Obama’s Economy: The Excuses Begin
What resulted was a three-part series bemoaning the rapid advancements in technology and smart machines. It can be summarized in four words: “This time it’s different.” Well, it sadly is, and more than likely for the next four years, but not for the reasons AP cites. AP’s premise:
For decades, science fiction warned of a future when we would be architects of our own obsolescence, replaced by our machines. … [T]he future has arrived.
The team which produced the report believes that technology is advancing so quickly and on so many fronts that it’s simply unreasonable to expect new jobs to appear fast enough to replace the ones being destroyed.
While the pace and nature of tech advancements have been and continue to be phenomenal, the notion that they are unique to the point of causing insurmountable economic and employment problems should be absurd. As economist and George Mason University Professor Walter Williams pointed out in a 2011 column:
(In) 1900 … about 41 percent of our labor force was employed in agriculture. By 2008, fewer than 3 percent of Americans were employed in agriculture. … [O]ur farmers are the world’s most productive. As a result, Americans are better off.
In 1970, the telecommunications industry employed 421,000 workers as switchboard operators, annually handling 9.8 billion long-distance calls. Today the telecommunications industry employs only 78,000 operators … (processing) more than 100 billion long-distance calls a year.
…
Fifty years ago, a typical textile worker operated five machines capable of running thread through a loom 100 times a minute. Today machines run six times as fast, and one worker can oversee 100 of them.
You say, “Williams, certain jobs are destroyed by technology.” You’re right, but many more are created.
Defying Professor Williams’ optimism, AP’s team of reporters left readers with three unacceptable choices as to what will result:
- The best-case scenario is that “the economy returns to health after a wrenching transition.” AP quotes leftist economist Joseph Stiglitz as claiming that it will take at least “half a decade,” meaning after Obama’s time in the White House has (hopefully) ended. How convenient.
- “The economy continues to produce jobs, just not enough good ones.”
- “Technology leads to mass unemployment.”
If this “blame tech” mantra sounds mildly familiar, it’s because Obama himself has on a few unguarded occasions commented on how technology has destroyed jobs, indicting ATMs, airport kiosks, and the Internet for sending bank tellers, airline reservation agents, and others to the unemployment line. Apparently, never to return except perhaps as burger flippers or cashiers. I fear that the AP’s decision to identify tech as the scapegoat is no mere coincidence, and may foreshadow foolish attempts by the administration to slow down technological progress in the name of “saving jobs.”
Obamacare is already slated to do that very thing to the entire healthcare sector.
With all due respect to Professor Williams above, he would be right about enough replacement jobs being created if we were living in a genuine free-market economy. Unfortunately, that’s not where we are in this nation. Virtually all of the reasons why sufficient job growth isn’t occurring can be traced to the Obama administration’s market-hostile economic policies and postures.
Tom’s critiques are biting, and smack of the truth. Obama has supported larger government policies, and succeeded (somewhat) in enacting them.
Unfortunately, the “Obama ruined the economy” critiques all run into a terminal flaw which is insecapable: The economy today is far better than it was on inauguration day 2009. Far better.
What to do when reality contradicts one’s message? “Improve the messaging”!
Unfortunately, the “Obama ruined the economy” critiques all run into a terminal flaw which is insecapable (sic): The economy today is far better than it was on inauguration day 2009. Far better.”
No it is not far better … far better, and this much time after a recession it should be going gang busters.
Robert Blagojevich dodged going to prison
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2013/01/29/robert-blagojevich-dodged-going-to-prison/
Job creation is taking place. However rising productivity of American workers means that it requires fewer workers to produce the same number of goods and services than it did before. Then Obamacare is a “job killer” because of the costs it imposes upon employers. The “Patient Protection, Affordable Care Act” does nothing to resolve the issue of our having the world’s most expensive health care. The fact is that we pay roughly one trillion dollars “more” for health care than does the rest of the developed world based upon per capita costs. We also spend roughly half of all money spent the world over on “national defense” when you consider all the costs, payments to suppliers, military retirements, medical costs of disabled veterans, military contractors, and so forth. If we spent on health care and defense what the rest of the developed world pays, we’d be roughly a trillion and a half dollars “ahead” of where we are now. That trillion and a half dollars, roughly ten percent of GNP is exactly where the problem is. And why we are in the financial straits we are in…
We could easily reduce our health care costs by removing government “protection” of health care and allowing the free market to operate. Of course this would reduce the incomes of providers who earn roughly twice as much as do their own counterparts in the rest of the developed world. So we have the world’s most expensive health care, which is increasingly now unaffordable as there is no incentive today for providers to reduce their fees thanks to total lack of competition. Think of what all of our consumer goods would cost if the providers of these consumer goods could get together and fix prices to where they wanted them! This is really what the professions “do”, thanks to “Uncle Sam”, the “Monopoly Man”. The cheapest car would be probably $30,000, and would be inferior to the $20,000 car that you can buy today. The same thing is true in medicine, in the law, in any field where the professionals can get the federal government to maintain a monopoly for them. “Professional monopoly” means they are free to charge fees far beyond what a true free market in these services would allow. It also creates a serious “drain” on our economy along with the “crony capitalism” that government has created, all of which reduces the amount of money available to hire workers. Elimination of the corporate income tax would also boost our economy like adding a supercharger to a car as the tax serves to “encourage” business to locate their production where it isn’t taxed. All of this is well known to Libertarians such as myself, and why a Libertarian society would be far better than anything we have right now!
Unfortunately you seem to not understand the factor of energy empowerment on the free market. Cheap energy is empowering to small businesses in the free market. So rising energy cost have in fact disemboweled small and medium free market expansion with unnecessary costs adding to consumer costs.
You also fail to mention that welfare or “social program” cost are the highest federal expense at this time. Whereas defense of the country is necessary expense could be that the same can not be said for social programs.
In you response you appear to be anti energy and anti defense and anti free market. This may have a effect on your perceive reality.
“If we spent on health care and defense what the rest of the developed world pays, we’d be roughly a trillion and a half dollars “ahead” of where we are now.”
Ouch! Even when I see it repeatedly, that kind of economic nonsense makes my head ache.
We can be “a trillion and a half dollars ahead” right now. All it takes is a few keystrokes at the Federal Reserve. Of course, that would result in raging inflation, but the point is that serving up some value of money doesn’t tell anything about the health of the economy, or whether its resources are fully employed to productive ends or lying fallow. Maybe we could have “saved” that money, but we would be less healthy and less technologically advanced, hence our GDP would be lower, and we would not necessarily, even likely, be better off.
What we have to concentration on is return on investment (ROI). If it is positive, we are in better shape, no matter how much money we spent. If it is negative, we are losing ground. Under Obama, it has been decidedly negative.
It IS far, FAR better—Dow is thousands higher, and the unemployment rate’s movement has almost taken a 360 degree turn. Even if *the rate itself* is still only a little under where it was in 2009, we real Americans who actually believe in our country know the economy that drove that 360 degree turn has massively improved (see election, 2012).
Blumer, this article is infantile. 27% of the voting+nonvoting population voting for Obama means he has no mandate? You can apply that reasoning to invalidate every single president in the last century. Oh, and my favorite part: “Virtually all of the reasons why sufficient job growth isn’t occurring can be traced to the Obama administration”, followed by 9 things that have been around since before he was even a senator, and Obamacare. Ladies and gentlemen, this pissing and whining is what a permanent minority looks like—kindly avert your eyes.
stopped taking seriously after the “360 degree turn”
too many times have i seen on the interwebz the ‘ole troll baiter “why is an x-box 360 called such..?”
try harder
whoa hahah 180 degree turn, fair point, it’s early. The rest stands.
Yes, and ignoring facts is why your party did so poorly the last time and will continue to do poorly in the future.
Sure the Dow is higher than its previous low, but it still hasn’t even gotten back to the same level it reached under Bush. Obama is the first President since Ford (who was only in office 2.5 years) to not have the DJIA set a new record high during his term of office.
Yes and Obama is also the first president in 60 years to face a depression level economic crisis – so what’s your point?
The only reason the unemployment appears to have improved is because so many people have abandoned all hope of finding a job. The real unemployment rate is 15-20 %. We are stuck in the bottom of the economic pit and will soon be headed deeper because O is fucused on jobs like a laser. Everyone of his policies focused on killing jobs except for the parasites in gov.
Yeah I remember saying something like that earlier about O being “focused like a laser” on jobs. Technically he wasn’t lying, lasers burn holes in things.
If you’re going to use the stock market as gauge of the economy, then Greece is kicking ass.
The ATHEX composite index of Greek shares chalked up gains of 33% in 2012.
Want to try again in your justification, or can we just mock your naivety some more?
