Author Topic: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"  (Read 151907 times)

Straw Man

  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 41015
  • one dwells in nirvana
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1250 on: March 24, 2013, 12:26:03 AM »
Hmmm-- do perpetual losers include the base of the democratic party?

In a pathetic attempt to sound witty and intelligent, you just inadvertently sunk your entire political ideology in one foul swoop.

Are you prepared to travel to the inner city and tell all of those poor, helpless, hardworking minority groups stuck in generation after generation of poverty and government dependency that they are as you put it, "losers"?

You sound like a 47%er.

It seems that you succeeded in contradicting yourself and being a racist at the same time. Will you also be changing your voter registration card from D to R?

We still don't support gay marriage, so you might want to start a third party-- the "Hates poor people but supports gay marriage" platform. You and Bill Mahr should start a support group.  ::)



yeah, are those inner city guys the people posting on this thread ?

nope, it's a bunch of guys who could get up off their ass and do something but instead they want to make excuses for their own failures


George Whorewell

  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 7365
  • TND
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1251 on: March 24, 2013, 12:33:14 AM »
yeah, are those inner city guys the people posting on this thread ?

nope, it's a bunch of guys who could get up off their ass and do something but instead they want to make excuses for their own failures



The self ownage in this thread is astounding. Someone should keep track of this for later use.

Straw Man

  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 41015
  • one dwells in nirvana
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1252 on: March 24, 2013, 12:35:59 AM »
The self ownage in this thread is astounding. Someone should keep track of this for later use.

Why don't you do it Georgie

you seem to have time on your hands

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1253 on: March 25, 2013, 12:58:15 PM »

March 22, 2013
Johnstown plant plans to close

Tom Lavis tlavis@tribdem.com


JOHNSTOWN — Union employees of Johnstown Specialty Castings, located at 545 Central Ave., were told Thursday that the Moxham plant will be closing by the end of summer.

 The closing of the plant will lead to the loss of more than 100 employees, including some management personnel.

 The majority of the workers, who are members of United Steelworkers, Local Union 2632, Unit 16, were told that the reasons for closing were loss of orders, inadequate capacity and foreign imports.

 The plant is owned by WHEMCO, a worldwide supplier of heavy industrial components for the metals, power generation and shipbuilding industries.

 The Johnstown plant is a supplier of cast rolls and sleeves, slag pots and custom castings for a variety of heavy industrial applications.

 Charles Novelli, president and CEO of WHEMCO, based in the Pittsburgh area, refrained from discussing the closing except to say that the company has met with the union to discuss consolidation of its facilities. He refused to give any details.

 Wayne Donato, representative for USW District 10, said he couldn’t be certain of the exact closing date.

“We need to negotiate a shutdown agreement and discuss if transfers to other WHEMCO facilties are possible,” Donato said.

 The company issued a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) on Jan. 23, saying that 36 workers in the melt shop and foundry would be terminated two weeks ago.

 Donato said no WARN notice has been filed to the

 39 melt shop and foundry employees.

 WARN provides protection to employees, their families and communities by requiring employers to give affected employees and other state and local representatives notice

 60 days in advance of a plant closing or mass layoff.

 Employees were told that the company did not have a good year in 2012 and is in the midst of evaluating its facilities.

“It has been determined that the work done in Johnstown could be done more efficiently in the company’s Midland (Beaver County) plant,” Donato said. “It has a much larger capacity and the products can be made more efficiently with less energy costs.”

Several employees contacted by The Tribune-Democrat declined to comment on the closing.

 Donato said Johnstown’s order book is “not what it once was a few years back.”

 “Many companies have gone to foreign suppliers,” Donato said. “We were told the plant has become economically unfeasible to operate.”

Production is continuing until details are worked out for a timetable to shutter the plant.

 Donato estimates that a handful of employees will be needed to prepare the plant for closing.

“They will need a skeleton crew to clean up and complete work that needs processed for previous orders,” Donato said.

“The closing had nothing to do with labor costs.”

WHEMCO is honoring the existing bargaining agreement, but said any concessions by the union would not prevent the closing.

“We were willing to work with the company to talk about considerations in order to keep the plant operating,” Donato said.

 He said no determination has been made on whether the employees would be eligible for Trade Agreements Act (TAA) benefits.

 WHEMCO and the Harvard Investment Group of Florida purchased the former Johnstown Corp. in September 2005.
 
Click here to subscribe to The Tribune-Democrat print edition.

Click here to subscribe to The Tribune-Democrat e-edition.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1254 on: March 26, 2013, 05:41:37 AM »
Mortimer Zuckerman: The Great Recession Has Been Followed by the Grand Illusion
Don't be fooled by the latest jobs numbers. The unemployment situation in the U.S. is still dire..
Article Comments (209) more in Opinion | Find New $LINKTEXTFIND$ ».
smaller Larger facebooktwittergoogle pluslinked ininShare.14EmailPrintSa ve ↓ More .
.
smaller Larger 
By MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN
The Great Recession is an apt name for America's current stagnation, but the present phase might also be called the Grand Illusion—because the happy talk and statistics that go with it, especially regarding jobs, give a rosier picture than the facts justify.

The country isn't really advancing. By comparison with earlier recessions, it is going backward. Despite the most stimulative fiscal policy in American history and a trillion-dollar expansion to the money supply, the economy over the last three years has been declining. After 2.4% annual growth rates in gross domestic product in 2010 and 2011, the economy slowed to 1.5% growth in 2012. Cumulative growth for the past 12 quarters was just 6.3%, the slowest of all 11 recessions since World War II.

And last year's anemic growth looks likely to continue. Sequestration will take $600 billion of government expenditures out of the economy over the next 10 years, including $85 billion this year alone. The 2% increase in payroll taxes will hit about 160 million workers and drain $110 billion from their disposable incomes. The Obama health-care tax will be a drag of more than $30 billion. The recent 50-cent surge in gasoline prices represents another $65 billion drag on consumer cash flow.

