.

Jobless 'recovery' is worse than you think: Count of unemployed skips millions

The rate hits 9.7% when the underemployed and those who have quit looking are added.

By David Streitfeld, Los Angeles Times

SAN FRANCISCO — Lisa Gluskin has had a tough three years. She works almost as hard as she did during the dot-com boom, for about 20% of the income.

When Gluskin's writing and editing business cratered in 2001, she slashed her rates, began studying for a graduate degree and started teaching part time at a Lake Tahoe community college for a meager wage.

It's been a fragmented, hand-to-mouth life, one that she sees mirrored by friends and colleagues who are waiting tables or delivering packages. In the late '90s, the 35-year-old Gluskin says, "we had careers. We had trajectories. Now we have complicated lives. We're not unemployed, but we're underemployed."

The nation's official jobless rate is 5.9%, a relatively benign level by historical standards. But economists say that figure paints only a partial — and artificially rosy — picture of the labor market.

To begin with, there are the 8.7 million unemployed, defined as those without a job who are actively looking for work. But lurking behind that group are 4.9 million part-time workers such as Gluskin who say they would rather be working full time — the highest number in a decade.

There are also the 1.5 million people who want a job but didn't look for one in the last month. Nearly a third of this group say they stopped the search because they were too depressed about the prospect of finding anything. Officially termed "discouraged," their number has surged 20% in a year.

Add these three groups together and the jobless total for the U.S. hits 9.7%, up from 9.4% a year ago.

No wonder the Democratic presidential candidates have seized on jobs as a potentially powerful weapon.

Howard Dean criticized President Bush for "the worst job creation record in over 60 years." Richard Gephardt said that "I have three goals for my presidency: jobs, jobs, jobs." John Kerry said "the first thing" he'd do as president would be to fight his "heart out" to bring back the jobs that have disappeared in recent years.

Bush, meanwhile, is quick to seize credit where he can. When the unemployment rate for November fell one-tenth of a point, he went out immediately to give a speech at a Home Depot in Maryland.

"More workers are going to work, over 380,000 have joined the workforce in the last couple of months," Bush said. "We've overcome a lot."

A number of economists say it's a mistake to evaluate the job market solely by talking about the official unemployment rate. It's a blunt instrument for assessing a condition that is growing ever more vague.

"There's certainly an arbitrariness to the official rate," says Princeton University economics professor Alan Krueger. "It irks me that it's not put in proper perspective."

On Jan. 9, when the rate for December is announced, both Republicans and Democrats will assuredly again maneuver for advantage — precisely because the number isn't expected to change much.

"At this point, where we don't know which way it's going but it isn't likely to be going far, both sides will try to use it," says Michael Lewis-Beck, a political scientist at the University of Iowa.

In every election since 1960, the party in the White House lost when the unemployment rate deteriorated during the first half of the year. If the rate improved, the party in the White House won.

That's not a coincidence, says Lewis-Beck, who has edited several volumes on how economic conditions determine elections. "People see the president as the chief executive of the economy," he says. "They punish him if things are deteriorating and reward him if things are improving."

By any normal standard, things should have been improving on the employment front long before this point. More than 2 million jobs have been lost in the last three years, a period that encompassed a brief, nasty recession and a recovery that was anemic until recently. Even in the best-case scenario, Bush will end this term with a net job loss. That hasn't happened to a president since Herbert Hoover at the beginning of the Depression.

Many economists are mystified about why a suddenly booming economy is producing so few jobs.

"We're all sitting there and saying, 'When are they going to return?' " says Richard B. Freeman, director of the labor studies program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. "It's looking a little better, but we don't understand why it isn't looking a lot better. Why shouldn't Bush be sitting there saying, 'Man, I'm sitting pretty. This is a great boom'?"

One statistic proving particularly perplexing is the percentage of the adult population that is employed. This number rises during good times, as people are lured into the workforce, and falls during recessions as companies falter.

True to form, the percentage of adult Americans with jobs dropped from a high of 64.8% in April 2000, just as the stock market was cresting, to 62% in September — the lowest level in a decade. If past recessions are any guide, those 5 million people who found themselves jobless should have driven the unemployment rate up to about 8%.

Instead, the rate never went much above 6%.

"More than half of the additional people who would have reported themselves as unemployed in a previous big recessionary period … aren't," a puzzled UC Berkeley economist, Brad DeLong, wrote on his website. "They're reporting themselves as out of the labor force instead."

"Out of the labor force" means you're not working for even one hour a week and don't want to, either. It's the traditional category for students, married women with young children, flush retirees and idle millionaires.

A new way that people seem to be joining this category is by getting themselves declared disabled. This designation makes them eligible for government payments while removing them from the unemployment rolls.

From 1983 to 2000, economists David Autor and Mark Duggan wrote in a recent study, the number of non-elderly adults receiving government disability payments doubled from 3.8 million to 7.7 million.

The scholars present a case that the sharp increase isn't because the workplace suddenly became more dangerous. Instead, it has been prompted by liberalized screening policies, which make it possible to claim disabled status for, say, several small impairments as opposed to one big injury. Government examinations also have been downplayed in favor of the disabled's own medical records and the pain he or she claims to be experiencing.

