Government Has Recovered — It’s the American People Who are Unemployed
Official Unemployment Numbers Meant to Mislead
"Even George Lucas is suffering in this economy"
(TTfD) President Obama was quick to pat himself on his back last week, claiming the nearly one Trillion dollars in stimulus money (and pork) has saved America. A drop in unemployment by three-tenths percent, however, is not making the public or Wall Street feel any better.
But, what the President did not say is that many people have either run out of benefits or simply given up in finding jobs. On top of that, many new jobs being reported are in the government itself. Only the government can get away with adding more jobs within while submitting a budget that in fact encourages debt spending while being bankrupt.
So with some supposed improvement, it is important to actually understand what the job numbers mean. As usual, it is clear that Big Government is hiding something from us, according to The New American:
“…That government numbers don’t tell the whole story is now common knowledge. Many, many articles on the economy openly acknowledge that the official unemployment rate does not count certain groups of people, such as those who have given up the search for work and simply dropped out of the labor force (so-called “discouraged workers,” defined out of existence in 1994). Also not counted as unemployed are those who lost jobs and have gone back to school attempting to gain new skills. The official statistic does not distinguish between those working full time and those working part time who would prefer full time work. The federal government considers you unemployed only if (1) you are not working, (2) you have applied for unemployment benefits; and (2) you have sought work within the last four weeks. ..”
So, the entire calculation is skewed from a real-world perspective in order to mitigate bad politics? It appears to be the case in America. While President Obama remained nearly absent from all issues other than — what he refers to as his “Agenda” — Health Care reform, other Democrat leaders used the fear of losing jobs to scare Americans and lawmakers into votes for bad legislation.
Did America really lose 500 million jobs monthly due to some in Congress who disagreed? No, and despite the passing of the spending, a .3 change in unemployment is as likely an anomalous blip in the big picture. Yet, it seemed to play well for politicians who are now in danger of losing their seats for voting against the will of the American people.
This “urgency” backfired so badly that the American public stood in the way of Health Care reform by playing on the fears of the Democrats who are up for re-election. Lies from Congressional leadership and the White House mismanagement of the budget led directly to the election of Scott Brown (R), replacing Ted Kennedy (D), who voted for everything that expanded government spending.
William Dunkelberg, an economic professor at Temple University, has a different take on the “stimulus” and what it has really meant to the nation. He is probably not one of the elusive “Experts” that Obama likes to cite unnamed to support whatever he says.
“…’Stimulus’ for this administration has not focused on supporting consumer spending nor been designed with a sense of urgency as central to policy formulation. A “jobs summit” was populated with large firm CEOs (who create no jobs) to provide advice on how to stimulate the small business sector…”
Dunkelberg offers an interesting argument that the Federal Government does not actually know what it is doing in regards assisting small businesses.
“…along with a higher savings rate adding hundreds of billions to the pool of loanable funds explains why the Treasury could borrow over a trillion dollars with little upward pressure on interest rates. But with an equally large deficit predicted for 2010 and beyond, the stage is set for meaningful “crowding out” and slower growth.
What we have to fear is that Washington will then feel the need to “stimulate” us with even more spending and larger government (and taxes), the death knell for private sector vitality…”
So little money has been set aside for the government to “ecourage” banks to loan to small businesses, while it did not flinch in bailing out two auto companies in order to save union jobs at a rising cost of at least $60 billion. Again, politics are in play as the President has proven in nearly every decision he makes that he does not see himself as the nation’s elected leader, but simply a high-level shill for “Organized Labor.”
The misleading information gained from the unemployment rates: the actual rates are thought to be close to, if not over, 20 percent. According to MyBudget360, we have moved into 2010 with even a bigger mess than was expected.
“…The headline number of 9.4 percent unemployment doesn’t do any justice to the 26,000,000 unemployed or underemployed Americans. Last month, we saw the unemployment situation improve when only 345,000 job losses came online. This sure beats the 500,000+ months we had for six consecutive months. Yet the actual unemployment rate jumped from 8.9 percent to 9.4 percent. This was the highest percentage jump in the recession tying another 0.5 percent monthly jump. So what gives? In a nutshell, companies are not hiring. So yes, job losses may have dropped but there are no new jobs to pick up the currently unemployed so the actual rate increases. This is one of those nuances of the two surveys used by the BLS.
Americans spoke, and he pushed the stimulus anyway. Without proof, he declares that things would be worse if he had not gotten the stimulus. Truly, in one year as President — along with the two years prior as part of a Democrat majority in the Congress — nothing has been made better by these Progressive policies.
Yet, objections mean nothing to the current administration, which proves to be incredibly thin-skinned to any criticisms. Tim Geithner, a tax-evader named by Obama to oversee the Internal Revenue Service, reacted to recent criticism from Brown, who said not one new job was created. Geithner claims many jobs were created and held the line that they “inherited” the problems.
It is possible that one new job — even one in the private sector and not just in the government — was created. But if the Obama Administration and his appointed muppet Geithner claim credit for it, they also have to take credit for any jobs lost during this time of government stimulus. There are a whole lot of them.
Nobody died and left Obama the Presidency; he wanted it and promised he had a better way to run the country. Hope and Change now have become meaningless words to those who believed in him.
If he is to lead, he first needs to understand two recent polls:
- Out of 1,000 likely voters — 75% “Angry” at the Federal Government.
- 44% approval rating
If he can’t figure out that those two surveys are actually important, he might as well start packing his bags and move back to organizing for the SEIU in South Chicago, and start pointing some fingers in the mirror.
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