Posted by Tina
Almost five years after the recovery from the last recession the American people are still looking at a very bleak job situation in the country. The participation rate, which is the percentage of working aged people who have jobs, dropped to a low not seen since the dismal Carter economy of 1978. Only 74,000 jobs were created in the month of December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistic, in a month that normally sees an increase in temporary retail jobs. 525,000 Americans that had been seeking employment simply gave up on the on the prospects of finding a job. These figures make the reported lower unemployment rate of 6.7% irrelevant since it is more likely due to senior citizens retiring rather than younger Americans finding jobs.
Despite the underlying bleak realities in people’s lives that these numbers represent, the media, a media that was very critical of a much better Bush economy, has chosen to brag effusively. Breitbart’s Big Journalism has the headlines:
Business Insider: PRIVATE SECTOR JOBS SURGE BY 238,000 IN DECEMBER
CNN: Strong job gains at end of 2013
NBC News: Jobs report could show things are looking up
Bloomberg: Companies in U.S. Added 238,000 Jobs in December, ADP Says
Wall Street Journal: U.S. Private-Sector Adds More Jobs Than Expected
BusinessWeek: Companies in U.S. Added 238,000 Jobs in December, ADP Says
This is pathetic!
The unfortunate news is that the President has shown no interest in changing his overall economic policy. Instead he has proposed incentives to help a few small regions, Promise Zones, where poverty is extremely high:
Obama announced he was designating the first promise zones in neighborhoods in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Antonio as well as swaths of southeastern Kentucky’s coal country and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.
The announcement comes as Washington marks the 50th anniversary this week of President Lyndon Johnson launching his War on Poverty.
In establishing the five promise zones, Obama is a following up on a plan he first unveiled during last year’s State of the Union to target 20 of the hardest-hit towns for economic revitalization by the end of his presidency.
With the designation, the communities receive preferential consideration for 25 federal grant programs and the federal government will invest direct technical support as the communities try to revitalize languishing neighborhoods.
This sounds more like a campaign plan than an economic plan. While such a gesture will be greatly appreciated in the targeted communities, this plan does nothing for the rest of America. What message does it sent to those who have seen their hours cut, are working part time when they want full time work, are working at a job below their skill or education level, or that have given up finding a job altogether? What message does it send to young people, particularly minorities? What message does it send to companies that would like to grow and hire people but have been stifled in a slow growth economy?
Here’s another thought. The fed has been engaging in something called Quantatative Easing. That’s a fancy name for creating money out of thin air and shoving it into the stock market to prop it up. The bad news at the end of this road is usually inflation and that means your dollars have less value. Janet Yellin is in a tough spot. One economic expert on FOX Business this morning imagined the folks at the Fed sitting around the board room table over coffee this morning with their palms turned up…”What the heck are we going to do now?”
Any way you look at it this is a terrible way to begin a new year and I don’t hold out hope that it will get better any time soon. If this is “fundamental transformation” Obama and his ilk can stuff it! This is just sad.
True December was disappointing, however last year, the economy created more jobs than seven of the eight years Bush/Cheney was in office.
None the less, US workers are in trouble. Many of those jobs created were part time and low wage.
Congress seems more concerned with partisan bickering and fighting, then protecting the middle and lower class. Yeah, we hear a lot of lip service, but little effective action. But, they seem to all agree that we need to protect the wealthy.
Well Jim, I guess we agree that our labor force is in trouble. Which means the middle class is feeling the pressure. I sure am! But, if we are in trouble doesn’t it make sense that our companies might also being trouble? I think they are, and I think the jobs we see created by Obama are mostly temporary, done largely with borrowed money and they aren’t the kind of jobs people can actually live on and grow. Too many jobs went to China because we priced ourselves out of business and this includes heavy regulation and taxation. We need both, don’t get me wrong. We can’t pollute and we need to run the basics, but there are too many areas of government that a fat, dumb and/or in the way. Can we agree on that too?
And next week, when Obumble revises the numbers again, the total of jobs will decrease like it has whenever the numbers have been announced for the past 5 years!
Until such time that the Labor Dept includes those who have stopped looking for work in their calculations, any job numbers floated by the white house aren’t worth the teleprompter they’re written on.
We need good jobs in numbers that meet the needs of the people. That just isn’t happening under the current policies.
Bush did not have to extend unemployment benefits indefinitely or for all workers. See his record here. The benefits were targeted to people in need after events like 911 and Katrina for short periods.
Bush’s unemployment rate was better overall during his eight years. See chart.