At the same time, benefits have been sweetened. As a result, millions of individuals who lost jobs now have an attractive — and permanent — alternative to searching for work.

Autor and Duggan concluded that if disability payments weren't so appealing, many more people would be unemployed, boosting the jobless rate two-thirds of a point.

Another way in which people forgo an appearance on the unemployment rolls is if they decide to go into business for themselves. There are 9.6 million people who say they are self-employed full time, a number that rose 118,000 last month. Without the recent increase in self-employed, the jobless number would look much worse.

Many others may be working for themselves part time, temporarily, as a way to get food on the table in the absence of better options.

Take Steve Fahringer, who until recently was working for a Bay Area marketing agency that cut 20% of its employees and trimmed the wages of the remainder by 20%. Fahringer didn't particularly like his job. Because the recession supposedly was history, he thought he could find a new position. The 34-year-old didn't think it would be easy, but he thought it possible. So he quit.

"I left July 1," he says. "I haven't found a new job yet."

It's a common problem. The segment of the labor force that has been jobless for more than 15 weeks has risen nearly 150% since 2000. The current level is the highest since the recession of the early 1990s. Nearly one-quarter of the jobless have been unemployed for longer than six months.

In Fahringer's case, he spent some time aggressively looking for a job, which made him part of the official July unemployment rate of 6.2%. Then he stopped looking, which meant that he was one small reason the rate started going down.

Instead of unemployed, Fahringer was classified as "discouraged." A little more than 8% of the people who want a job in the Bay Area are estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to be discouraged, slightly higher than Los Angeles/Long Beach but lower than the battered technology center of San Jose.

Discouraged workers have never been included in unemployment rates, although they came close the last time a commission met to reform the system, a quarter of a century ago. "It was a very hot issue," remembers Glen Cain, a retired economist who was a commission member. He says the conservatives on the panel, who felt that anyone who really wanted a job should be out there hustling no matter what, prevailed.

Fahringer found an alternative way to earn a bit of money. He did some acrylic paintings, which he sold for a total of $1,000. He calls himself "a hobbyist," which means for a while he moved out of the labor force entirely.

Now he's a temp, assigned by his agency to a nonprofit office. For the first time in six months, he's working 40 hours a week. By the government's accounting, he has once again joined the ranks of the employed. But from the standpoint of his wallet, Fahringer is worse off: He's earning less money, with no paid holidays, no sick leave, no pension plan, no health insurance, no future.

The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning Washington think tank, says Fahringer's situation is in many ways typical. The industries that were expanding in the late '90s, including computer and professional services, paid well.

Those industries are in retreat. So is manufacturing, a traditional source of high wages. On the rise, meanwhile, are lower-paying service jobs.

During the boom, it was easy to trade up. Now it's just as easy to trade down.

Fahringer's solution: Opt out.

"I'm thinking of going back to school," he says. "I'd take out a loan." That would put him out of the labor force again.

In some eyes, a nation of burger flippers, temps and Wal-Mart clerks isn't the worst scenario for the economy. The worst is that companies continue to eliminate jobs faster than they create them, setting up a game of musical chairs for the labor force.

That prospect alarms Erica Groshen, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "If you plot job losses versus gains on a chart, it's shocking," she says.

Losses are running at about the same rate they were in 1997 and 1998, two good years for the economy. But job creation in the first quarter of 2003 — the most recent period available — was only 7.4 million, the lowest since 1993.

"If this goes on too long, you'd have to worry there's something fundamentally wrong," Groshen says. Although the economy has picked up since March, "so far I haven't seen anything that suggests job creation is picking up."

That bodes poorly for Ian Golder. His last full-time job was with a start-up publication that wrote about venture capital.

Two years ago, Golder was laid off. It was the first time since he graduated from UC Berkeley 14 years earlier that he didn't have steady work.

Golder looked for a while, gave up for a while, then landed a contracting gig with no benefits proofreading for a chip maker. When that ran out, he worked 20 hours a month on a financial services newsletter.

His wife, Heather, a recent graduate in English from UC Davis, also was without a job. They thought about selling their house in Sacramento and moving, but prospects didn't look any better anywhere else. To make ends meet, they took in two boarders.

At the beginning of December, things seemed to improve a bit. Golder got a job in the document-control department of a medical devices company. The department, he was told, used to have 20 full-time people. Now it has five, plus four temps.

The job will last two months. After that, who knows?

"Optimists say things will be better then," Golder says. "But a full-time position with benefits seems pretty remote." Link ...to bypass onerous registration. :)

Brad DeLong's blog is found here.

Quick economic rundown: Nasdaq ends day at 2009.88, the index's highest close since Jan. '02. The Dow and S & P 500 were fractionally down.

The Buck.."Nobody wants me." The dollar continued it's slide against the Euro today, closing at yet another all time low versus the nouvel Europèen currency. Gold continues to climb, hitting, and closing at a 15 year high in trading today.

There was a spate of economic news to digest today. Here is all you need to know. :)

One euro traded as rich as $1.2562, the most ever in its near five-year life. Europe's single currency has risen some 20 percent against the dollar this year, bearing the brunt of a significant dollar correction against the major world currencies.

