Author Topic: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"  (Read 151902 times)

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1275 on: April 05, 2013, 06:26:37 AM »
The Grand Illusion

The Obama administration is more inclined to public relations than hard-headed pragmatism in dealing with unemployment


 By Mortimer B. Zuckerman
April 4, 2013



Which way are we going? The stock market has revived, though it still is off a high in real terms. There's suddenly good news about housing demand, which is showing signs of life after six years of stagnation. Yet Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warns that the package of fiscal cutbacks – the fiscal cliff, sequester, and other cuts – is set to reduce growth by 1.5 percentage points. He calls that "very significant" and adds that "job creation is slower than it would be otherwise." This is the key to where we are. New research from the Brookings Institution concludes that rising inequality in the United States is not something that will vanish with a real recovery. It is here to stay, a reflection of an increasingly calcified society and a whole crisis in itself.

The present phase of our Great Recession might be called the Grand Illusion, because all the happy talk and statistics that go with it, especially on the key indicator of jobs, give a rosier picture than the facts justify. We are not really advancing. We are, by comparison with earlier recessions, going backward. We have a $1.3 trillion budget deficit. And despite the most stimulative fiscal policy in our history and the most stimulative monetary policy, with a trillion-dollar expansion to our money supply, our economy over the last three years has been declining or stagnant. From growth in annual GDP of 2.4 percent 2010, we bumped down to only 1.8 percent in 2011 and were still down at 2.2 percent in 2012. The cumulative growth for the last 12 quarters was just 6.2 percent, less than half the 15.2 percent average after previous recessions over a similar period of time. It is the slowest growth rate of all the 11 post-World War II recessions.
 
What has gone wrong? There seems to be a weakness in the investment of private capital. Today, corporate spending on investments is the weakest it has been in six decades. The billions invested in the Internet, spreading its application and comingling the technology with labor, boosted multifactor productivity but, as David Rosenberg of wealth-management firm Gluskin Sheff points out, most of that occurred several years ago. As he has written, a capex-led business recovery that breeds sustained productivity growth and decent job creation is what underscores the best and longest economic expansions since the end of WWII.
 
[See a collection of political cartoons on the economy.]
 
Anemic growth looks likely to continue because of various downers implicit in Bernanke's caution. Sequestration will take $600 billion of government expenditures out of the economy over the next 10 years. Payroll taxes up 2 percent hit about 160 million workers and will drain $110 billion in aggregate demand. The Obama health care tax will be a $30 billion-plus drag. The surge in gasoline prices by some 50 cents recently may be temporary, as Bernanke suggests, but meanwhile represents another $65 billion of consumer cash flow. Conservatively, these nasties add up to roughly a 2 percent hit to baseline GDP growth when we are barely able to muster 2 percent growth.
 
Then there's housing. Yes, it is nice to see a surge in some areas. But millions of homes are owned by banks or are in the foreclosure process. The New York Times noted last week that the home where Bernanke was raised, in a small town in South Carolina whose unemployment rate was recently 15 percent, had just been foreclosed upon the last time he visited, and one of his relatives was unemployed. Talk about symbolism. Single-family home sales and starts are barely off their depressed levels, and have only recouped 17 percent of recession losses. The housing market is mostly driven by investor-based, rental-related, multifamily buying activity, reflected in the fact that multiple housing units have reversed more than 70 percent of the damage they sustained from the recession.
 
Our economy's most important player, the consumer, offers no relief from this cascade of downers. About 70 percent of national expenditures come from consumers, but their confidence level has dropped to only 58.6 percent. Restaurant traffic, one of the most reliable trend indicators, has slipped to a three-year low. In fact, the only reason that real consumer spending is not shown as contracting is because personal savings rates since November 2007 have declined from 6.4 percent to around 2.5 percent of incomes.
 
[Read the U.S. News Debate: Should the Senate Have Passed an Online Sales Tax?]
 
Still, can't we take comfort in headlines celebrating the decline in unemployment to 7.7 percent? Not really. If you add in all the unique categories of people not included in 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, the real unemployment rate is somewhere between 14 and 15 percent. No wonder it has been harder to find work during this recession than in previous downturns.
 
