Author Topic: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"  (Read 151824 times)

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1125 on: December 09, 2012, 08:31:35 AM »
Yes 53% of the country should go fuck themselves ::)




These welfare thugs should.


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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1127 on: December 09, 2012, 10:07:35 AM »
Ky. plastics manufacturing plant slated to close (392 jobs lost)
 WTVQ-TV / The Associated Press ^ | December 8, 2012

Posted on Sunday, December 09, 2012 12:23:46 PM by 2ndDivisionVet

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls plans to close a central Kentucky plastics manufacturing plant early next year, potentially putting nearly 400 employees out of work.

The Courier-Journal (http://cjky.it/U3qICs) reports that a mass layoff notice filed with the Kentucky Office of Employment & Training on Friday says up to 392 workers could be cut in February when the facility in Louisville closes. The plant produces injection-molded interior components for vehicles...


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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1128 on: December 09, 2012, 10:24:13 AM »
Is America Headed Into An Intentional Recession?
 Townhall.com ^ | December 9, 2012 | Austin Hill

Posted on Sunday, December 09, 2012 10:21:28 AM by Kaslin

“Mah fellow Americans, inflayshun is ow-uh friend…”



If you can pronounce the phonetic wording above – and if it sounds vaguely familiar – then for better or worse you probably grew up watching “Saturday Night Live” like I did. The line comes from a late 1970’s skit wherein funny guy Dan Aykroyd was impersonating President Jimmy Carter.



During his one term as President, Carter addressed the nation numerous times to try and quell people’s fears about inflation, the economic malady that defined the era. During those years, Carter announced several anti-inflation policy measures. He urged Americans to “tighten their belts” and consume less, in an effort to decrease the demand for goods and services and, therefore, to get prices to decline (consumption, by the way, was actually quite stagnant even as prices rose – hence the problem of “stagflation”). And as he got closer to his re-election date he looked increasingly anxious, as though he was trying to convince Americans that he was doing as well as any President could.



In the midst of this, “Saturday Night Live” delivered the definitive presidential satire. With his impeccable imitation of the President’s “southern gentlemen” accent, Aykroyd – as President Carter – addressed the nation one fine Saturday night and told Americans that “our economy is screwed, blued, and tattooed,” but noted that we could stop fighting the battle against inflation- because “inflation is our friend.”



Aykroyd was hilarious because his character’s statements were absurd - no adult in their right mind and certainly no U.S. President would “embrace inflation” or regard it as a “friend.” President Carter was desperately trying to assure us that he was ending inflation, and Aykroyd’s routine illustrated just how desperately the President was trying to remain in our good favor.



But that was in the 1970’s. Today, just three weeks away from 2013, there is reason to believe that our President and his Administration – and perhaps his party, as a whole – is “embracing” recession, as though it is an appropriate means to a necessary end.



Ron Scherer, Staff Writer at the Christian Science Monitor, was one of the first to catch-on. He noted in a November 30th news story that in the midst of the “fiscal cliff” tax rate negotiations, President Obama had begun to speak on the campaign trail about another $255 billion stimulus package. Scherer surmised that the President was proposing more stimulus spending as a means of “offsetting” the impact of his own proposed tax hikes.



But what, precisely, would need to be “offset,” if President Obama’s agenda prevails? He just completed a successful re-election campaign claiming that raising taxes on “rich people” would be good for the economy, yet it now appears that he wants more stimulus spending as a means of saving our economy from his own economic policies. This would seem to be, at the very least, a tacit admission from the President that raising taxes on individual people – even those awful “rich people” among us – does, indeed cause a slowdown in economic activity, and may very well bring about a recession.



Shortly after the President began his new stimulus push, former Democratic National Committee Chairman (and former presidential candidate) Howard Dean made some extraordinary remarks of his own about the economy. In an interview at MSNBC, Dean stated that he wants the across-the-board income tax increases entailed in the “fiscal cliff” scenario, and welcomed the resulting outcome. “Will it cause a problem?” he asked rhetorically. “Yes. There will be a short recession, and it will be painful.” Yet despite the “painful recession” that will ensue, Dean expressed exuberance for the higher tax rates and the cuts in military spending that will result as well.



In a recession, individuals and families often lose. They often lose jobs, careers, and homes, and sometimes families are torn apart. Governments that truly prioritize the wellbeing of the citizenry, usually try to avoid recessions - for these, and other reasons.



But when governmental leaders prioritize their own power and agenda over and above the wellbeing of the citizens they serve, a “painful recession” is an acceptable means to an end. You and I may lose our home or job in an upcoming Obama recession, but that is of little concern. The President and his party have made it clear that their goal is to control more private wealth, spend that wealth as they see fit, and make the citizenry more dependent on government services.



When I was a kid, it was laughable to think that even the inept President Jimmy Carter was regarding inflation as “our friend.” Today, all Americans should be sobered by the reality that our President may be quite intentionally sending us in to recession, as an acceptable means of accomplishing his objectives.

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1131 on: December 10, 2012, 05:38:48 AM »
A Lost Generation?
By Robert Samuelson - December 10, 2012

 


WASHINGTON -- This is not a good time to be starting out in life. Jobs are scarce, and those that exist often pay unexpectedly low wages. Beginning a family -- always stressful and uncertain -- is increasingly a stretch. The weak economy begets weak family formation. We instinctively know this; several new studies now deepen our understanding.
 
When the labor market operates smoothly, it creates an economic escalator. Just out of high school or college, young workers typically switch jobs frequently until they find something that fits their talent and temperament. Job changes often mean higher pay; people move to advance themselves. The more they succeed, the more confident they feel in marrying and having children.