The euro was recently up 0.5 percent vs. its U.S. counterpart at $1.2551.

The dollar index stood at a seven-year-low 87.20 on Tuesday.

More of the same

The dollar's woes will continue in 2004, David Gilmore, analyst with Foreign Exchange Analytics, wrote in note to clients this week.

"The currency market is prone to overshooting and if fair value for the euro-dollar is $1.15-$1.20, and the typical overshoot is 25 to 30 percent, then $1.44-$1.56 [per euro] is quite possible," he said.

The dollar fell to a fresh seven-year low 1.2408 francs vs. its Swiss counterpart. One dollar was recently fetching 1.2421 francs, a loss of 0.5 percent from New York trading on Monday.

The British pound hit new 11-year highs at $1.7815. Sterling was valued at $1.7781, up 0.3 percent from Monday, in recent trading.

The dollar remained within striking distance of a new three-year yen low, although ongoing suspicions that Japanese officials will intervene to curb the dollar's drop helped the greenback stabilize. The dollar was recently up 0.1 percent at 107.05 yen after trading as low as 106.89 yen.

The latest data from Japan shows total 2003 spending by the government in foreign exchange markets at about 20.1 trillion yen or about $180 billion - a record that outstrips the 7.6 trillion yen spent in 1999 to keep the yen from appreciating.

HSBC currency analyst Marc Chandler said the 106.80 dollar-yen level appears to be an area of sensitivity likely to produce more Japanese intervention.

Japanese markets are on holiday through Jan. 5, but that's not likely to keep intervention off the table, he said.

The dollar has fallen almost without pause against the world's major currencies, in part because officials on several continents have said the greenback's drop to date is not particularly alarming.

The dollar fell more than 1 percent against its Canadian counterpart, with one U.S. dollar bringing C$1.2928.

The dollar got little relief Tuesday from reports that the U.S. currency will be of chief topic when the leaders of the world's seven richest nations - the Group of Seven - meet in February.

An unnamed G-7 source, commenting about the Florida meetings, told Reuters that the dollar's levels were now entering an area of concern for European officials.

The rising euro could hurt eurozone exports just as the region's economic recovery takes hold.

According to the report, the official said a euro worth $1.30 represented the "pain level" not likely to be tolerated by the European leadership.

Data fall short

Meanwhile, the latest round of economic statistics offered little in the way of dollar support.

U.S. rates remain considerably lower than those set in the U.K. and Australia and marginally below eurozone rates, cutting the attractiveness of U.S. assets to overseas investors.

The Federal Reserve has said that excess economic slack and low inflation allow it some wiggle room with decades-low borrowing rates.

The U.S. Conference Board's monthly index fell to 91.3, down from an upwardly revised 92.5 in November, and below expectations of 92.3.

The group reported that the Present Situation Index declined to 73.9 from 81.0.

The Expectations Index increased to 102.9 from 100.1 or the highest level since 2002. As a result, U.S. bond prices remained under pressure. See Bond Report.

Consumers' assessment of the current job market deteriorated in December. Read more.

Separately, existing U.S. home sales fell 4.6 percent in November to 6.06 million units on a seasonally adjusted annual basis, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.

This marked the second-straight monthly decline after sales hit a monthly record of 6.68 million units in September. The November sales rate is at its lowest level since June. Get the full story.

Also reported Tuesday, the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index fell to 59.2 in December from 64.1 in November, which was the highest reading of the index since Oct. 1994.

Most economists said the one-month setback wasn't enough to cause worry about the sustainability of the factory-sector recovery.

But economists did pare back their forecasts for the closely watched national factory gauge from the Institute for Supply Management, due on Friday.

Shorter market report: Record levels of consumer and national debt are taking a big bite out of the purchasing power of the dollar -- without intervention, no relief in sight.

Since The weekly Standard is invoking much of my wrath today, go and vote in their poll.

From the "Selective Use of Statistics to Bolster Our Case" comes this:

2003: The Rich Got Richer . . .
. . . And so did everyone else.

Caution: The above is from the Weekly Standard® A Rupert Murdoch Filter©2003

Read the whole thing, and parse the statistics.

This is a gem:

There is no question that statistical measures show a rise in inequality. The main reason: America welcomes more immigrants--legal and illegal--than all the other countries of the world combined. These newcomers typically start at the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Exclude them from the statistics, calculates Easterbrook, and the increase in inequality disappears. Indeed, for the 9 out of 10 Americans that are native born, inequality is declining. And here is the reason that will surprise America's critics: The decline in inequality is due in good part to the rising affluence of African Americans.

Now, I do not know whether or not the U.S. takes in more immigrants on a purely numerical basis, although I think that this is true, but I'll bet that as a percentage of the total population that the U.S. isn't among the top countries in immigration.

If people nationwide did indeed get richer in 2003, all of that increase and then some was more than absorbed by the rise in the cost of food, fuel and housing.

