October 2, 2009
Unemployment: Above 8% and rising. Stimulus we can believe in!
Wait, I thought the “stimulus” package was supposed to prevent us from reaching a 10% unemployment rate? It seems that we’re headed there pretty quickly, to me:
The American economy lost 263,000 jobs in September — far more than expected — and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, the government reported on Friday, dimming prospects of any meaningful job growth by the end of the year.
The Labor Department’s monthly snapshot of unemployment suggested that the economy was plodding through a faltering recovery that could pose big challenges to lawmakers worried about a growing public outcry over both big government deficits and high unemployment.
The numbers could intensify pressure on Congress to provide additional unemployment benefits and extend some programs that are set to expire toward the end of the year, such as tax credit for first-time homebuyers and health-insurance subsidies for people who lose their jobs.
“It’s a very fragile and tentative recovery,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “Policy makers need to do more.”
Despite help from Washington’s $787 billion stimulus package, state and local governments slashed 47,000 jobs in September. And auto dealerships, which added jobs in August as business picked up because of the “cash for clunkers” rebate program, cut 7,100 positions last month.
So much for that “stimulus” package preventing us from going over 8% unemployment. Since that was the only benchmark we could have tested the packages success against, can we now declare the package a fail? John Stossel pointed out this week that even if Obama could prove that jobs were being saved or created, he still couldn’t prove whether that was because of the “stimulus” or in spite of it. Good point, John. One that I have raised in the past.
Also, as I pointed out in an earlier post about the Cash for Clunkers program:
The “best economic news story” is a hoax. This will not help the economy in the long run. It was a false demand created by the government. All of the people being brought back to work will be back out of work once this program ends and middle class folks stop buying cars they probably didn’t need, with a discount thanks to people like me, and with the result of falsely inflating used car prices, which can only hurt the poorest of Americans.
I don’t even have a degree in economics and I called that one. Now, what up? President Obama, who went to Ivy League schools and is supposed to be so brilliant and all of his Ivy League educated economic team couldn’t have called that? If they don’t understand the basics of economics, should we really be trusting them to fix the economy? Can we really be certain that their policies are helping the recovery rather than prolonging it? I don’t think so.
So, staggering unemployment rates that keep rising and a humiliating defeat in his bid for the 2016 Olympics to be hosted in Chi-town. This is turning out to be a pretty bad day for the poor guy. I mean, his intelligence (by basic economic facts) and his ego (by the IOC) has been insulted. Fortunately for him, I have a feeling he, and his arrogant ego, will bounce back (and, a lot quicker than our economy, too!).
(H/T: Memeorandum)
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