WH Econ Adviser: Job Market Is Really Bad [Bernstein Slides Displayed Severity of Job Market’s Woes]

Reuters Blogs ^ | October 20th, 2009 | by: James Pethokoukis

[Son House]

And that recovery will be based on Government spending to raise the GDP numbers, the private sector still be stuck in their Jobless recovery

[Erik Latranyi]

The truth is, there has never been a RECOVERY package; what we have seen was a REFORM package.

You might call the stimulus a REFORM package, but it is exactly what Clinton did after his election, except on a much larger scale ---- it is a Democrat payback package!

[paudio]

Thank you for the chart. Yeah, it seems that we just need to prepare ourselves for a difficult time.

Meanwhile, we need to come up with a better counter-argument for the question of 'why the recession happened in the first place?' The standard answer from MSM that we keep hearing (and seem to be accepted even by some Republicans & conservatives) involves two points. The recession was caused by (1) Greedy Wall Street capitalists, and (2) lack of control on the part of Bush Administration because of their free-market ideology.

Unless we can come up with a better, concise counter-argument, people will always blame Bush, and unfortunately by extension, the Republicans and the conservatives.

[algernonpj]

Thanks for the ping

[Cboldt]

-- Yep, the whole US should want to see them charts, but if Reuters didn't get them, I'm not sure anyone else will --

I looked at Bartik's charts, and also read much of the material provided at the symposium link: http://www.newamerica.net/events/2009/jobs_defict

My bulletpoints:

• the general tenor of the symposium illustrates how deeply our economy is government managed. The feds skim 15% of labor costs.
• job growth areas - government, teaching, and health care
• job loss areas - manufacturing
• the point of the symposium is to sell politicians on
  • a targeted employment tax reduction. The temporary tax reduction would apply ONLY to new hires
  • increasing federal aid to states so state government employment is not reduced (See, e.g., "No government layoff during a recession!" line in page 7 of Joseph E. Gagnon's PDF presentation)
• "the best argument for a job creation tax credit is simply that it will create almost 3 million jobs in 2010 and over 2 million in 2011" Bartik - The Job Creation Tax Credit)

Even the far-left (nearly communist) rag, "The Nation," published an article, The Jobs Solution, that made these observations:

History teaches us that no nation can simply borrow its way to sustained prosperity. ...

We also need to address immediately the decades of misguided trade policies that led to the transfer of millions of US workers from export industries into less productive and often lower-paying service jobs. ...

And from Financial times - Healthcare Can Get America Working:

But efforts to get America working again must be informed by the striking fact that most employment growth in the past decade has been concentrated in three sectors: healthcare, education and government, mostly state and local public services. ...

But green jobs, on closer inspection, mostly turn out to be manufacturing jobs that can be offshored or low-wage, low-skill construction jobs. To make matters worse, even with huge federal, state and local subsidies, solar and wind power combined provide little more than 1 per cent of US electricity consumption. The prospects for the expansion of renewable energy without vastly greater subsidies and taxes on fossil fuels are not encouraging.

My takeaway, on reading the aggregate, is that this troupe of clowns don't have a clue how to "fix" what's wrong, but they are determined to step in, when stepping out would be the most effective action to stimulate the economy.

Look for MORE government intervention, not less. And I think that is true even if/when the Republicans obtain a majority. The US is probably on its way to the ash heap of history, but if it isn't, it hasn't reached "bottom" yet, and reaching bottom will have to happen before it admits it has a fundamental problem of way too much government.

[Cboldt]

-- Politically, they can use "slow economy" and "unemployment crisis" to keep pushing more deficit spending and statist legislations and regulations .. --

Exactly right. I agree with your take on the subject. This is just the government creating the problem, then setting itself up to be the solution to the same problem.

At some point, it will collapse. It's inevitable. I'm switching to parasite mode, aiming to hasten the collapse.

[algernonpj]

And the US is still bringing in 125,000 LEGAL workers each month, while India is requesting more H-1B's, despite the fact that the economy is so bad there are still 19,300 open cap-subject petitions for H-1B's(# of Cap-subject H-1B's = 66,000).

