Decision ‘08

One Thing About Americans…

…we can sure compartmentalize! Collectively, we hate the President, hate the Congress even more, hate the war in Iraq, are paying far too much at the gas pump…and consumer confidence is the highest in four years…

Capitalism…you gotta love it…

6 Responses to “One Thing About Americans…”

1 mikebdot Says:
April 26th, 2006 at 10:16 am
9/11 caused consumer confidence to decrease. It is now back to the level it once was in 1996(ish) (and 4 years ago as well on the way down after 9/11). Before 9/11 it was up to 140, now it’s at 109.6. What is your point with this post? Perhaps you could link to a graph with the history of consumer confidence since the 60s. I’ll let you find one and then you’ll realize why doing so would render this post a moot post.

There are other economic factors you could point at, but you can lie with data all day if you want.
2 Mark Says:
April 26th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Wow, that’s a quite hostile response to a tribute to the American consumer…I don’t know how to respond to your unexpected and uncalled-for hostility…so I won’t…
3 mikebdot Says:
April 26th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Oh, come now, that was not hostile. I just wanted an excuse to type “moot post” because I thought it was fun. Also, the “lie with data” is more like “mislead with data” if you want to get all technical.

You could just as easily have said that consumer confidence is the highest it’s been in 10 years, but it would be equally misleading. Or, did I misunderstand what you were trying to say? I read this as “Why aren’t the people happier with congress and the president if they have high consumer confidence?” It’s because consumer confidence is not high at all. It’s actually relatively low…
4 Mark Says:
April 26th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Oh, I’m just having a little fun…I’m not offended (you should see what others say about me around here sometimes - if you haven’t already). I just thought it was kind of an ironic juxtaposition, that’s all, I mean between the public’s souring mood and the rise in consumer confidence, at least over the recent past…
5 mikebdot Says:
April 26th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Mark,

Just to let you know, sorry I cannot read intention from you yet, but I just started reading this blog (linked from Glenn Greenwald) and I actually enjoy it. I have been looking for a decent right of center blog for awhile and finally found one. I can’t stand Jay Tea from Wizband, otherwise that would have been a good candidate. I can’t stand Reynolds or Malkin or well, any other right of center (or in their case way right of center) blog until this one.

This is intended to be a compliment, so I’ll go ahead and go all out and just say “thanks for running a good blog”.

That’s not to say I won’t play the role of peter (who as I understand it is a token lefty commenter?) and correct you where I see fit, but I’ll try to agree where there is good discussion.

Off topic, but I posted a comment on another thread and wanted to know if you saw it. It was one of the Kerry ones where you mention something about victory in Iraq. It amounted to asking you “what will this ‘victory’ look like when it gets here”? What is the measure for this victory? 3 years of no terrorism in the states (larger than say 50 casualties or 100 or 1000)? 5 years? 10 years? What will victory mean in the context of winning the war on terror or the ‘war’ in iraq?

Thanks,
Mike B. (mike b dot)
6 Mark Says:
April 26th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Mike, thanks for the kind words - truth be told, I wish we had more peters around here (okay, get your minds out of the gutter, people!) - I think it’s healthy to have a good mix of opinion.

Oh, jeez, victory in Iraq…that’s a big topic…and one I should revisit at more length than just a quick reply. I’ll try to put a post up on it in the near future…

By the way, if I missed your comment, in case YOU missed my post on this, I’ve been under a mammoth commenting spam attack for a couple of days now that is preventing me from making sure my spam filter doesn’t grab legitimate posts - and it has grabbed some of yours, for whatever reason (I just rescued your previous comment, for example).

So bear with me if I don’t find one and save it in the deluge…under normal circumstances, I almost always do find the legitimate ones, though there may be a delay…