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Let’s look at the numbers again…

Sunday, April 7th, 2013

The March unemployment numbers are out and the federal U3 number dropped from 7.7% in February to 7.6%.  That should be good news, still over two points over what our Dear Leader promised us we would have if we passed his massive porkulus act, but still moving in the in right direction.

So why did the architect of the Obama economic plan, Austan Goolsbee, call the March unemployment numbers a “punch to the gut”?

To answer that,we need to look at some more numbers.  Like the number of jobs the Federal BLS says were added in March, which is 88,000.  Since you have been paying attention, you know that the US economy needs to generate at least 120,000 new jobs a month just to break even.  So how did the U3 rate drop a tenth of a percent when we missed the break even point by over 33,000 jobs? The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates the U3 (and 5 other “U” rates) rate as a percentage of the labor force.  While the BLS added 88,000 jobs, it dropped 630,000 workers from the labor force. That gives us a net loss of over a half million workers from the US economy in March 2013.  Just what would the Federal BLS U3 number be if those 630,000 Americans were still counted in the labor force?  One estimate has it at 11.7%.  That is Carter era employment numbers.  It shouldn’t be surprising that Obama’s Worst Recovery since the Great Depression is catching up with the Worst Recession since the Great Depression.

Not a shining moment for the Obama regime and it’s Keynesian economy policies.  Not enough for them to give up on those failed policies though.  For the left, their political agenda always trumps the truth.

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Reality vs Obama: The Economy

Saturday, February 2nd, 2013

Let us once again refer the the chart our Dear Leader‘s economic team used to scare people into buying into the miserable failure of a porkulus package the democrats rammed down the throat of America back in 2009.  Oh, but with reality also displayed.

Jobs Reality vs Obama

So, using the Obama regime’s own metrics, the so-called “economic policy” has made things worse for average Americans than doing nothing would have done!  They predicted an unemployment rate of 5.5% by now if nothing was done and 5.1% if the administration got to print more money and give it to democrat campaign donors.

The only reason the current U3 unemployment rate is is as low as 7.9% is that over eight million people have been removed from the labor pool that the feds use to calculate the employment rate.  That includes everyone in the obscenely high long term unemployment pool that have run out of the extended unemployment benefits.  The U6 rate, which includes the underemployed is still at 14.4%, which appears to be the “new normal” in Obama’s progressive dream of America.

 James Pethokoukis points out that our Dear Leader‘s economic team made other really bad predictions.

…recall that back in January 2009 Team Obama economists Jared Bernstein and Christina Romer predicted the unemployment rate by 2013 would be closing in on 5%. (Of course, Obama’s economists also thought we’d be in a mini-boom of 4%-plus economic growth. That hasn’t happened either.)

In case you haven’t heard, GDP for the fourth quarter of 2012 came in at -0.1.  That’s right, after three and half years of the worst recovery since the Great Depression, the US has slipped back into negative GDP growth under the stewardship of our Dear Leader.  We actually could be in another recession, but we won’t know for another three months.  Until then, we’re in a Schrödinger’s cat situation of recovery/recession.

Given that our Dear Leader and his democrat minions are calling for more taxes, more government spending (with $0.46 on the dollar borrowed) and more business hindering regulations, it’s looking more like that cat is a recession.

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Obama Economy Chart of the Day

Monday, August 6th, 2012

Let us review just what this chart illustrates.

Our Dear Leader promised the American people that if his massive “porkulus” bill was passed, unemployment levels would drop much faster than if the government did absolutely nothing to try and improve the economy.  A government driven unemployment rate of 5.6% was promised by July 2012, instead of the to be feared 6.0% rate of no government action.

Now to inject reality into our Dear Leader‘s “planned economy” model.  The reality is that unemployment went up from 8.2% to 8.3%.  The United States is 2.3% worse off than if the federal government had done nothing!  According to Obama’s own metrics, his attempts to “improve” the economy has actually made things worse!

