So headline unemployment now stands at 10.2%, higher than forecast. Another 10 million or so workers are working "part time for economic reasons", meaning they want to work more hours, but can't get them. And 2.4 million are "marginally attached to the labor force"--they have looked for work in the past 12 months, and say they want a job, but have stopped looking too hard because there doesn't seem to be anything out there.
This figure is likely to get worse before it gets better. Corporations tend to want some evidence of sustainable recovery before they start hiring workers who will have expensive startup costs and will be traumatic to fire if there's another downturn. They're much more likely to add work and hours on for existing employees, so I wouldn't expect to see any substantial improvement in headline unemployment until that "part time for economic reasons" figure has dropped substantially. Right now, the best you can say is that it held steady last month.
To me, unemployment is a far more important indicator than GDP. Given how rich America is, the misery from losing a job far outweighs a few percentage points of variation in incomes. The NBER may decide that the recession ends next quarter. But the mental recession will be going on for quite some time.
Counterintuitive prediction I heard last night: "If the jobs number is bad, stand by for Barney Frank to start dismantling some big banks."
Alternative predictions: this is good for the health care bill, because Democrats want an achievement to take voters' minds off of the employment figures; this is bad for the health care bill, because Democrats know they are already going to be in big trouble next November.
My prediction: Democrats are going to be looking very hard for a way to pump some more money into the economy right now. That is going to be very hard to do, between the bailouts, the tax credits, and the health care bill. Also, the 2010 is not going to be about health care, one way or another. It's going to be about the jobs number.
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Cap and Trade is going to take a big hit as well.
Clearly what the economy really needs right now is a trillion dollars in new health care taxes, another trillion in carbon fairy tithes, and for the government to take over 15% of the economy.
That will fix everything.
Also, the 2010 is not going to be about health care, one way or another. It's going to be about the jobs number.
Eh. 1994 and 2006 weren't about the economy.
2012 will probably be a referendum on Obama's handling of the economy. I don't think it really matters that much until then.
Since the government can't solve the problem, it's time the people start facing unemployment with their own ingenuity:
http://bit.ly/ozqT6
(satire)
Might as well make some money from the malaise by shorting companies headed for bankruptcy: shortscreen.com.
Even the noted right-wing racist Republican Robert Reich* is critical of Barack Obama on his flaccid job creation efforts:
"Obama's focus on health care rather than jobs, when the economy is still so fragile and unemployment moving toward double digits, could make it appear that the administration has its priorities confused. While affordable health care is critically important to Americans, making a living is more urgent. Yet the administration's efforts to date on this more basic concern have been neither particularly visible nor coherent."
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/11/health-care-reform-is-critically.html
Remember ... Barack Obama claims to have created or saved 650,000 jobs. This number is faked according to the Asscoiated Press, but even if it isn't faked, it pales in comparison to the number of jobs that have been destroyed on his watch.
Just in the last three months, the economy has lost more jobs than Obama claims to have created even with his false counting.
Obama's fake claims to have created (or saved) 650,000 jobs.
The economy in the last 3 months lost over 800,000 jobs.
So all of his efforts to date have been for naught.
A total of 17% of Americans either cannot find full time work, or cannot find a job at all. And he's doing not a fucking thing about it.
He's paying people $8,000 to buy houses.
He's paid people $4,500 to buy cars.
But he's offering businesses NO DOLLARS to hire people.
*Oh wait ... Robert Reich is a Democrat.
And it's sad that the Republicans are going right along with the $8,000 nonsense. It's a huge waste of money. Just asking any decent economist.
Would it be a waste of money to offer businesses a $5,000 bounty for hiring a person?
"offer businesses a $5,000 bounty for hiring a person ... "
Too easy to game the system -
A more direct approach, eliminate the FICA tax (both the employer and the employee side) until the employment numbers drop back into acceptable range.
That's just payment details.
The point is that Obama is willing to pay people to help his union buddies ... but for the business you are in, he's offering nothing.
He's offering zero dollars for your employer to hire new people.
$300 for a refrigerator.
$0 for a new hire.
Priorities.
Given the perfectly sensible logic of private employers, who are all about maximizing output while minimizing inputs (starting with labor), it should be clear that is unemployment is accepted as the problem-in-itself rather than as a symptom, the solution is for the government to either create jobs directly or to offer targeted bounties for private sector job creation. Every conservative and "other" who claims distress over unemployment but advocates tax cuts for business should be asked whether they would favor a targeted bounty. To me that's kind of a litmus test of sincerity.