The Gateway Pundit compares economic growth under the two presidents (see charts):
There are many variables that make using statistics a poor way to compare. Both presidents have faced challenges, some of it beyond their control. In the end we have to consider how policy has affected recovery and growth. One area that id fairly simple to compare is tax policy. Both presidents offered tax incentives/breaks/cuts with very different results. Bush tax policy was broad; Obama’s was controlling and targeted. Bush cut tax rates in all brackets and doubled the dependent child credit. These policies put money in the hands of every working American without discriminating or demanding a purchase or taking out a loan.
Obama gave tax breaks to businesses IF they would hire or buy new machinery. He gave tax rebates IF people bought an electric car. This type of policy does nothing to put money in the hands of the general public and it doesn’t inspire confidence in job creators.
Creating CONDITIONS that inspire job creation is the one big thing a president can d, If he does that successfully business increases and they will hire.
The people know when things are not going well. We feel it in our emotions, we sense it in others who we see struggling, we see it in higher food and fuel prices, we notice it when our children or grandchildren cannot find their first job after high school or college. We experience it when our own buying power shrinks.
When five people leave the workforce for every job added we are not making progress and the American people know it.
Our history is just repeating itself. My grandparents had a bad economy under Wilson (D) followed by a strong recovery under Harding/Coolidge (R).
My parents survived the Great Depression under FDR’s (D) 12 years and four terms rule to enjoy the good economy years under Eisenhower (R).
I lived under the horror of Carter(D) with 14-20% mortgage insurance rates and the boom years under Reagan (R).
Now we’re suffering as bad as my grandparents did during the Great Depression under Obama (D), while being told we’re in a recovery and life is really good for almost everyone. With over 90 million employable people or one-third of our population out of work when will we hear the truth and call it what it is… The Second Great Depression?!
The only thing we have to look forward to is that we will repeat our history and have a president who will be able to turn our economy around AGAIN until the next Democrat is elected and destroys it.
The only thing that will save us is to get the Democrats out of control of our educational systems preventing them from rewriting our history to gain misinformed future voters.
Oops, “insurance” should be interest rates.
Rush sees our present and our past the same as I do.
Rush Limbaugh: Under Obama America Is Reliving ‘Absolute, Total, Utter Disaster’ of Jimmy Carter’s Economy:
“Upon hearing the depressing job numbers, Rush Limbaugh took to the microphone Friday and made an eye-opening comparison between President Obama’s second term and another U.S. president who was faulted for not better handling the economy back in the 1970s:
This number of people not working, labor force participation rate, is a record 92 million people. This labor force participation rate plunge equals, on a percentage basis, where we were in 1978. Now, I realize many of you are too young to remember 1978.
Rush Limbaugh: Under Obama America Is Reliving Absolute, Total, Utter Disaster of Jimmy Carters Economy
President Barack Obama shakes hands with former President Jimmy Carter at the Let Freedom Ring ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. (Image source: AP/Carolyn Kaster)
We were in the second year of Jimmy Carter’s administration — and, folks, things were so bad back then that the “misery index” was invented as a way of expressing how bad it was. Interest rates were in the 12 to 14% range. Inflation was double-digit.
I mean, it was an absolute, total, utter disaster. Jimmy Carter was giving speeches from the White House about the national malaise. He was telling everybody turn down the thermostats and wear sweaters because the Middle East was restricting oil delivery. It was absolutely disastrous. It was on the heels of the mess caused by Watergate, but it was, again, the policies of a liberal Democrat president. This is Jimmy Carter’s second term is what’s happening here.
Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter’s second term, if he had won.”
Continued.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/11/rush-limbaugh-under-obama-america-is-reliving-absolute-total-utter-disaster-of-jimmy-carters-economy/
Left Erupts Over Congressman Daring to Say the Things Everyone Else is Too Afraid To Say:
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/01/107742-left-erupts-congressman-daring-say-things-everyone-else-afraid-say/
This Story of a Prof Who Fails His Entire Class to Illustrate Obama’s Socialism Has the Left Furious:
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/01/107990-story-prof-fails-entire-class-illustrate-obamas-socialism-left-furious/
Peggy: “This Story of a Prof Who Fails His Entire Class to Illustrate Obama’s Socialism Has the Left Furious:”
Why would that story make the left “furious?” It’s completely made up. No professor of economics would be stupid enough to believe that socialism means giving everyone the same exact amount of money. Nor would they believe that President Obama has proposed anything even resembling such a plan. This mythical meme is targeted at people with absolutely no understanding of economics.
