GREAT ECONOMIC NEWS

Friday's job report shows that White House economist Greg Mankiw was very nearly right when he projected almost a year ago that jobs could rise by 2.6 million in 2004. Of course, he was widely ridiculed inside Washington after making this statement, and at one point even the White House turned its back on the Harvard professor's estimate. But the Labor Department's latest employment release shows the yearly gain for nonfarm payrolls coming in at 2.3 million. That's close enough for government work. It's also the best jobs performance in five years.

Why so good? The labor market responded powerfully to lower personal tax rates. As workers were able to keep more of what they earned, the unemployment rate declined from 6.3 percent to 5.4 percent. A full 2.5 million jobs were added since August 2003. Mainstream economists continue to scoff at the economic power of lower marginal tax rates. But once again a supply-side experiment worked. For all of 2004, nonfarm job additions averaged just under 200,000 per month. At this rate, 2005 will be another banner year for employment and economic growth.

... it is possible that this year's unemployment rate could dip below 5 percent. Outside of the bubble economy of the late 1990s, this would mark the lowest unemployment rate since 1973. Declining unemployment also signifies lower federal spending on unemployment benefits and other small-scale entitlement payouts.

Additionally, at 5 percent or lower unemployment, the 4 percent growth rate of the economy will spur a flood of new individual tax collections at lower tax rates. Hence, another economic surprise of 2005 will be a pronounced decline in the federal budget deficit.... America's cowboy capitalism, to borrow Europe's derisive term, is hatching yet another economic boom.

More here

I guess this shows the effects of all that "outsourcing": "U.S. industrial output grew strongly last month while producer prices fell at the sharpest rate in 1-1/2 years amid tumbling energy prices, according to reports suggesting healthy, noninflationary growth".

Australia is doing well, too:

"Australia's remarkable run of economic growth is set to continue, with new hirings in December cutting unemployment to 5.1per cent, its lowest point in 28 years... Noting that interest rates are just above 5per cent, while inflation is just over 2per cent, Commsec chief economist Craig James said: "Without question, Australians are enjoying the best economic conditions since the late 1960s." Mr James said that with the 29,000 new jobs added last month, a record 60.1per cent of the population aged over 15 has a job. The fall in unemployment last month was felt around the country".

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ELSEWHERE

Muslim pride trumps aid to Muslim victims: "Indonesia announced Wednesday that all foreign troops assisting in the relief operation must leave by late March.... A number of countries have sent or are sending troops to help. The United States military has taken a major role, flying daily helicopter runs to ferry food to isolated villages devastated by the wave and bringing wounded people to hospitals here in the provincial capital. The Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and two other Navy vessels have been cruising off the coast here to provide support. American soldiers delivering the aid return to their ships at night. Some of the large contingents of foreign troops, particularly from neighboring Singapore, have brought heavy equipment - bulldozers and backhoes - to clear smashed buildings and the debris here and in Meulaboh, a city on Sumatra's west coast that was severely damaged. Australian troops, which were the first to arrive, are to be complemented by a naval ship due on Thursday".

Just by the way, I wonder where the French and German contingents were in Indonesia? I guess I'm not the first one to wonder that. It must be their moral superiority that kept them at home.

French corruption again: "French state-owned television is using what some call intimidation and threatened libel lawsuits to quiet calls for an investigation of TV images that showed the alleged shooting of a Palestinian boy by Israeli soldiers in 2000. The video from the TV channel France 2 has become famous around the world as a symbol for the current Palestinian intifada (uprising) and shows a boy trying to take shelter behind a man during a gun battle in September 2000 between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers at the Netzarim junction in the Gaza Strip. Independent media analysts in France and Israel have provided what they call conclusive evidence that the video of the incident was staged"

Even a Frenchman says that the French got on well with the Nazis. In their typically gutless way, they did: "M Le Pen, 76, leader of the National Front party, had attracted a chorus of indignation from the political world and media on Wednesday with a magazine interview in which he said that the 1940-44 occupation was "not especially inhumane", and that the Gestapo largely worked to protect the French population. The massacres of the French population during the war consisted of a few "blunders" by the occupiers, he told Rivarol, an extreme right-wing magazine.... M Le Pen said that he stood by his words. "I note that if one compares the German occupation of France with the occupation in certain other European countries, then proportionately it is in France where it was the least painful."

Two fingers to feminism: "President Bush's policy on women in ground combat takes just four words to articulate: 'No women in combat.'

Real electoral fraud. You need more votes? We'll find 'em! "Christine Gregoire yesterday pushed back tears and dark clouds over a still-contested election, raised her right hand and took the oath of office as Washington's governor. ..."

Blithering Bunny has a huge fisking of an article published in the MSM about how the Communists of the Western world were just idealists and that is why it is OK to be an ex-Commo.

My latest posting on MarxWords shows that Marx regarded non-Germans as "rabble". Yes. That was old Karl, not Adolf. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" looks at John 10:30 ("I and the Father are one").

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

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