The most startling evidence of the broken escalator is the collapse in marriages and births. Marriage has been declining for years. Now, in a new study, the Pew Research Center finds that in 2011 the U.S. birth rate (births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44) fell to its lowest level since at least 1920, the earliest year of reliable statistics. From 2007 to 2011, the U.S. birth rate dropped almost 9 percent. The total fertility rate -- the estimated number of children born to adult women in their lifetime -- has fallen four straight years to 1.9 (the replacement rate is 2.1).
 
States with large economic setbacks suffered steeper birth rate drops, Pew says. Interestingly, births to immigrants fell more sharply than for native-born Americans. In 2010 -- the latest detailed data -- they dropped 13 percent from 2007 compared with a 5 percent decline for native-born women. Hispanics, both foreign and U.S.-born, had big birth-rate declines, reflecting (Pew said) exceptionally high unemployment and wealth losses from the recession.
 
The bleak labor market has hurt all age groups, but none more than the young. Consider the 23.4 million Americans who, on average, were considered "underemployed" over the past year. This group consists of 12.7 million officially unemployed; 8.2 million working part time but wanting full-time jobs; and 2.5 million desiring work but so discouraged they'd stopped looking. Of all these workers, 41 percent (9.5 million) were 30 or under, far in excess of their labor force share of 27 percent, reports Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank that provided these numbers.
 
Fully one-fifth of younger workers belong to the "underemployed." As Shierholz notes, the young always have higher unemployment rates. It's just worse now. "Young workers are relatively new to the labor market -- often looking for their first or second job -- and so may be passed over in hiring due to lack of experience," she says. "If employed, their lack of seniority makes them candidates for being laid off."
 
But it's more than the lack of jobs -- or full-time jobs -- that hurts the young. Wages have also sagged because too many applicants are chasing too few openings.
 
Traditionally, U.S. labor markets have featured enormous turnover: Workers voluntarily leave jobs or are fired. Job changes vastly exceed net job creation, as hires often fill slots that someone else just left. On the whole, this has been a good thing, argues a new study. Workers can often find a better-paying job. But this "churning," as the study calls it, is abating. Because employers are creating fewer net new jobs, workers won't give up the ones they've got. As the labor market freezes up, the young lose bargaining power.
 
"Because job change accounts for a substantial portion of earnings growth, especially for younger workers, this decrease in churning reflects a decrease in workers' opportunities for [higher wages]," write the study's authors, economists John Haltiwanger of the University of Maryland and Henry Hyatt, Erika McEntarfer and Liliana Sousa of the Census Bureau.
 
The glut of job seekers depresses wages in a second way, argues the study. New firms -- which create a disproportionate share of new jobs -- don't have to pay as much to hire. In 2001, workers at firms 10 years old or less earned 85 percent as much as workers at older firms. By 2011, they were paid only 70 percent as much. And these newer firms matter. From 1998 to 2011, they created 40 percent of net new jobs despite representing only 25 percent of total employment.
 
It's usually a mistake to generalize about entire generations. The bad luck and bad timing of today's 20-somethings may pass. Birth rates could bounce back. "In the past, women who have postponed births make up for it later," says Pew's D'Vera Cohn. The economic recovery may strengthen; the retirement of baby boomers will create new job openings; and surveys indicate the young remain optimistic despite setbacks.
 
So the economic escalator may again accelerate. Still, the question nags: Could this become a lost generation?



Copyright 2012, Washington Post Writers Group

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1132 on: December 10, 2012, 05:39:51 AM »
 :D

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1133 on: December 10, 2012, 05:56:16 AM »

December 10, 2012
Under Obama, Economic Stagnation Is the New Normal
By Louis Woodhill



Friday's "Employment Situation" report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed that 5.4 million Americans have dropped out of the labor force since Barack Obama took office. The labor force declined by 350,000 in November, despite an increase of 191,000 in our working age population.
 
The unprecedented decline of labor force participation under President Obama is not news. However, it also appears that millions of brain cells have dropped out of the mental labor force of America's economic analysts. How else can we account for headlines like these?
 
"Jobs report: A pleasant surprise" (Jared Bernstein)


 


"The employment emergency is over" (Felix Salmon)
 
"Fiscal cliff? What fiscal cliff? No evidence in jobs numbers" (Stephen Gandel)
 
In case anyone didn't notice, the BLS jobs report was terrible. Unemployment didn't go down in November (from 7.9% to 7.7%) as the BLS reported, it actually went up. The true unemployment rate, calculated at the labor force participation rate that existed when Bush 43 left office (65.8%), increased from 10.7% to 10.8%. This put the true unemployment rate 1.3 percentage points higher than when Obama's so-called "economic recovery" began, almost 3.5 years ago.
 
As of November 2012, total employment was still 3.2 million below its peak, which occurred five years earlier. This is particularly ghastly, because America's working age population has increased by 11.2 million since then. Less than 1% of incremental working-age Americans have managed to get jobs since Obama took office.
 
But wait. There's more.
 
America moved another 246,000 jobs further away from full employment during November. We had fewer full-time jobs last month than we did in January 2005, which was almost eight years ago.
 
Assuming that November's CPI comes in as expected (2.0% annual inflation rate), the real wages of ordinary ("production and non-supervisory") workers were 1.9% lower in November 2012 than they were in November 2010. They were also 9.0% lower than they were in November 1964, for that matter.
 
Question: How can anyone look at something as dismal as Friday's BLS report and see anything but economic stagnation? Answer: Under Obama, economic stagnation has become the new normal.
 
