Liz Cox Barrett of CJR Campaign Desk praises David Wessel:
Posted by DeLong at August 5, 2004 02:05 PM | TrackBack | | Other weblogs commenting on this postCJR Campaign Desk: Archives: ...we tip our hat to David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal. Wessel's "Capital" column is... the sort of piece Campaign Desk would like to see more of... much more of. Wessel takes the following vague (and grammatically challenged) Bush campaign sound bite... and dissects it....
Said Bush of Kerry in Canton, Ohio yesterday: "He said he's only going to raise the tax on the so-called rich. But you know how the rich is [sic]: They've got accountants. That means you pay. That means your small business pays. It means the farmers and ranchers pay."...
Wessel explains each candidate's stance on "how heavily to tax Americans with incomes over $200,000 per year".... He confirms that Kerry wants to "raise the tax"... he reports by precisely how much and what Kerry says he will do with that money. Does Kerry's plan mean, as Bush claims, that "small business pays"[?]... The "bulk"... won't pay more under Kerry's plan. Readers then hear from an Urban Institute economist (and "Reagan tax official") who says that by cutting taxes now, but not cutting spending, "Mr. Bush is guaranteeing tax increases in the future."...Yes, readers get both campaigns' two cents in the piece (the he- and the she-said), but they also get Wessel's two cents, as well as those of two economists. The result? By the end of the story, as if by magic, the reader comes away with a clear -- if basic -- grasp of how each candidate approaches taxing (in Bush's words) the "so-called rich," and what each candidate's approach might actually do for (or to) them.
Yeah, those damn rich folk with their accountants. What would your favorite pundit, Tom Frank, say?
At least the Bush administration killed Andersen, one of the big accounting firms, over Enron.
Probably because they wanted to bring it back as an undead zombie firm, to wreak even more evil.
Posted by: Barry on August 5, 2004 02:57 PMI love how W uses the word "they" when refering to the rich.
Posted by: Kuas on August 5, 2004 03:31 PMCould it be?
Could it possibly be??
Could the end be in sight for "Why oh Why Don't We Have a Better Press Corps?" (Sorry if I got the phrase wrong. All of the Why oh Whys on the current page have to do with Liars and Fools)
We can hope. Not that I don't derive enjoyment and information from these posts. I do. No, I look forward to a day when the press corps discharges their duties with the sort of informed, unbiased coverage that our great country deserves.
I can see it now....
Posted by: section321 on August 5, 2004 04:19 PMI am concerned that the allegations of the Tipton 3 in Britain about their treatment at Guantanamo have yet to appear in the NYT or WP.
Posted by: sm on August 5, 2004 04:29 PMI don't mind admitting that, compared to Wessel, Rosenbaum sucks... : )
Posted by: Tom Marney on August 5, 2004 06:06 PMI am glad someone can tranlate W speak. Sometimes W reminds me of the guys on Airplane that can only talk "jive" and require a translator.
Does having accountants make for paying less taxes, charging the accountant fees to the IRS, etc? What gives? The wealthy don't get tax breaks by hiring accountants. The wealthy get tax breaks by buying politicians that might run for Congress or the presidency.
Posted by: bakho on August 5, 2004 06:36 PMJob growth surprisingly low for July...
Do you economist types cheer the way I do when these things come out? I almost feel bad about it. I mean, people need jobs.
Still. President Bush is such a raging hemorrhoid in the American anus; anything that vitiates his campaign is wonderful news.
Posted by: Spypop on August 6, 2004 06:11 AMSpypop, welcome to the club - the club of those who hijack Brad's comment section while he sleeps through the morning data releases.
The July jobs gain of 32k was really weak, and June was revised to just +78k from the initial +112k reading. Just as a matter of perspective, I think it's something like +/-180k jobs needed to be significantly different from zero at the 95% confidence level.
The service producing sector - the biggest part of the economy by far - added just 14k jobs after adding 76k jobs in June (vs a 6-month average of 143k). The poor bedraggled factory sector added 10k jobs, after losing just 1k in June (against a 6-month average of 15k). The breadth of job gains was bad, just as many sectors laying off as hiring. Aggregate hours rose 0.3%, not quite enough to get back to flat after a 0.5% drop in June.
Households, by the way, reported 629k new jobs in July, which is why the jobless rate dropped. If anybody tries to tell you the household survey is "better" ask how they can tell. The 6-month average gain in jobs reported by households is 182k/month, vs 180k for establishments.
Posted by: kharris on August 6, 2004 06:32 AMAlso, note that these numbers come from the household survey, not the business payrolls.
Posted by: Abby on August 6, 2004 11:20 AMIs it me, or is it like everyone has drunk the KoolAid, and we're all sitting here in our Nikes and velour track suits waiting for the aliens?
July's poor job growth is NET between major job losses, and some minor reconstitution of jobs at lower wage rates, during a period when US$ has crashed against a basket of currencies, as can most easily be seen in the (US$) price of crude oil and commodities spiking up 30%, but is also being reflected domestically in across-the-board price hikes of 5% in July. 5%!
We Americans are grossly, not just marginally or noticeably, poorer today than just one year ago. The impact of this neo-Argentinian meltdown on a real value basis far exceeds 90's Net Bubble, and we are just starting to see it's economic impact in retails sales plummeting 7% in July.
But the vampiroyals and their gaming ilk give no surcease there, firmly straddling our huddling economy, looking for another soft anus to probe.
As Emperor George quipped to his War Dogs: "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
He wasn't mis-speaking. It's a big joke to the elites, just like those Net Fraud stock brokers used to joke about "putting lipstick on a pig", and Ken Lay used to joke about Raptor I-IV while he was dumping his own shares out the back door.
An DoD broker guy I know called today, crowing about the new $417 BILLION hog trough Bush built.
"How are we gonna get in on this, Aaron-Boy!!??"
What is it about the "boy" thing and the rich?
They are vampires. They suck life's blood. Lose the chatter, and find a wooden stake and hammer.
"I am concerned that the allegations of the Tipton 3 in Britain about their treatment at Guantanamo have yet to appear in the NYT or WP."
They won't. It's not in the script. The script is: is was just a few bad apples, period.
And this is not prettier:
There is increasing evidence that U.S. doctors, nurses, and medics have been complicit in torture and other illegal procedures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. Such medical complicity suggests still another disturbing dimension of this broadening scandal.
New England Journal of Medicine,
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/351/5/415