Posted on 01/27/2010 10:30:17 AM PST by Slyscribe
It’s been pretty widely discussed that the past decade was a lost one for job creation. But focusing on private payrolls alone would also wipe out nearly all of the employment gains from 1999, among the better years on record.
Next Friday’s employment report comes with an annual benchmark revision that the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated would erase 855,000 private jobs (and add 31,000 government jobs).
Subtract that from the seasonally adjusted December payroll number of 108.44 million and that would leave just 107.59 million private payroll jobs. That’s the least since January 1999, when there were 107.40 million.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.investors.com ...
I’m a bit surprised that IBD chose ten years as their benchmark. I don’t have the numbers at hand, but I believe that jobs fell off around 2000, when the clinton Bubble burst, but then improved through most of Bush’s time in office. I credit Bush’s tax cuts for some of that.
Private sector jobs fell off a cliff toward the end of Bush’s second term, and accelerated downward even faster under Obama. Let’s keep in mind that Bush was a lame duck after 2006 and the Democrats were running things.
Well, no, I take that back. Even under Bush, the ratio of productive jobs vs government jobs tanked, although as I said the worst of it started after 2006:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/180879-employment-chart-goods-producing-vs-government-jobs
But how can that be? We’ve signed ‘free’ trade agreement after ‘free’ trade agreement, we’ve sent factory after factory to cheap labor nations, we’ve outsourced thousands of non-factory jobs to cheap labor nations, and we’ve grown our balance of payments deficit to almost a trillion dollars annually. And we are told again and again that the BoP and trade deficts are nothing to worry about.
All those ‘free’ trade agreements did increase exports tremendously and create the promised “high paying, high tech” jobs of the future for all the ‘retrained’ Americans, didn’t they? We got rid of all those icky, low tech textile jobs and manufacturing jobs making tacky little low tech products, and now retrained Americans are pulling in the big paychecks producing nothing but the highest of high tech products of the future. Right?
Obviously, the answer will be more ‘free’ trade agreements, more outsourcing and even higher balance of payments deficits.
[snif].....[snif].....
I smell Democrat operatives attempting to light the Ross Perot candle again...
The Democrats gained majority control of both houses of congress in Nov 2006. It took about 8 months for their demented approach to governing to start cratering the economy.
Lol, well, it was all implied.
Obama certainly made things worse, but the financial crisis had been building for years. There had been talk of the "sub-prime" crisis all through 2008 and before. And the economy had taken a significant hit during the crude oil price run up during 2007 - 2008 to $149.00.
Not at all total BS. The seeds of these problems had been planted over a couple of decades or longer, by both Dim and Republican administrations.
It was all the way back in 1999 when Bill Richardson made a trip to Saudi to press for higher than $10/bbl oil prices. In weeks, the price was up to $38/bbl. The cost of doing business skyrocketed. A little "present" from Bill Clinton to ensure his successor was left with a steaming pile for an economy.
The crude oil price run up in 2007-2008 put a huge price pressure on the economy. It was expensive to deliver goods and get to work. Everything was impacted. Who did that? Socialist RATS with their anti-energy policies. The turn around just before the 2008 election was due to the announcement that oil drilling opportunities were being opened up in the US. The foreign suppliers were spooked and dropped their prices. Obama promptly rescinded that and prices went right back up.
Republicans share in the blamer for the crude oil price run up. The first offshore areas put off limits to drilling were stuck into Interior Dept. spending bills and signed into law by Reagan. Then, GHWB put more offshore areas off limits than anyone. Clinton basically continued what had already been done on offshore, but put some interior land off limits, and vetoed an attempt to open ANWR.
And W did little or nothing to open offshore areas until about his seventh year in office. He did try to open ANWR for drilling, but the Dims blocked it.
Who did what to open or restrict areas to drilling is a very mixed bag, though the Dims did more to restrict than the Republicans did. But GHWB did a great deal. Some acted like the <$40 per barrel crude would last forever.
But as horrible for the economy as Obama is, things were coming apart when he was elected and he has made things worse.
And, W and others tried to put more controls on Fanny and Freddy in the mid '00s, but there are also those numerous statements and videos with W promoting his "ownership society" and bragging about increased minority home ownership.
I'd say the Dims are about 75% responsible for the economic and energy problems, but Republicans aren't totally blameless.
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