Though last month we theoretically added 236,000 jobs, these numbers are misleading, too, because so many of the jobs are in the part-time, low-wage category. So the backdrop to the most recent job numbers is the fact that multiple job-holders are up by 340,000 to 7.26 million. In essence then, all of the "new" positions are going to people who already are working, mostly part time. It is clearly more important to create jobs for people who aren't. Other aspects of the jobs picture deteriorated, too. The pool of people unemployed for six months or longer went up by 89,000 to a total of 4.8 million, and the average duration of unemployment rose to 36.9 weeks, up from 35.3 weeks.
 
Moreover, the decline in the unemployment rate to 7.7 percent is shaky. It reflects the departure from the workforce of some 130,000 individuals. A change in the denominator makes the unemployment numbers look better than they are. The labor force participation rate, which measures the number of people in the workforce, also dropped to around 63.5 percent, the lowest in more than 30 years. The workweek remains short at 34.5 hours. Quite simply, employers are shortening the workweek or asking employees to take unpaid leave in unprecedented numbers, and these people are not included in the unemployment numbers.
 
[Read the U.S. News Debate: Should Congress Extend Federal Unemployment Benefits?]
 
Clearly, the rate of job recovery has slowed drastically. Typically it takes 25 months to reach a new post-recession peak in employment, but today we are over 60 months away from that previous high, and we are still down 3.2 million jobs. We need between 1.8 million and 3 million new jobs every year just to absorb the labor force's new entrants. At the current rate, we will have to wait seven years to restore the jobs lost in the Great Recession, and we will need 300,000 or more hires every month to recover substantially above the current levels. The prospects for that are gloomy, since employers now feel they can do with fewer workers. Over 20 percent of companies say that employment in their firms will not return to pre-recession levels.
 
In the face of these figures, the government is just whistling in the dark. The programs it has announced are sensible, but don't do anywhere near enough to plug the gap in workers needed with skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics – the best way to deal with the threat of a big permanent underclass. Nor is there any sense of a vigorous follow-through on multiple well-intentioned programs. We are told we live in an accelerated world, and so we do in communications. But when will we see reform of a patent system that imposes long delays on innovators and 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.
 
A dramatic consequence of the inertia is that our trade in high-tech products has gone from a $29 billion surplus to a $60 billion-plus deficit.
 
[See a collection of political cartoons on the budget and deficit.]
 
When employers can't expand or develop new lines because of the shortage of certain skills, the employment opportunities for the less skilled are restricted. Government must restore and multiply funds for training programs, especially vocational training and postsecondary education. And it must support every program to strengthen science, technology, engineering and math in high schools and at the university level, as well as broadening access to computer science. Until we get such programs properly underway, we should increase the number of annual visas for foreigners skilled in science and technology. They are not job destroyers, as nativist sentiment suggests. They are job creators, and not only that. They are job multipliers. Barring their entry or residence means they will compete against us in the industries that are both growing and competitive. It is astounding that we attract the brightest and the best brains to our universities, the world's best, and then send them packing. We must re-conceptualize immigration as a recruiting tool and open the door to the skilled and the educated. It is disappointing that so soon in a new administration, decisively elected, both party leaderships seem still stuck in a campaigning mode. It isn't just that agricultural companies lack the labor to pick crops of citrus fruits and onions, but that we are stupidly cutting off one of the great sources of innovation. About half the companies in the Fortune 500 owe their origins to the ideas and enterprise of immigrants. Diversity breeds ideas. Look at the history of America.
 
What we get from the administration instead of pragmatism is politics; instead of constructive strategies shed of ideology, we get steady attacks demonizing the wealth creators and discrediting the private sector, along with rhetoric that seeks to exploit divisions by blaming the rich and positioning them against the rest, as if government is not part of the problem.
 