February's headline unemployment rate was portrayed as 7.7%, down from 7.9% in January. The dip was accompanied by huzzahs in the news media claiming the improvement to be "outstanding" and "amazing." But if you account for the people who are excluded from that number—such as "discouraged workers" no longer looking for a job, involuntary part-time workers and others who are "marginally attached" to the labor force—then the real unemployment rate is somewhere between 14% and 15%.

Enlarge Image


Close
Corbis
 .
Other numbers reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics have deteriorated. The 236,000 net new jobs added to the economy in February is misleading—the gross number of new jobs included 340,000 in the part-time, low wage category. Many of the so-called net new jobs are second or third jobs going to people who are already working, rather than going to those who are unemployed.

The number of Americans unemployed for six months or longer went up by 89,000 in February to a total of 4.8 million. The average duration of unemployment rose to 36.9 weeks, up from 35.3 weeks in January. The labor-force participation rate, which measures the percentage of working-age people in the workforce, also dropped to 63.5%, the lowest in 30 years. The average workweek is a low 34.5 hours thanks to employers shortening workers' hours or asking employees to take unpaid leave.

Since World War II, it has typically taken 24 months to reach a new peak in employment after the onset of a recession. Yet the country is more than 60 months away from its previous high in 2007, and the economy is still down 3.2 million jobs from that year.

Just to absorb the workforce's new entrants, the U.S. economy needs to add 1.8 million to three million new jobs every year. At the current rate, it will be seven years before the jobs lost in the Great Recession are restored. Employers will need to make at least 300,000 hires every month to recover the ground that has been lost.

The job-training programs announced by the Obama administration in his State of the Union address are sensible, but they won't soon bridge the gap for workers with skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Nor is there yet any reform of the patent system, which imposes long delays on innovators, inventors and entrepreneurs seeking approvals. It often takes two years to obtain the environmental health and safety permits to build a modern electronic plant, a lifetime in the tech world.

When employers can't expand or develop new lines because of the shortage of certain skills, the employment opportunities for the less skilled are also restricted. To help with this shortage, the administration's proposals for job-training programs do deserve support. The stress should be on vocational training, postsecondary education and every program that will broaden access to computer science and strengthen science, technology, engineering and math in high schools and at the university level.

But the payoffs from these programs are in the future, and it is vital today to increase the number of annual visas and grants of permanent residency status for foreigners skilled in science and technology. The current situation is preposterous: The brightest and best brains from all over the globe are attracted to American universities, but once they get their degrees America sends them packing. Keeping these foreigners out means they will compete against us in the industries that are growing here and around the world.

What the administration gives us is politics. What the country needs are constructive strategies free of ideology. But the risks of future economic shocks will multiply so long as we remain locked in a rancorous political culture with a leadership more inclined to public relations than hardheaded pragmatic recognition of what must be done to restore America's vitality.

Mr. Zuckerman is chairman and editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report.

A version of this article appeared March 26, 2013, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Great Recession Has Been Followed by the Grand Illusion.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1255 on: March 26, 2013, 06:08:21 AM »
Student loan write-offs hit $3 billion in first two months of year



Ads by Google

Get Student Loan ReliefGet Relief for Your Student Loans. Learn How We can Help Today. studentconsolidationserv ices.com/














 




Email










































Elvina NawagunaReuters
6:13 p.m. CDT, March 25, 2013



 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Banks wrote off $3 billion of student loan debt in the first two months of 2013, up more than 36 percent from the year-ago period, as many graduates remain jobless, underemployed or cash-strapped in a slow U.S. economic recovery, an Equifax study showed.

 The credit reporting agency also said Monday that student lending has grown from last year because more people are going back to school and the cost of higher education has risen.






Ads by Google

Student Loan ForgivenessApply Now To Get Your Student Loan Forgiveness, Friendly Staff Waiting CollegeDefaultedStudentL oan.com

 "Continued weakness in labor markets is limiting work options once people graduate or quit their programs, leading to a steady rise in delinquencies and loan write-offs," Equifax Chief Economist Amy Crews Cutts said in a statement.

 Equifax analyzes data from more than 500 million consumers to track financial trends.

 U.S. student loan debt reform has become a more pressing issue since the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) reported in March 2012 that the total surpassed $1 trillion by the end of 2011 and as interest rates on subsidized Stafford loan rates are set to double in July.

 The cost of earning a 4-year undergraduate degree has gone up by 5.2 percent per year in the last decade, according to the CFPB, forcing more students to take out loans. While other forms of debt went down, student loan debt continued to rise through the economic crisis.

 Delinquencies have spiked in the last eight years, with about 17 percent of the nearly 40 million student loan borrowers at least 90 days past due on their repayments, a February report from the New York Federal Reserve Bank showed.

 The CFPB, a federal consumer agency, is concerned that high student loan debt could affect the rest of the economy because it affects borrowers' credit and could limit their ability to make important purchases such as a home or car.

 The CFPB is taking several steps to help reduce the student debt burden on borrowers, including finding ways to offer more flexible repayment options from private lenders and trying to exert more supervisory authority over non-bank student loan servicing companies.

 Groups such as the New America Foundation, a nonprofit public policy institute, have said the current student loan repayment system is too complicated for borrowers, and that an income-based repayment system could simplify the process. Some students, they say, simply don't know how to enroll in the different repayment options or put repayment off to take care of more urgent bills such as credit cards and rent.

 (Reporting by Elvina Nawaguna; Editing by Richard Chang)


Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1256 on: March 26, 2013, 11:46:05 AM »
HUGE MISS IN CONSUMER CONFIDENCE
 


Matthew Boesler|Mar. 26, 2013, 10:00 AM|3,302|12
 



inShare.4




Email
 More















.



























 







TheRealMichaelMoore / Flickr
The Conference Board's March consumer confidence survey is out.

The headline index plummeted to 59.7 from a downwardly-revised 68.0 last month.
 
Economists were expecting a smaller drop to 67.5 (from a reading of 69.6 last month before the revision to 68.0).
 
