Summers: High unemployment for years ("Shovel-Ready Jobs" lacking the shovels)

Politico ^ | 9/11/2009 | EAMON JAVERS

[tobyhill]

The president’s chief economic adviser warned Friday that the nation’s unemployment rate could stay “unacceptably high” for years to come — a situation that would seriously complicate Barack Obama’s ability to convince Americans that he’s beating back the recession.

“The level of unemployment is unacceptably high,” National Economic Council Director Larry Summers said Friday. “And will, by all forecasts, remain unacceptably high for a number of years.”

Summers’ comments came in a briefing with reporters ahead of Obama’s speech in New York City on Monday, marking the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, an event widely regarded as having created a panic that caused the global economic meltdown.

Even with his gloomy forecast for unemployment, Summers said the economy is getting better and made the case that Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package and other fiscal rescue steps headed off even more economic pain.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

0bama has no desire to correct the downward spiral we’re in...

[Frantzie]

BS. A free market Repub could get us back to 55 unemployment like Bush had within a year.

1. Drill here, drill now.
2. Cut taxes.
3. Tort reform.
4. Union reform legislation and prosecution of ACORN
5. Shut down Freddie & Fannie plus 10% down on all mortgages and no 1.0% teaser ARMs.
6. No more freebies for illegals. Send em home.

I could think of dozens of other things.

[Frantzie]

Correction - get us back to 5% unemployment like Bush.

[autumnraine]

Obama: My economic advisor has informed me that unemployment will be UNACCEPTABLY high for a NUMBER OF YEARS. But let me be clear, we are beating back the recession, trust me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for a $450,000 date with Michelle so we can get lots of photos and then we have to jet off to Fiji with the kids for a five week vacation. But rest assured, we feel your pain.

[ken21]

gosh, why am i not surprised?

/s

when do the unemployed that voted for obama wake up?

[beethovenfan]

Lots of “shovel-ready” jobs so the sick old farts that died without being able to see a doctor can get buried. Thanks, Ezekiel. Thanks, Obummer.

[Jagman]

Shovel-ready is a decidedly odd term for making jobs. You shovel dirt or horsesh!t — not jobs most American's aspire to, but incredibly telling regarding how our political class views the rest of us!

[freekitty]

Well, he sure is uplifting. Get these idiots out of our government.

[Repeat Offender]

("Shovel-Ready Jobs" lacking the shovels)

And the "ready" part

[umgud]

I keep hearing about a jobless recovery, but I don’t understand it. Can we really have both?

[RayChuang88]

We need just one very simple reform: phase out the Internal Revenue Code and replace it with FairTax, where taxes on earning money disappear. The result: millions of jobs come flooding back to the USA under far better tax circumstances.

[denydenydeny]

0bama has no desire to correct the downward spiral we’re in...

For all their use of the term "unacceptable" they sure sound like they're perfectly comfortable with it. And of course they are. The more people are penniless and pauperized, the more dependent they are on government.

[mo]

This is easy...

zero Cap gains
repeal the 16th and 17th ammendments
pass the FairTax...
....

And I’m not even an Ivy League “educated” economist!!!!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Exactly.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“...when do the unemployed that voted for obama wake up?”

As long as the TAXPAYER FUNDED RE-DISTRIBUTED WEALTH checks keep coming, they’ll slumber. When the layabouts and the oldsters miss their first payment, there’s going to be blood in the streets.