No wonder Fox News found earlier this year that 48 percent of us believe America is weaker than it was five years ago, while just 24 percent think the nation is stronger. Have we really so lost our mojo? Have we lost our way? As 18th-century economist and writer Adam Smith once observed, "there is a great deal of ruin in a nation." Indeed there is. One serious recession does not mean the beginning of the end of a great power. But the risks will multiply so long as we remain locked in a rancorous political culture, and have a leadership more inclined to public relations than hard-headed pragmatic recognition of what must be done to restore America's classic vitality.
 •Read Susan Milligan: The Problem With David Stockman's Economic Solutions
 •Read David Brodwin: Big U.S. Banks And Big Government Undermine Capitalism
 •Check out U.S. News Weekly, now available on iPad

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1276 on: April 05, 2013, 06:35:27 AM »
Even The US Energy Sector Lost Jobs
 


Rob Wile|45 minutes ago|350|2


Wikimedia Commons
 
Oil wells offshore at Summerland, California c. 1915
The oil and gas extraction industry lost 600 payrolls in March, according to the BLS report out this morning.
 
That ends a 27-straight month period without job losses for the sector.
 
Total payrolls fell to 192,500 from 193,100.
 
We shouldn't necessarily be surprised — oil prices have now entered their second year of a downward trend.
 
But natural gas prices rose practically every other day in March thanks to the cold snap.
 
One data point does not a trend make, but watch this space.
 
For more on today's jobs report, see here >


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/oil-and-gas-jobs-fall-in-march-2013-4#ixzz2PazuR9Fx




GigantorX

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1278 on: April 05, 2013, 06:41:29 AM »
We are still in a recession.

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1279 on: April 05, 2013, 06:50:46 AM »
We are still in a recession.

I tried helping the economy. 

I did get a new car this week.  GMC Terrain.  The 2002 Ford Explorer was giving me nightmares after the front wheel popped off in the Bronx while I was driving. 

I did not want to patronize GM, but i figured its still better to keep americans employed and i got a good deal on it.  Does everything I need for less than the Wrangler, Escape, CRV, or Outback

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1280 on: April 05, 2013, 07:17:13 AM »
By Jason Lange

WASHINGTON | Fri Apr 5, 2013 10:12am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American employers hired at the slowest pace in nine months in March, a sign that Washington's austerity drive could be stealing momentum from the economy.

The economy added just 88,000 nonfarm jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, well below market expectations for a 200,000 increase. The jobless rate ticked a tenth of a point lower to 7.6 percent largely due to people dropping out of the work force.

Analysts suspected some of the weakness was due to tax hikes enacted in January. While retail sales data had not shown a big impact earlier in the year, retailers cut staff in March by 24,100.

"The U.S. economy just hit a major speed bump," said Marcus Bullus, trading director at MB Capital in London.

It was unclear whether across-the-board federal budget cuts that began in March played a significant role in the weak pace of hiring, although nervousness over the cuts might have made businesses shy about taking on more staff.

Some economists cautioned against reading too much into the report.

"We don't think there is enough signal here to conclude the U.S. economy is wobbling. Rather, it appears that the underlying trend has not improved as much as the January-February data suggested," said Julia Coronado, chief North America economist at BNP Paribas in New York.

U.S. stocks fell more than 1 percent at open on the data, while prices for Treasury debt rallied. The dollar fell against a basket of currencies.

AMMUNITION FOR THE FED

The slowdown in job growth could make policymakers at the Federal Reserve more confident about continuing a bond-buying stimulus program. Prior advances in the labor market recovery had fueled discussion at the central bank over whether to dial back the purchases, perhaps as soon as this summer.

"The recent discussions about the Fed backing off from its quantitative easing has been premature," said Russell Price, senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Services in Troy, Michigan.

The report did have some positive news for the economy. The Labor Department revised readings for January and February to show 61,000 more jobs added than previously estimated. The average workweek rose to its highest level in a year.

"Companies ramped up working hours instead of hiring additional people. The fact that labor demand kept rising should bode well for future job gains," said Harm Bandholz, chief U.S. economist at UniCredit Research in New York.

