Friday, November 06, 2009
Posted by: John Campbell at 3:30 PM
Earlier today I blogged about the high level of unemployment and the failure of the President’s stimulus package to provide the stimulative effects promised by the administration.  However, we must take a hard look at what these numbers really mean.

First, it is important to make a distinction between the number released earlier today and what is happening in reality.  Don’t let the 10.2% figure fool you.  Out in the real world, unemployment is 17.5%.  The figure released by the Department of Labor does not include those individuals who have given up on finding work or those who are underemployed, such as individuals working part time but looking for full-time work. 

Meanwhile, back in D.C., Nancy Pelosi and President Obama are intent on passing legislation on global warming and health care which analysis has shown will kill jobs and only exacerbate our current economic woes.

When roughly 1/5th of the American population is unemployed or unable to find full-time work, why is the President and Speaker intent of making work harder to find for even more Americans?



View in ascending order View in descending order
vonryansexpress writes: Friday, November, 06, 2009 3:49 PM
Because when America falters, the left
can morph into Mega State.

The President and Mrs. Pelosi desire that Americans use their savings and have the wolf at the door so that they, (Obama and Pelosi) can then promote 'universal government' to those without anything left.

These Democrat leftists are just a new version of the old Marxist dialectic. They believe that when everything founders, they outcome will be a new society that they can mold and meld.

Trouble for them is; it's never worked anywhere.

When individuals are furious, they don't morph, they march. A society without work during a progressive Democrat control of the Executive and the Legislature is a society that will jettison off those Democrats quicker than Barbara Boxer could 'kite' a check at the House Bank.

This lot will 'play' at progress as the Capitol burns around them. They are the pyrrhic obsessed. They cannot address reason and political survival because they don't care.

They are red ideologues and they live day to day. They expect to cheat and lie into the retention of power and so cannot be troubled with anything that applies balm in Gilead.
Exeye writes: Friday, November, 06, 2009 3:50 PM
That's easy
They wish to destroy the US capitalist economy as prelude to ushering in the socialist worker's paradise their wise guidance and stewardship will birth.
Peter writes: Friday, November, 06, 2009 3:58 PM
Lies Lies Lies
Barrack Obama is a domestic terrorist. He hates Americans And his hate statements against Americans is now getting our soldiers killed. We must remove this traitor from office before another America hating Democrat opens fire.He has no emotion for the slaughter of our troops. What a scum.I hope there is a revolution soon. We the people cannot allow this traitor to remain in power any longer.What is it going to take to get this traitor out.
David writes: Friday, November, 06, 2009 4:08 PM
And to make things worse...
Obama signed yet another extension of Unemployment Benefits today (to 99 weeks!), to be paid for by INCREASING the Unemployment Tax. Thus, at one stroke he both makes it more expensive for employers to have employees and reduces the incentive for people to get back to work. (Study upon study have shown that extending unemployment adds to unemployment because a lot of those receiving benefits find it a reasonable trade-off to be idle and still bring in $15-20K a year.) This ought to work as well as all the other brilliant (and they must be brillian, coming from Obama) moves so far.
carlos writes: Friday, November, 06, 2009 4:21 PM
Power to the States
If you're in Wyoming, Utah, Texas, Alaska, Alabama, etc... why should Pelosi run your life? What about Barney Frank? Are these rational people to you?
Patrice writes: Friday, November, 06, 2009 5:15 PM
Playing with numbers
Isn't it interesting that they use the numbers for their own benefit? There are many people who have lost FULL TIME jobs and have been able to find intermittent or part time jobs so they are NOT counted as unemployed any longer. When it comes to the stimulus and counting jobs, pay raises for part time workers are being counted as 'saved or created'. How transparent.
Careful with that axe, Eugene writes: Saturday, November, 07, 2009 7:08 AM
David
And to make things worse...
Obama signed yet another extension of Unemployment Benefits today (to 99 weeks!), to be paid for by INCREASING the Unemployment Tax. Thus, at one stroke he both makes it more expensive for employers to have employees and reduces the incentive for people to get back to work. (Study upon study have shown that extending unemployment adds to unemployment because a lot of those receiving benefits find it a reasonable trade-off to be idle and still bring in $15-20K a year.) This ought to work as well as all the other brilliant (and they must be brillian, coming from Obama) moves so far.

Me- Oh, please. The reason that the unemployment sitatution is always worse than it is because the capitalists act badly.

Do you know what a capitalist does when there's unemployment. Does he say, "Hey, these are my loyal employees, I need to do right by them!" F**k no, what these scumwads do is say, "Hey, now I can fire my long term employees, who make decent money because they've been here for a while, and hire a bunch of hungry waifs off the street!" And yes, this has a ripple effect, as even those who do have jobs spend less, etc.

And when sales do come back, they don't hire more people. They work the people they have that much harder, making them work overtime, putting them on salary and increasing their workload, and so on.

personally, I'd rearrange the tax specifically on how many people you've fired, laid off, or downsized.... you pay $150% of what it would have cost to keep that employee on the books. You'd be surprised how quickly unemployment would go down then.
Careful with that axe, Eugene writes: Saturday, November, 07, 2009 7:12 AM
Exeye
"That's easy
They wish to destroy the US capitalist economy as prelude to ushering in the socialist worker's paradise their wise guidance and stewardship will birth."