Via CNBC's Steve Leisman, Pantheon Macroeconomic Advisors Chief Economist Ian Shepherdson called the number "horrible":
 
Below is the full text from the Conference Board press release:
 
NEW YORK, March 26, 2013…The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index®, which had improved in February, declined in March. The Index now stands at 59.7 (1985=100), down from 68.0 in February. The Present Situation Index decreased to 57.9 from 61.4. The Expectations Index declined to 60.9 from 72.4 last month.
 
The monthly Consumer Confidence Survey®, based on a probability-design random sample, is conducted for The Conference Board by Nielsen, a leading global provider of information and analytics around what consumers buy and watch. The cutoff date for the preliminary results was March 14.
 
Says Lynn Franco, Director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board: “Consumer Confidence fell sharply in March, following February’s uptick. This month’s retreat was driven primarily by a sharp decline in expectations, although consumers were also more pessimistic in their assessment of current conditions. The loss of confidence, particularly expectations, mirrors the losses experienced this past December and January. The recent sequester has created uncertainty regarding the economic outlook and as a result, consumers are less confident.” 
 
Consumers’ appraisal of current conditions declined in March. Those saying business conditions are “good” decreased to 16.0 percent from 17.6 percent, while those stating business conditions are “bad” increased to 29.3 percent from 28.2 percent. Consumers’ assessment of the labor market was mixed. Those claiming jobs are “plentiful” decreased to 9.4 percent from 10.1 percent, but those claiming jobs are “hard to get” edged down to 36.2 percent from 36.9 percent.
 
Consumers are once again pessimistic about the short-term outlook. Those expecting business conditions to improve over the next six months decreased to 14.4 percent from 18.0 percent, while those anticipating business conditions to worsen increased to 18.3 percent from 16.6 percent.
 
Consumers’ outlook for the labor market was also less favorable. Those expecting more jobs in the months ahead declined to 12.3 percent from 16.1 percent, while those expecting fewer jobs increased to 26.6 percent from 22.1 percent. The proportion of consumers expecting their incomes to increase fell to 13.7 percent from 15.8 percent, while those expecting a decrease edged down to 18.0 percent from 19.3 percent.
 
Click here for the full release >


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/conference-board-consumer-confidence-march-2013-3#ixzz2Ofmn7TdV

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1257 on: March 26, 2013, 12:39:51 PM »
CBO: America Will Never See Full Employment Under Obama



 March 26, 2013



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



By Terence P. Jeffrey


Subscribe to Terence P. Jeffrey RSS




 22 63

 



President Barack Obama (AP Photo)

 
(CNSNews.com) - The Congressional Budget Office is now projecting that the U.S. economy will never achieve full employment during the eight years Barack Obama serves as president.
 
That would make Obama the only American president during the post-World War II era who never presided over a year in which the U.S. economy offered full employment to the American people.
 
The CBO defines “full employment” to be when the national unemployment rate is at or below what it calls the “natural unemployment rate.”
 
The natural unemployment rate, according to CBO, is the “rate of unemployment arising from all sources except fluctuations in aggregate demand. Those sources include frictional unemployment, which is associated with normal turnover of jobs, and structural unemployment, which includes unemployment caused by mismatches between the skills of available workers and the skills necessary to fill vacant positions and unemployment caused when wages exceed their market-clearing levels because of institutional factors, such as legal minimum wages, the presence of unions, social conventions, or wage-setting practices by employers that are intended to increase workers’ morale and effort.”
 
In a blog entry published last week, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf said “we think it will take four more years to get back close to full employment.”
 
In fact, baseline data CBO released last month indicate that the “natural unemployment rate” will be 5.5 percent through the rest of Obama’s presidency and that actual unemployment will never drop below 6.0 percent in any quarter between now and the end of 2016.
 
According to CBO, unemployment will remain above 7.0 percent through the third quarter of 2015. It will then drop to 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, and gradually decline to 6.0 percent by the fourth quarter of 2016.
 
In the first quarter of 2017, when the next president is being sworn into office, the unemployment rate will drop to 5.8 percent, CBO projects. That would still be above the natural unemployment rate of 5.5 percent.
 
Finally, in the first quarter of 2018, according to CBO’s projections, unemployment will drop to 5.5 percent. At that point, a year after Obama has left office, the U.S. economy will finally achieve full employment for the first time since 2007.
 
Thus, according to CBO's projections, America will never see full employment under Obama even though the CBO has increased what it considers to be the natural unemployment rate during Obama’s tenure. From the first quarter of 1999 through the first quarter of 2008, CBO calculated that the natural unemployment rate was 5.0 percent. Thus, for the economy to achieve full employment during that nine-year span, actual unemployment had to fall to 5.0 percent or lower.
 
Despite this higher standard, the economy did achieve full employment on a number of occasions from 1999 through 2008. This included, on average, the entire years of 2000, 2001, 2006 and 2007.
 
During the tenures of each American president from Harry Truman through George W. Bush--according to the average annual unemployment rates published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the natural unemployment rate calculated by CBO--there was at least one year in which the U.S. economy achieved full employment.
 
To see a complete list of the average actual annual unemployment rates compared to the natural unemployment rate for the years from 1988 onward click here.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1258 on: March 28, 2013, 07:14:45 AM »
Mar 28, 9:06 AM EDT

 
US economy expands at 0.4 percent rate

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP Economics Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. economy grew at a slightly faster but still anemic rate at the end of last year. However, there is hope that growth accelerated in early 2013 despite higher taxes and cuts in government spending.
 
The economy grew at an annual rate of 0.4 percent in the October-December quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That was slightly better than the previous estimate of 0.1 percent growth. The revision reflected stronger business investment and export sales.
 
Analysts think the economy is growing at a rate of around 2.5 percent in the current January-March quarter, which ends this week.
 
Steady hiring has kept consumers spending this year. And a rebound in company stockpiling, further gains in housing and more business spending also likely drove faster growth in the first quarter.
 
The 0.4 percent growth rate for the gross domestic product, the economy's total output of goods and services, was the weakest quarterly performance in almost two years and followed a much faster 3.1 percent increase in the third quarter. The fourth quarter was hurt by the sharpest fall in defense spending in 40 years.
 
