Jobless Rate Rises

For the second straight week, the jobless rate has risen, confounding liberals and the media. The recession was supposed to be over, but I guess the people who do the hiring didn't get the memo.

I "doubt" that the recent health care legislation, with its new and confusing regulations and taxes on businesses has had any impact on the business sector and their decisions to hire, not hire or even lay off employees. Of course, we know that health care reform is going to balance the budget and save everyone tons of money.

A year ago, Dick Morris (whom I respect, but don't always agree with) predicted that the jobless rate would rise in response to the Generational Theft Act (stimulus) to around 10% nationally. He also predicted that it would stay near that rate for 2010 and perhaps beyond. Furthermore, he predicted that as we move into 2010 and 2011, we would begin to see an increasing rate of inflation that would trigger a second recession before we've even recovered from the first one.

While we've yet to see a significant amount of inflation, Morris' predictions usually tend to be pretty accurate. We've already seen gas prices rise, and the price of other goods and services usually trend upwards when gas prices go up because almost everything we buy is affected by the cost of fuel.

I'm not optimistic about our future. With the passage of health care reform, it appears the recession is going to extend into the foreseeable future, despite proclamations that it is over. We might as well get used to double digit unemployment. Unless we can reverse the damage O.B.A.M.,A. has done, it is likely to become the norm. Pollsters and other experts are backing off of predictions that the Republicans will take back the House and Senate. At best, they will neutralize the Democrats' majority, but it is highly unlikely they will get enough seats to pass their own agenda, let alone repeal any of what O.B.A.M.,A. has done (including health care).

Even looking forward to 2012, prospects aren't much better. Assuming we can get a Republican back in the White House, many of the front runners (including Huckabee and Romney) are far from conservative. They are in favor of many of the same programs and spending polices of the left, just to a slightly lesser degree.

Sorry for the "negative" post, today, but given that it's April 15 (Tax Day), perhaps some honest evaluation of where we are at economically is in order.

Dereliction of Duty

Jobs must be our No. 1 focus in 2010. — Barack Obama, January 27, 2010.

So much for all that.

After a year of crisscrossing the country hawking his health care boondoggle, President Obama in his State of the Union address graciously took note of a separate, minor problem — America’s continued mass unemployment.

Obama’s first year in office saw the economy bleed millions of jobs and bottom out at the lowest labor force participation rate in 25 years. The official unemployment rate for December was 10 percent, a scary but misleadingly sunny number which failed to take into account the millions of Americans forced into part-time work or those who left the job market altogether in frustration and disgust.

Naturally, such dismal statistics got fair media play as 2009 wound to a close. So the president paid lip service to the jobs situation when he addressed Congress in January, 2010, promising to buckle down and concentrate on getting Americans back to work in the coming year. A lot of Americans, a lot of jobless Americans, likely gave a sigh of relief and uttered a hearty “it’s about time.”

Unfortunately for them, what came instead was a renewed frenzy to pass nationalized health care, and a corresponding neglect of the still dismal unemployment situation. The last weeks have seen 1) the release at last of the president’s own health care plan, 2) a much ballyhooed but still farcical health care summit, and 3) yet another public presidential plea (yawn) for the necessity of national health care. And now Obama is reportedly gearing up for yet another health care tour as his allies in Congress prepare to make their final push to pass this misbegotten legislation by Easter.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans continue to fill the unemployment lines or take menial work in order to have something on their resume besides a year-long gap of eating Cheetos and playing Guitar Hero. One can only conclude that Obama does not care whether you have a job or not, so long as he can force government health care down your throat.

Good News on the Jobs Front

The numbers are out for February and 36,000 more jobs were lost last month.

And that's good news, according to Harry Reid (D-Nevada). The Senate majority leader thinks that more job losses is a good thing. Yes, to be fair, he is referring to the reduction in the increase in the jobless rate.

What Reid doesn't want you to know is that it is the policies of Obama and Congress and the push for more anti-business policies, taxes and regulations that is preventing the private sector from creating jobs.

