Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, History, Politics, Progressivism | Tags: Increases Unemployment, The Minimum Wage, Unemployment
The do-gooders believe that by passing a law saying that nobody shall get less than $9 per hour (adjusted for today) or whatever the minimum wage is, you are helping poor people who need the money. You are doing nothing of the kind. What you are doing is to assure, that people whose skills, are not sufficient to justify that kind of a wage will be unemployed.
The minimum wage law is most properly described as a law saying that employers must discriminate against people who have low skills. That’s what the law says. The law says that here’s a man who has a skill that would justify a wage of $5 or $6 per hour (adjusted for today), but you may not employ him, it’s illegal, because if you employ him you must pay him $9 per hour. So what’s the result? To employ him at $9 per hour is to engage in charity. There’s nothing wrong with charity. But most employers are not in the position to engage in that kind of charity. Thus, the consequences of minimum wage laws have been almost wholly bad. We have increased unemployment and increased poverty.
Moreover, the effects have been concentrated on the groups that the do-gooders would most like to help. The people who have been hurt most by the minimum wage laws are the blacks. I have often said that the most anti-black law on the books of this land is the minimum wage law.
There is absolutely no positive objective achieved by the minimum wage law. Its real purpose is to reduce competition for the trade unions and make it easier for them to maintain the higher wages of their privileged members.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Election 2012, Freedom, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, The United States | Tags: Adding Jobs, Mitt Romney, Unemployment
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Election 2012, Freedom, Politics | Tags: Dropped Out of Labor Force, Obama's Accomplishments, Unemployment
Vanderleun found an overlooked video from 2009, It packs a lot more punch today.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Election 2010, Politics, Progressivism, Taxes | Tags: Economics, Obamacare, Unemployment
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Politics | Tags: Economy, Growing Debt, Unemployment
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Election 2012, Humor, Politics, Progressivism, The United States | Tags: The Failing Economy, The Obama Campaign, Unemployment
On Sunday’s State of the Union, CNN’s Candy Crowley struggled valiantly to understand the message the Obama campaign is presenting to voters. She interviewed David Plouffe, White House Senior Adviser who was Obama’s campaign manager for the 2008 campaign. So, who should know better just what the message the Obama Campaign is proposing for his second term will be?
It is pretty obvious to everyone who is paying attention to politics, that Obama really hasn’t got much to run on. Unemployment remains extremely high although the recession officially ended in June of 2009. Spending is out of control and the debt threatens every American.
A free-market economy wants to recover after a recession. Left entirely alone, the economy gradually will recover. Politicians can’t leave it alone, they always hope to make it faster and less painful. Instead, it has only gotten worse, and three-and-a-half years later blaming Bush is wearing more than a little thin. The green energy and green jobs have been a flop, so why should we give him another four years? That’s what Candy Crowley wants to know. What is his message?
Here is the transcript. Do read it, it is beyond entertaining, and revealing as well. Candy is persistent, and just won’t give up. And the video is at the end of the transcript. Enjoy. It’s great fun.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Election 2012, Politics, Progressivism | Tags: Job Creation, Obama, Recession, Unemployment
President Obama held a press conference today, and managed to commit a terrible gaffe. He said “the private sector is doing fine.” Here’s the whole quote:
The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government. Oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, Governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don’t have the same kind of flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in.
James Pethokoukis, who is very good at this kind of thing, says:
Private-sector jobs have increased by an average of just 105,000 over the past three months and by just 89,000 a month during the entire Obama Recovery.
In 1983 and 1984, during the supply-side Reagan Boom, private sector jobs increased by an average of 292,000 a month. Adjusted for population, that number is more like 375,000 private-sector jobs a month.
(Aside:) I wonder how many people are just turned off, at this point, by more numbers. The efforts to make American students love math have not been very successful, and it may be hereditary. When your kid brings home some math problems that he can’t figure out — how many parents just make the situation worse, and continue a distaste for math in another generation?
To keep it simple, I wrote down this number from a reliable source, I just don’t remember who it was. To keep up with population growth, we would need to add 125,000 new jobs each month. So we would need 1,500,000 new jobs in the last year, so Obama’s job creation came up 700,000 short. Or to take James Pethokoukis’ average number of 89,000 a month — Obama would have needed 1,068,000 jobs in the last year to keep up with his own average. 800,000 just won’t cut it. Somebody’s math here is wrong.
