Change Can You Believe The Stimulus Is Not Stimulating. Shovel Ready? You Know What They’re Shoveling!
Read more articles on Finance and Politics.June 12, 2009
Posted by neillevine
June 12, 2009
Posted by neillevine
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Unemployment has hit 9.4% in government numbers, the highest total in more than 25 years. Of course, this is bad news and ff you take into account the growth in the total labor force, the number of people without jobs is way worse than it was way back then.
The stock market is also still in the dumps. It was 8,000 in 2003. It has been higher before and since. 11,000, 14,000. 8,000 now on the Dow means this country is in a recession, although once upon a time people were making money. America was prosperous. It was possible to make money. You see the higher the stock market goes the more money there is to spread around.
Instead we now have a government rescue and it is unclear just what is being rescued and what is being taken over.
Don’t forget General Motors has gone bankrupt. Chrysler, too. So if the American car makers are any bell weather, sign post or criterion, you can’t say the stimulus is stimulating. There is something wrong. Maybe the folks in Washington have fallen back on fuzzy math. Unemployment is now a benefit and definitely a cause for worry. Perhaps this is a brave new world of hope over substance, of promises over reality, of misdeeds that have been slipped by in place of good government and are being called good for you.
I must admit it was also pretty bad in the Reagan era when there was high inflation, high unemployment, a shortage of money in general and a rough economic terrain to navigate and, back then, if you care to remember, the country survived and, for reasons that amaze me, then President Reagan was admired and the economy picked up. The stock market, after being in the crapper for a long time, revived. People found jobs and earned a living. The country overcame this difficult time by believing in the Great Communicator, although I have doubts he actually saved the country. I think like Iran Contra there was something else going on. After all, a lot of savings and loans went under. People lost money is so many ways. However, Ronald Reagan did have political hype and excuses just like Barry Barack O, who, ironically, also appears to be a Great Communicator who is not really explaining what is going on.
For example the price of crude oil is comparably higher. Sixty dollars a barrel of crude is no longer cheap energy. This raises a lot of unanswered questions as to what is going on. Does anyone in Washington have a grasp of what the problem is. Or better yet, what is the solution? Since the stimulus appears to have flopped since my recollection is that previous recoveries were better in so many tangible and intangible ways.
What does this tell you? Casuistry, double talk, political hustle. Not economic results or reliable realities.
Could it be we have politicians who want to make everyone poor? While they rack in the jack. Do they dislike rich people while they grow fat off the bountiful plenty of this great land. In response to complaints that the economy is going nowhere, Barry Barack O now claims he has created jobs despite the high unemployment. Unfortunately, shovel ready jobs means work that was going to be done, not specifically extra projects to replace lost opportunities. What is really needed is a growing economy and fresh opportunities, not stale excuses.
Ever the political grist mill, this time around Barry Barack Obama has Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers and various and sundry assorted and, in my opinion, sordid Congressional operators to rely on. By his own admission, Obama has maxed out national borrowing. He has little in the way of fall back, explaining why he is talking about such small amounts for universal health care, which is probably going to be cheap and skimpier, if you read my previous essay on Medicare, Medicaid and health insurance.
So I ask again, where is this country going?
Probably nowhere based on the first six months of these new politics.
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