I will say that I actually did something similar to what this fictional professor did after we read the story “Harrison Bergeron.” I told the students that since some people did very well on a project, while others did poorly, I averaged out the grades so that everyone would get a C. (They immediately understood that I was referencing the short story they had just read, and that I wasn’t serious.) But this was to start a conversation about the definitions of fairness and equality, and it was prompted by the fictional dystopia in “Harrison Bergeron.” It has nothing to do with socialism; Kurt Vonnegut WAS a socialist, for goodness’ sakes.
I loved this comment supporting that ridiculous meme:
“The Papa Johns owner established his business, took huge risks, worked 24/7 for years to build his business and now employees want everything handed to them? And you’re upset he bought a 40 mil house with the money he created himself?”
It’s amazing to me how many corporatists are unable to see the glaring contradictions in their thinking. How can one argue with a straight face that employees who work for a living and demand higher wages are asking for stuff to be “handed to them?” And if the Papa Johns owner “created the money himself,” what in the world does he need employees for?
This comment, however, was far more insightful, and I may just copy-paste it any time I see someone misusing the word “socialism” from now on:
“This is in essence communism (given wealth according to his needs) and not socialism (giving wealth according to his ability). Even though communism is more of a political term and socialism is an economic term the two largely overlap. There are far better real life examples to exemplify the failures of economic socialism and economic communism. Either way they both fail. Socialism like in many EU countries has survived for centuries. If you want to try an experiment on pure capitalism you will get a feudal and fiefdom state of being. An extreme in any direction never works. The author however claims this to be “Obama’s Socialism Experiment” which is just adding more ignorance and fire to the masses out there who don’t understand the difference between extremes.
By using the term “socialist,” the author incites memories of Lenin, Castro, or Mao. However Obama does not fall into this far leftest view. Obama falls within the mainstream of contemporary socialism as represented, for example, by Germany’s Social Democrats, French Socialists, or Spain’s socialist-workers party so in this way yes, Obama is a socialist.
To help you understand the difference you only need to look at the top Countries that represent socialism in terms of government policy they are: 2 Denmark,3 Finland,4 Canada,5 Sweden,6 Norway. The result is that 4 out of 5 of these “socialist” countries rank higher in terms of Per Capita income than the US does.
In essence socialism to far the right Nazi Germany or far left Former USSR both fail as history has proven but a middle ground that has been found in the EU and yes in the USA has proven so far to be both sustainable economic and political entities. The problem people have is the rich -middle class – poor gap that exists. The top 1% of income generators own 90% of all the wealth, US Census Bureau. Which has lead to a great of amount “untrust” and skeptism of Business and the elite.
Most Americans prefer a middle ground of Market dominated capitalism and social policies that protect the average citizen from corporate dominance. Using trigger words out of contextual meaning do not achieve anything positive. The term socialist afterall is a very broad term that in actual practice very few people disagree with.”
Chris: “This mythical meme is targeted at people with absolutely no understanding of economics.”
As if economic was the point?
Tina: “As if economic was the point?”
Of course it was. The point of that meme is to criticize President Obama’s economic plan. (Of course, it did so in a way that totally mischaracterized Obama’s economic plan. “Give everyone the same exact amount of money” has never, ever been a proposal on the table.)
I am at a loss as to how anyone could read the story referenced and come away thinking that it had nothing to do with economics.
That meme has been around for decades.
The lesson is about human behavior.
“That meme has been around for decades.”
This version says specifically that the lesson was in response to a class which had insisted that “Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.” Bad grammar aside, it’s clear that the meme is mischaracterizing both socialism and Obama’s actual policies. Obama has never come close to arguing that “no one would be poor and no one would be rich” under his plans. That’s also not what most socialists argue.
I’m sure that versions of this meme have been around for decades, but that only shows that the word “socialism” has been abused and misused for decades.
“The lesson is about human behavior.”
In a way, yes, but the specifics are the problem. Like I said, I tried a similar thing with my students last year(though I was never seriously going to give them all Cs). This was intended to be a lesson on human behavior, and to get students thinking about what they mean when they use words like fairness and equality. It was relevant to the story we were reading, “Harrison Bergeron,” and also relevant to social issues and political arguments today as we try to determine what equality means in our society.
But to say that lesson directly applies to President Obama or socialism is dishonest. This version of the meme suggests that Obama’s economic plan is to give everyone in the country the same amount of money, which is simply false. It also suggests that that’s what socialism is. It’s a good thing the story in this meme never really happened, because if an economics professor ever actually did this, he would be totally misinforming his students on basic economic principals.
Principles of Socialism:
Socialist in America have had to settle for moving in the direction of the goal incrementally since America was founded on the notions of independence and limited government. The end result, once fundamental transformation is achieved, is exactly as described above.
They never bother to tell us who will arrange such an outcome or how…or bother to think about the oppression that must happen in order to bring such artificial equality about.