Tag Archives: jobs

NEWSWEEK MAKES THE NEWS

The cover of Newsweek Magazine blares out “HIT THE ROAD, BARACK. Why We Need a New President” In the article behind the cover Niall Ferguson expresses the sentiments of many people with this comment.

Despite having been—full disclosure—an adviser to John McCain, I acknowledged his opponent’s remarkable qualities: his soaring oratory, his cool, hard-to-ruffle temperament, and his near faultless campaign organization.

Yet the question confronting the country nearly four years later is not who was the better candidate four years ago. It is whether the winner has delivered on his promises. And the sad truth is that he has not.

Actually the sad truth is Obama has delivered on his promises.  He promised in a speech to union members that he would establish us on the road to single payer (government only) healthcare, and he did.  He promised the folks at ACORN that he would put their interests first and he did.  He promised to completely transform America and he has made progress on that front too.  He may very well complete the job if re-elected.  He never did say he would get it all done in the first term.

There were, of course some promises he did not keep.  The oceans have not changed their habits.  The coal industry still exists.  He has not created a domestic police force larger than the military.  He didn’t bring the troops home immediately from Afghanistan as he said he would and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed did not get to see New York City.

Why are so many people disappointed in his jobs performance?  Obama’s economic policies are what you should expect when you put a socialist in charge.  He said in his book that he only had one job in the private sector and he considered it to be “working for the enemy.”  Did you think he would focus on helping the enemy create jobs?  In his campaign he stressed his experience as a community organizer.  An organizer’s job is to agitate one group so they will be angry enough to confront another group.  Did you think he would be a uniter?  I think I know why you are disappointed.  You didn’t do your homework.

MY 2 CENTS ON “YOU DIDN’T BUILD THAT”

 

“People know that vast personal incomes come not only through the effort or ability or luck of those who receive them, but also because of the opportunities for advantage which Government itself contributes.  Therefore, the duty rests upon the Government to restrict such incomes by very high taxes.”

Who said that?  It was not our current president.  Here’s a clue – It was the only President in our history who presided over an even longer economic recovery than Barack Obama.  It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt in an address to Congress in 1935.  It is no coincidence that the economic policies of both presidents failed.  Minds that think alike produce results that look alike.  Roosevelt ordered thousands of young pigs to be destroyed to raise the price of pork – in a depression!  Obama ordered thousands of serviceable cars destroyed which raised the cost of transportation for lower income families — in a recession.

As the opening quote attests, Roosevelt sought to siphon money from the employer class to pay for federal government programs.  Obama seeks to do the same.  Roosevelt’s plan for recovery was to put people to work on the taxpayer’s payroll, not in the private sector.  See the CCC and WPA.  Obama’s plan is to rebuild roads and bridges (WPA) and subsidize unprofitable environmental programs like the Solyndra (CCC).

Roosevelt took measures later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.  See The Schechter Brothers and the NRA (National Industrial Recovery Act).  Obama has also been at odds with the Supreme Court.  Both presidents felt restrained by the Court, as well they should.  The Court is there to protect the people from an overreaching government.  Both presidents sought powers beyond those stipulated by our founders, albeit for different reasons.

When two presidents think so much alike and manage economic recoveries with results that are so much alike, it’s not coincidence.  It’s because their policies don’t work.  And what are those different reasons?  Roosevelt’s goal was to restore the economy and benefit lower income workers.  He just didn’t know how to do it.  Obama’s goal is to put a choker on capitalism and completely transform America.  He knows what he is doing.  It’s up to the voters not to let him do it.

 

FORTY-ONE STRAIGHT MONTHS OVER EIGHT PERCENT

Unemployment has been 8% or higher for the last 41 months and Barack Obama said in Ohio on Friday that the country is headed in the right direction.  If that’s the case, I have to ask just where it is he thinks we should go?

The U6 number which includes would-be workers who have given up and dropped off the stats is pushing very close to 15%.  The country hasn’t experienced such economic malaise lasting this long since the Great Depression, literally.

