It's the Economy..Stupid, Or Is It?

Al Franken, (comedian turned "serious" reporter) covering the RNC for the liberal talk radio "Air America", was asked what he thought of Governor Shwarzenegger's speech.

"Oh, I thought it was disgusting."
When asked why he felt that way, he said Arnold "missed the point about the "two Americas theme" and questioned why Arnold said we have to believe in the economy.
"I don't know what that means." Franken said, "do you have to believe that there is an economy, but that does that mean you think it's good?"

Yes..it's called consumer confidence, one of the basic tenements of economic theory. Recessions don't end as a function of time passing, they end through spending. When people spend money, they buy products, when produccts are purchased, companies make money, when companies make money, the hire more people and pay them money. When people are paid they spend money. Return to beginning of paragraph.

Oh, by the way, tax cuts that put money into the pocket of the consumer give the impetus for this process to begin. Case in point. When Sen. Kerry seeks to de-bunk the Swift Boat ads, he claims that they are backed by the President's campaign and says that the President has to resort to these tactics because he can't talk about his record including 1.8 million jobs lost. Problem is that when this diatribe was started in March, the party line was "3 million jobs lost". Now I'm not a math genius, but I see that as a 1.2 million increase in jobs over the past 6 months and considering that employment is a lagging indicator of the economy, it is indicative of the economic policies put into place over the past several years and I'm even disregarding the fact that over 1 million of these jobs were lost as a direct result of 9/11 not presidential economic policy.