Just as fish don't know that they are wet, many economic analysts seem to have lost sight of what an economic recovery is supposed to look like. Hint: It's supposed to look like the Reagan recovery from the severe 1981-1982 recession.
 
November 2012 marked 60 months since total employment peaked (in November 2007). At this point in the Reagan recovery (April 1986), total employment was 7.8% above the previous peak. If the Obama recovery had been as strong as Reagan's, there would be 14.8 million more Americans working right now.
 
During Reagan's first term, the employment ratio, which is total employment divided by the working age population, rose by 0.9 percentage points. With one month to go in Obama's first term, the employment ratio has declined by an unprecedented 2.3 percentage points during his time in office. During the recent campaign, Obama sought to be identified with Bill Clinton, but during Clinton's first term, the employment ratio went up by 2.0 percentage points.
 
Reagan produced his recovery via a combination of a strong dollar, tax cuts, and regulatory relief. Obama has continued Bush 43's weak dollar policy, but has added the Obamacare tax increases and a blizzard of new regulations. And, he has vowed to fight for even more tax increases.
 
Not surprisingly, opposite causes produce opposite effects. From an employment point of view, there has been no economic recovery at all.
 
On November 6, Obama won a second chance to turn the economy around, by defeating clueless conservative Mitt Romney. So, what is Obama's plan? His plan is more of the same. More of Ben Bernanke's "quantitative easing", more tax increases, and even more regulations. Oh, and don't forget the $50 billion in additional "stimulus" spending Obama wants.

Part of Obama's new normal involves ignoring the staggering difference between the president's promises and the actual results delivered.
 
Obama's $842 billion in stimulus spending was supposed to get the unemployment rate down to 5.2% by now. The actual unemployment rate in November (calculated at the labor force participation rate assumed for the stimulus plan) was 10.8%. This is not only more than twice as high as the level promised, it is higher than the 10.4% rate (calculated on the same basis) that existed when Obama signed the stimulus bill into law.
 
So, is there any hope for the working class, and for jobless Americans that want to join the working class? As things stand right now, no, there isn't. Here's why.
 
Right now, America is about 14.7 million jobs short of full employment. To create one average job, someone has to invest about $200,000 in nonresidential assets. Therefore, to create the additional jobs we need, someone would have to invest an additional $3.0 trillion or so in the U.S. economy.
 
If an additional $3.0 trillion had been invested by the private sector during Obama's recovery, 3Q2012 GDP would have been $1.5 trillion, or 9.5%, higher than it actually was. Real GDP growth during those 13 calendar quarters would have averaged 5.11%, rather than the 2.21% actually achieved. By way of comparison, real GDP growth averaged 5.67% during the first 13 quarters of the Reagan recovery.
 
Coming out of a severe recession, a sustained period of fast economic growth has been normal for America,. However, under Obama, slow growth and high joblessness has become the new normal.
 
OK, so, who happens to have $3.0 trillion lying around, plus the knowledge and skills required to invest it wisely to create sustainable jobs? The poor? The middle class? The government?
 
No, the investment required to transform America's stagnant jobs picture can only come from the people that actually have the money, as well as the demonstrated ability to manage capital investment. In other words, it would have to come from the hated and reviled "one percent".
 
Obviously, "the rich" are already investing all that they are willing to invest under the current structure of incentives. Obama's plan is to do everything he can to make investment even less attractive for "the one percent" than it is now. This is why economic stagnation has become the new normal.
 
A good measure of the driving force for "the rich" to invest in job-creating nonresidential assets is the Real Dow, which is the Dow Jones Industrial Average divided by the price of gold.
 
A rising Dow reflects a flow of capital into productive assets. A rising gold price indicates that capital is moving into inflation hedges. The Real Dow, which is the ratio of the two, reveals the balance between the competing investment options available to "the rich".
 
The jobs picture will not improve until and unless the Real Dow begins a sustained rise. Unfortunately, the Real Dow ended November at 7.61. This is down by 16.6% since Obama's so-called "economic recovery" began, lower by 23.6% than when Bush 43 left office, and down by a staggering 80.6% since we last enjoyed full employment (in April 2000, under Bill Clinton).
 
So, if you are waiting for an improvement in the employment picture, watch the Real Dow, but don't hold your breath.
 
There will have to be big changes in policy before the jobs situation will improve significantly. Essentially, Obamunism would have to be supplanted by Reaganomics. America would have to move to a strong, stable dollar, lower taxes (especially on savings and investment), and cost-effective regulations.
 
As things stand, the American people can look forward to more years of economic stagnation, as well more years of pretending that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Don't worry if your kids graduate from college, only to move back home and play video games in the basement. It's just the new normal.
 




Louis Woodhill (louis@woodhill.com), an engineer and software entrepreneur, is a Forbes contributor.

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1134 on: December 10, 2012, 06:06:05 AM »
Foodstamps Soar By Most In 16 Months: Over 1 Million Americans Enter Poverty In Last Two Months
 zero hedge ^

Posted on Monday, December 10, 2012 6:57:01 AM by Perdogg

And we thought last month's delayed foodstamp data was bad. The just reported foodstamp number for September was a doozy, with 607,544 new Americans becoming eligible for foodstamps, as a record 47.7 million Americans are now living in poverty at least according to the USDA. The monthly increase was the highest since May 2011, and with August's 421K new impoverished America, over 1 million Americans made the EBT card their new best friend. It is unclear just which atmospheric phenomenon will get the blame for this unprecedented surge in poverty, which comes at a time when the pre-election economic data euphoria was adamant that the US economy was on an escape velocity to utopia. Instead what we do know is that in August and September, over three times as many foodstamp recipients were add to the economy as jobs (324,000). We also know that with the imminent impact of Sandy, which will send foodstamp recipients soaring, it is now looking quite possible that the US may end 2012 with just over a mindboggling 50 million Americans living in absolute poverty and collecting the $134.29 average monthly benefit per person, instead of working. Welcome to the recovery indeed.


