WSJ: Rebounding Stock Market Proves Bushist Economics Right

[BurtWorm]

:puke:

Winger Street Journal can't cop to the fact that the market, like the WSJ editorial board, loves concentration of riches and hates wealth redistribution.


http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008374



The Tax Cut Record
Americans are better off despite Democratic naysaying.

Sunday, May 14, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Our late editor Bob Bartley used to say that critics might forgive you for being wrong, but they'll never forgive you for being right. That psychological insight may be the only way to explain the fierce and bitter opposition this week to extending the tax cuts of 2003 for another two years through 2010.

If ever there was a market test of economic policy, the last three years have been it. The stock market has recovered from its implosion in Bill Clinton's last year in office, unemployment is down to 4.7%, and growth has averaged 3.9% in the three years since those tax cuts passed--well above the post-World War II average and more than twice the growth rate in Euroland.

Yes, gas prices are high and interest rates are rising, which helps to explain the anxiety felt by some of the public. But these headwinds are all the more reason to be impressed by the economy's ability to push ahead nonetheless. We'd have thought that the Democrats who are now voting to let taxes increase would be thrilled to know that things turned out better than they had feared. Americans are better off despite Democratic predictions that, as Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi put it back in 2003, tax cuts would "damage long-term economic growth."

Alas, admitting error is not a natural political act, so the tax cut critics are now suggesting all of this growth would have happened anyway. Thus the Washington Post last week quoted Robert Rubin--the Clinton economic guru--as dismissing the importance of tax cuts because "we had very good markets in the '90s before all these tax cuts went into effect." And it quoted chief Lehman Brothers economist Ethan Harris as saying that the expansion "has nothing to do with tax policy, and more to do with the corporate sector starting to spend some of their record profits."

Well, what does Mr. Harris think inspired that revival of business spending? Spontaneous combustion? A Nascar green flag? As for Mr. Rubin, when does he think the stock market imploded and the economy headed downhill? Bill Clinton was still in office when the dot-com boom went bust and U.S. manufacturing was shedding jobs faster than France.

...

[girl gone mad]

1. Talk about revisionism.

The stock market declines of 2000 were just a blip on the radar screen, brought on by overbought internet issues.

Bush has given us 5 long years of sideways, choppy markets. Of course, the instant it looks like we might be headed up, in rushes WSJ to credit tax cuts (while still blaming Clinton for the previous 5 years of bad trading, of course). Unfortunately for them, these small gains look to be temporary.

[Bob3]

13. and today the markets tank -

again reality showing its liberal bias.

[davhill]

2. The stock market is not the economy

I don't think there has ever been any doubt that if you give money to the rich they will invest it in the stock market.

[BurtWorm]

4. This is Econ pre-101.

These guys are supposed to know economics. Wingers ALWAYS laugh at lefties, pretending our understanding of economics is naive and precious. Then the WSJ makes this basic error in understanding.

The right wing is rife with econ-idiots.

[DBoon]

5. or they will invest it in real estate

another booming "business"

[klebean]

8. I heard Jon Stewart last night citing numbers on real estate investors

1 in 4 (I think that's what he said) are investments in second homes, indicating the wealthy are driving the "boom"

[LSK]

15. i wish i could nominate replies

This one deserves it.

[gatorboy]

3. So when a company slashes 1000's of workers,

thereby pushing their stock up...This is good for the economy?

Sure. But who's economy?

[politicaholic]

6. Ever since they reclassified Fast Food jobs as Manufacturing...

the unemployment numbers haven't looked better!

Of course 'ol "would you like some smirkyness with your fries" doesn't actually use "numbers" to back up his argument. That would be research, and research is for liberals.

Mr. Smarmypants seems to be having problems looking at stagnate wages while the cost of living shoots through the roof with gas prices increasing the expense for you to even go to work not to mention the price of food...so you stay home...oh but the interest rates make it more expensive to live in your house.

WSJ sure has their finger on the pulse of the rich and powerful don't they?

[Bob3]

7. Huh? Better for who?

If you had stocks in all the companies in the Dow Jones Ind Average at the boom's height and held them when the collapse came (we'll leave off the bit about it was Clinton's fault - 6 years later it is still Clinton's fault) like you were told to do by the paid shills on wall street that means after 6 years you would be just now breaking even - again. Which means somebody who put the money in a standard savings account would have done better than you over that time. How is this good? Never mind people who had enron stock.