For all of 2012, the economy grew 2.2 percent after a 1.8 percent increase in 2011 and a 2.4 percent advance in 2010. Since the recession ended in mid-2009, the economy has been expanding at sub-par rates as a string of problems from higher gas prices to Europe's debt crisis have acted as a drag on the U.S. economy.
 
Growth appears to be strengthening this year even after taxes increased on Jan. 1 and automatic government spending cuts totaling $85 billion started to take effect on March 1. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the combination of tax increases and spending cuts could trim economic growth this year by about 1.5 percentage points. The CBO is predicting just 1.5 percent growth for 2013.
 
But so far, the economy is showing signs of holding its own against the fiscal drag.
 
Employers have added an average of 200,000 jobs a month since November. That helped lower the unemployment rate in February to 7.7 percent, a four-year low.
 
Economists expect similar job gains in March, in part because a measure of unemployment benefit applications fell this month to a five-year low.
 
Sales of previously occupied homes rose in February to the highest level in nearly three years, while builders broke ground on more houses and apartments. Annual home prices jumped in January by the most since June 2006, according to a closely watched measure.
 
Stock prices have surged. On Wednesday, the Standard & Poor's 500 index was within two points of its all-time high.
 
All of that is making consumers feel wealthier, which could lead to more spending. Consumer spending drives 70 percent of economic activity.
 
The Federal Reserve still thinks the economy needs aggressive measures to bolster growth. Last week it stood by its plan to keep a key short-term interest rate near zero until unemployment drops below 6.5 percent. The Fed also left unchanged its plan to keep buying $85 billion in bonds until it sees a substantial improvement in the job market.
 
The slowdown in business inventories trimmed 1.5 percentage point from growth in the fourth quarter and the reductions in defense spending cut another 1.3 percentage point from growth.
 
Consumer spending was growing at a 1.8 percent rate in the fourth quarter, slightly better than the 1.6 percent increase in the third quarter but down from last month's estimate that consumer spending was growing by 2.1 percent.
 
That revision was offset by upward revisions in business investment spending on structures and equipment and by stronger sales of U.S. exports.
 
The government first estimated two months ago that the economy had contracted at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, a decline that was erased by the revisions.
 
The government will release its first look at first quarter growth on April 26.
 

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1259 on: March 28, 2013, 07:28:45 AM »
Dozens Camp Out At Granite Bay Chick-fil-A For Free Food

March 27, 2013 2:53 PM




Share on email19
View Comments



Filed under
Business, Local, News, Seen On, Syndicated Local

Related tags
Chick-Fil-A, food, Granite Bay, restaurant
 



GRANITE BAY (CBS13) – Dozens waiting in line for a chance to get free food at Chick-fil-A, but the first customer won’t even be served until tomorrow.
 
It’s got that Black Friday feel out here with tents and coolers and chairs for people all waiting for a tasty treat. More than 100 people set up camp at the new Granite Bay Chick-fil-A.
 
“it’s crazy,” said Natalie Woodmass, a Chick-fil-A customer.
 
People starting lining up in the dark.
 
“It’s fun, it’s free food for a year,” said Darek Daszynsky.
 
The first 100 people in line got the food, and for some, this isn’t they’re first rodeo at a Chick-fil-A grand opening.



“I went to Utah twice, I’ve been to L.A., I’ve been to Fresno, Bakersfield, so I’ve gone all over – Fairfield,” said Diane Terry, a Chick-fil-A customer.
 
This restaurant on the corner of Douglas and Sierra College Boulevards in Granite Bay means jobs.
 
“We have employed over 50 employees at this location, and we’re so excited to be able to do that,” said Hollee Swain, Chick-fil-A event planner.
 
And so are the people waiting in line.
 
“There needs to be more new jobs,” said Woodmass. “It brings more business and more employment opportunities.”

So far this year, five Chick-fil-A restaurants have opened up in California, bringing nearly 400 jobs to the state.
 
“It’s better than being at home and being lazy, I can tell you that much,” said Daszynsky. “It’s good to be out with the community.”

The official grand opening takes place on Thursday. All of the 100 vouchers have already been given out.


Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1261 on: March 30, 2013, 05:58:50 AM »
5 Groups Of Obama Voters That Are Being Crushed By Democrats
Townhall.com ^ | March 30, 2013 | John Hawkins
Posted on March 30, 2013 8:54:24 AM EDT by Kaslin

Hollywood, the mainstream media and the public school system are all almost entirely controlled by people and groups friendly to the Democrat Party. Yet and still, even with that almost overwhelming advantage, Democrats can't do any better than a rough parity with the Republicans. If the tables were turned and the GOP controlled what you see on TV, in the news and what your kids are taught at school the same way the Democrats do, the Republican Party would win every presidential election and would permanently maintain unassailable majorities in Congress.

So, why aren't the Democrats running away with every election? Because selling Democrat policies is like Coca-Cola's marketing team trying to sell the public on rat spit in a bottle. Since they can't sell their product, they spend all their time convincing the public that the little Republican girls down the street selling lemonade probably spit in it when their mothers aren't looking. Sadly, this tactic works pretty well and a lot of Democrats end up voting for people who are ruining their lives.

1) Black Americans: Over the last few decades, no group has been more fiercely loyal to the Democrats than black Americans. Typically, the Democrats capture 90% of the black vote nationwide. However, it's worth asking what black Americans actually get out of that deal. Sure, if you're Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or Touré, it's a pretty good gig, but how does the average black American benefit from voting for the Democrats? Affirmative Action? That program helps very few people and it also leads to many black Americans getting into a college that they wouldn't normally qualify for with their academic record. Some people might call that a plus, but as a practical matter, it causes an inordinate number of the brightest, most promising young black Americans to flunk out of college when they could have graduated had they gone to less challenging schools.