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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1135 on: December 10, 2012, 07:30:21 AM »
Gallup Reports Upper-Income Spending Worst November Ever
 Townhall.com ^ | December 10, 2012 | Mike Shedlock

Posted on Monday, December 10, 2012 10:25:08 AM by

With the generally upbeat spending reports on black Friday and cyber-Monday, Gallup paints a different point of view in its most recent poll that shows U.S. Consumer Spending Holds Steady, Consistent With 2011

Americans' self-reported daily spending averaged $73 in November, essentially on par with September and October. It is also similar to the $71 Americans spent last November and slightly higher compared with November 2010 and 2009 -- but still much lower than in November 2008.

November 2012 vs. November Prior Years



U.S. Upper-Income Spending Sees Worst November on Record

Upper-income Americans' (defined as those making at least $90,000 per year) self-reported daily spending was lower this November -- an average of $113 -- than in any November dating back to 2008. Upper-income spending has been trending downward since September, although the decline has not been large enough to drag down the overall spending figures.



Lower-income Americans' spending in November -- an average of $61 -- is on par with the $60 they spent last November. Lower-income spending is generally quite stable from month to month and has been holding steady since March.

Bottom Line

Although November marks the beginning of the holiday season -- generally a time for spending and splurging -- Americans did not spend any more than usual this November, and upper-income Americans appear to be spending less than usual. Americans' self-reported spending in November is on par with November 2011, matching Gallup's finding that Americans predict they will spend about as much on holiday gifts this year as they did last year.Note that both charts paint a different picture of holiday spending in the recovery. Spending levels did not recover to pre-recession levels, at least as reported in Gallup surveys.What consumers actually spend vs. what they report to Gallup might not be the same thing.

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1137 on: December 10, 2012, 09:21:28 AM »
The Employment Rate Has Been Under 59 Percent For 39 Months In A Row
Unemployment Is Not Going Down
 
Michael Snyder
 Economic Collapse
 December 10, 2012



 
The mainstream media is heralding the decline of the official unemployment rate to 7.7 percent as evidence that the U.S. economy is improving.  But it is a giant lie.  The truth is that unemployment in America is not actually going down.  The percentage of working age Americans with a job actually dropped slightly in November.  During the last recession, the percentage of working age Americans with a job fell from about 63 percent to under 59 percent and it has stayed there for 39 months in a row.  In September 2009, during the depths of the last economic crisis, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans were employed.  In November 2012, 58.7 percentof all working age Americans were employed.  It is more then 3 years later, and we are in the exact same place!  So how in the world are they able to pretend that the “unemployment rate” is going down steadily?  Well, they get there by pretending that hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers “leave the labor force” each month.  According to the government, another 350,000 Americans left the labor force during November, and when you keep pretending that huge chunks of workers “disappear” each month it is easy to get the “unemployment rate” to go down.  But any idiot can see that there is something really funny about these numbers.  Barack Obama has been president for less than four years, and during that time the number of Americans “not in the labor force” has increased by nearly 8.5 million.  Something seems really “off” about that number, because during the entire decade of the 1980s the number of Americans “not in the labor force” only rose by about 2.5 million.  At this point the official unemployment rate is so manipulated that it is of very little value at all.
 
But the mainstream media is just eating up this “good news”.  They are very excited that the “unemployment rate” has fallen from its peak of 10.0 percent in October 2009 to 7.7 percent now…
 


But if unemployment was actually going down, we should be seeing the percentage of Americans with a job go up.
 
Unfortunately, that is NOT happening.
 
As I mentioned above, the “employment rate” fell below 59 percent during the last economic crisis and it has stayed there for 39 consecutive months…
 


So all of that stuff about the employment situation getting better is just a load of nonsense.  The percentage of Americans with a job has stayed very, very steady since the end of 2009.  It is almost as if someone has hit a “pause button” and won’t let unemployment get better or get worse.
 
This is the first time since the end of World War II that we have not seen the employment-population ratio bounce back in a significant way after a recession has ended.
 
To me, that is a very bad sign.
 
I also find it very interesting that the government revised the “job gains” for September and October downward in this recent report…
 

The government revised down job gains for September and October by a total 49,000. September’s additions were revised from 148,000 to 132,000 and October’s, from 171,000 to 138,000.
 
So it turns out that the glowing employment reports from those months that helped get Obama re-elected were really not that great after all.
 
The truth is that it takes somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with the growth of the population.  So at best we are treading water.
 
And who is “creating” those new jobs?
 
According to an analysis performed by CNSNews.com, 73 percent of the jobs “created” over the past 5 months have been “created” by government.
 
But government does not create real wealth.
 
Real wealth is only created by the private sector.
 
It would be very nice if I could report a major employment turnaround, but it simply is not happening.
 
Instead, we continue to see an increase in the number of Americans living in poverty.
 
If things are getting better, then why are organizations like the Salvation Army seeing record numbers of families coming to them for help this holiday season?
 
For much more on the continued growth of poverty in the United States, just see this article.
 
Sadly, an increasing number of Americans find themselves forced to turn to the government for assistance, and the cost of caring for all of them has become extremely expensive…
 

According to the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee, welfare spending per day per household in poverty is $168, which is higher than the $137 median income per day. When broken down per hour, welfare spending per hour per household in poverty is $30.60, which is higher than the $25.03 median income per hour.
 