The construction sector added 18,000 jobs despite cold weather in parts of the country, reinforcing the view that a recovery in the housing sector has become entrenched.

But analysts have noted that the federal spending cuts have only just begun and will be a more substantial drag on the economy between April and June, when many government workers begin taking days off work without pay.

Government payrolls fell only 7,000 in March, partly reversing the 14,000-job gain from February.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who has said the labor market must show sustained improvement before monetary stimulus is eased, has voiced concern about the spending cuts.

The jobless rate fell to its lowest since December 2008, but the report showed that much of the drop was due to the labor force shrinking by 496,000 people.

That pushed the labor force participation rate -- the percentage of working-age Americans either with a job or looking for one -- to 63.3 percent, its lowest since 1979.

The unemployment rate is derived from a survey of households which is separate from the survey of employer payrolls. That survey actually showed employment fell by 206,000 in March.

Some of the people dropping out of the labor force are retiring or going back to school, but others have given up the job hunt out of discouragement.

Separately, Commerce Department data showed the U.S. trade gap narrowed unexpectedly in February as crude oil imports fell to their lowest level since March 1996 and overall exports increased slightly.

The deficit narrowed to $43.0 billion. The consensus estimate of analysts surveyed before the report was for the trade gap to widen slightly to $44.6 billion.

(Additional reporting by Doug Palmer and Lucia Mutikani in Washington and Herb Lash in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci)


GigantorX

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1281 on: April 05, 2013, 07:42:52 AM »
I tried helping the economy. 

I did get a new car this week.  GMC Terrain.  The 2002 Ford Explorer was giving me nightmares after the front wheel popped off in the Bronx while I was driving. 

I did not want to patronize GM, but i figured its still better to keep americans employed and i got a good deal on it.  Does everything I need for less than the Wrangler, Escape, CRV, or Outback

That's actually pretty damn good vehicle, I have friend that drives one (4 cyl.) and it's pretty sweet. Prefect size as well.

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1282 on: April 05, 2013, 08:05:14 AM »
That's actually pretty damn good vehicle, I have friend that drives one (4 cyl.) and it's pretty sweet. Prefect size as well.

I got the 4 cyl AWD and it does everything I want and is not terrible on gas.  Tows the jet ski, can go in the snow, fine for hauling shit, tail gates, does not look gay like the CRV, etc. 

I traded in my 2002 Explorer which was on deaths' doorstep w 102k miles and walked out of the door on a lease for 300 a month, zero down, and the sticker was 32k. 

I might have done a little better, but i like the car and glad i bought american 

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1283 on: April 05, 2013, 08:27:19 AM »
Why did you help Obama?!

>:(

Because the Escape was too small and the Wrangler was too expensive for what I wanted and drove like shit. 

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1284 on: April 05, 2013, 08:33:25 AM »
That is unfortunately why American cars are not doing well.

The CRV looks awful, the Outback looks like "family car", the X3 is too small and expensive for what i want, the Murano is kind of wierd, the Acura RDX is a rip off, the Rav4 was up there for sure, etc. 

The Terrain was perfect price and fit for what i wanted.   

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1285 on: April 05, 2013, 08:58:52 AM »

GigantorX

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1286 on: April 05, 2013, 09:21:32 AM »
Because the Escape was too small and the Wrangler was too expensive for what I wanted and drove like shit. 

The Escape is in the size class below the Terrain, that's why. If you wanted similar size and such you should have looked at the Ford Edge. And as for the Wrangler, well, it's a Wrangler with a live rear axle, high center of gravity and a short wheelbase....it isn't going to drive very well.

GigantorX

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1287 on: April 05, 2013, 09:28:50 AM »


Look on CNBC.com and watch the whole segment. He doesn't know what say and is desperately trying to come up withe excuses, it was sad, he's lost. And I got a huge chuckle when he said, "If it wasn't for Bernanke, how bad would things be! Things would be horrible!" Totally clueless and lost, but he has a microphone on a TV show. Just a mouthpiece for the rich and the market controllers.