The UCIS announced "As of September 25, 2009, approximately 46,700 H-1B cap-subject petitions and approximately 20,000 petitions qualifying for the advanced degree cap exemption had been filed.".

[CutePuppy]

From a Pravda article America's decline into Marxism began long before Obama-nation containing the emails and comments on the previous Pravda article American capitalism gone with a whimper :

Wayne VanDerwood: “I read today the article about the United States loosing it's freedoms. This article angers me a great deal. Especially coming from Pravda.Ru. I am particularly angry that there is not a single untruth in the entire article. The very idea of printing the truth. What has happened to the world when a Russian news paper lectures Americans on liberty and is completely correct.”

.....

Scott Moore: "I must confess that when I was a kid, during the Reagan years, I was among those Americans that condemned Russia's communist government. Back then, of someone had told me that Russians would become free and America would become communist, I would have questioned their sanity. Today, I'm dumbfounded as I watch it all unfold.

Stanislav isn't the first to make this point. I have heard people here in America, former Soviet citizens, warn that we're heading in the same direction as the Bolsheviks. There are plenty of Americans who don't worship at the alter of the "Obamessiah" and hopefully we'll be able to put this brakes on this downward spiral in our future elections (provided we still have elections). May God help us all.

I'll close with a quote from an American socialist. "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of 'liberalism,' they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened," - Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate 1940, 1944 and 1948.”

[randita]

No sane business owner would be hiring seeing the storm clouds of socialism on the horizon.

You're right. Without knowing the toll Obamacare, cap and tax and increased federal or corporate taxes will take on them, businesses are just hunkering down.

With an economy that is 70% consumer based, it's hard to envision a rapid recovery with so many people out of work and those who still jobs doing a lot of belt tightening.

Businesses with a global presence seem to be doing okay - so far.

[CutePuppy]

Corrected links :

From a Pravda article America's decline into Marxism began long before Obama-nation containing the emails and comments on the previous Pravda article American capitalism gone with a whimper :

[Girlene]

Thanks for the ping, Son House. The chart in post 21 is quite gloomy.

[VOA]

bump

[Non-Sequitur]

WH Econ Adviser: Job Market Is Really Bad

Tell us something we don't know.

[mmichaels1970]

Republicans need to tie the Job losses to Democrat legislation and explain the declining GDP, being the current Democrat Majority in Congress is gullible and/or corrupt

I'd bet A LOT that most people don't even realize that the democrats have had took over in 2007, two years before Bush left office.

I believe most think that the democrats only just started their chance in Jan 2009. This is why the "benefit of the doubt" argument from moderates doesn't hold water. This is why the "we inherited this mess" argument fails as well.

I would absolutely LOVE to see a survey where respondents are asked in what year did the democrats take control of congress.

[jersey117]

Most of the lay-off jobs aren’t coming back. Especially now that employers see the one employee can do the work of 3.

[TopQuark]

You might call the stimulus a REFORM package,

The question is not what I call it but what it is. Those words have specific meanings.

A recession is a drop in the product we create (GDP). A stimulus that combats it results in growth (of GDP). A reform, in contrast, is a change of structure of the economy (on some philosophical grounds, such as liking of socialism better than capitalism). A reform is unrelated to growth and may even result in a negative growth (that is how FDR turned a recession into the Great Depression).

YOu may be correct in your claim about Clinton, but you need to explain it in detail.

[thulldud]

Most of the lay-off jobs aren’t coming back. Especially now that employers see the one employee can do the work of 3.

Alternatively, that 3 Indian workers can replace one American for half the price.

[hoosier hick]

Thanks for the ping. Interesting, if depressing info....

hh

[wbill]

Good info.

Looks like the good news is that things are improving.

The bad news is that they're improving from "Absolutely Horrific" to "Merely Terrible".

[fujimoh]

Holy Moly! I watched Greta last night. She interviewed a Wall Street Analyst who agreed with Greta that the Stimulus has not worked and asked when is zero going to cry Uncle and admit that the purpose of the stimulus (to create jobs) was an expensive mistake.