But if you think that things are bad now, you should brace yourself, because things are going to get even worse.
 
For example, how much worse will things get if a fiscal cliff deal is not reached and millions more Americans find themselves in desperate need of help?  According to ABC News, more than 3 million Americans will lose unemployment benefits by the beginning of April if Congress does not do something…
 

Millions of unemployed Americans have another reason to worry about “fiscal cliff” budget talks that seek to avoid looming tax increases and dire spending cuts come January.
 
About 2.1 million people will stop receiving jobless benefits immediately if Congress doesn’t reauthorize federal unemployment insurance programs by year’s end. Another 1 million will lose benefits over the first three months of 2013.
 
2013 is already shaping up to be a very tough year.
 
But the mainstream media is not really talking about how the middle class is systematically being destroyed or about how our once great manufacturing cities are being turned into desolate wastelands.
 
They just want us all to be happy, but the cold, hard reality of the matter is that the U.S. economy no longer produces enough jobs for everybody and it never will again.
 
Both of our major political parties have fully embraced the emerging one world economic system which puts average American workers into direct competition for jobs with workers in third world countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.
 
Millions of good paying American jobs have been shipped to countries where workers work very long hours in absolutely horrific conditions for as little as 45 dollars a month.
 
Are you willing to work for 45 dollars a month?
 
Meanwhile, Americans that still do have jobs are piling up more debt than ever before.  It appears that most people have not learned any lessons from the last major economic crisis.  It has just been reported that consumer borrowing in the United States has hit a new record high…
 

Americans swiped their credit cards more often in October and borrowed more to attend school and buy cars. The increases drove U.S. consumer debt to an all-time high.
 
The Federal Reserve said Friday that consumers increased their borrowing by $14.2 billion in October from September. Total borrowing rose to a record $2.75 trillion.
 
Isn’t that lovely?
 
And of course the biggest offender of all is our federal government.  They just keep borrowing money as if there was no tomorrow.
 A d v e r t i s e m e n t

 


During the first two months of fiscal year 2013, the U.S. government has run a deficit of $292 billion dollars ($57 billion worse than last year) and during that time it has borrowed an average of $4.8 billion dollars a day.
 
30 years ago, the U.S. national debt was about 1.1 trillion dollars.
 
Now it is more than 16.3 trillion dollars.
 
To get an idea how much money 16 trillion dollars is, just watch this 2 minute video.
 
How could we be so stupid?
 
Yes, much of America is still experiencing “prosperity” right now.  But it is a prosperity that has been fueled by the greatest debt bubble that the world has ever seen.
 
When that debt bubble bursts the pain is going to be unbelievable.
 
If you actually believe that America is going to prosper in the years to come, you are just fooling yourself.
 
Our economy is declining and has been declining for quite some time.  If you doubt this, just read this: “34 Signs That America Is In Decline“.
 
So that is the bad news.
 
But the good news is that even though the entire nation is not going to prosper, there will be those that will have prepared and that will have gotten themselves into position to take advantage of what is coming.  During the coming crisis a massive amount of money and wealth will change hands.  Instead of living in fear and cowering under a blanket, now is the time to figure out how you and your family can thrive during the hard times that are on the horizon.
 
During the economic crisis of 2008 and 2009, there were some people that actually did amazingly well.  So don’t lose hope just because the U.S. economy is headed for disaster.
 
Everything that can be shaken will be shaken.  But if you understand what is happening and you prepare for it, the times that are coming can actually be a great adventure and a great blessing for you and your family.
 
But if you just stick your head in the sand and have blind faith in the system and pretend that everything is going to be okay somehow, then you will be blindsided by the coming crisis and you will only have yourself to blame.

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1139 on: December 11, 2012, 06:02:54 AM »
Small Business Optimism Collapses After 'Something Bad Happened In November'
Joe Weisenthal|Dec. 11, 2012, 7:36 AM|945|6

 


The NFIB is out with its latest survey of small business optimism, and the numbers are very bad. In fact, the firm's chief economy specifically said "Something bad happened in November" and that it wasn't just hurricane Sandy.
 
Here's the number.
 
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index dropped 5.6 points in November, bottoming out at 87.5. The two major events in November were the national elections and Hurricane Sandy, which devastated parts of the East Coast. To disentangle these, the results for the states impacted by Sandy were excluded from the computation for comparison. When separating the hurricane-impacted states from the remainder, the data makes clear that the election was the primary cause of the decline in owner optimism.
 
“Something bad happened in November—and based on the NFIB survey data, it wasn’t merely Hurricane Sandy. The storm had a significant impact on the economy, no doubt, but it is very clear that a stunning number of owners who expect worse business conditions in six months had far more to do with the decline in small-business confidence. Nearly half of owners are now certain that things will be worse next year than they are now. Washington does not have the needs of small business in mind. Between the looming ‘fiscal cliff,’ the promise of higher healthcare costs and the endless onslaught of new regulations, owners have found themselves in a state of pessimism. We are forced to ask: is this the new normal?” -- NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/nfib-small-business-optimism-plunges-in-november-2012-12#ixzz2Ekg1ZUc2




________________________ ___________


LMFAO! ! ! !  !

GUESS WHAT THAT EVENT WAS? 

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1140 on: December 11, 2012, 08:46:34 AM »
Exports drop in October by biggest margin in almost four years
 Hotair ^

Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2012 11:31:09 AM by


“The private sector is doing fine,” Barack Obama assured us in June, but we haven’t seen much evidence for that argument. Today’s report from Commerce on the trade deficit certainly doesn’t provide any reassurance for that claim. In fact, exports dropped in October by the biggest margin since Obama took office, and the trade gap with China widened to a new record:

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1141 on: December 12, 2012, 07:36:53 PM »

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve projects the unemployment rate will stay elevated until late 2015, suggesting it will keep short-term interest rates low for the next three years.
 
