What Will The Excuse Be?
by Big Dog on Jan 15, 2012 at 12:44 Political
The jobless rate has dropped a bit over the last month and we are bombarded with stories about how the Obama recovery plan is working. This is proof (though when it continued to rise it was not proof that the recovery plan was a failure) and we should all be thankful that we have the fourth greatest prez ever running the country (his own assessment, not mine).
The jobless rate is down for several reasons. The seasonal hiring for Christmas helped and the number of people looking for work decreased as people became disparaged and stopped actively looking. These people are not counted. The rate will go lower if the denominator is smaller.
Now that Christmas is over and companies have let the temps go the number will rise again. Once people start actively looking again, the number will go up. How will the regime spin those numbers.
You can be sure that the very people who ignored the people who stopped looking when the number went down will be jumping up and down telling us that the number is only higher because of those very people.
Things are not good and they are really not any better than when King Barack Hussein took office. The economy is sinking, the national debt is rising rapidly and crushing us under its weight. We have plans for cutting that amount to the effect of spitting in the ocean and saying the level had risen. They are pathetic and will not bring us back to fiscal responsibility.
We need to get a handle on social welfare programs. We need to cut spending across the board and we need to eliminate redundant government programs. Lacking this, we will be Greece in no time.
Our debt is now more than 100% of our GDP and that is a very bad sign of things to come.
While Rome burns Nero Obama is fiddling. He is playing class warfare to let us know he will not let the 50% who pay no federal taxes be burdened by the 50% who don’t pay their fair share…
November is our chance to get things back on track by throwing the Socialist and his regime out one their ears.
Related:
Bloomberg
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: debt, economy, lies, Obama, socialism
“The jobless rate is down for several reasons.”
You forgot the main reason: 22 straight months of positive private sector job growth worth 3.156 million jobs.
Seasonal hires did boost the December numbers, I agree, but that doesn’t account for the trend that has seen U-3 fall from 9.1 in August to 8.5 in December.
Part of the change in workforce is a demographic change. It’s not all just that people got discouraged and left. We’ll never get many of those workers back.
I’ve generally been promoting the idea that unemployment will increase slightly over the next few months before continuing a downward trend to about 7.9% the day Obama wins re-election.
“Things are not good and they are really not any better than when King Barack Hussein took office.”
I know you’ve slept a few nights since January 2009 but are you really going to say things aren’t better now than then?
Conservatives have been banking on economic pessimism and poor results but you aren’t getting it. Q4-2011 is looking like a decent growth quarter and economists are generally more optimistic about 2012 today than they were about 2012 this time last year. Your only hope now is for Europe to drag us into a recession so you can pretend you predicted it and it’s all Obama’s fault.
Gee Adam, where do those workers go “that we will never get back”? Sri Lanka? Give me a break- many of those will become freeloaders, as they learn to game the system. What we need is “Workfare”, not welfare. Make them push a broom, pick up trash- something for the money, rather than sitting on their asses watching “The Price Is Right”.
There has been a demographic change in the workforce that started 10 years ago and will continue. BLS reported this in their 2009 employment projections report:
Baby boomers beginning to retire, more people going to college, women leaving the workforce, and of course the recession creating discouraged workers are all contributing to a decline in workforce participation.
You will notice that the report indicates that GROWTH is expected but that it is slower than expected. This flies in the face of the decline in participation. In other words, there will be growth but it will be slower than expected.
As for Baby Boomers, their participation is expected to increase by 12 million. They are not retiring, they are working longer.
In fact, the report indicates that there should be a higher growth rate because the period in question started during a recession and yet, we still have a lower participation rate.
Another important part of the report:
Look at the first line”…projected INCREASE in labor force and projected INCREASE in employment…”
Both are projected increases regardless of whether they are as high as expected a drop in participation is not an increase at all.
Then again, this is the BLS. It always revises numbers and they are usually down. Those revisions do not get the fanfare that the first blush numbers get.
The seasonally adjusted numbers show Obama lost 1.6 million jobs, unadjusted shows a gain of 1.1 million. The numbers used always depend on whether they are an advantage or not. We have a net loss of jobs and the real reason for the drop in UE is the loss of people looking and we will eventually get them back. They don’t just leave though many will end up on the government dole.
The economy is poor and is not getting any better. It is easy to hide this in the numbers but we see real inflation (even though food and fuel are not counted) because we see the prices for things rising.
We see a debt of trillions added by Obama and no plan to pay it. We are at greater than 100% of GDP and it is getting worse.
I have no doubt that the numbers folks who work for him will try to make things look good for his reelection campaign but the reality is that those of us who have to live in the real world know things are no better now than they were then.
We will see a lot more foreclosures because government can’t interfere any longer and those held up by government will begin this year. UE will trend back up and real UE (over 17 now) will still be high.
As high as anyone who thinks Obama will be reelected without some voter shenanigans.
I know you have slept through much of history 9and you were not taught it in school) but we have seen this play before and it always ends the same.
Things are as bad as they were, any gains made were not worth the expense and we have fewer people working now than when he took office.
Fewer people working now than then with a population increase. 12 million UE to 13 million UE is an increse of 1 million UE. Labor rate from 65.7% to 64% is a decrease of 1.7%. Things can’t be better if more people are not working and the labor participation is lower. But, you can use math to make it LOOK good.
