WASHINGTON - The government reported last week that the economy
created only 217,000 jobs in May, with hardly a peep of serious
complaint from the White House or Democrats in Congress.
The news media's economic reporters, who are usually given to
whitewashing these dreadful jobs figures, said it was a sign the Obama
economy is on the comeback trail. There were no fulminations from
Democratic leaders that this was a shameful report in a rich, $17
trillion economy of about 160 million workers, many of whom still can't
find good, full-time jobs.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, whose home state of Nevada suffers
from 8 percent unemployment, uttered no criticism about the job data or
the impotent, economic policies that produced it.
Other Democratic leaders across Capitol Hill were just as mute, but not everyone was going to take this situation lying down.
When the minuscule job numbers were reported on CNBC, the business news
network, only Rick Santelli, the popular, pugnacious bond market
analyst, didn't mince words. He flatly called the employment figure
"mediocre."
Labor Secretary Thomas Perez wouldn't go that far, of course, but even
he didn't like the way the job market's been underperforming.
"There's no victory laps being done around here. We have a lot of unfinished business," he said. No kidding?
Still, for the most part, the nightly network news shows generally fell
in line with a generally positive, things-are-improving view of the
jobs report. But most left out some of the worst statistics that were
either buried in the report or showed up elsewhere.
The number of Americans who have been without a job for six months or
longer -- about 3.4 million -- remained virtually unchanged. They
constitute about one-third of the nation's jobless.
An additional 700,000 people told survey workers for the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics they have stopped looking for a job. Add up these
dropouts, and the workers who are forced to take part-time employment,
when they need full-time, and the real unemployment/underemployment rate
is over 13 percent.
Millions of discouraged Americans who have given up looking for a
full-time job because they can't find one, or for other reasons, remain
the major, driving force behind the decline in the official unemployment
rate over the past five years, according to business economist Peter
Morici.
More than 7 million Americans who worked in part-time jobs last month said they need full-time employment.
America's shrinking labor force remained unchanged at 62.8 percent, its
lowest rate since the 1970s, and another critical economic symptom of
an economy in decline.
The news broadcasts and all the newspaper headlines touted the
official, national, average jobless rate, which remains stuck at 6.3
percent.
But millions of Americans do not work in the "average" column. Take a
look at BLS's state-by-state unemployment rate, and the numbers tell a
sharply different and far more depressing story.
Nearly half of all the states (23) have unemployment rates over 6 percent. Fifteen of them are near, at or over 7 percent.
And we're talking about the biggest and most populated state
economies, too. California (7.8 percent), Michigan (7.4), New Jersey
(6.9), and New York (6.7), to name only a few.
At the same time, while the network news shows were cheering May's
employment figures, they ignored jobless data that rarely gets much
attention.
All but overlooked was the fact that unemployment rose for large
sectors of young workers who disappear through the large cracks in the
news media's shallow reporting.
Unemployment actually climbed for Americans who have only a high school
diploma, from 6.3 to 6.5 percent, and jumped from 8.9 percent to 9.1
percent for high school dropouts.
But what may be equally worrisome is the length of time the Obama
economy has been struggling to get out of its "recovery" phase and
accelerate its painfully slow pace of economic growth. Or, as we saw in
the first three months of this year, no growth. The economy shrank by 1
percent between January and March.
Last week, CNBC's Rick Santelli used a chart to remind viewers that
we've been through many deep recessions or economic downers, and have
come roaring out them by an average of two years. He gave three very
instructive comparisons.
The bottom of his chart showed how Obama's economy has been limping in and out of the recovery doldrums for the past 60 months.
Then he pointed to the initially lackluster economy of the 1990s that
came to life in President Clinton's second term when he signed a
Republican bill to slash the capital gains tax. That sparked an
explosion of investment growth and job creation that led to a full
employment economy.
At the top of his chart was the across-the-board, tax cut-driven Reagan
economy in the 1980s when the U.S. came out of a deep recession within
just two years.
Santelli's point was unarguable. Pro-growth, pro-job and pro-capital
investment policies always work, as they did for Reagan and for Clinton
(and for President Kennedy before them), both of whom championed trade
expansion and robust energy development as part of their economic
revitalization.
Obama did the opposite. He raised taxes, gave only lip service to
trade, then hit the brakes on energy and blew about $1 trillion on an
inept, waste-ridden, job stimulus spending program that left our
job-challenged economy where it is today.
For the past year or more, Americans say the economy and jobs remain
their highest concerns, according to every poll. Friday's pathetic jobs
report shows that's not going to change as long as Obama is president.
It
was obviously of no importance whatsoever to Barack Obama that these
jihad terrorists would return to jihad in Afghanistan and try to kill
American troops there. Eli Lake says that the prospect of their killing
Bergdahl presented Obama with a “painful dilemma.”
And pray tell what kind of parents would send their children ALONE
on such a journey as this knowing full well that they could be killed in
the process...well let me tell you what kind...parents who are using
their children as their own passport to America and to all the freebies and
handouts America...Obama...will most assuredly give them...give them NO
matter that they broke our laws getting here... hence the name 'ILLEGALS'
NOT 'IMMIGRANTS' fits them quite well.
So while immigration officials can immediately and quite legally
return Mexican ILLEGALS to the border, NO such program or legality is in
place to deal with Central American ILLEGALS in the same manner. And
with the number of ILLEGALS being shipped to and dumped in Arizona
rising every day, when confronted by Governor Brewer about this
situation, Barack HUSSEIN Obama had the audacity and unmitigated gall to
say this dumping will continue on NO matter Brewer's demand that he
terminate this vile and unjust practice.
But there is indeed a solution to the problem of dumping all these
people into Arizona...in fact there's a solution that could be applied in Texas,
California, and any and all states with ILLEGAL problems as well...and
it's a solution that costs just the price of a one-way bus ticket as
Governor Brewer could lead the charge as she loads up her own buses and ships the ILLEGALS straight to DC and deposit them on the White House doorstep.
Let Obama deal with them and all their crap...let Obama pay for their
insurance with ObamaCare, let Obama learn Spanish and press one for
English, let Obama use his own dollars to fund all their
freebies and handouts...and let Obama deal with people who will
assimilate into the fabric of American society only one step above how
his muslim brethren have done.
As
many of you know my RIGHT SIDE PATRIOT partner and friend, Craig
Andresen, is in facebook jail until June 26th, so I have been posting
his articles for him. Please click this link: http://www.thenationalpatriot.com/2014/06/10/is-the-right-really-wrong/ to go directly to Craig's
blog 'The National Patriot' to read his newest article.
