Aug 21 2009
Stimulus Package Only Working For Government Bureaucrats
It is clear now that the stimulus bill passed by the liberals in DC, which contained paltry tax cuts but massive pork spending, as not stimulated the job market as promised. Â However, the bill has allowed one element of our society to go untouched by the economic downturn-Â government bureaucrats (and unions):
While the private sector has shed 6.9 million jobs since the beginning of the recession, state and local governments have expanded their payrolls and added 110,000 jobs, according to a report to be issued Thursday by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.
The story comes with an all important graph which highlights how badly we peasant folks have had it while government taxes us into financial oblivion and covers their own arses. We now see whose jobs were stimulated and whose weren’t.
Health Care may be the liberal democrats tipping point with America, but the fact remains is the liberals sowed the seeds of their defeat when they passed that faux stimulus bill way back in February. With that failure set in stone to play out for the rest of this year, there was little chance the liberals were going to be gaining confidence and support from the people. And this slow moving train wreck is far from over.
One interesting tidbit I saw in the Battleground Poll that just came out the other days is the number of people who think the stimulus is working: 61% say no and 33% yes. More troubling for the Democrats is that 67% of independents believe the stimulus is not working (26% think it is).
The fact is, as I have demonstrated for months (see latest update here), the stimulus package is not designed to spend large amounts of job creating money until late this year or early next year. Which means whatever forces are shaping the economy and job market today, they are doing so without any real government intervention.
That is why there is a very good chance we will see an uptick in unemployment after the summer jobs shut down. Right now, as we near the end of August, we have seen two weeks of ‘surprising’ increases in FIRST TIME jobless claims. Here is the data for the first three weeks of August for first time claims:
- Aug 15 = 576,000
- Aug 8 = 561,000
- Aug 1 = 554,000
That’s not a very good trend. While July was a bit of a breather from June’s bad numbers, it may not be the turn around everyone is hoping for because, statistically speaking, it showed no change.
|
State |
Jun ‘09 |
Jul ‘09 |
| California |
11.6 |
11.9 |
| District of Columbia |
10.9 |
10.6 |
| Florida |
10.6 |
10.7 |
| Georgia |
10.1 |
10.3 |
| Illinois |
10.3 |
10.4 |
| Indiana |
10.7 |
10.6 |
| Kentucky |
10.9 |
11.0 |
| Michigan |
15.2 (1) |
15.0 (1) |
| Nevada |
12.0 |
12.5 (3) |
| North Carolina |
11.0 |
11.0 |
|
Ohio |
11.1 |
11.2 |
| Oregon |
12.2 |
11.9 |
| Rhode Island |
12.4 (2) |
12.7 (2) |
| South Carolina |
12.1 (3) |
11.8 |
| Tennessee |
10.8 |
10.7 |
There is no way these employment surveys are good to within +/- 0.5% in my opinion, and that is confirmed in the link to the July data. None of these states are considered statistically changed from June to July (see table near bottom).
One other item to note in the latest employment data is the number of people on extended and emergency unemployment benefits: As of August 15th:
|
|
Aug 1 |
July 1 |
A Year Ago |
| Extended Benefits |
400,779 |
448,830 |
1,599 |
| Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) |
2,877,756 |
2,785,372 |
1,406779 |
The number of people right now on extended and emergency unemployment is just mind boggling.
It is no surprise why Americans are seeing the stimulus as an utter failure, because it is a failure. What is worse, by not addressing the problem in a timely manner and by letting months and months slip by without injecting money into the economy, the liberals are about to see their handiwork create another round of economic jitters.
This nation’s economy may not be able to stay where it is or move upward if people are unemployed or underemployed. The impact is reduced consumer spending and more bankruptcies. It seems record numbers of people are still struggling to just keep their homes:
More than one in every eight homeowners with a mortgage was behind on home loan payments or in some stage of foreclosure at the end of the second quarter, as mounting unemployment aggravated the housing crisis, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Thursday.