Increasing taxes on the rich won’t create jobs.  Adding an immeasurable cost of doing business with a health care plan when we still don’t know what’s in it won’t create jobs.  Blocking energy programs like the Keystone Pipeline and placing moratoriums on drilling in the Gulf doesn’t create jobs.  Subsidizing green energy programs like Solyndra hasn’t created any net jobs.  The Joint Economic Committee led by Congressman Kevin Brady issued a report saying that the Obama recovery now ranks dead last in modern times.  Spending stimulus, housing bailouts, auto bailouts, financial bailouts, cash for clunkers, extending unemployment benefits and $5 trillion in deficit spending left the Obama recovery dead last in modern times.

If you are a President, how do you create jobs?  You don’t.  Business creates jobs; you clear the road stand aside and cheer.  You don’t stand in the middle, over-regulate and jeer — and then blame the lack of progress on your predecessor.

WHO ARE THE PEOPLE WORSHIPPING AT THE ALTER OF MATERIALISM AND GREED ?

A combination of the success of the free market system and gradual increase of government largess has all but eliminated depression style poverty.  The poverty argument no longer engenders the same level of anger when those classed as poor have cell phones and iPads, drive cars, own homes and still pay no income tax.

Today’s anger is not about poverty; it’s about riches.  The Wall Street protesters are not fighting poverty; they are protesting the unequal distribution of wealth.  They are protesting the fact that some people have more than they do and they want some of it.  All you need to do to see why the Occupiers have less is to examine a cross section of them and compare it a cross section of Tea Party types, or upper East-side New York liberals for that matter.

All the rich want to do is keep some of their own money and pay out the rest in taxes and give some to charity.  They don’t want to take money from someone else just because someone else has it.  Wanting more money may be greed, but isn’t wanting someone else’s money without earning it an even greater greed?  The Occupiers want someone else’s money.  And they want it to they can buy the latest iPods and better cars.  If they really want to end greed they should get a job.

The COLUMN Sept 30, 2011

John Stossel

Image via Wikipedia

Quote of the day
”The truth is we have too few jobs today because government stands in the way.  If I’m an employer, why would I want to hire someone when Congress and the Labor Department have so many rules that I might not be able to fire that person if he can’t do the job?  Why would I take a risk on an investment when still-to-be-written rules about Obamacare, financial regulation and the environment could turn my good idea into a losing venture?”  John Stossel

From the You-Can’t-Make-This-Stuff-Up Department
The State of Oregon was a five million dollar gold star by the Obama administration for putting more people on the Food Stamp program.  This is not to cover the cost, mind you; it’s a cash bonus for performance.  What’s next, a ten million dollar reward to New York if they increase the crime rate?

Grease
The skids are being Greeced and the European Union will slip by without breaking up – this time.  That’s our opinion, but it’s a squeaker.  It certainly wasn’t conservative policies of spending within your means or rule of law that got the European nations into their mess.  But it’s conservative policies that will get the public blame.  The left will see to that.  Sarkozy of France and Merkel of Germany are in big trouble with the voters already and the final deal is yet to be signed.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT

Dear Mr. President,

Here is my plan for fixing the economy.

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force.  Pay each of them 1 million dollars tax free severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire.
Forty million new job openings – Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a house or pay off their mortgage.
Housing Crisis fixed.

3) They MUST buy a new American made car.
Auto Industry fixed.

4) They MUST travel abroad and talk quietly in restaurants.
The reputation of Americans in Europe fixed.

You put 535 million dollars into just one corporation, Solyndra, and it didn’t create a single positive job.  In fact, Solyndra was responsible for 1,100 negative jobs when your friends closed up the shop after they got the money.  My plan creates positive jobs and will pay for itself by taking millions off the unemployment rolls, turning them from tax receivers to tax payers.  (Don’t do the math.  The President doesn’t.  Why should we?)

If more money is needed, have all the members of your administration and Congress pay their taxes.

