Maybe because Ronald Reagan had a college degree in economics and might have known a little bit about what he was hearing from the economists.

Hopey change graphs will most likely be out prior to the 2010 elections, the way the dems are going.

Now is the time for Democratic Red and Purple state Congressmen to panic.

See what Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said here:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=8594380

U.S. Unemployment Not to Peak Until 2011: Krugman
By Marja Novak
Reuters
LJUBLJANA

Unemployment in the United States will peak only in early 2011 because of a slow and painful recovery from the global economic crisis, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said on Wednesday.

“(U.S.) unemployment will peak in early 2011 … certainly staying very high and possibly rising all next year,” Krugman told a business meeting in Slovenia, adding his forecast was based on data from previous U.S. economic crises.

That is bad news for Democrats all the way around. The voters cut Reagan some slack — but not Congressional Republicans — in his first term because he convinced them he was trying hard on the economy.

They won’t do so for Obama in 2012 because he has openly focused on matters other than the economy, and thereby convinced voters that it isn’t his priority.

This will badly hurt Obama in 2012.

However, down ballot Democrats across the country will get hit first, and harder.

And I’m talking only public perception here.

It’ll only get worse, employment wise, as the Bush tax rate cuts end in 2010 and higher tax rates in 2011 force companies to cut back employment even more.

Just look at the timing of the significant tax increases from expiration of the Bush first term tax cuts.

If the economy is still in recession in 2011 as Krugman predicts, those tax increases will keep it there. And they might turn it into a full-bore depression. Major tax increases during major recessions tend to do that.

What Dick Morris says here about Obama Care is even worse news for Democrats:

http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2009/09/17/obamas-headwind-on-health-care/

Before Obama addressed the nation and a joint session of Congress, his proposals drew only 45% approval (Rasmussen). But after he spoke, support for his health care proposals rose until it peaked at 52%. Then, a scant week after his speech ended, public support had quietly but quickly eroded back down to 42%.

It is no surprise that a nationally televised presidential speech can move support for the chief executive’s program by 7 points. But it is shocking that – in the absence of any other major independent negative event – these new supporters would flee in the space of one week and that three percent more would move against him.

IOW, the more people talk about health care reform that is popular with the Democratic Party primary voting base, the more _unpopular_ it becomes. Especially when it gets framed as Morris put it here:

It is, (Obamacare) essentially, a program to force people who don’t need it to buy health insurance so as to lower costs for those who do and to subsidize part of the price tag by cutting medical care to the elderly.

I can see few ways to effectively unite the young and the elderly against health care reform, and Democrats generally, but the Obama Democrats seem to have found it.

The Red/Purple District Democrats seem on course for a perfect storm of their own making. They made a “stimulus bill” into a vehicle for $787 billion corrupt pork in exchange for a few hundred thousand dollars of campaign contributions in 2009.

Now what good will that do them?

AJ, why can’t you make a nice hopey-change graph for once.

This doesn’t bode well for Labor in the UK:

LABOUR is heading for a “really bad defeat” unless the party dramatically improves its performance, Peter Hain, the cabinet minister, warned last night.

…

“There is an emerging consensus in the Labour party that we should change the electoral system,” he said.

The ballot, which would happen after a general election, will propose the “alternative vote” system where voters rate candidates in order of preference. “It would help repair the gaping chasm of credibility which exists between citizens and politicians,” said Hain.

If a voting reform bill does become law, it would be a “poison pill” for an incoming Conservative government. David Cameron, the Tory leader, would be forced to decide whether to use political capital and parliamentary time to repeal the legislation.

So they sense they are in deep trouble so what is their suggestion? Like Liberals everywhere … CHEAT! Change the election system! Novel idea.

I suspect that if they actually tried that, they would be out of office for a century and the law would be changed right back.

Labour lost practically every seat they held in the County Council elections. It may have been their worst drubbing in history. Seats they had held for decades were in some cases replaced with newcomer Conservatives who had zero name recognition.

So we have Italy, France, Germany, and now the UK moving right. Even Sweden is cutting taxes to spur business growth.

The US liberals will soon be a laughing stock in European capitals. It is really going to leave a mark on the ego of the Democrats who believe they are all so sophisticated and closer to European ideals.

Their only friends in a few years will be the Chinese, the Russians, Cuba, Venezuela, and possibly Iran. I believe it is possible that the Democrats might not only lose both houses of Congress, they might be on their way to losing several state legislatures and governors as well.

After the European Parliament elections saw a swing to the right, the Germans have now done the same. The UK is poised to make a massive turn to the right as the Labour Party is polling behind the Conservative Party in practically every constituency.

In practice, a business eliminates minimum wage jobs for tasks that can be done by other employees or they simply outsource the task to (often SEIU affiliated) outside contract workers on an as-needed basis. That might be the actual point of all this … forcing jobs from non-union minimum wage employees for such jobs as custodial support to union contractors who might only come in a few days a week.

But the end result is loss of jobs overall but some gain in jobs for union contractors which results in more money for the union which, in turn, results in more cash to Democrats who made the law to begin with.

The correct mechanism is to abolish the minimum wage altogether. The market will determine what the minimum is and that will vary from one region to another. If you only want to pay $1 per hour, you aren’t going to find anyone to work for you. You will need to raise the pay rate to attract the required employee(s). And still if the rate is too low, you will not be able to keep employees. But most importantly, it allows wages to fluctuate with economic conditions. When the economy turns down, a business might find that it can attract employees for less money and when the economy rebounds, they will need to increase the wages to keep the ones they hired at the lower rate. Overall the impact is greater employment and less hardship.

The left wants to prevent workers from being “exploited” but nobody puts a gun to your head and makes you take a job and nobody forces you to stay in one, either.

Also, the problem only addresses a symptom, it doesn’t address the problem. Minimum wage is for unskilled labor. Why don’t the workers have any skill? Instead of jacking up labor rates through minimum wage hikes, why not fund more vocational programs at the high school level? When I was in high school, after grade 9 you could spend half the day at the county vocational school. You could learn electronics, carpentry, automotive repair, office skills, dental assistant skills, all sorts of things. The country no longer has that program so kids are graduating with no vocational skills whatsoever.

The real problem is the lack of vocational schooling at the high school level.

Obama should immediately get congress to hire 100% of all unemployed people under 25 years of age. They should all be ‘required’ to accept the job. They should all be hired at the minimum wage, whatever it is. So here are the calculations. each person will be paid 40 hours a week at $7.50. they should be taxed at 20 %. They should pay 7.65% EDIC and $3900 a year ‘required’ insurance. Let’s see where we are now. $3900/2000 = 1.95hr. (7.50 -(.20×7.50) – (.0765×7.50) – 1.95)=$3.46.

It is fairly obvious that using this strategy that 100% of the young people will have a job and the net income to the government will be (7.50-3.46) =$4.04-3.46= .58 hr.
So everyone will have a job and the government will be ‘making’ money instead of losing.

Now, I’ll freely admit that reality will set in at some point, but for right now, it works out much more favorable than most of the numbers I see coming out of Warshington.

now I don’t know how many under 25 unemployed there is, but let’s guess 10 million. 10 mill x .58Hr x 2000 hr/yr =$11.6billion a year ‘income’ to the gov.