Now A Presidential Stimulus ?

Just the other day George II quit talking about how good the economy is and said a stimulus is needed. In fact the stimulus needed is "direct and rapid." (Go ahead and make jokes) Maybe a stimulus is needed now that things are going south for those with big bucks in the stock market.

Just as a measure of how some things seem to miss the CiC, lets take a look at some US Bureau of Census figures for a couple segments of the economy, like the second one fifth from the bottom and the bottom of the top 5%, and note, this has nothing to do with extremes. In 1984 in 2006 dollars the second 1/5th earned $32,863 and the bottom of the top 5% earned $126,610. In 2006 in 2006 dollars the number are 37,774 and $174,012 the changes respectively are, $4,911 and $47,402 which means an increase of 14.9% and 37.4%. I suppose you think I ought to give George a break and only use numbers he could reasonably have some responsibility for, like 2001 to 2006? Ok, sure. 2001 2nd 1/5th $37,940 and bottom of top 5% $171,395 so the differences are -$166 and $2617 or -0.5% and 1.5% so at an upper middle class you've stayed close to the game with BushCo, blue collar, you've sucked.

2003-2004 were pretty tough, in the 2nd 1/5th you lost $260 and in the bottom of top 5% you lost $1,190 but in the average of the top 1% of after tax income you went from $572,000 to $620,700 or +8.5%. You're still not talking about George II's pals, the top 0.1%, they did nicely in 2003-4 to the tune of 9.5% while their tax rates fell by 3.4% while the bottom 80% experienced a drop of 0.3%. For perspective, this top 0.1% had more income than the bottom 33% of taxpayers a group 330 times as large. In 1979 the bottom third's income exceeded the top 0.1% by 2.5:1.

Dow Jones average on 12/24/07 was about 13,500 on 1/18/08 about 12,100 or 10%. That's a chunk of change for those in the top 0.1% of tax payers. 1/14-18/08 was the big drop, 700 points, about half the loss or 5% and nearly 5.5% in those days. Reflect on the wages of the 2nd 1/5th during BushCo, the income of the top 0.1%, and who lost when George II started talking about something other than a good economy. It became something worthy of "direct and rapid" stimulus only the other day. If you work for a living you may have noticed direct and rapid stimulus during his Administration - if you were bent over.

If you'd like to compare the Reagan years, you'd find 1976-81 interesting, for the same groups,
'76 $31,721 and '81 $31,907 or +0.6% and bottom of top 5% $110,250 to $117,419 or +6.5%. (sorry, I don't have 0.1%) Tinkledown economics at its finest.