Yeah, none of these remotely refute my point. Finrod—that logic would imply reagan’s first term failed too (or any president with a first term recession really) but it didn’t—progress is progress. Conradca, you’re just straight up wrong—that is not the real unemployment rate because part time workers are not unemployed, and even if they did, there’s still a 180 degree turn in the rate like I said (http://usactionnews.com/2012/02/real-unemployment-remains-over-10-since-june-2008/). And Tex Taylor, you’re the naïve one if you’re arguing you’d rather live in Greece when it was about to dissolve than Greece now after the bailout. Of COURSE the ATHEX is higher, and of COURSE the economy is better than when it was semi-insolvent, unequivocably. When you guys decide to start acting like Americans and root for America to win, maybe conservatism will actually have some impact on our country again…
Hooray, the DOW is up. Where do you think all the QE money goes? Even if the market isn’t a bubble (and I strongly believe sectors of the market are indeed bubbles) the replacement costs of a companies capital assests inflate along with everything else. This inflates the price of the company, and consequently of its’ shares. So if eggs are up 30% one would expect shares prices to increase commensurately. Equity shares do very well during the inflationary run up to default and collapse. Shares are liquid, they do appreciate even if the company is struggling due to inflation, there is nothing obviously safer and there are no investments offering a real return. The best performing stock market ever was that of the Weimar republic. It was up triilions of percent before the final crash wiped everyone out.
How is life in libral fantasy land? Always good to try some truth in you outlook on things, maybe you can make some progress.
It’s good in liberal land – how is it in long-term loser land?
Nice lipstick on that pig.
Relative to the values of gold and gasoline, the stock market has not gone up since 2009, the value of the dollar has gone down. The USA has taken on $5T in more debt, making the total debt over $16T, and the interest on that is enough to pay for the Chinese Red Army. 2009 had some people in a panic, but to say things are “far better” now than then strains credulity.
You said it. General Tso is not to be trusted.
Sine the GDP has dropped in negative numbers, I guess the general’s chicken nuggets didn’t come to roost and the OFA talking points need to be updated a little.
Bingo the value dollar has dropped from all this money printing.
Wow. Are you for real?
The economy today is far better than it was on inauguration day 2009. Far better.
Uh, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was the same in Dec. 2012 as it was in Jan. 2009 — 7.8%.
The seasonally adjusted labor force participation rate in Dec. 2012 was lower (i.e., worse) — 63.6%, vs. 65.7% in Jan. 2009.
In Jan. 2009, the average duration of unemployment was 20 weeks. In Dec. 2012, it was 38 weeks. Before Obama came along, the post-World War II record for that figure was 21 weeks.
If in your altered universe this means “far better,” I’d hate to see what you think is “far worse.”
You’ve understated the catastrophe.
REAL unemployment figures are HERE.
Correct they’ve kept the U3 rate the same because they aren’t counting the peopel the droped out. when you look at U6 whats going on becomes very clear.
The real catastrophe is when the global dominos start to fall….the stock market is up because the printing press is running full out. The debt spiral is only held in check by low interest rates. Both those facts will be in play forever since we refuse to give up deficit spending. So it will only take a small wrench in the works to shut it down.
average income is down 10%.
People on food stamps are at an all time high.
National debt has soared.
Minority employment is much worse than the national average.
The most unproductive sector of the economy, Washington DC, now has 7 of the 10 most prosperous counties in the country.
For vulnerable seniors, inflation for necessities (food, gasoline, health care) has soared. Income is flat. It’s one of the greatest unpublicized depressions in history.
The list is endless.
The people who say the economy is improving are INSANE.
The people saying the economy is better now than it was 4 years ago are not “insane;”
the technical term for them is, “psychotic liars.”
There, fixed it for you. Carry on!!!
The people that say the economy is better are Washington politicians and their corporate buddies.
The real boots on the ground Americans are struggling.
Far worse for some would be far better numbers, but under a Republican president.
you are delusional. the economy is not getting better. it will be getting much worse.
Pay no heed to Tso – he’s a Leftist. That immediately means he has no concept of mathematics.
So the economy is better than 2009, hey? Tom only provided a few examples to destroy Tso’s abject stupidity. Let’s add a few more:
Middle class wages as defined by Barack Obama and his cronies as down 8.2% over the last four years.
We’ve got about a 50% increase in food stamp allocation over the past four years; now for every six plus citizens, one is taking food stamps.
One in two American families are either in poverty or near poverty.
And each one of us, including our children, have inherited an additional $21K of additional debt plus interest under the tutelage of Obama.
Since I have a family of four, I’ll tell you General the economy is much better now than 2009 when you give me my $84,000.00 back. Otherwise, I find you a lacking lackey for Obama and not much else.
With as much money as the Fed is pumping into the economy is there any wonder that there is inflation in financial assets. We’ve seen how this show has ended before.
The Dow higher primarily because we’re printing money and funneling it into the financial system, so yeah, monetary steroids have made the rich richer (who owns most of the stocks?). Funny to hear a leftist bragging about it. It’s called “inflation” and its not good.
The “unemployment rate” (a dubious statistic) masks the fact that workforce particpation rate is at an all time low.
The economy is SHRINKING despite the addition of over $600 billion in new debt – this is a CATASTROPHE!
Spin all you want (soon you will need naked lies) the disaster created by Obama and the Democrats will soon be apparent to even the staunchest leftist.
Take away the “Bernarke Bucks” monopoly money in the market, and you have a Dow with about a valuation of about 7500. The Monopoly money is what has the valuation up, too many dollars chasing a relatively limited amount of goods (stocks).
As for the economy being better, there are square miles of industrial buildings vacant in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles. And they’ve been vacant for years, with more added monthly. I’m not seeing a better economy around here.
Unemployment Rate 31 December 2008 = 5.8% (The last reading prior to Inauguration Day 2009, including latest adjustments)
Unemployment Rate 31 December 2012 = 7.8% (The last reading prior to this past Inauguration Day)
Which means a disparity of 3.0% more unemployed since he took office.
Labor Force Participation Rate Inauguration Day 2009 = 66.0% (According to latest adjustments)
Labor Force Participation Rate Inauguration Day 2013 = 63.4% (That represents the lowest it has been since 1978 when it was 63.2% and Carter was in office.)
So, if you take the number of people who have dropped off the rolls, no longer work and are no longer counted in these numbers, you find this sham of mass job creation under Obama amounts to less than 500,000 in four years. When you look at the raw numbers, there were 154,287,000 people in the total labor force on 31 December 2008 and 145,362,000 total employed. By this past December there were 154,904,000 people in the total labor force. That means a whopping 617,000 people were added in FOUR years. Contrast that to pre-Obama where we were adding nearly 2 million people annually. Also there were 143,060,000 total employed this past December, that represents a loss of 2,302,000 employees in the labor force in the last 4 years.
So, please tell me just how the economy is doing so much better than it was? If we had some folks in office who knew how to run an economy it would be a far different picture right now.
How the heck can you write an article about JOBS & the ECONOMY, and not mention the elephant in the living room. Or in the bedroom, depending on where you want to put that elephant. I am of course talking about the 40 million immigrants (90% from the Third World) who have been brought into the country by the Democrats (for votes & to increase the demand for public services & grow the government) & Republicans (for cheap labor). Every year another 1.5 million immigrants flood into the country & drive down wages & take jobs from the most vulnerable Americans. Why are we doing this to our fellow Americans?
Also, not a single word about “free trade”. From 2000 to 2010, America lost 6 million manufacturing jobs, 1 in every 3 we had, and saw 55,000 factories close. “Free trade” has been a disaster for America. “Free trade” is responsible for the destruction of our manufacturing base in this country, the outsourcing of 6 million manufacturing jobs, and the disappearing middle class.
The big business–globalist–Wall Street Journal–open borders–free trade crowd love “free trade” and mass immigration. The Republican base — working class and middle class whites (in Middle America) — have been destroyed by “free trade” and mass immigration. Yet the Republican elites don’t give a damn about their own voters. They are so greedy, they can’t stop screwing their own voters. And Republican voters are such pushovers they won’t even stand up to defend themselves from the assault being perpetrated on them by their own “leaders”. If the Republican base won’t stand up for themselves, then they deserve what is being done to them (by their own “leaders”).
Immigration & “free trade” (and exploding entitlement spending – but that’s another story) are the primary factors responsible for the destruction of the U.S. economy.
Note that I wrote that the list “could easily reach several dozen.”
Immigration would be a valid addition, though the problems you cite were present in 2007 when unemployment was about 4.5%.
…says the guy whose whole list was “present in 2007 when unemployment was about 4.5%”? You want an elephant in the room? How about an article about Bush’s financial crisis so much like a third grade book report that it doesn’t even use the word “Bush” once? Are you just allergic to credibility and honest discourse?
the brilliance of the left’s deviousness is once the lies get out into the ether it is there for all the nincompoops to inhale well after the lie’s actual relevance in time
the issues never die the just keep coming around like a comet- just to name a few making their ways around again
– BUSHHALLIBURTONKOCHBROSDERP
–GLOBALWARMINGCLIMATECHANGEHUMANSEVILDERP
Wow. Someone need his/her meds.
The financial crisis was almost entirely inspired and carried out by Democrats and the Cloward-Piven left. The GOP and conservatives share blame in that they didn’t do nearly enough to stop it.
Did you notice that the stock market crash began precisely on the day when McCain/Palin took their first lead in the Gallup Poll, Sep 8, 2008, the day the attack on Lehman Bros began; market activity increased 50% (of which only a tiny portion was Lehman Bros trading) and held steady at historic highs for the next 3 months. This, two months after Bernanke and Paulsen had both publicly declared that the economy was sound.