I favor $5,000 per new employee hired (or some sliding scale based on wage paid).
Obama offers people $8,000 per house bought. $300 per refrigerator purchased. $4,500 per car.
Why would he not offer businesses $5,000 to hire someone? (How is that different than a business tax cut of $5,000?)
He won't do that because Obama benefits politically by high unemployment as more and more people are yoked to his wagon.
Yes indeed. I fully support paying people to dig ditches and then fill them in. Same tomorrow.
Derek
On the other hand, pursuing SENS, fusion power or building the elevator could have absorbed a lot of stimulus money...
Fully 70% of the US GDP is consumer spending. When 10% of the workforce is unemployed, the GDP will suffer.
Even conservative industrialists as far back a Henry Ford understood that.
"My prediction: Democrats are going to be looking very hard for a way to pump some more money into the economy right now. That is going to be very hard to do ..."
There is ONE WAY to make an immediate difference. And one way only. It is trivial to do: Increase and extend unemployment benefits until unemployment falls to traditional levels.
That puts money directly into struggling homeowners pockets to pay their mortgages, puts those assets directly back into struggling banks, makes jobs occur as banks can use the capital to lend to businesses, and has virtually no additional government overhead associated with it.
Increasing and extending unemployment benefits is a no-lose proposition; it's paid for by the very businesses which create the unemployment problem to begin with. It has the other benefit of being the only fast solution.
It's a no-brainer.
Yes, it's a no-brainer now you are on them. deadbeat.
I paid the premiums. Of course I want to receive my insurance payout. Same as you would if your house burnt down and you made claim on your homeowners policy.
Would that make you a deadbeat?
I'd much prefer to have my job and my house back so I don't freeze to death this winter on a grate outside.
Thanks for your concern for your fellow American.
By the way, I fought in two wars to protect your right to call me a deadbeat. Enjoy your first amendment that I purchased for you with my right arm which was shot off.
Wow. That's the spirit. Perhaps next time you can manage to be a bit more callous?
Hey!
Quit stepping on my WOW. I was a good 11 minutes ahead of you :-)
I don't like to wish ill on others, but you have moved me to hope that you lose your job, Basic Fact. I am sorry that the anonymity of the internet has moved you to such casual cruelty.
movertypeguy - "paid for by the very businesses which create the unemployment problem to begin with"
WOW, I learn something new every day.
Lets add even more costs on to the businesses that are struggling to survive. That is a great way to not generate more jobs.
Speaking for myself, I'm at a startup technology company with 12 employees. We are actively seeking investors to commercialize our designs and bring them to market. Our plan is to conserve as much cash as possible and hope we find an investor before we run out. Every added cost just means our current funds run out sooner and those 12 employees are out of work. Oh and if we get funded we plan to hire 12 people immediately 80 more people over the next three years. I don't see where anyone from the government is trying to help us get funded or reduce our expenses.
The high-tech industry and venture capital industry voted 90% for Barack Obama, according to exit polling.
You have only yourself to blame.
Barack Obama could be offering your company a $8,000 bounty to hire your next employee ... but he's not doing that is he?
He offered people $4,500 to buy a car.
But Obama offers you nothing for hiring someone.
You should be on the phone to your Congressman.
Correction - some of the established California high-tech companies supported Obama - I'm in Texas and I most certainly did not and I'm not aware of many other startups in my area that did and I know several CEOs.
I need $10M to execute my business plan. For that I'll spawn thousands of jobs over that next decade. $8,000 wouldn't even cover one months expenses of an electrical engineer. Since I am pre-revenue I'd have to let him go as soon as the money ran out.
I agree with Drew,
The annual fully burdened cost of a high tech employee in the north east is approaching $200k per year.
$8k doesn't even cover the job search cost much less the first month's expenses.
Mover,
Are you aware that the bill (pushed by the Democrats and supported by the President) to lengthen unemployment benefits is actually doing the opposite of paying employers to hire someone?
It's imposing an additional (and higher) unemployment tax on businesses.
That is, they are proposing to take additional money from businesses every time they hire another worker.
Yes. In the middle of a recession.
Now, I'm generally unsympathetic to attempts to "stimulate" the economy, but I think there's a case to be made for extending unemployment benefits temporarily while in the depths of a recession.
