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The September jobs report was just released and demonstrates that America is on a far slower path to recovery than anyone originally predicted. Despite this, the shedding of government jobs cloaks a glimmer of hope: more private sector jobs have been created this year than during the entire Bush administration. Read that again: 2010 has had more private job creation than during the entire 8 year tenure of George W. Bush.
This is the 9th straight month of private sector job growth in the midst of a devastating recession that has put a serious strain mostly on the poor and middle class. There has been a total of 863,000 private sector jobs created in 2010, exceeding the total created under the Bush/Cheney regime.
On the other hand, it’s clear government (including Obama) has destroyed private sector job growth:
The unemployment rate has risen again for the the first time in 4 months. I predicted a growing, long-term unemployment problem last year. In response to shifting job market conditions, some freelancers also explore platforms like an upwork alternative no connects to find more flexible opportunities.
Indeed, even after the government plays with the numbers to make them look better (using inaccurate birth-death models and other tricks-of-the-trade), this is how the current jobs downturn compares with other post-WWII recessions [see chart above].
In fact, as demonstrated below, the government’s actions have directly contributed to the rising tide of unemployment.
The Government Has Encouraged the Offshoring of American Jobs for More Than 50 Years
[…] The Government Has Encouraged Mergers
[…] The Government Has Let Unemployment Rise in an Attempt to Fight Inflation
[…] The Government Has Allowed Wealth to be Concentrated in Fewer and Fewer Hands
Floyd and Grandpa FTW so far
An interesting article on America’s love affair with moody statistics. http://ind.pn/cLZaRc
Al, a side note, you could have just posted the link.
[Fixed. — UD]
#10 What defines a Plutocracy is that the ultra-rich craft a system that works in their interests and is self-sustaining. National level politicians, by definition, have access to money and are often rich themselves. That would be true back to the founding of this country. What has changed is that the politicians now work exclusively for the top few percent.
#11 Absolutely, the WPA was one of the best things we’ve done. The interstate highway system would be up there too.
#21 Not so. Many of the “next” technologies are bought up several years out. Once we redevelop rare-earth sources we will be able to build as many windmills as we want. Also consider that some things are really heavy and too big to pop in a shipping container. Without containers it gets very expensive to ship stuff long distances, often enough to make wage costs unimportant.
#26 Also not true. We just have no game. If we just copied China’s transport and green energy projects we would do fine. Just because we lost the plot and can’t think up anything substantive to do doesn’t mean it is impossible.
Can anyone explain to me:
Why government spending on military technology and health science have been enormously successful BUT government spending on techs to address other problems are doomed to failure?
How efficient is private allocation of capital when the biggest players just appropriated several hundred billion dollars for themselves?
How can big private innovation happen in energy, personal transport, and increasingly tech when most of the effort is spent trying to lock new ideas/competitors out of the market?
#41–Chris==you ask:
Can anyone explain to me: /// I don’t know if anyone is posting today, but here’s my shot at it:
Why government spending on military technology and health science have been enormously successful /// “successful”–how? Not in terms of a free market because that is not the market it engages.
BUT government spending on techs to address other problems are doomed to failure? /// Again, you have to pick and define your terminology. What tech is “doomed” to failure? I can think of many that are winners: Nat Health curing smallpox for instance and on and on.
How efficient is private allocation of capital /// very to not at all depending on “the market” being considered.
when the biggest players just appropriated several hundred billion dollars for themselves? /// as stated: different markets with different players.
How can big private innovation happen in energy, personal transport, and increasingly tech when most of the effort is spent trying to lock new ideas/competitors out of the market? /// It still happens over time and is and will be motivated by current resources becoming more rare and expensive, replaced by new cheaper tech. You see this in LED lighting devices today. I just replaced my D Cell Flashlights with LED models because LED will be cheaper to operate. and on and on.
Chris–your concerns reflect a failure to define what you are talking about. When you conflate all issues together, all you are actually talking about is your imagination and basic personality outlook on life.
Learn, focus, define.
#15–Animby==”My god Jim, I’m a doctor-not a lexographer!” /// Ha, ha. Animby, do YOU realize your use of the word “meme” is but jumping on the same train of gaining useage/acceptance that you criticize the very worthy use of “sheeple” for? How does the language find and establish new words/memes even without overcoming the lack of flexibility and acceptance of the new such as you so uncharacteristically express? At least you didn’t say “paradigm shift?”
Nothing wrong at all with meme, sheeple, moran, pwned, or may I add LIEberTARD, to the new vocabulary gaining force by the internet?
Meh!