A little over a year ago, Obama promised that the unemployment rate would not go over 8 percent because of all the "shovel-ready" jobs that would be created. Of course, those jobs did not materialize. According to to those who track such things, much of the so-called stimulus money has not been used to create new jobs, but rather the funds have been used to make up for a decrease in tax revenues because of the recession.

The unemployment rate is still officially near 10 percent and is likely to stay over 9 percent for the remainder of the year. However, the number of "discouraged unemployed workers" is increasing, and the "real" unemployment numbers are over 17 percent, and likely approaching 18 percent. (These numbers are considered "soft" and are hard to track.) Virtually all economists are suggesting that the jobless rate is the worst it has been since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and is not likely to improve in the foreseeable future.

The administration is touting the great "economic recovery," but those who are out of a job with no prospects in the future are not feeling the recovery.

Maybe in a few months, Harry Reid will join the ranks of the unemployed. Of course, with all the perks a former US Senator has, he won't feel the pinch in the same way other unemployed citizens do.

One Year Ago, He Saved the Economy

Yes, one year ago, he saved the economy. Not Barack Obama, but rather, Blogger William Jacobson from Legal Insurrection. Or so he claims in his most recent, clever blog:

Barack Obama is claiming credit for "saving" the economy from a full-blown depression based on passage of the stimulus plan.

As with most Obama claims of success, Obama simply is exhibiting his prowess at using strawman arguments.

Obama compares where the economy is now, versus where the economy would have been on some hypothetical downward spiral assuming government did nothing. The "some say doing nothing would be better" paradigm is classic Obama.

But the alternative to the Obama stimulus plan and ramped-up budget deficits was not nothing, but a lowering of the tax and regulatory burdens on businesses and individuals which would have created real, economically sustainable jobs.

Instead, at most, we had subsidies to state governments to perpetuate completely unsustainable budgets drowning in union-related labor costs and pensions, and infrastructure projects notorious for cost overruns. No jobs were created or saved; unless of course the federal government is going to continue to subsidize these jobs indefinitely.

Obama confuses association and causation. Just because two events occurred (the economy did not go into a full-blown depression and Obama passed the stimulus) does not mean that the stimulus saved the economy. It is the intellectually lazy person's idea of logic, since it is much, much more difficult to compare what was to what could have been.

Now to the point of this post. Using Obama's logic, I saved the economy.

On February 20, 2009, I wrote The Last Bull Capitulates. In that post I wrote about the damaging effects of Obama deliberately talking down the markets to create a crisis atmosphere necessary to pass the stimulus (as in Rahm Emanuel's "never let a crisis go to waste"):

For the first time in my adult life [yes, h/t MO], I am convinced that we have a President who sees capitalism and markets as the enemy. There is no other explanation for the hyperbolic rhetoric Obama has used to create a sense of economic crisis far in excess of reality. We are in a recession, but as others have documented extensively, to compare the current economy to the Great Depression is damaging.

The result of my analysis was that the time had come to take some money off the investment table until Obama stopped talking down the markets (which he did in fact do in April 2009 when he needed to pass his expansive budget).

But I recognized that I probably was a counter-indicator, the so-called "last bull" capitulating, and that my capitulation probably signalled we had hit bottom:

There's an old saying on Wall Street that a bear market has not bottomed out until the last bull capitulates. News flash. The last bull has capitulated. Me....

I hope I'm selling at the bottom, because that will mean the markets and the country will have recovered from the worst economic policies since the Great Depression.

And so it came to pass.

I capitulated, and the economy did not sink into depression. Therefore, I saved the economy.

So please give credit where credit is due.

Unless, of course, we continue to stay at or near 10% unemployment, in which case it's all Bush's fault and there was nothing I could do about it.

The Stimulus is Working

America received two bits of economic news today. The unemployment rate, which has risen every month since Obama took office, actually dropped today. The rate went from 10 percent to 9.7 percent in January. Meanwhile, the same report says that America lost 20,000 jobs in the same period.

Now, that's interesting. How can that be?

