Ward on Words

NPR reports that consumers who are squeezed at the pump have pulled back on spending in other areas. The result is being felt on the economy. " High gasoline prices, government budget cuts and weaker-than-expected consumer spending caused the economy to grow only weakly in the first three months of the year." Thanks to NPR for pointing out the obvious - that higher gas prices cut into money consumers would rather spend elsewhere. That's why the corporate leaders who feel that squeezing as much out of their employees for as little as possible are remarkably short-sighted. A consumer-driven economy needs consumers with funds to spend. So dip into the profit goody bag and start giving employees much-deserved raises. Hire new talent to fill key positions. (There's a lot of talent looking for a compatible work hook-up right now, FYI.) If business leaders want to sell their product, they need to make sure America's got consumers with money to put towards consump...

"Economy Made Few gains in Bush Years" is a headline from today's Washington Post. According to the story by Neil Irwin and Dan Eggan, the nation's first president with an MBA (from Harvard, to boot!) "has presided over the weakest eight-year span for the U.S. economy in decades." The story is filled with gloomy statements that define the Bush era as "as a time of little progress on the nation's thorniest fiscal challenges," and as a period that showed "...the most tepid growth over any eight-year span since data collection began seven decades ago." The Bush team, with characteristic bravado, claimed pride in their economic accomplishments. Here's what Edward P. Lazear, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, is quoted in the article as having recently said: "It does look like a great eight years, aside from the last quarter, unfortunately. In the long term, things look good. The reason things look good...