The percentage of loans that were in foreclosure or at least one payment past due rose to 13.16 per cent, the highest increase since the MBA began keeping records in 1972 and a jump of more than a percentage point since the first quarter.
Jay Brinkmann, chief economist at the MBA, said signs were growing that mortgage performance is being affected more by unemployment than by the structure of risky home loans, indicating a new stage in the foreclosure crisis that may not be easily addressed by government loan modification programmes.
We may not really know which way things are going until September, but the data we are seeing in August doesn’t look too good to me. And to this day 98% of the job stimulus money I have been tracking is still stuck in the bowels of the federal bureaucracy.
A stat I heard today was that EXISTING home sales were up 7% … but buried at the end of the report was the information that prices were down 15%. When combined with the foreclosure data, it is pretty easy to see that the massive destruction of wealth for the average person from their largest investment (their home) continues unabated.
More mortgages are “under water” as home prices continue their decline. That means still no home equity. In fact, homeowners are losing equity, overall, at a 15% annual rate. Home ownership has gone from a great investment to a destroyer of wealth. Would you buy something that is going to be worth 15% less next year than it was this year? Sales might be up but I believe it is going to be repos that are driving those numbers. I will be most interested in NEW home sales.
New home sales for June 09 were over 20% below sales in June 08.
So you have people’s equity cleaned out from their homes, if they had home equity lines of credit, their loan is probably under water, values are continuing to decline, and we are still losing a half-million jobs a month.
This is key data that is not to be confused with the unemployment data:
That is the loss of 4,863,000 jobs since November. That isn’t 4.86 million people out of work … that is 4.86 million people who can’t be PUT to work because the job is no longer there. The company has gone out of business or has restructured and eliminated the job. Yes, the job destruction is slowing, but we are still seeing job destruction. It has slowed from 1.3 million jobs every 2 months to 1.3 million jobs every four months.
California now has higher unemployment than at any time in the state’s history. The taxes and regulations the state is putting on business is causing companies to flee. MORE government regulations are not the answer. MORE taxes are not the answer.
All one has to do is look at what the stimulus money was spent on to see why there is no economic stimulus. It was generally a “spending bill”, not a “jobs creation” bill.
Also, if you get a chance, watch the Gerald Celente video:
Video: Obamageddon in 2012?
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/21/video-obamageddon-in-2012/
Chilling.
Evidentally Celente has a good track record on predictions.
Then read this:
Is the United States in a “low grade” civil war?
http://www.gaypatriot.net/2009/08/21/is-the-united-states-in-a-low-grade-civil-war/
There is a storm brewing out there. I hope and pray America can get it together before things reach the economic point Celente talked about.
I keep having these words running through my mind and I can’t seem to shake the thoughts that they conger up. The words, fundamentally change America, those under the boss need to prosper too (Joe the Plumber), the waitress who is raising children need money too, it’s not fair that some have and some don’t. And it goes on and on. Do you know that there are 44 czars? Who is this Barack Obama anyway?
Oh my – Arlen Specter caught on film today making Sarah Palin jokes.
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/21/oh-my-specter-makes-palin-joke-during-er-stand-up-comedy-act/
Anyone still wish he was part of the Republican Party?
Anyone still think he did the Dem’s a favor by switching parties? Judging by the latest Sestak/Specter polls, Dem’s sure don’t.
WWS,
I thought the Palin joke was hilarious. I can’t understand why no one would find that funny?
“Stimulus Package Only Working For Government Bureaucratsâ€
And sign makers
[…] Governments in the US have added jobs during this recession, as they have in most economic downturns. Tell us that story again about how government healthcare is not going to add to the deficit. And by the way, California unemployment is at 12%, a post WWII high.. HT: AJ Strata […]
Government workers tend to belong to unions affiliated with the SEIU. Things are working according to plan.