The author, a Mr. Stelzer is guilty of doing exactly what the White House did in the run-up to the Iraqi war. Hand-picking information. He quotes Easterbrook extensively, but whilst Easterbrook shows trends of fifty years, Stelzer aims to show how one given year is a proxy for several generations of Americans.

I'd be willing to bet that 2003 was indeed a better year for most Americans financially, but only in relation to the two previous years.

Just imagine how much better off we'd all be if it wasn't for all those immigrants dragging us down?(heavy sarcasm)

Soros Under Fire

I'll never understand the American media..This should be getting airplay(and it may well be, as I have no television) courtesy the RWEC(Right Wing Echo Chamber). There have been scathing attacks on George Soros from neo-conservative sources, Horowitz's Front Page Magazine to William Kristol's(fascism with a smile) Weekly Standard.

Odd that. My feeling is that Soros' contributions to ABB2004(Anyone But Bush 2004) haven't resonated especially well with Joe six-pack..Well, under Bush it's now Joe four singles, eight ounces.

Anyhow, the Independent offer us this look:

Republicans attack Soros plan for a £7m campaign against Bush

By David Usborne in New York

29 December 2003


As America steels itself for a year dominated by the presidential election, the incumbent, George Bush, is turning his sights not just on the nine Democratic candidates vying to challenge him. There is a tenth target who will not be in the race, but who means to influence it - with cash.

In a fund-raising e-mail sent to Republican supporters at the weekend, the Bush campaign singled out for attack George Soros, the Hungarian-born financier who plans to use part of his fortune to help those who would turf the President from the White House.

Mr Soros has pledged $12.5m (£7m) to ensure that "we can write off the Bush doctrine as a temporary aberration". The financier has been especially critical of Mr Bush's foreign policy and of the Iraq war. The Bush camp e-mail message warns: "Liberal special interests, led by billionaire currency trader George Soros, are raising millions in soft, unregulated money to defeat President Bush."

The e-mail cites Mr Soros's activities, which include his support for grassroots groups wanting to undermine Mr Bush's re-election campaign, as reason for Republicans to donate money to the President.

The message also implies that these groups are accepting funds from abroad which, if proved, could create legal problems for the Democrat nominee.

The e-mail adds: "To beat these billionaire liberals and the flood of foreign money they're encouraging, we need your help today."

Mr Bush is unlikely to be short of money. The President has so far raised $110m (£62.1m) for the primary campaign, even though no one is challenging him for the party nomination. He plans to increase the primary war chest to about $170m (£95.9m). Celia Wexler, the research director of the good-government group, Common Cause, said: "The Bush campaign is raising money hand over fist. He has the aura of the incumbency and the power of the presidency. He's in the catbird seat."

Even Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, who leads the Democrat nominees in most polls, falls short of Mr Bush's efforts in terms of fund-raising.

But officials in the President's re-election camp have warned that anti-Bush advocacy groups, such as the internet-based group MoveOn.org, are on track to raise about $400m (£225.8m) to influence the campaign and help whoever wins the Democrat nomination.

Mr Soros argues that he is motivated by Mr Bush's fund-raising advantage. Earlier this month he told The Washington Post: "My contributions help to ensure that the money spent on trying to re-elect President Bush doesn't overwhelm the process."

He added that he was "deeply concerned with the direction in which the Bush administration is taking the United States and the world". Much more at link.

Read the article. It's quite good.

I have been a follower of George Soros' exploits for around twenty years, and I would hesitate to call him a 'liberal.' He is, I believe an agnostic, and this may infuriate those that evidencelessly(it's my blog, and I'll make up words as I wish) believe in the 'invisible sky guy.'

Soros is perhaps the pre-eminent Internationalist. A position that the with which the right is firmly affixed. Like much about the right, Soros is a partner of convenience. You're either on board with the silly Bush Doctrine, or you're a bleeding heart liberal.

You go, George!!

Will Pitt has spoken to Joseph Wilson...You know, That Plame Nonsense&trade: that the White House has been soft-pedaling. Now, Will Pitt can be shrill, and his criticism of the Bush Administration is both partisan and self-promoting. He is a best selling author. Nevertheless, the linked article is a good chronology of the The Plame Affair.

An excerpt:

When Ambassador Joseph Wilson speaks of the White House, he tries to take the high road. "It's hard to imagine the government being irrational," he told me over the telephone on Monday afternoon, "and revenge is an irrational act." One breath later, however, Wilson showed why the Bush administration has a great deal to be worried about. "If they thought I was going to go away after they raped my wife," said Wilson, "they were dead wrong."

Wilson best explains who he is in the New York Times editorial he had published on July 6, 2003 entitled 'What I Didn't Find in Africa.' "For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and ambassador," wrote Wilson. "In 1990, as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George H. W. Bush's ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Prì­ncipe; under President Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council. It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs. Those news stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger? That's me."............

....... "It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place," Wilson wrote in his Times editorial. "Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired."

Before Wilson left Niger, he briefed the American ambassador to that country, availing her of findings that matched her own. He returned to the United States and briefed the CIA on his findings, as well as the State Department. In short, he covered all the bases and returned home to his normal life. Later, it was revealed that the "evidence" used to support the claim that such a transaction had taken place was a pile of crudely forged documents.