Well it seems that while the "official" unemployment rate dropped, that number does not include those who have given up looking for work. Economists are telling us that those who have lost their jobs since Obama took office have been unemployed four times longer than during a normal recession. Because of that, those who have given up looking, the "desperate unemployed," has continued to rise. In fact, the "real" unemployment rate (current numbers not available, but above 17 percent) is higher than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930's.

The administration is "pleased" with the numbers. At least, that's the official line. The drop in unemployment, according the administration, is proof that the Generational Theft Act (a.k.a. the Stimulus) is working.

I'll have to agree. These numbers are, indeed, a direct result of Obama's policies, including last year's spending spree.

How Scott Brown Could Hurt Republicans

While the election isn't over, for the moment, I'm going to assume the polls are right and that Scott Brown will win the Senate race in Massachusetts, breaking the Democrats filibuster-proof 60 vote majority.

Scott Brown's election is a rejection by voters, not just in Massachusetts, but nationwide, of the leftist, socialist policies of Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the democrats.

However, Americans are not heartily embracing Republicans, either.

In 1994, Americans overwhelmingly told Washington that they did not want a liberal socialist agenda. Clinton took that woodshed experience to heart and moved to the center in how he governed. Of course, he had to. He had to work with a conservative majority in Congress. Since that time, Republicans have held a majority in Congress, until 2006. They squandered that opportunity. Instead of being fiscally responsible and fixing many of the problems created by the democrats since they have been in charge of at least one house of Congress since 1948, they spent money bigger and faster than the democrats, only on their own agenda.

Americans are generally a generous and tolerant people. Except when you waste their money. And that's just what the Republicans had done.

Now, it's the Democrats turn. They have done what democrats do and what Americans don't want them to do. Only bigger and faster than the Republicans.

This spending spree, which has been going on, now, for decades has broken the bank and our current economic situation is the result. Wall Street knows this. Businesses know this. And they know that proposed legislation on health care and a host of other issues will result in higher taxes and other fees that, right now, businesses can't afford.

That's how Scott Brown could hurt Republicans.

With his election, the leftist socialist agenda of Obama and the dems is derailed. Preventing them from passing all sorts of socialist policies and programs will actually help stabilize the economy. Businesses will be more comfortable hiring again. The stock market will start to take a more bullish direction.

And who will take credit for "fixing" everything? Yep. The president gets the blame when things go bad, and takes the credit when things go well. With the election of a fiscally conservative president a year ago, we could have already been out of this mess and on the road to economic prosperity. Obama and the socialist Congress have KEPT us in this recession longer than necessary. Scott Brown, a freshman Republican Senator from Massachusetts could actually pull us out of the recession without enacting a single piece of legislation. And in doing so, he could prevent his own re-election and the election of numerous other Republicans across the nation.

Brookings Speech Opener

Barack Obama might have chosen a better opener for his speech today:

Almost exactly one year ago, on a cold winter’s day, I met with my new economic team at the headquarters of my presidential transition offices in Chicago. Over the course of four hours, my advisors presented an analysis of where the economy stood, accompanied by a chilling set of charts and graphs, predicting where we might end up. It was an unforgettable series of presentations.

Was this one of those charts?

Obama's economic team predicted in January that without the stimulus plan, unemployment would rise to 9 percent. It rose to 10.2 percent before leveling off last month. Yet, in his speech today, Obama said that thanks to the stimulus, we've avoided those terrible scenarios his economic team predicted in that series of "unforgettable" presentations. If that's what he thinks, those presentations must have been quite forgettable. The jobs picture is currently worse than his team predicted it would be.

Pelosi: Deficit Tripled and We're Not Getting Anything For It

GATEWAY PUNDIT reports...

Nancy Pelosi told leftist supporters today that the the reason Americans are mad about their record spending is that “they’re not getting anything for it.”

And, that’s why she wants a new Stimulus Bill!

FOX News reported, via Ace:

Building the case for a brand new jobs-creation bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says most Americans would not mind inflating the already-gaping deficit in exchange for more jobs.

The California Democrat said on a conference call Tuesday that Americans could “absorb” the hit to the federal budget, and she argued that their biggest complaint is not that the deficit is big — it’s that they’re not seeing any benefit in return for increasing the U.S. debt load.