However, that case is severely undercut when you do it by imposing an increased tax on employment. A much more effective, employment friendly alternative, would be to let the employment insurance tax expire at the end of the year (as it's scheduled to), and redirect general funds (preferably away from some of the truly pork barrel stimulus funds that haven't yet been spent) to this end.
That would accomplish the same goods without the harms the current bill would inflict.
The "increased tax on employment" you refer to is about $14 per employee per month.
It's trivial for the benefit provided.
Having said that Mike, I generally agree with you.
The way to offset additional unemployment compensation premiums foisted on business during this time is a tax cut for businesses that hire new employees (or hire back old employees).
Barack Obama refuses to pay businesses to hire people, but he's got money all day long to pay millionaires like Bill Frist to buy new Prius' for themselves.
His priorities are criminally fucked up.
Increased and extended unemployment benefits are a very treacherous trade-off. They may be helpful bridge to those who came by their unemployment honestly and have a good chance of returning to the same profession in the near future, but they're also a fantastically perverse incentive to everyone else (the structurally unemployed, discouraged workers, ordinary deadbeats, etc.).
Only people who through no fault of their own were laid off receive unemployment benefits (and states join companies in enforcing these provisions).
There is no perverse incentive. Structurally unemployed deadbeats can't get benefits. Anyone fired for cause can't get benefits.
My various observations from non-unionized engineering, skilled trades, and construction are that many people who aren't fit to hold their job don't get Fired With Cause unless they go well out of their way to make enemies among their supervisor(s). For one thing, it's not considered professional. For another, it makes the company liable to lawsuits. So instead the company waits for an opportune moment (e.g. a temporary decline in available work) and then the employee gets "laid off" while the "with prejudice" part is never put to formal writing. If the person is brash enough to cite their ex-employer as a reference for previous work experience, the phone call is politely declined with "We have no recommendation at this time."
*Sigh* Yes, if only the stimulus had put MONEY IN PEOPLES' POCKETS IMMEDIATELY it might have made some difference, and abated human suffering at that. Of course we know Democrats and liberals are all about caring for people! Unfortunately that would have given money to people who need it instead of Democratic Party clients.
Counterintuitive prediction I heard last night: "If the jobs number is bad, stand by for Barney Frank to start dismantling some big banks."
You mean while he and others dismantle any remaining investor protections? Barney Frank might be a nice guy but he's still a tool of the banksters.
What was the horrific potential that surely required the massive bailout of the banks, huge deficit spending and continues intrusion in the marketplace by Congress?
It is looking more and more that the Japan lost decade is a goal to be reached. They are saying that cash flow from commercial real estate right now is lease cancellation penalties.
Derek
How you know why all us DFH's hated the Summers/Rubin crew(this wasn't the only reason, of course). We haven't learned our lessons from Japan so we are likely condemned to repeat it.
it feels like we are in dangerous territory --
you have a political party and an administration that controls all levers of government, just felt a fear inducing rebuke in some mid-mid term elections and economic numbers that just keep getting worse.
The dangerous part is that this seems like a recipe for a panicked move to do something, anything to get numbers moving in the right direction in time for 2010, from an administration that shown enormous hubris and faith in its ability to direct government to solve the problem. History suggests that whatever they do, it will make the problem far worse than better.
Kind of the the thinking that got Bush to create the first stimulus - look at how that is turning out
Kind of the the thinking that got Bush to create the first stimulus - look at how that is turning out
Not if you ponder it for a moment.
Bush was threatened with an invisible mythic apocalypse if he did not act (he, sadly, fell for this Goldman Sachs myth hook, line and sinker).
Unemployment, on the other hand, is real. It is not something that might happen if Barack Obama doesn't act.
It is something that has already occurred and about which he is not lifting a fucking finger to deal with.
Drew- " ... that got Bush to create the first stimulus ..."
The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 passed the house in January and the Senate in February.
Ms Pelosi was Speaker of the House and Majority Leader Reid was head of the Senate.
I really doubt that Nancy and Harry rolled over for George W.
Once again, I have to ask why some of the unspent stimulus money can't simply be spent now. The money has already been (cough, cough) budgeted and congress has already taken the hit politically - this would seem to be a winner. I think the public would understand and approve.
