I love George W

Through a rather long link chain I get to the page of thousandreasons.org which links to an interesting chart from the Economic Policy Institute here showing how though the 'economy' has been showing strong growth over the last two quarters, the growth in earnings has shown an overall decrease of 0.1%. This isn't good news considering how much Bush has been touting his supposedly successful warming of the US economy through trillions of dollars of tax cuts:

Economy watchers have been ebullient over recent evidence that the recovery is finally gaining strength. At the top of this list is the very strong 8.2% pace of gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the third quarter growth of 2003. However, as the figures reveal, the expansion is not showing up in the one trend that arguably matters most to working families: the growth of real hourly wages. Economists correctly point out that wage growth responds to overall growth with a long lag, but this is of little consolation to the working experiencing significant cognitive dissonance as they hear the economic cheerleading coming from most market analysts.

What does this mean? Well, it seems that economically influential markers such as manufacturing, export and inward investment are up, leading to GDP growth. The problem that remains is that businesses pass on their successes to employees last and their failures first so they're still being pessimistic about the recent recovery of the economy continuing. This will be good news to most of us in about six month's time when we'll get cheaper clothes, our more adventurous options in supermarkets will return and the rate of new product launches will increase again. Do you care much about that? Nor do I, but the thing that would get you is this: your employer may be more likely to give you a raise if the CEO knows that his shares are doing well so he can cash some of them in. It's a trickle down system and time is needed for the rain on the mountain to create a flood down in the valley. Lol.