In return for that dubious bit of "help," the Democrats fight voucher programs that could get black students out of failing schools, laugh at black Americans who are Christian, pro-life and believe in God's definition of marriage and they do nothing of consequence to tackle the crime and drug problems that makes life so unbearable for many black Americans. The worst places in our country for black Americans to live are inevitably run by Democrats who've long since given up on improving the lives of their constituents.

Economically, black Americans are still suffering under the Democrats as well. The numbers are so bad that they're almost hard to believe. "In 2009, the average net worth for white households was $113,149 and $5,700 for black households” while the unemployment rate for black Americans is double the rate for whites. Black Americans deserve a lot better than that from the people who serve them in government.

2) Single Women: Did you know that Mitt Romney actually won married women 53-47 over Obama? However, Obama won single women in a landslide and that's not unusual. Single women tend to go heavily for the Democrats. The sad thing about that is Democrats pull it off by baiting a trap. They promise free birth control and abortion. They offer up welfare, food stamps and other programs that are designed to shoulder the financial load that a husband would in normal circumstances. Then they proceed to denigrate, demean and slime any conservative woman who opposes those things in the most vicious, nasty and grotesque manner possible.

Why?

Because a single woman struggling to survive is likely to take any help she can get from the Democrats and will return the favor by voting for them. On the other hand, a woman who's successful, financially secure and married is much more likely to vote Republican. This is true across every race, religion and demographic group. This is why, for example, Democrats have engineered a system where in many cases, "the single mom is better off earning gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income and benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045.” They don't WANT single women to be independent and financially secure because that would make them more likely to vote Republican.

No woman grows up wanting to stay permanently poor, single and dependent on the government for her survival, but for the Democrats to succeed, they need as many women as possible stuck in exactly that position.

3) Unions: Even though the union membership is a little more split, the union bosses have thrown their lot in with the Democrat Party. This has paid some dividends for them because undeniably, the Democrats are bending over backwards to appease the unions. However, there is a heavy price to be paid for being totally tied to one political party.

For one thing, union membership is death spiraling into oblivion. At one point, 34% of Americans were in a union, but now that number is down to "11.9 percent, the lowest rate in more than 70 years."

Furthermore, because of the staggering cost of some of the pension deals that unions have previously negotiated for their members, there are cities and states facing a choice between honoring their previous agreements with unions or going bankrupt. What that means is that like it or not, union members are about to start taking haircuts all across the country.

Since unions have allied themselves entirely with the Democrats, Republicans have every incentive to hurt the unions when they can, thwart any rule changes that would allow unions to grow and to try to cut as deeply as possible from the unions in any sort of bankruptcy deals. Sure, siding with the Democrats might maximize any gains that unions have already made, but it also almost guarantees their coming descent into oblivion.

4) Young Americans: One of the best things about being young is that feeling of invulnerability that comes with it. You hear about all the terrible things that happen to other people, but you'll be the one that gets by with it, right?

Unfortunately, it's not working out like that for a lot of young Americans who made the mistake of trusting Barack Obama. It's bad enough that they have a jobless rate under Obama that's nearly double the national average, but he's running up the national credit card with an unsustainable level of debt that younger Americans are going to be asked to pay off.

If you're under 25, by the time you hit your prime earning years, you're likely to face bleak long term economic prospects because of our massive debt load along with the crushing taxes that will be required to pay for it. Worse yet, the entitlement programs so many Americans rely on are now in terrible danger because of the reckless spending the Democrats are insisting on. As Ann Coulter has frequently noted,

“I don’t know why Republicans keep saying we have to cut spending to save these entitlements for our grandchildren. We have to cut spending to save these entitlement programs for 45 year-olds. On our current spending rate, 45 year-olds will not receive any Medicare.”

Does that sound appealing? Struggling under a high tax burden to pay off debts that you didn't run up with much less of a safety net than the last few generations of Americans? That's what young Americans are heading towards and the saddest thing is, they're voting for it. It's not even a case where young Americans are going to be partying and then paying the price later. It's even worse because the Democrats are partying with their money and plan to stick them with the bill.

5) Hispanic Americans Although there are a few exceptions, Hispanic Americans have voted for the Democrats by a roughly 3-to-1 margin over the past few decades. What have Hispanic Americans gotten in return for that? Democrats block school choice initiatives that would allow Hispanic Americans to send their kids to better schools. They also create massive amounts of red tape that make it much harder for Hispanic small business owners to become successful. In fact, if you're a Hispanic American who wants a piece of the American Dream, you'd be hard pressed to come up with anything that the Democrats do for you other than their one supposed "trump card" -- they're in favor of illegal immigration.

The great irony of illegal immigration is that Hispanic Americans are economically hurt by illegal immigration much more than the average American because they're more likely to be going head-to-head in the same professions with people who often don't pay taxes, don't pay for health care and don't pay for car insurance. There are undoubtedly millions of Hispanic Americans who've followed every rule and done everything right who don't have jobs today because of illegal aliens. There are also millions of other Hispanic Americans who are taking home $3 or $4 less per hour than they otherwise would without illegal aliens driving down the cost of labor.

Furthermore, for all the complaints about illegal immigration, the dirty little secret is that some sort of compromise that allows illegal aliens to stay in the country as guest workers, but not citizens, would probably be very passable in Congress. The real reason that isn't happening is because it would allow Hispanic Americans to see how badly they're being hurt by people who aren't in the country legally. When you want to work, but can't feed your family because you don't have a job and you see a "guest worker" from a foreign country holding a position you desperately need, your attitude starts to change in a hurry. The Democrats understand that and secretly like the idea that illegal aliens make it harder on Hispanic Americans. After all, the more successful you become, the less you want the Democrats to do anything other than get out of your way.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1262 on: April 01, 2013, 02:03:12 AM »
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/31/college-graduates-minimum-wage-jobs_n_2989540.html


LOL.   Liberal obama dones blaming anyone but dear leader and co.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1263 on: April 03, 2013, 04:08:31 AM »
The number of Americans living in poverty has spiked to levels not seen since the mid 1960s, classing 20 per cent of the country’s children as poor…

…The U.S. Census Bureau puts the number of Americans in poverty at levels not seen since the mid-1960s when President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the federal government’s so-called War on Poverty.

