The unemployment numbers being put out and dutifully reported on by the network 'news' have shown a very slight improvement recently. I would qualify very slight as being 0.2% from 8.5% to 8.3%, but those numbers are not accurate because they don't include the millions of people who have been out of work for extended periods of time.
The important statistic to look at, and the one that is being ignored by the Democrat lapdog media, is the Workforce Participation Rate. This is the percentage of working age people who are currently working. This number has plummeted during the Obama Administration, and continues a steep decline. It is frightening, and that this economy is being characterized as 'improving' by the so-called providers of information is even more-so.
Here is the chart generated on the data at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Notice the decline beginning at the start of the Obama Administration. We can see the slight uptick during the 'summer of recovery', and then the continuing decline afterward and up to today.
Updated November 1, 2012
October 6, 2012 US Bureau of Labor Statistics - Workforce Participation Rate
The economy and unemployment is improving? NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, NY Times, Washington Post? Really?
Here is a piece from Investors Business Daily site, Investors.com:
Economy: The media machine that desperately wants
Barack Obama re-elected has turned its focus on what it says are good
unemployment numbers. The truth, though, is the job climate in America
is miserable.
While the media and the administration portray the most recent jobs
number — 8.3% unemployment — as good economic news, more sober minds
understand what's really going on. The facts show a jobs slump that
should not get an incumbent president re-elected.
Sure, the jobless rate is falling. But according to the Congressional
Budget Office, we are going through the longest stretch of high
unemployment since the Depression. The rate has been higher than 8%
since February 2009, the month after Obama took office.
And, says the CBO, it is expected to stay above 8% through 2014.
The Democrats, aided by the network news and the usual liberal cable news outlets like CNN and MSNBC, know they can't let the upcoming election be focused on Obama's failed economy. To their credit, they've managed to turn the topic of discussion on to social issues. Everyone was astonished when Obama declared that religion-based insurers would be forced to cover abortions and birth control under ObamaCare. Religious leaders were outraged. They were equally surprised when he did a quick pseudo walk-back, and decreed that birth control would be provided free of charge.
Besides the Constitutional issues surrounding Obama's dictator impersonation, this was unsatisfactory for religious leaders on the grounds of freedom of religion, and they publicly stated as much. The very next day, viola'! We have a new bully in town and the Democrats have a new straw man to fight. Democrats (which includes ABC, CBS, NBC, NY Times, Washington Post, etc.) immediately began pushing the narrative that 'Republicans are against birth control!'.
I have been saying the Democrats needed a new slogan, something besides 'Republicans want to take your Social Security!', and we now have it. To a liberal, being opposed to offering something for free is akin to being opposed to that thing's existence.
To the casual observer, it'll be "something about Republicans fighting against birth control". Poor Mrs. Smith, the soccer mom, will dutifully vote for Obama even though she knows his economy sucks. That's their plan, anyway. I'm confident that it will not be enough to save Obama's failed Carter-era Keynesian nightmare. Elections are almost always centered on the economy, (the exception is when we're in a major war) and with a poor economy, Obama is doomed.
This story from Milwaukee illustrates why government spending is always mismanaged, seldom helps the economy much, and is, for the most part, wasted. Mark Belling of Talk Radio 1130 WISN in Milwaukee spoke on his show about this on January 19, 2012, and was brilliant in pointing out why this story is a perfect illustration of what goes on in government bureaucracy every single day across the country. I feel the need to repeat his illustration, and I thank Mark Belling for, once again, nailing it on the head! Here's the podcast of his discussion of this article, Parts 1 and 2.
The article is about the Milwaukee County Transit System's failure to move from its old system of accepting cash, cards, and paper transfers, to a new system which will use a magnetic card. It sounds like a pretty simple task: Get new card readers, install them on the buses, educate the public, and make the transition over a period of time. But three years after the stimulus funding for this program, the simple task is still not complete. Why, and what does this story have to do with the larger overall federal stimulus funding from 2008?
Why indeed. Why do well-meant government programs get more-than-adequate funding, but remain unfinished for years, sometimes never to be completed?
In the public sector, there is no market pressure. There is no pressure to get a job done in a timely manner, or at the most cost-effective price. The money for the job is already allocated, with little regard for the details in how the money is to be spent. There is very little accountability for those who fail in these two basic demands of the free market, since many of the administrators who oversee and implement government programs are appointed by elected officials. Often these elected officials are never challenged in elections, since it's usually difficult to defeat an incumbent, especially in an area where only one political party is in power. The opportunity for cronyism within bureaucracy is great, and we see it at all levels of government.
