What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

A Silver Lining!

The August employment figures are dismal. Only 71,000 new jobs were created in the private sector in this, the beginning of the second year of economic recovery. At this rate, economists tell us, the unemployment rate will continue to rise indefinitely, and that is just what's happening. It is now 9.6%, up from 9.5 the previous month.

Not to worry-President Obama has detected a "silver lining" in these numbers. The private sector, he noted on Friday, "is creating jobs... just not enough." That's like saying the Cubs are getting hits, just not enough. Someday, though, they will get enough to win the pennant and even the World Series. As for the economy, at 71,000 jobs per month it will take 118 months, or almost 10 years, to win back the 8.4 million jobs that have been lost since the Obama recession began. Where exactly is the silver lining?

...

Has the President ever considered the fact that his relentless campaign against profits might have something to do with the hesitancy of businesses to invest and expand? Business is now faced with enormous tax hikes, burdensome healthcare mandates, unrealistic environmental restrictions, an explosion of legal actions on the part of trial lawyers and our own government, and increased union organizing spurred on by Obama appointments to the Labor Relations Board and other agencies. With all this, how can the President pretend that his policies have nothing to do with the failed recovery?

As Thomas Donlan wrote in a recent issue of Barron's, those "companies that are successful in international competition" are among the prime targets of Obama's attack on business. Why? Because names like Intel, IBM, Exxon Mobil, and Bank of America are the most visible symbols of American capitalism. By undermining our great corporations and regulating their profits, Obama is shifting power from the free market to government.

It is ironic that Obama expects those same corporations to bail him out by investing more, even as he demonizes the private sector for its "evil" profit motive. Earlier this summer at a meeting of the Business Roundtable, a group of leading CEOs from America's largest companies, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg stated that Obama's policies had "reached a point where the negative effects ... are simply too significant to ignore." Roundtable president John Castellani listed a number of specific measures that could be taken to promote growth, including lowering of corporate taxes and reducing specific regulations, including provisions of the recently passed financial reform bill. Obama has taken action on none of these.

How do you judge a president who spends his first two years in office trashing private enterprise and then blames everyone but himself for the economic failure that results? Maybe Obama, who wants the EPA to put letter grades on vehicles (A+ to D-), should assign a grade to his own handling of the economy. Or maybe we should assign one for him. In the topsy-turvy manner in which he sees the world, he would surely assign himself an A+.

Jeffrey Folks
The American Thinker

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Political Correctness hurting the economy???

...[W]hy is the Obama administration so reluctant to take on the mercantilists, the countries that purposely manipulate currency values and trade in order to run trade surpluses with the United States? The September 20 issue of The Nation has an interesting article by Robert Dreyfus (China in the Driver's Seat) which illuminates thinking within the American "progressive" community.

On the one side are those who favor dealing forcefully with China (the United Steel Workers, the AFL-CIO, and the Economic Policy Institute). Their analysis of the current situation coincides with our own. Dreyfus writes:

In this narrative, China exploits the willingness of multinationals to set up unregulated factories along its industrial southern coast, meanwhile blackmailing those firms to share trade secrets and technology with China as the price of admittance.

However, Dreyfus also discusses the many trade-deficit doves within the progressive community. One of the best known is Andy Stern, former President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the union that funded and shared office space with ACORN.

According to Wikipedia, Stern makes frequent visits to the Obama White House. According to Dreyfus, he also makes frequent trips to China to visit with China's Communist-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). Stern justifies his trips to China with the claim that he is helping push the ACFTU in a positive direction. Dreyfus writes:

"I get in trouble on Glenn Beck saying, 'Workers of the world unite!' It's not just a slogan," Stern says. It's critical, he adds, for US and Chinese workers to see each other as allies, and he argues that efforts such as his can help shift the ACFTU in a direction that will make it much more representative of its hundreds of millions of members.