Despite the $787 billion stimulus package passed in February, unemployment climbed to 10.2 percent in October. While critics cite the jobless rate as a sign that the stimulus has failed, Pelosi argues that the federal government is just not trying hard enough.

“We have to shed any weakness that anybody may have about not wanting to be confrontational on this subject for fear that we’d be labeled not sensitive to the deficit,” Pelosi said, in a recording posted by Think Progress.

“The American people have an anger about the growth of the deficit because they’re not getting anything for it.”

So now they want to do it all over again.

Unemployment Rate Tops .... 17%????

By now, you've already heard that the unemployment rate as of the end of October has topped 10 percent. Officially, the rated is at 10.2%.

Officially.

What that number doesn't tell you (and what the mainstream media won't tell you) is that it represents only those who are actively looking for work. According to official stats, only about 150 million of the over 300 million Americans living in this country have a job. That means, those of us who ARE working are supporting at least one other person who is not working.

What the 10.2 percent does not include is those who would work but have given up looking for work and are no longer seeking unemployment benefits and no longer looking for a job because they have given up. That rate is actually over 17 percent, a number we haven't seen since the 1930's and '40s.

The difference between this jobless recession and the bottom of the Carter recession (which spilled over into Reagan's first two years) is that Reagan had already begun implementing policies that were business-friendly and American workers and American businesses were optimistic. The unemployment rate topped out at around 10 percent and then the economy took off.

The current administration has implement policies that are anti-business and are planning more taxes and policies that punish businesses, especially businesses that increase their payroll. While the increase in unemployment numbers is slowing down, it is unlikely to drop like it did in 1983 and 84. In fact, it may continue to gradually rise through next year.

Let's not make the mistake of thinking that Obama "inherited" this problem. Clearly the unemployment rate has been made worse by Obama's policies and the rate of those who have "given up" is higher because Obama has given them no reason to hope they might find a job in the near future.

The Obama "War on Wealth" is exactly what he promised during his campaign. The American voters just weren't listening.

Stimulus Saved 30,000 Jobs

The first direct stimulus reports showed that stimulus contracts saved or created just 30,083 jobs, prompting more Republican criticism of the$787 billion package.

The data posted Thursday was the result of the government's initial attempt at counting actual stimulus jobs. Obama administration officials stressed that data was partial -- it represented just $16 billion out of the $339 billion awarded -- but they said it exceeded their projections.

"All signs -- from private estimates to this fragmentary data -- point to the conclusion that the Recovery Act did indeed create or save about 1 million jobs in its first seven months, a much needed lift in a very difficult period for our economy," said Jared Bernstein, the chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden.

So, thirty thousand equals one million, according to Biden. These are the same guys who are telling us that ObamaCare will reduce the deficit and save us money.

I didn't make this up.

.... really.

Unemployment Up, Again

Someone needs to tell American businesses that the recession is over. They haven't gotten the memo, yet.

Unemployment for September was higher than expected. Last week, the number of newly unemployed rose to 551,000.

Of course, we all know that these numbers were inherited from the previous administration, and will be until they turn around.

Still, I can't help but recall the words of an inexperienced junior Senator from Illinois when he said "Nothing is more fundamental than a job." At least that was true during the previous administration. Now, he's saying "The recession is over. Mission Accomplished."

More: Your Tax Dollars At Work Stimulating The Economy

Perhaps you've noticed the unemployment rate rising as stimulus dollars continue to go out the government door. How can this be? Weren't those stimulus dollars all supposed to be going to "shovel-ready" projects? No, wait. They were supposed to be going to local and state governments to keep them from laying off teachers and law enforcement personnel.

Where else is it going?

The Social Security Administration admitted today that 1,700 check were mistakenly sent to inmates who were ineligible to receive benefits. While this glitch is only hitting the media today, apparently the error was discovered some time ago.

