But, hey, the oil companies are making enough money that the price of gas at my favorite off-brand place has dropped from $4.05 or so a month ago to $3.39 today.

Just like two years ago, Big Oil is manipulating the price of gas to make sure the Republicans don't get hammered further.

Job losses every month, foreclosures, unscrupulous loans, politicians calling americans "whiny" about economics, job freezes, buyouts and lending freezes.  Surely Fred Thompson was suffering from a bruised head the other night when he said the economy is fine.  More importantly, the American people have heard him and Gramm and Foxnews repeatedly tell them there is nothing wrong with the economy and surely they live in a different America.  

In all of the posts today i have not seen one mention of Iraq or Afghanistan which is ironic because it was a big part of the convention last night.  People don't think we won or lost, what they think is that we are spending BILLIONS rebuilding a country while our infrastructure is falling apart.  What they see is BILLIONS being spent on rebuilding Iraq and they posed no threat to us and had no WMD, while they buy generics and cut coupons and spend twice as much on gas as they were a few years ago an expense that was not expected or budgeted for.

George Bush said in 2003 and asked for in appropriations 74 billion dollars for the Iraq war.  It is estimated to cost us 1 TRILLION.  What most Americans want is for our gov't to come to its senses, declare victory and cut off the funds.  One trillion dollars invested in infrastructure would have unquestionably avoided this recession and the foreclosure, credit and financial crisis.

Just want to make sure I have the record straight.

McCain's policy to to be better then Bush.  Cut taxes and spending.

Not cut taxes and spend more.

That's his arguement.

Obama's is to cut taxes for the little guy but increase them on the companies and rich that drive our economy.

As to what she brings to their ticket on economics, I am going to have to say that her "hick" origins have the making of a kind of worldliness, as her speech attempted to connect Alaska to the management of national and global natural resources. Alaska is still, a hundred years after the Gold Rush, something of a colony. Their major economy (fish, oil, gas, metals, travel) relies on the in-flow of capital (and federal dollars, earmarks) to sustain the extraction and export of resources.

To me, Palin is going to have the lifelong knowledge that comes with living in a developing state (playing on the meaning of that word in its national and global meanings). She seems to focus on economic development and natural resource extraction in a way that references "frontier" laborers' ("my husband the union member") contributions to (and anxiety with) big global/national businesses. With American laborers increasing acclamation to a "global economy," she may be able to hit themes that exploit working people's vague sense that America is becoming just another colony in the system of transnational capitalism.

unfortunately, sen. obama isn't exactly a stellar thinker, with regards to economics, either. while his tax plans have some merit, especially with respect to the looming SS shortfall, they do nothing to address the core issues of an economy in deep recession.

A taxpayer bailout could reasonably cost $1 trillion.  That's a LOT of money!  

Apparently, Obama has been thinking this over and I see that his position has turned towards McCain's:  Obama on Fannie Mae

I don't believe McCain is as dumb about economics as everyone else seems to think.