In January of 2003, George W. Bush used the debunked Niger uranium claims during his State of the Union address to buttress his argument that war in Iraq was necessary. This begat the "16 words" scandal that burned briefly this summer before disappearing with nary a ripple. Why did the President use grossly inadequate intelligence data in such an important speech? Was it a deliberate attempt to mislead the American public, a deliberate attempt to fill them with the fear of terrorist mushroom clouds from Iraq? Or was it an incredible failure on the part of the National Security apparatus that this flawed and forged data made it into the speech? A 'yes' answer to any of these questions was profoundly unacceptable, which was the motivation for Wilson's editorial on July 6th. More, including the aforementioned chronology.

The article is definitely worth a read. Wilson in his own words is worth the few minutes it takes to read. In this piece, Mr. Pitt is not shrill. The article should go a long way toward dispelling the myth of Ambassador Wilson's "integrity" to rest.

Krugman!

Our So-Called Boom

By PAUL KRUGMAN

It was a merry Christmas for Sharper Image and Neiman Marcus, which reported big sales increases over last year's holiday season. It was considerably less cheery at Wal-Mart and other low-priced chains. We don't know the final sales figures yet, but it's clear that high-end stores did very well, while stores catering to middle- and low-income families achieved only modest gains.

Based on these reports, you may be tempted to speculate that the economic recovery is an exclusive party, and most people weren't invited. You'd be right.

Commerce Department figures reveal a startling disconnect between overall economic growth, which has been impressive since last spring, and the incomes of a great majority of Americans. In the third quarter of 2003, as everyone knows, real G.D.P. rose at an annual rate of 8.2 percent. But wage and salary income, adjusted for inflation, rose at an annual rate of only 0.8 percent. More recent data don't change the picture: in the six months that ended in November, income from wages rose only 0.65 percent after inflation.

Why aren't workers sharing in the so-called boom? Start with jobs.

Payroll employment began rising in August, but the pace of job growth remains modest, averaging less than 90,000 per month. That's well short of the 225,000 jobs added per month during the Clinton years; it's even below the roughly 150,000 jobs needed to keep up with a growing working-age population.

But if the number of jobs isn't rising much, aren't workers at least earning more? You may have thought so. After all, companies have been able to increase output without hiring more workers, thanks to the rapidly rising output per worker. (Yes, that's a tautology.) Historically, higher productivity has translated into rising wages. But not this time: thanks to a weak labor market, employers have felt no pressure to share productivity gains. Calculations by the Economic Policy Institute show real wages for most workers flat or falling even as the economy expands.

An aside: how weak is the labor market? The measured unemployment rate of 5.9 percent isn't that high by historical standards, but there's something funny about that number. An unusually large number of people have given up looking for work, so they are no longer counted as unemployed, and many of those who say they have jobs seem to be only marginally employed. Such measures as the length of time it takes laid-off workers to get new jobs continue to indicate the worst job market in 20 years.

So if jobs are scarce and wages are flat, who's benefiting from the economy's expansion? The direct gains are going largely to corporate profits, which rose at an annual rate of more than 40 percent in the third quarter. Indirectly, that means that gains are going to stockholders, who are the ultimate owners of corporate profits. (That is, if the gains don't go to self-dealing executives, but let's save that topic for another day.)

Well, so what? Aren't we well on our way toward becoming what the administration and its reliable defenders call an "ownership society," in which everyone shares in stock market gains? Um, no. It's true that slightly more than half of American families participate in the stock market, either directly or through investment accounts. But most families own at most a few thousand dollars' worth of stocks.

A good indicator of the share of increased profits that goes to different income groups is the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of the share of the corporate profits tax that falls, indirectly, on those groups. According to the most recent estimate, only 8 percent of corporate taxes were paid by the poorest 60 percent of families, while 67 percent were paid by the richest 5 percent, and 49 percent by the richest 1 percent. ("Class warfare!" the right shouts.) So a recovery that boosts profits but not wages delivers the bulk of its benefits to a small, affluent minority.

The bottom line, then, is that for most Americans, current economic growth is a form of reality TV, something interesting that is, however, happening to other people. This may change if serious job creation ever kicks in, but it hasn't so far.

The big question is whether a recovery that does so little for most Americans can really be sustained. Can an economy thrive on sales of luxury goods alone? We may soon find out.

Yeah. I know I clip Krugman in his entirety. I suppose I could save a local copy, but it's difficult to parse a 750 word op-ed.

As anyone that reads this blog with the slightest amount of attention knows, I am no fan of GWB's domestic policy -- if it can be called that -- and his furrin policy AKA THE BUSH DOCTRINE hasn't exactly charmed a larger percentage of Americans and the wider world is horrified by what they see.

Now, I am a true benefactor of GWB's non-stop succession of tax cuts. This year alone, I'll save 30,000 dollars in income tax. According to the publicly proclaimed arguments of the Bushies, I'll be pumping that money right back into the economy. Frabkly, no. I will not be doing any of the sort. I'll be waiting for inflationary pressures to build and sitting on cash, buying distressed real estate to better balance my pre-retirement portfolio.

