The tv talking heads are all aflutter about Obama “cutting his vacation short” to “address the fiscal cliff”.
Give me a break. They had 2 years to deal with this. They might as well say “Obama heroically crams for test”.
Tags: Barack Obama, democrat, economy, incompetent, liberal media bias, Obama economy, Politics, Worst President Ever
Yes, math is required, you should have paid more attention in school.
First, a spot on quick review of the so-called “Fiscal Cliff” negotiations.
Here is the bottom line kids, our Dear Leader has no issues with going over that cliff. Really, Barry doesn’t see any downside to it. He knows that tax hikes, even limited ones, are going to have a negative effect on the economy. The across the board tax hikes on top of new Obamacare taxes are going to be even worse. This way he can blame the Republicans, and the democrats with press credentials will back him on this, and then take credit for the budget cuts.
On to the math part, courtesy of johngalt at Flopping Aces.
One of the persistent myths that left repeats is that tax cuts don’t pay for themselves. This is one of those talking points that sounds simple, but is clearly false when you do the math.
As JG points out:
Given the period from 1994 to 1999, the growth period under Clinton, federal revenues increased by 1.3% for every 1% increase in GDP.
Given the period from 2003-2007, the growth period under Bush, with the lower tax rates, federal revenues increased by 1.7% for every 1% increase in GDP.
Pretty simple. Lower taxes results in an increase in GDP, which results in an increase in federal tax revenues. Note that most leftists will deny this and attack you personally for daring to bring actual math into the argument.
Let’s run with these numbers:
Applying those percentages in a comparison model, then, we can see that if given a starting point of $2.5 Trillion in revenues, and a growth of 3%(real GDP growth) in GDP, that under the Clinton tax rates, the following year’s revenues would equal roughly $2.598 Trillion. Under the Bush tax rates, that figure goes up to $2.628 Trillion. For a ten year period, the difference in revenue, assuming constant growth in GDP, becomes roughly $2.2 Trillion dollars difference in revenue
Now 2.2 Trillion dollars is about half of what our Dear Leader added to the federal debt in his first term. If Barry really was worried about the increasing federal debt and the stagnant economy, he would be working really, really hard to avoid across the board tax hikes. What is interesting, and not surprising to anyone who has been paying attention, is that Barry clearly isn’t interested in reducing the Federal debt, or improving the economy.
Some people out there in the MSM/DNC actually do the math and understand the problem. It is a very small subset of the MSM, which includes the nice folks over at CNBC. CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo interviewed democrat Senator Ben Cardin recently, and called him out on the democrat’s political posturing.
“That’s all you want to do. That’s it. It’s your way or the highway. Raise the rates on the rich. No other way. Your way or the highway. That’s it. That’s where we are. Thank you, Senator.”
“So how come you’re not moving forward? What’s the problem? Because the American people are so tired of this, and they are really tired of the lawmakers thinking that the American people are stupid. You can’t keep coming on the show every week saying the same thing: ‘It’s not a balanced approach.’”
“You’re talking about $1.2 trillion in revenue, but you’re not prepared to put anything on the table. People are not stupid!”
The best part was that after she committed this act of actual journalism, traders on the floor watching erupted in cheers and applause. They do the math and know what is going on.
Tags: Barack Obama, democrat, economy, incompetent, leftist hypocrisy, Obama economy, political cartoon, Politics, Worst President Ever
The November 2012 unemployment numbers are out and, of course, the followers of the Cult of our Dear Leader are saying how wonderful those numbers are and those with basic math and reading comprehension skills are not so quick to jump in and join the cheering.
As in most cases, the truth lies between the two camps, but it’s closer to those with the basic math and reading comprehension skills.
According the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U3 unemployment rate (the so-called “official” rate) dropped from 7.9% in October to 7.7% in November. That is the official government number. No books were cooked to get there. It was calculated the same way the federal BLS calculated the U3 number for the past couple of administrations. Just how the feds calculate that number is important to know. I’ll get to that later.
For a more accurate look at the health of the US labor force, you need to look at the BLS’ U6 rate, which includes the underemployed. People who can’t find full time jobs and are working part time for example. That number has been in the low to mid teens for most of the Obama regime. That fell from 14.6% in October to 14.4% in November. Moving in the right direction, but still crazy high considering the U6 rate averaged 9.2% during the GW Bush administration. That was with the declining economy he inherited, the economic recession caused by the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks, and the sub-prime housing bubble bursting! It’s even worse when you compare the Obama Economy to the Reagan Recovery, which at this point in President Reagan’s first term, the economy was producing over 800,000 new jobs a month.
