The Myths and Harsh Effects of Bush's Economic Class War

This may be totally implausible to most Americans who are lounging in the lap of luxury and feeling no pain whatsoever as they stock up on rice and other staples.

Hahaha. Some times I fucking crack myself up.

Those unpaid credit card accounts, repossessed houses and cars and pink slips from employers are mere figments of your imaginations. So go buy that HD flat screen plasma TV that is larger than your car. All is right with the world don't ya know?

George Bush came into office. There was a recession almost immediately. Officially it began in March of 2001 and, officially, it ended eight months later.

The causes of that recession are vague and amorphous, generally credited to the "business cycle."

There is, in addition, a minor Republican industry dedicated to back-dating the onset by five months, to November, 2000, in order to make it a Clinton recession. Or, to inadvertently to say that the very election of George Bush screwed up the economy, he didn't even have to come to power.

Bush came in with a plan for tax cuts. Originally, that was based on the government having a surplus and it was packaged as giving people their own money back. When the surplus disappeared, due to the recession and the tax cuts, he kept pushing the tax cuts as a jobs and stimulus package. The economy went into "recovery" by 2003.

The administration claimed that the recovery was due to the tax cuts. It was an odd and rather limp recovery. Indeed, it was a mysterious one and the mystery was that the US was still losing jobs. This was considered inexplicable.

The administration claimed that the weakness in the economy was due to 9/11 and being in a war. The very same people who used that story would have been the first to say that Roosevelt and the New Deal did not bring the US out of the depression, it was World War II that did it. Historically, wars have produced booms. But their war was somehow different.

Nonetheless, the five years from 2003 to 2007 are now routinely described as having been a "boom," a time of "robust" growth, low inflation, and low unemployment. Now we are in, or facing, a recession.

This recession was brought about by a specific over-expansion, the "sub-prime lending bubble."

This has caused turmoil in the credit markets.

The cure is a "stimulus package." It consists of two parts. Low interest rates and giving cash out to every American, in the hopes that we will "consume" our way out of trouble. It's hard to tell how much anyone believes this will work, but Republicans and Democrats have all signed on, no one is saying it's nonsense, or pointing out the obvious, that's the horse that brought us here. Here's the reality.

The recession of 2001 never ended.

At least not for ordinary Americans.

The headline links to the source.