Soros, btw, was convicted of market manipulation for his activity in the fall of 2008, by the government of Hungary, which isn’t under the control of the Obama administration.
60 days after Sep 8, the election was secure.
Within a month of the inauguration, Obama was bowing to the Saudi “king”; and within a year, the missile defense shield designed to protect Poland from Russia was cancelled. Soros, evil though he is, doesn’t have enough capital to cause a catastrophe like the collapse of a 14 trillion dollar market. The SEC investigation that began in late 2008 was redirected a few days later and eventually pinned “the blame” on Goldman Sachs, which was fined a pittance for being the designated scapegoat.
The S&P 50 fell 52% from it’s high (more for small stocks), but in March of 2009, at the trough, buying picked up and the market has now reached the prior high. The manipulators lost nothing because their selling near the high drove the market down and they then made a fortune as their buying caused the climb. In addition, businesses totally uninvolved with the manipulation were forced to layoff millions of workers and drastically pare operational costs, which also contributed to the increase. The market increase has absolutely nothing to do with the disastrous policies of the administration. It’s a cruel hoax for anyone to claim it does.
you need to up your game
Im gonna go ahead and venture a corollary to godwin’s law here: when all three of my opponents answer with conspiracy theories, no response is necessary because I’ve already won the argument. Like you thinking Dems caused the crisis in that tinfoil-covered head of yours is even on topic here—a friggin Republican flip book about the crisis would mention Bush…
There’s absolutely no question that forcing banks to give mortgages to people who couldn’t pay the money back was and is the underlying cause of the economic crisis. That’s 100% a libwit issue. Only liberals could be that stupid.
Bush tried about 20 times to stop it. He should have overridden the idiots and forced the regulators to shut down the insanity.
Bush’s “wars” had zero to do with it. The money spent on Iran and Afghanistan was much much less as a percent of GDP than had been spent for the military for the prior 6 decades, and unlike the Fraud’s wars, there was good reason to defeat the countries sponsoring Islamic Terrorism.
Bush shouldn’t have succumbed to libwit thinking and put Medicare Plan-D in place, but to suggest that a single digit percentage increase in Medicare payouts caused the economic crisis is another flight of fancy. No, that’s far too kind. It’s another flagrant lie.
Bush was a tight-fisted miser compared to any Democrat alive today. Immediately after botox brain Pelosi started blabbering from the Speaker’s chair the economy started deteriorating. Investors knew then that the fantasy of Loans to Deadbeats wasn’t going to be stopped. It was just a question of when the insane bubble would burst. “Conveniently”, it burst just in time for the most incompetent political figure in American history to make sure the crisis wouldn’t go to wast.
You present no hard facts to back up your clams. You present the cloud dancers theory of reality in libral fantasy land. You have won the friends of Alice award for fiction, nothing more.
Would be nice to see your unbiased hard facts to support your claim.
“Free trade”, an article of faith among economists, is supposed to be about comparative advantage, but it turns out to be about global competition in the workforce. Once that fact is recognized, it’s easy to understand what’s happened to middle and lower middle class earnings in the last 20 years or so. An American who needs at least $20,000 per year to survive, cannot compete with someone in India or Thailand who needs a third as much.
The workers overseas don’t need $20,000 to live on because they don’t have the onerous property taxes, income taxes and cost of living as in the U.S.
Nor the union dues. It’s not even that the price of living is so high, it’s that you need to take the employee’s salary and multiply it by 3 to get the cost to the company, and thence the consumer. The main reason that “Five million manufacturing jobs were lost in the U.S. in the last decade” is, quite simply, labor costs. With the federal, state, and local taxes; Medicare/Medicaid; Social Security; and now the ACA, it’s very difficult to justify low-skill labor.
Paul, and don’t forget…….burdensome Government regulations, whether EPA, Labor, Health and Safety. If many of the companies that made the move overseas had not moved, they could have been driven out of business because of lower cost foreign imports. It’s not about greed… it’s about competition.
You seem to have a limited knowledge of live overseas. Teachers in this country are paid about $250.00 dollars a month. This is a relatively high salary here. In a work to live society any job is good. The reality is that food cost are much higher as a percentage of income, and so many time only one family member is employed. People in Asia know in general that getting to the United States will change their lives for the better and hard work will pay off. The real poor have no TV’s, no microwaves, no computers, cell phone with chargers, and so many eat only two times a day if they are lucky.
If you find yourself to be not satisfied you can be replaced by hard working immigrates who will appreciate the opportunity and are more highly educated.
I believe the two biggest employers of illegal immigrants are agribusiness and housekeeping (hotel maids, maids and gardeners for the affluent homes, etc.).
Those are the low-wage tough jobs that native-born Americans don’t want. You don’t have millions of native-born Americans eager to become wetbacks or maids.
Historically, most immigrants did start out in low-wage jobs. Most of us native-born Americans living today had ancestors who immigrated to America. Those huge waves of immigration did not cause mass unemployment.
You get an “I”, for incomplete.
I built a house a few years ago. Every single worker on the job was Hispanic, most of whom couldn’t speak English, except the super and the guys who put in the elevator. Every one, the electricians, the brick layers, the plumbers — all of them. No blacks, no Anglos. Those are good high paying jobs (probably union if not in Texas). It’s just fatuous to argue the illegals don’t impact the job market because they are all out picking squash.
“Republicans (for cheap labor)”
Stopped reading right there..
The U.S. economy was destroyed a long time ago — with all the “free trade” & outsourcing of (manufacturing) jobs, with mass immigration of 40 million immigrants (90% from the Third World) who were brought into the country by the the Demicans & Republicrats, by Big Business, the Catholic Church, & by The Enemy Within.
So why didn’t the U.S. economy collapse earlier? Answer: It was artificially propped up by Alan Greenspan, who created the housing bubble by lowering interest rates (in 2001) to historic lows (in order to prop up the economy).
In 2001, the US Federal Reserve lowered interest rates 11 times, from 6.5% to 1.75%. George W. Bush announced that he would increase minority home owners by at least 5.5 million by 2010. In June, Alan Greenspan lowered interest rates to 1%, the lowest in 45 years. Greenspan’s artificially low interest rates created the housing bubble, & the increased liquidity the higher home values bring to the overall economy.
Many of us warned you what was going to happen (because of Greenspan’s reckless policies) but you ignored us & called us crackpots, and kept on partying. In 2007-2008, the party came to an abrupt halt.
We also warned you about what would happen if you eliminated the GLASS-STEAGALL ACT. But you didn’t listen to us. You called us crackpots. Who was right?
Obama didn’t create the mess. Nixon & Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Alan Greenspan, George Bush, Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke etc. created this mess. And now Obama has stepped on the gas pedal, and brought us closer to the cliff.
BTW, under Bush the National Debt increased from $5.7 Trillion to $10.6 Trillion, or $4.9 Trillion over 8 years. An average of $610 Billion per year. And under Obama it has skyrocketed to $16.4 Trillion (and rising) — completely out of control.
Conclusion. The U.S. economy will NEVER RECOVER, until we address the “free trade” globaloney & and our insane immigration policies. Even if Romney had won in November it wouldn’t have changed anything. He had a “R” next to his name. So did Dubya. How did that work out?
The RNC and the national GOP has been a false-flag operation for many decades.
“Reality”. You seem to offer a mixed bag of good points with one seemingly poor idea. It seems that you are an advocate for Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act approach which was arguably a principal precipitator of the 1930’s depression? I’ll bet you are no fan of economist Walter Williams.
America rose to power behind a Republican tariff wall.
From 1860 to 1913, the United States was the most protectionist nation on earth and produced the most awesome growth of any nation in history.
You have all been brainwashed by the acedemics and corporate pirates to believe that “protectionism caused the Great Depression”. Malarkey. That is ahistorical nonsense. Learn some history…
Roger that. But, for so many years, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was believed to be the culprit and such was taught to a generation in school.
“Brainwashed” Reality says and SongDog agrees. Try this on for size. My father worked for a company (you would recognize the name) that marketed almost exclusively in the U.S. when he started. At the end of his career four decades later they had production and manufacturing facilities world-wide. He prospered as did the entire community and still do to this day. Jobs are coveted there. In the 1970’s Detroit offered junk for automobiles (ever have the drive shift of you new car simply drop off at 30 mph or the steering wheel come off in your hands as did happen with two of my friends?) until outside the U.S. manufactured autos pressured the market to make the move to quality. Go to Caterpillar, an Ohio Honda employee, or a farmer (especially a farmer!) with your protectionist bullcrap and tell them that they are “brainwashed”. Then start running.
“You have all been brainwashed by the acedemics and corporate pirates to believe that “protectionism caused the Great Depression”. Malarkey. That is ahistorical nonsense. Learn some history…”
You seem to be rather passionate about that view with your “corporate pirates” and “learn some history” and such. That’s fine…but back it up with some concrete evidence. Seems a bit “bumper-sticker-like” to me. I suppose that you would be willing to tell folks in Ohio, for example, that Honda should be forced to stay at home and that they should be captive to the Big 3 for jobs and a hopefully quality product. Have I got that about right?
