What/Who is a Conservative

[Iris]

LOL! This is also what I thought. I'm no economist, and I'm not all that sophisticated on this stuff. But I am a fiscal conservative, and I couldn't help noticing the fiscal differences between Clinton and Bush -- that Clinton did better by Republican deffinition than the Republicans have done.



Michael Kinsley:

More GOP Than the GOP

It was the TV talker Chris Matthews, I believe, who first labeled Democrats and Republicans the "Mommy Party" and the "Daddy Party." Archaic as these stereotypes may be, they do capture general attitudes about the two parties. But we live in the age of the one-parent family, and it is Mom, more often than Dad, who must play both roles.

It has not escaped notice that the Daddy Party has been fiscally misbehaving. But it hasn't really sunk in how completely the Republicans have abandoned allegedly Republican values — if, in fact, they ever really had such values.

Our text today is the 2005 Economic Report of the President. I did this exercise a year ago, and couldn't quite believe the results. But the 2005 data confirm it: The party with the best record of serving Republican economic values is the Democrats. It isn't even close.

The values I'm referring to are widely shared. We all want prosperity, we oppose unemployment, we dislike inflation, we don't enjoy paying taxes, etc. They're Republican only in the sense that Republicans are supposed to treasure them more, and to be more reluctant to sacrifice them for other goals, such as equality or clean air.

Statistics in the Economic Report back to 1960 tell the story. And a consistent pattern over 45 years cannot be explained away by shorter-term factors, like war or who controls Congress. Maybe presidents can't affect the economy much. But the assumption that they can and do is so prominent in Republican rhetoric that they are stuck with it.

Consider federal spending (a.k.a. "big government"). It has gone up an average of about $50 billion a year under presidents of both parties. But that breaks down as $35 billion a year under Democratic presidents and $60 billion under Republicans. If you assume that it takes a year for a president's policies to take effect (so, for example, President Clinton is responsible for 2001 and George W. Bush takes over in 2002), Democrats have raised spending by $40 billion a year and Republicans by $55 billion.

Leaning over backward even further, let's start our measurement in 1981, the date when Ronald Reagan took office on a platform of shrinking government and many Republicans believe that life as we know it began. The result: Democrats still have a better record at smaller government. Republican presidents added more government spending for each year they served, whether you credit them with the actual years they served or with the year that followed.

Now look at federal revenues (a.k.a. taxes). You can't take it away from them: Republicans do cut taxes. Or rather, tax revenues go up under both parties, but only about half as fast under Republicans. This is true no matter when you start counting, or whether you give a president's policies that extra year to take effect. It's the only test of Republican economics that the Republicans win.

That is, they win if you consider lower federal revenues to be a victory. Sometimes Republicans say that cutting taxes will raise government revenues by stimulating the economy. And sometimes they say that lower revenues are good because they will lead (by some mysterious process) to lower spending.

The numbers in the Economic Report undermine both theories. Spending goes up faster under Republican presidents than under Democratic ones. And the economy grows faster under Democrats than Republicans. What grows faster under Republicans is debt.

Under Republican presidents since 1960, the federal deficit has averaged $131 billion a year. Under Democrats, that figure is $30 billion. In an average Republican year the deficit has grown by $36 billion. In the average Democratic year it has shrunk by $25 billion. The national debt has gone up more than $200 billion a year under Republican presidents and less than $100 billion a year under Democrats. If you start counting in 1981 or attribute responsibility with a year's delay, the numbers change, but the bottom line doesn't: Democrats do Republican economics better than Republicans do.

As for measures of general prosperity, each president inherits the economy. What counts is what happens next. Let's take just two measures, although they all show the same thing: Democrats do better under every variation.

From 1960 to 2005, the gross domestic product measured in year-2000 dollars (in other words, taking inflation into account) rose an average of $165 billion a year under Republican presidents and $212 billon a year under Democrats. Measured from 1989, or with a one-year delay, or both, the results are similar. And how about this one? The average annual rise in real per capita income (that's the statistic that puts money in your pocket): Democrats score about 30% higher.

Democratic presidents have a better record on inflation (averaging 3.13 % versus 3.89% for Republicans) and on unemployment (5.33% versus 6.38%). Unemployment went down in the average Democratic year, up in the average Republican one.

Oh yes, almost forgot: If you start in 1981 and if you factor in a year's delay, inflation under Republican presidents averages 4.36%, while under Democrats it's 4.57%. Congratulations.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la- ... util-op-ed

[Cherry Kelly]

Some interesting posts...

FIRST thing I see wrong is the idea that we need 150,000 NEW jobs every month - why - because the population of NEW workers (legal workers) coming into the job market every month - does NOT meet those totals. It might take a bunch of digging to get to all this, but population studies minus illegals shows a figure far less than the above quoted numbers coming into the job market. POP stats do not match up with the estimate figure of people reaching working age. WHY - because families are not having as many children.