Moreover, many progressives are pleased that China has been able to pull so many poor people out of poverty, even though some of that economic growth occurs by manipulating currency values and trade in order to steal our manufacturing industries and technology. Doug Henwood accuses those who don't want to deal with China of racism. Dreyfus writes:

"There is this longstanding Yellow Peril discourse in the United States, and a lot of this stuff fits into it comfortably," says Doug Henwood, editor and publisher of the Left Business Observer.

Such thinking may explain President Obama's acquiescence to mercantilism, even though doing so condemns the United States to economic stagnation and forces U.S. manufacturing workers out of good-paying jobs and into unemployment or low-paying jobs.

Richman, Richman, and Richman
The American Thinker

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

The Bête Noire of "The Positive Interference of Government," the Unintended Consequence...

A sad example is the payroll tax, which impedes job creation in two ways. First, it imposes an extra cost on employers for hiring workers—a cost they don't incur if they decide to replace workers with machinery. Second, it reduces the take-home pay of those hired, making it less attractive for them to work.

Richard Rogerson, an economist at Arizona State University and author of the new book The Impact of Labor Taxes on Labor Supply, says the negative effect of payroll taxes is especially large when the revenues go to programs like Social Security. Evidence from Europe, he says, suggests that "a 10-percentage-point increase in labor taxes used to fund transfer programs leads to a reduction in hours worked of between 10 and 15 percentage points."

Many liberals admire Europeans for their civilized habit of working less than Americans do. But they used to work more. The change came about because higher taxes on that side of the Atlantic have greatly reduced the gains from working.

Generous social welfare benefits were another factor in sapping the European work ethic. But the United States is moving in the same direction. President Obama recently signed a bill extending unemployment insurance benefits, allowing those out of work to collect for up to 99 weeks.

There is something to be said for providing extra help to people who lose their jobs during hard times. But there is an unintended side effect: longer spells of unemployment. In the past year, the average duration has increased from 25 weeks to 34 weeks—far above the average peak duration of 21 weeks during previous recessions over the past 65 years.

What's different this time? "The dramatic expansion of unemployment-insurance eligibility to 99 weeks is almost certainly the culprit," writes Harvard economist Robert Barro in The Wall Street Journal. The extension provides the longest coverage ever.

Economists disagree on how much jobless assistance aggravates the problem it is supposed to ameliorate. But a study this year by the liberal Brookings Institution estimated that without the additional benefits, the unemployment rate would be at least 0.7 percentage points lower than it is—the equivalent of a million jobs.

The extension makes it feasible for some unemployed workers to put off looking for work longer than they otherwise could—which is why workers without coverage usually find new jobs quicker than workers with coverage. Often, the benefits just postpone the inevitable, depriving the economy of labor without yielding better jobs for those looking.

Then there is the increase in the federal minimum wage that took place last year. In the teeth of the downturn, the government required companies to boost their pay floor to $7.25 an hour, an increase of 70 cents. The intention may have been humane, but the effect was like tossing a struggling swimmer an anchor.

For Washington to dictate higher pay is bound to destroy jobs in the best of times. But the very worst moment to raise the minimum wage is during a period of economic stagnation combined with deflation, as we had last year.

When inflation screeches to a halt, many workers will be compelled to accept lower pay than they once would have taken. (Many already have.) A higher minimum wage prevents some from doing that.

Paying people not to work, barring them from taking wages they would be willing to accept, and penalizing companies that hire them? It's an ingenious formula for destroying jobs, and it seems to be working.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/09/06/not-enough-labor-day
__________________
"[W]hat limits ought to be set to the activity of the state," is "that the provision of security, against both external enemies and internal dissensions must constitute the purpose of the state, and occupy the circle of its activity."
–*Wilhelm von Humboldt

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Giving meme a run for it's money eh Cap'n.

I'm surprised.. Nay, amazed that the opinion columnists at the "thinker" and "reason" think that Obama and the Democratic lead congress are doing the wrong things.

Completely unexpected, especially considering the lack of any actual plan of their own to deal with the problems brought on by Conservative economic policies, except more of the same policies that caused the mess in the first place.