The last time I checked we import more jobs than we export. How many factories do we have with the names Toyota, Nissan, Volkswagon, BMW and Canon emblazoned on them, to name a few?
“stu
The last time I checked we import more jobs than we export. How many factories do we have with the names Toyota, Nissan, Volkswagon, BMW and Canon emblazoned on them, to name a few?”
Now Stu (below) checks in with his ignorance. Stu, I suggest that you go to Brighton, MI and tell all of those Ford employees to quit manufacturing so damn many autos for the European market. That way two of my friends can quit working so much overtime and possibly become wards of the government. Better yet, go to their wives with your trade barrier message!
Then come to my town and tell the local farmers that we need to stop exporting so much grain overseas. Have fun!
Instead of blaming the Catholic Church for immigrants, why don’t you blame this nation of infidels who slaughters upwards of a quarter of the next generation before it sees the light of day. 40 years of abortion has devastated the economy, and deservedly so. We can never have an economic recovery until we STOP SLAUGHTERING OUR CHILDREN.
Tom,
You are right that the Dirigisme/Cronyism/Green Jobs & Low Carbon as an Excuse for Central Planning is bleeding jobs. We are reverting back to Mercantilism with the Government/ Existing Big Business Nexus and who cares what consumers and taxpayers want.
There are numerous documents coming out of the UN or the New Economics Institute or Professor Neva Goodwin who has unfortunately written textbooks for students all on the New Economics. Adjusting to the reality of No Growth because of all this central planning. They do intend to plan so we will have to adjust and call it the Quality of Life or Fair Shares Society. Where the happiness and well being of all is the whole point.
Which is where education comes in. To create that mindset and false beliefs on causes and effects in the past and habits of mind driven by emotion. You said “The first, which is that our educational system and culture are not preparing enough people for the jobs which need to be filled, is self-evident to anyone with open eyes.”
That reality though is being used as the selling point for education reforms called the Common Core in the US and Core Skills in Australia (it is global) that will create the kinds of consciousness that will tolerate or not recognize such state intervention and outright invasion once all the facts become clear.
So I just wanted you to be careful about not feeding the rhetoric that is making this mismatch worse by not being aware it is a prime selling point of the “Do Something Now” variety. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/hyping-catastrophe-to-eliminate-the-supposed-mismatch-between-human-minds-and-the-world-we-inhabit/ is where I cited both what Paul Ehrlich is pushing to get to his Newmindedness and how it aligns with the Common Core and what the National Science Foundation is insisting on in its poorly founded National Climate Assessment draft.
Obama legacy? Debt.
Don’t worry. My great-grandkids (unborn) are good for it (sarc).
I was arguing with someone at work the other day and he blames Ronald Reagan for the CRA and the Bubble. Clinton? Carter? Never heard of them.
Liberals are endlessly fascinating.
Here send him this link;
New Study Confirms Economy Was Destroyed By Democrat Policies
http://www.examiner.com/article/new-study-confirms-economy-was-destroyed-by-democrat-policies
you cannot reason with a liberal.
Interesting that he went directly to Reagan. In my experience Lefties tend to blame (in this order):
1. Bush
2. Reagan
3. The Jooooos
4. The bad economy is kind of like earthquakes or tornadoes – entirely beyond the control of humans to affect. Every President from Reagan to Bush II was just lucky to have an unemployment rate lower than 5%. (This is only for those who don’t believe that earthquakes and tornadoes are caused by global warming and thus the fault of Bush, Reagan and/or you know who.)
5. Well, it can’t be Obama’s fault
And yet, to a national socialist, in spite of tornadoes being an uncontrollable thing, MAN is causing global warming…no…”climate change” now because of an excess of “greenhouse gasses”.
“It’s not that they’re wrong. It’s that they know so much that isn’t so.”
The notion that technology leads to mass unemployment is an interesting position for national socialists to take, for it is they in the media who embrace the utopianism of Star Trek and the like where there are no fossil fuels being used, where power comes from some as yet undiscovered magical bean (“dilithium crystals” or unicorn farts, etc) and everyone is mobile, easily, cost-free and there are no “poor”.
Interesting because in Lucas’s Star Wars and Roddenberry’s Star Trek, there are beggars, homeless, etc.
At the end of the day, here in the US, as in Soviet Russia, a person now has to figure out how to do things by way of keeping the government out of it. The government is simply a machine that takes money away now and provides very little return. Roads and bridges? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a road properly repaired, a bridge maintained. Sure, it does happen…usually by union labor and I have to use Connecticut’s I-95 as an example. In my 50 years of life I cannot remember a time when I-95 between Hartford and Worcester, Massachusetts was notunder construction.
Many places have a similar complaint.
Government, republican or national socialist, seeks to take money from the people to feed their re-elections. It’s a shell game and fewer and fewer can keep their eye on the pea. Fact is, the pea vanished long ago and has been in the government’s pocket all along.
Even if you win the lottery, the government takes half right away…why? Because “it’s the law”? Well, what a bullshit law. People then rationalize, “Well, half is still a lot of money” and that may be so but why can’t the winner keep it all? Why must the guy, like me, when his mom dies, have to fork over a “capital gains tax” when I sell her 1 million dollar home? Or…if I don’t pay the taxes on it, the government will seize it when it was never theirs to begin with.
No…we have bigger problems than a faltering economy and it’s endemic and wrong. Always has been, always will be.
Government is in bad need of having its purse strings cut. These so-called “experts” and “economists” certainly know how to keep more than one set of books and effectively lie and play the shell game to no end but meanwhile, the real numbers don’t lie. We’re spending ourselves into oblivion. Captain Dumbass loves that because it makes him look very magnanimous (with other people’s money) and he won’t be around when the bill comes due. That will be left to some poor republican who will be forced to cut off welfare, school lunches and all the tentacles of stupidity that the national socialists started with the likes of FDR.
I am the one of the few that doesn’t have a job. I can do without the doom and gloom.
I have a part-time job that pays just over the minimum wage, working in perfectly miserable circumstances. It is the only job I have been offered in over five years of looking.
I am making plans to emigrate.
What we (not the US, but ourselves) need is a brain drain. Get off this sinking ship, go somewhere else, and start over.
Hint: Look for a place that doesn’t have much of a social safety net.
Where are you thinking of going to?
If it were me I’d go to Singapore. Taxes are low, the economy is booming, and they speak English.
Have you considered looking for work in states with below average unemployment like Texas and North Dakota?
Try to beat this for the 1) truth, and 2) reaction when you say it:
I have not had a job since Bill Clinton was president.
Not that I did not try to start my own business while paying for two more master’s degrees (2001-2005) only to discover that no one wants anyone over 50, for any job. wish I had all that low tuition back in my IRA.
ok, now I hear Home Depot is the exception, but I am not yet old enough to get past being so over-qualified.
Manufacturing does matter, but the USA has been conned by Harvard MBAs and vulture capitalists into believing there is a post-industrial utopia just about in sight…and the sole criterion for success is that publicly traded shares be from non-cyclical corporations that can produce relentless earnings increases, and they still want double-digit earnings increases 20 years after the Great Inflation finally settled down.
oh, another bi-partisan mirage. post-industrial. been hearing about that fantasy since 1975.
I, too, am one of those ‘few’ that has no job, no opportunity for a job, and in a region with no (zero-0) jobs posted. Two choices: Beleive the fairy tale and keep pretending something will change (hurah obama), or, face the situation,get depressed, get over being depressed, get stoic (not bitter)and fight back. The sooner the better and the more choices there are. I will have to migrate to Texas while I still have the choice. DC is my other option and I refuse to go back. Tongue in cheek: Portable RV rentals could reach a new high as people try to reloate at low cost and live in trailer parks until cash flow happens.
You may want to consider North Dakota, as Stu above recommends. Very low unemployment because of the gas and oil field work available.
The U.S. economy was artificially propped up by the fake HOUSING BUBBLE created by ALAN GREENSPAN, who artificially lowered interest rates (in 2001) to historic lows (in order to prop up the economy).
In 2001, the US Federal Reserve lowered interest rates 11 times, from 6.5% to 1.75%. George W. Bush announced that he would increase minority home owners by at least 5.5 million by 2010. In June, Alan Greenspan lowered interest rates to 1%, the lowest in 45 years. Greenspan’s artificially low interest rates created the housing bubble, & the increased liquidity the higher home values bring to the overall economy.
Once the housing bubble burst, the whole house of cards came tumbling down.
2013 will be our 5th consecutive trillion-dollar-plus budget deficit. Wait til ObamaCare kicks in. And the Baby Boomers have just begun to retire (starting in 2011). From now til 2030, 10,000 Baby Boomers will retire every day — which will cause Medicare & Social Security spending to skyrocket. With Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security & Interest on the National Debt exploding – U.S. Defense spending will be dramatically slashed. (That may be a good thing.)
And if/when 12-20 million illegal aliens (primarily from Mexico & Central America) are granted amnesty – due to family reunification laws, they will rapidly metastisize into 50-60 million. And that will be the END OF AMERICA.
You are correct, but you omitting why the Fed acted that way.
The Fed had raised interest rates in 2000 (which helped cause the bursting of the “dot.com” bubble).