“The seasonally adjusted numbers show Obama lost 1.6 million jobs, unadjusted shows a gain of 1.1 million.”
Seasonally adjusted is almost always the way to go for job numbers anyway. I’m not even sure what unadjusted numbers are good for.
“We have a net loss of jobs…”
We do have a net loss, but we don’t need a net increase of jobs for unemployment to decline for real. I’m not sure of your point.
“…and the real reason for the drop in UE is the loss of people looking and we will eventually get them back.”
Again, discouraged people are a factor but U-6 measures marginally attached. If the decline in U-3 was related to people giving up then U-6 would stay the same or even increase. U-6 has decreased 1% since August and U-3 has gone down 0.6%. U-6 is almost always double U-3 no matter what.
So while workers are certainly discouraged, we’ve still added back about 2.5 million jobs in the last 2 years.
“The economy is poor and is not getting any better.”
Inflation has no place to go but up, and it’s not that bad. It also won’t be that worse in the future.
Debt is high, yes, but mostly because of the recession. The plan to pay off debt is to control spending for the most part and hopefully have sustained economic growth. If we have a recession every 5 years we’ll pretty much never pay off the debt. We’ll just have to gut social programs which is what you’d love to see. Those kind of cuts hurt even more during recessions and reduce economic growth. The obsession with debt over economic growth has got to die.
“Things can’t be better if more people are not working and the labor participation is lower. But, you can use math to make it LOOK good.”
Jobs are important but we had a jobless recovery under Bush and we still had a recovery nonetheless. Give the housing market more time to recover added to another year or two of decent GDP growth and we’ll be back on track. The only question is who will be in the White House to take the credit when that happens.
Unemployment is not declining for real. The UE number reported does not include those not looking for work (disaffected or marginally attached). When they are included the UE rate went up 0.2 in December.
This increase occurred as the reported rate dropped 0.1%. The actual rate when everyone is counted was 15.2% in December.
Bush had a jobless recovery? The natural unemployment rate is considered 5%. This number (or close too it) represents full employment. Bush came in at 4.2 and thre was an increase after 9/11/01. It did not get higher than 6.3% and started to go down after that (6/03) and was at 5% in 12/07 when the “great recession” started. It was 5.8% in 7/08 and ended at 7.3% his last full month in office(7.8 in the month he shared with Obama). The first recession saw us gain jobs (even with 9/11 factored in) and the second did not end in his term. The Democrat recession (they were in control) led to this mess but Bush had a good rate for most of his two terms. his numbers were close to full employment most of the time aznd were very similar to Clinton’s.
Yet, no one was ever out of a job under Clinton and the entire country was unemployed under Bush. Hell, it is the same way with homeless. They do not exist under a Democrat but are big stories under a Republican.
Look at the numbers. Obama has only been under 9 for 6 of 36 months reported…Bush was never above 7.3% and he had the recession for a year before the hope and change was elected promising to fix it all.
We need to fix debt, that is the major issue. We cannot continue to spend and we can’t think that growth will get us out of it when we are at greater than 100% GDP. Look at the European countries. Look at Greece. Spending did not fix its problems and the social programs are an anchor around the country’s neck.
We need to reform social programs to have minimal participation and have those folks working to add to the GDP. Cutting our costs and our spending will help increase the GDP when we put people off the government dole and make them earn a living.
I know it is hard for you but history is full of examples, some of them are very recent.
Our downgrade took place on Obama’s watch and is partly the result of excessive spending.
More people working and fewer on welfare always works well. Look at significant welfare countries and see how poorly they are doing. Not one is doing well. No country where government is the provider ever does.
It is how civilizations become extinct.
“You will notice that the report indicates that GROWTH is expected but that it is slower than expected. This flies in the face of the decline in participation. In other words, there will be growth but it will be slower than expected.”
No, it doesn’t, actually. As I’m sure you know, the participation rate is the ratio of “Civilian labor force” and “Civilian noninstitutional population”. BLS isn’t projecting the population growth to slow, just the labor force growth. If population grows quicker than labor (as BLS projects), then the ratio goes down. If labor grows quicker than population it goes up.
It also discusses that the measures differ in concept and how they count. But you are saying if one number changes it affects the other. Hmmm, sort of like those not counted in the UE number…
“Hmmm, sort of like those not counted in the UE number…”
You’ll have to expand on that for me.
“The actual rate when everyone is counted was 15.2% in December.”
That is the underemployment rate, not the “actual rate” but you’re simply proving my point. U3 declined from 8.7% to 8.5%. U6 declined from 15.6% to 15.2%. If U3 only declined because of marginally attached workers then why did U6 decline as well?
“Bush had a jobless recovery?”
Jobless recovery is not to imply employment never recovered. You know that. The rest of the economy simply recovered without jobs so there was no robust growth, just like now. That was OK then because 6.3% was the peak, not 10%. It took 4 years for unemployment to return to pre-recession levels after the 2001 recession. Looks like it could be 5 or even 6 for this one but that is pretty good considering 2001 was 4.3% to 6.3% but 2007 was 4.4% to 10.1%.
“More people working and fewer on welfare always works well.”
I agree. But getting there? We don’t agree.