To emphasize this - take a look at the population figures, population growth vs numbers of people already IN job markets.
Or as the econ guy on PBS talk show (local) said "estimates are just figures - that do not always show reality".

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As for the middle class -- Westward - you hit it - people living a lifestyle beyond their actual means... the gotta have it -- with no thought to tomorrow.. VERY true.

Also - having job skills - in more than ONE area is highly important.

Iris - you mention Boeing and Microsoft and whats happened where you live -- its like so many other places - JOBS shift. I do believe I've talked about it before - where companies move in - get all these FREEBIES - no taxes etc. and when their FREE time runs out - they just pack up and move to other places where they get so many years of freebies. It has happened here in the KC area - where several pharmaceuticals were located and thousands of employees - now GONE - why - their X number of years of no tax building/land deal ran out and so did they.
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[Cherry Kelly]

One cannot look at ups and downs tied directly into the years that any president is in office and make accurate claims regarding how good/how poor the economic growth was during any particular administration. WHY - because job growth or reduction does not happen the MINUTE that the president takes office or minute he leaves office.

Economic growth factors or losses (with the exceptoin of the huge losses connected to 9/11) simply do not happen over-night. They take time - sometimes years to become a reality. Quick example is to be found in the DOTCOM boom and bust. The surging of literally thousands of dotcom companies that rose over a few short years (infancy of computer growth) quickly fell as more and more people became aware that THEY could do the work themselves and NOT have to pay someone else to do it for them. Example: designing a web page - less than 15 yrs ago, dotcom companies were charging several thousand of dollars to DESIGN a web page for start up companies (using web). Today - take a good look at how many web pages exist that ordinary people are designing ON THEIR OWN. Linking this to the job market - when you had the BOOM time - stats showed HIGH job market figures - then came the BUST and all those jobs were gone - and you got low job growth. BUT it did not happen over night - it did take months and yes years to reflect the growth and fall of jobs.

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Back to middle class - just what IS middle class in today's world? Is it based on income, or what a person(family) has (whether they own it or not) or something else? Let alone basing it upon WHERE one lives. Do we take IRS figures divided by numbers of people IN those groups to figure what IS or IS NOT middle class? CAN we define it by any standard that will fit every person, family - across an entire nation?

[Iris]

Cherry, it would be easier to respond to you if you actually read the article.

[Cherry Kelly]

Iris -- I did read through the article - and my response is my own response to basic concepts. Perhaps if in posting people would quit highlighting or putting in BOLD those things THEY consider important - one might respond differently...

The plain and simple truth is that it takes TIME -- for anything. (as I stated) - sometimes it takes years... It truly does go back to congress who controls the actual spending. It goes to how LONG it requires for differences to be felt in the general populous.

When I read things about - blame this on this president, or credit this president - I am reminded of a garden. You plant a tree - not for the immediate shade, but for the future shade it will provide. You plant asparagus roots - not for today or even tomorrow, but for a year - or more when you can see the fruits of your labors. You start up a business and it takes time for that business to be profitable. TIME! and a whole lot of patience. There are short term things and long term things - so when I look at articles like this I see it in the light of TIME.

[spaceprophet]

Back to middle class - just what IS middle class in today's world?

The middle class (or middle classes) comprises a social group once defined by exception as an intermediate social class between the nobility and the peasantry. In early industrial capitalism the middle class was defined by exclusion of all remaining semi-feudal nobles, all remaining semi-feudal peasants, and the emerging working class. Since the working classes constituted the vast majority of the population, the middle classes actually lay near the top of the social pyramid.

Some of modern theories of political economy consider a large middle class to be a beneficial, stabilizing influence on society, because it has neither the posited explosive revolutionary tendencies of the lower class, nor the stultifying greedy tendencies of the upper class.

In an everyday context, those who reside in the Middle Classes tend to be Businessmen or those who hold professional jobs, such as lawyers, doctors or clergymen.

Sociological debates concerning definition:

The middle class is colloquially used in English to refer to highly paid white collar workers and their families - and this often means those with a professional qualification. These workers usually have a tertiary education. They possess jobs which are perceived to be "secure". This colloquial middle class has historically low rates of union membership, high rates of house or long-term lease ownership, and is perceived to believe in bourgeois values.

Most sociological definitions of middle class follow Max Weber. Here the middle class is defined by a similar income level as semi-professionals, or business owners; by a shared culture of domesticity and sub-urbanity; and, by a level of relative security against social crisis in the form of socially desired skill or wealth.

The size of the middle class depends on how it is defined. By education, money or wealth, environment of upbringing, birth (genetic relationships), social network, etc. These are all related, though far from deterministically dependent.