After the “dot.com” companies crashed and the 9-11 terrorist attack happened, most economists feared the U.S. would go into recession. The stock market was down sharply. Airline travel was down sharply, and some airlines seemed to be heading for bankruptcy. Office workers refused to report to work in skyscrapers. Etc.
So the Fed turned right around and started drastically lowering interest rates. Unfortunately, they kept interest rates low for far too long.
Obama has zero interest in helping the economy.What he does control is the news cycle. So while our debt is doubling and deficits escalating, our unemployment mired at 8%, and misery abounding, we are talking about gun control, immigration, gay boy scouts, hillary clinton as the greatest secretary of state ever etc. This has been going on for four years. Every time we start to focus on the real problem, they launch into another distraction Oh My God–women in combat, women with no contraceptives, Israel not toeing the Obama line. We are being rolled on a continous basis to focus on the trivial and rediculous as we really face the ruin of our economy and the deconstruction of our civil society. This is the price of not being a racist but rather what affirmative action has wrought. We pat ourselves on the back and permit this inept, incompetent, and fundamentally anti american idealogue to rule over us. We must deserve it or perhaps God is making us reap what we sow.
well said. thanks for speaking the truth.
You touched on what I believe is the nemesis of traditional, conservative people in the U.S., the national media. It is often said that we can’t do anything about it so just ignore the problem. But think about this past presidential campaign: the Sandra Flukes; the injection of a “contraceptive ban” into the Republican debates; the media being completely M.I.A on the economy; Seamus the dog; the car elevator, and on and on. It is not too much to claim that the national media was literally and not too subtlety campaigning for the Democrats at all levels of the campaign.
If we can’t get some honest reporting somehow we are doomed to minority status in politics even if our ideas resonate with the majority. In consequence we have turned on each other trying to assign blame for what happened. In their demoralized state, the Republicans in Washington, even though we hold the house, will be hard pressed to resist Obama and the media barrage.
Totally agree with your assessment of Obama as a manifestation of judgement. Most people who have an ounce of intelligence see through the media as an evil entity, but they don’t know where to turn or what to do. Truly the MSM minions have succeeded in demoralizing a large portion of those who stand for truth and goodness, at least for now. And they rejoice in it too.
The MSM is a broad and diverse group of companies that have financially strong backers even though a number are suffering subscription declines particularly in the print sector like the New York Times. It seems that the is a rhetorical weopon called the “truth” which should be an asset but if there is no substantial media group giving a voice to the truth, well nothing happens and the public remains dumbed down like drones. This is the Obama gameplan which incorprates lies about the big things (Bengazi, econonomy, debt etc.) while distracting and coopting the news cycle with BS stories that the MSM immediately picks up and elevates to prime time thus running out the media cycle clock. What to do? We need some big guns like Fox (are they reliable) going after this and a boycott of these outlets by the the 60 million anti Obama voters. How to get there is beyond my pay grade.
The author states, “But then Smith delivered the kicker:
Five million manufacturing jobs were lost in the U.S. in the last decade. But new jobs have been created too, and believe it or not, many manufacturers in the U.S. are looking for help.”
Certainly Smith was handed that line by a producer and he simply mouthed it. For this he is paid handsomely and could care less if that statement has any relevance to our current economic and education situation. It fits the narrative, promotes the agenda, and pleases his associates. This, we are to believe, is “journalism”. Overpaid shallow-thinking blowhards like Harry Smith and Brian Williams are as much a menace to the long-term prosperity of this nation as Obama himself.
The line that manufacturers are searching for employees is the false narrative in support of building more debt to pay for more education. If their assumption was correct, we would not have 150,000 new workers joining the market every month, mostly straight out of college and highly trained…..they would be immediately jumping into the dream job of their choice.
The second fallacy is that the unemployed are uneducated and incapable of meeting the requirements of new markets (i.e., atm scenario) therefore, their argument is that more education is needed. I am sure the union guy that was making $75 an hour breaking up slag at a steel mil or the coal heavy equip operator has specialied skills, the majority of people have vast education. The job are not here and will not be as long as Obamamites continue to ignore hte reasons why. Excuses for them NOT changing the real issues abound.
Sorry, I am in total agreement with you. Just had to sound off.
In the first decade of the 21st century — the Bush years — America lost 6 million manufacturing jobs, 1 in every 3 we had, and saw 55,000 factories close — thanks to the free trade uber alles Republicans.
We must PURGE the free trade uber alles Republicans. They are globalist traitors. They are collaborators with the enemy — China. They belong behind bars.
“Free trade” has been a disaster for America. “Free trade” is responsible for the destruction of our manufacturing base in this country, the outsourcing of 6 million manufacturing jobs, and the disappearing middle class.
The Republican Party, if it wishes to survive, must PURGE the twin heresies of neoconservatism in foreign policy and Wall Street Journal ideology in trade and immigration policy.
No free trade agreements could pass without Democrats. Remember how Bush 43 couldn’t even get a vote on his free trade agreements? Lo and behold, they passed once Obama was president. If Bush 41 had won in 1992, it would have been the same for NAFTA. Either Dems would never have scheduled it for a vote or they would have defeated it. Republican support for NAFTA was meaningless without those Democrats who wanted to give Clinton his first victory. They were the ones who enabled its passage. Clinton got China into the WTO. Don’t forget the fundraising scandals. Chinese money went to Clinton’s campaign.
The GOP has plenty to answer for but Democrats aren’t the protectors of working Americans that some people think they are.
…..and Clinton gave China “Favored Nation Status”, meaning their tariffs on imported goods was lower, giving the Chinese a sales advantage over the competition (U.S. companies).
The problem is risk. Companies cannot quantify the risks and opportunity costs associated with the Obama Administration’s policies (e.g., Obamacare, taxes, unemployment insurance, etc.) and companies seek ways to mitigate those risks and costs. So companies invest in technology to perform tasks which otherwise would be performed by humans in order to manage the risk and quantify the costs. If it is cheaper to hire someone than to use a machine to do a job, companies will generally opt for the cheaper alternative. However, companies do not know the long-term costs of employing warm bodies because of the ever-changing regulatory environment. So the companies opt to invest in technology, with its known costs, rather than hiring people. There are usually significant up-front costs with implementing technological solutions which ultimately contribute toward GDP growth but, in the process, disenfranchise an entire generation. Thanks Barack!
M yours is the most insightful comment on this blog.
Risk, as you describe, is also one of the things companies consider before making a decision on whether to relocate overseas, the others being:
1. Future labor costs,
2. Taxes – the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate in the world (35%),
although to be fair, with deductions that comes down considerably.
3. Government regulations – EPA, Labor, Health and Safety, etc.
I’m sure there are others. I believe the primary driver of manufacturing companies moving overseas are government regulations and taxes. So when protectionists complain of job losses to overseas they should blame their Democratic representatives, prime instigators of “revenue” and government control.
News Flash from Business Insider:
“Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — decreased at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 3.1 percent.
The Bureau emphasized that the fourth-quarter advance estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see the box on page 4 and the “Comparisons of Revisions to GDP” on page 5). The “second” estimate for the fourth quarter, based on more complete data, will be released on February 28, 2013.
The decrease in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from private inventory investment, federal government spending, and exports that were partly offset by positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), nonresidential fixed investment, and residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.”
Pathetic! We must talk about Immigration, Gun Control, and Shillary Clinton!
Slowly but surely and well into his second term, the president and no one else will have to accept responsibility for a good or bad economy. Right now it’s trending in a bad direction. Unless he is willing to let go of his antiquated idea that government grows the economy by spending, the bad trend will turn into a disastrous result.
Until the day he leaves office, this president will be talking about the economy he ‘inherited’. Everything that happens will be the fault of Bush or of those who don’t see the wisdom of his majesty’s policies. He will never take responsibility and the press will never hold him to account.
If we convert that $4.6 trillion worth of manufactured goods the idiot Andringa talks about to year 2000 dollars, it’s worth about $3.5 trillion, a 24% reduction.
Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.
Service economy my butt. We need to MAKE things in this country again.
Remember Illinois raised taxes to offset the payroll tax cut so workers didn’t see a change in their paycheck. Now that it has expired everyone is paying more in taxes than they did before the tax cut went into effect.
This article highlights a huge problem – the press either misleading on or refusing to cover the impact of Obama’s policies on the economy during the campaign. Or as Brian Williams said, even talk about the economy. “It is now safe to talk about the economy” – WOW.
The most troubling statistic coming out of the election is that 53% of voters were so ill-informed that they still blamed Bush for the poor economy after 4 years of Obama’s anti-business policies. The press has lost all credibility.
Your island – We’re all going to Gilligan’s Island; after all, it seems life is becoming nothing more than a tragicomedy, anyway.
#7 – Gilligan
Now you can see why I believe a national economic collapse is the only thing that can save the Republic. We are so far from where our Founders and the succeeding legacy envisioned us, that now the building chorus is to simply ignore or abandon the Constitution. I’ve heard that three times this week – twice from academia.
Like LarryFromMo, I too believe when 53% of the voting public is so woefully stupid and can’t identify how grossly inept Barack Obama and his entire cabinet have been, when you’ve got a media that is so willingly corrupted and in bed with progressive politics because they are both immoral and immune, when one in six adult Americans is employed by a bloated government and I’ll bet half of them serve absolutely no purpose, then you’ve got a problem that can’t simply be solved by policy. Throw in Europe and China lying through their teeth about expectations and reality, and this house built on sand will sink when the storm hits.