As President Barack Obama began his second term in January, nearly 50 million Americans — one in six — were living below the income line that defines poverty, according to the bureau. A family of four that earns less than $23,021 a year is listed as living in poverty.

The bureau said 20 percent of the country’s children are poor.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1264 on: April 03, 2013, 05:28:55 AM »
..

Help shrinks as poverty spikes in the US

US poverty spikes but help from Washington shrinks as government struggles with debt
By Steven r. Hurst, Associated Press | Associated Press – Tue, Apr 2, 2013.. .
.


Email
Share217

4



Print
... .

.
.

Related Content.
.
.View Photo.

 In this April 1, 2013 photo, …

..
 .
.

 



BALTIMORE (AP) -- Antonio Hammond is the $18,000 man.

He's a success story for Catholic Charities of Baltimore, one of a multitude of organizations trying to haul people out of poverty in this Maryland port city where one of four residents is considered poor by U.S. government standards.

Hammond says he ended up in Baltimore three years ago, addicted to crack cocaine and snorting heroin, living in abandoned buildings where "the rats were fierce," and financing his addiction by breaking into cars and stealing copper pipes out of crumbing structures. Eighteen months after finding his way to Catholic Charities via a rehabilitation center, the 49-year-old Philadelphia native is back in the work force, clean of drugs, earning $13 an hour cleaning laboratories for the Biotech Institute of Maryland and paying taxes.

Catholic Charities, which runs a number of federally funded programs, spent $18,000 from privately donated funds to turn around Hammond's life through the organization's Christopher's Place program which provides housing and support services to recovering addicts and former prisoners.

Such success stories are in danger as $85 billion in federal government spending cuts begin squeezing services for the poor nationwide. The cuts started kicking in automatically on March 1 after feuding Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on a better plan for addressing the national deficit. They are hitting at a time of spiking poverty as the U.S. slowly climbs out of the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

"All I wanted to do was get high," Hammond said. "I didn't even know any more how to eat or clean myself."

Now he lives with two other men in housing subsidized by the charity, got his driver's license and bought a car. What he marvels at the most is that he has been accepted after a 20-year absence by some of his nine children. That's the best part, he said. "At least I know now they might not hate me."

The U.S. Census Bureau puts the number of Americans in poverty at levels not seen since the mid-1960s when President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the federal government's so-called War on Poverty. As President Barack Obama began his second term in January, nearly 50 million Americans — one in six — were living below the income line that defines poverty, according to the bureau. A family of four that earns less than $23,021 a year is listed as living in poverty. The bureau said 20 percent of the country's children are poor.

Although it is far from the country's poorest city, Baltimore's poverty rate far outstrips the national average of one in six.

Catholic Charities of Baltimore is a conduit for state and federal money for programs designed to help the poor. The charity plays a major role in administering Head Start, a federal program that provides educational services for low-income pre-school children and frees single mothers to find work without the huge expense of childcare.

The spending cuts, known as the sequester, are going to hit Head Start especially hard.

"Before the sequester only half of the need was being met. Now, after the cuts fully take effect, there will be 900 children already in the program who won't be able to take part," said William McCarthy, executive director of Catholic Charities.

There is no question the national belt-tightening "will deepen and increase poverty," said McCarthy, citing the cuts in long-term care for poor seniors including assisted living and nursing care, and fewer low-income housing spaces, among other ripple effects.

Under the spending cuts, Baltimore Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano said his agency faces a $25 million shortfall in funds to help poor people with housing. There are 35,000 people on the waiting list. He also lamented cuts that will hamper the city's efforts to clean up or demolish blighted neighborhoods. Baltimore has 15,000 vacant and abandoned structures as a result of a steep population decline over the past half century.

"It's very, very disheartening. We take a couple of steps forward and then fall back at least one. The private sector isn't going to fix these neighborhoods. I view these things as investments, not expenditures. These things are an investment in the future that bring returns many times over," he said.

While the U.S. economy is slowly recovering, improvements for those deep in poverty do not keep pace with the cuts now in place. The spending reductions going into effect will hit hardest at Americans whose prospects are not directly tied to the economy — people like Antonio Hammond and children in the Head Start pre-school programs.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Baltimore depends on federal grants and funding for 12 percent of its budget. The austerity cuts "to housing programs_as well as those to public safety, health, and education_will have an adverse effect on Baltimore and throughout the country," she said.

The cuts, which will also hit U.S. defense spending, were designed two years ago as an incentive for lawmakers to avoid a standoff over the federal debt and a potential government shutdown. The measures were seen as so onerous as to force Republicans and Democrats in Congress to reach a compromise spending plan. But compromise proved impossible before the March 1 deadline, and what were once seen as unthinkable cuts automatically went into effect.

Democrats want a deficit reduction plan that includes some spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy. Republicans balk at any more tax increases and insist the problem should be addressed solely by reigning in spending. That feud continues as the two sides battle out future fiscal issues.

Republicans want to see even more cuts in next year's budget, reductions that would, by and large, return military spending to pre-sequester levels and provide big tax benefits to wealthy Americans.

A 2014 budget plan proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan, the vice presidential candidate on the unsuccessful Republican presidential ticket last year, would be particularly tough on social safety net programs. His plan would slash $135 billion over the next decade from the program that provides food aid for low-income Americans. Nearly three-quarters of households receiving help from the program include children, who, census figures show, are the group hardest hit by poverty.

Ryan's plan would also turn the government's Medicare health insurance program for Americans age 65 and over into a voucher system, providing direct government payments to seniors who would then try to buy insurance on the private market.

Ryan defends his drive for austerity as necessary to begin shrinking the country's $16 trillion national debt.

"If we never balance the budget, if we keep adding deficit upon deficit we have a debt crisis like Europe has. That means seniors lose their health care benefit, that means the people in the safety net see the net cut and they go in the street. That means you have a recession. These are the things we prevent from happening by balancing the budget. Balancing the budget is but a means to an end. It's growing the economy, it's creating opportunity, it's getting government to live within its means," he said in an interview with Fox News.