Here is the problem - Who is first in line for all those unspent funds? The scammers that is who. Now take off all checks and balances and just let the bureaucrats write checks to their friends, political and otherwise. Now ask yourself how much of that money would go to any kind of productive use. I'm betting virtually none.
How about we just turn around and put all that money back in the treasury or just not borrow it in the first place.
Or how about we forgo the environmental concerns and build 50 new nuclear power plants.
It would have the side-benefit of releasing the grip of the Saudi jihadists.
Nuke plants won't release us from the Saudi's....very little power is generated by fuel oil anymore. Most is good ol' nat gas from Texas/Louisiana/Colorado, coal from Wyoming and West Virginia, and (old) nuke plants. If you want to release us from the saudis, open up the coasts to oil exploration. The US imports about 10 million bopd from overseas...if we could cut that by 15%, it would cut the trade deficit by 20%. Plus, new-grad Pet E's get $95,000/year and rig hands get $40,000/yr for a manual labor job.
Not to dogpile your earlier comment about a hiring bounty, but that wouldn't even move the needle...at minimum wage plus 7.5% payroll tax, that's less than four months (and that ignores benefits, hiring/training expenses, and overhead). My gut is it will be ugly for more than 4 more months.
My preference would be spend the money on extended unemployment benefits, much more so then cash for clunkers, but I don't know if I want to do that and stick my kids with the check.
You know Mr. Galt, you're right.
Let's do nothing instead and see if that moves the needle.
It would surely stimulate the economy if unspent stimulus funds were used to immediately cover the uninsured, temporarily, upon passage of health insurance reform. Let them go get fixed, so that they are ready to work when the recovery comes.
Unemployment
Just asking:
The service economy is dead ?
The consumer economy is dying ?
The manufacturing economy is ignored ?
where will the new wealth come from ?
Maybe somebody should resurrect Arcosanti,
by installing a nuclear powered heart,
make it self-sufficient (dry-land farming?)
and set it up as a community for the
permanently unemployed.
Call me impractical, but first tell me
_your_ solution for feeding, housing,
and generally supporting those other people,
who will never have another productive job,
in a 21st century Hi-Tech economy.
Not a personal concern, for a Boomer;
I got mine already.
What about the younger generations ?
Yeah, that pretty much seems to define the Boomers.
"Yeah, that pretty much seems to define the Boomers."
Not really. The current Social Security Tax for everyone is more than 12% of your paycheck up to $106,800.
Most Boomers are still paying into the fund.
As a mental exercise, imagine that you owned directly not only the principal but also the COMPOUND interest of 12% of your income over your entire career. (Hint - You would be a very wealthy man.)
Back to reality - Very few retirees (including the Boomers) are even going to get close to receiving their principal back - much less any interest from Social Security. The situation for minorities is even worse - A large percentage of them will never receive a single SS check.
But I really do agree that the younger generations are going to be SCREWED ROYALLY. This is a basic fact of any ponzi scam.
As an aside, I never understood why the younger generation never supported George W.'s privatization of Social Security. Oh well, that ship has sailed.
Eery Boomer I've argued with over SS being a ponzi scheme has replied "well I better get mine!". The inference being "to hell with you younger people".
I'm not expecting a single nickel from Social Security.
I would advise you to expect the same.
@Fraggle Rock:
Boomer definition: I got mine.
You think I have savings ?
Oy, gymnast, such an error. :)
No, FR, as Richard Burton put it:
"Well, I had a Life." Luck of the draw;
The Greatest Generation bought the farm
I grew up on, so to speak, and now, in
my Late Prime of life, I get to see a
2nd GD, and domestic unrest equivalent
to surviving WWII in Europe.
Which would you rather live through, FR:
Hard Times early in life, or late ?
You youngsters may be doubly blest,
unless you get off the dime and start
focusing like a laser on the economic
future of the US, starting with jobs,
and moving briskly on to manufacturing
new wealth; Hi-Tech, innovative items
that our creditors cannot copy.
To respond to unemployment and recessions in general, we have a mindlessly complicated patchwork quilt of programs at every level of government. The overlay of competing interests associated with this social safety net is such that no one wants to try reform. What we are left with, as means to respond in a crisis, is temporarily extending unemployment insurance and other ad hoc, cobbled-together programs. I have been reading Megan for a year, because she advocates the negative income tax, a simple, elegant approach to providing a social safety net that is portable and efficacious. When this was tried, in certain counties in the 1970s, the main problem was resentment of people who had it by people who didn’t have it. It gave unemployed people the maximum latitude to make the choices necessary to either find another job or create a job for themselves. But is such a reform too bold as to be politically impossible?