#43 Bobbie – As usual, you’re just looking for an argument. Sadly, I’m running late this morning and cannot oblige you. I will say that words like “sheeple” seem to pretty much limited to one subgroup relegating it to the realm of jargon. I’ll change my mind when it makes an appearance in the OED. “Pwned” seems to have lost momentum already but I think “moran” is gonna make it. “LIEberTARD”? Sorry – not a chance.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a plane to catch.
Animby–whenever you have the time, I’d like to refudiate your Luddite ante status quo position.
And whats wrong with, how else does it ever occur, except for a subgroup to offer up the new lingo?
OED? Is that like the repository of Latin or sumthing?
May the angels be your copilot.
Banksy and The Simpsons have seen the future of American powerhouse manufacturing.
Graphs can be made to look like anything. It just depends on what you use for the center point.
Obama has instilled zero confidence in our economy. He has done nothing but spend money we don’t have on shit we don’t need. He has circled the globe apologizing for our success. He has constantly attacked employers. He attacks people who invest, but has given them absolutely zero confidence to influence them to invest. And now, he basically want to raise taxes on every single American who employs citizens during a bad economy.
Obama is a failure as a president. Yes, he gives great speeches. He makes a great presence. But he knows dick about leading. He blows at inspiration. All he knows is how to threaten and spew out cheap words.
Derek–the one thing I most admire in Obama is how he brings out the humanity in people like you.
Slug.
>more private sector jobs have been created this year than during the entire Bush administration.
Just ignore all the jobs lost before that. The one year shows substantial job gains. Much less than the amount lost, but it is more than 8 years of the Bush Admin. Well only if you include the big negative at the end, otherwise it is much smaller creation, but hey work with me.
Actually I’m confused as to how they got the claim about more private sector growth than 8 years of the Bush Admin. Going to the BLD site they link to, and searching for private sector jobs instead of total, I find in the civilian employment numbers, much greater job gains under BUsh than Obama.
The administration can boast about the number of jobs “saved or created.” But those numbers have no meaning if one does not take into account the number of jobs lost.
If 300 jobs are “saved or created” but 500 jobs are lost, that’s still a net loss of 200 jobs.
If the Corps dont hire people, LET the gov do it and CHARGE it to the corps.
Lets get a few Infrastructure jobs DONE..
Lets build a FEW schools..
Fix the highways..
MikeN…I’m too lazy to look it up this morning, but I clearly recall the claim that Bush, if not re-elected, would have been the first prez in history to have fewer jobs when leaving than when he arrived.
Don’t know what happened between 05 and 07….must have been some big gains??
I find it humorous how the conservatives like to blame two years of Dem congress for the effects of policies created by 12+ years of Republican control. Spin much? Or, those Dems are really powerful.
The GOP has been betting against the country as their core political power strategy since Obama was elected, blocking everything he has tried to do and then blaming him for not being able to do it.
>Bush, if not re-elected, would have been the first prez in history to have fewer jobs when leaving than when he arrived.
He’s probably not the only one with a 4 year negative term, but this claim will almost certainly apply to Obama as well.
I think I’ve found the right charts, and it shows no private sector job growth under Bush, 2008 wiped out all the gains of the previous 3 years.
http://yfrog.com/74prijobsp
Here’s the actual total private sector employment numbers that goes along with the figure above. It shows the growth to date is not much, and suggests some creative editing in making that first graph.
MikeN, he would have been the ONLY one with such a distinction, I recall that part clearly. Just like Bush in 2004 however, it’s too early to make that claim now. I realize the entire political right WISHES and HOPES the economy tanks so their guys will get elected, but we’ll have to wait and see.
#14 WPA once called “we piddle around” is in my opinion better than welfare but any thought that it would have brought us out of the depression is ludicrous.
A tax cut encouraging private sector spending and investment worked once to get us out of a major depression ASAP but there is hard evidence is that work fare and even welfare keep people in place not doing something that makes a profit.
This doesn’t mean I want people to starve but I’m aware of enough history to know that those countries that spent the least on relief often recovered fastest during the great depression.
As Ben Franklyn noted if you get to comfortable being poor you are liable to stay that way. Being on the dole provides some people with everything they want out of life.
If any of you progressives know a cure for that problem please feel free to share. I haven’t come up with a solution that allows me to be both as generous as my faith suggests I should be while dealing with the mooches though I think Paul covered it with, “let him who will not work not eat.”
There is a point here..
Deowll must get it.
KEEP PEOPLE WORKING..
Let them WORK and feed themselves.
The longer they FIGHT to find a job, the MORE QUIT looking.
Humans go nuts or try to find alternatives to NOT WORKING..and some of those will turn to crime.
Keep them working. And earning money and they will remember HOW. If they sit around and learn OTHER ALTERNATIVES, they will try them.
Its time to clean up the GOV and the Corps.