People will have to learn the hard way by their own life experiences because these rubes are unteachable. I believe the rising stock market is a sucker’s bet – 1929 again. We’ve been operating under artificially low interest rates for years. The Fed will keep pumping money compounding the problem. Currency will become a huge issue and truthfully already is. Every fundamental points toward a hard landing. Physics eventually wins out, gang.
Protect your assets and get ready to grin and bear it. Because the excuses for Obama will never run their course until Obama can no longer buy a vote. That time is coming.
What do you call negative growth? There is a word for it, just can’t remember it right now since it hasn’t been used in 4 years.
With the manipulation of data and numbers the government has tried to put a happy face on a bad situation and bury it’s problems by taking and spending other peoples money. Running up a huge debt for the tax payer to the banks.
Don’t expect anyone to take responsibility, do expect to see more thieving corruption from the bloated beast. Just look at who is getting fat. Eventually the beast will die of a heart attack.
Of course, follow the money if you can and you’ll find the fat culprits.
The glow of filthy lucre is just too tempting it seems. They used to promise to lose weight (We’re fiscal hawks!) now they don’t even do that, they just keep gorging themselves.
We should all be happy D.C. is a small place, it won’t be that hard to put a fence around it and keep the culprits in. We can call it a fat farm.
What’s really outstanding is the fact that in 2010, the U.S. had an output of $4.8 trillion of manufactured goods. That was up from $4.1 (trillion) in 2000 — and we’ve been through two recessions in the past decade.
I presume those numbers are not adjusted for inflation, at 4% per year that’s a net DECREASE of about 25%, or about 2% per year compounded.
If you look at this morning’s numbers, you’ll see that the civilian economy is doing quite well (private income, personal savings, and personal consumption are all up). The essentially flat top line number reflects a big hit in military spending, partly in anticipation of sequestration. I’m not a big fan of military Keyesianism, but the economy still needs demand support by government spending and if the Feds aren’t buying drones and ships, they better be buying something else.
You’ll use today’s results as a political weapon, but it would be more natural for you to use them as a way of supporting your love for limitless military spending. The real-world lesson, though, is the danger of sequestration. I hope the Republicans in the House learn it before they wreck the recovery with spending cuts. In a rational world, we’d match defense spending cuts buck-for-buck with infrastructure spending and new hiring of teachers, cops, and firemen, Good luck with that.
With the rational mind, one would realize the Great Wizard Obama did just exactly that in 2009 to the tune of $862,000,000,000 plus interest – more cops, more fireman, more teachers, more green energy, more promises of shovel ready jobs for infrastructure.
Why don’t need to speculate as to the results like you have throughout your stay here.
Abject failure.
In case you hadn’t noticed, we live in a federal system. While there was a modest Federal stimulus, there was also a big anti-stimulus on the state level, which resulted in the layoffs of thousands of teachers and cops—declines in government employment are big chunk of unemployment to this day since the layoffs haven’t been reversed yet. From an economic point of view, it doesn’t matter whether spending is state or federal. The critical number is the net.
Although it was obviously too small and recognized as such at the time by many economists and even non-economists such as me, the stimulus we did get apparently went a long way towards softening the effects of the recession. That’s one of the reasons we’ve done better than many European nations that opted for austerity. Notably, we didn’t do as well as countries like Canada and Australia that went in for a more robust stimulus program.
The irony in all this is that Obama’s economic policies are predicated on a view of things that is closer to your ideas than to mine. Obama bought into the deficit mania early on when he should have focused on unemployment. For my money, the best way to deal with the deficit is to get out of depressed economic conditions as fast as possible. (Actually the single best thing we could have done to improve our economic prospects would have been to abolish the Republican party, but unfortunately that wasn’t feasible…)
Yes, it is rather easy to conclude you are a “non-economist”, Jim.
Only in Leftist world of liberal art degrees where math, finance and economics need not apply, would $1,000,000,000,000.00 be considered small – so let me help you out. That’s about a 6% influx of Obamastash bled into the entire aggregate economy.
And what did we get for our 6% immediate bump that our children will get to pay for? Well, perhaps it is you that needs the reminder of what was promised by your Wizardly Barack vis-a-vis what actually happened. Do you like graphs?
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/09/a-big-and-updated-version-of-the-biggest-most-important-chart-in-american-politics/romerbernsteinaugust-2/
Please provide your empirical data to support your conclusion that the stimulus softened the recession and not your leftist opinion, because the results of 10% reported unemployment which immediately followed and a real unemployment rate of about 17% says not only did it not soften the recession, it prolonged the recession which we obviously have never left. And I will make a bet right here on this board none will be forthcoming from one Jim Harrison.
So now that we’ve moved from it’s George Bush’s fault to it’s George Bush’s fault plus the 57 state’s fault
, I suppose that also explains those shovel ready jobs that Wizard Obama said, “‘Shovel-ready’ was not as shovel-ready as we expected.” Was that the states fault too? How about the $90 billion in green energy that apparently burned green, as it money, and then like a fart in the wind was gone? Is that the states fault?
Jim, you are indeed lame and a true dimwit. But a tip of the cap in your uncanny ability to persist with the sophistry. I do hope you’re a part of that Journolist group. If not, they should pay you royalties.
The obvious evidence for the benefits of the stimulus is the better performance of the American economy compared to European countries that went in for austerity. Your chart of the performance of the economy vs what Obama predicted doesn’t mean a great deal to me. As I said above, I disagreed with Obama’s policy because I thought the stimulus was too small, especially if you look at net government spending (Fed + state + local) instead of Federal spending alone. Do you really think we’d be in better shape if we followed the British model and drastically cut spending? They’re going in to their third recession now. With any luck, we won’t even have a second.
I suspect you guys know perfectly well that Federal spending boosts the economy during times of depressed aggregate demand. That’s why you caved on the fiscal cliff. It’s also one of the arguments your side uses in protecting defense spending. The deficit mania is just an excuse to do what you want to do in any case, destroy Social Security and Medicare and lower taxes on the wealthy so that the whole country can eventually be more like Mississippi.
What Obama thought apparently means a great deal to you, considering you’re his biggest and most predictable failure enabler on this board.
If you Leftists bad at math are going to continue to use the stock market as gauge for our ‘blistering’ economy, then you should note The ATHEX composite index of Greek shares chalked up gains of 33% in 2012 – 200% better than the DOW. Apparently by your measure, austerity does work better. Of course, every economist left and right will state this is the most anemic recovery since The Great Depression. So let’s review what your hero FDR’s treasury secretary said about the Jim Harrison recipe for
disastersuccess with enormous outlays of stimulus funds.“I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot!”
~ Henry Morgenthau Jr., May 9, 1939 before the House Ways and Means Committee — close friend, lunch companion, loyal secretary of the Treasury to President Franklin D. Roosevelt — and key architect of FDR’s New Deal.
You may be the majority in your country, but it is readily apparent you are buying the vote through nanny government and dependency, and I’ll bet $10.00 to a donut that Jim Harrison is large benefactor of the public dole.
You owe me $10.
As truthful as you’ve been elsewhere, I would care to wager you owe me a dozen.
Nope, you owe me the $10. You need to switch over from the “worthless moocher” bit to the “limousine liberal” bit. That’s not quite accurate either—I’m perfectly solvent but not actually rich. Still, I’m much closer to the top than the bottom of the wealth distribution in the U.S. so you might as well denounce me as a class traitor.
But I don’t believe you, as I don’t believe anything you publish. I think you’re either living on the dole, or profiting from the dole. You’re certainly not bright enough to make in the corporate world and you read as some wannabee philosopher, so I certainly hope writing isn’t your chosen profession.
I only have two questions left for you. Demonstrate your truthfulness and I’ll give you ten dollars so you can eat.
Has anybody ever commented on that feckless blog you created and invariably link to over the last nine years? Has it ever occurred to you that the reason is that you’re a congenital bore?
You’re making the same mistake I would be making if I assumed that all the Conservatives who are committed to lowering taxes on the rich were rich themselves. After all, a lot of people’s political attitudes are matters of ideology, not interest.
Many of the hard right folks I meet seem to think that the Democrats are supported by an army of cretinous proles. It’s part of the traditional conservative fear of the masses. I know all about that. Fifty years ago I was a conservative myself, having inherited the point of view. Now it seems to me that a democratic politics is far better than your oligarchic version of America. Which is not to suggest that the majority is always right or that the Republicans have a monopoly on bad policy ideas, but that a healthy republic is made up of all its members and a responsible political party works for all the people, not just the Herrenvolk.
The funny thing is that the Democrats are hardly a revolutionary bunch. Their political strength comes in large measure from business interests and professional people like me. An old Marxist would say that the split is not between the Capitalists and the Socialists but between old businesses, especially extractive industries, and newer, knowledge-based industries. The old Democratic groups, labor especially, doesn’t get a lot from the party these days because it just isn’t a proletarian operation. Oligarchs vs technocrats is a more relevant distinction. I’m not very left myself, but I wish my party were at least a little more populist.