The proposed health insurance exchange suggests an answer. People like the ability to choose what is best for them individually. Would it be too fantastic, if people were able to choose the tax plan which best suited them? I don’t think so, and this is not without precedent. For example, in some states, seniors can choose to defer paying their property taxes, which become due upon death. The ability to have this choice is very popular. What if a 21 year old were given a once or twice in a lifetime choice of opting for a flat negative income tax, versus the common tax and benefit system? Certainly her circumstances and chosen career would inform the decision. I think at that point our patchwork quilt of taxes and programs, whose deficiencies are plainly seen in the present recession, would begin to become legacy policy, or begin to be reformed. I’m thinking this way today, because I fear the recession will get worse, and I know that the socialist systems elsewhere were born in response to poverty, unemployment, and deprivation following war. People are broke and pissed, and I’m encountering people begging every day now.
I have this nagging feeling that as America emulates our friends across the pond by spending more and more on social programs, government jobs programs, etc. our unemployment figures will mimic theirs.
I don't think 10-12% unemployment is here to stay, but I'm guess in the near future 8% unemployment will be the new 4%.
10-12% unemployment? Why not? "Everybody else is doing it" seems to be the left's only real argument these days anyway. Let's be like the cool kids in Europe.
I'd say the jobs report makes the health care bill more likely to pass, not less. How many of those unemployed workers still have insurance? Not too many, I'd guess. (COBRA isn't that useful if you have nothing in your bank account with which to pay it). If the Dems do manage to push through some health care, they get to claim that they've given a real, tangible benefit to families hurt by unemployment.
But how quickly would that benefit reach families?
How many of those unemployed workers still have insurance? Not too many, I'd guess.
And how, exactly, is forcing those people to purchase private insurance supposed to help them in any way, shape or form.
"Health care reform" is nothing but a masquerade for a mandate to all those unemployed to go buy high-priced insurance with money they don't have.
I. won't. fucking. do. it. Period.
Barack Obama can fucking put me in jail before I buy mandated health insurance. If it passes, I'll quit even filing a fucking tax return.
Enjoy jail then.
@ Brian despain: Enjoy jail then.
He would be in good company, _IF_ the
State could pay for enough new jails.
Maybe It will try; Droogs need jobs too.
Historical reality check, BD: 1st GD, Iowa,
farm foreclosure auction, local bids low and
wins, because other locals are giving other
bidders the eye, and local police are looking
the other way. New owner allows original owner
to stay on farm.
The details differ, but the same scenario
works for city mice, as well as country mice.
This is not Europe, the US citizenry is
"A Pack, not a Herd", and you will be
in a deep hole (from old age) before
Big Brother builds any Debtor's Prisons
here.
Believe me I understand the pain of being unemployed, however -
From waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/110/cobra.pdf
1. SHORT-TERM COBRA SUBSIDY FOR INVOLUNTARILY TERMINATED WORKERS:
Provides
a 65 percent subsidy for COBRA continuation premiums for up to 12
months for workers who have been
involuntarily terminated (and their families).
So I guess that you feel uncomfortable paying for even 35% of your health care insurance?
No it's not. Unemployed folks or those in your low income bracket, movertype, will either get subsidies, or they'll be exempt, or they'll qualify under the new, more generous Medicaid requirements.
How is forcing people with "nothing in [their] bank account" to either a) buy very expensive insurance or b) face a tax anything resembling a "tangible benefit?" If they don't have money, they don't have the money to do either a or b.
I may have lost track of the particulars (there are, what, three or four different versions of the bill right now?) but I was under the impression that people making under a certain amount (and "zero" would probably be under that threshhold) would have the insurance subsidized or paid-for altogether.
The Democrats say their plan will save a kabillion dollars, but the Republicans say no, the plan will actually cost a gazillion, here's our plan that will save a jillion. Most people outside the economics sphere either totally believe one party's or the other's, or have stopped listening to the numbers entirely as worthless estimates pulled out of the ether.