“I don’t see them presenting any alternatives, any new options or any new thinking, If the Republicans get back in power, what are they going to do? There is no articulation. It’s just a ‘no no no, I’m against Obama because he’s a socialist and he’s taking America in the wrong direction.’ That’s certainly an opinion, but what about you, Mr. Republican? What would you do?” - Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)

The Party of No. No new ideas. No plan. No future. Like petulant children stomping their feet and refusing to cooperate with, well, anyone or anything. Social luddites ruled by irrational fear of anything different than what's "traditional".. Sexuality, skin color, culture, etc. etc..

 

[busybody..]

Im a fucking lunatic..

 

[firespin]

Completely unexpected, especially considering the lack of any actual plan of their own to deal with the problems brought on by Conservative economic policies, except more of the same policies that caused the mess in the first place.

I think we've already established that you have no credible understanding of what caused the economic problems, so it stands to reason that you'd have no clue as to how to deal with them.

Does it ever occur to you that "dealing with the problems" is just dragging them out? If a patient is in the hospital following a car accident, you could of course send them to traffic school, try to sell them mass transit passes and make them ride a bike twenty miles / day.

But then to wonder why they're not recovering very quickly would be a bit naive.

 

[koalabear]

I think we've already established that you have no credible understanding of what caused the economic problems, so it stands to reason that you'd have no clue as to how to deal with them.

Does it ever occur to you that "dealing with the problems" is just dragging them out? If a patient is in the hospital following a car accident, you could of course send them to traffic school, try to sell them mass transit passes and make them ride a bike twenty miles / day.

But then to wonder why they're not recovering very quickly would be a bit naive.

But Geo. Soros said..........

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

I think we've already established that you have no credible understanding of what caused the economic problems, so it stands to reason that you'd have no clue as to how to deal with them.

Does it ever occur to you that "dealing with the problems" is just dragging them out? If a patient is in the hospital following a car accident, you could of course send them to traffic school, try to sell them mass transit passes and make them ride a bike twenty miles / day.

But then to wonder why they're not recovering very quickly would be a bit naive.

"We" have established nothing of the sort. You have an opinion, nothing more.

Yes, dealing with problems only makes them last longer, ignoring them makes things SO much better. You're not in the health care industry i gather, since your little straw man analogy made absolutely no sense at all.

I didn't see anything resembling a plan to deal with anything in your post, just more "Nuh uh!", but that's par for the course. Stuff your fingers in your ears, sing Lalalalalala at the top of your lungs and hope the problem just magically goes away on it's own. The other "Conservative" alternative is to keep doing what you were doing before (that caused the problems in the first place) and expect a different result. Someone smart once defined insanity that way..

 

[jeninflorida]

and don't worry, obama is going to focus on the economy....so unemployment should hit 20% very soon!

gotta love obama, govnet bizness is good

"We" have established nothing of the sort. You have an opinion, nothing more.

Yes, dealing with problems only makes them last longer, ignoring them makes things SO much better. You're not in the health care industry i gather, since your little straw man analogy made absolutely no sense at all.

I didn't see anything resembling a plan to deal with anything in your post, just more "Nuh uh!", but that's par for the course. Stuff your fingers in your ears, sing Lalalalalala at the top of your lungs and hope the problem just magically goes away on it's own. The other "Conservative" alternative is to keep doing what you were doing before (that caused the problems in the first place) and expect a different result. Someone smart once defined insanity that way..

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

and don't worry, obama is going to focus on the economy....so unemployment should hit 20% very soon!

gotta love obama, govnet bizness is good

You should ask for a refund for the education you didn't receive. Hell, I should ask for a refund since my taxes likely paid for you to be an illiterate nimrod.

You're really pushing the limits of stupidity, I'll give you that much. I can only wonder how you manage to walk and breathe at the same time.

 

[jeninflorida]

You should ask for a refund for the education you didn't receive. Hell, I should ask for a refund since my taxes paid for you to be an illiterate nimrod.

