The Private Sector is Doing "Fine"? There Are Fewer Private Sector Workers Now Than in 2001!

http://libertarian-neocon.blogspot.com/2012/06/obama-private-sector-is-doing-fine.html ^ | libertarian neocon

[libertarian neocon]

Today, during his press conference, Obama said something that just blows the mind:

Question: What about the Republicans saying that you're blaming the Europeans for the failures of your own policies?

President Obama: The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone.

The private sector is doing fine. Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government. Oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, Governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don't have the same kind of flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in.

And so, you know, if Republicans want to be helpful, if they really want to move forward and put people back to work, what they should be thinking about is how do we help state and local governments and how do we help the construction industry? Because the recipes that they're promoting are basically the kinds of policies that would add weakness to the -- to the economy, would result in further layoffs, would not provide relief in the housing market, and would result, I think most economists estimate, in lower growth and fewer jobs, not more. 

 What has he been smoking?  Okay, we already know the answer to that.  It is really amazing how out of touch this guy is with reality.  I don't think almost anyone in the private sector, except maybe people like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, thinks the "private sector is doing fine".  Take a look at this chart from FRED which compared total nonfarm private employment since 2001 to employment at all levels of government:

As you can see, the total number of private non-farm jobs is actually still down from where it was over 11 years ago, while the number of government jobs, while contracting recently, is still well above where they were, and well above where the private sector is.  People in the private sector don't feel like they are doing "fine".

It is also amazing, in the wake of Wisconsin, how he is doubling down on his belief that the public sector employees somehow deserve better than those of us who pay their salaries.  People are sick and tired of the government sucking their hard earned money out of their pockets in order to give themselves lavish defined benefit pensions and, in the case of the Obama's, lavish vacations.  Anyway, everybody knows that this is Obama and the Democrats taking care of their own.  Public employees overwhelmingly vote Democratic, as they know who is most likely to look after them, no matter how the economy is doing.

If this is how Obama plans to get re-elected, with a slogan, "The Private Sector is Doing Fine, More Money for Government!" he has another thing coming.

[aces]

If we got rid of all “g” workers thatwould be better, kkep the army throw out the rest..

[Upstate NY Guy]

And that's just the way Obummer wants it - "...a fundamental transformation of America" - via the destruction of the private sector.

[Cheerio]

WH on crack - Dreams from my Father

[Maceman]

This is the alternate view of reality that has been circulating in the leftist echo chamber for months:

Here is Harry Reid saying the same thing none months ago -- Harry Reid: "Private Sector Jobs Are Doing Just Fine."

[EEGator]

It’s true if you drink your Hopium first.

[TexasCajun]

This clown only cares about growing Big Government and has now idea what happens in the Private Sector or how it works !!

[Sir Napsalot]

>>> What has he been smoking?

Obama (nee Lloyd Bridges): “Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop smoking Choom.”

[Bratch]

[loveliberty2]

One must be skeptical of the world view, especially in economic matters, of a man whose orientation to leadership of America seems to be dominated by redistributionist ideas.

Had this President spent more time studying the writings of moral philosopher Adam Smith and America's Founders, he might understand that the "American Dream," until co-opted and misinterpreted as a perjorative term by so-called "progressives," was for freedom and the Creator-endowed opportunity to "pursue happiness." Along the way, that freedom of individual enterprise brought economic wealth and growth for the nation and the so-called achievement of the "American Dream" for individuals.

America did not go from being a wilderness, whose occupants still used the tools of ancient Europe, to being the most free, most prosperous, and most admired nation on the earth in the eyes of oppressed individuals all over the globe by a belief that employment in various levels of a government which planned and regulated its citizens would produce wealth and opportunity.

To the contrary, "the wealth of nations," according to Smith and America's Founders arises when individuals are free and government is limited by a written Constitution of laws securing their Creator-endowed rights.

No amount of top-down imposition of equality of results can achieve such results.

From the Liberty Fund Library is "A Plea for Liberty: An Argument Against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation," edited by Thomas Mackay (1849 - 1912), Chapter 1, excerpted final paragraphs from Edward Stanley Robertson's essay:

"I have suggested that the scheme of Socialism is wholly incomplete unless it includes a power of restraining the increase of population, which power is so unwelcome to Englishmen that the very mention of it seems to require an apology. I have showed that in France, where restraints on multiplication have been adopted into the popular code of morals, there is discontent on the one hand at the slow rate of increase, while on the other, there is still a 'proletariat,' and Socialism is still a power in politics.
I.44
"I have put the question, how Socialism would treat the residuum of the working class and of all classes—the class, not specially vicious, nor even necessarily idle, but below the average in power of will and in steadiness of purpose. I have intimated that such persons, if they belong to the upper or middle classes, are kept straight by the fear of falling out of class, and in the working class by positive fear of want. But since Socialism purposes to eliminate the fear of want, and since under Socialism the hierarchy of classes will either not exist at all or be wholly transformed, there remains for such persons no motive at all except physical coercion. Are we to imprison or flog all the 'ne'er-do-wells'?
I.45
"I began this paper by pointing out that there are inequalities and anomalies in the material world, some of which, like the obliquity of the ecliptic and the consequent inequality of the day's length, cannot be redressed at all. Others, like the caprices of sunshine and rainfall in different climates, can be mitigated, but must on the whole be endured. I am very far from asserting that the inequalities and anomalies of human society are strictly parallel with those of material nature. I fully admit that we are under an obligation to control nature so far as we can. But I think I have shown that the Socialist scheme cannot be relied upon to control nature, because it refuses to obey her. Socialism attempts to vanquish nature by a front attack. Individualism, on the contrary, is the recognition, in social politics, that nature has a beneficent as well as a malignant side. The struggle for life provides for the various wants of the human race, in somewhat the same way as the climatic struggle of the elements provides for vegetable and animal life—imperfectly, that is, and in a manner strongly marked by inequalities and anomalies. By taking advantage of prevalent tendencies, it is possible to mitigate these anomalies and inequalities, but all experience shows that it is impossible to do away with them. All history, moreover, is the record of the triumph of Individualism over something which was virtually Socialism or Collectivism, though not called by that name. In early days, and even at this day under archaic civilisations, the note of social life is the absence of freedom. But under every progressive civilisation, freedom has made decisive strides—broadened down, as the poet says, from precedent to precedent. And it has been rightly and naturally so.
I.46
"Freedom is the most valuable of all human possessions, next after life itself. It is more valuable, in a manner, than even health. No human agency can secure health; but good laws, justly administered, can and do secure freedom. Freedom, indeed, is almost the only thing that law can secure. Law cannot secure equality, nor can it secure prosperity. In the direction of equality, all that law can do is to secure fair play, which is equality of rights but is not equality of conditions. In the direction of prosperity, all that law can do is to keep the road open. That is the Quintessence of Individualism, and it may fairly challenge comparison with that Quintessence of Socialism we have been discussing. Socialism, disguise it how we may, is the negation of Freedom. That it is so, and that it is also a scheme not capable of producing even material comfort in exchange for the abnegations of Freedom, I think the foregoing considerations amply prove." EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON

[sten]

less people working since 2001...

and how much has the population grown since then?

that would be additional jobs ‘missing’