Hey sport. Ain’t the Republicans in power who have overseen a reduction of middle class wages to the tune of 8.2% in the last four years. Don’t give me this oligarchy crap – that’s your turf – the predictable end result of statism, though I highly doubt you’re as well to do as you want us all to believe.
I read your feckless blog and here is what I discovered. You’re big on words and short on sense, invariably wrong on everything. Frankly, you didn’t appear to understand a damn thing that had dollars attached to it. Any moron that believes single payer is the path to health care is so frightfully dumb, I don’t want you behind the wheel. What is it that you clowns don’t understand about Medicare already going broke and that everything government touches, turns to dung?
Thankfully, I’ve got two daughters that will be physicians. Because stooges like you aren’t going to have access to them one day. It will be a fitting end to your miserable existence – complaining about no service you helped create. Justice.
I keep making substantive points. You keep up with the personal attacks. Well, as the lawyers say, if you have no case, abuse the other attorney.
How anybody can defend our health care system is a mystery to me since every other industrialized country does better than we do. They accomplish these better results in very different ways. The U.K.really does have socialized medicine, but most of the others just have insurance schemes of various kinds. What they all have and we don’t is the ability to bargain down providers. People in America don’t go to the doctor more often than they do in France or Germany or undergo more procedures or take more pills. We just pay more for everything. It’s a hell of a price to pay for our ideological rigidity and seized-up politics. What everybody on the planet except you lot seem to have noticed is that free markets work well for toilet paper but lousy for hospitals.
It’s pretty rich (no pun intended) for folks who endlessly work to lower the tax rate on the rich, cut services to the poor, and war on the unions to claim that the other side is responsible for the great increase in inequality that has occurred over the last 30 or 40 years. If you wanted to claim that both parties are pretty cozy with the oligarchs, I wouldn’t disagree since the Democrats are actually to the right of many European conservative parties such as the British Tories. The differences matter, though. Incidentally, I’m not claiming that all of the growth of inequality is a consequence of right-wing political efforts—I think a lot of factors are at work.
By the way, if my blog offends you, why do you read it? I keep the blog as a place where I can think out loud. I really don’t care very much whether anybody read it or not. I’ve never done the obvious things to build it up or tried to dumb-down the English to broaden the potential audience. I was rather surprised when I noticed I was getting a lot of traffic from here.
Jimbo,
For a time, I was in the medical profession including a ride through medical school. You have no idea what you are talking about. British healthcare is an unmitigated disaster. If I am wrong, perhaps you can explain to me why there are literally dozens of British citizens (who can afford it) sitting in Anderson Medical Center today as we speak? You’ve confused mocked with attacked. You’re not worthy of attack – I simply find you a verbose windbag full of himself who deserves the mockery.
** GUFFAW ** Liar. That’s why you advertise your useful idiot blog it here – you don’t really care if anyone reads it. Good grief. I read it because it provides useful ammunition to mock you. And that is the only reason I read that POS.
I find it rather amusing that a neo-Nazi like Jim Hitlerson a.k.a. Jim Harrishmuck would use a term like “Herrenvolk”. He sympathizes with people, countries and ideologies that call for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state, the annihilation of the the entire Jewish people, ethnic cleansing of the historic Jewish homeland and who believe the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” are true and that the Holocaust never happened. The lies and distortions that Hitlerson spews about Jews and Israel would make Joseph Goebbels beam with pride.
Obviously you don’t want to talk about issues. Fine.
I will make one comment for the benefit of anybody who’s listening and does care about the issues. I wasn’t endorsing the British health care system. Especially for a nation of 300 million, trying to create a nationalized medical establishment is a non starter. My point, though, is that even the British system does better then we do. It’s not that their system is so great; it’s that ours absolutely reeks.
I’ve done nothing but talk issues until I started making fun of your feckless blog for the sole reason besides you’re a flaming ass_ole that you won’t answer a question when I clearly demonstrate your statements false. It is you that has not answered one question of mine when challenged. It’s either you don’t pay heed, don’t care, or conveniently ignore when I shoot your statement down straight out of the horse’s ass Obama mouth, or with a medical example proving you’re speaking out the ying yang.
So I’ll ask it once again. If our system reeks and the British flawed but so much better than ours, why is it Anderson Medical currently has dozens of the British citizenry right here, right now in our reeking system for medical treatment? Why is it someone like King Saud invariably chooses the American medical system for treatment with Britain so much closer, better and more convenient? I can give you hundreds of examples of celebrity with all the tea in China to spend that always pick America for medical treatment. Surely somebody as “gifted” as you can answer something so profoundly simple.
Tex, you’re really a tool.
Medical spending per capita: U.K. $2,317
U.S. $5,711
Life expectancy: U.K. 79
U.S. 77
We pay twice as much and get worse results. No doubt if you’re a billionaire sheik,you can get excellent health care in the U.S. That’s not the issue, at least for me since last time I checked I wasn’t a billionaire. Meanwhile, many, many Americans are going overseas to get medical procedures done because that’s the only way they can afford ‘em.
This isn’t some sort of ideological view point thing. It is simply a fact that our health care system is awful. It costs a fortune, doesn’t provide universal service, and gets mediocre results.
Strange. Undoubtedly medical costs are trending down in the U.S. then. Because that’s about 2/3 of the U.S. cost you used on your feckless blog in a 2009 article where you talked to yourself. Once again, you’ve been caught lying.
I’m such a tool that unlike you, I do understand demographics. Now, go out and retrieve apples to apples like white to white and black to black and you’ll find the life expectancy about the same for both per demographic – as is it through most of Western civilization. You’ve misunderstood what the practice of medicine is designed to do.
The Brits sitting in Anderson Medical at this moment aren’t shieks. That example was to point out to you that our “rancid” medical system is considered the best in the world for those where money no option.
Once again stooge, you’ve demonstrated you’re a rank propagandist, untruthful, uninformed, and can’t think critically. By the way – minimum cost per family of four for your beloved Bongocare? $20,000. Read that tonight. Enjoy your nurse practitioner; I hope a physician’s assistant performs you gastrointestinal surgery and guts you.
Now I’ll take Zionist’s good advice and leave you to talk to yourself some more.
Jim, I won’t attempt to expound on T T’s comments/ responses.
Though I will take a moment to comment on the, ‘..Canada and Australia..’ you’d spoken of.
HOW can you even attempt to draw similarities population-wise to that of 2 COMMONWEALTH countries with a smidgen of the U.S. population?
It’s such an apples-oranges ‘similarity’ – it’s an asinine statement in a myriad of ways.
~ Cheers
Hey Tex Taylor, Why do you waste your time on Jim Harrishmuck a.k.a. Jim Hitlerson a.k.a. Jim Harrinoma (carcinoma, melanoma, etc.)?
Because Jim Harrison deserves to be mocked, the simple fact I loathe progressives and am not shy about telling them here, elsewhere and to their face when given a chance, and the fact it amuses me.
Bad habit, I admit. Like smoking or something.
I worked in the field of special education for a while. I learned that emotionally disturbed kids act out because they’re starved for attention. For them, negative attention is better than no attention at all. Harrishmuck is an attention-starved, emotionally disturbed child who never grew up. As long as decent people, like you, engage him, he’ll continue to spew his sewage.
Everybody, please check out post number 24 at the following link: http://pjmedia.com/blog/who-is-john-kerry-trying-to-kid/ .
Well, there are many excuses to blame for our lame growth. But, you can not disagree that technology is moving so quickly that it eliminates more jobs than it actually creates especially the low skill worker. You can blame that on govt policies, and their is some truth to that cause. But at the end of the day, a private enterprise must change if they are to be competitive in pricing and quality of their goods or services. As a result, they are looking always looking at new technology to advance their bottom line, and until we can address this rapid change in the real world, nothing else we do really matters.
Technology almost allways creates far more jobs that it destroys/obviates. What jobs were lost because of CAT scanners ? How about cell phones ? It is true that technology can reduce demand for low skill individuals. We no longer have turd scoopers cleaning up after the horses that used to provide most transportation. But the answer is not to stop technological progress . The answer if for the low-skilled to become at least intermediate skilled . And that is really up to the workers themselves. You can lead a human to knowlege but you cant make them think.
Except for government hacks, the economy sucks. The labor force is collapsing, incomes are still falling regardless of any recovery. You cannot have a good economy when the liberals run wild
The author has some good points. But he lost me when his #1 point was Obama’s “war” on fossil fuels. Can’t tell there is a “war” going on here in the West when much of the federal public land, outside of designated wilderness, is leased to the energy industry. In the upcoming round of new leases; required quarterly; the Bureau of Land Management is even proposing to grant leases just outside of Mesa Verde National Park & Dinosaur National Monument. Several years ago, it was a major effort to get rid of leases just outside of Arches National Park in Utah (hint: rock arches don’t do well; nor do native American dwellings; with the vibrations coming from seismic testing & drilling).
Why mention this? Because, since Black Sunday in 1982, when Exxon pulled the plug on the oil shale pipe dream and turned much of western Colorado into a ghost town, this state has been determined to have a balanced economy, including all forms of energy, but also tourism & outdoor recreation. Of course, the PR flacks who shill for the energy industry don’t like hearing about “balanced economy.”