The question the media should be asking is how those unemployment numbers are dropping. Yes, the economy is adding new jobs, but at a rate barely above the 125,000 new jobs a month needed to meet population growth. The numbers for October and September were revised downwards, so we should take the November number of 146,000 new jobs with more than just a few grains of salt. Even adjusting for the level of error seen in October and September, the number new jobs number is still probably over 125,000, but certainly not enough to lower the U3 and U6 numbers by two tenths of a percent in a single months time.
Now it is time to address how the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates the various unemployment rates, including the U3 and U6 numbers. The key thing to know here is that this rate is based on the official federal workforce count. If you are collecting unemployment, and thus are officially looking for work, you are part of the official workforce that the federal government counts. If your benefits run out, you are no longer counted as part of that workforce, so you are not part of those BLS calculations. If you were on unemployment but start receiving other benefits, such as food stamps or welfare, you are removed from the official workforce count as well. So as the number of Americans on food stamps (which aren’t actual stamps anymore, but EBT cards) rises to record levels under the Food Stamp President, the size of the American workforce, as calculated by the federal BLS, shrinks in a corresponding fashion.
So while approximately 146,000 new jobs were added to the economy in November 2012, the size of workforce dropped by over a half million. To put it another way, the reduction in the workforce was well over three times the size of the increase in the workforce. Combine those two numbers and now that 0.2% drop in both the federal U3 and U6 rates make sense.
If the U3 rate was calculated using the same size workforce as existed when Barry Obama took office, the U3 rate would be 10.7%. Clearly, the primary goal of our Dear Leader and congressional democrats has not been job creation, but the illusion of job creation.
So what the November 2012 unemployment numbers really tell anyone willing to look past the smiling faces of the democrat operatives with press credentials, is that there are more people receiving money from the government (i.e. money obtained from tax revenues), than are people paying taxes than there were last month. That is the legacy of the Obama Economy.
Update: Since I posted this, the BLS “adjusted” the November 2012 unemployment rate upwards from 7.7% to 7.8%. Given the economic stewardship of the Obama regime, don’t expect that to get any better. The initial BLS U3 rate for December 2012 was 7.8%. I wouldn’t be surprised if that gets “adjusted” upwards as well.
Tags: Barack Obama, culture of corruption, democrat, economy, incompetent, Math, Politics, unemployment, Worst President Ever
“…nobody’s worried about being overrun by Mexicans anymore, because what Obama’s doing to the U.S. economy will do more to stanch immigration from Mexico than any border fence.”
Tags: Barack Obama, democrat, economy, Glenn Reynolds, Obama economy, Politics, quote, Quote of the Day, Worst President Ever
Congratulations moonbats. You managed to get your socialist leader reelected despite 7.9% unemployment (which is only that low because the active workforce measured by the feds has shrunk dramatically during our Dear Leader‘s first term), record long term unemployment, and anemic economic growth (a 2% GDP growth rate has been the growth ceiling and GDP growth rate has consistently been lower than the inflation rate).
I won’t go into how Obama managed to drag out a win against someone with an actual record of success. Plenty of posts out there covering that subject.
Let’s just look at the affect of the news of a second Obama term has had and will most likely have.
First there is the Wall Street reaction. Remember that Barry was the Wall Street Golden Boy back in 08, receiving record high donations from the Big Money folks. The day after the election results were known, the DOW dropped over 300 points and has shown no signs of recovery.
Now the democrat operatives with press credentials will try to tell you that the stock market plunge had nothing to do with the election results, and is purely a reaction to the looming “fiscal cliff.” Yes, they really do think you are that stupid. The on coming “fiscal cliff” has been known about for months. If it really didn’t matter who was going to occupy the White House come January 20, 2013, the market would have tanked prior to the election. Instead, while there was still a chance that someone who understands actual economic reality and was not addicted to Keynesian fantasy, would win on November 6, 2012, the market chugged along fine, maintaining a DOW of about 13000. Ignoring the timing of the 300+ point drop would be like ignoring the Simpson DNA. It requires believing in ideology more than the objective evidence of actual facts.