Sincerely yours,  a man over 50

IT’S JOINT SESSION DAY

It’s eight o’clock in the morning on the day of  THE BIG JOBS SPEECH.  My neck is stuck way out.  I am going to predict what The Man is going and not going to say.  When I went to school, anything above 65% was passing.  Let’s see how I do on this one.

According to the advanced billing the raison d’être of the speech is to promote the creation of jobs.  But the speech itself will be about the support and expansion of government, both federal and state.  Obama will call for $300,000,000,000 (300 B) with much of it slated for infrastructure.  Infrastructure is in the government domain.  We heard this plan two years and a few billion dollars ago.  It didn’t work then and it won’t now.  Or as Yogi Berra might say – It didn’t work the first time and you can’t stop it from not working again.

”The definition of an Obama is someone who keeps repeating the same mistake over and over, each time expecting a different result.”      Al Einstein, from Brooklyn

Perhaps the President thinks it will work this time because the shovels have had more time to get ready.  Franklin Roosevelt’s shovels were ready.  He tried the infrastructure approach with his Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camps.  The result — unemployment stood at 15.3% at the end of 1936, four years after he was elected.  It was still 14.6% at the end of his second term, a full eight years in office.

Obama will urge Congress to establish an Infrastructure Bank, a sort of Fannie Mae for bridges and tunnels.

Another passel of dollars out of the 300B will be earmarked for distribution to states to prop up their finances, presumably to all 57 of them.  Favor will be given to those states in the poorest financial conditions because they need it most.  True, they need it most, but some would say they deserve it least.  Their circumstances are the consequence of their own governance.  Bailouts enable the perpetuation of faulty governance by one at the expense of the others.

“Stimulus”?  Obama will not use the word.  It is in the process of being replaced.  Give me a Mulligan on this one.  One or two off-hand references don’t count.

The President will not fail to stoke the fires of class resentment at some point in his talk.

Although medium and small business is the cradle of jobs, no more than lip service will be given to ease the obstacles that lay in the way their growth.

There’s more, but there’s also a deadline.  Let’s see how I do with the predictions given thus far.

JOBS and ECONOMICS a la BARACK OBAMA

Obama’s attempt to set Tuesday as the day for his address to a joint session of Congress was so obviously political that he quickly backed off and agreed to Speaker Boehner’s rejection of that date.  Michael Smerconish, who was filling in as host for the vacationing Chris Matthews, pointed out on the Hardball program that presidents are not empowered to order Congress to meet in joint session so that the president may address them.  A request must be made to Congress, whereupon the common practice of finding a mutually agreed upon date takes place without public involvement.  Once a date is chosen, it is announced publicly.

Smerconish and one of his two guests agreed that Obama’s choice of an open letter to the Speaker to initiate his request was unprecedented. Furthermore, they agreed that Rush Limbaugh was right when he said it was strictly a political move engineered to upstage the GOP Debate.  That was probably the first time the words “Limbaugh was right” were ever uttered on MSNBC.  Never let it be said the President did not fulfill his promise of audacity.

What should we expect to be included in this much vaunted address?  It has been billed as a “Jobs” speech and it will be presented as a stimulus for private sector job creation.  However, we expect the focus will be on jobs for government projects.  Like FDR’s WPA and CCC Camps, they will be boondoggles that improve some roads and bridges but will do little to improve the general economy while sending the nation more deeply in debt.  This is not the time to be replacing perfectly serviceable infrastructure.  If money is spent it should be spent on re-invigorating the free market system where wealth is created, not where old wealth is shuffled about.  These programs did not work for Roosevelt and they will not work for Obama.

A central point in the speech is likely to be a call for the creation of an Infrastructure Bank to fund government construction projects.  This has all the potential of becoming a Fannie Mae for bridges and tunnels.