Somebody apparently alerted Mr. Obama to what he has said in the press conference, so he rushed back for the nearest microphone to say no, he didn’t mean that “the private sector was doing fine.” What he meant was that Congress had to stop being lazy and not doing anything and pass his jobs bill. Congress has no interest in passing his jobs bill, and has rejected his budget unanimously.
The President has held 16 ‘campaign events’ over the last 7 days and flown in Air Force One to 6 states. More campaign events that all previous presidents, but he likes campaigning, it is the actual job of being president that he doesn’t seem to care for.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Economy, Politics | Tags: Unemployment, Weak Jobs Report, Worst Economic Recovery
“The Worst Economic Recovery in History” trumpets the headline in the Wall Street Journal over a column by Edward Lazear, chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2006-2009. “Weak March jobs report could spell trouble for Obama’s reelection bid” says the headline from the Hill.
U.S. employers added just 120,000 net jobs last month— the smallest increase since last October. The U.S. economy hasn’t been below 8% since Obama took office in January 2009. Back in May 2007, unemployment was just 4.4%. Average hourly wages are up just 2.1% over last year, but inflation is up 2.9%. American workers are losing ground. March was expected to yield another positive report, but job gains were almost 100,000 below expectations.
The broader U6 measure of unemployment which includes the discouraged and the part timers is still a sky high 14.5%. Everyone juggles the numbers and attaches their own meaning. The president regards it as another step in the recovery, if one that is a bit of a disappointment. But the U.S. needs to generate 262,000 jobs each month to get back to the breakeven point.
Obama says, on the campaign trail, that he knows there’s still work to be done, but those dastardly Republicans want to make tough choices about the deficit, and cut taxes. He wants to invest in education, and science and research. He wants to make sure that our air is clean and our water is clean, that we’re not poisoning our kids. See how dastardly the Republicans are?
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Election 2012, Liberalism | Tags: National Debt, Stimulus Failure, Unemployment
It was three years ago that Obama signed the much celebrated $787 billion Stimulus Bill into law. Friday was the anniversary. So after three years, how do the results stack up? (From Investors Business Daily)
Obama claimed it would “create or save” up to 3.5 million jobs, and unleash a “new wave of innovation, activity and construction across America.” The stimulus would, he promised “ignite spending by businesses and consumers” and bring “real and lasting change for generations to come.”
Unemployment rate February 2009: 8.3%. February 2012: 8.3% unchanged.
Long term unemployed: the number of workers unable to find a job in 27 months or more has shot up by 83%. They number now 5.5 million.
Size of the civilian labor force: Declined by 126,000. In past recoveries, the labor force climbed by an average of 3 million over the same time period.
Household income is about 7% below where it was in February 2009.
National debt: Up by 41% or $4.5 trillion since February 2009. The latest Treasury figures put the national debt at $15.4 trillion, larger than the entire U.S. economy.
The deficit for fiscal year 2009 was $1.4 trillion, the proposed deficit for 2012 is $1.3 trillion for the fourth year of trillion dollar deficits.
Over the past 3 years from Q1 2009 to Q4 2011, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has climbed only 6%, according to the Bureau of Economic analysis.
The original estimate for the Stimulus was $787 billion but the CBO says it has grown to $825 billion. The official name was HR1: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Best measure: Obama’s latest budget request calls for another round of stimulus. He wants $350 billion over the next four years for “short-term measures for jobs growth”
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Economy, Humor, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics | Tags: Jobs, Spending, Unemployment
No Town hall meetings? Absent from office hours? Just where is your Congressman? They have a lot to answer for, and a lot to explain!
(h/t: The Foundry)
Filed under: Conservatism, Election 2010, Liberalism, Politics | Tags: Debunking Liberal Lies, Economy, Spending, Unemployment
(h/t: National Review)
Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Progressivism | Tags: Economics, President Obama, Unemployment
President Obama gave a speech to a town hall meeting in Racine, Wisconsin this week. Straw men, not his fault, economy recovering, Recovery Act working, Bush’s fault, Republicans won’t help, stimulus worked, more straw men, border more secure than ever, not his fault, more straw men. Promoting the “merits” of his stimulus bill, President Obama said:
Now, every economist who’s looked at it said that the Recovery [Act] did its job…The problem is, number one, it’s hard to argue sometimes, “things could have been a lot worse. Right? So people kind of say, “Yeah, but unemployment’s still at 9.6 percent.” Yes, but it’s not 12 or 13 or 15. People say “Well, you know, the stock market didn’t fully recover.” Yeah, but it’s recovered more than people expected last year. So part of the challenge in delivering this message about all the Recovery Act accomplished is that things are still tough, they just aren’t as bad as they could have been.. They could have been a catastrophe. In that sense [the stimulus] worked.