Besides watching the value of your 401K drop (OK, there are a lot of moonbats who don’t have a retirement plan other than depending on the government, but there are some who actually participate in the economy in ways other than being a leech), you may have noticed the round of layoff announcements that started cropping up on November 7, 2012. Boeing being one of the larger ones. Don’t worry kids, plenty more of those on the way. While there will be plenty of white collar layoffs, there is plenty of pain in store for those part time workers at the lower end of the economic scale. Even if a company that employs large numbers of part time employees can actually stay in business given the crippling costs of Obamacare, they will almost certainly capping the number of hours a single employee can work. They have to do that in order to avoid being penalized even more by the job killing, economy crippling, federal nightmare known as Obamacare. Why do you think all those Unions, which supported our Dear Leader, asked for and received exemptions from have to be subject to Obamacare?
Short term, unemployment is going to kick back up over 8% and will continue to rise (unless the fed reduces the size of the workforce they count even more drastically than they already have). For the next two years, 8% unemployment (with the U6 rating being in the 14%-16% range) will be the best you can hope for. The odds of GDP growth rate breaking though a 2% ceiling also run slim to none.
As a wise man cautioned me in my youth, “Be careful of what you wish for. You may get it.” Well moonbats, you got your wish of a socialist utopia. Welcome to it.
Oh ya, the only thing that could possibly make our Dear Leader‘s economic policies look good will be the results of his foreign policy. That is a topic for another day, though.
Tags: 2012 election, Barack Obama, democrat, incompetent, Obama economy, Politics, Worst President Ever
“An utterly insane number of Democrats think the economy is hunky-dory, not because it actually is, but because it simply has to be for their other silly beliefs to hold true. As a result, only 15% of Democrats reported that they’re hearing mostly bad things about the economy.”
Tags: economy, Obama economy, Politics, quote, Quote of the Day
Back in early August, I posted a chart that compared the GDP growth rate of inflation.
It showed that the GDP was growing slower than the rate of inflation, or to put it more simply, the money you have is losing value faster than the economy is growing.
It’s time for an updated version of that chart, since the Fed just reduced the GDP rate for Q2 2012 to 1.3%, not the 1.5% they projected back in early August.
As you can see, the economy under our Dear Leader’s regime is clearly going in the wrong direction.
Tags: Barack Obama, democrat, economy, incompetent, inflation, Obama economy, one-term President, Politics, Worst President Ever
Let’s take a look at how well average Americans have done under the rule of our Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama.
Not too well it seems. The average house hold income in America is down 8.2% since our Dear Leader started occupying the White House and inflicting Keynesian economic polices on the American people.
This clearly is not the change most Americans were hoping for. The only sane course for American is to remove BHO from office on election day so the economy and the country can start moving the right direction on January 20, 2013.
Tags: Barack Obama, economy, incompetent, Obama economy, one-term President, Politics, Worst President Ever
Obamanomics 101, Understanding How the Obama Economy Works
Tags: Barack Obama, democrat, economy, incompetent, Obama economy, one-term President, Politics, Video, Worst President Ever
It’s time again to take a look at the state of the US economy under the so called “guidance” of our Dear Leader.
As you can see we are still at an unemployment level that is much higher than what the Obama economic team promised us it would be if the federal government did nothing, and even higher still than what they claimed it would be if we passed the trillion dollar “stimulus” package. So, not only epic fail on the part of the Obama so called “economic team”, but actual evidence of incompetence is pretty damn clear.
It’s also pretty clear that they are trying to “cook the books” in order to hide their massive pooch screwing of the economy.
Let’s look at that unemployment number of 8.1% for August 2012. It dropped from 8.3%, with only 96,000 new jobs being added. As anyone who has been paying attention knows, you need to add at least 125,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. So America was short 29,000 jobs of breaking even. The reason the unemployment number when down is because the federal government stopped counting 368,000 Americans as being unemployed for a variety of reasons, none of which was that they became employed. One of the primary reasons that people dropped off the rolls of employed was that the people who were being counted exhausted their unemployment benefits. They are still unemployed, but the feds don’t count them anymore. So in the is case, the reduction in the “official” unemployment rate is an indication that things are getting worse, not better.
Need another example? The Egan-Jones credit rating agency just downgraded the US government’s credit rating. This is because the Obama regime has initiated a third round of “Quantitate Easing.” Incase you don’t know what that means, the Fed created $40 billion out of thin air and inserted that into the money supply. So you have more dollars chasing the same amount of goods. This is bad news for the American consumer. If you still don’t get it (i.e. you can’t repeal the Law of Supply and Demand), here is a helpful instructional video
Tags: Barack Obama, democrat, economy, incompetent, Obama economy, one-term President, Politics, Worst President Ever