wrote:
On Jan 13, 9:46 am, HK wrote:

I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.
Gee, what do you suppose is behind the lack of consumer confidence?
Could it be the impending recession? Could it be the price of fuel?


The price of fuel.


Could be this:

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinio...46_erbe13.html

Bush tanked the U.S. economy

Last updated January 11, 2008 5:01 p.m. PT

By BONNIE ERBE
GUEST COLUMNIST

Recession, like menopause, is a retrospective diagnosis. You don't know
you're in one until you've been in it for at least two quarters
(referring to a recession) or a year (for menopause). The question for
me is not: Are we hitting a recession in 2008? It is: What has made the
economy so buoyant that we didn't submerge into a recession several
years ago?

Wall Street giant and billion-dollar bank Merrill Lynch announced last
week that the United States had entered a recession for the first time
in 16 years. It was a controversial call denied by a chorus of
economists who do not think we're there yet. But the announcement comes
from the bank's chief American economist, David Rosenberg -- widely
respected on Wall Street.

The largest factor driving this country's economy into recession has
been the Bush administration's profligate spending. Please read the
following quote from the conservative/libertarian think tank Cato
Institute's Web site:

"George Bush is mired in a fiscal policy crisis worse than anyone could
have envisioned when he entered the Oval Office ... This crisis is the
resurgence of record federal deficits ... The deterioration of America's
fiscal health cannot be blamed on ... pro-spending coalitions in the
Democrat-controlled Congress -- although certainly some of the blame
lies there. It is almost exclusively the creation of the Bush
administration itself."

Sound familiar? The article, which I edited heavily (taking out
references that would have dated it immediately, such as the use of the
term "Reaganomics"), is about George H.W. Bush, not George W. But it
might as well have been about the son.

Forget about the $127 billion surplus that President Clinton left the
nation after he moved out of the White House or the fact that Clinton
paid down hundreds of billions of dollars in federal debt. President
George W. Bush has produced nothing but deficits since he's been in
office. Last year's, at $163 billion, was the lowest in five years. But
it probably would not have been if his trillion-dollar war in Iraq
hadn't been paid for "off budget." That little budgetary trick by the
administration means that cost isn't tallied in the deficit and debt
figures.

Then, of course, there's Bush's multitrillion-dollar tax cut.

Here's a lesson Bush never learned and one that probably could have kept
this country out of recession: You can't fight an expensive war AND cut
taxes simultaneously without sending the U.S. economy into the tank.

That is just what Bush has done.

There are other contributing factors, of course. The housing bust has
hurt this consumer-driven economy mightily. Americans felt richer and
borrowed heavily against home equity at the height of the boom. These
factors kept corporate profits and the economy growing.

But the bust that has now followed was highly predictable. Real estate
always runs in cycles. The last real-estate boom lasted an incredibly
long five years. The president should not have been piling up
irresponsible debt, knowing the crash would come at some point.

Then there is oil. Prices have been high since Hurricane Katrina, more
than two years ago. When you consider that early in Bush's first term
oil was selling for about $25 per barrel, and we're now paying about
four times that much, it's incredible that fact alone didn't drive us
into recession territory much sooner.

What has kept our economy growing these past few years? My theory is:
immigration. When millions of people flood into this country with few
possessions, buy homes and fill them with consumer goods, of course our
consumer economy is pumped. But that artificial pump-up won't last
forever. Unfortunately, the overdevelopment they prompt and the
environmental degradation they create will.

What's the solution? It won't be resolved with this guy in the White
House. Cut defense spending. Use a pay-go system for all future domestic
spending programs and tax cuts. Get the deficit down and bring the
surplus back. And while we're at it, pay down the national debt.