Paul Craig Roberts served as Assistant Treasury Secretary under Ronald Reagan. Yes, he is a staunch conservative, but I often read his articles because they are very informative.
According to Mr. Roberts, the Bush Adm. and large corporations are lying to the public about the job market and the unemployment rate.
In the article, Roberts states January 2006 was "the 61st month that the US economy has been unable to create any jobs except jobs in domestic nontradable services, most of which are low paid." He goes on to say the unemployment rate is much higher than reported because the job numbers do not include the many workers who have given up looking.
The entire article can be found at:
http://www.vdare.com/...
In fact, almost all the job growth has been in industries that face no import competition or little or no outsourcing
The Democrats need to run hard on the economy this year. The average person's income is not going up near as fast as costs are. We have more without health insurance. The price of gas keeps going up. There are fewer and fewer people covered by a safety net. If the deficit is over $400 billion 3-4 years into a jobless recovery, what will it be when the economy goes into recession? $800 billion?
I don't see the party running hard enough on the economy.
I often think it will take a catastrophe before we regain our majority - a recession, things worse in Iraq, or this Adm. being dumb enough to bomb Iran and Iran retailiating by sending 100,000 troops into Iraq.