New claims for jobless benefits jumped last month by 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 472,000. The number of people continuing to claim benefits rose by 43,000 to 9.6 million. The number collecting extended benefits fell by 376,000. Since unemployment figures count only those actively seeking work, the real number is said to be around 17 percent.
“Unemployment’s still at 9.6 percent.
But it’s not 12 or 13 or 25.”
Every economist certainly did not say that the Recovery Act did its job. Alan Meltzer, professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon, said in the Wall Street Journal yesterday “The administration’s stimulus program has failed.” as innumerable other economists have said. Even Keynesian economist Jeffrey Sachs said that the stimulus failed.
Allan Meltzer added that “The president, his friends and advisers talk endlessly about the circumstances they inherited as a way of avoiding responsibility for the 18 months for which they are responsible. But they want new stimulus measures — which is convincing evidence that they too recognize that the earlier measures failed.”
Obama got somewhat of a chilly reception from world leaders at the G-20 summit over the past weekend when he pressed them to continue with spending to bolster the global economy. Many nations in Europe and elsewhere have had to grapple with their own debt crises, and have been forced to enact tough austerity measures.
In 1981, President Reagan reduced marginal and corporate tax rates and slowed the growth of nondefense spending. Recovery began about a year later. After 18 months, the economy grew more than 9% and continued to expand above trend rates. The administration economists neglected the longer-term consequences of their actions.
Economist Larry Kudlow says:
The economic power of business is the missing link in the faux debate that is now raging over spending and deficit policies. A brief look at the recent jobs report for June tells this story. After spending more than $1 trillion through so-called government stimulus, we are at best experiencing a grinding and anemic jobs recovery. Private payrolls are growing slowly. The workweek is again shrinking. And average hourly earnings have declined. The unemployment rate dropped to 9.5 percent, but that’s because 650,000 people left the labor force.
The economic power of business is the missing link in the faux debate that is now raging over spending and deficit policies. A brief look at the recent jobs report for June tells this story. After spending more than $1 trillion through so-called government stimulus, we are at best experiencing a grinding and anemic jobs recovery. Private payrolls are growing slowly. The workweek is again shrinking. And average hourly earnings have declined. The unemployment rate dropped to 9.5 percent, but that’s because 650,000 people left the labor force.
So what about all this stimulus spending? Well, it hasn’t worked.
Business, in order to hire, plan for the future, increase spending, needs more than vague hope. They need some kind of certainty. Right now, everything is up in the air. There’s a new health care law, how much will it cost business? Nobody knows. Will the Bush tax-cuts be extended? Will Congress enact new taxes? What is in the new Dodd-Frank bill’s 2000+ pages and how will it affect business? What new regulations are going to be imposed? Cap-and-trade would be an enormous cost on doing business, will it pass, and what will it mean to business? Are we in for a double-dip recession? How can a business, hoping to make a profit in an economy where everyone is reluctant to buy, reluctant to spend, know what to do?
Misdiagnosis of the problem, and a lack of understanding of the possible remedies has made the problem far worse than it needed to be. The far left blames “capitalism” for most of the world’s problems, but “capitalism” is simply the name Marx gave to the free market.
Unemployment is the problem. Yet most policies adopted by the Obama administration increase unemployment. Slapping a heavy tax on makers of medical devices means lower employment in that industry. Unnecessarily shutting down all oil rigs in the Gulf creates huge unemployment as rigs leave the area. Failing to take quick action to prevent oil slicks from reaching the coastline means unemployment all up and down the coast. Requiring people to switch to CFL lightbulbs means that industry will take place in China. Closing federal lands to oil exploration means lost jobs. Putting too many regulations and taxes on business means businesses will move to somewhere where they are better treated. There are always consequences.
