Unemployment and incompetence

The unemployment numbers released this week were terrible, but they do not tell the whole story. The truth is that the numbers are much worse than they should have been and are very much worse than what came before. Right now, the number of unemployed is still rising continuing a trend that has lasted for 22 months. The overwhelming bulk of this rise in the unemployed has come since Obama had his so-called stimulus bill passed as an emergency measure. If one looks at the effect this bill had on unemployment (rather than on the fantasy of jobs "saved" which is used by the White House since it is unverifiable), one sees that the numbers of unemployed are much higher than the Obama administration predicted for peak unemployment WITHOUT the stimulus. It sems that the stimulus has had the opposite effect from the one that Obama promised -- namely, unemployment is worse than it otherwise would have been. And this was done all at a cost of a little less than a trillion dollars. What a bargain!

There have been ten other recessions since World War 2. The current one now has the highest number of jobs lost. Indeed, in 7 out of the ten previous recessions, job growth had kicked in well before 22 months and had already brought total employment higher than at the start of the recession. This even includes the recesson during the Truman Administration which was feared to be the start of another depression.

In short, by mismanaging the economy, Obama has managed to make the job losses much more severe and to delay the recovery! Now that is change we can all believe in!

What has happened is that Obama has injected so much uncertainty into the business system that companies are afraid to hire or invest. After all, will there soon be new energy costs under cap and trade? Will there be massive tax increases for owners who use Sub S or LLC structures? Will health costs for business get pushed so high that new employees do not make sense? Overarching these specifics is the concern whether or not all of the new debt from Washington will drive inflation or interest rates much higher. And every single one of these problems can be laid at the door of Obama. The Administration is destroying business growth and raisiing unemployment all in the name of progress and fairness. My guess is that in 2012 Obama will abandon "Yes we can" and switch to "We did! and misery loves company!"