The latest economic forecasts released Wednesday after the Fed's final meeting of the year were little changed from September. But they coincided with a new communication strategy announced by the Fed that links future interest rate hikes with unemployment below 6.5 percent.
 
The unemployment rate was 7.7 percent in November.
 
The central bank said that it expects economic growth to improve next year but that it will be no stronger than 3 percent. Growth could increase to 3.5 percent in 2014 and 3.7 percent in 2015.
 
Unemployment will fall no lower than 7.4 percent next year and 6.8 percent by the end of 2014, the Fed projects. The earliest the Fed sees unemployment dropping below 6.5 percent is the end of 2015.
 
The Fed said it plans to keep its key short-term interest rate near zero as long as unemployment remains above 6.5 percent and inflation is expected to stay below 2.5 percent.
 
The latest forecast projects inflation will stay at or below 2 percent for the next three years. That gives the Fed more leeway to pursue aggressive stimulus measures.
 
In an effort to drive the unemployment rate lower, the Fed said after its meeting that it will spend a total of $85 billion a month to sustain an aggressive drive to keep long-term interest rates low. The goal is to encourage more borrowing and spending, which drives economic growth.
 
The Fed said it will continue buying bonds until the job market shows substantial improvement.
 
The projections made no mention of the "fiscal cliff," the combination of tax increases and spending cuts that are set to kick next month and threaten to push the economy back into a recession. But the modest growth and gradually lower unemployment next year suggest the Fed is assuming President Barack Obama and Republican lawmakers will reach a budget deal before then to avoid the cliff.
 
Bernanke has warned that the Fed does not have the tools to offset the damage to the economy if it goes over the cliff.
 
At the same time, Bernanke has said that if an agreement can be reached that addresses the nation's long-term budget challenges without slowing the recovery in the short term, next year could be "a very good one for the American economy."
 
Fear of higher taxes has yet to slow hiring. Employers added 146,000 jobs last month, the government said last week. That's about the same as the average monthly gain of 150,000 in the past year.
 
The unemployment rate fell to a four-year low of 7.7 percent last month from 7.9 percent in October. But the decline was mostly because more people without jobs gave up looking for work. The government only counts people as unemployed if they are actively searching.
 
The economy grew at solid 2.7 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, more than double the 1.3 percent rate in the April-June quarter. But many analysts believe worries about the fiscal cliff are contributing to slower growth in the current October-December quarter below 2 percent.
 
© 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1142 on: December 12, 2012, 07:51:56 PM »
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve projects the unemployment rate will stay elevated until late 2015, suggesting it will keep short-term interest rates low for the next three years.
 
The latest economic forecasts released Wednesday after the Fed's final meeting of the year were little changed from September. But they coincided with a new communication strategy announced by the Fed that links future interest rate hikes with unemployment below 6.5 percent.
 
The unemployment rate was 7.7 percent in November.
 
The central bank said that it expects economic growth to improve next year but that it will be no stronger than 3 percent. Growth could increase to 3.5 percent in 2014 and 3.7 percent in 2015.
 
Unemployment will fall no lower than 7.4 percent next year and 6.8 percent by the end of 2014, the Fed projects. The earliest the Fed sees unemployment dropping below 6.5 percent is the end of 2015.
 
The Fed said it plans to keep its key short-term interest rate near zero as long as unemployment remains above 6.5 percent and inflation is expected to stay below 2.5 percent.
 
The latest forecast projects inflation will stay at or below 2 percent for the next three years. That gives the Fed more leeway to pursue aggressive stimulus measures.
 
In an effort to drive the unemployment rate lower, the Fed said after its meeting that it will spend a total of $85 billion a month to sustain an aggressive drive to keep long-term interest rates low. The goal is to encourage more borrowing and spending, which drives economic growth.
 
The Fed said it will continue buying bonds until the job market shows substantial improvement.
 
The projections made no mention of the "fiscal cliff," the combination of tax increases and spending cuts that are set to kick next month and threaten to push the economy back into a recession. But the modest growth and gradually lower unemployment next year suggest the Fed is assuming President Barack Obama and Republican lawmakers will reach a budget deal before then to avoid the cliff.
 
Bernanke has warned that the Fed does not have the tools to offset the damage to the economy if it goes over the cliff.
 
At the same time, Bernanke has said that if an agreement can be reached that addresses the nation's long-term budget challenges without slowing the recovery in the short term, next year could be "a very good one for the American economy."
 
Fear of higher taxes has yet to slow hiring. Employers added 146,000 jobs last month, the government said last week. That's about the same as the average monthly gain of 150,000 in the past year.
 
The unemployment rate fell to a four-year low of 7.7 percent last month from 7.9 percent in October. But the decline was mostly because more people without jobs gave up looking for work. The government only counts people as unemployed if they are actively searching.
 
The economy grew at solid 2.7 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, more than double the 1.3 percent rate in the April-June quarter. But many analysts believe worries about the fiscal cliff are contributing to slower growth in the current October-December quarter below 2 percent.
 
© 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.


It's like the Federal Reserve's propaganda department simply took the same "Reason for Q.E." press release from the last several failed attempts, changed the date, maybe some statistics and crapped it out.

Hilarious.