The Democrats primary reaction on any economic issue is to give goodies to the low-end of the economic spectrum, and try to make some sort of social safety net. That's their schtick, that's what they've been calling for for years, and that's what they try to do whenever they're in office. And with job numbers as dire as the ones that just came out, it's going to motivate them to do just that to a larger group of people than ever - who will then remember who helped them out when they were down on their luck, be grateful, and vote for them next time. (So goes the theory anyway). I honestly can't see how rising unemployment is going to make it anything but more likely for this to happen.
What high unemployment should tell us is that it's idiotic to have employers be the primary source of health insurance. Sadly the health care bill goes exactly the wrong way on this.
Nope.
People's first fear in a recession is not losing health insurance, it's the fear of losing the ability to *buy things* like health insurance.
Pick what number you like for unemployment, the vast majority of people are still employed. They are as likely to be concerned about what might happen to their earnings from wage cuts, shorter hours, no raises or bonuses as they are about losing their job.
If Obamacare seems at all likely to either increase they amount they pay for health care (including making it likely their employeer will stop providing health insurance benefits), or make it more likely their employeer will cut jobs or wages, they are going to oppose it.
This figure is likely to get worse before it gets better. Corporations tend to want some evidence of sustainable recovery before they start hiring workers who will have expensive startup costs and will be traumatic to fire if there's another downturn.
Megan, when are you going to stop tap dancing around this obvious truth? I very much like your "mental recession" phrase, because it gets right to the heart of the matter that future economic activity is largely predicated on future expectations.
We've greatly overlooked the role of expectations in this recession. An economy isn't a static thing. It's composed of millions of people making decisions today that have ramifications tomorrow. Recessions, at least this sort of recession, occur when a critical mass of people are more wrong than right in their bets on the future (as opposed to most of the time, when people get it right). Not only do we lose our bets, we have to understand how we were wrong and how we can get it right going forward.
But here, we run into a problem with planning, because it's hard to look at the vast array of govt programs proposed and not consider them, for most folks, a prospective loss of wealth and disincentive to invest.
Which is, basically, the other obvious cause of recessions in general. That is, some change in conditions that make people want to engage in less economic activity.
Recessions, at least this sort of recession, occur when a critical mass of people are more wrong than right in their bets on the future ..."
Or ... if the politicians change the rules of the game midstream ... after we've placed our bets. That's what's wrong with this economy.
Democrat politicians are changing the rules of the pay/benefits game in the middle of the game ... after we've already placed our bets. People now want their money off the table.
Is it any surprise nobody wants to hire when they cannot predict today what the costs will be tomorrow?
It is Barack Obama's injection of uncertainty into the economy that has cratered it.
Yeah.
At a high level, I look at recessions as having two possible causes.
1. We have an unexpected change in reality. 9/11, Katrina, banking panics, and political activity (like proposing with some credibility to create disincentives to work) are what we might typically call "shocks" in economics. They're changes that force us to reevaluate what would otherwise be rational plans.
2. The other kind of recession might come in conjunction with some of those issues, but is largely a day of reckoning in which we come to realize we've made more bad bets than good ones. The plans themselves are flawed and unsustainable.
Of course there's no clear line between the two in reality, but I find it useful to conceptualize along those lines.
No one is hiring because of the slack in demand. If no one is buying, then no one is hiring. The compliance costs are so little compared to salary and healthcare, the idea that no one is hiring because of compliance costs is simply insane.
Nobody is hiring because Barack Obama is using our tax dollars to buy Bill Frist and the Wall Street billionaires new cars.
Obama has millions in bonuses for his friends on Wall Street who helped fund his election. Feinberg guaranteed their million-dollar paydays continue on into the future as if nothing has changed.
But Obama has nothing for blue-collar types who are seeing their union jobs disappear. Hell, he and the Democrat Governors are laying them off by the thousands left and right.
Barack Obama is the problem. But there's a solution.
Regime uncertainty is one of the major problems. Until businesses and investors have some clear idea what the government is going to do on various fronts, they will be very, very reluctant to take on new projects or people for hire.
And the healthcare and cap and trade bills are dead, dead, dead. Only Nancy Pelosi, Obama, and the rest of the delusional left seem not to understand this.
If you want to create jobs, here is how you do it. Cut the corporate tax to zero. Flatten the income tax structure, and level the tax playing field on all types of income. Do away with the fiction that Social Security is anything other than pay as you go and fund the program through the new income tax structure. There are a host of changes you could make that lessens the burden on creating new businesses or expanding old ones, but the above would be a good running start. However, there is zero chance of the present political class doing any of this.