The middle class of the First World:

As the swollen middle class in the first world lost its distinctive usefulness as a label, observers invented sub-labels: we often detect in contemporary societies an "upper middle class" and a "lower middle class". However, some have argued that the "lower-middle" class merely represents a materially privileged (by global standards) but positionally disadvantaged working class. Sociologists have argued that such people are not a part of the middle class at all. On the other hand, one could regard the western countries as having outsourced the labour requirements previously fulfilled by the working classes to less affluent countries. Clearly industrialisation has reduced those requirements in some ways, but given that the richest countries buy goods from the poorest in quantities they could not produce themselves, it does not seem to have removed them.

The middle class of the United States:

While 95 percent of Americans identify themselves as middle-class, using the measures of sociology the reality seems different: Some of these individuals are (in those terms) lower or upper class. The expansion of the phrase in the United States appears to have been predicated in the 1970s by the decline of labor unions, the entrance of formerly domestic women into the public adult work force, and the naming and blaming of the underclass in the slums.

Around 1980, when asked what level of personal income would qualify as middle-class, George H. W. Bush replied: $50,000. In fact, only 5 percent of the U.S. population was making that level of income at the time.

Though net worth usually determines social class, incomes between $20,000 and $75,000 are generally considered middle class. Most economists define "middle class" citizens as those with net worths of between $25,000 (low-middle class) to $250,000. However, net worths slightly over $250,000 generally are not considered to be wealthy, yet rather, upper-middle-class. Those with net worths between $250,000 and $500,000 typically are categorized as upper-middle-class.

Threats to the US middle class:

In the 1990s and 2000s, many feared that the spreading of a perceived wealth gap would lead to a "collapse of the middle" in American society. Political theories are in conflict on both the effect of an actual increased wealth gap, as well as a decreased wealth gap, and the perception of each respectively. It is worth noting that research, such as Diener's and Suh's Culture and Subjective Well-Being, MIT Press, indicates that there is more subjective well being when there is greater inequality, and less subjective well being with greater equality. Factors often identified by Leftist economists as threats to the middle class are downsizing in many sectors of the American economy, and the systematic elimination of unionized labor. Other economists disagree, however, and believe that downsizing is simply the constant churn of the economy reacting to changing market conditions to achieve maximum efficiency, and that unions, while increasing wages and jobs for union members, decreases wages and eliminates jobs for all non-union workers, especially in the non-skilled and semi-skilled professions. Indeed, many economists and financial experts believe that the only "threat" to the middle-class is economic stagnation, overtaxation and overregulation.

The middle class of the United Kingdom:

In the United Kingdom, social status was less directly linked to wealth than in the United States, and was also judged by pointers such as accent, manners, place and extent of education and the class of a person's circle of friends and acquaintances, which did not always correspond to the subject's wealth or professional position.

The upper class of the United Kingdom was generally associated with the families of the titled aristocracy and the landed gentry, and the middle class comprised those who were neither upper class (on this definition) nor working class. But in the first half of the twentieth century the landed gentry declined in wealth, in numbers and in influence, because of the effects of agricultural depression and taxation. Meanwhile, and throughout the twentieth century, the titled aristocracy became less homogenous (because of the increasingly eclectic background of new creations, most of which were politically driven and which reflected, therefore, the increasing democratisation of British politics in the twentieth century) and, so far as the hereditary element was concerned, less numerous (because of the near-cessation of new hereditary creations after the Life Peerages Act 1958, coupled with the natural rate of extinction of existing hereditary titles) as well as less influential (because of the declining power of the House of Lords relative to the House of Commons after the Parliament Act 1911, and the near-abolition of the hereditary element of the House of Lords at the end of the twentieth century).

The result has been the effective extinction of the upper class in the United Kingdom, both in numbers and in influence, leaving the middle class as the dominant economic and political class.

At the same time, the numbers of people considering themselves working class have declined in the United Kingdom, due to a reduction of those earning their living by manual labour, or in unskilled occupations; to the decline of manufacturing industry, and to rising levels of education (including a very large expansion of the numbers attending universities). This has further consolidated the political importance of the middle class. By the end of the twentieth century, more people identified themselves as middle class than as working class, with statistically insignificant numbers identifying themselves as upper class. Hence, even the British Labour Party, which grew out of the organised labour movement and originally drew almost all its support from the working class, re-invented itself under Tony Blair as 'New Labour', a party competing with the Conservative Party for the votes of the middle class as well as the working class.

Politics of the US and UK middle class:

In the United States, and in the United Kingdom, politicians typically target the votes of the middle classes. The middle class is perceived to include many swing voters. This is attempted (and apparently achieved) by pandering to their tastes, as party researchers and marketers see them.

Marxism and the middle class:

Marxism does not necessarily see the groups described above as the middle class.