We are where we are due, in large part, to the Fed policies. The Fed keeps on printings money, monetizing debt, pumping cash into the market and all manner of gimmicks and what has happened? Things have gotten worse.

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1288 on: April 05, 2013, 10:03:54 AM »
Record 89,967,000 Not in Labor Force; Another 663,000 Drop Out In March



 April 5, 2013



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



By Terence P. Jeffrey


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 124 65

 

 
 

President Barack Obama and Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, whom Obama has nominated to be secretary of labor. (AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) - A record 89,967,000 Americans were not in the labor force in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is an increase of 663,000 from the 89,304,000 Americans who were not in the labor force in February.
 Since President Barack Obama was first inaugurated in January 2009, 9,460,000 people have dropped out of the labor force.
 


The BLS counts a person as not in the civilian labor force if they are at least 16 years old, are not in the military or an institution such as a prison, mental hospital or nursing home, and have not actively looked for a job in the last four weeks. The department counts a person as in the civilian labor force if they are at least 16, are not in the military or an institution such as a prison, mental hospital or nursing home, and either do have a job or have actively looked for one in the last four weeks.
 
The number of people that BLS considers "in the labor force" affects the unemployment rate--which is the percentage of people "in the labor force" who are unable to find a job during the month. If someone previously considered "not in the labor force" were to go out and search for a job and not find one, they would have to be counted as in the labor force for that period--and thus would increase the unemployment rate.
 
To the degree that Americans choose to simply drop out of the labor force rather than search unsuccessful for a job they decrease the unemployment rate.
 
In keeping with the increase in the number of people not in the labor force, the labor force participation rate decreased from 63.5 percent in February to 63.3 percent in March. The labor force participation rate is the percentage of Americans in the civilian population over age 16 who did not have a job or seek a job during the month.
 

In January 2009, when Obama was first inaugurated, there were 80,507,000 people not in the labor force compared to the 89,967,000 who were not in the labor force in March.

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1291 on: April 05, 2013, 10:31:20 AM »
This Sure Doesn't Look Like An American Manufacturing Renaissance
 


Rob Wile|Apr. 5, 2013, 12:02 PM|376|3
 

Americans have high hopes for a manufacturing renaissance — the idea that rising overseas labor costs and falling domestic would be bring jobs back to the U.S.
 
But as Goldman Sachs' Jan Hatzius has noted, there isn't much evidence that this is actually happening.
 
Marketwatch's Steve Goldstein just gave us more evidence that this renaissance may be just a myth.
 
It's pretty simple: a chart showing total nonfarm payrolls versus manufacturing payrolls. The lines are going in the wrong direction.  And manufacturing jobs are actually falling faster than other jobs:


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-manufacturin-jobs-are-falling-2013-4#ixzz2PbxM5J2v


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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1292 on: April 05, 2013, 10:32:16 AM »
Disney Is Planning Major Layoffs Within The Next Two Weeks
 


Kirsten Acuna|Apr. 5, 2013, 11:58 AM|677|
 



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Josh Hallet via Flickr
 
Disney is expected to make cuts to its studio and consumer products division in the next two weeks.
 
More cuts are coming to Disney.   

The Walt Disney Company will lay off a number of workers in the coming weeks, according to Reuters.
 
Cuts to both Disney's film studio and consumer products division could come as early as two weeks.
 
Employees from animation and marketing and home video are expected to be laid off.
 
It's currently unknown how many reductions will occur, but the layoffs are reported to be a cause of an internal audit from CEO Bob Iger who wants to cut costs.
 
Numbers wise, Disney had record earnings ever in November.
 
Its stock continues to hit all-time highs reaching $53.53 in January and $57.76 last month.
 
In February, the company revealed lower first quarter results, attributing them in part to "rising costs of acquiring TV sports rights for its ESPN division," something Iger previously predicted would occur at the end of 2012.
 
Right now, Disney doesn't need as much man power as it once did at its studio.
 
The studio is now heavily relying on brands Pixar, Marvel, and, now Lucasfilm to release films.
 
