Posted on 10/09/2012 8:03:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
To the millions of Americans unable to find work, to college graduates who can't get a job and are living with their parents, to the underemployed who are working at jobs far below their skill set and experience, and to those who have given up looking for work altogether, a 7.8 percent unemployment rate is meaningless. The economy stinks.
And try as they might -- and they are trying mightily to rescue a man they sold to voters four years ago as a political messiah -- major media can't seem to transform a failing president into a success.
"Fall in jobless rate strips Romney of an argument" was the gleeful headline in the Washington Post recently. No it doesn't.
Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, tweeted about the 7.8 percent unemployment number, down from 8.1 percent: "Unbelievable jobs numbers. These Chicago guys will do anything ... can't debate, so change numbers." The Bureau of Labor Statistics' stands by its calculations. On Fox News, economic journalist Stuart Varney admitted to being a little skeptical. "There is widespread distrust of this report," he said.
Does one have to be the economic equivalent of a "birther" or "truther" to question the timing of unemployment numbers below 8 percent, especially so close to an election?
Far more ominous is the rapid rise in gasoline prices in California; "40.3 cents more than a week ago," according to figures from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service. The price is nearing $6 a gallon for premium and above $5 for other grades at some pumps.
It sounds like the plot of a disaster movie, which, in fact, it is. Timed perfectly to address public angst is "Atlas Shrugged II," the second film in a planned trilogy, opening Oct. 12. One doesn't have to be an atheist, like the book's author Ayn Rand, or a disciple of her philosophy of objectivism, which she described as "...the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute," to appreciate the fictional warnings.
Though "Atlas Shrugged" was published in 1957 as a warning against centralized political control, the movie's message is as contemporary as today's news.
The film's producers describe the storyline on IMBD.com this way: "The global economy is on the brink of collapse. Unemployment tops 24 percent. Gas is $42 per gallon. Railroads are the main transportation. Brilliant creators, from artists to industrialists, are mysteriously disappearing. Dagny Taggart, CEO of Taggart Transcontinental, has discovered an answer to the mounting energy crisis -- a prototype of a motor that draws energy from static electricity. But, until she finds its creator, it's useless. It's a race against time. And someone is watching."
That "someone" is the government. Its "fair share law" limits production and, to borrow a modern term, seeks to "spread the wealth around," thus stifling innovation, risk-taking and capitalism. If Taggert finds the creator, government loses.
Democrats hail the 7.8 percent unemployment number without irony, having criticized the Bush administration in 2004 when unemployment was 5.4 percent and gas prices were below $2 a gallon. They blamed Bush for gas prices then. So, where's the uproar over the nearly $6/per gallon now?
A Wall Street Journal editorial noted: "The reality is that more than three years into this weakest of economic recoveries, 12.1 million Americans are still out of work -- nearly 23 million by the broader definition that includes those who have stopped looking or can't find full-time work -- and the labor participation rate is still down to 1981 levels at 63.6 percent."
This is not cause for celebration.
The best course for economic revival is to fire the president. Re-electing Obama will only give us four more years like the last four. Some of those working part time, or at jobs they cling to out of necessity, may well find themselves part of a higher jobless rate with dim prospects for their future.
If the Obama policies continue, "Atlas Shrugged" won't be a work of fiction. It will be seen as prophecy.
Perhaps it is time to review the formula for freedom, opportunity, prosperity and plenty which caused millions of oppressed individuals from all over the world to flee to America for over 200 years. Instead, so-called "progressives" (regressives), headed by this President and those who control his agenda, are following a formula for tyranny like the one of Old World nations and/or failing ones of today.
Perhaps American citizens are getting a belated lesson in economics and an American History lesson as a result of the shocking policies of "progressives" in Congress and the Administration. If the citizenry is awakened to the kinds of facts discusssed in this piece, and if they will go back and review the philosophy of the Framers of the U. S. Constitution, they may perhaps begin to understand how America became the very symbol of liberty and opportunity throughout the world. The following essay, is reprinted with permission from "Our Ageless Constitution." See
"Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise." - Thomas Jefferson
"The enviable condition of the people of the United States is often too much ascribed to the physical advantages of their soil & climate .... But a just estimate of the happiness of our country will never overlook what belongs to the fertile activity of a free people and the benign influence of a responsible government." - James Madison
America's Constitution did not mention freedom of enterprise per se, but it did set up a system of laws to secure individual liberty and freedom of choice in keeping with Creator-endowed natural rights. Out of these, free enterprise flourished naturally. Even though the words "free enterprise' are not in the Constitution, the concept was uppermost in the minds of the Founders, typified by the remarks of Jefferson and Madison as quoted above. Already, in 1787, Americans were enjoying the rewards of individual enterprise and free markets. Their dedication was to securing that freedom for posterity.
The learned men drafting America's Constitution understood history - mankind's struggle against poverty and government oppression. And they had studied the ideas of the great thinkers and philosophers. They were familiar with the near starvation of the early Jamestown settlers under a communal production and distribution system and Governor Bradford's diary account of how all benefited after agreement that each family could do as it wished with the fruits of its own labors. Later, in 1776, Adam Smith's INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS and Say's POLITICAL ECONOMY had come at just the right time and were perfectly compatible with the Founders' own passion for individual liberty. Jefferson said these were the best books to be had for forming governments based on principles of freedom. They saw a free market economy as the natural result of their ideal of liberty. They feared concentrations of power and the coercion that planners can use in planning other peoples lives; and they valued freedom of choice and acceptance of responsibility of the consequences of such choice as being the very essence of liberty. They envisioned a large and prosperous republic of free people, unhampered by government interference.
The Founders believed the American people, possessors of deeply rooted character and values, could prosper if left free to:
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Such a free market economy was, to them, the natural result of liberty, carried out in the economic dimension of life. Their philosophy tended to enlarge individual freedom - not to restrict or diminish the individual's right to make choices and to succeed or fail based on those choices. The economic role of their Constitutional government was simply to secure rights and encourage commerce. Through the Constitution, they granted their government some very limited powers to:
Adam Smith called it "the system of natural liberty." James Madison referred to it as "the benign influence of a responsible government." Others have called it the free enterprise system. By whatever name it is called, the economic system envisioned by the Founders and encouraged by the Constitution allowed individual enterprise to flourish and triggered the greatest explosion of economic progress in all of history. Americans became the first people truly to realize the economic dimension of liberty.
Footnote: "Our Ageless Constitution," W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part III: ISBN 0-937047-01-5
Thanks for another great post
Of course it doesn't because: 1. it isn't true and 2. everybody knows it. Now if mittens can just capitalize on it.
Nobody believes the polls.
Nobody believes the unemployment numbers.
Nobody believes the Media.
Nobody believes the government........
To each unemployed person*, the rate is 100%
*those who want to work...
Nobody believes the unemployment numbers.
Nobody believes the Media.
Nobody believes the government........
You can tell that even the media doesn't believe the unemployment numbers, because if they did, 7.8% would be in 4 inch type across the front page every newspaper in the country until election day....and that's not even an exaggeration.
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