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1143 on: December 12, 2012, 08:41:55 PM »
Avon Announces 1,500 Layoffs
 The Motley Fool ^ | December 12, 2012 | Rich Smith

Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2012 11:19:52 PM by 2ndDivisionVet

Avon Products on Tuesday announced plans to lay off 1,500 workers globally. That's about 3.7 percent of its work force.

The layoffs, which Avon described as part of a previously announced initiative to cut $400 million in annual costs by the end of 2015, are expected to initially cost the company money. In conjunction with moves to exit the South Korea and Vietnam markets, Avon says it will be taking $50 million to $60 million in pre-tax charges in Q4 2012, followed by an additional $30 million in charges as the changes progress.

However, Avon believes it will see immediate cost savings of approximately $80 million annually as a result of changes made through year's end. This suggests that charges taken in late 2012 will be recouped over the course of 2013...


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

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1145 on: December 13, 2012, 07:25:31 PM »
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-true-reason-many-americans-are-broke-2012-12


Great job by the Fed here. 

Silly boy, there is no such thing as inflation right now!

Everything is OK. The recovery is right on schedule and gaining steam...that's why the Fed has just Ok'd another round of Q.E.

Everything is going according to plan!

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1146 on: December 14, 2012, 07:19:07 AM »
Need a Job? You May Have to Wait Until 2015 or Later, Says the Fed
 Townhall.com ^ | December 14, 2012 | Donald Lambro

Posted on Friday, December 14, 2012 10:09:52 AM by Kaslin

WASHINGTON - Everything you ever wanted to know about the Obama economy is in a single sentence about the Federal Reserve Board's latest attempts this week to deal with unacceptably high unemployment.

"Fed officials projected that the jobless rate, now at 7.7 percent, would not reach 6.5 percent until near the end of 2015 at the earliest," The Washington Post reported in its lead front page story Thursday morning.

If there's anyone out there -- besides Barack Obama's top advisers and diehard allies in Congress -- who think his economic policies, or lack thereof, will restore a weak economy to its full vigor in his second term, they've got a long wait.

Year after year over the course of Obama's impotent fiscal policies, the Fed has thrown everything it had at the economy, pumping trillions of dollars in printed money into U.S. Treasury bond purchases while reducing its interest rates to near zero -- without much to show for it.

Now, with the "fiscal cliff" looming more menacingly than ever before, and the economic and jobs data weakening month by month, the Fed is doubling down on monetary measures to breath some life back into the economy in the absence of any serious fiscal plan by the administration.

Yet with each long-term prognosis report, the Fed's target dates for a hope-for recovery recede deeper into the future.

What Fed officials are telling us now is that they do not expect to see a light at the end of this long jobless tunnel until nearly the end of Obama's second term. And possibly not until a new president takes his place.

Let's fact it, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has very few monetary weapons left to turn this economy around and he's said many times that the only real solution lies in fundamentally changing fiscal policy.

That means reducing the massive amounts of capital that the government sucks out of the economy each year, and enacting economic growth incentives on the tax side of the equation.

But Obama opposes any serious policy changes in that direction. Indeed, he wants to do just the opposite. Extract trillions more from a weak economy through higher taxes so he can spend more on waste-ridden programs like his multi-billion dollar clean energy investments. Recently, a battery manufacturer was added to his bankruptcy list of failures, this one costing taxpayers $133 million.

Even though Bernanke's plaintive pleas for changes in fiscal policies have fallen on deaf ears at the White House, he tried again at a news conference Wednesday when he announced the Fed's stepped up goals for the economy.

"If the economy actually went off the fiscal cliff... that would have very significant adverse effects on the economy and on the unemployment rate," he said. "We would try to do what we could... but I just want to again be clear that we cannot offset the full impact of the fiscal cliff. It's just too big."

"The most helpful thing that Congress and [the] administration can do at this point... is to find a solution and avoid derailing the recovery," he said.

It should be clear that nothing the Fed said it would do is going to change the profound economic challenges we face now or ever. The financial markets' reaction to the Fed's actions was a great yawn and stock markets ended the day essentially flat.

Meantime, Obama continues to live in his own dream world, a hermetically sealed universe in which he insists the economy is doing fine. Speaking to a crowd of several hundred union workers in Detroit Monday, he said, "We're moving in the right direction. We're going forward. So what we need to do is simple -- we need to keep going forward."

This from a president who said earlier this year that "the private sector is doing just fine." But, at best, the economy is barely moving. It's creeping along at an average annual growth rate of 1.7 percent -- well below the growth rate needed to bring unemployment down to normal levels.

Worse, the economy as a whole is not going forward. It's in reverse. Economists say its growth rate has slowed in this quarter to no more than 1.5 percent, perilously close to the tipping point into another recession.

Obama also told those UAW workers that "American manufacturing is growing at the fastest pace since the 1990s," and that factories have created nearly 500,000 jobs since 2010.

The painful reality is that manufacturing still has 2 million fewer jobs than existed before the recession. Last month's jobs report showed that the number of manufacturing and construction jobs remained unchanged.

Economists on both sides of the political aisle say this is the weakest recovery since the Great Depression and the unspoken reality is that Obama has not offered any new comprehensive plan to get the economy moving since his failed $800 billion spending stimulus program in 2009.

He has proposed tinier versions of the same plan, but they have been rejected by Congress and there has been no substantive White House proposal since then.

So the economy is limping along on automatic pilot as it cruises along the edge of the dreaded fiscal cliff, while the president lives in a fantasy world in which our factories are "humming again," as his campaign's TV ads said, jobs are being created at an imagined pace, and a fictionalized economy is improving.

But there's a mountain of growing evidence that things are not okay. Pessimism is growing, businesses large and small are pulling back, and consumers are spending less than expected.

