Those unemployment figures
Summary of this month’s job report: the news is not good.
Summary of Obama administration reaction: hey, it could be worse!
Well gee, isn’t that always the case? And isn’t it largely irrelevant?
Just about everybody knows the truth. Even the New Republic called its comments on the matter, “New Jobs Report, Same Old Disappointing Story (Again).”
As for remedies, the administration is considering—is thinking about, is mulling over, is cogitating on—stuff they should have put in place years ago, such as a payroll holiday.
The White House’s Axelrod blames the usual suspects, those nasty mean old Republicans, for the nation’s economic woes, then and now:
…[W]e have to make clear our ideas and theirs, and the fact that the Washington Republicans, having helped create this recession, have attempted to block our every effort to deal with it.
Sure, like that payroll tax holiday you attempted and that the Republicans blocked…oops, guess not, since Republicans have been on board with that for much of Obama’s tenure, and yet somehow Obama doesn’t seem to have seriously considered the proposal till now.
No, that dog won’t hunt. It seems the electorate has gotten Obama’s con-man number:
…[P]anic is setting in among many Democratic candidates who fear it is too late for Obama to convince voters that he understands the depth of the nation’s economic woes and can fix them…
Last November, Obama announced that he would turn his attention to unemployment, calling it “one of the great challenges that remains in our economy.” He declared the same intent two months later, telling House Democrats he would focus relentlessly on job creation “over the next several months.” Senior aides went on television pledging that the mantra would become “jobs, jobs, jobs.”
But other matters – health care, the BP oil spill – continually stole the limelight, creating the impression, some Democrats complain, that the president was barely focused on the economy at all.
Actually, although the BP oil spill did steal a little limelight, Obama’s “solution” of the drilling moratorium shed even more light on his anti-jobs anti-business focus. And HCR didn’t “steal” any limelight at all—it was a choice that Obama made, and it proved once again that helping the economy was not a priority of his, despite his oft-repeated promises, which by now have become something of a joke.
Here’s another guy who gets the joke:
We did the mosque, Katrina, Iraq, and now Middle East peace?” said a Democratic strategist who works closely with multiple candidates and spoke on the condition of anonymity. “And in between you redo the Oval Office? It has become a joke.”
When even wunderkind Obama shill Ezra Klein can’t muster up a good word to say about the jobs report, you know Obama is in big trouble.
Fixed it for you, WaPo.
I suspect that our community organizer President views the private sector as a donation spigot that is activated by waving the guilt card.
You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live. ~William Shakespeare
Cessation of work is not accompanied by cessation of expenses. ~Cato the Elder
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie [middle class] is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” –Vladimir Lenin
It’s interesting that the things that moved the stock markets up the most this week were a positive economic report from China and a USA employment report that wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Even so unemployment went up a tad.
…and gold and silver are on fire. Wonder why?
Obama has no coherent foreign policy other than a sort of groveling isolationism. He has no clear economic policy except so far as it promotes a sort of state socialism. It’s not clear he wants the US to do well in anything. It’s a real contrast to such European socialist countries like France and Germany. Both will do just about anything to support their national industries. France still plays at being a military power and Germany still will not step up to the plate, but has focused all their attention on exports.
We’ve even given up on space exploration! At least under GWB we were going to Mars in atomic rockets sometime in the future. What a miserable leader Obama is.
Here’s the pull quote from page 2 of the WaPo article:
His advisers described his attentiveness – noting, for example, that he discussed the economy with New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) for 15 minutes before golfing – but got little traction.
Yeah, a fifteen minute discussion before golfing should do it. Can’t get more attentive than that. Prepare for boom times.
When even wunderkind Obama shill Ezra Klein can’t muster up a good word to say about the jobs report, you know Obama is in big trouble.
Shouldn’t that read “blunderkind Ezra Klein?”
The solution to unemployment is more unemployment – in DC.
Focusing upon everything but jobs, the undeniable public perception that if he’s not golfing, he’s on vacation and then redecorating the oval office (in drab tones)…”tone deaf” doesn’t begin to adequately describe his demeanor but arrogant aloofness coupled with cold indifference comes close.
Now he and the Democrats are about to reap what they’ve sowed; the greatest reversal of political fortunes ever suffered by a political party.
A fate, richly deserved.
Newsflash: it always was a joke. Consult the nearest grownup for enlightenment.
I don’t think the data are quite as bad as they seem on the surface. Professor Mark Perry charts all the economic statistics as they are released and publishes them almost in real time. I love his blog because his commentary is very pithy -he mostly let’s the charts tell the story. He’s an unabashed free marketeer/libertarian, so I like him all the more. His blog is worth a bookmark:
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/
Also, completely unrelated to economics but since I first learned about Dr. Sanity from reading this blog, I figured I’d give everyone a heads up that she posted a terrific essay yestrerday about “postmodernism”, neo-marxim, and the Left. Strongly recommend it.
Progressives got to power by not being George Bush. Now it seems they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place they hadn’t counted on. To either be more like George Bush or go down in historic defeat.
The I-man was in New Orleans for the 5th anniversary of Katrina. He told the baa-baas, “I am with you in the fight to blahblahblah”. Who is the I-man fighting? The Establishment? Uhhh, I-man, YOU are the Establishment. Your CO days are over.
The Democrats have been hoist on their own petard. The increased minimum wage and the 99 week unemployment benefits are going to stretch out this high unemployment for a long time. Throw in a big tax increase in January, and you’ve really locked it in.
Math is Hard 4 @ezraklein “We lot [sic] 54,000 jobs in August. Most of those in fact, 114,000 of them were expiring census jobs.” http://bit.ly/anomKl
That’s in a fifty word item.
“What a miserable leader Obama is.”
He’s not a leader. He’s a herder, goading us along with a cattle prod to the hindquarters. . . . Into the knacker’s.
Incentives, Dems. Incentives.
Until/unless you actually do create New Socialist Man – which I for one don’t look for – people will follow incentives. You know, operant conditioning and all that. I thought you Reds were big on B. F. Skinner.
Permit us to return the favor…
Axelrod “the Washington Republicans, having helped create this recession, have attempted to block our every effort to deal with it.”
I see this attempt to blame Republicans for the Democrat’s failure to get something passed on liberal blogs all the time. My response is to say something like “just think what you’ll be able to do when you control both houses of Congress!”