“There are a lot of discouraged workers right now and a lot of Americans that are working part time that want to work full time, so the actual rate of unemployment is probably a lot higher than the stated 5.6 percent,” says William Wilson, an economist with LaSalle Consulting Associates.

"Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein echoed that view: “The increase in incomes generated from those jobs has slowed over the last few years.”

"The number of Americans living in poverty has grown every year Bush has been in office, reaching nearly 36 million last year. The percentage of the population without health insurance increased from 14.2 percent in 2000 to 15.6 percent in 2003."

But that's OK. Afghanistan is safe for Americans now, at least limited areas in the capital. Nowhere else, as the Taliban seems to be making a comeback. Whoops - turns out not even Kabul is safe. My mistake.

Well, Saddam is gone, and his supporters no longer dream of him coming back. At least Iraq SHOULD be safe for the Great Liberators, except they regard Americans in much the same light as Saddam, Abu Ghraib and all, you know. And they're foreign invaders. So that's still a mess. Yep. Wouldn't want to be an American tourist over there right now.

Well, for the good news. Greenspan has kept interest rates low, and home ownership is up. And Americans can still get passports, if they can find somewhere safe to go. But Iraq is on the way to democracy, freedom, and justice American-style, with a puppet government which can decide who runs in an election, which votes to count, can't overrule American decisions, control the American military, and has to honor the contracts with Halliburton Bremer and his henchmen signed.

Oh, happy day. Happy, happy day. Ain't the world a better place.

Arf (Gee, Bow, you didn't have to depend upon some blog.)