And I notice they say nothing of Nasdaq (which is where all the hot stocks were) that isn't even close to touching their historic highs.

We'll leave off the unemployment numbers and the growth numbers - the gimmicking of them has been widely documented. (Again please note they don't talk about Job creation which is at historic lows).

But that's the Wall Street journal editorial page - they'll be spewing this nonsense out until judgment day. It's like getting angry at the sun - they live in fact free world and don't care.

[GOPBasher]

9. Hey people: It's all on BORROWED MONEY!

The national debt, trade deficits and consumer debt all are driving this fake "prosperity." It's not sustainable.

[TexasLawyer]

10. damn straight!

thank you! Anyone can make themselves look really good on borrowed money.

But the bill comes due eventually, and suddenly you don't look so good at all.

[brentspeak]

11. It means lot of people are investing in European and Chinese companies

Because that's where the bulk of investing dollars is going nowadays. The WSJ opinion editors are pimps for the GOP, and whore out spin produced from the bowels of conservative think tanks (like, speak of the Devil, the American Enterprise Insitutute that Rove spoke at yesterday).

[Sapere aude]

12. The sun came up this morning right on time, that proves tax cuts work.

OK, why don't have give middle class tax cuts and restore the rates to higher income and see if that helps the economy?


How about raising the floor on which income is taxed? No that would not help the wealthy.

[MazeRat7]

14. So how do they explain the 5 day NASDAQ sell off thats on-going....

Here is the chart:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EIXIC&t=5d&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=

Oh I see... they mean that little bitty up-tick this morning... :sarcasm:

MZr7

[BurtWorm]

16. I think silently.

:eyes:

[Bozita]

17. The Dow's down 204+ points at this moment

Hang on tight!

[Bozita]

18. kick

[Bozita]

19. Now that the markets are closed for the day, ... kick!

[Supersedeas]

24. tell it like it is WSJ....pfft

[Ksec]

20. Trickle down IS great for the top few.

Unfortunately it really doesnt trickle down at all. It should be called trickle stagnation.

[Johonny]

21. If I remember correctly

Bush promised that the booming economy would not only pay for the tax cuts but also eventually reverse the deficit. The author falls to explain why after 5 years the country's "booming" economy has failed to live up to either promise.

[Wizard777]

22. Market report.

Today 5/17/06 The tax cuts becomes the law of the land. The stock market has begun to follow Bush's polls. Down. Down. Down. How low can it go? Where it stops nobody knows and if they do they're going to jail for insider trading. I think investors are realizing that if Bush ever leaves office. There will not be an America left. Apparently President Bush has decidered that America should become North Mexico.

[Tactical Progressive]

23. Libertarian right-wing nut Greenspan tried to strangle the Clinton economy

throughout election year 2000. He didn't want to give tax cuts under Clinton, not even in a booming economy. Think either of those wasn't political? Not likely. He was as corrupt as the Supreme Crooks were in December 2000. Greenspan's treachery was fully political, and he reversed all of his positions the instant Repubicans were installed in office.

As soon as Bush was selected, he held emergency meeting after emergency meeting to drop interest rates and start the money spigot flowing full blast. And suddenly, after a powerful economy generating surpluses wasn't a criteria for cutting taxes, an economy running back into deficit was a prime target for tax cuts doled out by a Republican president, with Greenie smiling big next to little Bushie.

I consider Greenspan to be nothing more than a traitor. He tried to tank the Clinton economy and managed to trip a stock market which was trying to support a nascent internet economy onto its face. Greenspan destroyed all of that. Republican treachery exists at all levels, from street thugs all the way up to the Chairman of the Fed and to Supreme Court justices, and everything in between.

'Bill Clinton was still in office when the dot-com boom went bust' my foot.

[BurtWorm]

25. Ironically, it was for all his "treachery" during the Clinton years

that he was labelled "Maestro" by fawning Bob.

[Jack Rabbit]

26. Is that so?

When was this written?

[area51]

27. WSJ: "Americans are better off ...."

:wtf: They why are so many Americans unemployed & underemployed?

Why have so many fallen into poverty?

Why has medical care become so damned expensive?