Corps have had it good for over 20 years. MOST have forgotten the BASICS OF BUSINESS, “The consumer MUST earn/have enough money to BUY YOUR PRODUCT.”
#63–Do-ill==what is your solution for people who want to work but there are no jobs?
In the universe of all possibilities, what of the society so advanced that 60% of its people with advanced technology can provide 100% of needed goods and services? What is the 40% supposed to do?
And, “philosophically speaking” whats wrong with allowing those who want to work, work while allowing those who wish not to work, not work? My observation is that most people cannot handle not having work to occupy their minds. Sad actually.
OLO, my point is that that is a very big if. If he hasn’t been reelected. It’s possible that this applied to other presidents who were reelected, and that there were other four year periods where it would happen. I think it is very likely to be true about Obama as well. If you go to the article, and the database they link to, the most recent months are all negative after a first 12 months of negative numbers.
66..
Get them some work..
“And, “philosophically speaking” whats wrong with allowing those who want to work, work while allowing those who wish not to work, not work? My observation is that most people cannot handle not having work to occupy their minds. Sad actually.”
You do not want BORED people..
you dont want desperate people..
Keep them busy enough to Feed their OWN families.
The Gov has forgotten the lower classes. They are so far OUT in the world.. They dont know what reality is.
The Corps led them into it.
“KEEP wages LOW” so business can GO UP..WRONG.
Business went from CONSUMER based to PROFIT IDEALS.. and its SCREWING UP the nation.
Profit is not BAD, is the comment we get from Many…but Strapping a Motor to your butt while Swimming ISNT a good idea, to increase your speed. Neighter, is Keeping profits out of the reach of the CONSUMER, so they earn enough to BUY your products.
For those that havnt noticed in the last 10-12 years..Food has almost doubled in price. AND it aint the cost of FUEL.
10,000lbs of Food in the back of a truck, does not ADD that much PER product cost if you DOUBLE the price of fuel.
# 65
Nice tirade. Why do foreign banks invest more in the US than national banks? On right, forgot about that.
Listen, why are so many Americans think that there economy will grow through new factories? Reviving the rust belt? 9-5 on the line and an honest cup of Joe?
What a ludicrous pile of drivel. America has plenty of places to thrive. Look at your breakdown of GDP. Or an even bigger hint. Look at the 20 richest people in America. They didn’t make their money cranking the world’s best rebar.
You complain about the left. Plenty of whining over there. But also look at the right. A bunch of sickly white ass mini-van driving idiots wishing someone would tell them what to do. The tea party and their band of millionaire backers would drive the US economy into the ground with their disdain for science and thinking.
That’s the US’s biggest strength and they want to want to throw it away on Bible learnin’.
Actually, I changed my mind. Don’t look at the top 20, look at the top 400. Not a lot of manufacturing in the whole crowd.
#68–ECA==you left the hypothetical givens at your first response. What to do when there are no jobs? Is that any more or less a serious hypothetical than suggesting that laid off factory personnel or mid management types or civil engineers without a project should be “required” to go pick fruits and vegetable? Some expectations are worse than being “bored” especially when bending over without a life time of practice will immediately put you into a hospital and we don’t want that “for free” either.
No–technology and curves and lag times may offer the opportunity to rethink Adam Smith–and Calvin as well.
I recall that sci-fi book and movie where the rich were as we all know and love them while the poor, thats you and me, we know as and treated as “furniture.” Full employment though.
We thru out many Heavy corps in the USA, while inflating the Value of metals.
We lost many heavy industries because they WOULDNT/WOULDNT upgrade or find solutions to pollution..
MOST of the tech industry, went over sea, mostly because of pollution problems.
So whats left?
Service industry. Burger king anyone? Customer service jobs, making beds for the rich, cleaning up swimming pools?
60% of the USA make UNDER $10 per hour, and OVER 10% are unemployed..
NOW think hard. How many of this 70%+ can pay their OWN BILLS/RENT/FOOD/Utilities??
If these folks cant PAY what is needed, do you think they can BUY MUCH ELSE, like a NEW TV?
Because THAT is our economy…BUYING STUFF, keeps this country going. Problem..Where is the MONEY? it aint down here!
ECA–so, not addressing the hypothetical at all. Thats ok. Its hard to deal with reality.
USA does still lead the world in various exportable enterprises: food, Hollywood, aeroplanes, weapons, medicine must be some others.
You can’t escape the fact that polluting the environment and poisoning the planet IS CHEAPER. Thats why a real international treaties regarding trade status/inclusion and exclusion from the club really should be enforced. No favorite trade status giving access to loans allowed for countries that compete by pollutions/slavery/prison labor etc.
There are many “things” USA could do to compete but our overlords, the international corporations, would not be served by such activities so it is not even countenanced.
Sheep we are in our race to the bottom.