Marvel has six films set to release now through 2015, Pixar just announced a highly-anticipated sequel to 2003 hit "Finding Nemo," and the new "Star Wars" trilogy is set to begin in another two years time.
 
These aren't the first layoffs to be announced this week.
 
Earlier this week, Disney shut down video game company LucasArts, laying off 150 people. 
 
The Mouse House acquired Lucasfilm back in December after initial word of a $4 billion purchase was revealed last October. 
 
Work on future "Star Wars" related games will most likely come from its own troubled game segment, Interactive, which is hoping for a massive success when its new gaming initiative, Infinity, launches later this summer.
 
Last September, Disney Interactive laid off more than 50 employees. 
 
A year prior, the company laid off a reported 200 employees from its interactive unit.
 
In December, The Walt Disney Company was ordered to pay $319 million to the creator of game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Celador, after losing an appeal for a new trial.
 

SEE ALSO: Disney shuts down LucasArts >


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/disney-is-planning-layoffs-2013-4#ixzz2PbxbLduw

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1293 on: April 05, 2013, 10:54:00 AM »
I read some of that HuffPo stuff.....pretty bad, not a lot of coherent thoughts.

I love the use of "Austerity" and "Republicans" as the main culprits for the bad economy. Especially since spending is still increasing year over year and the Sequester was Obama's idea and he signed off on the bill.

Austerity is a myth in Europe as well, EU countries haven't cut budgets either.

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1294 on: April 05, 2013, 10:57:40 AM »
We are where we are due, in large part, to the Fed policies. The Fed keeps on printings money, monetizing debt, pumping cash into the market and all manner of gimmicks and what has happened? Things have gotten worse.

Simply indicating that the Fed has launched policies and that things have 'gotten worse' (when? in what sense?) does nothing to establish a causal connection between the two, nor that things would be better without such action (which is implied by the former).

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1295 on: April 05, 2013, 11:02:18 AM »
Simply indicating that the Fed has launched policies and that things have 'gotten worse' (when? in what sense?) does nothing to establish a causal connection between the two, nor that things would be better without such action.

Businesses will not hire when they know there will be massive future tax hikes and inflation to pay for this along w other looming disasters like ObamaCare, etc taking hold 

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1297 on: April 05, 2013, 02:45:59 PM »
After poor jobs report, politicians trade blame for sequester
 cbsnews.com ^

Posted on Friday, April 05, 2013 12:35:56 PM by Sub-Driver

By Stephanie Condon / CBS News/ April 5, 2013, 11:48 AM

After poor jobs report, politicians trade blame for sequester

After the Labor Department on Friday released a disappointing jobs report for the month of March, the White House, House Speaker John Boehner and other politicians cited the sequestration for the slow economic growth -- and sparked Democrats and Republicans to revive the debate over whom to blame for the spending cuts.

Friday's jobs report showed just 88,000 jobs were created in March -- far fewer than the 175,000-200,000 expected. The unemployment rate fell to 7.6 percent, but that happened largely because 496,000 people simply stopped looking for jobs. The labor force participation rate now stands at 63.3 percent, the lowest level since May 1979.

White House economic adviser Alan Krueger put some positive spin on the report, arguing in a White House blog post that it "provides further evidence that the U.S. economy is continuing to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression." He noted the economy has added private sector jobs every month for 37 straight months.

Still, he said, "It is important to bear in mind that the March household and payroll surveys are the first monthly surveys to look at employment since the beginning of sequestration. While the recovery was gaining traction before sequestration took effect, these arbitrary and unnecessary cuts to government services will be a headwind in the months to come, and will cut key investments in the Nation's future competitiveness."

Krueger said the administration "continues to urge Congress to replace the sequester with balanced deficit reduction" -- a goal the White House says has been hampered by Republicans.


(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1298 on: April 05, 2013, 02:49:56 PM »
I don't see where the sequester has done anything bad... looks like we can cut some more shit.

Correct:  the sequester has nothing at all to do with it. 

Payroll tak hike
ObamaCare
Federal Reserve Money Printing Scam
Energy is sky high

Etc etc


Oh yeah, W and Palin too.