Me- Gee, I don't know, looking around, it seems to me that capitalists have done a pretty good job of destroying the economy by themselves.

Here's the REAL problem. America is now experiences the greatest disparity between the wealthy and working classes since the gilded age. Simply put, if you don't have a middle class, you don't have an economy. Period.
j black writes: Saturday, November, 07, 2009 8:56 AM
axinine the commie
another stupid commie comment ,axinine says

personally, I'd rearrange the tax specifically on how many people you've fired, laid off, or downsized.... you pay $150% of what it would have cost to keep that employee on the books. You'd be surprised how quickly unemployment would go down then.

Me and everyone else with half a brain says this . BULLSHI% this just proves that you are a complete moron
Exeye writes: Saturday, November, 07, 2009 8:59 AM
Careful with that Lenin
The always interfering socialist loving bureaucrats in the thousands of state and Federal regulatory agencies have made sure we haven't had a capitalist system since about 1929. It's more appropriately labeled as quasi-corporatist with elements of fascist oversight. But, still, even in that, the portions of capitalism allowed to function have done marvelously, something that so annoys you Marxists and your Great Leader that you now see the need to destroy even that. But, be Careful What you Wish For. I'm not sure you'd look good in a Mao suit and a red sash while you're out in the field sickling your daily quota of wheat.
Patrice writes: Saturday, November, 07, 2009 4:26 PM
Saving Reality TV jobs
The reason behind the latest gimmick must be jobs, it can't possibly be the camera hungry Obama's ..

Now it’s reality TV for the WH? What next, S’so you think can govern?’

Food Network's "Iron Chef America" taped "several scenes outside the White House in late October," the New York Times reports. The episode, which will open the show’s new season on Jan. 3, features two pairs of chefs competing: "Cristeta Comerford, the White House executive chef, and Bobby Flay go up against the combined forces of Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse."

First lady Michelle Obama "will reveal the secret ingredient that the chefs must use in their televised cook-off: anything that grows in the White House garden." She "will also talk about her crusade to reduce childhood obesity through better school lunches, community gardens, farmers’ markets and exercise, which around the White House has the working title Healthy Kids Initiative.
http://www.politico.com/click/stories/0911/michelle_w_h_che f_to_appear_on_iron_chef.html
CHERYL writes: Saturday, November, 07, 2009 5:11 PM
Unemployment: Use some common sense!!
Start with some basic realities.
Jobs are created from business investment in factories and shops and software to make and sell products that people want to buy. There is no other magic source of jobs. If the product costs more to make than the seller can charge for the product, they lose money. Nobody, even you Eugene, can sustain spending more money than you earn on an ongoing basis. So in an economy where consumers are less willing to buy things, anything that threatens to makes it more expensive to make your product is going to make you less willing to invest in the people and equipment to make it. The current massive deficit spending and extra taxes and costs on business that are promised in the health care and climate change legislation mean that all of us who run businesses expect it to cost more to make things and employ people, so we are NOT HIRING. We are doing without, working more hours ourselves, whatever. Blather all you want about 'evil capitalists', we are regular people who run markets and coffeeshops and machine shops and want to earn and save money so that we and our children can afford a better life. We will expand their businesses and hire more people only if we expect to make more money to offset the effort and risk. No sensible person is going to drive themselves and their families into financial ruin taking on more costs than their product sales can support. COMMON SENSE.
Careful with that axe, Eugene writes: Saturday, November, 07, 2009 5:53 PM
Common sense
says that when the top 1% of the population controls more wealth than the bottom 90%, that's when your economy freezes up.

Look, we've had 40 years of your way, which essentially letting the captialists run roughshod over the rest of us... and surprise, surprise, Gomer, we got the same result we did when we foolishly did that back in the 1920's.

"The problem with capitalism is capitalists- they're too damned greedy!" - Herbert Hoover.

Tax the snot out of the rich, pay for goods and services (made in AMERICA) for the general weal... That's what got us out of the last depression, and that's what'll get us out of this one.
Fred_PA_2000 writes: Sunday, November, 08, 2009 12:00 AM
Eugene;
I think you misunderstand.

I think it might help if you tried some empathy. Particularly, consider how you would likely react if you were treated as you propose to treat others. Then assume that you're fairly normal, so how you'd react is probably a pretty good predictor of how others would, too. Then look and see if the reaction predicted is what you want. (I suspect that it isn't. That is, I suspect the path you propose doesn't go where you presumably want to go.)

Consider, for example, your proposal "I'd rearrange the tax specifically on how many people you've fired, laid off, or downsized.... you pay $150% of what it would have cost to keep that employee on the books." This effectively says that if you hire me, and then I turn out to be stupid, lazy, willfully destructive or whatever, you're still stuck with paying me forever. Why would I ever work if your rule has enabled me to just financially rape you instead? Knowing that, you would presumably be wise enough to never hire me -- or anybody else. If everyone is as smart as you are, then nobody will be dumb enough to ever hire anybody. Under your proposed rule, the only employment will be self-employment.
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About John Campbell

John Campbell is a member of the House Financial Services Committee, and has taken a leadership role in addressing the country's top economic issues. Campbell serves as a member of the Joint Economic Committee, and House Committee on the Budget. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from UCLA and a Master's Degree in Taxation from USC.

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