Freedom's Fidelity

Monday, May 10, 2004

Tax Cuts Work

The jobless recovery is dead. April saw the addition of 288,000 jobs, on the heels of over 300,000 jobs created in March. That's two big months of additions in a row and 867,000 jobs created this year. That's a trend.
So what's John Kerry going to do? With the release of Richard Clarke's book, Woodward's book, over 100 dead in Iraq, and the prisoner abuse scandal it has been probably the most potentially damaging month for the Bush administration. Buoyed by his primary victory Kerry entered April with a slight lead in the polls, but utterly failed to capitalize on any of these opportunities and ended the month behind Bush by a about 3 points. Kerry really needed this election to be about the economy. With unemployment ticking down to 5.6% (what it was when Clinton was re-elected) and jobs continually being added, he is going to have to turn towards more pedestrian issues like the environment, Medicare and drug prices and then convince the electorate that they are important. Against the background of a growing economy and the high stakes in Iraq this will not be easy.

As for my gas price prediction, well, it's not looking good at this point, but that wasn't unexpected. Prices will probably continue to rise until (roughly) Memorial Day and then start falling. But it is pretty high right now, the national average is $1.89 and I even saw $2.27 in my area yesterday. But Saudi Arabia is nowasking OPEC to increase production and you can bet that some of the members will cheat. Stay tuned.

posted by Paul  permalink | |