Apr 13 2011
Obama’s Failed Economic Policies – 10.3% Unemplopyment
Been waiting to post this update to the continuing false optimism on the economy and jobs as spun by the liberal media and the incompetent White House. Sadly, the dumbing down of our education system as left an electorate sometimes painfully unaware of how the statistics generated by our government are broken and misleading. As I note in March and in February, the unemployment rate is artificially low because the work force has shrunk massively since the recession. This artificial number has people wrongly optimistic and wrongly patting themselves on the back (Liberals especially).
Here is the decade long look at the March unemployment data in terms of overall work force size and the number of unemployed registered [click to enlarge]:
As with the last two months of supposed job recovery, what we see is really a continued drop off in the labor force size (the blue curve), as opposed to the nominal growth in the labor force that goes with the steady increase in population (the red trend line). All data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
If we recalculate the real unemployment against the nominal labor force (155.9 million verses the current 139.8 million) the real unemployment rate is a staggering 10.3%. Little changed from the 10.4% I calculated last month. The U6 rate, or alternative unemployment rate is not the advertised 15.7%, but actually U6 is running at 17.2%!
So when Obama comes out and tries to claim his policies are working tonight, and he has supposedly created all these new jobs, realize the 1+ million jobs he claims run in the face of 2.7 million less people in the workforce. His stimulus bill failed, as is obvious from simply looking the the U3 (standard unemployment rate) and U6 levels since its passage. And realize the true numbers are much worse.
I noted in red were the recalculated U3 would be if the government adjusted its computations to account for the nominal work force levels. The President’s siren song is old, tired and busted.
Update: I also want to note this article from the NY Post that is in a similar vein.
Just heard part of Obama’s new budget proposal: Taxes, taxes, and more taxes.
What a surprise. What original thinking.
OT factoid – saw that Sydney Harmann, the man who bought Newsweek for $1.00, just died suddenly. Only 92 years old, who saw that coming?
It appears that his wife, former Dem Congresswoman and faithful Pelosi ally Jane Harmann, has just become the new owner.
In case you ever wonder whether or not Newsweek is anything but a house organ for the Dem party.
Obama says for the umteenth millionth time that it is Bush’s fault, we are going to do even better now that he is President if the richest 2% will pay the fair share, and we cut defense some more even though Gates has cut quite a lot already, he can do more. A few treeks here and there, a few tax brakes taken away from the rich and your grandmother will have the medicare she needs, sick children will have the medicaid they will need for life and the Vice President will be on the job to usher in MY vision for an America we can all be proud of.
It is now clear that Obama and the Dems are going to fight Ryan’s plan with everything they have, and they could very well succeed. Obama’s speech yesterday laid this out – “Most of you don’t need to sacrifice, we can just get it from the Rich! Vote against anyone who says we have to make hard choices!”
Paul Ryan is taking a huge political risk with this plan, and I begin to fear that his career will need to take the path that Winston Churchill’s did in the 30’s. Churchill, as you recall, preached incessantly that Germany was a huge and growing danger, that a war that could destroy everything they loved was coming, and that Britain needed to prepare.
The public’s answer during the 30’s was to scoff at Churchill and vote him out of office, and instead elect “leaders” who said “Nothing’s wrong, no need to prepare, we can get out of this without doing anything difficult.” Of course, when war came they were proved wrong and Churchill was put in charge; but by that point huge losses had already been incurred and the nation was on the brink of failure. Wheras the nation could have handled the challenge easily if it had begun to prepare in time, it was in fact taken to the brink of complete destruction because they waited too long to heed a good man’s advice and warning.
Paul Ryan’s advice will be taken, sooner or later – but I fear that we may wait until we are on the brink of default and our economy is in total collapse before enough of us are willing to listen to it.
And Churchill still tanked. England wanted to erase the history of Churchill….Obama didn’t like him, either.
www, that was my conclusion a year or so ago.
The reality reflected in the unemployment chart is that we are sliding into the second recession of the Obama Next Great Depression.
The signs of Stag-flation are all around us.
AJ,
There is an article and a book you need to read before you post your next unemployment screed.
The article is
http://www.nationaljournal.com/member/magazine/what-happened-to-15-million-u-s-jobs–20110120
The Phantom 15 Million
Taming unemployment starts with solving the mystery of the jobs that were supposed to have been created in the past 10 years but weren’t.
by Jim Tankersley
Friday, January 21, 2011 | 6:15 a.m.
To sum up the article, the reason that businesses are hoarding cash is that risk has increased and it’s almost all politically based in one form or another.
In the Obama era, you never know when you’re going to get slapped with a massive class action suit.
Or get attacked for being ‘greedy’ (see Enron) or something else.
So if you’re a smart business — as opposed to a politically connected one — you cut work forces to the bone and hoard cash for a rainy day fund in case you’re the next target of populist ire.
That summation of the article is also the summation of the first chapter of the book you should read:
“Depression, War, and Cold War: Challenging the Myths of Conflict and Prosperity” (Independent Studies in Political Economy) by Robert Higgs, whose sub-title is “Regime Uncertainty – Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed After the War”.
The reviews of the book on Amazon.com at this link:
http://www.amazon.com/Depression-War-Cold-Challenging-Independent/dp/1598130293
are worth reading as well.