The coal industry is shrinking, in large part because natural gas is cheaper and cleaner. Gas prices are down because there is a glut thanks to the benefits of new technology like directional drilling & fracking; wells are being capped or not drilled at all. Yet, the feds keep leasing.
#22 Jim Harrison: “…….love for limitless military spending……” Good point. The defense industry is supposed to keep us safe, and our uniformed service people safe. It was never intended to be a form of welfare jobs program. I hope everyone who is posting on this thread will support the call by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) for an audit of the Pentagon.
The tech argument makes me laugh. All of that has been foreseeable for many yesrs.
printing money + borrowing money = comuppance
Well, with today’s depressing GDP numbers coming out, I wonder how long it will be before the White House starts blaming this lousy economy on Bush again. Oh, I’d say about a minute or two.
Look at the bright side, Liberty.
At least this time Obamastash enablers like Big Jimbo Harrison are cornered enough to at least include the states in conjunction with Bush being at fault. It’s a net/net, or something like that. I suppose that’s a start.
But never Obama’s horrendous and dimwitted economic policies. Never.
printing money + borrowing money = gigantic stagflation Eventually the piper will be paid because MATH is coming. Math plus reality. You can not print and spend like there is no tommorow. Tomorrow will come, but with greatly dimished future as we’re stuck paying off the debt. Hide some money under the mattress for your grandchildren because they are going to need it. Selfish voters, plus selfish and piggish government, have spent the future. Oh, and you people on medicare. If you don’t have your own resources, you’ll be told to go home and die.
The united States doesnt have any money, and hasnt since the 1960s, it has fiat currency (paper). Hiding paper wont do you any good due to inflation. 90% US junk silver coins will maintain their purchasing power. They are a better choice as to what to hide under the mattress
The bright side of this transfer of blame is that America’s fuhrer and his constituency of tax dependent suck ups aren’t scapegoating Jews for the adverse consequences of America’s fascist welfare state.
The team which produced the report believes that technology is advancing so quickly and on so many fronts that it’s simply unreasonable to expect new jobs to appear fast enough to replace the ones being destroyed.
Does that nitwit understand the above contradicts itself?
Oh, right. He believes SkyNet is taking over 100% of all tasks. No human was harmed in the fabrication of this iPod…
#30 JR
Yet.
Subotai Bahadur
How The Democrats Caused The Financial Crisis: Starring Bill Clinton’s HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo And Barack Obama; With Special Guest Appearances By Bill Clinton And Jimmy Carter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr1M1T2Y314
If anybody believes those who wrecked the economy, I have some swamp land in Arizona for sale!
Published on Jan 30, 2013 Casey Research chairman Doug Casey interviews financial pundit and author Peter Schiff. Their conversation covers a range of issues: gold, the validity of the US dollar, the Federal Reserve system and the Schiff family’s fight with the IRS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEDmj3qocag&list=FLIjuLiLHdFxYtFmWlbTGQRQ
What we really need is to get rid of that racist 22nd Amendment to give Our Dear Leader’s Wise Policies time to bear fruit. All of these essays of neo-con negativity are what is holding the grand American collective back; so-called ‘economic common sense’ is in reality a form of subtle economic sabotage. The people at PJ Media are likely suffering from Anti-Social Schizophrenia, a new syndrome recognized first by the Chinese. Fortunately that condition will be treated for free under ObamaCare and they will even send Care Workers to your house or place of business to take you to be treated with the latest in mind-bending drugs and electro-shock therapy with none of the waiting lists or denials of care that the scaremongers predict. There will be many Care Worker jobs created for this purpose. Thank you Comrade Obama for caring enough to create so many new jobs and for helping so many people get well.
Tech driven productivity ought to be making consumption cheaper relative to incomes. Its not happening across all the quintiles of economic measurement. Policy makers must come to an uncomfortable realization that many people do not want to develop themselves but are endowed with good work ethics. An economy needs as many kinds of jobs as there are types of people. Otherwise this problem will never be solved.
Good job, good article. Watch how the press then, and now just keep burying this info. It gets out on to few outlets to penetrate into the popular discourse.
I am starting to hate te institutions of my country – but I travel in circles of americans that are awesome. I just hate the way IT! is now. Catch my drift?
Bush did it! No, wait the GOP’s War on Women… Uh, it was the one-armed man!
Very good article too bad that so many readers can not get their minds around the truth.
Lot of chatter here on both sides concerning “how well the stock market is doing.” All things considered, the same could be said of the stock market for the better part of the great depression.
I say we cut to chase here and call it what it is: The devaluation of the currency has resulted in inflated nominal numbers in the markets. In other words, the adjustment to reality has yet to come. And it will come. It always does. It is beside the fact that the money being spent is dedicated to the non-productive sectors of the economy when you calculate the scale of the stupidity here.
The government policies that created the housing bubble? That was neophite compared to the bubble they are creating now. It will result in a world wide economic catastrophy. Obama’s signature will be all over it.
Remember, the Arab Spring started as a protest against food prices. We now have the muslim brotherhood running Egypt. Iran, Russia, and China, along with every tin hat dictator on the planet senses weakness. They are moving. Obama? He seems to think you can lead from behind (what an idiot).
To note: What was the cause of the price hikes that started the arab spring? Why that would be the leftist in the US government who thought it would be a good thing to turn half our food production of the most basic grain, corn, into fuel that will corrode you cars engine. Not only did this start civil wars, it was a zero sum from the get-go: It takes 1.2 gallons of fossil fuels to produce 1 gallon of ethanol.
As usual, The lefts pipe dreams to reach their self actualization needs by using the confiscatory powers of government to fund really, I mean really, unthought out stupid ideas without a nary of a concern of the consequences is the root cause of the dysfunctions. The obama administration is their crowning acheivement.
It is just bad business.
In short, If a foreign country had done the damage to our economy that the obama administration has caused, it would be considered a declaration of war.
Convincing whites and blacks to abort two generations ,while replacing our children with the poor from Mexico is the progressive’s great accomplishment.
Mr. Harrison notes, “…a healthy republic is made up of all its members and a responsible political party works for all the people, not just the Herrenvolk.”
Is that why the Democrats have wanted to segment the population by calling anyone opposed to their views, “racist” or “homophobic” or anti-woman (sexist) etc.?
I’m none of those things yet your party has polarized people through emotional name-calling. How could anyone support that?
US jobless claims increase by 38,000 Updated: 2013-02-01
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/us/2013-02/01/content_16192094.htm
Is America too big for democracy? Too big for its traditional republican form? What does it mean if the answer is yes? This video series proposes that the source of our biggest social and political problems is our SIZE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCNd7h0fsdE&list=HL1358985716&feature=mh_lolz
The Dow Jones industrial average has crossed 14,000 and the US mainstream media is celebrating. Presumably the powers-that-be expect that short memories shall convince US consumers that the nation is back on track.
It’s part of a larger dominant social theme, I guess, that hard times are gradually yielding to normalcy and that the current sociopolitical and economic system is not only resilient but also sound.
This is a pretty big disconnect, in my humble point of view, given what’s REALLY going on in the world. The upper half of Africa is aflame from supposed Al Qaeda incursions and Western counter-attacks, Spanish and Greek youth unemployment is over 50 percent, China and Japan are both struggling to keep their economies afloat and in the Americas, price inflation and drug wars are unraveling the fabric of various recoveries, including most significantly Brazil and Mexico.
But let’s ignore all that.
Published on Sep 14, 2012
The geniuses at the Federal Reserve have concocted a bold new plan to revive the U.S. economy — print a bunch of money, loan it to Americans at super low interest rates so they can speculate on rising real estate prices, extract the appreciated equity and spend it on consumer goods. In other words, build an economy of real estate, by real estate, and for real estate. The only problem is we’ve been there and done that. The last time it almost destroyed the U.S.economy. I guess almost isn’t quite good enough for the Fed, so now it’s determined to finish the job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS879r7xeLc
Food Freedom vs. Regulatory Busybodies From the legalization of cottage foods to the rise of right-to-farm laws, the future of food freedom is looking brighter at the state level. Baylen Linnekin February 2, 2013
http://reason.com/archives/2013/02/02/food-freedom-vs-regulatory-busybodies
It’s easy to get lost in the details. Here’s the big picture: In the modern (flawed) economic model, the production side must produce goods in quantity and at a price which meet consumer’s demand. Producers supplied the resources (wages)whereby the consumer bought the goods. Technology has interrupted the chain by eliminating the worker and the wages needed to buy the products needed by the consumer. I order for the consumer to continue to consume (and live) the now displaced wages must be replaced by another source. Two ways: 1)consumer goes into debt (and in fact we see the expansion of the credit card industry begins and parallels the economic deline of this nation). 2) wages are replaced by government welfare entitlements (federal debt). The model is failing and the solutions (?) are also. And no, I am not a communist. See:scribd.com “Obama and the Destruction of America”
U.S. Dollar Collapse: Where is Germany’s Gold? By Peter Schiff Global Research, February 05, 2013
http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-dollar-collapse-where-is-germanys-gold/5321894