I know of no small to medium size business that is changing their business plan based on uncertainty about what the government will do. My company, and most others I associate with operate under the expectation that the government will generally screw things up where possible and charge a lot of fees/taxes, as well as impose restrictions/inspections etc where possible.
However, we generally don't change our business plan based on what the government may or may not do. It all hinges on what the consumers in our respective industries are doing.
I can't blame Obama for the failing state of my industry. The consumer is simply tapped out in too many areas and only spending where they can get a -great- value and see immediate benefits from their spending. That's my impression anyway.
Obama may not have created your failing industry, but he is not doing what he could do to help your failing industry.
In that sense, absolutely you can blame him. He and the Democrat Governors, who in the past 60 days have themselves destroyed the jobs of 30,000 state and local workers - exacerbating the unemployment situation instead of helping it.
Barack Obama is where the buck stops.
I would prefer it if they would add another 0 to the number of government jobs they destroyed.
Just in case anyone is an unemployment nerd like me, U6 is 17.5%. Dude.
U6 = counted unemployed, counted nderemployed, and uncounted discouraged workers.
More funemployment facts:
The Fed counts about 3 million open positions ... and 15 million people competing for those open positions.
That is why we are fucked, my friend. There are no jobs to be had by highly qualified individuals.
I'm sorry - this is not meant to cause pain. Hopefully just a smile.
Looks like there is at least one job out there. Please try to laugh a little - it really will help (I hope!)
Google Results 1 - 1 of 1 for "employment highly qualified individuals". (0.10 seconds)
Search Results
1.
Finding Work | Residents | Live Work Explore Singapore
... less committed to long-term employment. Highly qualified individuals can apply for an Employment Pass Eligibility Certificate before coming to Singapore ...
www.liveworkexplore.com/singapore/...-/finding-work - Cached - Similar
Isn't it time to retire this "Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad" shtick? It seems to pop up every other day in this blog. I guess because the economic news has been so dire, but still.
It doesn't even make sense in this context. In the children's book from which the phrase derives it is mildly sarcastic, as the protagonist Alexander whines about all kinds of petty, mundane annoyances as if it were the end of the world. Whereas the recent jobless numbers are no-joke awful. So what's the point?
Plus it's got to be a lot of trouble to type every time. Maybe just "THNGVB"?
Yea U6 at 17.5% is a pretty mundane annoyance. It's just tiresome shtick.
We should all just sing Kumbaya and thank Dear Leader.
I've got news for you buddy - the criticism of the Barack Obama administration for failing to deal properly with the unemployment crisis is not going away.
He's manufactured a false insurance crisis that he wants to solve by requiring increasingly jobless Americans to purchase high-priced insurance policies.
Fuck that.
He's hurting Americans economically instead of dealing with a real unemployment crisis, as the Democrat Robert Reich pointedly wrote today. He creates fake "jobs created or saved" metrics and tries to pass that shit off as meaningful effort on his part. Even the AP isn't buying that moronic schtick.
If you're tired of hearing about Barack Obama's failed America, I suggest you find another blog to read.
I second the motion for retirement of "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad..."
We've seen waaaay too much of it lately and it's not nearly clever enough to withstand the repetition.
Third. Can we also limit movertyperguy to 75 comments per day?
Yea that's the new Obama American way ... stop debate and stifle dissent.
movertyperguy,
Yes, it's a no-brainer now you are on them. deadbeat.
I don't get this attitude, and I'd like to explore the idea.
My theory is that UI is like any other kind of insurance: car insurance, homeowners insurance, etc. If "Basic Fact" hit a patch of ice and rear ended another car doing 15k in damage - would he pay out of pocket rather than file a claim? If he didn't bother to trim the tree in his yard and it came crashing through his livingroom, would he pay out of pocker, or would he file an insurance claim?
Same with UI - you pay premiums (indirectly) and when you get laid off, you get a check. Why is it any different than anything else?
It isn't. He just hates me becuase I'm an effective criticizer of the Dear Leader In Chief.
So he wants to make me out to be some welfare queen who's suckling off the government teat.
I paid my premiums (and you do too every two weeks). I will get my insurance claim paid one way or the other.
