Plunderbund

One more thing about the content of the speech Bush gave today: it was bullshit. (Big surprise, I know)

It went something like this:

When I came into office in 2001, our nation was headed into a recession. So we cut the taxes across the board. And hardworking Americans have used this tax relief to produce strong and lasting economic growth
…
Inflation is low. Unemployment is low. Real after-tax income has grown by an average of more than $3,400 per person since I took office. The American economy is the envy of the world.

I’m no economist- but I am a hard working American who lived in Europe from 1998 until 2000. And back then, the world DID envy the US- because the American dollar had so much buying power.

And I while I can’t rattle off a series of statistics about the US economy and discuss the magic power of tax cuts I can tell you one thing: my money was worth A LOT more back then. Twice as much, actually.

But not any more.

The truth is:

The US dollar declined 53.1% vs. the Euro during 2001-2007, and also down against many others incl. 31.7% vs. the Canadian dollar… for every 100 thousand dollars of a citizen’s assets the international buying power dropped $53,000 since 2001 vs. the Euro.