6 Millions Jobs Shy
[Guest post by DRJ]
Via Drudge, the Ranking GOP member of the House Ways and Means Committee does some stimulus fact-checking:
“7 Months After Stimulus 49 of 50 States Have Lost Jobs
America Now Over 6 Million Jobs Shy of Administration’s Projections”
It’s tempting to joke about Hope and Change or to mention Vice President Biden’s recent statement that it’s a depression for people who’ve lost their jobs, but times are bad and getting worse. This is more than just politics now.
— DRJ
It was NEVER more than politics to Obama and the Democrats – which is established by the pork-laden stimulus bill that had absolutely no stimulus for anyone but government workers and sweetheart unions like SIEU.
SPQR (26be8b) — 10/21/2009 @ 5:00 pmAcorn will have a report showing 7 million jobs were created in the last seven months.
They seem to be one organization the MSM is eager and willing to believe.
MU789 (e19138) — 10/21/2009 @ 5:19 pmYes it’s bad and yes it’s getting worse.
In my job I talk to the management of small companies (less than 100 employees) and slightly larger companies (up to 750 or so). In my years of doing this, I’ve never gotten such a universally negative reaction as in the last couple of months. Several of these managers are by habit and personality cheerful and optimistic people, and they generally project a positive message.
At least, that was true until the last two or three months, but now it’s as if some corner has been turned. Now there is a vague sense of defeat, that everything is running against them. Perhaps just no more pretense, I can’t say. I can say that these are the sort of businesses that have lead the country out of recession many times before. Yet only one of the managers I have spoken with is even remotely considering hiring in the next year, buying non-replacement capital equipment, or investing in their businesses. Some are looking into offshoring, something most never expected to do.
One said that it’s sort of a perfect storm, his customers are not buying, operating capital is a daily battle, the Government scares him to death and he has already cut back to the bone, and deeper.
If the Congress and the Administration are waiting on these guys to jump in and start the recovery, they better not hold their breaths.
GaryS (8351a3) — 10/21/2009 @ 5:22 pmAlso to be noted are persons whose hours have been cut, myself included. Odds of returning to a full work week? Slim, and GTFO.
sybilll (01af10) — 10/21/2009 @ 5:36 pmHey – according to the fact-checking, for a few of those States, they came pretty darn close to gettting their estimates to be absolutely correct – in a math geeky way …
Colorado – estimate +59,000 and actual -58,900
Illinois – estimate +148,000 and actual -148,900
Nevada – estimate +34,000 and actual -33,800
Utah – estimate +32,000 and actual -32,500
Alasdair (3bff4a) — 10/21/2009 @ 6:07 pm“This is more than just politics now.” Absolutely yes.
The economic state of the union is dire. None of the systemic problems that precipitated the financial panic have been fixed yet. We still have over-leveraged toxic-asset-laden too-big-to-fail institutions kept afloat by govt bailouts; continuation of the govt home-buying support policies and GSEs; widespread use of exotic derivatives by managers who haven’t the ability to understand them; exhausted FDIC reserves; re-inflating bubbles, including the stock market; govt debt plus unfunded liabilities equal to the annual economic output of the entire world.
This economic disaster may be the most dangerous threat we’ve faced since the Civil War. I despair we won’t find the will or the good political leadership to meet it.
This article is a couple of months old, but it is a good overview and a rich source of links:
gp (cb5e61) — 10/21/2009 @ 6:30 pmhttp://www.washingtonsblog.com/2007/08/unemployment.html
“This is more than just politics now. ”
Of course it is. But is was more than just politics when our Soldiers and Marines were fighting house to house in Iraq, but the Democrats didn’t care about that, either.
As the wise man once said, “Why is greed for money worse than greed for power?”
tyree (bf0ee2) — 10/21/2009 @ 6:30 pmI lost my job this week.
Vmaximus (799643) — 10/21/2009 @ 6:56 pmThere is nothing out there. At all.
If times are so bad, why are the freeways in SoCal still clogged?
AD - RtR/OS! (748050) — 10/21/2009 @ 7:00 pmIs it from the numbers of vehicles, or are there more breakdowns due to deferred maintanance?
I don’t think we’ve hit bottom yet, and no-one knows where that bottom is.
Alasdair:
They were holding the charts upside down when they made the projections. No one noticed at the time.
MU789 (e19138) — 10/21/2009 @ 7:06 pmIt’s just the power of Teh One’s personality…
AD - RtR/OS! (748050) — 10/21/2009 @ 7:08 pmhe changed all of the plusses to negatives.
In just a short while, another 35-40 jobs will be lost when the Phillies take Game Five!
With all of the talk about a “Freeway Series”, who knew they were talking about I-95?
AD - RtR/OS! (748050) — 10/21/2009 @ 7:17 pmOne said that it’s sort of a perfect storm, his customers are not buying, operating capital is a daily battle, the Government scares him to death and he has already cut back to the bone, and deeper.
Part of the perfect storm also is the ongoing impact of what we’re using to read this very blog: the Internet. That one change in our economy (and culture) started affecting other parts of the economy awhile back. Of course, some of the pre-cyberspace wealth-generating synergy has been transferred to the computer and web-related industries, but a good chunk of it, because it rests on the idea of the freebie (free email, free contents, free communication), has certainly gone out the window. That’s particularly the case for the business plans of companies connected to the media or entertainment. In turn, that has added another layer to the domino effect.
Mark (411533) — 10/21/2009 @ 7:31 pmthis is the result of politics: stupid policies put n place by the donkeys, who then prevented them from being changed or ended when it became blindingly apparent what would happen, and then, when it did happen, rather than fix the problems, the jury rigged ways to keep them going and applied other methods, like the stimulus, that history shows only make things worse.
California is broke because we spend too much, regulate too much and produce too little. we could drill the oil that’s right off the coast, raising revenue, providing j*bs and cutting goth the country’s energy costs, trade deficit and put a nice size dent in our enemies, but NOOOOOOOOOOOO……. we couldn’t possibly do that, and by the way, can we shut down the few wells we do have?
morons.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 10/22/2009 @ 12:37 am“This is more than just politics now.”
Indeed. It’s war now. The sad thing is, the whole idea of the War On Poverty was that we expected our own government to be fighting AGAINST it, not FOR it.
Anon (f43943) — 10/22/2009 @ 7:03 amAD: “If times are so bad, why are the freeways in SoCal still clogged?”
Have you ever been out on the freeway during the day, when folks are supposed to be at work? What are all those people doing?
Actually, here in Orange County at least, traffic has gotten better.
Thomas (b7fe33) — 10/22/2009 @ 7:52 amAre you the Thomas that they named that book of LA maps after? Just curious. 😉
JD (07f478) — 10/22/2009 @ 7:57 amJust remember, Obama saved 90% of the jobs. Again. Just this month!
Mitch (890cbf) — 10/22/2009 @ 12:20 pmI’m starting to wonder how a country recovers from this sort of thing. The Germans hid a lot of assets as they saw that Hitler was taking the country off a cliff. A lot of German assets went to South America and came back in the 50s to rebuild the country. We have never lost a war and so the recovery from disaster has no place in our history. The South took 100 years to recover from the Civil War and a lot of that was population transfer as northerners moved south after air conditioning was invented by Carrier and northern states’ politicians turned Marxist in the 70s.
I remember well the survivalist movement in the 70s when Carter looked as though he was taking us down but this seems worse to me. Maybe that’s because I’m older but maybe it is worse. I don’t see a Reagan around now.
Mike K (addb13) — 10/22/2009 @ 12:48 pm