Unemployment insurance is not welfare. I suspect that commenter knows it. He just hates me and wants to make Barack Obama's failure somehow be my failure.
I was laid off, through no fault of my own, because our President is dithering on solutions to our nation's problems. I am now homeless and shivering because of his incompetence.
The unemployed are not deadbeats. They're hardworking Americans that Barack Obama is doing nothing to help.
Yeah, I should have taken it when I was laid off in 2003. I didn't really consider the fact I had been paying for the right.
So, rather than file a claim I just tossed it. Had a new job a few weeks later anyway, but it was still dumb on my part.
TallDave,
In MA it's up to $640 a week - I don't know anyone who wouldn't appreciate that. It would be like going out to find someone had sideswiped your car, doing a couple of grand in damage, and just paying the body shop and not bothering to file an claim.
Who would do that - and why didn't you bother? It could have been a couple of grand extra.
According to rent.com, the cost of living in Boston, MA is 240% greater than the national average, with apartments ranking 48% more expensive than the national average.
In fact, Massachusetts has the highest unemployment payout in the nation, even higher than New York. (The maximum MA payouts are today $650.00 a week).
Massachusetts is the exception, however. The average unemployment check is just $300 per week, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Who would do that - and why didn't you bother? It could have been a couple of grand extra.
It was around $450 a week iirc.
I didn't like the idea of taking money from the government. It felt too much like welfare.
Again, I hadn't really thought it through.
FR,
I didn't get any severance from that company.
They expect you to burn through your severance first, so you probably wouldn't have gotten any by then anyway.
Not if you have to sign a release of claims to get your severance - if you do, you can collect both severance and UI.
jmo3 is correct.
Today, almost every company will force you to sign a piece of paper on your way out promising not to sue them for a variety of reasons (most of which you probably would beat them at in court). In return, they will write you a severance check of 6-8 weeks (they calculate this often to see what the minimum amount is that will get you to sign the paper and move this number up and down very often).
For insurance purposes, you are not receiving "severance." You're being compensated for giving up your legal rights. That's totally different.
File. Your. Claim.
You paid your premiums and they owe you your claim. Make them pay.
And if your company fights it, fight them back.
You will win.
I did.
movertyperguy,
MA has a lower income and sales tax than either Virginia or North Carolina, a lot can be said for living in a state where you get a lot of bang for your tax buck.
Why people choose to live in high tax low service states, I just don't know.
MA Income Tax: 5.5% (even though voters set it at 5.3%)
MA Sales Tax: Raised by Democrat Deval Patrick to 6.5% in the middle of a Great Recession.
What a bunch of maroons.
Democrats have responded to an economic crisis by increasing costs for people, and firing people. You can't make this shit up. Now, they want to mandate more costs by forcing you to buy high-priced insurance policies from their partners in crime.
What are these stupid fuckers thinking?
movertyperguy,
MA Income Tax: 5.5% (even though voters set it at 5.3%)
MA Sales Tax: Raised by Democrat Deval Patrick to 6.5% in the middle of a Great Recession
It's still a far lower tax burden that NC or VA.
True, employment numbers are extremely important indicators of what an economy is doing, but don't you know that EMPLOYMENT IS UP DRAMATICALLY!
Talldave,
I didn't like the idea of taking money from the government. It felt too much like welfare.
Are you not going to apply for SS when you hit 67?
I'm expecting to be means-tested out of it. But of course I'm paying for SS (and it's likely I will pay far more than I'll ever get back).
As I've noted a couple times, I hadn't considered the fact I was paying UI, or I might have filed it.
Hmmmm...wasn't it Rahm who said something about not wasting a good crisis?
Exactly. They will take full advantage of this to create the new Marxist Brigades.
They can't even pass a simple tax increase in a Congress/White House they control with un-filibuster-able majorities.
They're too fucking incompetent to create a new Marxist Brigade. It's the one thing that will save the Republic.
Megan,
For someone who claims to understand economics you certainly get caught up in touting trailing indicators. If GDP continues to rise, we'll soon see unemployment fall.
Is unemployment now a leading indicator? Depends on how many more jobs Barack Obama plans to eliminate:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/EXAMINER-EDITORIAL-HOT-ZONE-How-many-more-jobs-will-Obama-kill-69368047.html
Is the moon made of cheese? Depends on whether teabaggers took their Thorazine today.
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Is_the_moon_made_of_cheese%3F