Krugman's NYT: Why American's Aren't Thrilled with "Bush Boom:

December 5, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist
The Joyless Economy
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Falling gasoline prices have led to some improvement in consumer confidence over the past few weeks. But the public remains deeply unhappy about the state of the economy. According to the latest Gallup poll, 63 percent of Americans rate the economy as only fair or poor, and by 58 to 36 percent people say economic conditions are getting worse, not better.

Yet by some measures, the economy is doing reasonably well. In particular, gross domestic product is rising at a pretty fast clip. So why aren't people pleased with the economy's performance?

Like everything these days, this is a political as well as factual question. The Bush administration seems genuinely puzzled that it isn't getting more credit for what it thinks is a booming economy. So let me be helpful here and explain what's going on.

We're back now to a period where opportunities are fairly limited, like they were in the late Bush I/early Clinton years. More than that, we're in a period where it's becoming conventional wisdom that "perks" like medical insurance and retirement benefits are unreasonable demands (unless you're Marc Cooper of course) and declining standard of living for many is once again perceived to be inevitable. Not only that, but those "perks" which at least provided security, if not riches, such as quality health insurance are falling out of favor.
http://atrios.blogspot.com/
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/opinion/05krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

at least we still had JOBS.

This economy is booming only if you look at the GDP and how fast the top 5% of wealth holders are increasing that wealth.

For the rest of us, the economy sucks and we know it.

he was in Chile when Kissinger had Allende murdered. Now he's joined the fascists?

:-(

the box, and bank accounts have been squeezed so tight that there isn't any left over for college or retirement savings, you better believe that the majority of Americans are not feeling too pleased with the economy. The question should be "Do you feel SECURE for the future?" -

due to loss of low-end jobs. A social worker friend put it to me this way, "the near poor have become the now poor."

We blame the victims for drug addiction, crime, stealing, gun vilence...but all of it is the result of an oppressive system that relies on entrenched underclass to handle security, cooking and trash removal for the wealthy.

In an oligarchy, everyone but the oligarchs are expendable.

A good deal of the new jobs created are in these low income, no benefit jobs like Walmart or temping.

People are working longer and longer hours to make ends meat. Working 70 hours a week to make what you earned in 40 hours 10-15 years ago is no "increase"

GDP is so deceiving as is employment numbers. The standard of living for the people that have seen an increase have gone either to the wealthy or people working an insane amount of hours that they did not have to do years ago.

How anybody can believe things are better today then 5-10 years ago is beyond me.

is that they have to have these things EXPLAINED to them? They have no idea how the average person lives. The Gross National Product is
rising and we're supposed to feel good? Our Dem leaders need to make some noise now about how out of touch this gang is. But will they? This is a theme that could help us in 2006.