That's what people with large amounts of capital gains do. They buy goods at less than market value due to inherent inequities that follow a bubble. At least that is what I have done.

I do not want to see future generations having to pay for my personal financial well-being. I'd rather pay my fair share as I go, and leave the country in a better situation as it regards the debt issue.

Ya know, post 9/11, Bush called on all Americans to make sacrifices. He obviously wasn't talking about his multi-millionaire cabinet, or even guys like me. I understand that another round of tax cuts is in the offing, even as the states struggle to balance their budgets. This is fucking absurd. Whatever happened to fiscally responsible small government conservatives? Sure they were still locked into a 19th century attitude about social issues, but at least they tried to balance the nation's checkbook.

From Reagan on, the GOP has been about bigger government and spending our future away. It seems ludicrous that we now spend as much as the rest of world combined on our military, when the nature of the threat(s) are not 'fixable' in the traditional military sense. Terrorism, containment of technologies, and advanced arms(bio/chem/nuclear) do not require more ships, tanks, and heavy artillery. Human intelligence is where our defense dollars should go, dammit! Okay, end of rant.

Well, I see Johnny Ashcroft has recused himself from the investigation into the Plame/Wilson Leak Investigation. Good news. According to The WaPo article more details later. Score: Democracy 1 Totalitarianism: 0

I can't help but wonder why it took Ashcroft so long to do the honorable thing..oh yeah. Now it's all coming back. Forget I typed that. Nevertheless, a good turn of events.

Hello, my Droogs. I have been through a Windows based hell as of the last couple of days. Somehow, and I've no idea how this happened, some of my local files in my email client have disappeared. Hundreds of passwords, and my entire address book.

I've restored everything from my server, save for a few passwords. Plus, I've been in low level negotiations inre a new career path. I am pleasantly surprised by the amount of activity this page has received. I only installed the counter 5 days ago, and I didn't think anyone visited this page.

My issue with Google has taken it's own course and I am back to being indexed and crawled.

I'm scouring the 'net for news and op-eds and will have an update later today. :)

One last item from the, "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out." department of international diplomacy comes this shocker:

BAGHDAD, Dec. 27 -- The United States has backed away from several of its more ambitious initiatives to transform Iraq's economy, political system and security forces as attacks on U.S. troops have escalated and the timetable for ending the civil occupation has accelerated.

Plans to privatize state-owned businesses -- a key part of a larger Bush administration goal to replace the socialist economy of deposed president Saddam Hussein with a free-market system -- have been dropped over the past few months. So too has a demand that Iraqis write a constitution before a transfer of sovereignty.

With the administration's plans tempered by time and threat, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and his deputies are now focused on forging compromises with Iraqi leaders and combating a persistent insurgency in order to meet a July 1 deadline to transfer sovereignty to a provisional government.

"There's no question that many of the big-picture items have been pushed down the list or erased completely," said a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq's reconstruction, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Right now, everyone's attention is focused [on] doing what we need to do to hand over sovereignty by next summer."

The new approach, U.S. diplomats said, calls into question the prospects for initiatives touted by conservative strategists to fashion Iraq into a secular, pluralistic, market-driven nation. While the diplomats maintain those goals are still attainable, the senior official said, "ideology has become subordinate to the schedule." more at WaPo.

Shorter Bremer: Your pipes are broken lady, and I ain't no plumber.

I guess when you call out for war, it's a bit different than pizza. It takes a bit more planning than getting a few pals together to pony up a few bucks. But that's what you get when civilians are in charge of the military. Donald McNamara Rumsfeld and his sidekick Wolfy figured that an occupied populace would shower us with petroleum products once we ousted the bad guy. Being an ideologue is fun, but when it comes to actually doing something, rather than kicking back in your desk chair smoking your pipe in your slippers, you need to get the adults involved.(sorry about the run-on sentence, it's been quite a long day)

On Edit: Those weapons of mass destruction, Fuck 'em. They are a fantasy, and I've an election to rig win. Right, Karl?

From the, "Gee I learned something Today" department come these two items courtesy the NYT:

THE WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT? AWARD

To Ralph Nader, for calling on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to include corporate crime statistics in its annual crime report.

"Because the F.B.I. does not collect data on corporate crime," Mr. Nader wrote in a letter to John Ashcroft, the attorney general, last November, "both the American public and the law enforcement community lack good information on what has become a pressing national problem - a corporate crime wave." Mr. Nader is right. Investors need a scorecard.

Way to go, Ralph! Now just put your ego in your pocket and leave the stage.....Quietly. Thank you. Yes, you know what I'm talkin' 'bout.

And this too!

THE BEST SECOND ACT AWARD

To Henry Blodget, the former Internet analyst at Merrill Lynch who left Wall Street in 2001 and recently resurfaced as a reporter for Slate, covering the Martha Stewart trial. His debut was a brilliant piece, full of self-deprecation and sympathy for the embattled Ms. Stewart.

ah, the admonished Mr. Blodget and Ms. Stewart in the same sentence. I had no idea Blodget was penning for Slate. Beats a term in slammer. You know why they call it the slammer, don't you, Henry? Good.