Now, one could cut the President some slack, since he has extremely limited experience with the private sector, and trusted academics with absolutely zero private sector experience for his economic advice.  That is if he was willing to admit the error of his ways and come clean with the American people that he made mistakes, very large mistakes, that stole money from pockets of the American worker, and is now willing to try concepts that are new to him, but have improved the economy in past recession recoveries.

Ya, I know, that scenario just is not going to happen.  Our Dear Leader and his ‘advisers’ are doubling down on their failed policies and trying to tell Americans who have seen their net worth go down while the price of food and fuel go up, that his plan is “working.”

Seriously, he is blowing so much smoke up the collective asses of America that his speeches should come with a cancer warning.

 

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The simple truth behind the “porkulus” acts

Thursday, August 11th, 2011

“The stimulus passed in February of 2009 didn’t go to shovel ready projects. Instead it propped up state and local governments that were broke. What didn’t go to governments was spent on projects without any regard for their return on investment. For example, green light bulb research might be a neat concept, but the short term return on investment is 0. You might even believe that green light bulb research will have positive economic effects in the future-but stimulus is designed to help us today so it’s still a stupid way to spend government dollars. Even if you think stimulus can work, it doesn’t because of politics. This phenomena occurs no matter which party is in charge.”

Jeff Carter nailing it shut.

Mr. Carter goes on to present a simple, proven method used by both democrat & Republican Presidents to stimulate economic growth and job creation.  A method that won’t be used as long as our Dear Leader is in the White House and Harry Reid and the democrats control the Senate.  It goes against their so-called “progressive” policies, which they will blindly cling to regardless of how much damage they cause the country.

HT to AoSHQ

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Not the change you were looking for

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

As I have pointed out before, our Dear Leader‘s “jobs created or saved” numbers are smoke and mirrors at best.

So how is the Obama White House going to deal with the case of fraud they tried to foist on the American people? Well, based on past behavior, openness and transparency wasn’t anywhere on their list.

Brett Blackledge, of the AP, explains how Team Lightbringer is going to hide their incompetence now.

The White House has abandoned its controversial method of counting jobs under President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus, making it impossible to track the number of jobs saved or created with the $787 billion in recovery money.

Despite mounting a vigorous defense of its earlier count of more than 640,000 jobs credited to the stimulus, even after numerous errors were identified, the Obama administration now is making it easier to give the stimulus credit for hiring. It’s no longer about counting a job as saved or created; now it’s a matter of counting jobs funded by the stimulus.

That means that any stimulus money used to cover payroll will be included in the jobs credited to the program, including pay raises for existing employees and pay for people who never were in jeopardy of losing their positions.

That’s right. The “open and transparent” Obama administration is now going to take credit for “saving or creating” jobs that already exist.

What is clear, is that Obama’s team of Socialists are trying desperately to hide obvious fact that the democrat “porkulus” bill was an utter and complete failure at the stated goal of “stimulating” the economy.  It has been a job killer, not a job creator, and the Team Lightbringer and their co-conspirators in the democrat congressional “leadership” are now trying to make it impossible to accurately track the effect of their pork laden payouts have on the job market, and the economy.

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Roundup

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Here is a roundup of some posts from No Moss Here.

The so-called “scientists” threw out their raw data.

It seems that this is the best the pet “scientists” used by the anthropogenic global warming Luddites can come up with, the dog ate my homework defense.  It makes a rational person wonder what they were trying to hide.

In a poll of registered voters, two thirds felt that the democrat so-called “stimulus” has not benefited the economy.

Obama’s DoJ, which won’t investigate the Black Panthers, says the criminals at ACORN are to get tax payer money.

ObamaCare’s Cost Could Top $6 Trillion.

John Bolton Was Right

Share and Enjoy!

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It’s a question of competence

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

The Obama White House has failed multiple instances of basic core competence.

When the AP pointed out that their “jobs created or saved” metric was utter fiction, a White House Spokesman accused them of “calculator abuse.”