Obama backs increasing taxes on the wealthy while instituting smaller government spending cuts, a plan that would reduce deficit spending but more slowly. He and most fellow Democrats argue that European-style austerity has not worked there and will harm the U.S. recovery from the Great Recession.

It's an ideological fight that dates back decades. Republicans work from the premise that by unleashing the private sector and removing government controls, all Americans will prosper along with the economy and benefits will flow down to lower-income earners. Democrats insist there is an essential role for government in putting a floor under the poor and helping local governments with problems that the private sector cannot or will not shoulder.

Some worry the gap between rich and poor in the U.S. will keep widening under the austerity measures.

According to a report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service late last year, "U.S. income distribution appears to be among the most unequal of all major industrialized countries and the United States appears to be among the nations experiencing the greatest increases in measures of income."

Mary Anne O'Donnell, director of community services at Catholic Charities of Baltimore, said increasing income inequality has shown itself dramatically during the U.S. downturn.

"In the last three years, there's been a great change in the kinds of people we are serving. There are increasing numbers of people who owned a home, lost their jobs, end up living in their car and are coming with children to our soup kitchen," she said.

Her organization spent $126 million in the last fiscal year feeding the poor, helping them find jobs and housing, running nursing homes and putting men like Hammond back on their feet.

Of that figure, $98 million came from various programs funded by the city, state and federal governments. Those now face the big cuts as politicians in Washington fail to find a compromise.
 

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.

GigantorX

  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 6370
  • GetBig's A-Team is the Light of Truth!
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1266 on: April 04, 2013, 05:47:47 AM »
Jobless claims on the rise for the 4th straight week, the moving avg. is also trending up.

Back up to around 400k.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100615845

I think it's safe to to posit the theory that we aren't in a recovery, nor have we ever been in a recovery.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1267 on: April 04, 2013, 06:12:16 AM »
Red Flags Are Popping Up For Both The Economy And The Market
 


Joe Weisenthal|22 minutes ago|569|2
 
REUTERS/David Gray

The news that initial jobless claims have spiked to 385K is a good time to bring up two big themes we've been talking about lately.
 
One is that people see the economy rolling over a bit.
 
The other is that people see market internals deteriorating.
 
First on the economy we wrote on Tuesday about fears of a "Spring Swoon." Although Q1 numbers looked great, with GDP coming in as high as 3.5%, estimates for Q2 are already below 2% in many cases. In the last couple weeks there have been a fair number of downside economic surprises.
 
And then on the market there's a lot of talk about market internals.
 
We wrote about this yesterday. Breadth is narrowing, small caps are underperforming large caps (a sign of investor nervousness), and transports and banks have been lagging sectors.
 
Markets are close to record highs, but fears related to both stocks and the economy are on the rise.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/people-getting-worried-about-the-economy-and-market-internals-2013-4#ixzz2PV3bZjk1


Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1268 on: April 04, 2013, 08:02:43 AM »
Yale Senior: We Millennials Don't Stand A Chance
 


Bijan Stephen, Quartz|11 minutes ago|322|4















 






Tableau’s $150 million IPO offers more proof of Big Data’s big growth potential
 Markets do as they’re told after Bank of Japan delivers big
 ECB keeps pressure on euro governments and small businesses by doing nothing (again)
 Yale senior: We millennials don’t stand a chance
 The Bank of England did nothing today—but new UK data hint that maybe it didn’t have to
 
I mark the change in weather by rotating my music selection: there are bands for the winter, and bands for summer and fall, but there’s a certain je ne sais quoi about spring air that demands reciprocating its freshness.
 
As a result, I’ve recently rediscovered Vampire Weekend’s eponymous debut album. One song in particular—the record closer, “The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance”—has resonated with me, and not just for its cherry blossom, campus-pop aesthetic: I’m a senior at Yale, graduating in May, and I’m terrified. After commencement ends and I leave the warm embrace of academia, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of job opportunities.
 
And I’m not the only one. In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks extensively quoted Victoria Buhler, one of his students and a fellow classmate of mine. Through him, she describes our generation as the Cynic Kids: we’re suspicious of causality, we don’t like idealism, we’re budding wonks, and we require mountains of empirical evidence before we make any decision, no matter how trivial. I’d add that we’re deeply, pathologically ironic, but, aside from that, I think Buhler gets it right. We’re cynical because we have to be. America’s economy is self-destructing, wealth inequality is at historic highs, and there’s a chronic shortage of employment, especially for recent grads. According to a Rasmussen report, released on Feb. 5, only 15% of American adults think that their children will be better off than them. That’s a bleak number. What’s worse are theunemployment rates for recent college graduates, astronomically high rates of underemployment, and the phenomenon of long-term negative economic effects—termed “scarring”—that happen as a consequence of recessions.
 
Of course, our current situation isn’t entirely unique. In the early 1980s, the world plunged into a severe economic recession. In America, it lasted for two years, and was a direct result of the Federal Reserve’s attempt to control high inflation after the twin oil and energy crises of the ’70s. Though the recent financial crisis was precipitated by different events, the state of the economy and the fears of the public were very similar.
 
In 2009, Lisa Kahn, a labor economist and professor at the Yale University School of Management, published a study analyzing the situation of graduates who came of age during the 1980s.
 
Here’s what she found:
 Graduating from college in a bad economy has a long-run, negative impact on wages
 There’s a negative effect on occupational attainment and slight increases in both educational attainment and tenure for those who graduate in worse national economies
 Wage loss ranges from 1-20% each year, relative to the cohorts with the minimum state and national unemployment rates
 
However, recent graduates face challenges that didn’t exist in the ’80s that make our situation worse: for example, the rise of unpaid internship culture (and the commensurate decline in entry-level positions), as well as the requirement that workers be constantly connected to their jobs via smartphones. I’ve done my fair share of internships, desperately trying to gain the necessary experience to land an entry-level position. Isn’t the whole point of an “entry-level” position the fact that one doesn’t need prior experience to hold it?
 
