29% of people approve of President Bush. 14% approve of congress. 6% view the economy positively, yet more than 80% say they are satisfied with their circumstances and even more are happy with their jobs. While most Americans hate congress, they are overwhelmingly happy with their own congressman. Only 18% of Americans think they are worse off than their parents at a comparative stage in their parents’ lives.

There is a mortgage crisis. That huge crash you hear is only the market correcting itself. In this case it was allowed to grow far too large, and the subsequent economic downturn and market correction are going to come at a huge cost. Even so, buoyed by the weak dollar and increased exports the US has yet to have a single quarter of reduced output. A house is not an investment, yet there’s an entire generation of people who thought it was.

The “recession” is a combination of increasing gas and food prices and decreased asset value due to the housing correction currently taking place. Combine flawed regulation, bad US monetary policy, consumer perception about the housing market, the perception of easy money from reinsurers, and terrible underwriting practice by everyone involved and you have our current situation.

The best thing the US could learn from Europe is how to run a central bank. Controlling inflation should be the top priority rather than fueling economic booms and trying to soften busts. From 2002 - 2006 the top 1% of earners in the US had an average increase in income of 11%. For the remaining 99% there was an average increase of 2.4%. For the lowest 90% the average increase was 1%.

The moral of the story is, the news is full of crap. Everything you thought was happening in the last 6 years was a lie. Most things that are happening now are to your benefit unless you got an interest only loan, or took out an ARM and were planning to refinance. Most importantly, videogames are still only $60.

FYI. Most stats were yanked from this week’s economist.

Tags: damned lies,economist,lies,videogames
Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
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