Jobs: False ‘Improvement,’ Proposed Destruction
Harry Reid could have tried to tell us how great February’s NSA 473,000-job pickup was. In context, it wasn’t that great at all. In fact, as you can see above, it came in lower than February 2008, when the people at the National Bureau of Economic Research say we were in the third month of an economic recession as they define it (as normal people define it, the recession didn’t begin until the third quarter of 2008). Moreover, it was 241,000 jobs lower than the February 2004-2008 average. If the employment situation were really in recovery in February, that difference would have been almost zero. Beyond that, February’s actual result using this metric was far worse than January’s, when the result only trailed the January 2004-2008 average by 72,000.
This isn’t an improvement; it’s a serious deterioration.
The only reason February’s SA number of -36,000 came in as low as it did (but still worse than January’s) is that the SA calculation took February 2009′s free-fall result into account, making it a statistically correct result that confuses more than it enlightens. Further evidence supporting that point is that the SA result for February 2010 is better than February 2008, which as already shown based on what really happened, doesn’t reflect the underlying reality.
If Obama and Reid really wanted to do something to seriously improve the employment situation, they would immediately call off their post-State of the Union obsession with imposing statist health care on a nation that doesn’t want it and is fiercely resisting it. Besides the federal government itself, the health care industry has been one of the few areas where employment has risen in the otherwise dismal POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy America has endured since about June of 2008. Since then, the sector has added 313,000 jobs (386,000 after seasonal adjustment). Once statist health care’s inevitable rationing and cost controls kick in, health care employment would at best stagnate, and more than likely shrink.
A press report earlier this week about a possible new wrinkle in ObamaCare demonstrates that the Democratic Party’s alleged interest in job creation is feigned at best and hostile at worst. On Monday, the Associated Press reported that a new iteration of the bill pushed by House Democrats “would require businesses to count part-time workers when calculating penalties for failing to provide health coverage for employees. Smaller businesses would be exempt. The Senate bill would count only full-time workers in applying the penalties, but under the change, described by a Democratic aide, two part-time workers would count as one full-time worker.”
Since the vast majority of companies do not make health coverage available to part-timers, this proposal is best seen as a direct payroll tax on companies who rely heavily on them. In the fantasy world of Washington, this appears to be an attempt to force companies to hire more people to work full-time or to extend coverage to part-timers on their own. If it ever arrives in the real world, what it will really do is raise prices, increase unemployment, impede economic growth, and put thousands of companies out of business. It will also virtually destroy the part-time employment market, shutting the door on students, homemakers, and others who can’t possibly commit to working full-time, and shouldn’t be required to.
But that’s how it goes with this out-of-touch bunch. They think they’re so smart, when 75 years of their “brilliant” ideas have led us to the verge of national bankruptcy.
As with so many other areas of governance in this administration, one must wonder if they’re trashing things accidentally or deliberately.
Trashing things accidentally or purposely? Why, both, of course. The guys are simply not smart or competent enough to this kind of damage willfully. You give them entirely too much credit.
Watch the dollar drop significantly this week if Obama care passes.We are on the Titanic and Captain Obama says full steam ahead.I am begining to believe Cloward-Pivens may be at work here.
The Democrats are trashing the economy deliberately. You make conditions bad enough for Americans, and you have Americans desperate enough to beg the government to take care of them. To do that you deny Americans access to energy resources, you make it to costly for companies to hire more employees, and you expand entitlements to people who want handouts from the government.
Ideology is never concerned with the facts…except when they can be cheery-picked and spun into an entirely false reality.
“one must wonder if they’re trashing things accidentally or deliberately.”
What difference does it make?
Could have, should have, would have, didn’t, won’t don’t mean squat.
Neither will scream, shout, run about, Fox News, talk radio, blogs, articles like this one and tens of thousands of tea party gatherings.
The fact is that there is nothing anyone can do about it until election days arrive.
The business section of the Miami Herald has many stories of failed businesses, and more layoffs.
WE NEED TO BE IN D.C. ON MARCH 16TH TO MARCH AGAINST THIS TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENT AND THESE CRIMINALS RUNNING IT.
The economy is so bad I hear some American seniors are now trying to get adopted by Chinese babies.
Steven
There is little doubt that Baal Hussein Obama, the Black Jimmy Carter wants to be the Black FDR. And he will do anything to achieve that goal even if that means creating another Great Depression. Afterall he will be able to blame GEORGE BUSH for anything and everything and most of the Country including Ron Paul will agree. BUSH CAUSED EVERYTHING!! IT’S ALL HIS FAULT!!
Hillary wants Obama to cause a Great Depression so that she can be the Female FDR and most Democrats could care less just as long as the NEXT NEW DEAL is a bigger better deal no matter what the cost.
The bottom line is this. When you live in a land that has sacrificed 60 MILLION babies to Molech you have to expect somekind of divine judgement. This nation has done what is evil in the sight of the Lord and it is being punished for it’s sins.
WE are getting the Government WE deserve. Sorry
We should demand that Congress remove the shackles placed upon our economy by the radical environmentalist movement that has infiltrated Washington. There is no longer any reason (nor was there) to restrict our economy and standard of living by not utilizing our natural resources such as oil, natural gas, and nuclear power.
It should be clear that the goal of radical environmentalists is the destruction of our economy and the creation of misery and poverty for American families under the illusion of “saving the planet”.
To do that you deny Americans access to energy resources, you make it to costly for companies to hire more employees, and you expand entitlements to people who want handouts from the government.
9. Then maybe it’s long past time that the blood of murderers is shed to appease divine wrath for shedding the blood of the innocent.
If (and I don’t have a good feeling about the direction they’re taking us) Obama and company DO take this country down a steep and ruinous path, then let the gutters of Washington DC run freely with something besides red ink.
He is nothing more that a spineless shit communist bastard.
Pelosi said that if you want to pursue you whims the state will give you health care. I think that the democrat party is communist. The country is spending more money each month to keep the lazies on unemployment and to keep the lazy overpaid government employees including the useless union teachers who don’t teach employed. I hear that sucking sound as we go round and round down the drain.
“As with so many other areas of governance in this administration, one must wonder if they’re trashing things accidentally or deliberately.”
Surely, it’s deliberate. Just read Saul Alinsky. Obama – the one-time, Alinsky-method trainer – and his merry men, are out to eliminate the middle class. It’s right there in “Rules for Radicals.”