Marxism postulates that social classes have a specific relationship with means of production. A noble owns land. A capitalist owns capital. A worker owns their ability to work. However, between the rulers and the ruled there is most often a group of people, often called a middle class which lacks a specific relationship. Historically, during feudalism, the bourgeoisie were that middle class. People often describe the contemporary bourgeoisie, incorrectly, as a middle class.

The exact composition of the middle class under capitalism is vigourously debated by Marxists. Some describe a "coordinating class" which implements capitalism, composed of the petit bourgeoisie, professionals and managers. Others dispute this, freely using the term middle class to refer to affluent white collar workers as described above. Still others, (Council communists) allege that there is a class comprising intellectuals, technocrats and managers which seeks power in its own right. This last group of communists allege that such technocratic middle classes seized power and government for themselves in the Soviet-style societies.

The middle class is not a fixed category within Marxism, and debate continues as to the content of this social group.

For Marxist views on this class, compare bourgeoisie. Note that this is not the same thing as middle class.

Wikipedia

[Westward Ho]

This statement is true?

"Those with net worths between $250,000 and $500,000 typically are categorized as upper-middle-class."

I really would have guessed the rates would be much higher to be considered upper class. I guess I have been bamboozled by all the easy credit in this country - so many people driving aroundin $60,000 SUVs and living in posh homes. But when it comes down to "what are you financially worth minus debts" it is a different story.

With all the news about the 1% having billions of dollars, I thought membership in the upper class was much more restricted than this! I suppose there is a lower upper, middle upper, upper upper, and then God Level.

[Cherry Kelly]

spaceprophet -- wikipedia? OK - interesting definitions. Which may or may not be true based on what people have stated or put into wikipedia.

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Westward -- ayup upper, middle upper, middle, middle lower, lower -- its all in what you use to decide.

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Hmm by definitions I'm still middle - maybe toward upper middle cause I own a business, am college educated and net worth - welll -- hmm. ASSETS ASSETS --

My car is paid for, my home (hubby and mine) is paid for, so does that mean we are upper middle? or middle middle or ??

My "pay" depends totally on sales and net... so it fluctuates. Totally unreliable ehh?

SO ya these people driving new cars living in these over priced houses - may appear to be UPPER middle - but take away debt - hmm they are poor. CONFUSION!!!

[Westward Ho]

Well, I hesitate to state this, since it is bound to start a class war against me here in FF, but I did the math, and our household net worth is about 1.6 million. Yes, our house and cars are paid for, and credit card debt averages about $100 per month. No other debts at all.

But we are not at all average in life style. Unlike most Generation X families I know, we do not have maid service. I clean the house, thank you very much! We do not have a gardening service. I and my husband do the gardening, thank you very much. Instead of going on expensive cruises and vacations, we drive around the local area with the kids, going to movies and parks. The kids can't tell the difference between a slide at a local park or one at some posh resort. We seldom eat out, except for Chinese and an occasional burrito. My car is 14 years old, my husband's car just had a 10 year birthday. We save, save, save.

Yes, we are odd, and I only share this intimate financial information because no one here can really identify who I am in the outside world. But through hard times and good, we put up to 20% of our income into savings.

CONFESSION: My husband is a doctor, so 20% adds up (I don't hold a paying job although I was a software engineer before the first child arrived and built up a savings/pension/ 401 of a few hundred thousand).

I realize not everyone can save this kind of dough. But nonetheless, I offer it as an example (maybe extreme) of living a simple life and having a little nest egg that would anger and shock most of our neighbors and friends. I think Ben Franklin would be proud of us, even if modern corporate America hates our guts.

If people ask why we save, I suppose it is to allow us both to escape the system some day IF NECESSARY. No, not some End Times madness, but just if we decide to screw the bigtime and go live in the north woods somewhere for the next 40 years watching squirrels play and writing our memoirs! We do NOT intend to leave it to the kids, since I have yet to meet a kid with a silver spoon in his/her mouth who wasn't a waste of space. Our kids will work in life as we do.

[Cherry Kelly]

Westward - good for you! IF more people would save whether a small amount on a weekly basis or monthly - it too would add up over time. I have no idea what our net worth would be, and really haven't taken time to total up all the diversified $$ holdings - savings for the future. We both own companies so income varies a lot. BUT like you - the cars and home are paid for and we probably have more vehicles - as there are two classics on blocks in the one shed and an old pickup truck (plus there is a bobcat in the shed as well). Kids are grown and grandkids are growing!

If more people would save for their future - but alas many do not. Its excuses more than anything else. "We can't save cause we live paycheck to paycheck" - which is probably very true, but even so if you start looking at what they spend things on - they could put away a bit of money instead of - - - going out to eat every week, movies - games - dvds, or even learn to use those coupons off on groceries and shop judiciously.

I am a moderate conservative - at least thats why my friends in political chats call me. And that is probably quite true.