The Boston Herald reported that the administration is asking for the Massachusetts money back (among other states). But Diane Wiffin, a spokeswoman with the Massachusetts Dept. of Corrections said that her department tried to alert the Social Security staff months ago when it first discovered the checks had been sent to 23 inmates who were ineligible for any benefits. "It was the DOC's opinion that the inmates were not eligible for the payments ...., and we withheld the checks from the inmates at that time and immediately contacted the federal Social Security Administration," she said.

But the administration failed to provide a directive despite several requests, so the department could no longer withhold the checks from the inmates.

No doubt, that stimulus money has been spent on drugs, payments for "hits," cigarettes, bribes, and who knows what else.

While the amounts and the number of checks in this specific instance are relatively small in the large scheme of things, these sorts of SNAFUs seem to be repeated over and over. The more people investigate where are taxpayer dollars are going, the more it is clear that much of the money is being spent unwisely, and in many cases being diverted to people and causes it was never intended for, often going to recipients who have no legal right to any of the funds.

If those same stimulus dollars had been simply divided evenly and sent to every taxpaying American citizen, the effect probably would have been more pronounced and more positive.

Good News for Liberals and Socialists

There is good news for socialists and liberals, today. Economic reports are showing that big, evil capitalistic corporations are not making their huge windfall profits this year. Finally, Obama has made progress in punishing these horrible entities.

America can rejoice.

....

Oh, yes. In totally unrelated news, unemployment is on the rise again. We are inching ever closer to that 10% mark, nationally. I don't know how this could have possibly happened, given all the other great economic news we've had lately.

...

Oh, yes. In more totally unrelated news, in spite of the fact that the government is spending three times as much money this year as it has ever spent, revenues are down. Tax revenues are expected to fall by more than any time since the Great Depression. I don't know how this could have happened, given all the other great economic news that we've had lately.

Obama Pushes for Fast Vote on Cash for Clunkers; Withholds Data on Program's Success or Failure

From Fox News:

The Obama administration is refusing to quickly release government records on its "cash-for-clunkers" rebate program that would substantiate -- or undercut -- White House claims of the program's success, even as the president presses the Senate for a quick vote for $2 billion to boost car sales.

The Transportation Department said it will provide the data as soon as possible but did not specify a time frame or promise release of the data before the Senate votes whether to spend $2 billion more on the program.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Sunday the government would release electronic records about the program, and President Barack Obama has pledged greater transparency for his administration. But the Transportation Department, which has collected details on about 157,000 rebate requests, won't release sales data that dealers provided showing how much U.S. car manufacturers are benefiting from the $1 billion initially pumped into the program.

The Associated Press has sought release of the data since last week. Rae Tyson, spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said the agency will provide the data requested as soon as possible.

DOT officials already have received electronic details from car dealers of each trade-in transaction. The agency receives regular analyses of the sales data, producing helpful talking points for LaHood, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs and other officials to use when urging more funding.

LaHood said in an interview Sunday he would make the electronic records available. "I can't think of any reason why we wouldn't do it," he said.

LaHood, the program's chief salesman, has pitched the rebates as good for America, good for car buyers, good for the environment, good for the economy. But it's difficult to determine whether the administration is overselling the claim without seeing what's being sold, what's being traded in and where the cars are being sold.

LaHood, for example, promotes the fact that the Ford Focus so far is at the top of the list of new cars purchased under the program. But the limited information released so far shows most buyers are not picking Ford, Chrysler or General Motors vehicles, and six of the top 10 vehicles purchased are Honda, Toyota and Hyundai.

LaHood has called the popular rebates to car buyers "the lifeline that will bring back the automobile industry in America." He and other advocates are citing program data to promote passage of another $2 billion for the incentives -- claiming dealers sold cars that are 61 percent more fuel efficient than trade-ins.

LaHood also said this week that even if buyers aren't choosing cars made by U.S. automobile manufacturers, many of the Honda, Toyota and Hyundai cars sold were made in those companies' American plants.

But there's no way to verify his claims without access to DOT's data.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has argued against quick approval of $2 billion for the program because little is known about the first round of $3,500 and $4,500 rebates.

"We don't have the results of the first $1 billion," McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said. "You don't have them. We don't have them. DOT doesn't have all of it. We'd hate to make a mistake on something like that."