You're really pushing the limits of stupidity, I'll give you that much. I can only wonder how you manage to walk and breathe at the same time.

you a funny little man....

 

[Byron In Exile]

The Gold Standard made money supply too inflexible.

The money necessary to make the economy function, due to industrialization, outgrew the value of all the gold available.

Fiat currency is the only option, now.

That's not bad, in itself, but in 1913, the system was taken over by private bankers who knew they could make money off the idea. They would "loan" the money out, and then charge interest on it.

Article I Section 10:

No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.

Byron. Gold would just be worth more...

No, that wouldn't work. Gold at $20,000/ounce? Fiction. There simply is no valuable metal in the world in such great supply as to account for the money. not even platinum. Welcome to the modern era.

It's not HOW MUCH we have, it's what we TRADE it for. Not that I am a fan of the gold standard, but I am not a fan of these quasi-governmental institutions that don't seem to answer to anybody and like Fannie and Freddie have the power to purchase Franks...

People who talk about a return to a gold or silver standard are like people who want a return to Camelot where King Arthur presides and everything is simple. It's an absurd idea.

 

[eyer]

Most encouraging USSA economic news I've seen today is some are offering up the idea of pulling the plug on the government mortgage debacle...believing it's such a useless and damaging idea that those who would suffer most would be a lot less than those who are going to suffer...

...unfortunately, Google has had as its top story most of the day, President Obama's "quick" $50 billion "stimulus" to give his Party any reasonable shot at surviving the Nov elections...ok: the last 12 words were mine.

The only way to clean up our economy is to drain all the socialism out of it.

 

[eyer]

Quick $50 Bill Stimulus


- sounds like a new lottery game...

 

[unregistered]

 

[richard_daily]

People who talk about a return to a gold or silver standard are like people who want a return to Camelot where King Arthur presides and everything is simple. It's an absurd idea.

Perhaps it's a simple idea... but it would certainly keep inflation in line.

 

[koalabear]

Quick $50 Bill Stimulus


- sounds like a new lottery game...

Lotto for Unions.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Alan Greenspan on the Gold Standard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5MVsm2cpc0

Ron Paul on the Gold Standard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHPSmslIOfc&feature=related

Not totally absurd.

Yeah, it is.

 

[richard_daily]

Yeah, it is.

RonPaul can take any idea, and make it sound loony. He's got talent, I'll give him that.

 

[firespin]

"We" have established nothing of the sort. You have an opinion, nothing more.

Yes, dealing with problems only makes them last longer, ignoring them makes things SO much better. You're not in the health care industry i gather, since your little straw man analogy made absolutely no sense at all.

I didn't see anything resembling a plan to deal with anything in your post, just more "Nuh uh!", but that's par for the course. Stuff your fingers in your ears, sing Lalalalalala at the top of your lungs and hope the problem just magically goes away on it's own. The other "Conservative" alternative is to keep doing what you were doing before (that caused the problems in the first place) and expect a different result. Someone smart once defined insanity that way..

Sorry to disillusion you here, but yeah, we've established your "credentials" here. Don't believe me? Post a poll.

The point that's being made by lots of economic commentators is that way too many legislative solutions to alleged problems in health insurance availability, financiall system regulatory reform, executive compensation, etc., are being layed on an increasingly skeptical business community, with the effect that people are not getting hired, so money is not going into the economy, taxes are not going up, mortgages are going into default, etc.

The first thing to do is to gain the confidence of the business community, not to demonize them for things that went wrong before. But there's no way you or Obama could ever do that. You're all about revenge politics...then you wonder why the economy is in the tank, and search for "solutions" that end up making the problem worse. The system needs time to heal, not a bunch of snake oil "cures."

 

[RightField]

Sorry to disillusion you here, but yeah, we've established your "credentials" here. Don't believe me? Post a poll.

The point that's being made by lots of economic commentators is that way too many legislative solutions to alleged problems in health insurance availability, financiall system regulatory reform, executive compensation, etc., are being layed on an increasingly skeptical business community, with the effect that people are not getting hired, so money is not going into the economy, taxes are not going up, mortgages are going into default, etc.