More Market Merriment and Manipulation courtesy the NYT. (pass the eggnog)

Another sad day in Iraq.

Coordinated rebel attacks in Iraq kill 13, injure at least 172

In the biggest rebel attack since Saddam Hussein's capture, suicide bombers and assailants with mortars and grenade launchers blasted coalition military bases and the governor's office in this southern city Saturday, killing 13 people and wounding at least 172.

The death toll in Karbala included six coalition soldiers -- four Bulgarians and two Thais; six Iraqi police officers; and a civilian.

At least 172 people, many of them civilians caught in the chaos, were wounded in three nearly simultaneous assaults apparently designed to test the resolve of Washington's allies in the coalition governing Iraq. A Polish-led force is responsible for security around the holy Shiite city of Karbala. More at link.

What did Bush have to say about the inverse proportion of violence to desperation? Oh yes, here's the quote:

"The more progress we make on the ground, the more free the Iraqis become, the more electricity is available, the more jobs are available, the more kids that are going to school, the more desperate these killers become, because they can't stand the thought of a free society." -- G. W. Bush Oct. 28, 2003

Things must be really desperate in Iraq. What will they -- Rove & Co. -- dream up to keep dear leaders poll numbers aloft? One can only guess. We're almost out of alerts, and the Mad Cow scare hasn't riled the anarchistic vegans one iota. I know. People have told me lately that I seem more cynical. They watch Fox news.

Dean and that Evil Liberal Media

That liberal media again..sheesh will they stop at nothing?!?!

Let's discuss Howard Dean for a moment. Well, I'll pontificate, you can leave if you wish. Dean is receiving the very same treatment that gore did in 2000 after he won the primary. There seems to be an uproar over some comments Dean made about Osama bin Laden. I have inside information as I'm in Concord, NH and have seen Dean literally dozens of times. I have also talked at length to some of the Concord Monitor reporters covering the primary.

The current brouhaha is over some words Dean used when asked by Concord Monitor reporter Lisa Wangsness about his foreign policy positions.

Here is the quote that is causing so much hand-wringing:

"I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found. I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials. So I'm sure that is the correct sentiment of most Americans, but I do think if you're running for president, its best to say that the full range of penalties should be available. But it's not so great to prejudge the judicial system."

Sure, the words are a little sloppy, but the position is well-reasoned. Unless I'm not mistaken rule of law and presumption of innocence are still valid concepts in America. Although post 9/11 anyone that states this -- particularly where al-Qaida is concerned -- may not be expressing the sentiment of most Americans. Osama's head on a pike, preferably sans trial is what large numbers of the populace want.

So, there are Dean's words. I'll confirm them on Monday with Ms. Wangsness.

Here is some of the backlash:

In this AP story the S.F. Gate uses the headline: "Dean not ready to pronounce Osama bin Laden guilty"

And CBS cites another AP piece, this time a phone interview where Dean is quoted as saying: "I'm just like every other American, I think the guy is outrageous. As a president, I would have to defend the process of the rule of law. But as an American, I want to make sure he gets the death penalty he deserves."

Dean is mistaken on a couple of points. First of all, Gov. Dean is not, "just like every other American." He's running for president, and rightfully or not, he's under the microscope. Secondly, although I wish it were not so, this race may come down to; "Guns, God and gays." Osama's head on a pike serves both guns and God. The media is trivializing this primary saeson so that if we are not careful, their selective coverage will appeal to our worst nature, not to reasoned intellect. And god dammit, Karl Rove and Rupert Murdoch are going to see that stays that way. Issues out, jingoism in. Glory!

That librul media. Will they stop at nothing?

From the Department of "You're Not Jessica Lynch" comes this altogether underreported story...(that's in part due to the POTUS unwilling to acknowledge these people.

US towns gather in their wounded

Returnees shunned by national media win warm local welcome

Gary Younge in Greenfield, Missouri
Saturday December 27, 2003
The Guardian

As the honorary grand marshall of Greenfield's Christmas parade, Derick Hurt waved with his right hand as he led the other vehicles in a lap of the main square on Saturday. His left hand is still not functional since he bailed out of his Humvee in Mosul, Iraq, and landed on it, breaking his wrist. Every now and then he would stop saluting locals holding "Welcome Home Derick" posters and tap the spot where his lower leg used to be, to ease the throbbing.

Behind him, local dignitaries, church groups, and the kings and queens of the high school threw sweets to children from the boats and floats on which they were towed. Ahead of him was a lifetime of disability as an amputee, with a body flecked with shrapnel.

"It's a big thing for me," said Mr Hurt, 26, of the reception he has received in the week since he arrived home. In a town of around 1,500 nestled in the rural midwest, an area of big skies and small creeks, his injury and homecoming have been a big event. Local people raised thousands of dollars to help his family travel to see him at the Walter Reed military hospital in Virginia. Cameras from the local networks met him when he arrived at the airport in Springfield. When he got to Greenfield, the town was waiting in the square.more at link.