The National Federation of Independent Business index of small business optimism has sunk to one of its lowest levels in a quarter of a century. The percentage of NFIB's small business owners who think the Obama economy will improve fell by 37 points.

The University of Michigan's closely-watched consumer confidence preliminary index for December fell sharply to 74.5 from 82.7. And national retail sales were up by only 0.3 percent last month, half of what forecasters predicted.

Meantime, the president is still peddling higher taxes as the only cure for what ails us -- the economic equivalent of the 18th Century practice of bleeding the patient. And we know how that turned out.

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1147 on: December 14, 2012, 03:43:12 PM »
Stupid is flowing like a river.....

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1148 on: December 17, 2012, 03:09:39 PM »
Congrats, Barry. US falls out of top 10 most prosperous nations
 American Thinker ^ | 12/17/2012 | Rick Moran

Posted on Monday, December 17, 2012 4:59:59 PM by SeekAndFind



You know that period between sleep and wakefulness where you're not quite sure you're still dreaming? I read this blog item at Powerline and had the exact same reaction:

 


Via InstaPundit, we learn that for the first time, the United States does not rank as one of the world's ten most prosperous nations, as rated by London's Legatum Institute. The authors of the report found that the U.S.'s slippage is being driven by "a decline in the number of US citizens who believe that hard work will get them ahead." Well, they're right: in Barack Obama's America, hard work doesn't cause you to get ahead; being politically connected does. We are all paying the price for the corruption of the Age of Obama.

Consistent with this finding is the fact that for the first time in history, the average Canadian is wealthier than the average American. Canada has a conservative government, and they have passed us like we are standing still. Which we are, at best.

All of which raises the question: do Barack Obama and his minions want America to be one of the world's ten most prosperous countries? If you believe, as I do, that actions speak louder than words, the answer is No.



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

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Re: Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"
« Reply #1149 on: December 17, 2012, 07:27:26 PM »
Hill Poll: Gloomy voters say US on wrong track, kids will be poorer
 The Hill ^ | December 17, 2012 | Sheldon Alberts

Posted on Monday, December 17, 2012 8:14:48 PM by CutePuppy

A mood of economic gloom hangs over the nation as President Obama and Republican leaders scramble to strike a deficit deal that avoids automatic tax hikes and spending cuts, according to a new poll for The Hill.

The poll, conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, found nearly 6-in-10 people (59 percent) feel the country is on the wrong track. It also showed people are deeply pessimistic about their chances for future prosperity, with 54 percent saying they believe their children will be worse off as adults than their parents.

The poll results cast a shadow over talks in Washington aimed at averting the “fiscal cliff” of $500 billion in tax hikes and $109 billion in automatic spending cuts set to take effect Jan. 1.

Barely a month after Obama won a second term, and even as the nation continues to make modest job gains, fewer than 1-in-3 (31 percent) say the country is on the right track.

Only 34 percent of people feel they will be better off at the end of Obama’s second term than they are right now. And just 16 percent believe a better economic future awaits their children when they grow up.

The dour sentiment is particularly striking among Republicans, who were crestfallen over GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s defeat on Nov. 6.

Among voters who identified themselves as Republicans, 87 percent said the country is on the wrong track and a mere 8 percent said it is on the right track.

Seven-in-10 Republicans believe they will be worse off at the end of Obama’s presidency, and 80 percent said their children’s future is bleaker than their own.

Only 4 percent of Republicans think their children will be better off.

By contrast, Democrats are in a somewhat sunnier — though not overwhelmingly upbeat — post-election mood. Fifty-four percent of Democrats said they think the country is on the right track compared to 31 percent who said it is on the wrong track.

Six-in-10 Democrats, meanwhile, believe they’ll be better off in four years.

But even Democrats are worried about the country’s long-term future. Only 30 percent said their children face a brighter future and 30 percent said they will be worse off.

African Americans — who have endured high unemployment rates throughout the economic recession and recovery — are more upbeat about the country’s future than white Americans, the poll found.

While just 30 percent of whites said the country is on the right track, 44 percent of black voters believe the nation is headed in the right direction.

Similarly, 64 percent of blacks believe their families will be better off in four years compared to just 30 percent of whites. Over the long term, 56 percent of African Americans say their children face a brighter future, compared to 10 percent of whites.

The poll was taken Dec. 13 among 1,000 likely voters and is considered accurate within 3 percentage points.

The poll’s sample was 32 percent Republican, 38 percent Democrat and 30 percent who identified as neither.

Voters are evenly divided in their views on the country’s overall ideological leaning, the poll found.

Twenty-six percent of people said they believe the United States is a predominantly left-of-center nation, while 30 percent feel it is a right-of-center country. Another 25 percent felt the U.S. is neither right nor left.

Among Democrats, only 17 percent said they believe the U.S. is a left-of-center country, compared to 29 percent of Republicans who felt that way.

A near-equal number of Democrats and Republicans (31 percent and 30 percent, respectively) said the U.S. is predominantly a right-of-center country.

The Hill’s poll found a strikingly large number of voters, 59 percent, believe the U.S. is less admired around the globe than it was four years ago when Obama took office. Just 37 percent said the country is much more, or somewhat more, admired than it was four years ago.

When Obama took office, he pledged to try and restore the nation’s international standing, which he felt had been damaged during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Republicans strongly feel the opposite has occurred, with 87 percent saying the country is somewhat or much less admired than it was four years ago. Only 10 percent of Republicans say the country's image has improved.

Sixty-five percent of Democrats say the country is more admired now than when Bush left office, while 32 percent say it is less admired.