The New York Times Magazine recently published an article entitled “Do Millennials Stand a Chance in the Real World?” Predictably, the comment section was ablaze with vehement opinions from people who identified themselves as Baby Boomers, Gen-Xers, Gen-Yers, and Millennials.
 
The millennials in the comment section were angry about their prospects for the future. And I empathize, although as a future graduate of Yale, I’m in an arguably different position. Ideally, I’d like to work in some sort of creative field next year, and I won’t pretend that the Yale name doesn’t carry some weight.
 
Even so, my friends and I all know people who graduated from Yale and haven’t been able to find jobs that pay better than minimum wage afterwards: they work as bartenders and in sandwich shops, doing unpaid internships, living on tips.
 
There are only four weeks of classes left in my college career, and I’m still unemployed.
 
It doesn’t surprise me that we’re a generation of cynics. Do we—the kids—stand a chance?
 
You can follow Bijan on Twitter at @bijanstephen. We welcome your comments atideas@qz.com.

Now Read: A Revolution Is Happening In Offices Everywhere


Read more: http://qz.com/70400/yale-senior-we-millennials-dont-stand-a-chance/#ixzz2PVVL8VCV







They voted for O-Twink - F em. 

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1270 on: April 05, 2013, 05:39:53 AM »


US economy adds 88K jobs, rate drops to 7.6 pct.

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER
AP Economics Writer
 










AP Photo/Steve Helber

 






Business Video

 






































Latest Business News

 




US economy adds 88K jobs, rate drops to 7.6 pct.
US trade deficit narrows to $43B in February

Pyongyang rumblings have little effect on SKoreans

KFC to offer boneless chicken

France will barely grow in 2013, minister warns











Multimedia

 









A district summary of the Beige Book
 









Measuring economic stress by county nationwide
 





Mall malaise: shoppers browse, but don't buy
 




Unemployment by the numbers
 




Family struggles with father's unemployment





Saying an affordable goodbye





Hard times hit small car dealer






Latest Economic News

 




US economy adds 88K jobs, rate drops to 7.6 pct.
France will barely grow in 2013, minister warns

German industrial orders rebound in February

Best Buy, Panera, Ulta are big movers

Japan central bank revamps policy to boost economy

News Summary: Stocks stabilize after a slump

How the Dow Jones industrial average did Thursday

Stocks move higher on Wall Street; Best Buy soars

Egypt's foreign reserves decline to $13.4 billion

Stocks edge higher after Wednesday's drop











Buy AP Photo Reprints

 




























Interactives

 









Greece's Debt Threatens to Spread
 




State budget
gaps map





Auto industry problems trickle down, punish Tennessee county
 




Women give old Derby hats a makeover in tough economy





S.C. town deals with highest unemployment in South





How mortgages were bundled and sold as securities
 




Tracking the $700 billion financial bailout
 




Tracking the year's job losses
 




State-by-state foreclosures since 2007
 




Credit crisis explained
 




Presidents and their economic legacies
 




Lexicon of the financial crisis
 




Americans' addiction to debt
 




WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. employers added just 88,000 jobs in March, the fewest in nine months and a sharp retreat after a period of strong hiring. The slowdown is a reminder that the job market's path back to full health will be uneven.
 
The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate dipped to 7.6 percent from 7.7 percent. While that is the lowest in four years, the rate fell only because more people stopped looking for work. The government counts people as unemployed only if they are actively looking for a job.
 
The weakness in March may signal that some companies were worried last month about steep government spending cuts that began on March 1.
 
March's job gains were half the pace of the previous six months, when the economy added an average of 196,000 jobs a month. The drop raises fears that the economy could slow after a showing signs of strengthening over the winter.
 

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1272 on: April 05, 2013, 05:49:41 AM »
US Job Creation Plunges, but Rate Drops to 7.6%

 Text Size   Published: Friday, 5 Apr 2013 | 8:42 AM ET
 
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images




Nathan DeSantis looks at a company brochure at a National Career Fairs job fair in Arlington, Virginia, U.S.Job creation slowed to a crawl during March, with the U.S. economy creating just 88,0000 positions though the unemployment rate fell to 7.6 percent.

The number was a sharp slide from February's upwardly revised 268,000.

The Labor Department reported Friday that nonfarm payroll growth eased amid hopes that the economy had begun to achieve the escape velocity needed for sustained growth.

Friday's report fell short of economist expectations of 200,000 new jobs, though it did confirm some of the weakness in recent reports.

"Having such a disappointing figure in March will have a volcanic negative impact on sentiment in critical economic areas, such as housing," said Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at LandColt Capital. "Wall Street will not be happy, and are certain to punish stocks today."


Markets reacted negatively to the report, with stock futures indicating a fall of more than 1 percent across the major indexes.

With speculation rising that the Federal Reserve soon would start winding down its asset purchase program, the weak jobs report probably keeps the central bank on hold at least through the end of the year.

The drop in the jobless rate was little more than a statistical anomaly, with the labor-force participation rate tumbling to a 35-year low. However, a broader measure of unemployment that counts the discouraged and underemployed also fell, declining to 13.8 percent from February's 14.3 percent.

Services and health care accounted for most of the new jobs, with 51,000 and 23,000 new positions respectively.


On the minus side, retail lost 24,000 jobs and the U.S. Postal Service cut its workforce by 12,000.

GigantorX

  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 6370
  • GetBig's A-Team is the Light of Truth!
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1273 on: April 05, 2013, 05:52:14 AM »
Awful number, still not in a recovery or even close.

LFP rate continues to decline several years after the supposed "Recovery" began. That should be the story.

Soul Crusher

  • Competitors
  • Getbig V
  • *****
  • Posts: 39256
  • Doesnt lie about lifting.
Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1274 on: April 05, 2013, 05:56:05 AM »
Awful number, still not in a recovery or even close.

LFP rate continues to decline several years after the supposed "Recovery" began. That should be the story.

Don't worry - we have gay marriage, gun control, global warming, animal rights, amnesty for illegals to worry about.