Again I ask, why do we have to go to the foreign press to get news like this? WTF is wrong with our sense of value? Are the media so fearful of tarnishing the Neo-cons' Excellent Iraqi Adventure™ facade that they won't cover this sort of thing? Didn't Time just name the 'soldier' person of the year?

About your humble author:

I am a caucasian male living in New Hampshire.

I am not particularly fond of any particular political party. I am vehemently anti-lie, anti-propaganda and pro-democracy. I am fond of using hyphens :)

I have a Master's of Science in Electronic Engineering, and my area of expertise is semi-conductor gate design/process.

I have two cats and two turtles.

I dragrace two motorcycles. One is also streetable. My drag only bike is a Suzuki GS1150 Based turbocharged 1428cc small tire(8" slick) with 260 Rear Wheel Horsepower. In a PMFR chassis it runs low 7 second quarter miles at my local track. New England Dragway. My street bike is a ZX-12R based rocket. It is now a 1270cc w/ a hidden nitrous oxide injection system. HP figures are 202hp no nitrous, 325 RWHP nitrous and pump gas, 405RWHP race gas(VP c-16). Yes, I am crazy.

I'll add to this list of things as I think of stuff. Or get really pissed off about the nature of things.

I have been "scroogled." As of yesterday, this blog was at the top spot at Google for a variety of search terms. My page was last crawled Dec. 25th!! Now, I no longer have a listing at all with Google. No cache, no nothing, nada, zip, zilch.

For any sites titled, "pure bs," this site is by far the most frequently updated, has the most content, and even looks the best. :) I am not going to bother contacting Google over this issue. I'll just keep plugging away, in hopes that I'll be noticed by Google's crawlers next trip around.

If anyone wishes to exchange links with me, I'm open to doing so. See sidebar for contact info.

In the, "We'll reserve comment until more information becomes available department," we offer this:

Saddam Threatens to Expose US
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News Staff

JEDDAH, 27 December 2003 — Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, now being grilled by American investigators, has reportedly warned US authorities that he will expose Washington’s “political games” and its behind-the-scene role in the occupation of Kuwait.

“Saddam threatened that if they continue to pressure him he will reveal startling facts — about America’s political games with his country — that would shock the whole world,” Al-Watan Arabic daily quoted a high-level European source as saying.

The source said Saddam had stopped answering the investigators’ questions and asked them to “give him enough time to clear his mind.” He did not elaborate further, the source added. More at link.

There can be little doubt that after being supported for better than 20 years by the U.S. that Saddam certainly has some embarrassing information about his once cozy with the U.S., and I am certain that we don't yet have the unfiltered truth from Gulf War the 1st. At this point, I wonder if the majority of my apathetic fellow citizens even care. From the amount of attention lavished upon the many 'problems' of the current administration's follies, I don't think 'the people' care what we've done, or not done. Sad really.

10 quick links of the day:

475 G.I.s dead per Centcom.

Bush Administration proposes fuel economy Changes. Oil producers/automakers: 1 Earth: 0

'Nothing but devastation and debris' as earthquake strikes Iran 10,000 feared dead.

2004 shaping into a very Martian new year Red Planet 'Rovers' due to land next month.

Holiday e-tail watchers sing 'ka-ching' 'B to C' biz finally arrives.

Russian jets receive upgrades. New digs for MiGs.

GOP lead Congress Scuttled Meat Protection Measure Why is this getting play in the UK but not in the US? Nevermind.

Bush Gets a 'Can Do Better' From Terror Panel. A 'C' student..'needs improvement' probably a phrase with which dubya's familiar.

Scientists begin measuring pollution in human bodies Note: I know that this had been done in NYC on a select group of pregnant women. ALL were found to have varying levels and types of pollutants in their blood/tissue.

New Home Sales Unexpectedly Fell by 2.4% in November. Sales of new, single-family homes retreated in November for the third straight month amid rising mortgage rates.

Now, from the department of "We Sometimes Eat Our Own as Well," comes this:

Conservatives Dispute GOP Budget Claims
Figures Cited Are for Authorized Spending, Not Actual Outlays, Say Critics

After three straight years of double-digit increases in federal spending, President Bush and the Republican Congress say they have the situation under control. But a number of conservatives say actual spending this year will be triple the figures cited by the White House.

The two camps have simply chosen different kinds of budget numbers to bolster their positions. Bush enumerates the amount of spending that Congress authorizes each year. His critics cite the actual amount the government is spending. In effect, the president and his allies are counting the money put into the spending pipeline, while the others count the amount flowing out the other side, some of which may have been slowly trickling through for years.

The debate over federal spending has become politically charged, with both sides tossing out wildly divergent numbers. On Dec. 15, Bush said at a news conference that his administration and the GOP-controlled Congress had held spending not related to the military or homeland security to a 6 percent increase in fiscal year 2002, with a 5 percent increase last fiscal year and a 3 percent increase for the 2004 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

"We're working with Congress to hold the line on spending," Bush said.link to GOPork

Uh huh. Sure you are, George. This coming from a *cough* fiscal conservative *cough* that has never met a spending bill he didn't like. 3 years in office 0 vetoes on ANY bills arriving at his desk. Zero, none, nada, zip. You tell me which party is fiscally responsible.. :)