The new "smart card" fare collection system for Milwaukee County
Transit System's more than 400 buses won't be ready for two more years,
an unexpectedly long time that drew criticism Wednesday from county
supervisors and the bus drivers union. Added to the three years of planning so far, the new fare system would take about five years overall to implement. That's too
long, said Supervisor Michael Mayo Sr., who heads the County Board's
Transportation, Transit and Public Works Committee. He said he wasn't
sure of reasons for the lag time but wants to push for quicker
implementation once a vendor is picked this spring to install the new
high-tech fare gear. A long
planning period was needed to investigate smart card and cash farebox
technologies and to follow federal guidelines, according to Jackie Janz,
spokeswoman for the transit system. Officials hope a $7 million federal
stimulus grant awarded to the county for the farebox project in April
2009 will fully cover the costs. Nearly two
years ago, transit system officials said they expected to award a
contract for the new fare systems by July of 2010. But because of the
complexity of the job, an outside consultant, IBI Group of Toronto, was
hired to help MCTS with a study, to write bid specifications and to
evaluate bids at a cost of $119,000, Janz said. "We would
like this (system) to be installed today," she said. "But this is a
monumental change for us and it is going to hit us on every level and we
want to make sure it's done correctly." At least
seven revisions to the initial specifications issued by MCTS for new
cash fareboxes and smart cards also contributed to the long lead time in
the system procurement, Janz said. All seven bidders were notified of
the revisions and given extra time to respond, she said. That extended
the bid submission period by at least three to four months, she said. The new
farebox system will be based on use of cards whose value is machine
encoded. Passengers will simply wave smart cards with embedded
electronic chips near an electronic reader upon boarding a bus. The current bus fareboxes have been in place for 26 years, while the paper transfer system is even older. Contrary to
earlier plans, the venerable paper bus transfer may not be eliminated
when the new smart card systems are in place, though they would be
phased out over one or two additional years, transit system officials
told supervisors at the committee. Janz said while that was the transit system's recommendation, county officials could change that. The
recommended continuation of paper transfers drew rebukes from the
drivers union, who said disputes over validity of transfers create
stress and sometimes lead to physical attacks on drivers. "How many
assaults do we have to have before anything is done?" asked Rick
Bassler, vice president of Local 998 of the Amalgamated Transit Union. He called the 24-month time frame for installation of the new system ridiculous and warned it could be obsolete by then. Union leaders
said at least 5,000 of the 30,000 paper transfers issued daily were
stolen or used fraudulently, creating huge losses for the transit
system. At a $2.25 fare per standard adult ride, that would add up to more than $11,000 a day in lost revenue. Daniel Boehm,
director of administration for the transit system, said there was no
way to estimate losses because of transfer fraud. Bassler also
complained that drivers had not been consulted in the farebox
procurement process and he asked for driver participation in an upcoming
review of multiple bids for the new system. Transit
company officials made no commitment to that, but several county
supervisors pledged to push for union representation on a bid evaluation
panel. The two-year
projection for completing the project is an unacceptably long time frame
to add technology that has already become standard on many large city
bus systems elsewhere in the country, said Supervisor Jason Haas. Lloyd Grant
Jr., managing director for MCTS, said he'd try to prod the firms bidding
on the contract for new fareboxes to get it done faster. Though MCTS
in 2010 said it planned to eliminate paper transfers with the shift to
smart cards, a report from the firm to the county said it now no longer
planned to have magnetic card-style transfers - at least initially. Installing new fareboxes and a new transfer system at the same time would be too much change, too fast, according to MCTS. "Paper
transfers have been in use at MCTS for over 35 years," the report said.
"A hurried approach to the elimination of paper transfers is not
recommended." Adding
equipment that dispenses magnetic card transfers would add $800,000 in
costs to equip county buses and up to $875,000 a year in operating
costs. Supervisor
Nikiya Harris said the money would be better spent on a marketing
campaign aimed at educating bus riders about the new smart card system. Haas said the
fare structure should be re-examined in conjunction with the new smart
card technology with consideration given to abolishing transfers in
favor of a two-tier fare system with a cheaper price for one-way fares
and higher price for an all-day pass.
In a podcast from Friday, January 13, 2012, Mark Belling of News Talk 1130 WISN called BS on Newt Gingrich and others for anti-capitalist attacks on Mitt Romney and his work at Bain Capital. Belling cites the brilliant article in The Wall Street Journal,How Private Equity Works by Jonathan Macey, in which Macey calls the general assertions that Bain Capital was 'looting' companies and engaging in 'vulture capitalism' as ".. anticapitalist claptrap."
Newt Gingrich's political action committee is sponsoring a film called "When Mitt Romney Came to Town" that accuses Mr. Romney and his former company, Bain Capital, of taking over companies, looting them, and then tossing their workers out on the street. Jon Huntsman's attacks on his rival include the description of private equity as a business that "breaks down businesses [and] destroys jobs, as opposed to creating jobs and opportunity, leveraging up, spinning off, [and] enriching shareholders."
This is anticapitalist claptrap. Private-equity firms make significant investments in companies, mainly U.S. companies. Most of their investments are in companies that underperform industry peers. Frequently these firms are on the brink of failure.
Because private-equity firms are, by definition, equity investors, they make money only if they improve the performance of their companies. Private equity is last in line to be paid in case of insolvency. Private-equity firms don't make a profit unless their companies can meet their obligations to workers and other creditors.
The companies in which private-equity investors are able to turn a profit generally grow, rather than shrink. This is because the preferred "exit strategy" by which private-equity firms profit is to take the private companies in which they invest and enable them to go public and sell shares that will help the company grow even stronger. As for turnaround success stories, Continental Airlines, Orbitz and Snapple have all benefitted at some time from private-equity investment.
I'm not going to try to link the absurdity of the Jon Huntsman campaign with the absurdity of this admittedly hilarious snippet of the New Hampshire Primary. I'm just going to recommend you watch this video and enjoy.
This case, Sackett v EPA, is a story of somebody who bought land in a residential area, and simply wanted to build a home and farm the land. Suddenly, the leviathan known as the Environmental Protection Agency (along with the Army Corps of Engineers) swooped in and stomped on him, declaring his newly acquired land as "wetlands". This bomb not only put an indefinite halt on his simple plan, but levied astronomical fines of $75,000 every day. The landowner can't even dispute whether the EPA is correct in it's finding, or whether the EPA has this authority under the Constitution, without these fines being administered daily. The landowner is faced with two choices: 1.) Tear down any and all structures currently on his land, incurring thousands of dollars of cost, and loss of income. 2.) Stand his ground and incur fines of over $75,000 per day while he waits indefinitely for the EPA to make a final determination.
There is no freedom, decency, or common sense to be found in this situation, and it's not the only one like it in this country. This big government bullying, done by the U.S. Federal Government in the name of environmentalism, happens all the time. Perhaps now, finally, we and the Sacketts can get some relief from the U.S. Supreme Court.
