Obama’s coming speech this week will not help him politically, nor will it give us anything to feel optimistic about for those who are the long-term unemployed. Like the over hyped Hurricane Irene, Obama is long winded and overrated.
Some statistics to ponder (compiled by Business Insider):
1. 2 million people have used up their 99 weeks unemployment benefits and another 4 million will do the same by the end of 2011
2. more than 25% jobs added to the economy last year were temporary
3. for workers over 55, the average length of unemployment is 43 weeks
4. factoring in the unemployment, underemployed, and people who have given up in despair looking for employment – only 47% of the work force is fully employed
5. at 2000 participation levels – the unemployment rate would be 13%
6. (via The Wall Street Journal ) – the black teenage jobless rate is 46.5%
One more thing (as John Podhoretz points out in today’s New York Post) – most stimulus money that went to states in 2009 was used to pay down state debt, not to create jobs or for increased economic activity.
by Michael Goodwin
From the Toronto Star: “President Barack Obama’s Labour Secretary, Hilda Solis, wanted to show her support for American auto workers by swapping her standard government-issued limo for a crossover Chevrolet Equinox.
There’s just one problem: The Equinox is built in Ontario.” I guess they don’t teach geography in the White House.
Talking after the disastrous August jobs report, a financial guru got right to the point. “Labor is getting the short end of the stick here,” said Bill Gross, co-head of Pimco, the giant investment firm.
Indeed it is, making for a bleak landscape on this Labor Day weekend. A time that should be devoted to honoring working people is instead dominated by mounting evidence that the greatest jobs machine the world has ever known is broken.
As a consequence, the American dreams of millions of workers and their families are being shattered.
America has faced worse before, but the difference this time is that our government, under the guise of liberal compassion, wealth redistribution and environmental justice, is pursuing job-killing policies. President Obama’s anti-capitalist fervor is taking a devastating toll that could take a generation to repair.
The centralization of power in Washington has produced a skewed economy. Underserved and unaffordable perks are lavished on the well-connected few, especially government unions, while opportunities for most workers are snuffed out. If the best social program is a job — and it is — then the Obama administration is guilty of malpractice.
Friday’s report was bad news, from top to bottom, with the Labor Department finding that not a single new net job was created in the 50 states.
It is no consolation that the unemployment rate remained at 9.1 percent. The tragedy is that about 25 million people are without work or are stuck in part-time jobs.
In light of those numbers, imagine you have ideas for creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. Imagine also you are president of the United States. Do you wait another minute to reveal those plans?
[…]
To be really bold, he should undo much of what he did.
He should say he is holding off on implementing ObamaCare and stopping the slew of financial restrictions in Dodd-Frank. He could order the National Labor Relations Board to get its boot off companies so they can hire and tell regulators to stop suing the pants off banks and other businesses. He could stop his attacks on success and wealth.
To my surprise, the president actually did something sensible Friday, telling zealots at the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw changes to smog rules, which could have cost $90 billion a year and killed thousands of jobs.
It’s a good start, but only a start. Americans need work, not more red tape. And they definitely don’t need another speech aimed at saving one man’s job.
Read the rest: O’s job plan to save his
Tags: Michael Goodwin