The first thing to do is to gain the confidence of the business community, not to demonize them for things that went wrong before. But there's no way you or Obama could ever do that. You're all about revenge politics...then you wonder why the economy is in the tank, and search for "solutions" that end up making the problem worse. The system needs time to heal, not a bunch of snake oil "cures."

Spin, you're absolutely right. I'm afraid that your thought and eloquence is wasted on people incapable of understanding it.

 

[mercury14]

Sorry to disillusion you here, but yeah, we've established your "credentials" here. Don't believe me? Post a poll.

The point that's being made by lots of economic commentators is that way too many legislative solutions to alleged problems in health insurance availability, financiall system regulatory reform, executive compensation, etc., are being layed on an increasingly skeptical business community, with the effect that people are not getting hired, so money is not going into the economy, taxes are not going up, mortgages are going into default, etc.

The first thing to do is to gain the confidence of the business community, not to demonize them for things that went wrong before. But there's no way you or Obama could ever do that. You're all about revenge politics...then you wonder why the economy is in the tank, and search for "solutions" that end up making the problem worse. The system needs time to heal, not a bunch of snake oil "cures."

Yet there were heaps of business tax breaks in the stimulus and the Dems are in the process of putting together a package of small-bizness tax cuts. Here's why Republicans are stupid on the economy though and why they can't get together a coherent plan to fix it (which is what John McCain said in his Fox News interview yesterday):


1) They think Obama needs to do something to boost the economy.

2) They think that it's not the president's role to intervene in the economy, including any attempts to boost the economy.

3) They want tax cuts but not if they cause deficit increases - which all tax cuts do.

4) They say that Obama hasn't done enough to focus on the economy, despite the Recovery Act being ready to roll from day 1 of his presidency, along with saving the American auto industry from going the way of the dodo, saving the financial sector (and thus the entire economy) from a complete meltdown, and other things.

5) They also say that Obama has done too much to help the economy and that he should simply let the market fix itself no matter how long it takes or how painful it is.

6) Republicans agreed with Dems that there needed to be financial reform on the crazy parts of the financial system where lenders could take high risks with no exposure to loss. Then when the Dems addressed the issue it was criticized by Repubs for being both too little intervention and too much intervention.

7) Republicans bitch about socialism all day in ways that would make Joe McCarthy proud, and then turn around and support a wide range of socialist policies.

8) Republicans say that tax breaks are the answer. Then when Obama gave America the biggest single-year tax cut in US history, they changed their story to say that tax breaks don't help and all they do is increase the deficit.


None of this shit makes any sense. The Republican party has no coherent message on the economy, probably because it's leaders are the hypocrites Beck, Palin, and Limbaugh.

 

[mercury14]

And the latest:

9) The Republican-approved part of the stimulus were the "shovel-ready" construction/infrastructure jobs. According to Republicans, those are "real jobs". But now that Obama is submitting a $50 billion stimulus that's entirely for shovel-ready construction work, Republicans flip-flopped and now say that this sort of thing will not create any real jobs.



And nevermind that the government is going to have to pay for this infrastructure maintenance/repair anyway. The fact that Obama is involved makes Republicans sell out their own positions just so they can oppose him.

 

[koalabear]

And the latest:

9) The Republican-approved part of the stimulus were the "shovel-ready" construction/infrastructure jobs. According to Republicans, those are "real jobs". But now that Obama is submitting a $50 billion stimulus that's entirely for shovel-ready construction work, Republicans flip-flopped and now say that this sort of thing will not create any real jobs.



And nevermind that the government is going to have to pay for this infrastructure maintenance/repair anyway. The fact that Obama is involved makes Republicans sell out their own positions just so they can oppose him.

Election coming up, construction jobs, Union, Dems have majority in both Houses. It's best to stick to blaming Bush.

 

[RightField]

Lotto for Unions.

lol...that's a good one.