If we give Obama the benefit of the doubt and assume that he really wants what he believes to be best for America, then we must conclude that our nation’s problem is Obama’s socialist roots.  He knows nothing about how free markets work.  He has no business experience whatsoever and sees government as the be-all end-all of everything.  The President knows not and cares not how the wealth to run a nation is created.  A nation may be imbued with wealth in its natural resources and scenic beauty, but it’s only in the private sector that wealth is created.  Government only depletes it.  A portion of that which is created is taken by government to provide essential services and hopefully to maintain the optimum environment where the creative process itself can prosper.

What Obama learned about economics he learned from his mentor and spiritual leader whose message is that it’s white man’s greed that runs a world in need.  Barack was so moved by this message that he cried as he sat in the pew at the conclusion of the sermon and knew then what  his mission in life would be.  This, in Obama’s own words as told in Dreams from My Father.  Even those who see nobleness in that dedication must acknowledge it is merely a mission of taking and giving; it is a mission devoid of creation.

There can be no doubt that Obama wants to bring down unemployment, which means to create jobs.  If he knew how to do it he would have done it.  He has been in office for 2 year and 7 months.  For the first 2 years he had the benefit of an all Democratic Congress who supported every item on his agenda.  The people he wants to help most are hurting the worst.  The man is not stupid, he is just blinded by his ideology and his ideology is in no small way born of his rage.  His heart is in expanding the government sector and not private industry whose profits he sees only as a garden of greed.

Obama is a victim of the image he created for himself with some nurturing from the media.  The slogan of Hope and Change, mixed with the audacity to bring it all about was a promise to fulfill your dreams whatever they may be.  It is not for negligence that hope — for what?, and change — to what?  were never defined.  Definitions are limiting; vagueness is not.  It was left for each person to fill in the blanks with their own personal hopes and desires.  You say voters are not that naïve?  You say voters don’t believe politicians promises?  You may remember the woman who was thrilled at Obama’s victory because it meant he was now going to pay off her mortgage.  That woman had voted.  She voted for the fulfillment of her own personal dream.  Do you suppose she was the only one?

Barack Obama has broken more than promises.  He has broken hearts as well.  He has failed his own people.  All because of his socialist roots.

RANDOM THOTS

OLBERMANN’S FALL FROM DISGRACE
Upon reading something about a 30 million dollar contract, my thought was… hate pays, but only in money. If reports are correct, Olbermann’s personality is the same off-camera as on. When off-camera his anger radiates in all directions we’re told, not just toward the political right but to staff and management as well. Keith Olbermann, by all appearances, is an angry and hateful man. Hate eats a person from the inside out. Hate is cancer of the soul.

Bush and Palin were favorite targets of the MSNBC star. These are two obviously very happy people. Olbermann is not. Targets of hate can rise above it because it comes at them from without. Haters are stuck in their own misery because one cannot rise above that which dwells within.

IMMELT’S REWARD
President Obama chose Schenectady for his nationally broadcast “jobs” speech. Schenectady has long been a home to General Electric. Jeffrey Immelt is Chairman and CEO of GE. The company is dominant in the city because it is the largest and oldest of the major employers in the region.

As he spoke, Obama highlighted what he had done to create jobs for MSNBC. Correction – for GE, the owner of MSNBC. In fact he said, the very reason he went to India was to negotiate a contract that will bring 1200 new jobs to General Electric’s manufacturing operation in this city in upstate New York.

Why Schenectady? Why GE? One cannot help but wonder, was it Immelt’s reward?

JOB INCREASE 95% IN GOVERNMENT SECTOR

Obama applauds

All this talk about government jobs has set me ta’wondrin about sumpin. We know unemployment is bad for the country, because it puts the people we have voted into office in a bad light. We also know the government is wicked bad in need of some money. Now, studies have shown that people with jobs pay more taxes than people without jobs. I figured out, that if the government offered a job, any job with pay, to anyone who does not have a job, unemployment would go down and tax revenue would go up.

But wouldn’t ya know! Them fellers in Washington got that all figgered out too, and they’re doin it already. I shudda known they would figger it out before me. But then I was never the brightest apple in the orange crate like some of them polyticians are.
Kilroy

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