Then there was the embarrassing list of items that were being funded by the Porkulus program, which included:

– $430,000 to repair a bridge in Iowa County, Wis., that carries 10 or fewer cars per day.
– $800,000 for the John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pa., serving about 20 passengers per day, to build a backup runway.
– $219,000 for Syracuse University to study the sex lives of freshmen women.
– $2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased.

Now, according the the recovery.gov website, built at the cost of millions of tax payers dollars, $6.4 billion of that democrat porkulus bill has been spent in congressional districts that don’t exist.

In the non-existent 14th congressional district alone, the Obama administration claims to have spent $617,848 in order to “create or save” five jobs. That is $123,569.60 per job, in a part of America that doesn’t even exist.

You can bet that this buck won’t stop at our Dear Leader’s desk. Nope, he’s going to pass this steaming pile of incompetence on to his good buddy, Joey Biden. Yup, the man a heartbeat away from the Oval Office was in charge of implementing the Porkulus program, and he has managed to screw that pooch royally.

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Obama’s ‘Calculator Abuse’

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

According to ABC News’ Jack Tapper, Jared Bernstein, chief economist and senior economic advisor to the vice president, used the term “Calculator Abuse” when a reporter did some basic arithmetic  the the federal government’s own numbers.  The government’s own numbers show what the reporter pointed out, $160 billion spent divided by 1 million jobs “created or saved” means that each of those jobs “created or saved” cost the US taxpayer $160,000 per job.  Once again, Team Lightbringer responded with a classic defense, “Who are you going to believe? Me or that lying calculator?”

As we know know, the term “jobs created or saved” is a scam created by our Dear Leader to hide the truth from the American People.  It has become so obvious that even CBS “News” has been forced to report on it.

Ace goes into much more detail on how the Obama administration knew it was a farce from day one and were much more concerned with creating the illusion of economic growth where there is none.

When the WH demanded that those who received Spendulus money “report” back on how many jobs were “saved or created,” they insisted upon a nonsensical rule: If a single dollar of Spendulus was spent on an employee’s salary, whether that employee was a new employee or an old one, that gets counted as a job “saved or created.” If he’s a new employee, that job was created. If he’s an existing employee, that job was saved.

For $1.

Yes, $1. Because the nonsensical rules the White House told these people to count “saved or created” jobs by simply stated: If any employee’s salary is paid, in whole or in part (any part!), count that as a job “saved or created” by the spending.

And then report that number back to us.

Note that the White House’s rules do not seek to discover which jobs really were “saved or created.”

The harsh reality of the current economy, the worst since Jimmy Carter, and its effects on the average American just doesn’t matter to our Dear Leader.

Michelle Malkin has more details
on the “jobs created and saved” scam.

Update: More evidence that our Dear Leader‘s “jobs created and saved” numbers are complete and utter nonsense:

President Barack Obama’s economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there.
The Georgia nonprofit’s inflated job count is among persisting errors in the government’s latest effort to measure the effect of the $787 billion stimulus plan despite White House promises last week that the new data would undergo an “extensive review” to root out errors discovered in an earlier report.
About two-thirds of the 14,506 jobs claimed to be saved under one federal office, the Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services, actually weren’t saved at all, according to a review of the latest data by The Associated Press.

Update: Even the way far left leaning Boston Globe has noticed that the White House numbers have no connection of reality. It is interesting to listen to the Globe reporter try to spin this White House scam as a “mistake.” There is no mistake. Team Lightbringer knew that the porkulus wouldn’t actually create any actual jobs, so they came up with “rules” that would make it appear that some actual benefit was was created by that massive spending bill.

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Biden’s fantasy

Friday, September 4th, 2009

Vice-President Joey Biden is spinning like a top, spreading the fantasy that the porkulus package is doing anything positive for the economy while hundreds of thousands of jobs are being lost each month.

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The Biden Effect

Monday, July 20th, 2009

We all know what the “Gore Effect” is. Whenever ManBearPig goes to speak about “Global Warming”, the temperature plummets.

Now we have the Biden Effect. ever our Dear Leader‘s Vice-President shows up to lie to the American People about how well the democrat‘s Porkulus bill is doing, unemployment shoots up in that area.

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